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tihv<^xy of trhe Cheolo^icd ^tmin<xxy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •(i^i> 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of the 
 Rev, John E, Wiedin^-er 
 
 BV 4316 .S7 T7 l 
 
 Trumbull, H. Clay 1830-1903 
 
 Shoes and rations for a lo 
 
 march 
 
 1 
 
SHOES AND RATIONS 
 FOR A LONG MARCH 
 
SHOES AND RATI 
 
 FOR A LONG MARCH 
 
 OR 
 
 NEEDS AND SUPPLIES 
 IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
 
 BEING SERMON - GROWTHS FROM AN 
 ARMY CHAPLAIN'S TALKS IN CAMP 
 AND FIELD AND PRISON AND AT HOME 
 
 /. 
 
 By H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 Former Regimental Chaplain United States Volun- 
 teers ; Avithor of "The Knightly Soldier," "War 
 Memories of an Army Chaplain," "Studies in Oriental 
 Social Life," "The Blood Covenant," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1903, 
 
 BY 
 
 H. Clay Trumbull. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How These Sermons Came to Be Preached ... i 
 
 I 
 A Shoe Sermon 7 
 
 II 
 A Sermon on Thirst 27 
 
 III 
 Gain of Godliness 5^ 
 
 IV 
 Universal Longing for Jesus Th 
 
 V 
 A Seed Sermon 93 
 
 VI 
 Character Surely Disclosed n? 
 
 VII 
 My Chaplaincy Among Students 143 
 
 VIII 
 Importance of a Head to a Soldier 185 
 
 V 
 
vi Contents 
 
 IX PAGE 
 
 Danger of Counting Conscience a Safe Guide. . 215 
 
 X 
 
 Duty of Making the Past a Success 239 
 
 XI 
 Trusting Better Than Worrying 257 
 
 XII 
 Peril and Power Through Temptation .... 281 
 
 XIII 
 Victorious in Death and in Life 301 
 
 XIV 
 Rejoicing in Peace 3-7 
 
HOW THESE SERMONS CAME 
 TO BE PREACHED 
 
 As I was never called to have the help or the 
 hindrances of training in a divinity school or a theo- 
 logical seminary, no sermons of mine will show the 
 characteristics of one who was thus trained. I was 
 ordained as a clergyman when called, while a layman, 
 to be a regimental chaplain in the Civil War. My 
 work of preaching was the work of addressing my 
 fellow-men on subjects in which they and I had an 
 interest in common. I had never taken any lessons 
 on the best way of preparing a sermon, or of preach- 
 ing one. Whatever of practical experience I had had 
 that might be of service to me in such preparation, 
 had been obtained in political speaking "on the stump," 
 and in talks in Sunday-school conventions and at 
 neighborhood religious gatherings. 
 
 My chief service and training in political speaking 
 had, indeed, been in the early days of the Republican 
 party, when the issue was simple, and when personal 
 feeling on both sides was intense. The main question 
 at that time was, Shall slavery be permitted to extend 
 into territory now free, or must it be resisted at any 
 and every cost ? I learned then to strive to make my 
 every appeal and argument and word tell on that 
 
 I 
 
Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 single point, every time I spoke. This was the main 
 thought in my homiletics of then. I did not, in those 
 days, try to make a finished discourse. I did try to 
 show electors how they ought to vote. 
 
 In consequence of this preHminary training, or this 
 lack of such training, my sermons were naturally un- 
 conventional, and not conformed to the standards pre- 
 vailing in training-schools for clergymen. This is 
 true of those sermons written and preached after, as 
 durine, the war. I never did, nor could I ever, preach 
 a sermon except as a truth or a message possessed 
 me which I desired to have possess those before 
 whom I stood. In many cases a sermon preached 
 under peculiar circumstances in army-life was re- 
 shaped and preached repeatedly in home life in later 
 years. But the spirit and method were much the same 
 in both places and cases, even though the phrasing 
 and the chosen illustrations might be different be- 
 cause of the different hearers and circumstances. 
 
 Had my sermons been a formal treatment of a sub- 
 ject, or of a truth, I might have shared the feeling of 
 a well-known clergyman who said he would "as soon 
 take an emetic as preach an old sermon." But as I 
 never preached unless a message possessed me as so 
 important that I wanted to repeat it and re-repeat it, 
 so lone as there was need of its being heard, my in- 
 terest in a special message grew as the truth grew on 
 me. If I saw a neighbor's house on fire in the night, 
 I should want to cry "Fire, Fire," and I should 
 want to repeat that cry so long as the danger existed 
 
How these Scmions Came to be Pi^eached 3 
 
 and helpers were not yet aroused. My danger-calls 
 from the pulpit were comparatively few, but a sense 
 of the importance of each one of them grew on me 
 steadily. This will account for the characteristics 
 of these sermons, as from the standpoint of the army 
 chaplain, and even those sermons which were preached 
 in the home camp. 
 
 Three of my sermons, as preached to my regiment 
 on special occasions, were, at the request of the officers 
 and men, published during the war. These and other 
 army sermons are described in the chapter entitled 
 " A Chaplain's Sermons," in my volume, " War Mem- 
 ories of an Army Chaplain " (published by Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York). 
 
 My preaching as an army chaplain inevitably shaped 
 and influenced all my sermons preached since that 
 day. Wherever I was as a preacher, my training and 
 my chaplain experiences caused me always to con- 
 sider myself as an army chaplain talking to soldiers 
 of their personal duties and needs. 
 
 Because some valued friends, both lay and clerical, 
 have repeatedly urged me to publish a selection from 
 these sermons, as illustrative of the spirit and method 
 of such work, I have now decided to do so. And in 
 accordance with the sufjorestion of the same friends, 
 I have prefaced some of the sermons with a statement 
 of the circumstances under which they were originally 
 written, together with facts as to their later use. 
 
 As here given, these sermons are fuller and more 
 extended than as preached at any one time. lUustra- 
 
4 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 tions, paragraphs, or sections were omitted in their 
 preaching, so as to bring them within proper Hmits. 
 But the discourses are now given in their entirety, 
 so as to show the richer possibihties of the subjects 
 treated. 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 
 
 Philadelphia, October 2j, igoj, 
 
A SHOE SERMON 
 
A SHOE SERMON 
 
 On one of our Union army marches along the 
 roads of North Carolina, in 1862, I was made to 
 realize as never before the importance of easy and 
 durable shoes as a means of giving soldiers comfort 
 and efficiency. Some of the new regiments at that 
 time were provided, at private expense, with costly 
 and attractive-appearing calf-skin shoes, that fitted 
 closely the feet of the soldiers. These looked well 
 on the city streets or in the camp. They seemed to 
 be very fine, for a time, in contrast with the rough and 
 coarse army shoes of the veteran soldier. But when 
 worn on a long march, over roads of clay or sand, 
 they made the swelling feet of the wearer sore, while 
 the coarser-looking army shoe proved far better fitted 
 for the every-day duties of a soldier. The true test 
 proved to be, not looks, but service. 
 
 As the days passed on, on the march, the costly and 
 fine-looking shoes were actually taken off and thrown 
 aside on the road, while their weary wearers had to 
 trudge along in their stocking feet, hoping to be able 
 to get back to camp by and by, and secure some of 
 the before-despised but wisely-planned army shoes. 
 
 7 
 
8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 And I learned a new lesson from this, of the soldier's 
 dependence on his foot-covering in the path of duty. 
 
 Out of that lesson grew this sermon. It was 
 preached in the army, and again later elsewhere. It 
 was re-written and freshly arranged, with other illus- 
 trations, as adapted to other communities. As based 
 on the text chosen, I originally called the sermon 
 "Man's Strength Proportioned to Duty." I preached 
 it in various pulpits from Massachusetts to California, 
 as my life was then a peripatetic one, and as the les- 
 son of this sermon seemed adapted to any community. 
 
 At one time, being invited to pass a Sunday in Salem, 
 Massachusetts, I was, in advance, requested by the 
 pastor to preach this sermon, of which he had heard. 
 Reaching Salem on Saturday evening, I found it an- 
 nounced in one of the papers that the next day 
 " Chaplain Trumbull of Hartford " was to preach in 
 town, and by special request he was to give his 
 " famous Shoe Sermon." Then, and thus at other 
 times, I learned that the sermon was known as "Chap- 
 lain Trumbull's Shoe Sermon." But the subject of 
 the sermon seems to me to be worth considering, by 
 whatever name it is known. 
 
STRENGTH PROPORTIONED TO DUTY 
 
 TJiy shoes shall be iron atid brass ; and as thy days^ 
 so shall thy strength be (Deut. 33 : 25). 
 
 Have you ever realized how much of one's com- 
 fort, and one's efficiency for service, depends on one's 
 shoes ? Peculiarly is it true that if a man would 
 travel, or would do work in the world, he must have 
 a foot-covering that is easy and durable. 
 
 An officer of the Smithsonian Institution, after 
 examining the collection of foot-gear from all parts 
 of the world in the National Museum at Washington, 
 said, on this subject : " It is a curious fact which seems 
 to have been overlooked, that while other parts of the 
 human costume have been more intimately associated 
 with the enjoyment of life, and [with] decoration, than 
 with mere bodily comfort, the shoe has had a more 
 serious history. It is really an instrument of travel 
 and transportation. All the savage and barbarous 
 peoples of the earth that stay at home are barefooted ; 
 and it is only when they go away from home, and 
 carry burdens upon a common path, that they begin 
 to look after the interest of that important organ 
 called the foot." 
 
 A Chinese wife who is not expected to leave home, 
 
 9 
 
lo Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 and who need network while there, requires no stout 
 or soft shoe to take her ease in. But the sturdy 
 peasant woman of Holland or Belgium, who does 
 more than her share of toil and travel, must have her 
 wooden sabot to enable her to keep up with or to go 
 ahead of her brother or husband. The athletic young 
 woman of England and America could not be at the 
 front to-day, as she is, without the well-laced bicycle 
 gaiters, the strong golf-boots, and the stout walking- 
 shoes, such as are advertised on every side. 
 
 It is said that he who should invent a shoe that 
 would neither soon wear out nor make the foot of the 
 walker sore would do more for the science of war 
 than he who invented or improved the most power- 
 ful enginery of destruction. And this was the 
 thought of Napoleon when he said that ten thou- 
 sand men moved twenty miles a day are more than 
 a match for twenty thousand men moved ten miles 
 a day. 
 
 The shoes soldiers wear have as much to do with 
 their efficiency as the weapons they carry, according 
 to this standard of judgment. Men who made long 
 and forced marches through the yielding, clinging 
 clay of the roads of the South in springtime or 
 autumn, during our Civil War, in the parching dust 
 of the same region in mid-summer, and over rough, 
 hard-frozen ground in the dead of winter, can ap- 
 preciate this truth as others are not likely to. 
 
 The promise of our text, as we are told, is part of 
 "the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God 
 
A Shoe Sermon 1 1 
 
 blessed the children of Israel before his death " (Deut 
 33:1). That promise had meaning as first given to a 
 people who had, for a full generation, wandered in the 
 wilderness, and to whom their leader could say, at the 
 close, '' Thy raiment [foot-gear included] waxed not 
 old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty 
 years." (Deut. 8:4). 
 
 Experiences of the past are made a basis of en- 
 couragement for the future. As things have been, by 
 God's blessing, so things shall be to him whom God 
 leads: "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as 
 thy days,. so shall thy strength be." 
 
 It is durability, rather than softness, that is needed 
 in the sandal worn by the Arab of the desert of Sinai, 
 as he tracks the flint-covered chalk plains where the 
 Israelites wandered in all those years. The sandal 
 used there still is the toughest rawhide obtainable, 
 the best material at hand, most like *' iron and brass," 
 to resist the cutting force of the flint knives which 
 must be trodden over hour after hour of every weary 
 day. In the margin of our English Bibles, it is given 
 as an alternative reading of our text, " Under thy soles 
 shall be iron and brass." Shoes that waxed not old 
 in forty years, while the feet above them swelled not, 
 were a God-given blessing that the plainest man could 
 appreciate. 
 
 And all that that promise meant to the Israelites of 
 old, it means to every one of God's children to-day. 
 As little Samuel's mother sang of Him in whom she 
 trusted, we can sing in faith of Him who " is the same 
 
1 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 yesterday, and to day, and for ever " (Heb. 13 : 8). 
 " He will keep the feet of his saints [his holy ones] " 
 (i Sam. 2 : 9). ''For this God is our God for ever 
 and ever : he will be our guide even unto death " 
 (Psa. 48 : 14). 
 
 "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy 
 days, so shall thy strength be." While God leads the 
 way, we shall have shoes for every march, and strength 
 for every contest to which we are summoned until the 
 end of our pilgrim course. Do we really believe that ? 
 Are we ready to trust God's word to us, as to our 
 shoes, and as to our days ? The question is not 
 whether God is willing to do as he has promised, but 
 whether zve are ready to rest on that promise. 
 
 Even when men see before them the pillar of fire 
 and of cloud, marking out their path of duty, and 
 when they hear behind them the voice of God's Spirit, 
 or God's providences, saying in unmistakable terms, 
 " This is the way, walk ye in it " (Isa. 30 : 21), how 
 common it is for them to fear lest their shoes or their 
 strength shall fail ! 
 
 The young man going out, in search of honest em- 
 ployment, from a quiet country home into the excit- 
 ing and bewildering whirl of a great city, is very apt 
 to feel, as he yields to temptations from without and 
 to evil promptings from within, that his moral shoes 
 would have stood the wear and tear of a country 
 roadside ; but that these city pavements are too hard 
 treading for such tender feet as his — even with the 
 strongest covering he can have for them. 
 
A Shoe Sermon 13 
 
 If he goes to sea, in the Hue of plain duty, he is 
 Hkely to think that, in parting with the gospel institu- 
 tions of the land, he leaves hope of a practical religious 
 life behind him. Finding the means of support for 
 himself and for his loved ones in a factory village, 
 it is possible that he will think that no other place 
 was ever so full of inducements to evil, so barren of 
 helps to a course of rectitude, as this. Becoming 
 a student at the academy or the university of his 
 own or of parents' most careful selection, he will 
 perhaps believe that almost any similar institution 
 of learning would have proved to him a surer school 
 of virtue. 
 
 If he is employed on a railroad, or at a hotel, or in 
 a hospital, or in an apothecary's shop ; if he becomes 
 a mechanic, or a fisherman, or a street laborer, or a 
 ' policeman, — whatever he has to do, or wherever his lot 
 is cast, he is prone to take the same view of the resist- 
 less power of his surroundings — or of his *' environ- 
 ment " as men call it now-a-days. 
 
 And this in face of the fact that city life, with all 
 its temptations, develops some of the highest types 
 of personal piety and Christian manliness ; that in 
 forecastle, steerage, and cabin, men who follow the 
 sea are found faithfully following Christ; that each 
 factory village and mining district shows noble speci- 
 mens of godly manufacturers and operatives ; that in 
 the very academy or university where he is now study- 
 ing, are those, no better circumstanced than himself, 
 who honor their Christian profession ; and that God 
 
14 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 has his faithful witnesses at hotels, in hospitals, and on 
 railroads, in camp and on the march, in stores and 
 workshops, and in professions and in business life, 
 and among the busy toilers and burden-bearers of 
 every proper pursuit of mankind. 
 
 Nor is it the young alone who question the fitness 
 of their moral shoes, and the fulness of their moral 
 strength in God's service. Men and women of maturer 
 years also hesitate to cast themselves confidently on 
 the promise that is distinct and unequivocal to every 
 soul ready to stand or to march as God directs, 
 " Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, 
 so shall thy strength be." 
 
 Yet the promise of this text rests not alone on its 
 primal declaration. Its truth is continually reaffirmed 
 to every observing, reflecting, believing mind, in the 
 lessons of sight, of experience, and of faith. 
 
 7. All the teachings of natui^e e7iforce this text. 
 
 Nature, we say, adapts its gifts to the need of its 
 creatures. That is, God gives a supply corresponding 
 with the demand, in all his works of creation. 
 
 Wings are for the air, fins are for the sea, feet are 
 for the ground, webbed feet are for the swimming 
 bird. The beaver knows for what its broad, stout tail 
 is designed. The ant-eater understands the purpose 
 of its prolonged snout, as the eagle does of its talons 
 and beak, the porcupine of its quills, and the cuttle- 
 fish of its inky store. The camel's water-tank hump 
 meets the want of the droughty desert, as its spreading 
 
A Shoe Sermon 15 
 
 foot does the yielding sand. The elephant's proboscis, 
 the flukes of the whale, the shell of the turtle, the 
 wing- hooks of the little bat, and the spider's web- 
 loom, meet each a peculiar want of the specific owner. 
 And God's wisely bestowed gifts to his dumb crea- 
 tures are often changed with changing circumstances 
 or locations. The varying seasons or temperature 
 bring to many an animal a change of coats. The 
 horse and the dog have different coverings from nature 
 in January and in July ; and the farther north we go 
 the thicker and warmer we find the fur of the otter or 
 sable, and the hair of the fox or bear. 
 
 As with animate creations, so with inanimate. No 
 stalk is so frail and fragile as the rank sprout spring- 
 ing up in the close, dark cellar, where there is least 
 call to meet exposure ; while the tree that stands all 
 exposed on the open plain to the storms of heaven 
 has strength from heaven, above its species in the pro- 
 tecting forest ; and that tree is ever stoutest which has 
 been most tried. 
 
 When the branches are so shaken by the wind that 
 the whole tree sways to and fro as though tottering 
 for a fall, — then, in the hour of danger, nature gives 
 new and needed strength, by sending down the roots 
 deeper into the upholding soil, and by packing the 
 earth closer about roots and trunk, so that after the 
 storm has passed away, the tree when again at rest 
 is only firmer than before in the place where God has 
 bidden it to stand fast, having had reaffirmed to it the 
 declaration which nature makes unvaryingly to all its 
 
1 6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 minor creations : " Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; 
 and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." 
 
 And to Dian nature says the same, concerning his 
 bodily and mental organization and development, as 
 to the lower orders of creation. He whose work calls 
 for most strength, has most. He whose new circum- 
 stances necessitate greater powers of endurance, finds 
 those powers enlarging. The blacksmith's arm or the 
 arm of the college oarsman grows strong, not weak, 
 by use. The railway or hotel porter keeps pace, in 
 his lifting power, with the expanding size of a lady's 
 traveling trunk, as he continues year after year at his 
 toil. The child of poverty who has no protecting 
 shoes finds his bare feet becoming almost as iron and 
 brass, on the flinty road and among the briers of the 
 field. The student, in heavily taxing his memory, 
 finds his memory more tenacious. 
 
 Other things being equal, he who studies most, 
 or. who teaches most, has not only the best stored 
 mind, but the most active brain, and the freest mental 
 faculties. Use summons strength. Supply follows 
 demand. Give your son a {q\n months with an ex- 
 ploring party on the frontier, or let him have a season 
 of camping-out in the woods, or a real fishing cruise 
 along our northeastern coast, — with the exposures and 
 privations of such a life, — and see if the change in 
 him, in consequence, is not one of increased muscular 
 compactness, and of added vitality and energy, as well 
 as of improved appetite and browned complexion. 
 As he needs more strength he is likely to have more. 
 
A Shoe Sermon 17 
 
 Recall the numberless verifications of this truth in 
 the experiences of our Civil War. Many a delicate 
 youth, or enfeebled man, who then grew stronger and 
 gained health amid the endurances of camp and cam- 
 paigning, — under exposures and privations which 
 would have killed him at his home, where such 
 exposures and privations were unnecessary, — could 
 answer the inquiry how it was possible for him to live 
 through and actually to thrive by such endurances, 
 only by affirming that nature had, in his case, again 
 made good the assurance it proffers to every man in 
 the path of duty anywhere : *' Thy shoes shall be iron 
 and brass ; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." 
 
 2. Moreover, the experiences of viankind bear con- 
 stant zvitness to the truth of our text. 
 
 In practical life we find that that man is not holiest 
 who is remotest from surroundings of evil. " The 
 nearer the church, the farther from God," has passed 
 into an adage, because of human liability to go astray 
 in even the most religious neighborhood. Peculiar 
 privileges bring peculiar temptations. Says an old 
 commentator, '* The Lord never revives his work but 
 the devil revives his; and he has a spire of sin for 
 every spire of grace." 
 
 " Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
 The devil always builds a chapel there." 
 
 It was while God was still manifesting his awful 
 presence at Sinai, that Israel made the golden calf to 
 worship. And it was ''after the sop" of affection and 
 
1 8 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 confidence at the Last Supper, that Satan entered into 
 Judas (John 13 : 24-27). " It is the man bringing his 
 dividend from the bank door," says quaint John New- 
 ton, " who has most cause to dread the pilferer's hand." 
 
 No rehgious atmosphere excludes temptation ; no 
 religious occupation destroys its power. Sinful 
 promptings and impellings have to be met and battled 
 in the closet and in the prayer-meeting, in the pulpit 
 and in the pew, in visits of Christian charity, and even 
 at the table of our Lord. On the other hand, no 
 presence of evil necessitates indulgence in sin. Some 
 of the godliest men and women in the world are those 
 whose purity and uprightness stand out the more 
 because of their surroundings of vice and wickedness. 
 
 The Christian missionary in a heathen land, or in 
 our city slums, is not expected to lower his moral 
 standard on account of the vile practices of the peo- 
 ple about him. Who would fear that a mission-school 
 teacher would be more liable to swerve from a course 
 of rectitude through the nearness of dens of iniquity 
 to the room in which he pursues his love-inspired 
 work ? As a rule, the opposer of evil is found firmer 
 in his purpose of good, and stionger for its prosecu- 
 tion, when brought of God face to face with the enemy 
 he has volunteered to battle. 
 
 It is the same with strength against trial as with 
 strength against evil. In quiet home life, many a frail 
 and delicate young mother shows a strength of body 
 in her prolonged and unintermitted watching over, 
 or tending, an invalid child, — or a strength of mind 
 
A Shoe Sermon 19 
 
 and soul in rising up under the burden of sudden and 
 terrible bereavement, to care for herself and her chil- 
 dren, instead of resting with them as hitherto on 
 another's care, — such powers of endurance and suffer- 
 ing and performance as none who knew her had sup- 
 posed were hers ; such indeed as she did not possess 
 until her new demands summoned the new supply, 
 which is ever ready for those who need and trust. 
 
 Did you never see a lad, suddenly bereft of his 
 father, so transformed by his consciousness of new 
 responsibility for the remaining household — so lifted, 
 as it were, to a higher sphere of thought and charac- 
 ter by the " evolution of catastrophism " — as to change 
 his whole outward appearance in a few brief days ; 
 the expression of his face so maturing, and his manly 
 young form so uplifting and expanding, as to make 
 him hardly recognizable by those who knew him in 
 his days of reliance on the one whose place he is now 
 summoned to fill ? As you looked at such a youth, 
 you might have realized anew the truth of our text, 
 and believed that he too had been supplied with new 
 shoes for his new journey, and given strength he had 
 no need of prior to his days of bereavement. 
 
 God be praised that such shoes, and such strength, 
 shall never be lacking to any dutiful and trustful dis- 
 ciple of Jesus ! For, mark you : 
 
 J. The word of God is pledged in confirmation of the 
 pronnse of our text. 
 
 ** The grass withereth, the flower fadeth : but the 
 
20 Shoes and Rations for a Loiig March 
 
 word of our God shall stand for ever" (Isa. 40 : 8 ; 
 I Peter i : 24, 25). What has been divinely spoken 
 will be divinely fulfilled. Even if the teachings of 
 nature gave no encouragement to a belief in this text, 
 and the experiences of mankind up to this time failed 
 to bear witness to its truth, the child of God would 
 still have the word of God as explicit, and as not to be 
 doubted, that his shoes shall be iron and brass ; and 
 that as his days, so shall his strength be. 
 
 If it be necessary, God can work a miracle — doing 
 that which is far above the ordinary course of nature, 
 and contrary to the lessons of experience. God will 
 work ten thousand miracles before his word shall fail, 
 or one jot or tittle of it pass away unfulfilled. 
 
 Hath not God said to each and to all of his trust- 
 ful children : " Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : be 
 not dismayed ; for I am thy God : I will strengthen 
 thee ; yea, I will help thee ; yea, I will uphold thee 
 with the right hand of my righteousness " (Isa. 41 : 10) ; 
 ** When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
 with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not 
 overflow thee : when thou walkest through the fire, 
 thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the flame 
 kindle upon thee " (Isa. 43 : 2) ; ** My grace is sufficient 
 for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness " 
 (2 Cor. 12 : 9), — my power is completest when your 
 need is greatest ? And shall not God perform to the 
 uttermost his explicit and oft-repeated promises to the 
 children of his love ? 
 
 Child of God ! take heart then : for nature, experi- 
 
A Shoe Sermon 21 
 
 ence and revelation unite to give you cheer. " Be 
 strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, 
 neither be thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is 
 with thee whithersoever thou goest " (Josh, i : 9). 
 Never fear the length of the path of duty, nor the 
 flints and thorns which beset its track : " Thy shoes 
 shall be iron and brass." Never shrink from the 
 wearisomeness of the way where God leads, nor from 
 the sun and the storms of its dragging hours: "As 
 thy days, so shall thy strength be." 
 
 In your home as now constituted (or in any new 
 home to which you may be called) ; in the profession 
 or occupation you are now pursuing ; in the school, 
 or store, or office, or mill, or hotel, or hospital, where 
 you are engaged; with your existing surroundings; 
 with your past record of sins, and follies, and wretched 
 mistakes ; with your habits and appetites and passions 
 just as they are, — stand firm, and be strong; yield 
 not to evil, falter not in trust. " God is faithful, who 
 will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are 
 able ; but will with the temptation also make a way 
 to escape, that ye maybe able to bear it " (i Cor. 
 10 : 13). You **can do all things through Christ 
 which strengtheneth " you (Phil. 4 : 13). Holding the 
 hand of Jesus, you shall not fall nor fail. Your shoes 
 and your strength shall endure unto the end. 
 
 " Weary and thirsty — no water-brook near thee, 
 Press on ; nor faint at the length of the way. 
 The God of thy Hfe will assuredly hear thee : 
 He will provide thee strength for the day. 
 
2 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long Alarch 
 
 " Be trustful, be steadfast, whatever betide thee ; 
 Only one thing do thou ask of the Lord : 
 Grace to go forward, wherever he guides thee, 
 Simply beheving the truth of his word." 
 
 "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy 
 days, so shall thy strength be." " T/if shoes ! " " T/ij 
 days ! " Do you note that? Not the shoes, nor the 
 days, of another; but t/unc ozvn. 
 
 Be sure then that you stand in your own shoes, 
 that you seek to occupy only your own days. Absa- 
 lom craved the shoes of his kingly father; he slipped 
 in his effort to walk in them. Jonah would have had 
 strength for a journey to Nineveh; but he lacked it 
 to make the voyage from Joppa to Tarshish. 
 
 He who walks in any path but that of duty walks 
 in other shoes than his own ; the days he passes there 
 are not his days : he has no strength for their trials 
 or needs. No promise of shoes or strength is to him 
 who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand- 
 eth in the way of sinners, or sitteth in the seat of the 
 scornful ; who enters into the path of the wicked, and 
 goeth in the way of evil men. 
 
 While a man's duty is at sea, his shoes are not 
 suited to land travel ; while his duty is in the city, he 
 has not strength for a day in the country, or by the 
 seaside, winter or summer. A mother's place may 
 be, on the Lord's day, in the nursery, while her " soul 
 longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the 
 Lord " (Psa. 84 : 2). If this be so, — if her place is 
 there, — then in that family room, with her children 
 
A Shoe Sermon 23 
 
 about her, she can look for such grace, — such dehght- 
 ful, satisfying evidence of God's sacred presence in 
 her heart, — as she could not find in the grandest tem- 
 ple of earth, with the most devoted band of worshipers, 
 sitting under the teachings of the most eloquent and 
 earnest minister of Christ who ever expounded the 
 word of God to a waiting people. 
 
 Thus also with the physician, or the nurse, whose 
 station is by the bedside of a suffering patient ; thus 
 with the sailor on the vessel's deck, far beyond the 
 sound of the Sabbath bell ; with the druggist's clerk, 
 the housemaid, the policeman, or the soldier ; thus 
 with him who must teach when he would fain listen ; 
 thus with every person who must forgo ordinary 
 means of grace, or meet extraordinary temptations at 
 the post of duty anywhere. 
 
 Men of capital, men of labor, professional men, 
 travelers and students, women and children and 
 youth, are to be anxious only as to whether they are 
 in just the place, and at just the occupation to which 
 they have been summoned by the providences of 
 God. 
 
 That point settled aright, — as it can be, — and they 
 need have no concern for their surroundings ; no fear 
 that they shall there be unable to serve God wholly 
 and heartily and acceptably ; for they are more likely 
 to lead a holy life in that place than anywhere else on 
 the face of the whole wide earth, because God can, 
 and does, make city and country and village and 
 ocean, field and workshop and home and school, 
 
24 Shoes and Ratiojis for a Long March 
 
 spheres of grace to such of his children as belong 
 there. To all such his heavenly promise rings out 
 clearly and continually above, and yet in truest har- 
 mony with, the teachings of successive ages, and in 
 chord with nature's grandest melodies, "Thy shoes 
 shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, so shall thy 
 strength be." 
 
A SERMON ON THIRST 
 
II 
 
 A SERMON ON THIRST 
 
 The first sermon I preached as a chaplain was writ- 
 ten before I was a chaplain, and was planned long 
 before I had any thought of ever being in the Chris- 
 tian ministry ; but it was none the less closely con- 
 nected in its subject and substance with my army 
 chaplaincy. Its truth has grown upon me in its im- 
 portance in the passing of more than twoscore years. 
 
 In 1859 I was in Philadelphia to attend a national 
 Sunday-school convention in Jayne's Hall, on lower 
 Chestnut Street. My host was the venerable Am- 
 brose White, at his home in Arch Street. Going 
 from his residence to the convention, I passed 
 Massey's great brewery, then on Tenth Street, above 
 Market, and its open doors and large vats attracted 
 my attention, and started me on a train of thought. 
 The busy workmen, the rumbling teams, the hundreds 
 of casks, the filled troughs and gutters, which I saw, 
 were an illustration of the constant and costly efforts 
 to satisfy or to minister to men's ceaseless cravings 
 for drink. What want in the world equals thirst, and 
 how vain and mocking are man's endeavors to supply 
 what in this realm is longed for ! 
 
 27 
 
28 Shoes a7id Rations for a Long March 
 
 As I walked on to the hall, the greatness of that 
 thought grew on me. The words of Jesus at Jacob's 
 Well to the woman of Samaria who asked him for a 
 drink, came to my mind. I thought that day that if 
 I were a clergyman I should want to preach from that 
 text to a thirsty world. As days and years went by, 
 I still had that thought in mind — or that thought had 
 me. When, unexpectedly, I was called to be a regi- 
 mental chaplain, I thought yet more deeply of that 
 proposed sermon. Having decided to accept the call, 
 I began my first sermon before I was examined for 
 ordination. I first preached the sermon in Williams- 
 burg, Long Island, on my way to my regiment in 
 North Carolina. 
 
 Of course, I had occasion to change the form and 
 illustrations of the sermon so as to adapt it more fit- 
 tingly to a soldier audience as I came to understand 
 soldiers. Yet its truth grew on me steadily. It be- 
 came a prominent phase of my gospel preaching to 
 soldiers or to civilians. Later I sought to make more 
 vivid and graphic the scene at the well of Jacob. In 
 my library, after the war, I studied the region by the 
 aid of maps and books of travel. I sought to know 
 precisely what could be seen in all directions by a 
 traveler seated by that well. It became one of the 
 points of greatest interest to me in the Holy Land. 
 
 Years afterward, when for the first time I was 
 traveling in that region, I had a special desire to be 
 at that very spot. I turned aside from the road be- 
 tween Jerusalem and Nabloos to find a seat there. 
 
A Se7nnon on Thirst 29 
 
 The country and views about me, north, east, south, 
 west, to the far horizon, seemed sacredly famiHar. 
 And in that new atmosphere the central truth of that 
 scene seemed yet more precious than ever. I wish 
 that this sermon could be of as much good to some 
 one who reads it as it has been to me in its writing 
 and in its contemplation. 
 
SOUL-THIRST, AND ITS QUENCHING 
 
 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again : 
 but wJiosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
 him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give 
 him shall be in him a well of water springing 2ip into 
 everlasting life (John 4 : 13, 14). 
 
 One of the most beautiful spots in all Palestine is 
 that of which the ancient well of Jacob is the center, 
 about half-way between Jerusalem and Jezreel. It is 
 just to the east of the principal traveled road through 
 ancient Canaan, the great caravan route from time 
 immemorial between the Nile and the Euphrates, the 
 highway of the nations from the far East to the ever 
 extending West. 
 
 Beyond this highway, westward, there sweeps the 
 valley of Shechem, between the mountains : Ebal on 
 the north, and Gerizim on the south ; " a valley green 
 with grass, gray with olives, gardens sloping down on 
 every side, fresh springs rushing down in all directions." 
 
 Northward the snowy summit of Hermon is seen 
 in the far distance — above the hills of Ephraim. 
 Eastward are the hills which skirt the valley of the 
 Jordan. Southward loom up the hills which stand 
 round about Jerusalem. 
 30 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 31 
 
 Seventeen centuries before, the patriarch Jacob, 
 while a sojourner in that land, had cut down a hun- 
 dred feet and more through the limestone rock to the 
 living springs below at that place, in order to secure 
 water for his thirsting people and flocks. Other wells 
 and streams were near, but every Oriental land-owner 
 must have water on his own domain, in order to be 
 secure against enemies shutting him in, or cutting off 
 his water supply from without. And Jacob's Well 
 has there stood ever since, with its associations so 
 many and rich. 
 
 The well is on the northern and western edge of the 
 extensive and fertile Plain of Mukhna, or '* Plain of 
 the Cornfields." That well-side is the one spot on 
 earth where we may be sure that Jesus stood and sat 
 and taught while he was here among men ; and even 
 then that spot was rich beyond all others with mem- 
 ories of the ancient days of God's peculiar people, 
 and with associations of the world's great conquerors. 
 Jesus, with his disciples, was returning from Judea 
 to his home in Galilee. Going by the direct route, 
 instead of by the roundabout way east of the Jordan, 
 "he must needs go through Samaria" and come 
 near this well. 
 
 The feeling was very bitter between Jews and 
 Samaritans. Strict Jews counted it a defilement to 
 partake of food which a Samaritan had prepared. But 
 Jesus was above all such prejudices of race, and when 
 he reached this spot he sent his disciples into the 
 Samaritan village of Sychar, a little way up the valley 
 
3 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 of Shechem ; while he, *' being wearied with his jour- 
 ney, " sat down by the well to rest. 
 
 Many a mighty one of old, who claimed or who 
 sought to be the ruler of the world, had halted by 
 that well, or had passed and repassed along the high- 
 way which it was near. 
 
 Kedor-la'omer, the Elamite king from east of Baby- 
 lon, made his great campaign westward for the pur- 
 pose of controlling this road, and passed over it with 
 Lot as a prisoner, when Abraham was in pursuit of 
 him, as told in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. 
 
 The principal kings of Egypt went this way and 
 came again, on their marches of invasion and conquest ; 
 from the days of Thotmes and Sety and Rameses, 
 down to Shishak and Necho and the Ptolemies, Along 
 it also had passed the kings of Assyria and Babylon : 
 Tiglath-pileser, and Sennacherib, and Shalmanezer, 
 and Nebuchadnezzar, and others. 
 
 And so, also, there had come and gone Benhadad 
 and Hazael and Rezin of Syria, and Alexander the 
 Great of Macedon. 
 
 Yet never had that highway of the conquerors felt 
 the tread of so mighty a ruier, whose sway should 
 extend so widely and continue so long, as the way- 
 worn traveler whose tired feet rested by that well at 
 that noon-tide hour, while his few humble followers 
 were gone to the neighboring village to purchase 
 bread. 
 
 While Jesus waited alone by the well, there came 
 thither a Samaritan woman to draw water, probably 
 
A Serrnoii on Thh^st 33 
 
 for the laborers who were at work in the great corn- 
 fields which this well supplied. Jesus said to the 
 woman, " Give me to drink." That was a stranger 
 question, just then and there, than we might be in- 
 clined to suppose. 
 
 An Oriental would not, as a rule, speak to a woman 
 in the open air; far less would he seek, through shar- 
 ing a drink with a recognized alien, to make a friendly- 
 compact with her. In the East the giving and receiv- 
 ing a cup of cold water only is a covenant, or truce, 
 for the time being, between even deadly enemies. 
 
 When Hormozan, a Persian ruler, surrendered to 
 the Khaleef Omar, and was brought into the presence 
 of his captor, he asked at once for a drink. Omar 
 asked him if he were thirsty. " No," he said, " I only 
 wish to drink in your presence, so that I may be sure 
 of my life." On this, his life was assured him. 
 
 When Saladeen had defeated the Christians in 
 Palestine, he received their two chief leaders in his 
 tent as prisoners. The king of the Franks he seated 
 by his side, and gave him drink cooled with snow 
 from the Lebanon. When this king, having tasted it, 
 offered it also to Prince Arnald, Saladeen protested, 
 saying: "This wretch shall not drink of the water 
 with my permission; for then there would be safety 
 to him." Thereupon he struck off Prince Arnald's 
 head. 
 
 No wonder, therefore, in view of this state of things, 
 that the woman at Jacob's Well was surprised when a 
 man of the proud Jewish nation actually condescended 
 
34 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 to ask a drink of water from a woman of the despised 
 Samaritan stock ; and that she responded with the 
 question : 
 
 " How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of 
 me, which am a woman of Samaria ? " 
 
 The rejoinder of the stranger Jew only puzzled her 
 the more. " Jesus answered and said unto her, If 
 thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that 
 saith to thee. Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have 
 asked of him, and he would have given thee living 
 water." 
 
 ** Living water " is water from a perennial spring, 
 as distinct from ordinary well water, or cistern water. 
 And " living water " is to this day, in the East, cried 
 by the water-carrier in the crowded city streets as 
 '' The gift of God ! The gift of God ! " 
 
 What could this stranger traveler, without pitcher 
 or cord, mean by the suggestion that he could better 
 meet her thirst than she his ? Wonderingly, therefore, 
 she asked of him : 
 
 " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well 
 is deep : from whence then hast thou that living water ? 
 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us 
 the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, 
 and his cattle ? " 
 
 Then it was that Jesus uttered the words of our 
 text, and by them caused the Samaritan woman to 
 wonder more than before. 
 
 " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
 aeain : but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 35 
 
 shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I 
 shall give him shall be in him a weU of water spring- 
 ing up into everlasting life." 
 
 " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
 him shall never thirst ! " What a promise ! What a 
 thou^rht ! Never to thirst ! Never to thirst ! 
 
 No appetite or passion, no craving or desire, is so 
 universal, so constant, so fierce, and so resistless, as 
 thirst. Thirst was the first want of the first-born 
 babe. Amid the awful terrors of Calvary, thirst forced 
 an agonized cry from the lips of the dying Redeemer. 
 The one cry that has come back to us from a spirit in 
 torment was for a drop of water to cool a tongue 
 parching with thirst. And one of the promises pre- 
 cious to the children of God is, that in heaven they 
 shall not thirst any more. 
 
 To slake another's thirst but for a moment, is a 
 bounty acknowledged gratefully by man, and not un- 
 noticed by God. It was the yielding and bestowing 
 of a cup of drink on the field of Zutphen that stands 
 out in history as the crowning glory of Sir Philip 
 Sidney, the peerless flower of chivalry. Says our 
 Lord, concerning human ministries to his disciples : 
 " Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these 
 little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a 
 disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose 
 his reward" (Matt. 10 : 42). 
 
 *'A cup of cold water only!" One whose lips 
 have parched with thirst in an army-prison, or on a 
 sandy march, or while lying wounded on a field of 
 
36 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 battle, can realize the preciousness of " a cup of cold 
 water only " as others cannot. 
 
 After one of the battles of our Civil War, a mem- 
 ber of the government ambulance corps was moving 
 among the wounded on the field, assisting in their 
 removal. He came to a dying Southern soldier, too 
 far gone for hope through removal. As he stooped 
 over the dying man with a kindly word, the parching 
 lips asked for water. The lips were tenderly moistened. 
 
 " Thank you ! Now please lay my cap over my 
 face, and let me die." 
 
 As this service was rendered lovingly, there came 
 another call from the dying man : 
 
 *' Will you please tell me your name, my friend ? " 
 
 " Why, of course I will ; but why do you ask it ? " 
 
 " Oh, so I can pray God through all eternity to 
 bless you for giving me that water ! " 
 
 To bring water for his thirst, man has poured out 
 millions upon millions for costly aqueducts, the very 
 ruins of which are among the world's wonders. He 
 has bored the artesian well into depths which could 
 never be reached by cutting. He has tunneled under 
 the lake's bottom, miles beyond the shore, for a purer 
 supply. He has linked the desert with the river by 
 chains of canals. 
 
 Yet at the best, pure water has not always satisfied 
 man's thirst ; so he has searched the world over for 
 tempting beverages, and has taxed the ingenuity of 
 his fellows for new and refreshing drinks. 
 
 To meet their ceaseless craving for drink, men have 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 37 
 
 yielded all hope of gain and honor and health ; haVe 
 squandered property, made home desolate, dear ones 
 wretched, and themselves drunkards, — miserable here, 
 and without hope for hereafter. 
 
 Desire for drink has crowded our almshouses, and 
 packed our jails. It has lighted the incendiary's torch, 
 and sharpened the assassin's knife. Long, fearfully, 
 hopelessly has the power of its curse swept the wide 
 world. To stay its ravages, the arm of the civil law 
 and the open hand of philanthrophy have been ex- 
 tended to comparatively litde purpose. 
 
 The loneine for drink has been neither satisfied 
 nor removed. Men still drink and thirst, and thirst 
 and drink again. Only one person in all the world, 
 and he that travel-worn pilgrim by the well of Jacob, 
 has ever dared confidently to say, '* Whosoever drink- 
 eth of the water that I shall give him shall never 
 
 thirst." 
 
 Is it, then, strange that that woman of Samaria, as 
 she looked into those clear eyes of truth, and heard 
 those convincing tones of sincerity, should start at the 
 thought of the breadth and fulness of that unique 
 declaration ; and, remembering all her weary journeys 
 to and from that well, should cry out in earnestness : 
 "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither 
 come hither to draw " ? 
 
 But it was the thirst of the soul, and not merely 
 bodily thirst, that Jesus claimed power to quench; 
 although the greater pov/er included the lesser, and 
 he was competent to both. This he proceeded to 
 
38 Shoes and Rations /or a Long Ma^^ch 
 
 s'how to the now deeply interested woman, in their 
 further conversation. 
 
 All the greater and more precious was the wonder- 
 ful promise of Jesus, as thus interpreted ; for universal, 
 persistent, fierce, and resistless as is man's bodily crav- 
 ing for drink, it exceeds in no degree his longing for 
 that which shall refresh and satisfy his inner and 
 spiritual nature. 
 
 So soon as a human soul comes to consciousness, 
 it comes to soul-thirst. So long as the human soul 
 exists, it must have soul-drink or be in torment. 
 Religion is the drink of the soul. The soul craves 
 religion as the lungs crave air. The soul is formed 
 and fitted for the reception of religion, as the eyes are 
 formed and fitted for the reception of light. 
 
 To satisfy their soul-thirst, men give and struggle 
 and suffer and die. Idolaters " lavish gold out of the 
 bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a gold- 
 smith " (Isa. 46 : 6), to secure to themselves a drink- 
 ing-cup for the soul. Sages of old joined with sove- 
 reigns and with soldiers, in rearing mighty structures 
 as drinking-places for souls that were athirst. The 
 costliest buildings of earth have ever been those 
 which marked the spot where thirsting souls might 
 find refreshing. 
 
 From a love of the drink of the soul men have 
 given up property, and honors, and home, and friends, 
 and have gone cheerfully into prison houses or into 
 the flames with the longing cry: "As the hart panteth 
 after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 39 
 
 O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living 
 God " (Psa. 42 : I, 2). " My soul thirsteth for thee, 
 my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, 
 where no water is " (Psa. 63 : i). 
 
 And in all the centuries since the first cry for drink 
 went up from a thirsty soul, only one person, and he 
 that travel-worn pilgrim by the well of Jacob, has 
 ever dared confidently to say, concerning the soul's 
 thirst for God : ** Whosoever drinketh of the water 
 that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water 
 that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water 
 springing up into everlasting life." Is not such a 
 word as that worth heeding ? Is not such a promise 
 worth testing ? 
 
 But is this word to be trusted ? Is this promise 
 sure ? Many a word of hope has proved false ; many 
 a glad promise has failed in its testing. Is there 
 firmer ground of confidence in this case ? 
 
 Even as those who sought the quenching of their 
 bodily thirst have found that *' wine is a mocker " 
 (Prov. 20 : i), that "wine and new wine take away the 
 hearf (Hos. 4 : 11), but not the thirst; even as pil- 
 grims on the desert have perished by the brink of 
 empty wells, where their thirst had been mocked as 
 they came for its slaking ; even as fainting travelers 
 have been deluded by the mirage of the desert into 
 one more vain effort to reach the water which they 
 longed for, — even so, also, thirsting souls have been 
 mocked with the wine of superstition, have famished 
 at the exhausted cistern of a false religion, or have 
 
40 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 wasted their latest strength in pursuing the mirage of 
 some delusive philosophy of first causes and ultimate 
 destiny. 
 
 When Philip V, of Spain, first saw in full play the 
 magnificent new fountains he had erected at La 
 Granja, it is said that an expression of pleasure passed 
 over his sad face ; then his melancholy look returned, 
 and he said, bitterly : '* Thou hast given me three min- 
 utes' distraction from my cares ; and thou hast cost 
 me three millions." Might not his words be spoken 
 of many a costly fountain erected to gratify man's 
 spiritual longings ? 
 
 The ruins of such fountains dot the world over. 
 What else are the crumbling, but still magnificent, 
 temples at Nineveh and Nuffar, at Memphis and 
 Thebes, at Susa and Persepolis, at Athens and Rome, 
 at Mexico and Cuzco ! Their cost was millions. Their 
 relief to soul-thirst was momentary. " Broken cis- 
 terns " are they all, ** that can hold no water " 
 (Jer. 2 : 13). 
 
 Every deserted altar to an unknown god to-day is 
 a shattered drinking-cup, which some famishing soul 
 has dashed aside because of its bitter mockery of the 
 thirst which it could not quench. 
 
 The saddest hearts in all the world to-day are those 
 which have been disappointed in their search for that 
 which would satisfy their spiritual longings, whose 
 best religious experiences have been " as when a 
 thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh ; but 
 he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 41 
 
 appetite " (Isa. 29 : 8). Is there surer help in the 
 promise of Jesus by the well of Jacob? Will his 
 word of hope never mock or delude or fail a thirsty 
 soul ? 
 
 My friends, this is a question of fact rather than of 
 opinion. It is to be settled by testimony, not by 
 argument. There stands the declaration of Jesus: 
 " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
 him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give 
 him shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life." 
 
 More than sixty generations of believers in Jesus 
 have tested this promise, and are witnesses of its truth. 
 Myriads have turned, with thirsty souls, to Jesus; 
 never one, never one, never one has been refused or 
 disappointed. Men and women and children who 
 rested on this promise have gone calmly into the fires 
 of martyrdom, and with moistened lips have sung the 
 praises of Jesus while the flames were purifying their 
 bodies. 
 
 Others have sorrowed on alone in life, but not as 
 those who had no hope (i Thess. 4 : 13). They have 
 been "troubled on every side, yet not distressed; 
 . . . perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not 
 forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed " (2 Cor. 4 : 
 8, 9). They have been ** as chastened, and not killed ; 
 as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing ; as poor, yet making 
 ' many rich ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all 
 things " (2 Cor. 6 : 9, 10). 
 
42 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Many of you here before me are also witnesses of 
 these things. You could rise up, one by one, and say 
 in grateful confidence : 
 
 " I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
 
 ' Behold, I freely give 
 The living water ; thirsty one, 
 
 Stoop down, and drink, and live ! * 
 I came to Jesus, and I drank 
 
 Of that life-giving stream ; 
 My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, 
 
 And now I live in him." ^ 
 
 Every one of you here is thus satisfied in Christ; 
 or you are athirst in your soul, and you will be until 
 you test this promise of Jesus. 
 
 My friends, I have been over many a battle-field of 
 life, and I have seen Christian soldiers in many a hard 
 fight. I have seen many wounded ones among them, 
 and many dying ones ; but I never saw one such dis- 
 ciple thirsting hopelessly. 
 
 I have seen strange sights, and heard strange words, 
 in the world. I have seen brother arrayed against 
 brother, husband against wife, parent against child. 
 I have heard fathers curse the sons who had dis- 
 honored their names, and sons and daughters speak 
 bitter words against the mothers who bore them. 
 But I never yet saw a disciple of Jesus whom the 
 word of Jesus had failed. I never yet heard one say 
 that he had drunk of the water which Jesus proffers 
 and not had his soul-thirst quenched. 
 
 ^Horatius Bonar. 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 43 
 
 Let me tell you a single incident out of my army 
 experience, as illustrative of the truth I am emphasiz- 
 ing. It was in July, 1863. While a prisoner in the 
 city of Charleston, I was paroled for a time from the 
 common jail, that I might minister to our wounded 
 soldiers, brought up from before Fort Wagner, on 
 Morris Island, to the Yankee Hospital, which was the 
 old slave-pen on Queen Street. 
 
 The surgeons' tables in that hospital were in the 
 court, in the rear of a high brick building, where the 
 wounded men were lying before and after their opera- 
 tions. When brought in, the men were laid on loose 
 straw on the lower floors. After treatment they were 
 laid on rude cots on the floors above. 
 
 They could not all be attended to promptly ; and 
 on Tuesday morning some of them were still lying 
 with the blood unwashed from their wounds of Satur- 
 day night. It was the middle of July. The heat of 
 the weather was added to the loss of blood in intensi- 
 fying the thirst of the poor sufferers. 
 
 My mission was to carry water, in canteens, from 
 the hydrant in the courtyard to the different floors of 
 the building, to pour it upon those who were thirsting. 
 I was sure of a welcome in this mission ; for with the 
 water I could bring unlooked-for sympathy from a 
 Union chaplain to those dear, brave, uncomplaining, 
 suffering soldiers. 
 
 As I was passing along on the upper floor of that 
 slave-pen hospital, a Confederate surgeon, pointing to 
 a cot, said : 
 
44 Shoes and Rations for^ a Long March 
 
 " Chaplain, there's a httle fellow who is sinking 
 rapidly. He'll not live many hours. I think you'd 
 better talk with him." 
 
 On that prompting, I turned to the " little fellow " 
 on the cot. He was a fair-faced, bright-eyed New 
 England lad, barely eighteen years old. He had lost 
 a leg, and was sinking from the shock. When I told 
 him who I was, he greeted me cheerily. 
 
 " You are very badly wounded," I said. 
 
 " Oh, not so very badly," he responded. " I've only 
 lost one leg ; and a good many men have lost both, 
 and got well." 
 
 ** I wish yo2L were to get well," I said, shaking my 
 head sadly. 
 
 " Why, Chaplain," he said, evidently startled by my 
 look and tone, " you don't mean that I'm going to 
 die, do you ? " 
 
 " Yes, my dear boy, I mean just that." 
 
 " Oh, but, Chaplain, I can't die. I'm only a boy yet, 
 and I can't die." 
 
 " My dear boy, I wish I could give you life ; but the 
 doctor says you must die." 
 
 " But, Chaplain, I'm not ready to die." 
 
 " Jesus Christ can make you ready — to live or to 
 die, if you'll just put yourself in his hands." 
 
 " Oh, but. Chaplain, I've been a very wicked boy. I 
 was a bad boy at home ; although I had a real good 
 home. I've got a real good father and mother up in New 
 Hampshire ; but I ran away from them and enlisted ; 
 and in the army I've been just as bad as I could be." 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 45 
 
 "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, 
 and he loves to have those who have been bad come 
 to him to be saved. You can come to him now as a 
 sinner, and ask him to forgive you and save you ; and 
 he will do it gladly." 
 
 " Well, will you pray for me, Chaplain ? " 
 
 "Of course I will," I said; and I kneeled by his 
 bedside, and prayed with and for him in loving earn- 
 estness. Then, after a few words more with him, I 
 turned to other sufferers, promising to come and see 
 him again. 
 
 After a little I came back to his bedside. 
 
 "I've been looking back, Chaplain," he said, "and 
 its all black, all black." 
 
 " Then don't look back;' I said ; " but look ///. It's 
 all bright there." 
 
 " But you don't know, Chaplain, how great a sinner 
 I've been." 
 
 " I don't care to know. Jesus knows. And you 
 can't have been so great a sinner as he is great a Sav- 
 iour. He is ready to save to the uttermost them who 
 come unto God by him." 
 
 " Do you mean. Chaplain, that right now Jesus will 
 forgive all my sins if I ask him to ? " 
 
 " I mean just that." 
 
 " Well, Chaplain, won't you pray for me again ? " 
 
 "Yes, my boy, I'll pray for you ; but I want you to 
 pray for yourself Jesus loves to have those who 
 need forgiveness come and ask for it themselves." 
 
 Once more I kneeled and prayed. As I finished 
 
46 Shoes and Rations fo7^ a Long March 
 
 my prayer, I laid my hand tenderly on him, and said, 
 " Now yoiL pray." 
 
 The little fellow folded his hands across his chest, 
 and prayed, — prayed in such childlike simplicity and 
 trust, told so frankly to Jesus the story of his sins, 
 and asked in such loving confidence for forgiveness, 
 that I was sure his prayer was answered while it was 
 offering, and that another thirsty soul was being re- 
 freshed with the water that Jesus gives. 
 
 As I arose from my knees, I saw that we were not 
 alone. That childlike prayer, in that childlike voice, 
 had drawn the attention of surgeons, nurses, and 
 visitors, in the prison-hospital, and they stood about 
 us, listening in tearful sympathy. 
 
 A third time, after a brief absence, I was by that 
 soldier lad. His eyes were closed. His face was very 
 pale. At first I thought he had already passed away, 
 and I stooped over him to find if he were still breath- 
 ing. Seeming to feel my presence, he opened his 
 eyes, and for a moment looked up vacantly. Then, 
 as full consciousness returned, he recognized me with 
 an " Oh, it's you, Chaplain ! " and throwing up both his 
 arms he clasped them about my neck, and drew my 
 face down to his to give me a dying kiss. 
 
 " You are the best friend I've got in the world," he 
 said. " You've saved my soul." 
 
 " No, no, my dear boy," I said tenderly. " Jesus 
 saves your soul." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but you've told me about Jesus ; and he's 
 saved my soul. He has. Chaplain; I don't have any 
 
A Sermon on Thirst 47 
 
 doubt about it. He has forgiven all my sins. And 
 now I'm going to be with him. Oh, how happy my 
 father and mother will be. I want you to write and 
 tell them all about it." 
 
 And " it was while I stood listening to the joyous 
 words of that forgiven sinner that I was tapped on 
 the shoulder, and summoned away under arrest as a 
 spy, to be shut in solitary prison confinement, never 
 to see that dear boy again until he and I stand together 
 in our Saviour's presence. 
 
 As I recall that hospital incident out of the dark 
 memories of my army-prison life, it seems to me that 
 when I w^ent to that wounded soldier's cot, carrying 
 water for the moistening of his fevered lips. He who 
 sat by the well of Jacob said of that which I had to 
 proffer to the suffering boy : 
 
 " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
 again : but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
 shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I 
 shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
 ing up into everlasting life." 
 
 And that word of promise was then and there made 
 good, as it always will be to one who tests its truth. 
 
 ** Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
 waters" (Isa. 55 : i). "And the Spirit and the bride 
 say, Come. . . . And let him that is athirst come. 
 And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
 freely" (Rev. 22 : 17). 
 
GAIN OF GODLINESS 
 
Ill 
 
 GAIN OF GODLINESS 
 
 Even in my army life I often had occasion to 
 preach the same truth at different times to very dif- 
 ferent audiences. In such ways a subject would 
 grow on me by its being looked at in different lights 
 and under different circumstances ; and I trust that I 
 grew under the influence of the subject. I rarely 
 wanted to preach once on a subject, without want- 
 ing to preach on that subject more than once. And 
 each time that I repeated a sermon, its subject seemed 
 more important and suggestive than I had ever before 
 seen it to be. Fresh phases of the main truth pre- 
 sented themselves, and I wanted to press them freshly 
 on others. New illustrations were given to enforce the 
 truth declared. 
 
 For some months in 1863 I was with my regiment 
 on Seabrook Island, in connection with the prolonged 
 siege of Charleston. It was wearisome waiting in 
 inaction, and it was necessary to strive more than in 
 times of active service to keep officers and men up to 
 a proper moral and spiritual standard. In this line of 
 endeavor, I preached a sermon on " The Gain of Godli- 
 ness," or the practical profitableness of right-doing. 
 
 51 
 
5 2 Shoes a7id Rations for a Long March 
 
 Not many weeks after this I was taken prisoner on 
 Morris Island, and was shut up in Charleston jail. 
 Thence I was taken to Columbia jail, where I was 
 confined with various officers from our army and 
 navy. Being permitted to preach there on Sundays, 
 I preached on the same subject to a different audience, 
 and with an increased interest in the subject. After 
 my release from the army prison, I preached a third 
 time about it in St. Augustine, Florida. And yet 
 later, after the close of the war, I found pleasure in 
 re-writing and re-preaching sermons on the important 
 theme that had kept its growing hold on me. In the 
 later form, as a growth from its " Seabrook Island " 
 germ, I now include it with the others. 
 
 I preached this sermon on one occasion before the 
 students of Amherst College. More than thirty years 
 afterwards I met, one summer at the Isles of Shoals, 
 a gentleman who was Professor of Greek in the Bos- 
 ton Latin School. He referred to this sermon, which 
 he had heard as an undergraduate in Amherst. He 
 repeated the text and the opening sentences of my 
 sermon, and he gave the main points and some of the 
 illustrations of the sermon. Yet for years before he 
 thus reminded me of it I had not thought of the ser- 
 mon. I then looked it up, revised and re-preached it, 
 and it is in this shape that it is now given. 
 
PROFIT OF GODLINESS 
 
 Godliness is profitable unto all tilings, having promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is to come 
 (i Tim. 4 : 8). 
 
 Godliness is profitable. Well, if godliness is profit- 
 able, godliness ought to be attractive. Men want a 
 share in almost anything that gives promise of being 
 profitable. Men will work in a powder mill or a 
 dynamite factory, will handle nitro-glycerin or live 
 electric wires, if it seems profitable to do so. Men 
 will work under ground in a coal mine or a sewer, or 
 will stand above ground in the light without working; 
 they will '* strike " for higher wages, and then keep on 
 persistently in the fight, or submit and go back at the 
 old rates, as the one course or the other appears to be 
 profitable — whether it proves so or not. 
 
 If it promises to be profitable, men will start for the 
 Klondike or the Philippines in the autumn, in the face 
 of famine or freezing ; or they will take a seat in a 
 balloon — with a circus performer, or with a man of 
 science, for the next town or for the North Pole. In 
 the hope of finding it profitable, men will manufacture 
 rum or will sell it, will buy lottery tickets, or gamble 
 in stocks, or bet on an election, or a horse-race, or a 
 
 53 
 
54 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 game of football. Burglars will rob a bank, and 
 sometimes bank directors will make terms with the 
 burglars — compound a felony — if it bids fair to be 
 profitable. 
 
 Politicians will say or do almost anything, — take 
 double pay, or give back what they have taken ; vote 
 to increase appropriations, or to reduce allowances; 
 favor gold or silver or currency, or all three together, 
 as the standard of values ; approve or denounce civil 
 service reform ; work to send a party leader to the 
 penitentiary or to the national capital ; or talk one 
 way and vote another, — according to the prospect of 
 profitableness in so doing. 
 
 Most of the hard work, and the folly, and the crime 
 of the world are the result of the desire to do what is 
 profitable. No such question as, Is it pleasant ? or, Is 
 it easy ? or. Is it right ? bears comparison, in potency 
 and universal application in the business of everyday 
 life, with the question. Is it profitable? When, there- 
 fore, the sure word of God calls attention to a thing 
 as " profitable," it ought to have the ears of every- 
 body ; for whatever is really profitable we all want to 
 know about. 
 
 But what does God's word say is profitable ? " God- 
 liness is profitable." Godliness is God-likeness, being 
 like God, being and doing as God would have us to 
 be and to do. Jesus Christ showed in his life what it 
 is to be godly, to be God-like. His example is a guide 
 for our conduct if we would have godliness; and such 
 godliness is, we are assured, profitable. Godliness, 
 
Gain of Godliness 5 5 
 
 as right being and right doing, is declared to be 
 profitable. Profitable unto ivhat? Profitable how 
 far? Profitable unto all things. That is the assur- 
 ance. It could not be more sweeping, — "unto all 
 things ; " no limitations of any sort, — unto the utter- 
 most, unto all things. 
 
 There are many investments which pay in some 
 things, but not in others. Mere " bodily exercise," 
 the Bible tells us in this very connection, " profiteth " 
 a " little." Bicycling and golf have their profitable- 
 ness in their spheres. Eating and drinking, riding 
 and walking, sleeping and waking, talking and reading, 
 are profitable in their way at their time. A good 
 tailor or milliner may be profitable in the department 
 of becoming dress. Making guns and cartridges is a 
 profitable business in war-time or in days of labor 
 riots ; so is the manufacture of coffins in a season of 
 pestilence. Having " a good time " seems more profit- 
 able to a " fast " youth over night than it does the next 
 morning. Living for wealth, or pleasure, or fame, or 
 knowledge, or human love, looks profitable in some 
 aspects of life and for the passing hour ; but no one 
 of these things, nor all these together, can be called 
 profitable unto "all things." 
 
 Only God can give a promise for all things. He 
 says that " godliness " — God-serving, right being and 
 doing — " is profitable unto all things." Who would 
 not have a share in such an investment ? 
 
 But when are these dividends payable ? How soon 
 do the returns of godliness as an investment come in ? 
 
56 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 The text gives a plain answer to these questions. 
 *' GodHness is profitable unto all things, having 
 promise of the life that now is." That is encouraging. 
 The life that now is is an important life to all of us. 
 It is the only life that we know much about practically ; 
 and it is the life that most of us feel most interest in. 
 We should be sorry to have no reward in this life for 
 our best doing and being while it is passing. 
 
 It requires faith and courage and patience to make 
 an investment of one's powers and possessions in an 
 enterprise that gives no promise or hope of any return 
 in one's lifetime. A proffer of that sort would not be 
 attractive to the average man. Yet God's appeals are 
 to the average man, as well as to those above and to 
 those below the average. God does not ask those 
 who toil for him to wait until another life for their 
 best gains. His service gives "promise of the life 
 that now is." 
 
 No earthly service pays more surely or more 
 promptly than God's service. The right way through 
 this life is the best way in this life. Living so as to 
 fit one's self for a higher life pays better here and now 
 than any other kind of living. Even if there were no 
 hereafter, a man would be the gainer here by right 
 being and right doing, — by " godliness." The matter- 
 of-fact world admits this when it says, " Honesty is 
 the best policy." Integrity is always safest for a man. 
 God's laws govern not only the highest interests but 
 the lowest. His " commandment is exceeding broad " 
 (Psa. 119 : 96). 
 
Gain of Godli7tess 5 7 
 
 If a man wants good health, good looks, good 
 temper; if he seeks pleasure, comfort, happiness; if 
 he longs for friendship, love, fame; if he is a lawyer, 
 a physician, an editor, a student, a teacher, a banker, 
 a merchant, a manufacturer, a railroad man, a me- 
 chanic, a day laborer, or a gentleman of elegant 
 leisure (if there is such a man) ; in whatever line he 
 works, or strives, or loafs, or lives, he can best hope 
 for success in the line of God's service and God's 
 laws, — in practical "godliness." In that line there is 
 good reward ; in any other line there is poor reward. 
 " Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the 
 earth : much more the wicked and the sinner " (Prov. 
 II : 31). Godliness is profitable in this life. Ungod- 
 liness is not profitable in this life, even when it pays 
 big dividends. 
 
 I. If a man would be in best pJiysical condition, lie 
 must bring his body nndcr the behests of godliness, as to 
 self-control and abstinence and pnrity. 
 
 "Every man that striveth for the mastery," says 
 Paul, "is temperate [is self-controlled] in all things " 
 (i Cor. 9 : 25), — -puts himself for the time being 
 under godly restraints, in order to obtain some 
 of the profits of godliness. Paul said this to the 
 Corinthians, who in his day had a special interest in 
 athletics, and who knew all that was to be known 
 about them. His statement of fact is as true in our 
 day as it was in his. 
 
 Lovers of indulgence may prate as they please 
 
58 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 about the enjoyableness and healthfulness of a glass 
 of whisky or wine, or a mug of beer, or a refreshing 
 pipe or cigar, but if they were put in training for a 
 boat-race, or for track athletics, or for the highest 
 feats of muscular strength and endurance of nerve in 
 any sphere, they would have to give up stimulants 
 and narcotics, and whatever would tend to weaken or 
 defile a man. 
 
 Men who have made the training and development 
 of the human body their study, and who have money 
 and reputation at stake on the condition of those 
 whom they train, insist on a pure and abstemious life 
 for those whom they are aiding to ** strive for the 
 mastery" in a coming contest, even if they themselves 
 are slaves to sensualism. The captain of a Yale boat 
 crew met one of his oarsmen on the street while they 
 were training for a race. *' Joe," he said, *' you've got 
 a quid of tobacco in your mouth. That won't do. 
 Spit it out. You can't chew tobacco, and row in this 
 race. We can't afford to have you." That captain 
 did not speak as a puritan, but as an athlete. 
 
 Even keen-eyed gamblers, forecasting the issue of 
 a prize-fight, are too knowing to stake their money on 
 a man who has not put himself in " good condition " 
 by practicing in the ways of godliness for a time, so 
 far as his body is concerned, in regard to rum and 
 tobacco and impurity. Foolish boys may not believe 
 this, but wise and observing men do. 
 
 Experience shows that a man's best physical condi- 
 tion is attained through purity and uprightness — in the 
 
Gain of Godliness 59 
 
 realm of godliness. Strength and good looks are 
 prompted by well-doing. Vice scars the face, and dis- 
 figures the outer man. 
 
 " Who hath wounds without cause ? who hath red- 
 ness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; 
 they that go to seek mixed wine " (Prov. 23 : 29, 30). 
 
 Not only red eyes, but sallow faces, and shrunken 
 limbs, and failing health, of older and younger wrong- 
 doers on every side, bear testimony anew to the truth 
 of the inspired declaration that, " If any man defile 
 the temple of God, him shall God destroy ; for the 
 temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (i Cor. 
 3 : 17). Godliness is profitable to man physically. 
 
 2. He zvho zvoiild be in best intellectual shape has to 
 conform to the i^equirevients of a godly life, so as thereby 
 to secure peace of mind, a clear and steady purpose, with 
 highest fitness for the mental duties of his busy present. 
 
 Worry kills more than work. All realize that re- 
 morse is an enemy to repose. Proverbially, " a good 
 conscience gives a soft pillow." ** But the wicked are 
 like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters 
 cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my 
 God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57 : 20, 21). How many 
 times have we seen that inspired declaration verified ! 
 
 The young man who has passed his evening or 
 night in dissipation is not worth as much in his studies 
 or at his business the next day. The clerk who has 
 defrauded his employers cannot fill his place as well 
 as while he was yet innocent, even though he is not 
 
6o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 suspected of wrong-doing. Crime can be covered up 
 from others, but God and the guilty man know it; and 
 it so struggles for expression that it tortures the heart 
 which is striving to hold it in, until insanity or suicide 
 is often a result. A guilt-crippled conscience forbids 
 the freest working of any living man's intellect. At 
 the best, the man is not what he might be, or what 
 he was while he followed the more formal demands of 
 a godly life. 
 
 The doctor who will lie to his patients loses in large 
 measure the power to help his patients by speaking 
 the truth convincingly. The merchant or the clerk 
 who misrepresents his goods is not the best salesman. 
 If a knave is not always a fool, he is always more or 
 less foolish. " The devil always leaves a pair of bars 
 down," is the world's adage, in view of the sure folly 
 of him who is a rascal. In no place is a thoroughly 
 godless man a well-balanced man intellectually. He 
 is not sure to do the best thing for his own interest. 
 
 As a politician, he is liable to mistake the temper 
 of the public he would please, especially where moral 
 issues are at stake. As a speculator, he cannot rightly 
 read the signs of the times, outside of his own sphere 
 of thought and action. As a sharper, he can hardly 
 fall to overreach himself in his plans to cheat others. 
 " His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, 
 and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin " 
 (Prov. 5 : 22). " Righteousness keepeth him that is 
 upright in the way : but wickedness overthroweth the 
 sinner " (Prov. 13 : 6). 
 
Gain of Godlhiess 6 1 
 
 One of the biggest-brained men of the last century 
 in the United States failed to evidence his greatness, 
 or to fill any place for which his intellect fitted him, 
 simply through his lack of that measure of godli- 
 ness which would enable him to see the advantages 
 of a conscience and the practical power of righteous- 
 ness. He was governor of a state, a member of Con- 
 gress, a cabinet officer, a foreign minister; he was 
 nominated for chief justice of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States ; and yet he never commanded a 
 high degree of respect. Most of you before me now, 
 all of the younger generation, would not even recall 
 his name if it were given. The answer as to why he 
 fell short of true greatness, was always, " He only 
 lacked a conscience. He was without godliness, and 
 therefore he was a failure." 
 
 Among the poorest men on earth to-day, — men who 
 feel poor, and whose poverty bears down on them, — 
 are godless men with large bank accounts and no 
 comfort-giving fund of godliness. While they can 
 get whatever money can buy, they must lack mental 
 stimulus, mental nourishment, and mental health, 
 which cannot be bought with money, nor secured or 
 retained without a measure of godliness. 
 
 The richest men in the world are men with little 
 money, but with godly lives and contented spirits; 
 for " godliness with contentment is great gain " 
 (i Tim. 6 : 6). Men who live for self never succeed 
 in satisfying self, or in quite satisfying anybody else. 
 Men who live for others, in Godlike unselfishness, 
 
62 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 have joy themselves while giving joy to others. In 
 every sphere, higher or lower, the man of ripest cul- 
 ture, and the man of smallest mental furnishing, has 
 no real profit in life or its occupations without god- 
 liness of purpose and conduct. And in every one of 
 these spheres, " godliness is profitable " to man's intel- 
 lectual being, in the life that now is. 
 
 J. In his good name and reputation, as in his bodily 
 wholeness and his mental vigor, a man is the gainer 
 through godliness, through a life conformed to God's 
 laws. 
 
 •' A eood name is rather to be chosen " — for the 
 life that now is — '' than great riches " (Prov. 22 : i), and 
 the only sure basis of a good name is integrity — or god- 
 liness. A man, young or old, may deceive others for a 
 time as to his real character, and as to the reputation he 
 ought to bear, but in the long run he will come to be 
 rated at his true value. 
 
 He may hide temporarily a rent in the fabric of life 
 he is weaving, but the time must come when the piece 
 is unrolled in the light, and all its imperfections stand 
 out clearly. " For there is nothing covered, that shall 
 not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known. 
 Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness 
 shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have 
 spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon 
 the housetops" (Luke 12 : 2, 3). 
 
 A good name, a reputation for integrity and godli- 
 ness, is valued not merely among the goodly, but 
 
Gain of Godliness 63 
 
 among those who could not claim it for themselves, 
 and who might not seem to care for it in anybody. 
 The merchant who cheats his customers does not 
 want his clerks to cheat him. A band of robbers 
 would want an honest treasurer. 
 
 Boys who are beginning to smoke, or drink, or 
 gamble, or swear, or go to vile resorts, would be 
 startled if they knew with what censure or contempt 
 they are looked down at by those whose vices they 
 are imitating, — they thinking that they are only for- 
 ward or manly. Boys, on the other hand, who seem 
 to shut themselves off from good companionship, and 
 to be open to the charge of puritanical strictness, 
 might be encouraged if they understood how warmly 
 their better course is commended by those who do far 
 differently. 
 
 I recall a captain in the army, in war time, — the 
 Civil War, I mean, — who was dissolute, foul spoken, 
 a gambler, a drunkard. He scoffed at religion, and 
 reviled its representatives. Yet when his colonel 
 asked him to name men of his company for promo- 
 tion, he sent into headquarters three names, saying in 
 favor of the first two on the list, that they did not 
 draw their whisky rations and would not play cards. 
 He could drink and gamble recklessly himself; but 
 he did not want to trust the lives and interests of a cor- 
 poral's squad of his men with a man of like practices, 
 if he could find a purer man to lead them. The repu- 
 tation of godliness is profitable even among bad men. 
 
 There is no place in this country where godliness — 
 
64 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 in other men — has a higher market value than among 
 the money-changers, and the stock and wheat and 
 sugar gamblers, of Chicago, New York, and Phila- 
 delphia. One reason why so many unprincipled men 
 go among money-changers, or apply for positions of 
 trust, making a show of godliness, and then stealing 
 all they can lay their hands on, is because the reputa- 
 tion of godliness is valued so highly both by the godly 
 and by the godless. Other things being equal, a man 
 can command a higher price for his services in any 
 profession, in any line of business, in any sphere of 
 influence or action, if, besides his special capability for 
 the place, he is known or supposed to have the added 
 qualification of godliness. 
 
 In view of this fact, and of the truth that a man's 
 real worth is sure to be known sooner or later, it may 
 safely be said that a man — young or old — never 
 departs from the line of godliness, never does wrong 
 wittingly, never lowers his moral tone or standard, 
 without lessening correspondingly his power and his 
 reputation for well doing and well being in his best 
 sphere. 
 
 Whatever other qualifications a man possesses, if 
 he be destitute of godliness, if he does not conform 
 to God's requirements for everyday conduct in the 
 present existence, he is at a disadvantage in any 
 honest business or proper profession, alongside of 
 another man equally competent who is godly ; for the 
 inspired declaration of our text is reiterated and 
 freshly verified in the world's experience day by day. 
 
Gain of Godliness 65 
 
 " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 
 The life " which is to come." " Having promise of 
 the life which is to come." It would be sad if eodli- 
 ness gave no promise for the life which is to come, 
 but limited its blessings to the life which is. 
 
 The highest rewards of the best earthly service are 
 commonly in the future. Only on the lowest plane of 
 humanity will a man toil merely for his daily expenses, 
 hving literally " from hand to mouth," with no thought 
 of accumulating profits for use and enjoyment here- 
 after. 
 
 The nobler man is always looking ahead. What- 
 ever he is doing now, he expects to be doing some- 
 thing better by and by. He confidently counts on a 
 steady increase of his wages, and acquirements, and 
 honors. He would, in fact, be worth little for now if 
 he did not have some hope for the future. A youth 
 is not content to be always the errand boy, or the 
 apprentice, or the farm hand, or the clerk, or the 
 freshman. He hopes to rise, and to make progress 
 continually. 
 
 Those places of business or of professional occupa- 
 tion in our large cities which are most sought after by 
 enterprising and ambitious young men, are places 
 which proffer little or no pay to beginners, but which 
 are supposed to fit those who learn and grow for ser- 
 vice in spheres of gain, of influence, and of reputation, 
 in after life. That " which is to come," even in the 
 
66 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 present life, is always counted, by the thoughtful and 
 aspiring man, more important, better worth living for, 
 than the best possessions of the present. 
 
 A college or university life has its profit and ad- 
 vantages to a student, in its associations and com- 
 panionships and opportunities while he is still an 
 undergraduate ; but the best thing that a young man 
 learns while he is an undergraduate is how to learn in 
 higher spheres when he has graduated. It is not the 
 knowledge itself that he gets, but it is the learning 
 how to get and use more knowledge, that is his real 
 gain. And this truth has its application in every 
 phase of the life that now is. 
 
 Years ago our National Sunday-school Convention, 
 which first arranged for our system of International 
 Bible Lessons, was held in Indianapolis. It was a 
 delightful gathering. Before its adjournment, repre- 
 sentative delegates were invited to speak closing 
 words to those who for three days had enjoyed sweet 
 counsel together. Robert Magill, from Belfast, Ire- 
 land, with true Irish wit and keenness said to us : 
 
 "They say that this convention is closing; but I 
 think that it is just beginning now that it is ending; 
 and there'll be more of it after it's done with, than 
 while it was going on." 
 
 That is a truth as to everything that is worth doing 
 in this world, or that is being done well : there will be 
 more of it after it is done with, than while it was 
 going on. God be praised that this is so. 
 
 To God's children everywhere the best is always 
 
Gain of Godliness 6 J 
 
 ahead. Those who yield to the drawings of God's 
 love, and seek to be conformed to his image and to 
 the likeness of his Son in true godliness, can be sure 
 that much as they have had of enjoyment and profit 
 in the past, or now have in the present, they are to 
 have more in the future, — the best is still to come. 
 It is so in " the life that now is," and it is so in the 
 life " which is to come." 
 
 Of the life after death, every man has more or less 
 thought, and every man wants to receive good in that 
 life. He is willing, indeed, to say or to do some 
 things now in the hope that it will yet be found to 
 have been a profitable investment. There are few 
 men who do not at times deny to themselves some 
 pleasure or gratification, or perform some service for 
 others, or make some gift to a good cause, with this 
 hope in mind. And this is, so far as it goes, com- 
 mendable. Even an unjust steward would have the 
 sense to look ahead for his own selfish interests, and 
 that forethought would have divine approval so far. 
 
 But the truth that men generally do not recognize, 
 and that many a child of God fails to appreciate at its 
 fullest, is the truth declared in our text, that the life 
 that is most profitable for now is the life which has 
 largest promise for the hereafter. The life that is, 
 and the life that is to be, are under the one God — 
 ** the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever " (Heb. 
 13 :8); and godliness, or God-likeness, or oneness 
 with God in Christ, hath " promise of the life that 
 now is, and of that which is to come." There is but 
 
68 SJiocs and Rations foj^ a Long March 
 
 one standard for us to conform to in our secular and 
 in our religious life. 
 
 Professor Henry Drummond, who was familiar 
 with Christianity and heathenism, and who had 
 thought much of both the natural world and the 
 spiritual, of the life that is and of that which is to 
 come, said that even if he were satisfied that every 
 one of the heathen would be saved without a knowl- 
 edcre of Christianity, that fact would not lessen in the 
 slightest degree his personal interest in the cause of 
 Christian missions ; for he wanted all the heathen to 
 have the advantage in this life of what only Christ 
 and Christianity could give them. He realized that the 
 character and conduct which gave sure promise for 
 the life that is to come, are the very best — the only 
 ones really worth having — for the life that now is. 
 
 That, in fact, is what our text assures us. The 
 course which has higher reward in the life that now 
 is, is the very course which has highest reward in the 
 life which is to come. If there were to be no life 
 beyond this, we could not do better here and now 
 than to do as we should do if we had the hereafter 
 always in our thoughts. 
 
 I once knew a devoted home missionary who lived 
 always near to God, and who seemed always happy 
 in being with men and in doing for them. The hfe 
 that is, and the life that is to come, were ever together 
 in his mind. He could hardly speak of one without 
 speaking of the other. As he came down from his 
 room in the morning, he would tell gratefully of his 
 
Gain of Godliness 69 
 
 good night's sleep ; he would welcome gratefully the 
 new day; he would refer gratefully to his pleasant 
 surroundings ; and then he would say gratefully, 
 as if summing all together, '* All this, and heaven 
 besides." That's the way to live ! that's the way to 
 feel! 
 
 So it comes to pass that he who is best fitted for 
 the duties and enjoyments of this life is therewith best 
 fitted for the duties and enjoyment of heaven. He 
 who can have joy in the eternal hereafter, has joy in 
 every passing day. He who is not a submissive, 
 trustful child of God, following in the path of duty in 
 true godliness, in true Christ-likeness, is not fully 
 fitted to work on a farm, to be a clerk, to do business 
 for himself, to study, to be married or to live single, 
 or, in fact, to do any good thing anywhere to best 
 advantage. But he who is God's obedient, trustful 
 child, doing and being just what God would have him 
 be and do, can be made most effective and have most 
 joy in his proper earthly sphere here and now, and 
 he shall have gladness and power forevermore; for 
 " godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 
UNIVERSAL LONGING FOR JESUS 
 
IV 
 UNIVERSAL LONGING FOR JESUS 
 
 My army-prison life in Columbia, South Carolina, 
 called on me for fresh and earnest work as a chaplain, 
 even with all its limitations and drawbacks. My only 
 book for study was my little pocket-Bible ; but I found 
 that Bible more suggestive than ever. I had available 
 no notes of previous study to aid me in my preach- 
 ing ; but souls were there for whom I felt responsi- 
 bility, and what they showed of their needs constantly 
 appealed to me. 
 
 I conducted a service of worship, with preaching, 
 every Sunday morning in our officers' quarters. 
 Then, by special permission, I went out into the jail- 
 yard, to preach to the army privates and navy sailors 
 who were prisoners there. Standing on the jail steps, 
 as I talked to the soldiers and sailors before me in 
 the yard, a Confederate officer stood by me to note 
 my words. A Confederate soldier also, with rifle 
 and fixed bayonet, stood by my side to keep me 
 within bounds. These things did not promote free- 
 dom of utterance ; yet they did tend to intensify my 
 feeling on the theme of my preaching. Talks with 
 fellow-prisoners, officers and men, about my subject 
 
 73 
 
74 Shoes a7id Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 of preaching, gave me new points of view and prompt- 
 ings to fresh words. Hence my Columbia hfe was, 
 in a sense, fruitful of sermon-themes. I gained from 
 it, even if no one else did. 
 
 Having preached there on soul-thirst and its satis- 
 fying, I was led to preach on another phase of the 
 same great subject, while pointing out the universal 
 longing for that which only Jesus can supply. Read- 
 ing the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, I found a 
 passage which emphasized this truth. That gave me 
 a new sermon-theme. After I was released from 
 prison, I preached again on that subject before my 
 regiment in St. Augustine, and thus again and again 
 as the subject grew on me, and as, I trust, I grew in 
 appreciation of the important theme. 
 
 One of the later growths from that fruitful germ is 
 here given. 
 
ALL MEN SEEK JESUS 
 
 And when they Jiad fonnd hhn^ they said tmto himy 
 All men seek for thee (Mark i : 37). 
 
 "All men seek for thee!" Seek for whom? 
 Seek for Jesus of Nazareth, the new Prophet of 
 Galilee, the mighty Wonder-worker, the matchless 
 Physician. 
 
 The son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, who 
 for thirty years had lived a quiet and humble life in 
 that Galilean village, suddenly, while away from his 
 home, had been pointed out by the greatest prophet 
 and preacher of the day as God's peculiar represen- 
 tative among men, Israel's Messiah, for whom an ex- 
 pectant world was waiting. Then, while men looked 
 and wondered, this Jesus began to preach and to 
 teach, and to do mighty works of healing and help- 
 ing. His fame spread abroad, in Jerusalem and 
 Judea, and in Galilee and Samaria; and his old neigh- 
 bors and townspeople heard of him with amazement. 
 His name was on all lips. The cures wrought by him 
 were beyond all that had been known before. 
 
 After an absence for a season from his new home 
 in Capernaum, Jesus came back to that city by the 
 sea, and was seen and heard in its synagogue on the 
 
 75 
 
']6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 sabbath day. He spoke with marvelous power. He 
 cast out an unclean spirit from a man demon-possessed. 
 And from the synagogue he went into the home of 
 Peter, and raised up to full health the mother of his 
 disciple Peter's wife, by a touch and a word. Caper- 
 naum thrilled with the wonderful stoiy of this wonder- 
 ful man. "And at even, when the sun did set," — 
 when the close of the sacred day permitted the neces- 
 sary work involved, — "they brought unto him all that 
 were diseased," — in Capernaum, — "and them that 
 were possessed with devils. And all the city was 
 gathered together at the door. And he healed many 
 that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many 
 devils" (Mark i : 32-34). When the night shut in, 
 Jesus ceased for a time his work of healing, and sought 
 in sleep the rest he needed. 
 
 This ministry of good to needy men was costly 
 work for Jesus. All loving service for God or man is 
 expensive to the doer. Jesus never gave a healing 
 touch, or spoke a sympathizing word, or looked a 
 loving look, without an outgiving of his innermost 
 self in the act, and a drain, or a strain, of his God- 
 given forces. And he who was made flesh, in order 
 that he might be touched with the feeling of our 
 infirmities, or weaknesses, became wearied, and must 
 find refreshment in sleep in the intervals of toil, that 
 he might gain new strength for new works of love. 
 
 While Jesus slept in his Capernaum resting-place, 
 many who could not sleep, for pain or for deferred 
 hope, watched anxiously, with heavy eyes and aching 
 
Universal Lo7igi7ig for Jesus 77 
 
 hearts, for the coming dawn, when they might come, 
 or be borne, again into the presence of the mighty 
 Healer, with their plea to him for help and health. 
 
 As for him, his mission was not to them alone, nor 
 was it for the mere cure of bodily disorders. '* In 
 the [early] morning, rising up a great while before 
 day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, 
 and there prayed " (Mark i 135). Before a new day 
 of toil should begin, Jesus must have fresh com- 
 munion with his Father in heaven, and gain fresh 
 strength from above for the fresh outgiving of himself 
 to others. Therefore he rose this early to pray. 
 
 Meanwhile the surging crowd of sufferers in Caper- 
 naum clamored for him at the door of Simon. *' And 
 Simon and they that were with him followed after 
 him. And when they had found him, they said unto 
 him, All men seek for thee." 
 
 Did the disciples of Jesus realize the truth they 
 uttered in that morning hour in Capernaum ? Do we 
 ourselves realize it, in its magnitude and force, as we 
 repeat those words here to-day ? ** All men seek for 
 thee," Jesus of Nazareth ! 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was Jesus the Christ, — the Christ 
 in the promise of whose coming the first sinning man 
 was comforted, and to whom the last of our race 
 must still look as the only source of hope ; the Mes- 
 siah whom the prophets in all ages had foretold, and 
 whose praises the psalmists had sung ; the Saviour 
 whose earthly advent was the grand central fact in the 
 history of the universe, heralded as it was by the 
 
yS Shoes a7td Rations for a Long March 
 
 Angel of the Lord, and rejoiced over by all the 
 ** multitude of the heavenly host." 
 
 " For him swung back the starry bound ; 
 Deepened far up the great profound ; 
 All heaven swept outward at his birth, 
 And naught was narrow but the earth." ^ 
 
 Ah ! It was truer far than the disciples knew, that 
 all men were seeking or were longing for Jesus, as he 
 prayed that morning in the solitary place near Caper- 
 naum. All, everywhere, throughout this sin-cursed 
 and sorrow-burdened world ; hearts heavy with a 
 sense of guilt and grief and sad forebodings, longing 
 for pardon and purity and peace, needing sympathy 
 and comfort and help, aspiring to better things, un- 
 satisfied with what was already theirs, and craving 
 fuller, truer life for themselves and for theirs ; all, all 
 were vainly, vaguely reaching out after that which 
 Jesus, and only Jesus, could meet and supply ; even 
 though the whisper of his precious name had never 
 fallen on their ears. 
 
 And to-day, as then, all, everywhere, are seeking 
 Jesus ; not in every instance seeking him intelligently 
 or consciously, but seeking him, at least instinctively 
 and very really, in that they have wants which he 
 alone can satisfy ; and that they are craving constantly 
 that fulness which it hath pleased the Father should 
 dwell in him. 
 
 This is the truth which I would impress upon you 
 all to-day. 
 
 1 Louisa Bushnell. 
 
Univc7^sal Loiigijig for yesus 79 
 
 /. Even the heathen, in distant lands where no 
 Christian missionary has ever preached of Jestis, are 
 seeking him to-day; and they cannot be satisfied zvith- 
 out him. 
 
 Every heart is human, and every human heart is 
 formed and framed with the capacity of aspiration 
 after God, and of the recognition of his Hkeness when 
 it is presented to them. Jesus was the Desire of all 
 nations before he was born in the manger of Bethle- 
 hem. He came to meet an already existing universal 
 need. The wise men of the East, who came seekine 
 him before they had seen him, were representative of 
 all the outside nations of the earth. And every 
 heathen soul, everywhere, is seeking still the Desire 
 of all nations, with an instinctive longing, — as the 
 helpless new-born babe seeks, in his unconscious cry, 
 the food of nature ; or as the parched lips, in the de- 
 lirium of fever, seek the cool water that the wander- 
 ing intellect cannot ask for. 
 
 They are seeking him in that they need him, and 
 that they crave the results of his redemption. Their 
 every breath of spiritual want is really a soul-aspira- 
 tion after oneness with him in whom " dwelleth all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily " (Col. 2 : 9). God 
 be praised, that man, created in his Maker's likeness, 
 has not, even in his ruin, lost utterly a yearning for 
 restored communion with the divine Father through 
 his only begotten Son ! 
 
 Even human love and sympathy and help are 
 sought by those who never knew them. If you have 
 
8o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 ever visited among the outcast, or have been much in 
 the rescue homes of the slums when new Httle ones 
 were brought in there, you have seen no sight sadder 
 than that of neglected children, with pinched faces, 
 dull eyes, and shrinking frames, who have never seen 
 a look of love, nor heard a word of tenderness, nor 
 felt a kindly touch ; but who, with all their heavy, ach- 
 ing hearts, are longing for that which they have 
 never yet experienced. 
 
 I can never forget the incident which first impressed 
 this truth upon my soul. It was more than fifty years 
 ago. I was in a city mission school as a visitor. The 
 school was in a dingy garret, in an old building by 
 the riverside. A few teachers, and a score or so of 
 ragged boys and girls from the wretched homes of 
 the wretched neighborhood, were gathered there. 
 As I sat, looking on with curiosity and wonder, — for 
 such a sight was new to me, — I saw a boy, all by 
 himself in a corner, more wretched looking, if possi- 
 ble, than any of his fellows. Dirty, ragged, dull and 
 heavy, he seemed scarcely human. His face was 
 badly swollen, as from an inflamed tooth, so as to 
 twist his eyes out of shape ; and he sat listlessly, 
 taking no note of what was going on. 
 
 As I watched hmi, he was trying clumsily to adjust 
 about his face a ragged, filthy bandage that had fallen 
 from its place. Touched with pity, I stepped across 
 the room, and taking the bandage from his hands, 
 with a kindly word to him, I folded it anew, passed it 
 about his swollen cheek, and fastened it above his 
 
Universal Longing for yesus 8 1 
 
 head. As, with another expression of sympathy, I 
 took away my hands, that Httle fellow turned up his 
 distorted face to mine with a look I had never seen 
 the like of before, but having once seen, I could never 
 forget. 
 
 It was a look of surprise and wonder, and half jo}^ 
 half question, as if a result of an utterly new experi- 
 ence in his weary young life. It seemed to say, 
 "What is all this? No hand was ever before laid on 
 me except in roughness or anger. I have learned to 
 shrink and groan and suffer ; but until now I have 
 never known a touch of tenderness or sympathy. Yet 
 how good it is ! This, I suppose, is what I've been 
 longing for." 
 
 That one look was everything to me. It helped to 
 shape my new life-course. And it was the means of 
 that boy's saving. Jesus had sent me there to do 
 just that, and the boy was thus helped to find the 
 Saviour he had before been seeking unconsciously. 
 I have never doubted since then that every needy 
 soul is seeking Jesus. 
 
 Look at the forms of the world's religions, outside 
 of Christianity, to-day. Every one of them shows a 
 seeking after that which Jesus gives, while no one 
 of them proffers a substitute for him as a Saviour. 
 Brahmanism emphasizes the spirituality of God, but 
 it shows no method of approach to the primal Source 
 of all good. Boodhism teaches the wretchedness 
 of sin-cursed man, but it knows no possibility of 
 his redemption. Zoroastrianism tells of a ceaseless 
 
82 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 conflict between good and evil, but it points to no 
 spiritual helper of man in his struggle. Confucianism 
 presents the primal perfection of man as an ideal of 
 aspiration, but it leaves man to toil on toward this 
 ideal unaided and hopeless. So on through all the 
 fal.^e or faulty religions, ruder or more refined. Every 
 outpouring of blood in sacrifice to idol or to fetish is 
 the proffer of substitute life, and the expression of a 
 longing for a common life with Deity ; and every pil- 
 grimage, or penance, or act of devotion in any form, 
 is another indication of the human soul's outreaching 
 for that peace which is found in Christ, and nowhere 
 else in the universe. 
 
 Oh, the cravings of heathen humanity for that which 
 Jesus proffers to all the world to-day ! Oh, the 
 **groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8 : 26) 
 in heathen hearts groping in darkness after him who 
 '' brought life and immortality to light " (2 Tim. I : lo) 
 in his gospel ! God hasten the glad day when to 
 Jesus shall be given 'nhe heathen for" an ''inherit- 
 ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for" a 
 "possession" (Psa. 2:8); when ''all the ends of the 
 earth" will look to him as the Saviour, and "be satis- 
 fied .. . with" his "likeness" (Psa. 17 : 15). What 
 are we doing to bring that day's dawn ? 
 
 2. Meanwhile, not only the heathen, bnt all who in 
 Christian lands are without Christ, or who are not in 
 Christ, are seeking him. 
 
 If the heathen who have never heard of Jesus are 
 
Universal Longing for Jesus 83 
 
 his seekers, much more are they, in any land, who 
 have known of what he proffers, and who have seen 
 the influence of his hfe in the words and ways of his 
 followers. Every man wants moral wdioleness, and 
 knows that he lacks it. None stand complete except 
 in Jesus (Col. 2 : 10). Those who would be whole, 
 are really seekers after him who alone can make them 
 so. They may conceal their seeking from others; 
 they may even refuse to admit it to themselves ; but 
 because their hearts are human, their hearts need, and 
 at times long after, fulness and peace and rest in 
 Christ. 
 
 Ah ! if all breasts were open to the gaze of all, it 
 would be seen that many a seemingly placid bosom 
 covers a troubled conscience and an aching heart, and 
 that many a soul supposed to be unconcerned, and at 
 ease in a Christless life, is in a restless turmoil of im- 
 pulse and indecision. Some of you who hear me 
 now know how my words fit your own case, even 
 though your seat-mate has no thought of this. 
 
 Said a soldier to me, as we talked together of his 
 soul's welfare in my tent before Richmond in war- 
 time : *' I'm a very strange man, Chaplain ! Now that 
 I'm talking with you, I realize the truth of all you 
 say, and I'm not a hypocrite in agreeing to it all. 
 
 *' But I'll go out from your tent, and it'll not be an 
 hour before I've forgotten all about this talk, and am 
 just as wicked and as wild as ever. And I'll not 
 think of religion again until, perhaps, I'm on guard 
 some night. Then, when I'm all by myself, and the 
 
84 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 camp is quiet, as I'm pacing back and forth on my 
 beat, it will all come over me again, and I'll see just 
 what a sinner I am, and how like a fool I've acted ; 
 and I'll resolve that, if only I live until morning, I'll 
 be a very different man. And I'll think that way 
 until the 'relief comes 'round, and I go to the guard 
 quarters again. 
 
 "And then, will you beheve it, Chaplain? it'll not 
 be five minutes before I'm swearing or scoffing as if 
 I'd never had a serious thought in my life. O Chap- 
 lain ! I'm a very strange man, sir ; a very strange man." 
 
 Was that man, after all, so very strange and 
 singular? Did you never know anything like that 
 in another man's experience? 
 
 There are, it is true, some persons who fail to re- 
 cognize, or who refuse to admit, the outreaching of 
 their souls for Jesus, until they are in direst peril or 
 distress. But they are seekers then, if not before. 
 
 *' Do you ever pray, my friend?" I asked of a 
 wounded soldier in the prison hospital in Charleston. 
 "Sometimes, Chaplain," he answered. "I prayed 
 last Saturday night, when we were in that fight at 
 Wagner. I guess everybody prayed then.'' 
 
 Yes, everybody prays at one time or another. 
 
 " O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh 
 
 come," — if not in hope and faith, then in fear and 
 
 despair. 
 
 " ' There is no God,' the foolish saith, 
 But none ' There is no sorrow,' 
 And nature oft the cry of faith 
 In bitter need will borrow : 
 
Universal Lo7iging for yesus 85 
 
 Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 
 
 By wayside graves are raised, 
 And lips say ' God be pitiful,' 
 
 Who ne'er said ' God be praised.' 
 
 Be pitiful, OGod!"» 
 
 Sooner or later, my friend still out of Christ, your 
 voice will be raised to Jesus, in faith or in fear, and 
 you will admit that he is the Saviour you seek. God 
 grant that your prayer may not come too late ! 
 
 J. Those, also, who have known Jesns, a? id zvho 
 have felt the sweet influence of his loving presence, de- 
 sire a closer union with him ; and so are still his seekers. 
 
 True love increases, not lessens, with intimacy. 
 None seek more earnestly in love than they who know 
 most of the joys of loving companionship. Many of 
 those who were seeking Jesus, in that morning hour 
 in Capernaum, had seen and heard him the day before, 
 and therefore sought him again. He who remembers 
 precious interviews with Jesus, longs for others like 
 them. 
 
 You who have, at any time, known the comfort of 
 a sense of the presence of Jesus in your hearts, and 
 have rested for a single hour in his love, cannot be 
 contented if you are for an hour without such peace. 
 You are seekers after its renewal. You who have 
 loved him longest and most, are most desirous of utter 
 oneness of life with him. The more you love him, 
 the more you want to love him more. 
 
 There are no such seekers after Jesus as those who 
 
 1 Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
86 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 have already found him. The constant prayer of 
 every such seeker is : 
 
 " More love to thee, O Christ, 
 
 More love to thee ! 
 Hear thou the prayer I make, 
 
 On bended knee ; 
 This is my earnest plea, 
 More love, O Christ, to thee. 
 
 More love to thee ! " ^ 
 
 If only the seeking after Jesus were as earnest and 
 hearty as it is widespread and ceaseless, more would 
 have success in their finding, whether they have known 
 much of him or little. " Ye shall seek me, and find 
 me," is the promise, ''when ye shall search for me 
 with all your heart" (Jer. 29 : 13). 
 
 ''With all your heart" ! Do you know what that 
 means ? Let me tell you. A soldier who had been 
 long in Southern prisons called at my home after the 
 war. I had met him first while we were prisoners in 
 Charleston jail. Afterwards we were together in the 
 jail at Columbia. He had gone to Belle Island. 
 Three years had passed ; and now, as we met once 
 more, I asked him of his later prison experiences. 
 
 " I don't remember much about it, Chaplain," he 
 said, "only that I wanted bread. I know it was 
 twenty- three months after my capture before I was 
 released ; but after I left Columbia it is all confused 
 in my mind. I know I was at Belle Island awhile, 
 and a long time at Andersonville. 
 
 ^ Mrs. E. P. Prentiss. 
 
Universal Longing for Jesus 87 
 
 " How hungry I was at Andersonville ! For awhile 
 I used to want to hear from home. Then I grew so 
 hungry that I didn't think of home. For awhile I 
 wanted to escape. But by and by I was too hungiy 
 to care for that. I only wanted bread, bread, bread. 
 Oh, how hungry I was ; and how I longed for bread !" 
 
 That, my friends, was longing for bread ''with all 
 the heart," — with one supreme, overmastering desire. 
 Home and friends, and liberty and life, lost sight of, 
 thought of, in the ceaseless craving for needful food ! 
 Blessed are they who do thus hunger after the Bread 
 of Life in Jesus Christ; *'for they shall be filled" 
 (Matt. 5 : 6). 
 
 And now, my fellow-disciples, in view of this truth 
 that all are seeking Jesus, in heathen lands and in 
 Christian lands, what is our duty, what is our responsi- 
 bility, as to bringing a knowledge of Jesus to those 
 who are his seekers, and as to urging his claims upon 
 their love and confidence ? Have we nothing to do 
 in carrying the gospel story to lands where it is yet 
 untold, but where its truths are longed for ? 
 
 " Shall we, whose souls are lighted 
 With wisdom from on high, 
 Shall we to men benighted 
 The lamp of hfe deny ? " ^ 
 
 Is it of no concern to us that some who are by our 
 sides are far away from Jesus, yet are wishing to be 
 near him ? Shall we refuse them our help, in word 
 or deed, because they have never asked our aid ? 
 
 1 Bishop Heber's Missionary Hymn. 
 
88 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Suppose that just here and now, while I am preach- 
 ing in this pulpit, one were to rise up in this congre- 
 gation, and cry out, piteously, " Sirs, what must I do 
 to be saved? " would any of us sit unconcernedly with 
 that call ringing in our ears ? Would not all of us be 
 quick to proffer help or counsel ? I knew of an oc- 
 currence of this very kind. 
 
 It was at the mid-week prayer-meeting of a church 
 in a New England town. It was an ordinary meet- 
 ing, and there were ordinary prayers and ordinary 
 talks being made. Suddenly a man rose up in the 
 back part of the room, who had just slipped in from 
 the street and taken his seat there. In a voice quiver- 
 ing with emotion, and tense with agony of spirit, he 
 spoke out : " My friends ! you all know me. I am a 
 moral wreck. A few minutes ago I was out in the 
 darkness, proposing to put an end to this wretched 
 life of mine. But I saw the light in here, and I said 
 to myself. Cannot the Saviour, to whom they are pray- 
 ing in there, save even me ? So I came in ; and now 
 I ask you to pray for me. I am a lost sinner. Can 
 you help me to the Saviour?" 
 
 The speaker was a man who had stood high in his 
 profession, and in the respect of the community, but 
 who had gone down step by step, through the habit of 
 drink, until he was an object of general pity. And 
 now his agonized cry, "I am a lost sinner. Can you 
 help me to the Saviour? " pierced every heart in that 
 room. 
 
 There were no longer any ordinary prayers, or 
 
Universal Longing for yesus 89 
 
 ordinary talks in tJiat prayer-meeting that evening. 
 One after another, men rose up to pray with and for 
 that man, as if their heart depths were being poured 
 out to Jesus. And then those disciples of the Saviour 
 gathered about that poor sinner, to speak tender and 
 earnest words of encouragement and guidance, and 
 they fairly lifted him up to Jesus on the arms of their 
 love and faith. Yet that man's need was just as great 
 before he cried out for help as afterward. Why did 
 they wait for him to tell them so ? 
 
 The duty of discerning an obvious need is as posi- 
 tive as the duty of supplying a need when it is made 
 known. It is an Oriental saying that *' It is to our 
 shame if a beggar has to ask our help," for we ought 
 to see his need and meet it before he speaks of it. 
 Peculiarly is this true of the need of needs of the 
 human soul for Jesus. When we understand that all 
 are seeking him, we ought to be helping all to find 
 him, without being asked by them to do so. 
 
 Passing up Broadway one day, I saw a group 
 rapidly gathering at a street corner. Pushing my way 
 into the growing throng, I saw a bright-faced child, 
 not above five or six years old. He was well-dressed, 
 and gave eveiy appearance of belonging to a home 
 of refinement. The little fellow had been seen tod- 
 dling along, all alone, in the busy street, and had at- 
 tracted attention as a lost child. Quickly a group had 
 gathered about him in loving interest. 
 
 As I looked down upon the boy in tender sym- 
 pathy, he turned up his face to mine with an expres- 
 
90 Shoes and Rations Jor a Long Maj^ch 
 
 sion of confidence and longing, and reaching out his 
 tiny hand toward me, he said, in a gentle, plaintive 
 voice, " Please, won't you show me my way home? " 
 Instantly that child-like cry for help went to the heart 
 of every looker-on, and I doubt if there was a busy 
 man in all that city throng — certainly not a father 
 there — who wouldn't have dropped everything just 
 then to help that lost child homeward. 
 
 Yet that lost child was just as surely seeking his 
 father's house when his tired feet were pattering along 
 the crowded way, himself unnoticed in the hurr>ang 
 throng, as when his thrilling call for help came up in- 
 to the ears of those who stood about him at the street 
 corner ; and one who had stopped to care for the 
 child before a word was spoken, would have deserved 
 more credit than us all. 
 
 There are many of these lost children seeking their 
 Father's house, in the busy way we travel. Let us 
 show them the way home ! 
 
A SEED SERMON 
 
V 
 
 A SEED SERMON 
 
 My only life as a " settled " pastor was at St. Augus- 
 tine, where I joined my regiment after my release 
 from Libby Prison. Not only my regiment was there, 
 but another regiment of my brigade ; the convalescent 
 camp for officers of the entire Department of the 
 South was there; teachers of the " freedmen " were 
 there, and some prominent civilians from the North ; 
 and there was quite a population of St. Augustine 
 natives remaining, — making in all a considerable popu- 
 lation to be cared for religiously. I was the only 
 Protestant clergyman in the city, as the pastors of the 
 local Protestant churches had gone into the interior 
 on the approach of the Union forces. In this state 
 of things, the military authorities placed the Protestant 
 churches at my disposal, and I did the best I could to 
 meet the existing needs. 
 
 We had church services both morning and evening. 
 We had a Sunday-school in the afternoon, and there 
 were meetings to be looked after at different hours in 
 the gathering places of the newly-emancipated freed- 
 men. We had also mid-week prayer-meetings, and 
 we had at times special services, including the celebra- 
 
 93 
 
94 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 tion of the Lord's Supper. That was a portion of my 
 life that I hope I profited by. My opportunities were 
 certainly rich and important. 
 
 One of the subjects that we really had to consider 
 was the absolute certainty of reaping according to the 
 sowing. Both in the North and in the South, among 
 'the whites and the blacks, there was being gathered a 
 harvest that had been long before sowed for. And in 
 the fields of both good and evil there was seed being 
 sown before my eyes continually, beyond the realiza- 
 tion or thought of the sowers. Therefore a theme 
 that for the time impressed me, and that I sought to 
 impress on those of my charge, was the certainty of 
 reaping what one has sown. 
 
 I wrote and preached a sermon on that subject, and 
 the subject and sermon proved to be a germ for future 
 growth. I repeated it in various forms in different 
 fields of army life. After the war I preached on 
 the subject in civil life, especially before the young in 
 boarding-schools and colleges near and far. One 
 phase of that preaching is here given. It is a good 
 thought for to-day. 
 
SEED-SOWING AND GROWING 
 
 Be not deceived ; God is not mocked: for zuhatsocvcr 
 a man sozveth, that shall he also reap (Gal. 6 : 7). 
 
 Only God is never mocked, never deceived, never 
 misled by appearances. We can deceive others. We 
 can deceive ourselves. But we cannot deceive God. 
 
 Self-deception is, in fact, a great deal commoner, 
 and a great deal easier, than self-knowledge. Who 
 of us can say that he is perfectly clear and plain to 
 himself? that concerning himself he cannot be de- 
 ceived ? 
 
 " What am I, and how ? If reply there be, 
 
 In unsearchable chaos 'tis cast. 
 Though the soaring spirit of restless man 
 Might the boundary line of the universe scan, 
 And measure and map its measureless plan,— 
 
 The gift of self-knowledge were last ! " ^ 
 
 Moreover, it is a great deal commoner, and a great 
 deal easier, for us to deceive our fellows than it is for 
 us to disclose ourselves to our fellows. 
 
 No human being ever fully understood another 
 human being. Parents cannot read the hearts of 
 their own children. Husbands and wives can be one 
 
 1 Frances Ridley Havergal. 
 
 95 
 
g6 Shoes and Rations for a Lojig March 
 
 in everything else rather than in an inter-knowledge 
 of each other's hearts. Brothers and sisters are, at 
 the closest, strangers to the real inner selves of their 
 brothers and sisters. And the best of human friends, 
 in spite of all their love and longing, often misunder- 
 stand and are misunderstood by one another, some- 
 times in the vo-xy things and at the very points where 
 most they strive after an absolute revealing. 
 
 " We hold our dear ones with a firm, strong grasp ; 
 We hear their voices, look into their eyes; 
 And yet, betwixt us in that clinging clasp, 
 A distance lies." ^ 
 
 " The heart knoweth his own bitterness ; and a 
 stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy" (Prov. 
 14 : 10). "Walls of adamant,' says one, "could 
 not more effectually separate us from direct spiritual 
 communing than the state in which God has created 
 us." He, therefore, who boasts that he can read his 
 fellows through and through, shows how thoroughly 
 he is deceived in this supposing that he cannot be 
 deceived. Only He who made the heart of man 
 knows the heart of man, and needeth not that any 
 should testify of man, because he knows what is in 
 man, and what man is (John 2 : 24, 25). 
 
 So " God is not mocked," is not deceived. He 
 knows the work of his own hands : " Neither is there 
 any creature that is not manifest in his sight : but 
 all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of 
 him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4 : 13). 
 
 1 Elinor Gray. 
 
A Seed Sermon 97 
 
 "The Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for man looketh 
 on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on 
 the heart" (i Sam. 16 : 7). And just in proportion 
 as the All-knowing One discloses his knowledge of 
 his creatures to his creatures, do any of his creatures 
 know their fellows or know themselves. "The secret 
 things belong unto the Lord our God : but those 
 things which are revealed belong unto us and to our 
 children for ever" (Deut. 29 : 29). 
 
 Our text gives us the key to most of our knowledge 
 of all that breathes or lives. God, who is never de- 
 ceived, wills that the inner being of his creatures shall 
 be shown outwardly in the reproduction after its kind, 
 of every sentient being, and living thing, and vital 
 thought, in nature. " Ye shall know them by their 
 fruits" (Matt. 7 : 16). "Whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap." The fruit that is proves the 
 seed that was. 
 
 From the beginning this has been God's law. At 
 the creation, " God said, Let the earth bring forth 
 grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yield- 
 ing fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon 
 the earth : . . . the living creature after his kind, cattle, 
 and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his 
 kind: and it was so" (Gen. i : 11, 24). And so it 
 has been, and still is. " Can the fig tree, my brethren, 
 bear olive berries ? either a vine, figs?" (J as. 3 : 12.) 
 " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 
 Even so eveiy good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but a 
 corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit" (Matt. 7 : 16, 17). 
 
98 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 The appearance of a tree may deceive the eye ; 
 but its fruit will prove its quality and inner life beyond 
 a question. Many might mistake the leaf and the 
 flower of the bitter orange for those of the sweet 
 orange ; but no one would mistake the fruit of the 
 one for the other, in their tasting. Roasted peas 
 have been palmed off for coffee in the grocery store 
 and in the boarding-house, but what manipulation 
 would make a planted pea bring forth a Java coffee 
 bush ? There is a kind of darnel, or rye grass, called 
 by the botanists lolmni murbmni, or "mouse-rye," 
 because it so counterfeits the real grain that the very 
 mice are deceived by it. But would a kernel of that, 
 in the richest soil, ever produce the other ? No ! 
 Mice or men may be deceived, but " God is not 
 mocked." 
 
 God orders nature in all her processes, and con- 
 forms her to his eternal laws. ''Whatsoever [seed] a 
 man soweth, that [and that alone, stalk and leaf, and 
 flower and fruit, each after its kind] shall he also 
 reap." 
 
 As in the lower forms of animate life, so also in the 
 higher. As in matter, so in mind. Elements of 
 taste, peculiarities of temper, habits of thought and 
 word and conduct, are all of them germinal and repro- 
 ductive, bringing forth in their development ever 
 after their kind; ''first the blade, then the ear, after 
 that the full corn in the ear" (Mark 4 : 28). 
 
 The boy Galileo, studying the theoiy of the spin- 
 ning-tops his playfellows were whipping on the school- 
 
A Seed Sermon 99 
 
 grounds, was sowing the seeds of philosophical dis- 
 covery he later reaped so richly. David Wilkie, 
 sketching before he could read, and beginning to paint 
 before he could spell, drawing his schoolmates' por- 
 traits for two marbles or an apple each ; James Fer- 
 guson, as a shepherd's boy, on his back in the open 
 field by night, measuring the distances between stars 
 on a string of beads ; Napoleon, wakening the echoes 
 of the Corsican grotto with the explosions of his toy 
 cannon ; and Garfield, drinking in a love of country 
 and a longing for high achievement from the rude 
 ballads of the war of 1 8 1 2, sung to him by his dear 
 old mother in his childhood's border home ; all of 
 these were sowing seeds of taste and acquirement and 
 action, to bring forth fruit in due season, each ** after 
 
 his kind." 
 
 Fairy tales, read with wonderment and delight in 
 early childhood, color, through their reproduction, the 
 adult imagination, often with reference to ordinary 
 home life or social relations ; while the ghost stories 
 heard in the nurseiy, or in the kitchen, are seeds of 
 terror and superstition which are fruitful in later life, 
 even in minds well stored and cultivated otherwise. 
 And so the whole field of the intellect is filled in ac- 
 cordance with the law of sowing and growing. 
 
 Similarly, also, the soul is supplied. Moral quali- 
 ties have germs, — germs which bring forth fruit, each 
 after its kind. Our first parents sowed, in Eden, for 
 the race, the seeds of unbelief and disobedience when 
 they distrusted God's word and violated his com- 
 
I oo Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 mand ; and in the hearts of all their descendants the 
 fruit of that sowing is manifest to-day. Timothy, the 
 youthful bishop, showed in his "faith unfeigned" (i 
 Tim. I : 5), and in his other fitness for the great work 
 assigned him, how carefully good seed was sown in 
 his heart ** from a child" (2 Tim. 3 : 15), when he 
 learned the lessons of Holy Scripture from the lips 
 and lives of mother and grandmother, — lessons of 
 obedience and fidelity and faith. And so it has been 
 ever since. 
 
 "A wonderful thing is a seed! 
 
 The one thing deathless forever, — 
 
 The one thing changeless, utterly true, 
 
 Forever old, and forever new, 
 And fickle and faithless never. 
 
 "Plant blessings, and blessings will blow; 
 
 Plant hate, and hate will grow. 
 You can sow to-day ; to-morrow shall bring 
 The blossom that proves what sort of thing 
 
 Is the seed, the seed that you sow." 
 
 ''Be not deceived," nor think you can deceive 
 God. "God is not mocked — for whatsoever a man 
 soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 The fruit of sown seed will ever be reaped in ki)id, 
 but not in degree, with its planting. The botanist 
 Ray counted 2,000 grains of Indian corn on a plant 
 sprung from one seed ; 4,000 seeds on one plant of 
 sunflower; 32,000 seeds on a single poppy plant, and 
 36,000 seeds on one plant of tobacco. 
 
 You will notice in this exhibit that the meaner the 
 
A Seed Sermon loi 
 
 stock the bigger the crop. Tobacco propagates 
 eighteen times as fast as Indian corn. That is the 
 way of the world — as the world is. And here is an 
 added reason why we should look well to the seed 
 planted. 
 
 It has been shown that, at the rate of multiplica- 
 tion evidenced of a single bean, the third year's 
 growth of a bean would amount to nearly 43,000,000 
 bushels ; and that in eight years as much corn might 
 spring from one seed as would supply all mankind 
 with bread for a year and a half 
 
 The planted acorn springs up, not a single acorn, 
 but an oak, which shall bear ten thousand times ten 
 thousand acorns, and still the end is not. The *' hand- 
 ful of corn in the earth upon the top of the moun- 
 tains " is multiplied until '' the fruit thereof shall shake 
 like Lebanon" (Psa. 72 : 16); and the bread cast upon 
 the waters (Eccl. 11 : i) is found after many days, not 
 as it was scattered, ** bare grain " (i Cor. i 5 : 37)> but 
 in the waving expanses of vast fields of golden ears. 
 
 In the mental and moral spheres, likewise, the fruit, 
 in thought and act, is in many-folded reproduction of 
 that which in kind was sown. As it has been said : 
 ** Sow an act, and you reap a habit ; sow a habit, and 
 you reap a character ; sow a character, and you reap 
 a destiny." 
 
 "The lad puffing at a bit of lighted rattan or twisted 
 paper, in imitation of the genteel smoker, is sowing 
 seed which is in hai^vest when the strong man with 
 sodden brain and disordered digestion, or with can- 
 
I02 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 cered lips, is, in the sight of all eyes but his own, the 
 slave unto death of his love of tobacco. The little 
 fellow W'ho just a few times plays marbles " for keeps," 
 or the youth who occasionally invests in a raffle at a 
 church fair, sow^s seed \vhich finds fruitage when the 
 excited gambler stakes his wrecked fortune, his char- 
 acter, and his very soul, on the throw of the dice or 
 the turn of the cards, in his last hopeless venture of 
 
 chance. 
 
 Seed-planting and harvest stand over against each 
 other in the boy who shows meanness in dividing a 
 school lunch, or in refusing the use of his bat, or sled, 
 or bicycle to his playfellow, and the close-fisted miser 
 whose heart is shut against eveiy call of the needy 
 for help or sympathy ; in the child at the family din- 
 ner, sipping claret or home-made wane (such home- 
 made wine as made Noah so disgracefully drunken) 
 (Gen. 9 : 20, 21), and the hopeless sot on his way, 
 through the gutter, to the drunkard's grave and hell ; 
 in the free use of boyish slang, and the impious utter- 
 ances of the blasphemer ; in the first over-stepping 
 the bounds of modesty, and the terrible end of the 
 libertine or prostitute ; in the early neglect of God's 
 house and word, with jokes over sacred themes, and 
 the gloomy lot of the dark-browed infidel. 
 
 Oh ! there is a world of truth in one of the blunt 
 satirical suggestions of a slang-writer of our day : 
 " Boys, if you want a sure crop, and a big yield, sow 
 wild oats!"' 
 
 ijosh Billings. 
 
A Seed Sermon 103 
 
 He who soweth the wind "shall reap the whirl- 
 wind " (Hos. 8 : 7). The buried dragon's teeth in 
 the fable sprang up not teeth merely, but armed men 
 ready for the fight So of every element of evil in 
 the soul, — the reproduction in augmented force and 
 reach is as sure as is its reappearance after its kind. 
 
 The boy Nero, of such native gentleness that he 
 sheds tears over the sufferings of insect life (and even 
 at the last he has an unknown friend to strew flowers 
 on his bloody grave), has seed of blackest crime sown 
 in his heart by his mother's guilty example. He is 
 but seventeen when she murders her husband, his 
 father ; and so rapidly does that seed of crime fructify, 
 that only five years later he foully murders that 
 mother, whom he once loved with tenderness, and he 
 is yet but twenty-seven when he fiddles over burning 
 Rome, and lights up his palace garden with the blazing 
 bodies of living Christians. 
 
 And lovely traits grow, as do those which are ab- 
 horred, although the native soil of the human heart 
 is less favorable to these, and they require more care 
 in their cultivation. 
 
 Love for a good mother — grateful, tender, trustful 
 love — planted in a son's heart when his mother is all 
 the world to him, and he sits by her knee, having 
 never known doubt of the pure and the good, nor ex- 
 perienced the world's cold selfishness, is the germ of 
 love to others, and of confidence in the better instincts 
 of his fellows' hearts ; or it may even be the germ of 
 belief in his mother's religion,— to bring forth duly in 
 
1 04 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 precious fruitage. Said Richard Cecil, of his coldest 
 days of unbelief: "There was one argument I could 
 never get over, — the influence and life of a godly 
 mother." And that one good seed retained its vital 
 power through years of seeming death, even as the 
 grains of wheat, enwrapped in the cerements of the 
 mummy, have been said to germinate and bear fruit 
 after thirty centuries in the tombs of Egypt. 
 
 Two centuries and more ago, on the banks of the 
 Isis, a seed of love for truth, and of devotion to con- 
 science, and of adherence to honest dealings with 
 and to peaceful measures toward all men, and of un- 
 compromising fidelity to religious freedom, was sown 
 by a Quaker preacher in the mind of a gay and pleas- 
 ure-loving English youth, at that time a student in 
 Oxford University. Twenty years later that youth 
 was in the American wilderness, on the banks of the 
 Delaware, broadcasting the fruitage of that seed ; 
 and to-day our City of Brotherly Love, in its pride and 
 beauty and far-reaching influence, and our mighty 
 commonwealth, with its matchless record of unham- 
 pered civil and religious liberty during the now com- 
 pleted two centuries of its history, are but the begin- 
 nings of the endless harvest of that single grain of 
 good. ^ 
 
 To-day we joy in the product of that planting by 
 William Penn, when in toil and in prayer for us and 
 for ours his heart-cry was : ** And thou, Philadelphia, 
 the virgin settlement of this province, named before 
 
 ^ This sermon was preached on Philadelphia's Bi-Centennial celebration. 
 
A Seed Sermon 105 
 
 thou wert born, — what love, what care, what service, 
 and what travail has there been to bring thee forth, 
 and preserve thee from such as would abuse and 
 defile thee ! My soul prays to God for thee, that 
 thou may'st stand in the day of trial, that thy children 
 may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by 
 his power." ^ 
 
 And here in the home of William Penn, the same 
 law of seed-planting and harvest-bearing is still oper- 
 ative, in lesser things as in larger ; and that which 
 seems least at the start may show itself large in its 
 results. 
 
 The little girl, tending carefully her doll, watching 
 over it in its imaginaiy illness, and keeping its every 
 tiny article of dress in neatness and repair, is sowing 
 the seeds of motherly gentleness and devotion, and 
 of matronly skill and efficiency, to bear abundant 
 harvest in another home circle in the coming years. 
 And the child in the Sunday-school, encouraged to 
 deny itself some craved luxury to aid a missionary in 
 the home or foreign field, or the group of little folks 
 planning ways and means of securing help to a needy 
 family, will be likely to exhibit the fruit of such seed- 
 sowing in an enlarged interest in benevolent opera- 
 tions of every kind for God's glory and man's welfare 
 when childhood's day are over. 
 
 " The secret is deeper than we can read, — 
 But we gather the grain if we sow the seed." "^ 
 
 '' Whatsoever a man soweth, ///<^/ shall he also reap." 
 
 1 William Penn, 1684. "^ Lucy Larcum. 
 
1 06 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 It shall bring forth fruit abundantly, " some thirty- 
 fold, some sixty, and some a hundred " (Mark 4 : 20). 
 
 Think of this, you who oversee the young, — parent, 
 teacher, friend, — in its bearings on the future of those 
 given into your charge ! 
 
 When you note in them the beginnings of evil, — 
 indolence, irresolution, selfishness, ill-nature, disobedi- 
 ence, impurity, irreverence, sinful indulgence of any 
 kind, — do not look upon these things as faults seen 
 already at their worst, and which must be accepted as 
 the inevitable flaws and failures of poor human na- 
 ture ; but realize that they are poisonous germs, with 
 life and propagative power, to multiply and increase 
 after their kinds, to gain steadily in strength and 
 reach, to take a new hold in new places daily, even 
 as the branches of the banyan dip to earth to root 
 themselves anew, and thus to cause the outstretching 
 limbs to cover and contain the whole plain, in the 
 centre of which the tree stood solitary and compact 
 at first. 
 
 Unless you would welcome the harvest from these 
 seeds of evil, you should spare no pains and spurn no 
 help in the time of seed-sowirg. Do not think that 
 " boys must be boys," and that "■ girls must be girls," 
 in the sense that every boy must be permitted to have 
 the ways of bad boys, or that every girl must be tol- 
 erated in the follies of thoughtless and ill-trained 
 girls. Nor count it probable that a crop of evil habits 
 will run themselves out of a young person's heart- 
 soil. "Wild oats " and "Canada tHistles " never run 
 
A Seed Sermon 107 
 
 out. Everything in nature tends to their nurture and 
 development. 
 
 Whether you desire the harvest or not, your chil- 
 dren are sowing for one. 
 
 " Ah ! some are sowing the seeds of pain, 
 Of late remorse, and a maddened brain ; 
 And the stars shall fall, and the sun shall wane, 
 Ere they root the weeds from their soil again. 
 Dark will the harvest be ! " 
 
 And when you, young man or young woman, — or 
 man or woman of any age, — are tempted to depart 
 from the right in the smallest matter, or to begin a 
 course you would dislike as a fixed habit, understand 
 that in such departure or such beginning a seed is 
 planted which will many-fold itself, and then must be 
 reaped. 
 
 You may spend only a trifle more than you earn ; 
 may waste only a few hours daily in idling ; may de- 
 fraud only a railroad company or other rich corpora- 
 tion, and that only in a v^ry small amount ; may be 
 dishonest or untruthful in only one of a hundred petty 
 ways which the world winks at ; may violate the law 
 of purity only in what seems hardly worth noting ; 
 may deceive or wrong only a child ; may break only 
 the least of God's commandments, and teach men so, — 
 and in all this you may give no occasion for public 
 scandal. Can any great harm come from this ? Ah ! 
 my friend, ** Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : 
 for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 "That shall he also reap ! " Mark that, will you ? 
 
1 08 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 Every man must reap his own crop. Not only shall 
 the seed grow and multiply, but the fruit shall be 
 gathered by him who planted the seed. "Who plant- 
 eth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? " 
 (i Cor. 9:7.) " The recompense of a man's hands 
 shall be rendered unto ///;;/" (Prov. 12 : 14). "To 
 him thatsoweth righteousness shall be a sure reward " 
 (Prov. II : 18). And " He that soweth iniquity shall 
 reap vanity" (Prov. 22 : 8). 
 
 The seed once sown, and the crop follows. Regret 
 for the sowing will not avert the necessity of reaping. 
 When the tares are rooted, they will grow with the 
 wheat "until the harvest" (Matt. 13 : 30). Not until 
 those tares have been gathered in, can they be burned 
 from sight forever. 
 
 Esau, having profanely bartered his high birthright 
 for a mess of pottage, afterward, when he bewailed 
 his folly, and would fain have secured a reversal of 
 the consequences, "found no place of repentance," — 
 no place of such repentance as would restore him his 
 lost possession, — " though he sought it carefully with 
 tears " (Heb. 12: 17). He had sown. He must reap. 
 
 David was bitterly sorrowful over his double crime 
 against Uriah ; but the sword he had taken to cut off 
 a trusting and devoted follower never departed from 
 his house while he lived. He was a man of blood 
 and a sufferer from treachery thenceforward until his 
 death (2 Sam. 12:9-13). The crop he sowed for 
 must be reaped, even though its sowing was repented 
 of and forgiven. 
 
A Seed Ser7non 1 09 
 
 So always. Forgiven sins have their earthly fruit- 
 age. Regeneration does not give a man a new eye, 
 or a new arm, if he has lost one through some early 
 trangression. Nor does it restore to him the primitive 
 delicacy of tastes he has perverted, and the pristine 
 vigor of moral senses he has blunted. 
 
 Says quaint and godly old Thomas Fuller : *' Lord, 
 how come wicked thoughts to perplex me in my 
 prayers, when I desire and endeavor only to attend 
 thy service ? Now, 1 perceive the cause thereof; at 
 other times I have willingly entertained them, and 
 now they entertain themselves against my will. I 
 acknowledge thy justice, that what formerly I have 
 invited, now I cannot expel. 
 
 " Give me, hereafter, always to bolt out such ill- 
 guests. The best way to be rid of such thoughts in 
 my prayers, is not to receive them out of my prayers." 
 Or, in other words, the better way to avoid such reap- 
 ing is to change the style of sowing. 
 
 Lord, deliver us from tares and their accursed crop ! 
 Lord, keep us from sowing that which we wish not to 
 reap ! The daily struggles of some of God's dear chil- 
 dren with habits of thought and modes of speech and 
 impulses of action, fastened on them in days of bit- 
 terly-repented misdoing, can never be conceived by 
 those who were spared the sorry sowing of seeds of 
 flesh and folly. 
 
 Nor does the harvest of character end with the life 
 that now is. There is no sccd-soiving beyond the 
 grave, but the sheaves of earth's fields are finally 
 
no Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 stored in the garners of eternity. '* For we must all 
 appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every 
 one may receive the things done in his body, accord- 
 ing to that he hath done [in the seed-sowing line], 
 whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. 5 : 10). 
 
 Follow men, if you will, down through their earthly 
 lives, and note the signs of the coming harvest as 
 they approach eternity's verge, if you would see 
 whether or not their experiences tend, invariably, to 
 the confirmation of this explicit and unqualified dec- 
 laration of the word of God. 
 
 Nothing is reaped in eternity but was sowed for 
 in time. And a dying man is no more likely than 
 a man in full health to begin good seed-sowing. If 
 the voice of God were to sound audibly in this house 
 this evening, saying, " In one hour from now, every 
 soul here must stand at my Judgment Bar," I believe 
 that few if any of you who are nov/ unprepared for 
 eternity would be ready at the hour's close. You 
 would doubtless pray for a good harvest ; but would 
 you plant for it? If you think you would do good 
 planting then, wJiy not 7ioiv ? 
 
 I have stood by very many dying men, my friends, 
 — not merely men dying of disease, so that their hold 
 on life was relaxed almost imperceptibly, but in my 
 army chaplaincy I stood by men dropping out of 
 full health with mortal wounds, or men brought in 
 unabated vigor to kneel by their open graves, face to 
 face with their military executioners, — but I never yet 
 saw in any dying man's experience any seeming con- 
 
A Seed Sermon 1 1 1 
 
 tradiction of God's law of germ and growth and 
 product in the soul. 
 
 Ten times I have been with men going out to be 
 shot or hanged for crime. Surely if any external 
 circumstances could change a man's character, it 
 would be when the hour of his death was fixed, and 
 a limited season was given him to prepare for eter- 
 nity. If ever he would show love for a better crop 
 than that of his planting, it would be in such an 
 emergency. But I have found men at a time like 
 this giving plainest evidence of the harvest for which 
 they had long been sowing. 
 
 Serious they all were, and ready to look the future 
 in the face. Some were in an agony of remorse, and 
 cried out in bitterness of soul at the thought of what 
 was before them. But, mark you, praying against a 
 harvest is not in itself planting for one. Some who 
 tried to devote themselves to preparations for eternity, 
 showed, in spite of their best efforts, more real inter- 
 est in what they were to eat and drink at their last 
 meal on earth than in the whole plan of salvation. 
 They could even bring themselves to believe — nov/ 
 that die they must — that without any new seed-sowing 
 they would have another harvest than the one for 
 which they had so long been making ready. They 
 could deceive themselves, but God was not mocked ; 
 that which they had sown, they were now to reap. 
 
 My first experience with a man who was to be 
 hanged impressed this truth on me. It was a soldier 
 who had killed a comrade in cold blood. On the day 
 
1 1 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 of his execution I was with him in the provost-mar- 
 shal's quarters in a Virginia camp, seeking to prepare 
 him for death. He was to start out for the gallows at 
 two o'clock. At about twelve a soldier of his com- 
 pany brought him his noon rations for the day. As 
 the man entered the tent with the food, I was kneel- 
 ing in prayer with the condemned man. At the in- 
 terruption he looked up, and, seeing the food, he was 
 at once interested. Enjoyment in prayer he had not 
 sown for, but a love of eating and drinking he had 
 been sowing for all his life. Running his eye over 
 the things brought in, he said, in a tone of disap- 
 pointment : 
 
 "Can't I have some cheese? I had some cheese 
 yesterday." 
 
 His comrade, seemingly shocked at this interest in 
 such a matter on the verge of eternity, replied : 
 
 *' I suppose I can get you some cheese," and he 
 hurried off after it. When it was brought, the con- 
 demned man took the cheese and the pork and the 
 bread, and his tin cup of coffee, and in his last hours 
 on earth he seemed to have as much interest in this 
 latest reaping of his life-harvest as ever before. 
 When every morsel of his rations was eaten he wiped 
 the pork grease from his lips with his coat sleeve, and 
 then turned to me and said : 
 
 " Now I'm ready for you, Chaplain, to pray with 
 
 me again." 
 
 Yet, when the guard came to escort him to the 
 gallows, he added in evident sincerity : 
 
A Seed Sermon 1 1 3 
 
 " I wish they'd give me a swig o' whisky, to brace 
 me before they trice me up." 
 
 Could there be any doubt as to what that man had 
 sowed, and of which he was now to reap the hai-vest ? 
 " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatso- 
 ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 This truth of our text, my friends, is God's truth, 
 and a terrible truth it is to the sinner ! What hope is 
 there in it — or out of it — to you and to me ? We 
 have done some sorry seed-sowing in our day. Must 
 we reap the harvest accordingly ? Who, then, can be 
 
 saved ? 
 
 Ah ! there is an earthly seed-sowing that brings a 
 heavenly harvest. Good seed — seeds of love and 
 obedience and trust — planted in the blood-moistened 
 earth at the foot of the cross can start a vine which 
 shall twine its tendrils around that cross, and find its 
 way up and up, until it reaches through the clouds, 
 to bear precious fruit before the Throne eternally. 
 
 The choice is between that seed-sowing and all 
 others. ** He that soweth to his flesh " — he whose 
 deeds of good and ill are of the flesh and for the 
 flesh, limited in their plan to himself and to his fel- 
 lows and to the life that now is — '* shall of the flesh 
 reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit" — 
 whose heart-soil is softened and opened and sown by 
 the Holy Spirit— " shall of the Spirit "—by the Holy 
 Spirit's power — "reap life everlasting" (Gal. 6 : 8). 
 
 ''The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
 
1 14 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 perance : against such there is no law" (Gal. 5 : 
 22, 23), and to such there is no end, no death. 
 He who brings to the final harvest the fruits of the 
 Spirit, by faith, has thenceforward freedom from the 
 tares and weeds which grew with the good fruit until 
 that harvest. 
 
 " Sower Divine ! 
 
 Sow the good seed in me ; 
 
 Seed for eternity. 
 
 'Tis a rough, barren soil, 
 
 Yet, by thy care and toil, 
 
 Make it a fruitful field, 
 
 An hundredfold to yield. 
 Sower Divine, 
 Plough up this heart of mine ! "^ 
 
 1 Horatius Bonar. 
 
CHARACTER SURELY DISCLOSED 
 
VI 
 
 CHARACTER SURELY DISCLOSED 
 
 After my regiment came back from Appomattox 
 Court House at the collapse of the Confederacy, 
 we were for several months stationed a short distance 
 above Richmond, engaged in duties incident to the 
 close of the long war. And then there were trying 
 phases of army life. Of course, it was more difficult 
 to keep up a high standard of zeal or morals or cour- 
 asre amone either officers or men. The moral stand- 
 ard is generally higher among soldiers in active 
 service than among civilians in the community from 
 which the soldiers have come ; but when the neces- 
 sity for active service ceases among soldiers, it is a 
 different matter. 
 
 With an inevitable letting down of the strictest dis- 
 cipline inside the camp, there was an absence of such 
 pressure from enemies outside as existed in war-time, 
 and outside temptations to officers and men were 
 greatly increased. In consequence the breaches of 
 morality multiplied. Yet nominally there was the 
 same strictness as to presences and absences, and as 
 to keeping within specified bounds, and as to the 
 necessity of having permission to leave camp at any 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 time, as when we were before the enemy. The in- 
 creasing demoralization was a cause of regret to mc, 
 and I knew it was my duty to do what I could to 
 check it, and to change the tone and current in the 
 regiment. 
 
 I found that not unnaturally in our camp, as else- 
 where, it was generally felt to be more of a mistake 
 to be found out in a breach of discipline or any mis- 
 demeanor, than to do a similar wrong that was con- 
 cealed. Therefore, among other sermons at that time, 
 I preached one on the sure uncovering of character, 
 or the certainty of wrong-doing being ultimately 
 found out. Among incidental illustrations of my 
 theme I gave this : 
 
 "An officer may slip unobserved through the guard- 
 line in the darkness of a rainy evening, and go into 
 town for a * good time.' When his * good time ' is 
 over for the night, he may, in coming back, slip again 
 through the guard-line and get into his tent without 
 being seen. As he then sinks into his late and heavy 
 slumber, he may congratulate himself on having done 
 all this without any one in camp knowing about it. 
 But when the sergeant of the guard comes to his tent 
 the middle of the next forenoon with a message, and 
 finds that officer sound asleep on the outside of his 
 bed with his muddy boots on, the whole company 
 may soon be talking about his performances, which 
 he congratulated himself had been done so slyly." 
 
 As other possibilities in this line were given in that 
 sermon by way of wholly hypothetical illustration, it 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 1 1 9 
 
 became a subject of not a little discussion in the camp, 
 among officers and men, which I think was not wholly- 
 unprofitable. And this subject of the sure uncover- 
 ing of character, as treated from the same text, became 
 one of my life treasures and means of usefulness. I 
 re -wrote sermons on that theme, again and again, and 
 preached them in various parts of the country ; and I 
 had evidence that God blessed that preaching to the 
 good of souls. 
 
 In visiting a well-known family-school in New Eng- 
 land, I preached, in the church which the boys of that 
 school attended, this sermon as newly adapted in its 
 illustrations and warnings to hearers of that sort. 
 Among those boys was one of exceptional ability and 
 of a family of national prominence. He had given 
 his parents and teachers much concern by his course, 
 and there was at that time danger of his being dis- 
 missed from that school on account of his undesirable 
 influence over other boys, although he had not yet 
 been informed of that fact. He was so influenced by 
 that sermon that he desired to have a conversation 
 with me on the subject, and of course I was glad to 
 talk with him. 
 
 As we talked, he said frankly : " It's the first time I 
 was ever really frightened about myself I have 
 always counted on covering my tracks, and not being 
 found out in my misdoings. But you've shown me 
 that I've got, in the long run, to be known as I am. 
 Now I want to be a different man." That was a good 
 starting-point for any boy. I tried to help him. He 
 
1 20 Shoes and Ratiojis for a Long March 
 
 was soon on another path. He became an earnest 
 and useful clergyman. When, some years after this, 
 I heard him preach in a prominent pulpit in the city 
 where I then lived, I was glad to remember that long- 
 ago talk with him. At the close of the service at 
 which he preached, he greeted me heartily, and said 
 warmly that it was because of my sermon which so 
 took hold of him, that he was in the ministry. 
 
 Perhaps of no sermon that I ever preached have I 
 had so many evidences of its hold on hearers as this 
 one, on the sure uncovering of character. And I 
 have had reason to be grateful that in our camp before 
 Richmond, in the spring of 1865, I was moved to 
 preach on the subject. 
 
KNOWN AS WE REALLY ARE 
 
 Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees^ which is 
 hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not 
 be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known (Luke 
 12 : I, 2). 
 
 The leaven is that within the mass which puffs it 
 up, and gives it show of bulk beyond its substance. 
 Leaven acts only by fermentation, — adding nothing 
 to the mass, but merely swelling it. The working of 
 leaven is often more effective than its material is 
 choice. It may be bitter hops, or sour dough, which 
 lighten and expand the most comely and attractive 
 loaf 
 
 Hence the fitness of our Saviour's figure in the 
 text. The Pharisees had the fairest exterior of all 
 the Jewish sects. Closely attentive to religious cere- 
 monials, and conspicuous in prayer and almsgiving, 
 they claimed confidently — and with an appearance of 
 reason — a superiority to their co-religionists. Yet 
 they made a show of godliness not justified by their 
 spiritual life. 
 
 And when Jesus of Nazareth — giving prominence, 
 as always, to the making clean of the inner rather 
 than the outer man — had, on a certain occasion, disre- 
 
 121 
 
12 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 garded one of their traditional washings, he found his 
 personal rectitude called in question by a Pharisee. 
 
 It was then, " when there were gathered together 
 an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that 
 they trode one upon another," — Pharisees and the 
 common herd commingled, — that our Lord "began 
 to say unto his disciples first of all. Beware ye of the 
 leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." As 
 though he w^ould say, " These fair-favored, open- 
 mouthed, self-asserting religionists, with their swell- 
 ing words of proud profession, are inflated with an 
 element I would have you shun. Whatever ex- 
 terior you may present to the world, see to it that 
 your reputation is otherwise gained than by such 
 assumptions as distend their being." " Beware ye of 
 the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." 
 
 And when Jesus stigmatized the inner life of the 
 Pharisees as " hypocrisy," he gave to it the most 
 obnoxious of all names ; for there is no other charge 
 from the reproach of which men shrink like hypocrisy. 
 It would be easier, in one of our great prison-houses, 
 to find five confessing murderers than to find one 
 avowed hypocrite. " I know that I am bad ; but 
 I'm not a hypocrite ! " is the cry of the vilest trans- 
 gressor. 
 
 Yet hypocrisy is a very common sin, — more com- 
 mon than murder, or than even theft or bald lying. 
 There have been more hypocrites preaching and hear- 
 ing the gospel to-day than of any other class of evil- 
 doers. And if this roof above us covers no hypocrite 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 123 
 
 this evening, it is above a very rare assemblage of 
 miscellaneous church-goers. 
 
 What is hypocrisy ? It is " a feigning to be what 
 one is not," " a concealment of one's real character 
 or motives." Every man who thus feigns, or thus 
 conceals, is a hypocrite. A man may, it is true, feign 
 other than his real cniotions^ or conceal many of his 
 actions, without hypocrisy ; for he has a right to the 
 privacies of his personal and family and business life 
 — within due bounds ; and he is under no obligation 
 to show at all times how he feels, or to tell to others 
 what he has been doing. But if he assumes a charac- 
 ter which is not his own, or feigns to be another kind 
 of man than he is, or conceals his prevailing motives 
 of conduct, he is a hypocrite. 
 
 Any minister who preaches as if he were God's 
 messenger, and lives like a servant of Satan, is a hypo- 
 crite. So, also, is any church-member whose daily 
 w^alk is a libel on his, or her, religious professions. 
 Thus much all will admit. But hypocrisy is not 
 wholly among ministers and church-members, — per- 
 haps not chiefly there. There is much of hypocrisy 
 out of the church, among men who have never called 
 themselves Christians, or claimed to be religiously 
 disposed. 
 
 The law of morals is the same for the man of the 
 world as for the church-member ; so, also, is the law 
 of honor and of true manliness. He who calls him- 
 self a moral man w^hile he is intemperate, or dishon- 
 est, or untruthful, or impure, is as surely hypocritical 
 
1 24 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 — in feigning a character he does not possess — as is a 
 minister who, in his pulpit, advocates total abstinence, 
 and drinks wine or whisky in his study. He who 
 claims to be a man of honor and of manliness, yet de- 
 liberately overreaches a neighbor, defrauds the gov- 
 ernment, is untrue to a woman, or overbearing toward 
 a child, is no less a hypocrite than is a church-mem- 
 ber who is prominent alike in the prayer-meeting and 
 in the gambling-house. 
 
 And there are irreligious steady church-goers who 
 are hypocrites, — who are hypocrites in claiming that 
 they are not hypocritical. They admit that Jesus 
 Christ is the only Saviour of sinners, and that he calls 
 on them to come to him in penitence and faith, and 
 confess him before men as their Saviour. Yet they 
 persistently refuse to do as he desires them to ; and, 
 while thus refusing, they pride themselves on their 
 freedom from inconsistency, because, as they say, they 
 make no professions which they do not live up to. 
 Their every breath away from Christ, and out of the 
 Christian fold, is utterly inconsistent with their ad- 
 mitted convictions of duty; yet they ask on this very 
 account to be reckoned sincere and consistent well- 
 doers. What more clearly-defined and flagrant 
 h}'pocricy than theirs is possible ? 
 
 Just here, let me say that hypocrites are not always 
 the worst of men ; that hypocrisy is not in itself as 
 bad as much of the evil purposes and shortcomings 
 and wrong-doing which it is made to cover, albeit it is 
 so generally abhorred. If a man lacks a good char- 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 125 
 
 acter, it is rather in his favor that he wants people to 
 think he has one. " It is a good sign in a man to be 
 capable of being ashamed," says a Talmudic proverb. 
 He has fallen lowest in depravity who is willing to be 
 known as vile. 
 
 Hypocrisy is, I say, commonly less culpable than 
 barefaced, defiant rascality ; yet, understand me, 
 hypocrisy is never to be viewed with favor or toler- 
 ance. The injunction of our Lord, in the text, is 
 mandatory on all ; on us now as on his disciples of 
 old, — " Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, 
 which is hypocrisy" ! See to it that that which gives 
 yoic reputation, in church or in community, is not the 
 Pharisees' leaven. 
 
 And ivhy beware of hypocrisy ? Why shun it with 
 loathing ? First, of course, because it is sinful. The 
 greatest objection to any vice is its sinfulness. This 
 is too obvious to justify discussion. But Jesus adds 
 another reason — a secondary yet a weighty one — for 
 recoiling from this iniquity, in his assertion that hypoc- 
 risy practically amounts to but little ; that its exist- 
 ence will surely be disclosed. The leaven will work 
 its process of fermentation only for a time, — then 
 comes the collapse, leaving only a contemptible resid- 
 uum. " For there is nothing covered, that shall not 
 be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known. 
 Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness 
 shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have 
 spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon 
 the housetops." 
 
126 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Ah ! if men but believed this divine utterance, — if 
 they realized it in all its far-reaching significance, — 
 would there not be less of hypocritical pretension in 
 the world, and less of evil being and doing to be cov- 
 ered up ? If when men had sinned, their eyes could 
 be opened to a sense of their characters standing 
 naked before the world, would they not hide them- 
 selves "amongst the trees of the garden" until they 
 could obtain fig-leaves to make themselves aprons ? 
 
 If the foul-mouthed or false-speaking man, or boy, 
 knew that his every impure or profane word would 
 echo in the ears of mother, wife, or sister ; or that 
 his every untruth would be sounded out as a lie 
 among all whose confidence he desired, — think you 
 not he would strive to keep the door of his lips ? If 
 every evil act or unholy thought were sure to be 
 written on the forehead, apparent to every passer, 
 would not the prayer of many go up, "Cleanse thou 
 me from secret faults" (Psa. 19: 12), and "Let the 
 words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, 
 be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord " ? (Psa. 19 : 14.) 
 
 If, indeed, all hypocrites were convinced that the 
 cloaks they now fold around their characters so grace- 
 fully must be torn away, that the veils which now 
 conceal their moral features must be uplifted, that 
 the records of motive which no eye but their own has 
 ever seen, must be exposed to the gaze of all, — would 
 they not stand appalled, and be compelled to long earn- 
 estly for a better character than that formed by the 
 Pharisees' leaven, with its rapidly effervescing power ? 
 
Charactei' Surely Disclosed 127 
 
 Yes ! The blessed Jesus " knew what was in man," 
 — knew his fears and desires, knew what would in- 
 fluence and impress him ; and because of the potency 
 of such a truth with every man accepting it, our 
 Saviour uttered the startling declaration of our text, — 
 a declaration alarming to any person who would fain 
 conceal his character from his fellows, but one of 
 which the truth is reaffirmed continually, to every in- 
 telligent observer of the course of nature and the 
 dealings of Providence, — " There is nothing covered, 
 that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not 
 be known." 
 
 Let us look, for a few minutes, at some of the cor- 
 roboratory evidences of the truth of this declaration. 
 
 /. The teiidency of all nature is to openness^ not to 
 concealment ; to uncovering^ not to hiding. 
 
 Cut a single gash, scarcely perceptible to-day, in 
 the trunk of a vigorously growing sapling, and that 
 gash will grow wider as the tree grows larger ; and 
 years hence the scar will be more prominent than in 
 the hour it was made. Take every stone from the 
 surface of a newly-plowed field, and harrow over 
 the upturned earth until all is level and fair, — then 
 leave it to itself for a single year. Will that field pre- 
 sent the same unbroken surface when twelve months 
 have gone ? Or, will the silent workings of nature 
 have thrown up from below the pebbles and boulders 
 that can be covered only for a season ? 
 
 The ocean is, with its every tide-flow, washing from 
 
2 8 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 its depths some of its long-hid treasures, and reveal- 
 ing alonsr the beach the shells 'and weed and coral 
 and fragments of wreck that were hidden for only a 
 passing time. The very mountains and hills are 
 crumbling away; and again the valleys they cover are 
 beinn- laid bare as before. Cities buried under the 
 volcanic flow of one age are exposed in the next. 
 One earthquake opens what another had concealed. 
 Each season discloses some secret of one that went 
 before. " I will overturn, overturn, overturn " (Ezek. 
 21 : 27), says nature doing God's work, in all its 
 changing moods ; and the falling rain, the rushing 
 wind, and the roaring surf, reiterate the divine assev- 
 eration, "There is nothing covered, that shall not be 
 revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known." 
 
 God controls in nature all his creations, and con- 
 forms them to his eternal purpose of their self-dis- 
 closure. It is a primal truth that Campbell puts into 
 the mouth of his wizard : 
 
 " Lochiel ! Lochiel ! beware of the day ! 
 For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal ; 
 But man can not cover what God would reveal." 
 
 Man himself is so formed that the very thoughts of 
 his heart take quick shape in the expression of his 
 face, the movements of his body, and the tones of 
 his voice. The skilled anatomist will tell with unerr- 
 ing accuracy just which facial muscles are brought in 
 play by each varying emotion. It requires, moreover, 
 no scientific knowledge to detect the outward signs of 
 anger, sorrow, or delight ; and even an infant knows 
 
CJiaracter Surely Disclosed 129 
 
 the difference between a mother's smile and a mother's 
 frown. All of us perceive in some faces which we 
 meet, the workings below of purity and truthfulness 
 and faith and kindness of heart and nobleness of soul, 
 or of deceitfulness and lust and discontent and sor- 
 did selfishness; and we judge the disclosed charac- 
 ters accordingly. 
 
 A certain degree of self-control and self-conceal- 
 ment is, to be sure, acquired by resolute purpose and 
 continued practice ; but few persons are so far ad- 
 vanced in artful diplomacy as to always employ their 
 words and acts in the Talleyrandic use of concealing 
 one's ideas. It was said of so skilled a politician as 
 Sir Robert Peel, that the manner in which he threw 
 open the collar of his coat on entering Parliament of 
 an evening showed which way the ministerial wind 
 was blowing. 
 
 So the most wary will be off their guard sometimes, 
 telling tales of their inner being and feeling by chance 
 remarks or pointed questions ; by a start, a shudder, 
 a smile, or a shoulder-shrug ; by an answer of thought- 
 less ill-nature or an act of impulsive meanness; or on 
 the other hand by overflowing w^ords of abounding 
 kindliness and far-reaching charity. It is God's truth, 
 and it is God's plan, that *'A good man out of the 
 good treasure of the heart bringcth forth good things : 
 and an evil man out of the evil treasure briitgeth fortli 
 evil things" (Matt. 12 : 35). In the long run a man 
 can not do otherwise than show out his real self. 
 
 Men even ache to tell the truth concerning them- 
 
1 30 Shoes and Rations foi^ a Long March 
 
 selves, and e\'il-doers who have a reputation beyond 
 their deserts are, from time to time, confessing their 
 faults one to another, — not so much in obedience to 
 the apostolic injunction as in accordance with the 
 divinely-ordered promptings of their natures. They 
 can not help it. The truth must out. 
 
 Hood's " Eugene Aram " gave voice to the vain cry 
 of many a longing hypocrite, as he shut the book he 
 held, and 
 
 " Strained die dusky covers close, 
 And fixed die brazen hasp : — 
 * O God ! could I so close my mind, 
 And clasp it with a clasp.' " 
 
 And he represented the wdiole legion of heart-burst- 
 ing hypocrites, when he sat down with the school- 
 boys, and, under the guise of a dream, told the story 
 of his crime, and of his failures to cover effectually 
 the body of his murdered victim. 
 
 " I knew my secret then was one 
 
 The earth refused to keep — 
 Or land or sea, though he should be 
 
 Ten thousand fathoms deep. 
 So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 
 
 Till blood for blood atones ! 
 Aye, though he's buried in a cave, 
 
 And trodden down with stones, 
 And years have rotted off his flesh — 
 
 The world shall see his bones." 
 
 " For there is nothing covered, that shall not be re- 
 vealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known." 
 
Choj^acter Surely Disclosed 131 
 
 Another verification of our text is this : 
 
 2. It is a habit of nature to record its cJianges ; to 
 self-register its history and progress. 
 
 The geologic strata of the earth's substance tell 
 plainly the order of creation, and enable the savant 
 to describe to us the successive formations of the 
 pre-Adamite world. In its mineral, its vegetable, 
 and its animal productions, each age has made its 
 mark, told its story, and left its record for all coming 
 time. 
 
 The opened mountain-side reveals its consecutive 
 layers piled one above another, no subsequent accum- 
 ulations having removed, however they have covered, 
 what went before. The concentric grain rings of the 
 ancient tree trunk show just how many summers and 
 winters have passed since the little acorn broke the 
 surface of the covering soil. And the tiniest moth 
 floating in the sunlight bears evidence on its wings, 
 to the observing naturalist, of the already spent hours 
 of its brief existence. 
 
 So of man : not only his age, but his career, is 
 written on his outer being. That which he has 
 passed through is noted ; that which he has done is 
 registered. Disease never leaves the human body 
 just as it found it, nor does sorrow or sin. He who 
 has known real bitterness of soul, he who has been 
 much in imminent peril, he who has indulged in vice, 
 he who has made a hard struggle with temptation, — 
 whether the issue to him was victory or defeat, — gives 
 
132 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 testimony of his experiences in both feature and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Tennyson says of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
 
 " The great and guilty love he bore the Queen, 
 In battle with the love he bore his lord, 
 Had mar'd his face, and marked it ere his time." 
 
 A similar process of character-recording goes on in 
 every human countenance. Simple-hearted King 
 Duncan may indeed declare 
 
 " There's no art 
 To find the mind's construction in the face," 
 
 but keen-eyed Lady Macbeth knows better than this, 
 and her warning is to her Hege, as his plans of treach- 
 ery and murder progress, 
 
 " Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
 May read strange matters." 
 
 We are even told by some medical writers, con- 
 cerning this registering power of the emotions, that 
 each controlling thought and purpose " impresses on 
 the body some indelible mark," and a long continu- 
 ance of similar thoughts and feelings makes an im- 
 print which is clearly perceptible. This being so, it 
 is plain that no man can deliberately shirk a duty or 
 do a wrong without having written on his counte- 
 nance some mark which tends to disclose the story 
 of his failure or transgression, and which, when 
 deepened and multiplied, may be observed by those 
 who are quick at character-judging. 
 
 " Understanding human nature," as we employ the 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 133 
 
 phrase, involves a familiarity with the sure cipher in 
 which the record of the inner life is written on the 
 outer man. Some are better scholars than others in 
 this language, but all know more or less of it, — more 
 usually than those on whom it is written suppose. 
 
 We have all met faces which inspired us on the in- 
 stant with confidence or with distrust. We felt sure, 
 at the start, of the characters they indicated. One 
 glimpse was sufficient. We did not ask to watch the 
 persons bearing those faces, to learn of them more 
 surely by their daily conduct for weeks or months 
 together. The story of their conduct for years was 
 before us at a glance. We knew what it must have 
 been, and what it would continue to be. 
 
 And again we have seen faces change — handsome 
 faces lose their beauty, or plain faces glow with new 
 loveliness — through a disclosure and development of 
 character. We have seen faces grow grandly beauti- 
 ful under the pressure of new responsibility, at home 
 or in the army. We have seen other faces shine as 
 the face of an angel, in the hour of bereavement and 
 sorrow, — even as the porcelain shade of a study lamp 
 shows for the first time its real attractiveness when 
 the darkness shuts in about it, and the light from 
 within it gleams through, to illuminate and make dis- 
 tinct the lovely picture it presents. 
 
 Again, we have noted with sadness the look of 
 purity, of truthfulness, of reverence, of tenderness, pass 
 away from the countenance of one we had admired. 
 Or we have watched with interest the deepening lines 
 
1 34 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 of manly power in the face of one who battled bravely 
 in his contest with some besetting sin, or some soul- 
 racking temptation, until his heroic form seemed 
 hung all over with medals of victory. 
 
 As we have observed these disclosed evidences of 
 progress in character, — for better or for worse, — we 
 have had fresh occasion to realize that in man's being 
 — as in every other sphere of nature — there is a book 
 of God's remembrance, preserving for all time the 
 story of each movement and change, and that it is 
 God's will concerning the records of this book that 
 " there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed ; 
 neither hid, that shall not be known." 
 
 There is one more truth in corroboration of our 
 text which ought not to be overlooked. 
 
 J. The tireless curiosity of man is an agency for 
 the uncovering of that zuhich craves concealment. 
 
 Every man is more or less interested in what con- 
 cerns his fellows, and he desires to understand the 
 characters of those with whom he is brought into 
 association. He observes, oftCxi unintentionally, little 
 things which go to show their idiosyncrasies, and 
 from each and all of these he draws his inferences and 
 derives his impressions. And, in conversation with 
 each other, men compare opinions of those they have 
 separately observed. One has noted one thing ; 
 another, another. The information of all becomes 
 common stock, and gradually an average and pretty 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 135 
 
 accurate estimate is arrived at of the characters under 
 consideration. 
 
 He who is skilful enough as a hypocrite to deceive 
 any single observer, proves no match for the com- 
 bined intelligence of the community when its gaze, 
 from any cause, centers on him. He can easily show 
 one side of his character to one man ; but he can not 
 be sure of showing only that side to all of a hundred 
 men who are looking at him from different points of 
 observation. 
 
 In the process of what is known as " photo-sculp- 
 ture," the sitter finds himself in the center of an octag- 
 onal chamber, with cameras pointed at him from every 
 side, each taking a picture of him with its own peculiar 
 view. When, afterwards, the various operators bring 
 together their distinct "impressions" of the sitter, he 
 is shown as he appeared from before, from behind, 
 from this side, from that side, and from yet other 
 directions. Tlicn it is easy enough to put him in 
 plaster for permanent exhibition. Every man is in 
 such a chamber as that, having these various corre- 
 sponding impressions made of him, a great deal 
 oftener than he thinks for. 
 
 Let a man be nominated for political office, and see 
 if any weak spot in his character has been overlooked 
 by members of the opposite party ! Or let a man be 
 charged with crime and brought to trial, — how aston- 
 ished he is to find that he was observed so closely 
 in his every act at the time in question, by those 
 whom he neither knew nor saw. One and another 
 
136 Shoes and Ratiofis for a Long Mai^ch 
 
 can show what streets he passed, what purchases he 
 made, and how he looked and bore himself while yet 
 unsuspected of crime, — while indeed he was no more 
 observed than his fellows ; for if another man had 
 been charged with the same misdeed, another set of 
 men would have testified of him with like fidelity of 
 detail. 
 
 It is in enforcement of this general truth that Burns 
 gives reminder : 
 
 " If there's a hole in a' your coats, 
 I rede ye tent it ; 
 A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, 
 And, faith, he'll prent it." 
 
 A young man, or an older one, may think himself 
 quite out of familiar notice in the crowd of a strange 
 city, — or in the back street of a town where he lives, — 
 when really at least one sharp eye watches intelli- 
 gently his every movement, or one keen ear catches 
 the sound of his well-known voice; and his conduct 
 there will be quickly reported in the circle of his 
 home friends, although he may not know of this dis- 
 closure for months, or years — If ever. 
 
 Is it not in view of this certainty of the exposure 
 of evil, through unsuspected reporters everywhere at 
 hand, that the inspired Preacher sounds the warning 
 cry, "Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; 
 and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber : for a bird 
 of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath 
 wings shall tell the matter" ? (Eccl. 10 : 20.) 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, like many another of the 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 137 
 
 world's philosophers, merely paraphrases a Scripture 
 passage to express what is called one of his original 
 thoughts, when he declares : " A man passes for 
 what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concern- 
 ing other people's estimate of us, and all fear of re- 
 maining unknown is not less so. . . . The world is full 
 of judgment days, and into every assembly that a 
 man enters, in every action that he attempts, he is 
 gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that 
 whoop and run in each yard and square, a newcomer 
 is well and accurately weighed in the course of a few 
 days, and stamped with his right measure, as if he 
 had undergone a formal trial of his strength." 
 
 What is this but an expansion — or an illustration — 
 of our text ? " Beware ye of the leaven of the Phar- 
 isees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing cov- 
 ered, that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall 
 not be known." 
 
 My friends, I beg of you, think of these things ! 
 This subject has its practical bearings on the lives of 
 all of you. You are all better known, — estimated 
 more nearly at your true value, — and your course is 
 more clearly watched and widely reported, than most 
 of you have supposed. There are very few persons 
 who would not be surprised if they should hear their 
 neighbors talk of them, — surprised at the particularity 
 with which their characters are sketched, and their 
 conduct is commented on. Yoii are no exception to 
 the general rule on this point. 
 
138 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Have you done anything of late which you would 
 be ashamed to let the world know, because of its in- 
 consistency with a character you lay claim to ? If 
 you have, it is doubtless more than suspected by 
 others. Your ostrich body may have been seen, 
 while your eyes were buried in the bush. Your tell- 
 tale face may have revealed the story when you 
 thought it covered forever. Your cherished secret is, 
 perhaps, already being whispered into the ears of a 
 constantly-v.idening circle of listeners. Its full dis- 
 closure, to your shame, may be just at hand. It is 
 often thus. A gathered cloud of public censure or 
 contempt is over many a head that stands erect in 
 pride of conscious safety ; and only the lightning-rod 
 of a special accusation is needed to cause it to pour 
 its stormy contents on the victim below. 
 
 At all events, whatever you have been or have 
 done hitherto, you ought to leave this house to-day 
 resolved, in the strength which God gives to his chil- 
 dren who ask believingly, that you will henceforth be 
 and do that — and that only — which you would be 
 willing to have the reputation of, everywhere and 
 always. Your reputation, mark you, is what people 
 think you are. Your cliaracter is what you really 
 are. In the long run, the only sure basis of a good 
 reputation is a good character. You are not likely 
 to have permanently any better name — or any worse — 
 than you deserve. 
 
 If you would be counted generous, give liberally — 
 not adroitly. If you wish to be called pure, shun 
 
Character Surely Disclosed 139 
 
 evil desires and indulgings — rather than waste breath 
 in growls over gossiping neighbors. If you seek 
 credit as a consistent Christian, do justly, love mercy, 
 and walk humbly with your God, — not expecting to 
 win that name by profession, nor to secure it by de- 
 mand. 
 
 But, you may say, there are persons whose charac- 
 ters are not disclosed. It may even be a cause of 
 gladness that yoit are not shown to others in your 
 true light. Possibly you flatter yourselves that in 
 your case, at least, there is something covered that 
 shall not be revealed ; something hid that shall not 
 be known. Ah ! my friends, '* the end is not yet " 
 (Matt. 24 : 6). The disclosure may, in one case or 
 another, be long delayed ; but it shall come at the 
 last. " The wolf must die in his own skin," says 
 quaint George Herbert. 
 
 If indeed there be no full revelation of your char- 
 acter until the close of your present life, it shall be 
 made beyond : " For we must all appear before the 
 judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive 
 the things done in his body, according to that he hath 
 done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5 : 10). 
 
 " Ah ! what trembling then, what quaiUng, 
 When shall come the Judge unfailing, 
 Every human life unveihng." 
 
 No cloak there ! What a man " hath done," not 
 what others suppose him to have done. As he has 
 been, not as he has claimed to be. 
 
140 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 " The volume open'd ! open'd every heart ! 
 A sunbeam pointing out each secret thought ! " 
 
 Then — then, if never before — every eye shall see, 
 and every ear shall hear, and every mind shall know, 
 and every heart shall feel — in all the universe of God 
 — that " there is nothing covered, that shall not be re- 
 vealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." 
 
MY CHAPLAINCY AMONG STUDENTS 
 
VII 
 
 MY CHAPLAINCY AMONG STUDENTS 
 
 As I have already mentioned, my preaching after 
 my return from the war was practically a result of 
 and was largely shaped by my army service. I had 
 never learned in a theological training school the con- 
 ventional methods of presenting religious truths, or 
 the science of " sacred rhetoric." And I had reason 
 to know that my hearers perceived this. I had learned 
 to address men in army service, either as new recruits 
 or as trained soldiers, and to press on them practi- 
 cally their duties, their privileges, and their dangers. 
 Abstract truths I had had, as a chaplain, no occasion 
 to discuss or to present. 
 
 And in civil life, as in army service, there were 
 many who needed to be addressed as those who must 
 be in life's warfare, and who needed to realize their 
 duties and dangers and privileges, in struggle for and 
 in expectation of the victory and rewards in their 
 sphere. Such soldiers, especially the young ones, 
 appealed to me, and aroused me to appeal to them. 
 Peculiarly was this so in the case of students in pre- 
 paratory schools and in colleges. On this account I 
 liked to address such students, as I moved about my 
 
 143 
 
1 44 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 New England field in my Sunday-school missionary 
 work. As a boy I had been at school at Williston 
 Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts. During 
 the war I had been in service with many Williston 
 boys. After the war I found army comrades among 
 the teachers at Williston, and boys in whom I was 
 particularly interested were pupils there. And thus 
 Williston Seminary became a portion of my field in 
 my chaplaincy after the war. 
 
 Preaching to those in that field, I found my ser- 
 mons of war-time a good preparation for my sermons 
 to them. Well-nigh all the sermons which I preached 
 to these boys I had first preached in the army. The 
 germ had been started there ; the change of soil and 
 of atmosphere, of course, demanded changes in de- 
 velopment and treatment; but in both places the de- 
 sired result and fruitage were the same. The train- 
 ing which I had had for the army chaplaincy proved 
 to be a good training for my religious addresses to 
 young cadets who were yet in preparation for active 
 service in life's warfare. And in trying to meet this 
 new demand on my best abilities and efforts, I was 
 really pursuing a post-graduate course of study in the 
 line of my maturer life-studies and endeavors. And 
 this fact may give a certain value to these sermons as 
 showing the method of their preparing and the pur- 
 pose of their delivering. Obviously they are not con- 
 ventional sermons, nor are they likely to be valued as 
 such. 
 
 When I had been preaching to the Williston boys 
 
My Chaplaincy Amo7ig Students 145 
 
 one of the foregoing sermons inspired by the soldier 
 spirit, Principal Marshall Henshaw asked me into his 
 office on Monday morning to request a special favor 
 from me, or to lay a particular duty on me. He said 
 kindly that my style of preaching seemed to attract 
 and lay hold on the boys, and he wanted my help in 
 meeting a particular difficulty that he had to contend 
 with in their control. He said that even well-disposed 
 boys who, if left to themselves, would prefer to do 
 right, would often be induced to go with the crowd 
 in the wrong direction. It was not a matter of wrong 
 purpose so much as it was a lack of determined inde- 
 pendence in action. He believed that with my method 
 of getting at boys I could find a way of meeting this, 
 as an ordinary clergyman could not. He wished that 
 when I came again I would preach on the subject. 
 
 So with this mission thus laid on me, my thoughts 
 were at once turned to the subject. The preparing 
 for the doing of that special duty proved to be one of 
 the developing periods of my life-course. Having 
 decided on my text and sermon-plan, I set myself to 
 gathering the material for the filling in of the outline. 
 I sought special needful knowledge and illustrative 
 facts in books in my own library, and then I bought 
 other books by the score. I desired to be confi- 
 dent as to every statement made by me, and to be 
 sure as to the fitness and force of every illustration 
 employed. 
 
 Week after week went by, and yet I was by no 
 means ready with my sermon, or even prepared for its 
 
1 46 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 writincf. I made notes of the material I would like 
 to use in my sermon ; but I found these notes expand- 
 ing and multiplying beyond all my anticipations. As 
 my sermon was to touch on all the phases of true 
 manhood, I must know about the proper training of 
 the body, the intellect, and the spirit of one who would 
 have character as a true man, and hence there came 
 much of my preliminary study. 
 
 After some eleven months of this preparation, I 
 set myself to arranging my gathered material. In 
 order to have it fairly before me for selection, I made 
 a careful index of the whole, so that I might study 
 that and then choose what I deemed the best. I 
 then began to write. It was only after some thirteen 
 months from the time I undertook this mission that 
 I had a sermon ready for its preaching. As the basis 
 of this sermon to students, I took the text and sermon- 
 plan on which I had preached to my regiment before 
 Richmond in the last year of the war. We had just 
 then been receiving many new recruits and "substi- 
 tutes," who needed to be taught the first duties of a 
 soldier and a man. My words to them, therefore, 
 were fitting words for any young man. We never 
 get beyond fundamentals, in the army or out of it. 
 
 I mention these facts as illustrative of the truth 
 that, although I had no formal training in a theologi- 
 cal seminary or divinity school to fit me to preach to 
 soldiers or students, I did not assume to give my 
 hearers, as worth their having, that which had cost 
 me nothing, or which I had not studied for. 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 147 
 
 That special sermon for students represents a turn- 
 ing-point and training period in my life, and I value it 
 for what its preparation did for me, aside from what 
 its hearing may have induced any hearer to do for 
 
 himself. 
 
 Having prepared a special sermon for students, as 
 already described, I preached it in Easthampton, in 
 February, 1869. It seemed to interest the boys, and 
 it was heartily approved by the instructors and other 
 grown-up hearers. Dr. Samuel T. Seelye, in whose 
 pulpit I preached it, was so much interested in that 
 sermon that he wrote to Amherst, where were his 
 two distinguished brothers, and urged that I should 
 be asked to preach it before the college students. 
 Accordingly, I was invited to do so. 
 
 Having re-adapted my sermon to meet the needs of 
 older students, I preached it one Sunday morning 
 before the students and professors of Amherst Col- 
 lege, and by request I repeated it, in the afternoon of 
 the same day, before the Agricultural College of 
 Massachusetts in another part of town. It was most 
 warmly received in both places. 
 
 Professor L. Clark Seelye, now President of Smith 
 College for Women at Northampton, but then a pro- 
 fessor and college pastor in Amherst College, was en- 
 thusiastic about the sermon. Writing me about it 
 several weeks later, he said: 
 
 " The sermon which you preached to our students 
 last term was of great benefit to them. I have never 
 listened to a more successful exposure of those follies 
 
148 Shoes and Rations /or a Long March 
 
 to which students are naturally addicted, and about 
 which they are also peculiarly sensitive. 
 
 ** Had any member of the faculty said the same 
 things, the effect would have been far different It 
 would have been regarded merely as an attempt to 
 maintain college authority, and very likely the young 
 men would have behaved worse than ever. It is, in 
 fact, a very delicate matter for any one to criticise the 
 standard of morality which is common among stu- 
 dents. Your good humor made your plea all the 
 more effective ; and I think the moral standard of the 
 college has been higher ever since. 
 
 " I heartily wish the sermon might be given in every 
 college in the land." 
 
 President Clark, of the Agricultural College, who 
 was an experienced soldier in the Civil War, and who 
 therefore appreciated the army-chaplain standpoint, 
 wrote of the sermon as ''very interesting, and full of 
 valuable instruction and effective exhortation. It 
 seems to me peculiarly adapted to benefit young men 
 in schools and colleges who are engaged in qualifying 
 themselves for active life." He hoped I might " preach 
 it a thousand times." 
 
 Inconsequence of the representations from Amherst 
 College officials as to this sermon, I was invited to 
 preach it at Williams College, and again at Yale. At 
 the latter place it was heard not only by students, but 
 by professors of the theological as well as of the 
 academic faculty. That those who were set to train 
 men as preachers and teachers perceived that / had 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 149 
 
 not learned the lessons they deemed most impor- 
 tant to a clergyman, and that they were unfamiliar 
 with an army chaplain's way of talking to men, 
 was made clear in their subsequent conversations 
 with me. 
 
 While I had evidence that both in the faculty and 
 among the students interest in my theme had been 
 aroused by my discourse, there was discussion for 
 some time afterward as to the unconventional and 
 army-chaplain style of address which I employed in 
 the pulpit. This was clearly brought out in an ex- 
 tended conversation on the subject which I had with 
 an influential member of the theological faculty. He 
 had no criticism to make as to any error observed in 
 the truths taught, or any lack of reverence in the 
 spirit and manner of the preacher. Yet the utterly 
 unconventional and non-divinity-school style of ser- 
 monizing was an evident shock to him. And, there- 
 fore, I speak of this thus fully in submitting to the 
 public these specimens of army-chaplain-like sermons, 
 with all their differences from the theological seminary 
 standard of sermons. 
 
 After his full explanation of doubts on the subject, 
 my friend, the professor, said frankly and with great 
 kindness : 
 
 " Now do not misunderstand me, Mr. Trumbull, or 
 think that I am criticising your sermon or your way 
 of sermonizing. That sermon to young men was re- 
 markable in the interest it excited and in the impres- 
 sion it produced. It has been a subject of conversation 
 
150 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 among its hearers ever since. Our [theological] pro- 
 fessors have discussed that sermon and its method 
 with not a Httle interest. We never heard any sermon 
 hke it before. That you did what you undertook to 
 do there can be no doubt. But I am free to say, that 
 if your idea of the way to sermonize to young men 
 is the correct way, then our way of training ministers 
 in this theological seminary for forty years has been 
 all wrong — all wrong." And there we two left the 
 subject. 
 
 It may be well to mention that I told this story at 
 the time to good Dr. Bushnell, who always had an 
 interest in me and my work. In his characteristic 
 heartiness he said bluntly : 
 
 " Well, Trumbull, you are right in this thing, and 
 they are wrong." 
 
 Not all readers or hearers will agree with either 
 Dr. Bushnell or with the theological professor as to 
 this matter. Some will agree with the one and some 
 with the other. Yet others again will think, with the 
 Connecticut Baptist evangelist, that " the best way to 
 preach is to preach every way." But out of my per- 
 sonal experience I must con*:inue to think that an 
 army chaplain would not be best fitted for his preach- 
 ing by a strict adherence to the methods laid down in 
 the average theological seminary. 
 
DUTY OF BEING A MAN 
 
 Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man " 
 (i Kings 2 : 2). 
 
 These were the words of the dying King David to 
 Solomon, his son and kingly successor. They are not 
 his entire charge, but they form its substance and, if 
 wisely interpreted, they include its remainder. *' Be 
 thou strong, . . . and shew thyself a man " ! — a fully- 
 developed, well-rounded, complete man ; every power 
 in play, every high possibility attained. What more 
 could David ask of Solomon ? 
 
 And who had a better right than David to summon 
 others to manliness ? He was himself a man, — a 
 man all over, and through and through, — perhaps the 
 truest type of simple manhood the world has known ; 
 a man after God's own heart, and in very much a 
 man after man's own heart : " David the son of Jesse, 
 . . . the man who was raised up on high, the anointed 
 of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel " 
 (2 Sam. 23 : i). 
 
 Never, besides, was there a mere man who so well 
 as David " knew what was in man," and what it was 
 to be a man. It were better said of David than of 
 that other grand old patriarch : 
 
 151 
 
152 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 " This was the truest warrior 
 
 That ever buckled sword, 
 This the most gifted poet 
 
 That ever breathed a word ; 
 And never earth's philosopher 
 
 Traced with his golden pen, 
 On the deathless page, truths half so sage, 
 
 As he wrote down for men." ^ 
 
 As " the days of David drew nigh that he should 
 die," he turned himself on his couch, to his son and 
 royal heir, and in parting- command to him who must 
 represent his family and kingly glory, declared : " I 
 go the way of all the earth : be thou strong there- 
 fore, and shew thyself a man " — I die. Consider my 
 story. Shun my follies. Be encouraged by my suc- 
 cesses. Have my courage and faith. And do a better 
 — 'because completer — work than mine. 
 
 " So David slept with his fathers ; " but his dying 
 words ring down through the ages, and sound in this 
 room to-day, as the call of God to each one of you, 
 young men : " Be thou strong, . . . and shew thyself 
 a man" ! God asks no child of his to be /c'ss than a 
 man, and he demands of none in this life to be any- 
 thing 7;iore. 
 
 " Shew thyself a man " ! That is the call that I 
 reiterate to each of you : not merely be a saint, ready 
 for heaven, but be a man, fitted for earth's duties. 
 My appeal to you is not from the conviction that you 
 must die, but from the thought that you may /we. I 
 do not so urge you to prepare for any future, as I do 
 
 * Mrs. Alexander's " Burial of Moses.'* 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Shidents 1 5 3 
 
 entreat you to fill your place in the present. *' I have 
 written unto you, young men," said the beloved apos- 
 tle, "because ye are strong " (i John 2 : 14); and as 
 St. John's follower in the faith, I preach unto you, 
 young men, because you are strong, and I want you 
 to use your strength manfully. 
 
 Be strong and be men at all times and in every- 
 thing,— in your studies and in your social life, in your 
 recreations and in your worship. " David danced 
 before the Lord with all his might " (2 Sam. 6 : 14). 
 If you must dance, that is the way to do it, — before 
 the Lord, and with all your might ! And David 
 prepared with all his might for the house of his God 
 (i Chron. 29 : 2). His manfulness, his wholeness of 
 soul, showed itself in all his actions. 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . with all 
 thy might" (Deut. 6 : 5) is " the first and great com- 
 mandment ; " and many that follow are *' like unto it " 
 (Matt. 22 : 38, 39). " Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
 to do, do it with thy might " (Eccl. 9 : 10), said the 
 inspired Preacher. And St. Paul added, ** Whatso- 
 ever ye do, do it heartily " (Col. 3 : 23). Said the 
 good John Joseph Gurney, writing to his son at 
 school : ** Be a whole man to everything. At Latin, 
 be a whole man to Latin. At geometry or his- 
 tory, be a whole man to geometry or history. At 
 play, be a whole man to play. At washing or dress- 
 ing, be a whole man to washing or dressing. Above 
 all, at meeting [Gurney was a Quaker], be a whole 
 man to meeting." 
 
154 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 It was said of Lord Brougham, that " if his station 
 in life had been only that of a shoeblack, he would 
 never have rested satisfied until he had become the best 
 shoeblack in England." Thus always with true man- 
 liness, — it will show itself as surely in one sphere as in 
 another. The student who heeds the inspired injunc- 
 tion of the text, will be a man alike at play, at study, 
 and at prayer, — in the culture of body, mind, and of 
 spirit. 
 
 7. In the care of the body, show thyself a man. 
 
 Bodily vigor is hardly less a Christian attainment 
 than it is a source of manly pride. God has ever 
 honored this in its place, as a possession and a charge 
 of his children. The record stands of the first leader 
 of God's peculiar people that he was " a goodly child " 
 (Exod. 2 : 2), and that when he was an hundred and 
 twenty years old " his eye was not dim, nor his nat- 
 ural force abated " (Deut. 34 : 7). And of the first 
 king of that nation, God declares that he was " a 
 choice young man, and a goodly : and there was not 
 among the children of Israel a goodlier person than 
 he : from his shoulders and upward he was higher 
 than any of the people " (i Sam. 9 : 2). 
 
 That which bringeth " redness of eyes," or " wounds 
 without cause " (Prov. 23 : 29), or pallor of cheek, or 
 weakness of limb, is as well a sin as a shame. '* Your 
 body," says St. Paul, " is the temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 . . . Therefore glorify God in your body " (i Cor. 6 : 
 19, 20). " The glory of young men is their strength " 
 
My Chaplaincy A77iong Students 155 
 
 (Prov. 20 : 29), says Solomon. Beware, then, young 
 man, lest, like Esau, in an evil hour of weakness and 
 desire, you barter for a mess of pottage your birth- 
 right of glory by indulgence in what lessens your 
 strength and diminishes your manliness. 
 
 The expressive adjective ** stalwart " is but the old 
 Saxon " stael-weordh," — worth stealing, good for 
 something ; leaving the unwelcome inference that he 
 who is a not stalwart man is not worth having at any 
 price. 
 
 ** It was there that the battle of Waterloo was won ! " 
 said the Iron Duke, pointing, in his later years, to the 
 playground at Eton, where his own great strength 
 had been early developed. And Waterloo was not 
 the only one of earth's struggles that hinged on the 
 power of physical endurance. 
 
 Genius itself has been defined as " the capacity for 
 an unlimited amount of work." It is certainly true 
 that a man's mental activity and freeness are largely 
 dependent on his bodily condition. ** There can 
 scarcely be a diseased or abnormal condition of any 
 organ in the human system that will not have some 
 influence upon the mind," says a distinguished New 
 England physician. 
 
 Even in the highest spiritual life, a man is not lifted 
 above the power of his body to affect his happiness. 
 God's grace delights in his temples when they are 
 kept undefiled for himself, with strength and beauty 
 as their supports. Says one of our quaintest and 
 most eloquent American divines : " Dyspepsia and 
 
156 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 disordered bile and imperfect secretions are foul 
 fiends, all of them, and calomel and quinine have an 
 apostolic calling to the casting out of devils. Medi- 
 cine is ofttimes a very means of grace — and a wise 
 physician better for the soul than a whole sanhedrin 
 of ministers." ^ 
 
 2. But, if your bodily development is a duty as a 
 7naii^ your rneutal ctdture is not less so. 
 
 When Solomon, as Israel's king, sought to conform 
 to his father's injunction in our text, and to show 
 himself a man, he asked of the Lord zvisdom as the 
 first requisite for his sphere. " And the speech pleased 
 the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing" (i 
 Kings 3 : 10); and the king's fame was thenceforward 
 greater, because of his wisdom than for his wealth 
 and glory. And Solomon's testimony as to the bless- 
 ings of knowledge was : " Understanding is a well- 
 spring of life unto him that hath it " (Prov. 16 : 22); 
 and " The man that wandereth out of the way of un- 
 derstanding shall remain in the congregation of the 
 dead " (Prov. 21 : 16). 
 
 Bodily strength will avail you but little in practical 
 life, if there is no mental control of it. The muscular 
 and brainless athlete, whose image stares from the 
 circus show-bill, would hardly pass for a model man 
 anywhere. " Wisdom is better than strength " (Eccl. 
 9 : 16). It is only to your shame if, while in the 
 " first nine " of the ball club, you are in the last three 
 
 1 Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth, 
 
My ChaplauLcy Among Students 157 
 
 of your Greek division. If book-men look down on 
 you, the cheers of the boating crowd ought to give 
 you httle comfort. And you may well blush if the 
 younger classmate, who envied your power in the 
 " giant-swing " of the gymnasium, dwarfs your class 
 performance in the natural sciences. In the long run, 
 the good scholar outstrips the fine gymnast. For the 
 race of life, he whose head is level is better fitted than 
 he whose legs are strong. 
 
 Whatever is to be your future occupation in life, 
 you must be largely dependent for success on your 
 brain-power. In the higher intellectual walks, this is 
 obviously true. It is scarcely less so in the lower 
 spheres of effort. *' The best preparation for special 
 pursuits," said President Hill of Harvard, " is a gen- 
 eral education. It was in defense of this doctrine that 
 Horace Mann brought forward the striking fact . . . 
 that the wages earned by piece-work in a cloth mill 
 were in proportion to the time previously spent by 
 the operative in studying arithmetic and geography 
 and grammar. Similar statistics to show the advan- 
 tages of general education in special pursuits might 
 doubtless be gathered in other departments of labor." 
 
 It may be doubted, for instance, if A. T. Stewart, 
 the humble Irish lad, would have come to be the first 
 American merchant of his day if he had not stood 
 first in his class at Dublin University. William B. 
 Astor, as the son of the richest man of his generation 
 in this country, would hardly have held and multi- 
 plied his inherited wealth — in exception to the general 
 
58 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 course of sons of rich men — so as to be himself now 
 foremost among our millionaires, if it were not for the 
 benefits of his college training. An inside look at 
 the most notorious firm of gold gamblers and railroad 
 swindlers in all our land, ^ would show that the obvious 
 coxcombery and knavishness of the senior partner 
 were pushed into a power they could not otherwise 
 attain to through the disciplined intellect of an un- 
 principled Harvard graduate — a less-known member 
 of the firm. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher says truly: ** If a man has 
 nothing to do but turn a grindstone, he had better be 
 educated ; if a man has nothing to do but to stick 
 pins on a paper, he had better be educated ; if he has 
 to sweep the streets, he had better be educated. It 
 makes no difference what you do, you will do it better 
 if you are educated." 
 
 Understand, therefore, and appreciate the practical 
 value of a good education, you who are yet under- 
 graduates, and see that you make the most of every 
 instructor, every recitation, every help to mental im- 
 provement. Do not commit the folly of counting 
 your instructor and yourself as puUing at opposite ends 
 of a rope, or as opponents in a sharply-contested game, 
 where an advantage over him by shirking, '' ponying," 
 or deception, inures to your profit; but look at him, 
 rather, as your senior partner, whose experience and 
 knowledge furnish capital for your use and benefit, 
 and whose interests are so linked with your own as 
 
 I " Jim " Fisk & Co. 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 159 
 
 to ensure to you his sympathy and hearty assistance 
 in all your intellectual endeavors. Remember that — 
 at all events, in the study hours and at recitation — 
 " Wisdom is the principal thing ; therefore get wisdom : 
 and with all thy getting get understanding. . . . Take 
 fast hold of instruction ; let her not go : keep her ; 
 for she is thy life " (Prov. 4 : 7-13). 
 
 J. But, with body and mind both cared for, your 
 
 sold, or spirit, must not be 7ieglected if you would sJioiv 
 
 yourself a man, — a man, I mean, in the present life, 
 
 leaving out for the time all consideration of the eternal 
 
 future. 
 
 Some one has forcibly suggested that it is not wise 
 for us to say that we have souls ; for the truth is we 
 are souls, and have bodies. There is a sermon in the 
 mere title of a modern work on " The Human Body 
 and Its Connection with Man." Our souls, or our 
 spirits, are our immortal selves. Ourselves — our 
 inner being — must be well considered in efforts at 
 personal culture. As a man ''thinketh in his heart, 
 so is he " (Prov. 23 : 7). *' It is character," says one 
 of our best American essayists, ^ " which gives author- 
 ity to opinions, puts virile meaning into words, and 
 burns its way through impediments insurmountable 
 to the large in brain who are weak in heart." As 
 good Dr. Joel Hawes, my own revered pastor, de- 
 clared, " Character is the measure of the man, — is, 
 indeed, the man. He is what his character is." 
 
 1 E. P. Whipple. 
 
1 60 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Hence the force of Solomon's injunction, " Keep thy 
 heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues 
 of life " (Prov. 4 : 23). 
 
 There is no pure life, no high-toned manliness, to 
 one whose heart is not pure, whose conscience is not 
 high-toned. Said Edmund Burke, in his plea against 
 Warren Hastings : " I never knew a man who was bad, 
 fit for service that was good. . . . The man seems par- 
 alytic on that side, his muscles there have lost their 
 very tone and character, — they can not move. In 
 short, the accomplishment of anything good is a 
 physical impossibility for such a man." " A good 
 man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth 
 forth good things : and an evil man out of the evil 
 treasure bringeth forth evil things " (Matt. 12 : 35). 
 
 And the character which comes out of a cleansed 
 heart is good capital for the business of every-day 
 life. Even for present dividends, "A good name is 
 rather to be chosen than great riches " (Prov. 22 : i). 
 " That character is power, is true in a much higher 
 sense than that knowledge is power." ^ It gives influ- 
 ence. It secures remuneration. Says a well-known 
 English writer:^ "Of two poets, otherwise equal, the 
 Christian is the greater ; of two statesmen, the Chris- 
 tian attains the more permanent fame; of two artists 
 equally gifted, the Christian takes the higher place; 
 of two merchants equally practical and far-seeing, the 
 Christian reaches the surest success." 
 
 And the honored president of Yale University^ 
 
 1 Samuel Smiles. 2 William Guest. 3 Theodore Woolsey. 
 
My Chaplaincy Ainong Students i6i 
 
 said of him who would be a true gentleman : '' It 
 is true, and a most important truth, that none, 
 however highly endowed by nature, and however 
 lofty in his aims, can be a true gentleman, in the high- 
 est sense of the term, without that spirit of piety, and 
 that sense of obligation toward God, by which, more 
 than by all things else, men are assisted in the dis- 
 charge of their duties to one another."^ What more 
 attractive, manly model is found in English history 
 than Sir Philip Sidney ? That which gave him pre- 
 eminence, while yet a youth of twenty-one, as " the 
 ornament and boast of the splendid court of Eliza- 
 beth," was rather character than genius. As soldier, 
 as statesman, as poet, and as wit, he had not only 
 peers but superiors ; but '' in the singular beauty of 
 his [Christian] life," he had no contemporary rival. 
 
 Thus down to the present day " the world, despite 
 its apparent indifference, is never insensible to the 
 beauty of a Christian life, to the dignity of a virtuous 
 and spotless character." ^ Such a character is at a 
 premium even in Wall street, whatever sneers may 
 there be indulged at hypocritical professions. It is 
 but a little time ago that the sharpest knaves there 
 were giving in excuse for their being duped by a new- 
 comer, that he was the son of a Christian minister, 
 and they rested on his likeness to a godly father. 
 
 Hon. Amasa Walker, in his classification of wages 
 as a politico-economist, puts as highest and in great- 
 est demand, moral power, — ''the power which gives 
 
 1 New Englander, Oct., 1847. ^ Record of Noble Deeds. 
 
1 62 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 ["a man] such a control over the appetites, passions, 
 and propensities as affords assurance that under no 
 circumstances of trial or temptation will he ever depart 
 from the strictest line of duty ; " and he adds, that " as 
 such men are more rare than those having only physi- 
 cal power, or physical and mental power combined, 
 they will command higher rewards, — the highest 
 paid for any class of services." It is God's truth, 
 verified in man's uniform experience, that " godhness 
 is profitable unto all things, having promise of the 
 life that now is, and of that which is to come" 
 (i Tim. 4 : 8). 
 
 But character can be secured, and godliness attained, 
 only through heart-strengthening by the power of the 
 Holy Ghost, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 As the body comes naked into the world, and must 
 be clothed from without to bring comfort or to con- 
 form to decency, so the soul enters the world in naked- 
 ness, and must be clothed upon with the righteousness 
 of the Crucified One : wherefore, young men, " put 
 ye on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13 : 14), else 
 your souls will stand stark, shivering, shameful. If 
 you have not yet been clothed with a new soul-gar- 
 ment, you have not yet begun to truly live ; you are 
 not a full man in any proper sense. 
 
 " The head of every man is Christ " (i Cor. 11:13), 
 and none *' stand complete " except " in him ; " or, as 
 it has been paraphrased by the poet : 
 
 "A Christian is the highest style of man." ^ 
 1 Edward Young. 
 
My Chaplaincy Amo7ig Students 1 63 
 
 " Be thou strong therefore, and [thus] shew thyself 
 a man " ! 
 
 Aye! " Be thou strojtg,'' for it requires strength to 
 show one's self a man. Strength is needed to get up 
 early in the morning, — not to say, when the clock 
 strikes or " chum " calls, ** Yet a little sleep, a litde 
 slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep " (Prov. 
 6 : 10). Strength is needed to go to bed at a proper 
 hour, to walk merely for exercise, to bathe merely 
 for health, to eat and drink only what is proper, and 
 that at proper times ; to turn away when the soul has 
 appetite from the sparkling wine which is red, and 
 " giveth its color " temptingly in the cup ; to shun in 
 the full flush of youthful passion her who " Heth in 
 wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors 
 among men;" to resist insane impulses to defile and 
 destroy one's own body; to keep clear of the gam- 
 bling group, with its exhausting excitements and its 
 ruinous impellings ; to maintain good resolutions, to 
 break up old habits of indulgence, to trample on 
 suddenly sprung temptations ; ** For the flesh lusteth 
 against the Spirit : . . . and these are contrary the one 
 to the other " (Gal 5 : 17) ; and you see a law in your 
 members, warring against the law of your minds, and 
 bringing you into captivity to the law of sin, which is 
 in your members (Rom. 7 : 23), and you must fight 
 or die. 
 
 Yet fight you may, in sure hope of victory ; for in 
 the battles of every-day life no true man — young 
 or old — is the devil's prisoner unless by surrender. 
 
1 64 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
 tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the 
 temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may 
 be able to bear it" (i Cor. 10 : 13). And added 
 strength shall be yours through each new victory in 
 your daily life-struggle. He who successfully com- 
 bats temptation, compacts and hardens thereby his 
 moral muscles; and with every succeeding triumph 
 his eye flashes fresh brightness, and his firmer tread 
 and nobler bearing proclaim him more the man 
 than ever. 
 
 Good soldiers are never made without hard fight- 
 ing. The grand Old Guard of Napoleon grew into 
 glory by their service and their successes. It is said 
 of them : " Nothing like them was ever seen when 
 they advanced, carrying arms ; with their great caps, 
 white waistcoats and gaiters, they all looked just 
 alike, and you could plainly see 'twas the emperor's 
 right arm moving. He looked upon his Guard as 
 upon his own flesh and blood ; he could always re- 
 place thirty or forty thousand men by conscription ; 
 but to have another such Guard he must commence 
 at twenty-five, and gain fifty victories, and what re- 
 mained of the best, most solid, and toughest, would 
 be the Guard." ^ 
 
 So of those who fi^ht the s^ood fifjht daily with 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil, keeping the faith 
 in their great Captain ! Their enemies only help 
 them to more of soldierly manhood. 
 
 ^ Erckmann-Chatrian. 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 165 
 
 " Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 
 
 That of our vices we can frame 
 A ladder, if we will but tread 
 
 Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 
 All common things, each day's events, 
 
 That with the hour begin and end, 
 Our pleasures and our discontents, 
 
 Are rounds by which we may ascend." * 
 
 Or, as Job declared it: "The righteous also shall 
 hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall 
 be stronger and stronger" (Job 17 : 9). 
 
 On the contrary, every yielding to evil weakens the 
 tempted one. He who has been worsted in one fight 
 is in poorer plight for the next. And no enemy is so 
 formidable as the one with whom a man has already 
 made terms. " A comparatively brief and moderate 
 indulgence in vicious pleasures appears to lower the 
 tone and impair both the delicacy and efficiency of 
 the brain for life," says as practical and sensible a 
 writer as James Parton. 
 
 He who spake "as never man spake," declared that 
 " that [of sin] which cometh out of the mouth, this 
 defileth a man" (Matt. 15 : 1 1),— not merely proves 
 his inner defilement, but promotes it externally. "We 
 should take care of the beginning of sin," says Bishop 
 Wilson. "Venture all on the first attempt. Die 
 rather than yield one single step," adds Dr. Owen. 
 
 A man never gets fairly over his first debauch. 
 One dass too much of alcoholic drinks will some- 
 times cause a man's conscience — if not his bram — to 
 
 1 Longfellow. 
 
1 66 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 reel for a lifetime. Once going in the way of forbid- 
 den indulgence may prove a permanent harm to char- 
 acter and to peace of soul. Yet temptation to these 
 sins will come to you as a college student. You can- 
 not evade the struggle, but in divinely given strength 
 you can avoid defeat. 
 
 " Not from the strife itself to set thee free, 
 
 But more to nerve — doth Victory 
 . Wave her rich garland from the Ideal chme." * 
 
 To those who face temptation for the first time, and to 
 those who meet its renewed attacks, the call of God 
 is repeated, " Be strong, and quit yourselves like men : 
 . . . quit yourselves like men, and fight " (i Sam. 4 : 9). 
 
 As a practical matter, you should understand that 
 in the training of your intellect more, by far, depends 
 on your strength — your determination and persever- 
 ance — than on any native endowments or adventitious 
 help of surroundings. No man bounds up the hill 
 of science with running jumps, impelled by his genius. 
 That ascent is made only by straightforward heel- 
 and-toe walking, and in the toilsome travel a resolute 
 will is worth more than a colossal brain. 
 
 " If I have done the public any service," said Sir 
 Isaac Newton, " it is due to nothing but industry and 
 patient thought." And Elihu Burritt adds, " All that 
 I have accomplished, or expect or hope to accom- 
 plish, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, 
 persevering process of accretion which builds the ant 
 heap — particle by particle, thought by thought, fact 
 
 1 Bulwer's Schiller. 
 
My Chaplaincy Amorig Students 167 
 
 by fact." Said Charles Dickens, on this point, *' My 
 own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can 
 most truthfully assure you, would never have served 
 me as it has but for the habit of common-place, hum- 
 ble, patient, daily toiling, drudging attention." Buffon 
 said of genius, *' It is patience." Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds held that excellence, even in high art, " however 
 expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may 
 be acquired ; " and Michel Angelo believed the same 
 as to sculpture. Said Beethoven, " The barriers are 
 not erected which can say to aspiring talents and in- 
 dustry, * Thus far and no farther.' " 
 
 Sydney Smith declared characteristically, " I am 
 convinced that a man might sit down as systemati- 
 cally and as successfully to the study of wit as he 
 might to the study of mathematics ; and I would 
 answer for it, that, by giving up only six hours a day 
 to being witty, he should come on prodigiously before 
 midsummer, so that his friends should hardly know 
 him again." Giardini thought that the violin could 
 be played by any man who would give twelve hours 
 a day to it for twenty years ; and there is an air of 
 probability about that simple statement, for in all in- 
 tellectual acquirements *' the hand of the diligent 
 maketh rich " (Prov. 10:4), and " the soul of the dili- 
 gent shall be made fat " (Prov. 13 : 4). 
 
 Thomas Jackson's (A. D. 1647) lesson from the 
 pawn's progress to the king-row in the Game of 
 Chess, of two centuries ago, is as full of truth for the 
 student now as then. 
 
1 6S SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 " A lowly one I saw, 
 With aim fixt high ; 
 Ne to the right, ne to the left, veering, 
 He marched by his law. 
 The crested knight passed by, 
 And haughty surplice vest ; 
 But onward, toward his hest, 
 With patient step, he pressed ; 
 Steadfast his eye. 
 Now, lo ! the last door yieldeth, 
 A crown his forehead shieldeth, 
 His hand a scepter wieldeth. 
 
 " So mergeth the true hearted, 
 With aim fixt high, 
 From place obscure and lowly : 
 Veereth he nought. — 
 His work is wrought : — 
 How many loyal paths be trod, 
 So many royal crowns hath God." 
 
 Sure it is that the more distinguished men in every 
 department of mental effort have exercised wondrous 
 patience in their best work. Newton wrote his Chron- 
 ology fifteen times over before it satisfied him, and 
 Gibbon his Memoir nine times. Montesquieu said to 
 a friend, of one of his writings, " You will read it in 
 a few hours ; but I assure you it cost me so much 
 labor that it has whitened my hair." Titian, in a letter 
 to Charles V., wrote, " I send your Majesty the Last 
 Supper, after working at it almost daily for seven 
 years." Jenner spent twenty-three years on his theory 
 of vaccination before issuing his first treatise concern- 
 ing it. Humboldt sent the outline of his Cosmos to 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 69 
 
 a friend just sixty-six years before he forwarded its 
 last sheets to the printer. 
 
 Lord Brougham said to Zachary Macauley that 
 he wrote the peroration to his speech in defense of 
 Queen CaroHne, perhaps his most effective passage of 
 oratory, at least twenty times, and after he had for 
 weeks been reading and meditating over Demos- 
 thenes. Tom Moore told Washington Irving that he 
 had hunted six weeks for one word to complete his 
 last song. Said Daniel Webster to Pitt Fessenden, of 
 his own more brilliant forensic utterances : '' Do you 
 suppose these terse sayings were made from the spur 
 of the moment ? By no means ; they were the result 
 of study,— and close study, too. . . . The words which 
 so fitly represent England's power, so often quoted, 
 and so much praised, were strung together while I 
 stood on the American side of the river, near Niagara 
 Falls, and heard the British drums beaten on the 
 Canada side." 
 
 If more young men would do the hard work of 
 genius, there would be more results of genius in the 
 world to rejoice over. 
 
 " The prize can but belong 
 To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails ; 
 In hfe, the victory only crowns the strong — 
 He who is feeble fails." ^ 
 
 "The difference between boys," said Arnold of 
 Rugby, " consists not so much in talent as in energy." 
 "The truest wisdom," said Napoleon, " is a resolute 
 
 1 Bulwer's Schiller. 
 
T 70 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 determination." Sir Fowell Buxton wrote, towards 
 the close of his useful life: "The longer I live, the 
 more I am certain that the great difference between 
 men, between the feeble and the powerful, is energy — 
 invincible determination — a purpose once fixed, and 
 then death or victory. That quality will do anything 
 that can be done in this world ; and no talents, no cir- 
 cumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged 
 creature a man without it." Buxton held, moreover, 
 that any man could do what any other man had done, 
 provided he merely gave more time and energy to it, 
 to overcome his disadvantage of natural lack. The 
 history of many of the world's great ones tends to 
 confirm the views of such thinkers. 
 
 Daniel Webster said of himself, at Exeter Academy: 
 '* There was one thing I could not do. I could not 
 make a declamation. I could not speak before the 
 school. ... I never could command sufficient resolu- 
 tion." Yet when he applied the long passive will, 
 Daniel Webster made a very reputable public speaker. 
 That ought to be encouraging to the average student. 
 Disraeli was laughed down when he made his first 
 speech in the House of Commons. He said deter- 
 minedly, when he found he could not go on : "I shall 
 sit down now, but the time will come when you will 
 hear me." He was, by and by, the eloquent leader of 
 that same House of Commons, and in fact of all Europe. 
 
 In 1759, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as a pupil, 
 " was, by common consent, both of parent and pre- 
 ceptor, pronounced to be 'a most impenetrable 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 7 1 
 
 dunce.'" Twenty-one years later the struggling dunce 
 essayed his first speech in Parliament. So poor was 
 then his success that a fi-iend told him frankly, to his 
 face, that oratory was evidently not in his line. Sher- 
 idan rested his head on his hand for a few minutes in 
 thought, and then in vehement assertion of manly re- 
 solve, he cried, *' It is in me, how^ever, and [with an 
 oath] it sJiall come out." It w^as seven years from 
 then that the '* impenetrable dunce " delivered his cel- 
 ebrated speech against Warren Hastings, '' whose 
 effect upon its hearers," says Tom Moore, in the biog- 
 raphy of Sheridan, " has no parallel in the annals of 
 ancient or modern eloquence." Edmund Burke de- 
 clared that speech to be " the most astonishing effort 
 of eloquence, argument and wit united, of which there 
 was any record or tradition." Charles James Fox 
 said, " All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever 
 read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, 
 and vanished like vapor before the sun." And Wil- 
 liam Pitt acknowledged " that it surpassed all the elo- 
 quence of ancient and modern times, and possessed 
 everything that genius or art could furnish, to agitate 
 and control the human mind." ^ 
 
 Could any of you do better than that, young men ? 
 Some of you have as good a start as he had. Deter- 
 mination gave that dunce power. 
 
 Adam Clarke w^as another " grievous dunce " until 
 his teacher dismissed him from the class in disgrace, 
 and his seat-mate taunted him with his stupidity. 
 
 iSee Memoirs of Sheridan. 
 
1 7 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Then he was fairly aroused, feehng, as he expressed 
 it, "as if something had broken within him," "Shall 
 I ever be a dunce, and the butt of these fellows' in- 
 sults ? " he asked. Snatching up a book, he started 
 on the road to manhood. Neither his capacity nor 
 his progress has ever been questioned since then. 
 Isaac Newton was backward in all his school studies 
 until an overbearing comrade was cruel enough to 
 kick him in the stomach. This fired him with indig- 
 nant courage, and he determined on revenge through 
 superior scholarship. He never halted thenceforward 
 in the race of life until he had distanced every one of 
 his fellows, and stood the foremost man on earth. It 
 would be a sore temptation to make a similar appli- 
 cation to many a sluggish student if one were sure 
 that he could thus be surely projected into the New- 
 tonian sphere of scholarship. But, while that could 
 hardly be relied on as a method of treatment, it is 
 true that whatever arouses a youth to a determined, 
 manly eftbrt in pursuit of knowledge, secures to him 
 a higher meed of success. 
 
 Indeed, a savant of science not long ago advocated 
 before the British Academy of Medicine the use of 
 electricity as a mental stimulant. He cites a dunce 
 who was " electrified " from the foot to the head of 
 his class, and held his own there ; and the learned 
 gentleman's serious advice to instructors was to treat 
 the lowest six in college or academy to a course of 
 electricity — as in practical enforcement of the appeal 
 of our text. But, young man ! if you are a lagging 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 173 
 
 student, do not wait to be struck by lightning or 
 kicked in the stomach, but *' be thou strong, . . . and 
 shew thyself a man," in resolute, patient industry in 
 your every-day studies, and if you are not the equal 
 of Sir Isaac Newton you will come nearer to it than 
 you have deemed possible, for it is ever true that in 
 the field of the mind " He that tilleth his land shall 
 have plenty of bread" (Prov. 28 : 19). 
 
 In your spiritual life, when you are weak, then 
 you are strong (2 Cor. 12 : 10). Your soul-strength 
 must be that of the clinging vine rather than of the 
 sturdy oak, — a strength exercised in the grip of your 
 faith on the hand that leads you and the right hand 
 that holds you (Psa. 139 : 10). But to such strength 
 you are clearly called. You must " be strong in the 
 Lord, and in the power of his might " (Eph. 6 : 10) ; 
 *' strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. 
 2:1); strong and fearless for every duty. There is 
 no true Christian manliness without God-reliant, earth- 
 and-hell-defiant courage. 
 
 "According to your faith be it unto you ! " (Matt. 
 9 : 29) is the assurance of God to every man who 
 follows the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2 : 10). 
 " He that doubteth is damned " (Rom. 14 : 23) for all 
 efficient Christian endeavor, and prompt and hearty 
 discharge of duty. The divine injunction rings out 
 now as of old, " Have not I commanded thee ? Be 
 strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, neither 
 be thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is with thee 
 whithersoever thou goest " (Josh, i : 9). 
 
1 74 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 " Give me the dauntless man, 
 Who flinches not from labor or fatigue, 
 But moves right out upon the path of duty. 
 God will stand by the man who boldy stands 
 By God's commands ; God will give him energy 
 And courage now, and afterwards success." 
 
 But there is another phase of this great subject that 
 is of no little importance. Let us look at that carefully. 
 " Be thou strong, . . . and shew thyself A man " ! A 
 man — not merely mannish, human, of the race of 
 men ; nor yet alone manly and manful, but a man — an 
 individual, with your own character, your own convic- 
 tions, and your own course in life. The call to this 
 individuality of being is plainly included in the text. 
 David was enjoining Solomon to personal duties — 
 duties which were Solomon's and no one's else. The 
 summons to individual action is anew to every soul to 
 whom the summons is repeated. And if there be 
 one trait which more than another commends its pos- 
 sessor to the world, it is manly independence of char- 
 acter. This is what shows a man a hero — marks the 
 difference between heroism and bravery. 
 
 The Swiss who followed Arnold de Winckelreid 
 were all brave. It was the going forward alonCy to 
 gather the death-harvest of lances into his own great 
 heart, that uplifted him as the hero there. Napoleon 
 seemed never more the hero than when at Grenoble, 
 on his return from Elba, he rested calmly on his indi- 
 viduality, as he pressed up to the leveled muskets of 
 one of his old regiments which had been ordered to 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 75 
 
 fire on him, and said, confidently, "Soldiers of the 
 Fifth Regiment ! if there is one among you who 
 would kill his Emperor, let him do it! Here I am ! " 
 David, standing out alone before the affrighted army 
 of Israel, to defy the Philistines and their champion ; 
 Elijah, single-handed, challenging the four hundred 
 and fifty prophets of Baal to a struggle, — and thus 
 with all the heroes, along through the following ages; 
 St. Telemachus, an humble monk of the desert, 
 throwing himself between gladiatorial combatants in 
 the Colosseum, and ending in his martyr-death the 
 brutal games he battled ; Peter the Hermit, " a bare- 
 headed, bare-footed, little, shriveled old man, mounted 
 on an ass, wrapped in a coarse garment, girded with a 
 rope," traversing Europe to initiate a Crusade, and 
 drawing after him all Christendom in arms ; Luther, 
 a simple German priest, rising up to hurl defiant 
 anathemas against the hierarchy which held the world 
 in its grasp ; Cromwell, mustering a psalm-singing, 
 praying band of yeoman, to give battle to the skilled 
 soldiers of the mightiest monarchy of earth, — down 
 to gray-haired John Brown, starting up with a handful 
 of pikes, to lead a half-dozen followers to the over- 
 throw of a vast system of oppression, hedged in and 
 protected by all the civil and military powers of a 
 great nation ! All these have won admiration and rev- 
 erence, — often wresting applause for their character 
 from those who condemned their course, — through 
 their audacious personality of performance, because 
 each one was stronc:r and showed himself a man. 
 
I ^6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 " One man among a thousand have I found " (Eccl. 
 7 : 28), said the Preacher, in his day. Has the relative 
 number of men diminished since then? J. Stuart 
 Mill says that no period of England's history had 
 been so little marked by individual originality and 
 force as his century. 
 
 " How rare men are ! " said Napoleon. " There.are 
 eighteen millions in Italy, and I have with difficulty 
 found two, — Dandolo and Melzi." 
 
 Carlyle declares of the people thronging the Strand 
 in London, whose personal history he would like to 
 ask of each, " No, I will not stop them. If I did, I 
 should find they were like a flock of sheep following 
 in the track of one another." 
 
 Of our own country, Mr. Beecher has said pithily: 
 "We must make men now as they make masts: they 
 saw down a dozen trees, splice them together, and 
 wind them round with iron hoops, and thus make 
 masts that are supposed to be stronger than they 
 would be if each was a whole piece of timber. And 
 so with men ; if you want a good man, you have to 
 take a dozen men, and splice them together, and wind 
 the hoops of responsibility round and round them, 
 and put watching bands all about them." Ah! there 
 is truth in the cry of an earnest writer : " The great 
 want of now is not more men, but more man ; not 
 more persons, but more personality." 
 
 Yet, if there is one weakness of man more con- 
 temptible than another, it is his proneness to seek 
 shelter behind others in shirking the responsibiHty 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Studefits 177 
 
 of his misdeeds. In the sad story of man's first fall, 
 there is nothing that goes so to sicken and disgust 
 one with Adam as the whine of the sneaking sinner, 
 when drawn by God's call from " amongst the trees 
 of the garden," — "The ivoniaii whom thou gavest to 
 be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat " 
 (Gen. 3 : 12). For shame ! thus to sacrifice all manly 
 independence, and to disown all personality of re- 
 sponsible life ! Sad, sad, it is, that the race so gen- 
 erally follows Adam in his cowardice, as it does uni- 
 formly in his sinning. 
 
 Oh, the contrast between the first Adam and the 
 last Adam — between Eden and Gethsemane ! When 
 the blessed Jesus was with the chosen of his disci- 
 ples in the garden, and the multitude came out in his 
 pursuit, he, " knowing all things that should come 
 upon him, went forth, and said unto them. Whom 
 seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. 
 Jesus saith unto them, / am he. ... If therefore ye 
 seek vtc, let these go their way" (John 18 : 4-8). No 
 failure there to meet the dread responsibilities of his 
 position! "The man Christ Jesus" (i Tim. 2:5) 
 is alone the model. Be thou strong, therefore, to 
 show thyself a man like him in this. 
 
 In a college or academy, where so many are gath- 
 ered in close association and sympathy, there is 
 peculiar danger to a young man of losing his individ- 
 ualism by merging it more or less in the mass, or in 
 the class, or in the crowd. Many a student for in- 
 stance, consents, under a pressure of class, or society. 
 
78 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 or "crowd" sentiment, to do what his intelligent 
 judgment condemns; and in some "bread-and-butter" 
 (a famous Yale conflict) or " mark-system " rebellion, 
 high-minded, even Christian, youth will say deliber- 
 ately, "I didn't think the thing proposed was just 
 right ; but the class, or the college, voted it, and of 
 course I must fall in." No, you must not, " of course, 
 fall in," young man. If a thing is not just right, you 
 must stand out against it, in spite of all odds and at 
 any cost. " Thou shall not follow a multitude to do 
 evil " (Exod. 23 : 2), said God by his servant, Moses. 
 " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" 
 (Rom. 14:5), was the echo of Paul. Said Athanasius : 
 " If the world goes against truth, then Athanasius 
 cfoes aeainst the world, and Jehovah and Athana- 
 sius are always a majority." 
 
 " The world assaults ? Nor fight, nor fly. 
 Stand in some steadfast truth and eye 
 The stubborn siege grow old and die." ^ 
 
 Therefore,! say again : " Shciu thyself a man,'' my 
 friend, and this I say to each of you individually, not 
 to you collectively. Do what you know to be right and 
 only that, in spite of the views of your fellows, and 
 the votes of your crowd. Don't drink, nor smoke, 
 nor gamble, nor visit vile resorts, nor take gates off 
 the hino-es nor gro out of town without leave, nor haze 
 a newcomer, nor seek to annoy an instructor, nor do any 
 other either foolish or wicked thing, because others do 
 
 1 Sydney Dobell. 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 79 
 
 so, — not even if " everybody else does." But to show 
 thyself A MAN thus, you must, indeed, be strong. It 
 is hard work to do right independently. " It is easy 
 in the world to live after the world's opinion," says 
 Emerson; " it is easy in solitude to live after our own, 
 but the great man is he who, in the midst of the 
 crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence 
 of solitude." It is easier in any moving throng to go 
 with the crowd than to go against it. Driftwood will 
 float with the current. The brawny arm is needed to 
 pull even the light canoe up-stream. But the current 
 of busy life sets hellward, and if you yield to it un- 
 resistingly you will find yourself in perdition. The 
 better way is to clioose your course, and pursue it 
 Then, if for any distance the current runs your way, 
 avail yourself of the popular help ; but if its direction 
 is contrary, say resolutely, as said a hero of Italy, " I 
 had rather take one step forward and die, than one 
 step backward and live." 
 
 You may have to bear the jeers or revilings of 
 your companions, if you dare conscientiously to 
 oppose the public sentiment of your little circle, as 
 other manly men have been called to breast mightier 
 waves of contempt or hatred in their life-struggles for 
 the right ; but in the end you will be more sure of sup- 
 port than you could be by any courting of popular 
 favor. 
 
 " To thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
1 80 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 "He who agrees with himself, agrees with others," 
 says Goethe ; and so the heroes of the world have 
 found it. Even Punch comes to pay tribute to the 
 long-despised John Bright, with this meed of praise : 
 
 " And he can boast, and truly boast, 
 The change is not in him, 
 He waited, as the years went by, 
 Rigid, resolved, and grim. 
 
 ** Thought out his thought, and spoke it out, 
 Nor cared for howl or cheer ; 
 Reckless what faith his speech might win, 
 What hate provoke, or fear. 
 
 " Till the great tide, whose forces deep 
 Nor men nor modes withstand, 
 Bore spoils of office to his feet, 
 And power into his hand." 
 
 Perhaps no better single example of manly indi- 
 vidualism can be named than the case of Granville 
 Sharp. A subordinate clerk in a public office, with- 
 out wealth or friends or scholarship, he determined to 
 overthrow the slave power in Great Britain, to secure 
 decisions in the courts against its rightfulness, and to 
 influence national legislation tor its downfall. With 
 every judge and lawyer in the kingdom opposed to 
 him, he entered on the study of law, from its very 
 rudiments, and, while toiling daily at his clerkship for 
 bread, mastered the great principles of legal science, 
 searched the records of judicial decisions and parlia- 
 mentary enactments, and gathered the material he 
 required for his great purpose. 
 
My Chaplaincy Among Students i8i 
 
 Publishing the results of his investigations, and 
 scattering his essays widely through the land, Sharp 
 fought his test case to the highest tribunal of the 
 realm, wrested from Lord Chief Justice Mansfield the 
 admission of previous error, and secured the promul- 
 gation of the decision that freed every slave on the 
 soil of England. The result of his personal endeavors 
 aroused, for the completion of his mighty undertak- 
 ing, Clarkson and Wilberforce and Buxton and 
 Brougham ; and the contest he entered on single- 
 handed was continued, with constantly fresh accessions 
 of friends and favor, until slavery was abolished in all 
 the British dominions, and then in America ; and now 
 every freedman on our own purified soil owes his lib- 
 erty, instrumentally, to the movement begun by Gran- 
 ville Sharp, the humble Ordnance clerk, who heard 
 the cry of God, " Be thou strong, . . . and shew thyself 
 a man " ! and in fearless independence rose up to 
 breast and battle and conquer — the world. 
 
 Ah ! it is glorious to be a man ; to do the work of 
 a man ; to have your own convictions of duty, and 
 to stand by them ; to serve, like David, your '* own 
 generation" (Acts 13 : 36), until by the will of God 
 you fall asleep, knowing, like Job, even while you 
 toil and suffer, that your own Redeemer liveth, 
 whom you shall see for yourself, and whom j/^?/r eyes 
 shall behold and not another (Job 19 : 25-27). 
 
 "Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a 
 man," growing ** up into him in all things, which is 
 
1 82 Shoes and Ratio?is for a Long March 
 
 the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4: 15), and coming 
 through " the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
 perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
 fuhiess of Christ" (Eph. 4 : 13). 
 
IMPORTANCE OF A HEAD TO A SOLDIER 
 
VIII 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF A HEAD TO A SOLDIER 
 
 Many a thing that a man thinks he needs, and that 
 he certainly wants, when he is in active army service, 
 is not actually indispensable to him as a soldier. 
 Bodily wholeness is certainly desirable; it is even 
 insisted on for one who offers himself as a new recruit. 
 Yet many soldiers have continued to do good army 
 service after losing an arm or a leg or an eye. But 
 every soldier must have a head. Without a head a 
 soldier can not do service, or continue to be a man. 
 Hence, as a head is indispensable to a soldier's very 
 existence as a soldier, it must be retained by him at 
 any cost. 
 
 This is true in every sphere of human warfare. 
 Whether a soldier be in camp or on the march, in 
 bivouac or in battle, in hospital or in army-prison, on 
 detached service or in home life, — whatever else he 
 has to be without, he must have a head. This is an 
 obvious truth, but it is a truth that is not always borne 
 in mind, even bv those who have most reason to con- 
 sider it seriously. 
 
 During a season of exceptional religious interest in 
 the church of which, in my later life, I have been a 
 
 185 
 
1 86 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 member, in West Philadelphia, I was asked by my 
 pastor to preach for him one Sunday morning. More 
 than fifty young persons had, within two weeks, newly 
 entered the Christian life in that church, and others 
 were earnestly considering such action. New recruits 
 were, therefore, before me as I preached, and those 
 ready for enlistment were in the congregation. My 
 message must be one that every soldier-soul should 
 consider, and my appeal should be as earnest and as 
 important as I could make it. The sermon preached 
 under such circumstances is therefore one that I desire 
 to include in the collection of my talks to earth's sol- 
 diers, young and old, in view of their needs and 
 duties and possibilities. 
 
HEADSHIP OF CHRIST 
 
 / would have you know, that the head of every man 
 is Christ (i Cor. 11:3). 
 
 It is the Apostle Paul who speaks these words in 
 one of his letters to the Corinthians, and what the 
 Apostle Paul says he wants to have known is sure 
 to be something that is worth knowing. But apart 
 from the fact that these words are Paul's words, 
 they are, as I view it, the expression of a truth of 
 truths in the disclosure of God's plans, and of man's 
 needs and possibilities. Indeed, I know of no truth 
 that is to be compared with this truth, in the profound- 
 ness of its philosophy, or in the importance of its 
 practical bearing. 
 
 All that I have learned through my closest studies 
 — in the Bible or outside of the Bible — and through 
 my experiences and observations in a busy life among 
 men, can be summed up in this declaration which 
 Paul deemed worth our knowing. When, therefore, 
 your pastor asks me to speak to you on an occasion 
 like the present, when only the most precious thoughts 
 are at all worthy of your attention, I can think of 
 nothing that better represents the core of the gospel, 
 or that better expresses the deepest conviction of my 
 
 187 
 
I SS SJioes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 own innermost being, than these words of the Apos- 
 tle Paul, which I make my own words, as I come to 
 you in Christ's name this morning : 
 
 " I would have you know, that the head of every 
 man is Christ." 
 
 Viewing man as you will, there is no completeness 
 to him save as he finds it in Christ. No man can live 
 as he ought to live, or be what he ought to be, or 
 have the hope that he ought to have, apart from God 
 in Christ. In Christ there is a possibility to every 
 man of the truest life, of the noblest being, of the 
 grandest hope, conceivable for man. 
 
 Viewing Christ as you will, he is the world's center 
 of interest and of admiration. Even apart from all 
 theological dogmas concerning his nature and his 
 power, Christ stands an absolutely unique figure in 
 human histor>\ There was never one like him before. 
 There has never been one like him since. No char- 
 acter like his was conceived of until he had lived his life. 
 When his life was lived, it became at once the standard 
 by which all other lives were measured ; and no one 
 now dreams of a rival to that life as a standard of 
 moral and spiritual measurement to the end of time. 
 
 With man as man is, and with Christ as Christ is, 
 Christ must be to the complete man all that the head 
 is to the body, as a source of guidance, of balance, 
 and of vivifying power. And without Christ the best 
 of men lacks that sure knowledge, that abiding peace, 
 and that fulness of life, which are secured to those of 
 whom Christ is the head. 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 1 89 
 
 /. ** / would have yoic hioWy that the head of every 
 man is CJirist ' ' in the realm of all true knowledge con- 
 cerning practical duty in daily life, as zvell as co?icerning 
 all things beyond and above the realities of time and sense. 
 
 We talk about doing our duty, about doing right, 
 about doing as well as we know how ; but what do 
 we mean by all this ? What is duty ? What is right ? 
 What is the moral standard toward which we are striv- 
 ing within the limits of our knowledge of its demands ? 
 
 All our well-defined ideas of duty and of right are 
 derived from the character and teachings of Jesus 
 Christ. It is true that long before his day there were 
 moral laws and standards of right and duty, recog- 
 nized among many of the nations of earth, or laid 
 down in the sacred books of the ages ; but not until 
 Jesus made clear the fuller meaning of the precepts 
 that ought to be binding upon the consciences of 
 men, and pointed out the errors that had blinded the 
 moral sight of mankind, was there known to the world 
 a fixed standard of duty, Godward and manward. 
 Not until then was there a given standard of right, to 
 be accepted more and more generally by all proper- 
 thinking and well-disposed persons everywhere, in the 
 progress of the world's advancement. 
 
 Until Jesus Christ appeared, there was, at the best, 
 only a foreshadowing of the good things that have 
 been realized in him. Since his appearance, the high- 
 est attainment, personal or social, reached or reached 
 after by men, can not transcend that attainment which 
 Jesus exhibited, and which Jesus enjoined on all. 
 
90 Shoes mid Rations for a Long March 
 
 Whatever may be your view of the development 
 of the human race, or of human thought, it can not 
 fairly be a question with you, that suddenly, almost 
 two thousand years ago, in an out-of-the-way portion 
 of the earth, and from among a people of restricted 
 religious opinions, there appeared a world-teacher of 
 morals and religion, who stands to-day, even in the 
 light of nineteen added centuries of progress under 
 the impulse of his own best teachings, a faultless 
 teacher and a model guide ; so that when even unbe- 
 lieving fancy would picture an ideal morality, it can 
 suggest nothing better than the pattern life which 
 Jesus lived on earth. 
 
 You can find good in the moral teachings of the 
 ancient Egyptians, of the sages of Assyria and China 
 and India, and of the philosophers of Greece and 
 Rome ; but no one of you can say that those teach- 
 ings are unmixed with error, or that their standards 
 are uniformly those which you deem the correct one. 
 On the other hand, no one of you will claim that he 
 recognizes a flaw in the moral teachings of Jesus, or 
 that he can conceive to-day of a higher standard of 
 duty than Jesus held, and holds, before men. Nor 
 can you say that such a standard is to be found else- 
 where in all the earth, even in the teachings of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures — as those teachings were inter- 
 preted and applied before the coming of Jesus. 
 
 So it is that all our knowledge of personal and social 
 duty centers in, or is derived from, the teachings and 
 the example of Jesus Christ. ** God, having of old 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 1 9 1 
 
 time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers 
 portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of 
 these days spoken unto us in his Son" (Heb. i : 1-2) ; 
 and thus it has come to pass that in moral and reh- 
 gious knowledge *'the head of eveiy man is Christ." 
 It is not that eveiy man who strives to do his duty, 
 or who is, in matters of morality, doing as well as he 
 know^s how, is conscious of the fact that he is so far 
 heeding the counsel of Jesus ; but it is that all our 
 modern best ideas of right and duty are derived 
 directly from Jesus Christ Our ideas of duty in 
 the treatment of children, in the life we live in the 
 family, in our social intercourse wdth our fellows, in 
 our business relations with others, in our ministry to 
 or in our provisions for the poor and the sick and the 
 insane and the criminal, and even in our recognition 
 of the rights of the brute creation, as well as in our 
 attitude toward the government which is over us, — all, 
 all are shaped and directed by the specific teachings 
 of Jesus. 
 
 See how it was, for example, in the matter of the 
 parental care of children before the teachings of 
 Jesus were the recognized moral standard of the more 
 civilized nations of the world ! Among the Greeks 
 and Romans, when those peoples led the w^orld's best 
 thinking and doing, a new-born child had no right to 
 live save by its human father s special consent as an 
 act of grace. The infant was brought at its birth and 
 laid at its father's feet. If the father stooped and 
 took the child in his arms, the babe might live and be 
 
192 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 reared at that father's expense. Otherwise it would 
 be killed or left to perish. 
 
 Jesus, at his coming, took into his arms a little 
 child, and made it the example and the charge of 
 those who would show their love for him. "Whoso- 
 ever . . . shall humble himself as this little child, the 
 same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven," he 
 said. **And whoso shall receive one such little child 
 in my name receiveth me" (comp. Matt. 18 : 2-5 and 
 Mark 9 : 36, 37). That act and those words of Jesus 
 were the turning point in the world's estimate of child- 
 hood. And now when, at the baptism of little children, 
 the father takes the tender babe in his arms and pre- 
 sents him at the Lord's altar, there is a survival of the 
 old pagan custom, with its Christianized aspect, as the 
 father says, symbolically, ''This child shall live, and 
 shall be reared for Jesus." 
 
 So it is in every sphere of personal and social life. 
 All true progress has been made, and is making, in 
 the direction, and under the direction, of Christian 
 teachings, just so far as Christian teachings are the 
 teachings of Christ. James Russell Lowell, who 
 would hardly be deemed a religious bigot, summed 
 the truth in this whole matter, so far, when he said, 
 in a public address in England not very long before 
 his death : ** When the microscopic search of skepti- 
 cism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the 
 seas to disprove the existence of a Creatcr, has turned 
 its attention to human society, and has found a place 
 in this planet where a decent man can live in decency, 
 
Importmice of a Head to a Soldier 193 
 
 comfort, and security, supporting and educating his 
 children unspoiled and unpolluted ; a place where age 
 is reverenced, manhood respected, womanhood hon- 
 ored, and human life held in due regard ; when skeptics 
 can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, 
 where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared 
 the way and laid the foundations and made decency 
 and security possible, it will then be in order for the 
 skeptical literate to move thither, and there ventilate 
 their views." 
 
 Not long after Mr. Lowell said that, I heard Pro- 
 fessor Drummond, the Scotch scientist, who has been 
 a world-wide traveler and a careful student of the 
 observations of others, quote these words, and say in 
 addition that, if any one could show him such a field 
 of ten miles square anywhere on earth, he would sur- 
 render his belief in Christianity as the world's only 
 hope of true uplifting in knowledge and morals. 
 
 Is it not then specifically true ''that the head of 
 every man is Christ" in the realm of true moral and 
 religious knowledge ? Whether he realizes it or not, 
 he who does, or who strives to do, as well as he 
 knows how, is a far-off follower of Jesus, walking in 
 the path of duty which Jesus first made clear. He is 
 moving in the right direction, even though he is not 
 moving as surely or as intelligently as he should 
 move. Being out of Christ, he is, however, in the 
 truest sense, "out of his head ; " for only as a man 
 recognizes the headship of Christ can he fully know 
 his duty, his privileges, his possibilities, his destiny. 
 
1 94 Shoes mid Rations for a Long March 
 
 Recognizing that headship, and conforming himself 
 to it, the path of completed knowledge is fairly open 
 before a man. 
 
 Jesus says to each and all of us, '*If ye abide in 
 my word [having accepted my headship], then are ye 
 truly my disciples ; and ye shall know the truth, 
 and the truth shall make you free" (John 8 : 31, 32). 
 
 2. Moreover, *' / tuould have you know, that the head 
 of every man is Christ'' in the spJiere of that peace of 
 mind zvJiicJi alone gives comfort, and secures the highest 
 power, to any man in the struggles and endurances of 
 his daily life on eartJi. 
 
 Knowing what is right does not in itself give peace 
 of mind to a man. More often it is a cause of added 
 unrest to him. He who knows what is right and does 
 not do it, is farther from peace than if he had no 
 knowledge of the right. He who lives wholly for 
 himself, is never satisfied with himself He who seeks 
 pleasure as the end of his living, never finds pleasure 
 unalloyed. He who would avoid disquiet of mind by 
 turning away from all serious thought, and finding for- 
 getfulness of God in indulgence of sin, can never turn 
 away from the consciousness that he ought to be better, 
 nor forget that there is an aim in life worthier of him 
 than the aim he is pursuing. 
 
 Said a young man to me, who had been living a 
 wild life of selfish pleasure-seeking : " No one but 
 God knew how much I suffered, while I seemed to be 
 always having *a good time.' I've gone home long 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 195 
 
 after midnight, night after night, and as I crept softly 
 upstairs toward my bedroom, I've seen the hght 
 streaming out from under my mother's door, and I've 
 heard her low, sobbing voice in prayer, and I knew she 
 was kept awake praying for me. Then I've gone up 
 into my room and thrown myself on my bed, and 
 cried as if my heart would break. I've wished I was 
 dead ; but I've lived, — lived to do the same thing over 
 again with the same result. And that's the life I 
 lived for years. I tell you there is no comfort to the 
 man who keeps on doing wrong when he knows he 
 ought to do better!" 
 
 At the best, as God's word assures us, *' The wicked 
 are like the troubled sea ; for it cannot rest. . . . 
 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked " 
 (Isa. 57 : 20, 21). 
 
 Nor does tiying to do as well as one knows how 
 secure peace of mind in every instance ; for, as a rule, 
 such tiying is not a success according to the man's 
 own estimate of his doing. Trying to do w^ell is a 
 praiseworthy endeavor, but God has set before every 
 man an ideal that is higher than his own best per- 
 formance, and a man can never stand complete before 
 God in a sense of his own real merit. Many a man 
 who lives an upright life in personal morals, and whose 
 heart is full of kindly purposes toward his fellows, 
 lacks that feeling of restful peace which is the posses- 
 sion of him who knows that he is Christ's, and that 
 Christ is his, and that in his well-doing as in his short- 
 coming he is loved of God as one for whom Jesus 
 
1 96 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 lived and died, and for whom Christ hves, and whom 
 Christ loves. 
 
 Not even a purpose of being a Christian, nor the 
 belief that one is a Christian, nor the knowledge 
 that one is a consistent member of a Christian 
 church, can give peace of mind to one who longs 
 for peace. ** I would have you know, that the head 
 of every man is CJirist ;'' not holy purposes, not a 
 rich religious experience, not a formal church-mem- 
 bership, but Christ. " The head of every man is 
 Christ ; " and only he of whom Christ is the head and 
 balance, and who trusts himself wholly to the wise 
 and loving headship of Christ, can have peace ; that 
 peace "which passeth all understanding," and which 
 abideth forever. 
 
 Peace comes to the believer in Jesus, not through 
 what the man does, nor through what the man is, but 
 through a sense of what Jesus is in himself, and of 
 what Jesus is to every man who trusts himself to him. 
 Peace is found by looking away from one's self, away 
 from one's merits, away from one's lack, and at Christ 
 as he is, and in his attitude toward the sinner. One 
 may be conscious of great imperfections, of pitiable 
 weakness ; he may be perplexed with doubts about 
 his purposes and motives ; he maybe beset by peculiar 
 temptations, and sore-tried with afflictions and be- 
 reavements ; but if he fixes his gaze on Christ in whom 
 all fulness dwells (Col. i : 19), and realizes that all that 
 Christ is, and all that Christ has, is shared by Christ 
 with every soul that accepts his headship, peace of 
 
Importmice of a Head to a Soldier 197 
 
 mind must be a result of such gazing and such real- 
 izing (Rom. 8 : 16, 17; Gal. 4: 7). 
 
 Peace comes from realizing that Christ is our Head, 
 and not from believing that Christ is merely our 
 Helper. A young Christian who had been in army 
 service for a time, and who was now in the struggle 
 for business success, said to me half regretfully one 
 day: "I never have had such peace as I had in zua/^- 
 time. Then I was always under orders, and I accepted 
 the state of things. Every morning the sergeant told 
 me just what to do, and I did it. One morning it was 
 'drill,' another it was ' fatigue,' another it was 'polic- 
 incr ,' another it was 'fall in for a march.' It was all 
 laid out for me, and I had nothing to do but to obey. 
 But now I'm in a worry to know just what I ought to 
 do in the work which I've undertaken." The real 
 difference with that young man in war-time and in 
 time of peace was that in the one case he realized 
 that he was under a competent head, while in the 
 other case he wanted to be his own head. 
 
 ** Ye call me Master, and, Lord," says Jesus : ** and 
 ye say well ; for so I am " (John 13:13). He who 
 recognizes Christ as Lord and Master and Head, can 
 be told day by day just what to do or just what to 
 endure in the day before him, and he can find peace 
 in doing and enduring accordingly. 
 
 There are many believers in Jesus who enjoy peace 
 in the consciousness of his headship, while they are 
 in the army or while they are in business, while they 
 are prospered or while they are afflicted. Their con- 
 
198 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 dition has nothing to do with giving them peace, or 
 with keeping peace from them. Their peace is wholly 
 the result of their accepting Christ as their head. I 
 wish I could give you even the faintest glimpse of all 
 that I have seen of this peace of mind which Christ 
 secures to those who trust him. 
 
 I knew, at the same time, two believers in Jesus 
 who had the fullest measure of peace in his headship. 
 One of them probably never had a hundred dollars 
 at a time. His whole life was given to Christ, and he 
 literally lived from hand to mouth in Christ's service. 
 His face was all aglow with joy as he told me of 
 Christ's unvaiynng goodness to him. ** Dear Saviour," 
 he said, *' he does everything for me. I haven't a 
 sing-le unsatisfied want in this world." The other be- 
 liever was rich in this world's goods. His property 
 counted up into the millions. He had come into the 
 service of Christ after the middle of life, but he had 
 accepted Christ as his head, and now he and all that 
 he had belonged to Christ. Day by day he was ask- 
 ing Jesus what he might do for him, and he was doing 
 as Jesus directed. The light of Christ's love was in 
 his face as he said to me one day, "I feel that I've 
 wasted so much time in living out of Christ that I 
 don't want to waste another minute, now that I'm in 
 his loving service." 
 
 One of these believers had learned how to be 
 empty, and the other how to be full, in Christ's service 
 (Phil. 4 : 12), and both of them had learned the pre- 
 ciousness of peace through having Christ as their head. 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 199 
 
 And so among the poor and the rich, among the 
 infirm and the bereaved and the disappointed and the 
 betrayed, as well as among those who knew litde of 
 earth's severest trials, I have seen, as you have seen, 
 those who had realized in their own experience the 
 fulness of Christ's words to his disciples : "Peace I 
 leave with you ; my peace I give unto you : not as 
 the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
 heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful" (John 
 
 14: 27). 
 
 And the truth of those words may be realized by 
 any one of you who will lay hold of them and make 
 them your own to-day. 
 
 J. ''I wotdd have you knozv, that the head of every 
 man is Christ'' in the realm of life,— the life that is 
 and the life that is to come,— life temporal and life 
 
 eternal. 
 
 Our mortal life is a dying life, and is a life marred 
 and hindered by sin all its way deathward. All of us 
 want something better than this life, something more 
 than this life ; and just in proportion as we lack an 
 intelligent and reasonable hope of something more 
 and better, are we liable to be tossed in bewilderment 
 between doubt and despair. 
 
 It is not because of any peculiarity of our early 
 theological training — as some would have us suppose 
 
 that we have this unrest, and this dissatisfaction 
 
 with the life that mere nature offers us, in the present 
 condition of nature's strugglings with that form of 
 
200 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 evil which we call sin. In all ages and everywhere 
 the trouble has been much the same. 
 
 The choicest wisdom of the classic philosophies of 
 ancient Greece and Rome went no farther than to 
 seek out the best use of a fleeting life that was on the 
 face of it a seeming failure. The Hebrew sage who 
 had tested for himself the gain of pleasure and wealth 
 and power and learning, could only characterize all 
 that which nature unillumined from without could 
 give, as " vanity and a striving after wind " (Eccl. 
 2 : 26). And to-day, outside of the realm of Chris- 
 tianity, millions upon millions of aching hearts accept 
 Booddhism as their religion, because Booddhism holds 
 before them the hopeless task of practical annihila- 
 tion, with a final end to living and striving and suffer- 
 ing and enduring. 
 
 In fact, apart from the teachings of Jesus Christ, 
 there neither is, nor ever has there been, any proffer 
 to man of joy and triumph in the life that is, and of 
 added joy in life prolonged beyond the present. He 
 who studies the various religions of the world, ancient 
 and modern, realizes that it is a literal truth that there 
 is not " any other name under heaven, that is given 
 [or that has been given] among men" (Acts 4 : 12), 
 wherein is salvation, — in a new and abiding life, — or 
 wherein is even a promise of salvation, except the 
 name of Jesus Christ. And he who studies the ways 
 of men's thinkings and hopings to-day, realizes that 
 there is no well-defined and intelligent hope by any- 
 body of true and endless life, save as that hope is 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 201 
 
 based on the teachings and assurances — direct or per- 
 verted — of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But Jesus Christ does proffer Hfe, hfe in all fulness 
 and in all joy, — life now and life forevermore, — to 
 every man who trustfully accepts him as the one 
 source and the one giver of life. Jesus Christ does 
 say, explicitly and emphatically: "He that believeth 
 on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth on me shall never die " (John 
 II 125, 26). And more than sixty generations of 
 believers have put that assurance of Jesus to the test, 
 and have found it true. 
 
 Sin and death are facts ; and even though we can 
 not explain their presence in the world, we have to 
 admit that they are here, and that their relation is 
 as that of cause and effect ; or that, as the Bible ex- 
 presses it, ''The wages of sin " — the price paid for sin- 
 ning — ''is death" (Rom. 6: 23). We see, and we 
 can not deny it, that somehow in consequence of 
 this state of things, in which "the whole creation 
 groaneth and travaileth " (Rom. 8:22) in the pain 
 of sin, every man is in a dying state. Similarly, new 
 life in Christ, salvation from sin and death, through 
 trusting Christ, is a fact ; and its presence in this 
 world must be admitted by us, whether we can ex- 
 plain it or not. Just so surely as we can see before 
 us the proofs that "the wages of sin is death," just 
 so surely can we see the multiplied and sufficient 
 proofs that "the free gift of God is eternal life in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6 : 23). 
 
202 Shoes mid Rations for a Long March 
 
 As, on the lower plane of physical life, it is shown 
 — mystery though it be at best — that the blood, or 
 life, of a hale and strong man can be made to pass 
 from his opened arteries into those of the weak and 
 dying one, carrying new and vigorous life in its trans- 
 fusion, so it is shown on the higher plane of the more 
 mysterious but equally real spiritual life of man, that 
 the blood, or life, of Jesus Christ can bring new and 
 permanent life into the dying human nature of him 
 who opens his being to its reception by faith. No fact 
 in all the universe has fuller attestation as a fact than 
 this. Every one of you here before me now is already 
 a witness to its truth in your personal experience, or 
 can be competent to be so to-day. 
 
 The life that Christ gives to those who trust him is 
 not a life that has its beginning when this mortal life 
 has ended, but it is a life that shows itself in fulness 
 now and here, with a promise of larger fulness here- 
 after. It is bounding life for the present, w^ith abound- 
 ing life for the future. '' To me," says its possessor, 
 "to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil, i : 21). 
 "He that believeth on the Son hatJi eternal life" 
 (John 3 : 36), says John the Baptist ; not by and by 
 he sliall have, but now he " liatli eternal life." 
 Jesus Christ reaffirms this declaration in the earnest 
 words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that 
 heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, 
 hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but 
 hath passed out of death into life " (John 5 : 24). 
 And the signs of the Christ-life in a man are visible 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 20'' 
 
 o 
 
 in its possessor's personality at all times and every- 
 where. 
 
 The best student-athletes in our American colleges, 
 as in the English and Scotch universities, at the pres- 
 ent time, are young men who stand ''complete" in 
 Christ (Col. 2 : 10). There is no feminine grace or 
 loveliness that by itself can compare with that womanly 
 beauty which has its crowning perfection in the Christ- 
 like spirit, giving added tenderness and fuller sympa- 
 thy and gentler winsomeness to the look of the eye, 
 to the tone of the voice, and to every movement of 
 the hand or form. There is no possibility of such in- 
 tellectual attainment and efficiency without the Christ- 
 life as with it. No profession or occupation or em- 
 ployment can be honored at its best except by him 
 who, with all his special fitness for his special work, 
 can say in simple-hearted sincerity, " I live ; and yet 
 no longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and that life 
 which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith 
 which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave 
 himself up for me" (Gal. 2 : 20). 
 
 But it is when this mortal life is failing that the im- 
 mortal life which Christ has given asserts itself yet 
 more convincingly to the outside observer, so that 
 often in the hour which we call the hour of death the 
 outer face of the dying one is transfigured in the light 
 of the undying spirit within, and the failing tones of 
 his earthly voice catch the sweetness of the heavenly 
 sounds which are already vibrating on his spiritual 
 ears. This exhibit of life in death is more than resig- 
 
204 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 nation, it is more than peace, it is more than hope ; 
 it is the conscious joy of union with Christ ; it is the 
 fuller sense of that eternal life which is the free gift of 
 God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 Among the brightest life-pictures which hang in the 
 galleries of my memory to-day are the faces of those 
 who lived the Christ-life, and who gave proof of their 
 immortal life in their dying hour. And some of these 
 faces stand out in added beauty because of the very 
 shadows which were over them in the years when life 
 is ordinarily at its sunniest. I recall one such, the face 
 of an aged man who was born a deaf-mute so long 
 ago that he was already too far on in mature life to be 
 capable of learning how to read and spell when the 
 mode of instruction for the deaf and dumb was intro- 
 duced into this country. 
 
 The best he could do was to learn the more primi- 
 tive system of natural signs in the use of his hands 
 and eyes. But by that means he was taught of Jesus ; 
 and with all his heart, in childlike simplicity of 
 trust, he believed on Jesus, and had life from him ac- 
 cordingly. Separated from home, and living mostly 
 among strangers, with the bare necessaries of life se- 
 cured to him, he had little of that which we deem es- 
 sential to human happiness ; but his life was hid with 
 Christ in God, and he toiled and endured uncomplain- 
 ingly until past three-score years and ten, — and then it 
 was that I saw him last. 
 
 Being- in the villao;e where was his home, and hear- 
 ing of an accident that had happened to him, I went 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 205 
 
 to see him. It was a lowly home that he was in. His 
 bedroom was close under the roof, in the sweltering 
 heat of midsummer. In his weakness of age he had 
 missed his footing, in climbing up the dark stairway 
 to his room, and had fallen, breaking his right arm, 
 which was to him both arm and tongue. There, on 
 his bed, in the loneliness of his suffocating roof- 
 chamber, I found him breathing his earthly life 
 
 away. 
 
 When he saw me, and recognized me as one who 
 could communicate with him, his aged face lighted up 
 with pleasure ; and as I made signs to him that I was 
 very, very sorry to find him so disabled, he replied by 
 signs as well as he could, saying that God was very 
 good to him, and that Christ had been with him all 
 the time, helping him to bear whatever he had to bear. 
 
 *' If God wants me to lie here a while longer," he 
 said, " I will wait here patiently. But if," and as he 
 made this sign the life that was in his aged form was 
 all aglow in his transfigured face, " if Christ will let 
 me pass out from here, I will fly away and be forever 
 with him." 
 
 And as he made these signs I ''saw his face as it had 
 been the face of an angel" (Acts 6: 15), and I real- 
 ized that his dying life was already a foretaste of that 
 life beyond, where "the eyes of the blind shall be 
 opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped ; " 
 where '' the lame man [shall] leap as an hart, and the 
 tongue of the dumb shall sing ; " where "they shall ob- 
 tain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
 
2o6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 away" (Isa. 35 : 5, 6, 10). And if, indeed, there were 
 only the memory of that one face of Hfe in death in all 
 my life's experiences, I should never have a doubt that 
 Christ had come into this world in order that those 
 who trust him " may have life, and may have it abun- 
 dantly " (John 10: 10). And how much more of such 
 evidence as this there is in my memor}.', and in all our 
 memories ! 
 
 Life, peace, knowledge ; knowledge, peace, life ; 
 all these are in Christ, and all these Christ brings to all 
 who will accept them by accepting him. For " I 
 would have you know, that the head of every man is 
 Christ " — of every man who will receive Christ as his 
 head, as Christ comes offering to be a head to the 
 headless, — to give knowledge and peace and life to 
 those who lack them all. 
 
 If, indeed, there be one thing stranger in all the 
 world than the fact that Christ proffers himself with all 
 these good gifts to every man, it is the other fact that 
 any man refuses to accept the proffered Christ, as he 
 comes with these proffered gifts. The gifts them- 
 selves would seem to be at least worth the taking ; 
 but the Christ who brings them ought surely to be 
 welcome for what he is, and for what he has done for 
 men. Apart from the question of personal gain 
 through receiving him, there is the question of per- 
 sonal gratitnde to him, in the memory of the love that 
 he showed for us, while he was fitting himself to be 
 our Saviour and our Head. 
 
Importajice of a Head to a Soldier 207 
 
 Let me tell to you an incident out of my long-ago 
 soldier life, as illustrative — even though in only the 
 faintest manner — of the relation toward us of this 
 loving Saviour, and of the spirit that ought to actuate 
 us in our welcome to him as he comes to proffer him- 
 self anew to us. 
 
 It was in the midsummer of 1 863 that I was a pris- 
 oner of war in Charleston, South Carolina. Coming 
 under the suspicion of being a spy, in consequence of 
 an incident in connection with a visit through the 
 lines, under a flag of truce, in North Carolina the 
 year before, I was separated from my prison comrades 
 of the Union army, and was shut up in the common 
 jail among murderers and desperadoes and other crim- 
 inals of the vilest class from the streets of Charleston 
 in the worst days of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 The condition of things on our side seemed dark at 
 the best at the time of my capture. Battles had 
 gone against us. Generals had disappointed us. At 
 our latest news from the North, Gettysburg still hung 
 in the balance. I had heard cheers in the streets of 
 Charleston over the riots in New York City, as I was 
 brought toward the jail. To be a prisoner at such a 
 time, with the gallows confronting me, and not a 
 human being to give me a word or a look of sym- 
 pathy, was, you will believe, to be in despondency, if 
 not in despair — so far as concerned the earthly out- 
 look. 
 
 But oh, the scene in that common jail and gathering 
 place of criminals, where I was a prisoner ! I have 
 
2o8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 never had such a glimpse of the bottomless pit as 
 there. The air itself was stifling, in the foulness of 
 those close-shut and heated wards. But the moral 
 atmosphere was fouler and more stifling still. Blas- 
 phemy and obscene speech poured out unceasingly 
 from the lips of demon-like men, who glared and 
 wrangled and struggled in that seething mass of sin- 
 cursed humanity. Occasionally the cry of " Murder " 
 centered all attention for the moment on ruffians who 
 were rolling on the floor in the angiy clutch of deadly 
 hatred, and the strong arms of other ruffians were 
 taxed in separating the bitter combatants. And all 
 the while the air seemed fouler and fouler, and the 
 place itself more suffocating and intolerable. 
 
 Shrinking from the encircling pollution which 
 pressed upon me at every turn, I found my way into 
 one of the cells opening into the court, or corridor, 
 where the multitude thronged and swayed, and there 
 I clambered up on to the stone window-bench before 
 one ot the barred openings through the heavy walls 
 of the jail, and drawing up my knees so as to keep 
 within the recess of the narrow opening, I bowed my 
 head on those knees and gave way to my feelings in 
 the utter weakness of despair. 
 
 I had not lost my faith in God, but I could find no 
 joy in such a life as opened to me — or as shut in 
 about me — there. I did not want to live any longer. 
 I could not live any longer as I was. Even if it must 
 be to the gallows that I should go — anywhere, any- 
 where, out of that hell upon earth ! 
 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 209 
 
 And just then it was, as I huddled there in that jail 
 window recess, with my face pressed against my 
 drawn-up knees, that I was touched gently on the 
 shoulder, and a kindly voice said to me, ** You seem 
 troubled, my friend. Maybe you're hungry. Cheer 
 up. Here is some bread." I looked up, as much 
 surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken to me, 
 and there just below me was the winsome face of a 
 young man who seemed all unlike the other inmates 
 of that place of horrors, who was reaching up to me 
 a loaf of soft, white bread. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," I said, instinctively. ** It's 
 not bread I'm wanting." '* Oh, but you look hungry," 
 he added. "You'll want it by and by. It's good 
 bread." And he laid the loaf on my knees, and 
 turned away into the seething throng, out of my sight 
 again. 
 
 It was good bread, a baker's loaf, in marked con- 
 trast with our coarse cornmeal prison fare ; but that 
 was not what I was longing for. I was, indeed, hun- 
 gry. God grant that no one of you may ever be so 
 hungry as I was then ! Hungry, but not for bread. 
 Hungry for human sympathy, and for just such words 
 and looks of loving cheer as that brother-man had 
 now brought me. 
 
 As he disappeared into the crowd, I felt that a 
 crushing weight had been lifted from me. I drew a 
 long, full, free breath again. I dropped myself off 
 from that window-bench and stood erect. I was a 
 different man from a moment before. I was in a dif- 
 
2 lo Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 ferent place. The air seemed purer. The very walls 
 of the gloomy jail had moved outward. Its low ceil- 
 ing had been lifted higher. The whole world was 
 another world to me. I did not want to die. I was 
 glad I was alive, and life was worth living. And all 
 because of that strange man's strange coming to me. 
 
 I turned after him. Pushing through the crowd 
 with a new purpose of life, I pressed on until I found 
 him. Laying my hand on his shoulder, I said, " Look 
 here, my friend ! Who are you? How came you 
 here ? " Not knowing who I was, — whether Union or 
 Rebel, — he answered cheerily : "Oh, I'm a Yankee 
 soldier. I'm from away up in Connecticut ; but I'm 
 fast down here now." You will believe that that 
 answer brought us only nearer together. I learned 
 that he also was under suspicion as a spy ; but he 
 had been longer in that place than I had been, and 
 had better adapted himself to his condition. He was, 
 moreover, a true-hearted disciple of Jesus, and, seeing 
 me in my apparent need, he had come to me, with 
 the love of Christ in his heart and a loaf of bread in 
 his hand, and, while I was hungry and sick and in 
 prison, he had ministered unto me, — God bless him ! 
 
 In a little time I was out from that gloomy jail, and 
 was with my fellow-prisoners of the Union army, first 
 in Columbia and afterward at the "Libby." He who 
 had brought me to new life and hope there was taken 
 first to Salisbury, then to Belle Island, and after 
 that to Andersonville. I saw him no more during the 
 weary, dragging days of the war. 
 
Imp 07^ lance of a Head to a Soldier 211 
 
 Years went by. The war was over. I was again 
 with my home loved ones. One summer evening, as 
 I was in my front hallway, my home door-bell rang. 
 As I opened the door myself, being near it, there 
 stood that man who had been so much to me in that 
 gloomiest hour of my life in Charleston jail. One 
 glimpse was sufficient. The past was again the pres- 
 ent, to my mind. 
 
 What do you think I did ? Shut the door in his 
 face, and left him standing outside ? Do you think I 
 did that ? Would you hear me with patience for 
 another moment, if you knew I had done that ? Do 
 you doubt that in an instant my arms were about him, 
 with a cry of glad and grateful welcome, and that the 
 next minute my home dear ones were called together 
 to give added welcome to this man to whom they and 
 I, in a sense, owed everything ? No, you do not 
 doubt that I did just what j<?z^ would have done in 
 just such circumstances. 
 
 One who did infinitely more for every one of you 
 than that man did for me in Charleston jail, is saying 
 at this very moment : ** Behold, I stand at the door 
 and knock : if any man hear my voice and open the 
 door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
 and he with me " (Rev. 3 : 20). Will any one of you 
 keep the door of your heart longer closed against His 
 incoming? 
 
DANGER OF COUNTING CONSCIENCE 
 A SAFE GUIDE 
 
IX 
 
 DANGER OF COUNTING CONSCIENCE 
 A SAFE GUIDE 
 
 It was long before our Civil War, in the intense and 
 bitter political conflicts between advocates of slaveiy 
 and of its emancipation, that I first came to realize 
 that a man was not sure to be doing right or thinking 
 right when he was acting conscientiously. Then, on 
 considering the matter more carefully, and observing 
 my fellows far and near, I was confident that among 
 the worst evil-doers in the world were those who were 
 doing wrong conscientiously. 
 
 Men will lie, will steal, will pass counterfeit money, 
 will hate their fellows, will commit murder, will do any 
 and every vile and infamous thing that can be imag- 
 ined, with full confidence that it is their duty to do 
 so. I began to ask myself whether the common 
 idea is a correct one, that man has a safe guide in his 
 conscience. As I sought to find the truth brought out 
 in books of ethics and moral philosophy, I gained 
 little help or light from them. As I turned afresh to 
 the Bible in my dilemma, I found that in this, as in so 
 many things else, the Bible and many books on Chris- 
 tian ethics were at variance. 
 
 215 
 
2 1 6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 And thus I came to write and preach this sermon 
 on ** moral color-bHndness," or being misled to our 
 ruin by doing evil conscientiously. It was just after 
 I had first preached this sermon that a new book on 
 ethics appeared, written by President E. G. Robinson, 
 of Brown University, in which he agreed with the 
 Bible, although not with most books of Christian phil- 
 osophy, in claiming that man is not given by nature a 
 safe and sure guide to show him what is right in con- 
 duct and morals. 
 
 Thus finding the Bible re-enforced by at least one 
 book of more modern ethics, I was encouraged to 
 preach God's truth, despite popular religious opinion, 
 on the subject of " Conscience." This sermon I 
 preached at the Payson Church in Easthampton, 
 Massachusetts, before the students of Williston Sem- 
 inary; again in the chapel of Amherst College, and in 
 the chapel of the Agricultural College at Amherst. 
 Yet again I preached it at Northfield, at the opening 
 of an annual session of the World's Student Confer- 
 ence in Mr. Moody's day, and I was glad thus to 
 bring its important truth before so many young Chris- 
 tian workers. 
 
MORAL COLOR-BLINDNESS 
 
 Look therefore whether the light that is in thee be 
 not darkness'' (Luke ii : 35). 
 
 A great deal is said in our day about " color-blind- 
 ness," especially in its bearing upon the efficiency and 
 trustworthiness of railroad men. It has been found, 
 by means of careful experiments, that from two persons 
 to two hundred in every one thousand are unable to 
 distinguish clearly one color from another, — some per- 
 sons being so totally blind to color as to see no differ- 
 ence between a strawberry and its leaf, except in 
 form ; others being confused over the varying shades 
 of colors which they recognize as not identical. 
 
 Inasmuch as the danger-signal on railroad tracks 
 by night is a red light, it is obviously of prime im- 
 portance that an engine-driver or a switchman should 
 be able to distinguish red from white or green, for a 
 mistake at this point might hurl a train-load of pas- 
 sengers to destruction. And the perils from color- 
 blindness are largely increased by the fact that those 
 who are afflicted with it are likely to count their sight 
 as good as anybody's, unless the plain truth of the 
 matter is in some way forced upon them from outside 
 
 sources. 
 
 217 
 
2 1 8 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 Hence it is that our great railroad companies have 
 latterly been in the habit of testing the vision of their 
 employees, at the hands of skilled oculists, finding in 
 some cases that from ten to twenty-five per cent of all 
 their engine-drivers and signal-men were at fault in 
 color-judging. In view of these facts the warning cry 
 has been reiterated by the public press and by the 
 traveling public in the ears of railroad managers every- 
 where, until it could not but be heard : "Beware of 
 color-blindness ! See to it that the men who guide 
 your trains know light from darkness, know red from 
 yellow and green ! " 
 
 And on a higher plane, and in a more important 
 sphere, this warning is the cry of the text I have 
 chosen for our evening's gathering at the opening of 
 this Students' Conference for Bible study: ''Look 
 therefore whether the light that is in thee be not 
 darkness" ! Beware of moral color-blindness ! 
 
 The words of our text are the w^ords of our Lord 
 Jesus, — of him who never sounded a needless alarm, 
 and whose warnings have always more meaning than 
 their surface-appearing. He is speaking of the eye 
 as the avenue of light from without to the soul within, 
 and of the importance of keeping this w^indow of the 
 soul transparent and unblurred. "When thine eye is 
 single," undivided as a light-transmitter, he says, 
 " thy whole body also is full of light ; but when it 
 [the eye] is evil [untrustworthy through its blurring], 
 thy body also is full of darkness " (Luke 1 1 : 34). 
 And then, as another evangelist reports it, our Lord 
 
Conscience not a Safe Gtiide 219 
 
 adds, in recognition of the danger of such a state of 
 things, " If therefore the Hght that is in thee be 
 darkness, how great is the darkness ! " (Matt. 6 : 23.) 
 What perils are before a soul, on its life-track, when 
 that soul is morally color-blind ! 
 
 But you may be prompted at once to ask. Does not a 
 man know by nature the difference between right and 
 wrong ? Has not God given to every man, in what we 
 call "the conscience," a sure test of moral light and 
 moral darkness ? No ! most decidedly, no ! Man does 
 not by nature know what is right and what is wrong. 
 " Conscience " is Jiot in and of itself a safe guide in 
 morals. It is not enough for a man to do " as well 
 as he knows how," and in so doing " to have a con- 
 science void of offence toward God and men alway." 
 He may do all this, and yet be sadly wrong. If he 
 is morally color-blind, a man is likely to be wrong — 
 conscientiously. 
 
 That faculty or element in our nature which we 
 call ** conscience " is set within us as a monitor, not as 
 a teacher, in the school of morals. Conscience tells 
 us that we oiigJit to do right, but conscience does not 
 tell us zuJiat is right. Conscience lays down no law 
 for us to observe, but it reminds us faithfully to ob- 
 serve the law as it has been laid down before us. 
 
 Instruction in the letter and spirit of God's law 
 must come to us from without, before conscience can 
 help to hold us to that law. "The lamp of thy body 
 is thine eye " (Luke 11 : 34). To begin with, the law 
 is outside of the body and the conscience is inside ; 
 
2 20 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 hence it is that so much depends on the clearness of 
 the eye, as a means of hght, in bringing conscience 
 and the law together. "Howbeit, I had not known 
 sin, except through the law," says Paul: "for I had 
 not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou 
 shalt not covet" (Rom. 7 : 7). Mark you, Paul does 
 not say there would have been no sin except for the 
 law ; but that lie would never have known sin to be 
 sin, from his uninstructed conscience. And Paul's 
 conscience was fully up to the average standard at 
 the start. 
 
 Who supposes that Abraham or Jacob knew by 
 nature that it was wrong to lie? Who believes that 
 their consciences reproached them for having more 
 wives than one? Jesus declared that the time would 
 come when those who killed his followers would think, 
 in their moral color-blindness, that they were offering 
 service unto God (John 16:2). And Paul testified of 
 himself, as an aforetime opposer of Jesus: "I verily 
 thought with myself, that I ought to do many things 
 contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth " (Acts 
 26 : 9). 
 
 When a heaven-sent light flashed into Paul's eyes, 
 on his way to Damascus, he had a new understanding 
 of the truth in Jesus ; and from that time forward his 
 conscience had a correct standard, so far, to conform 
 to. His conscience had not changed ; but his know- 
 ledge of the truth had. To be cured of his spiritual 
 color-blindness cost Paul his entire eyesight for a sea- 
 son ; and " a stake in the flesh " was left with him for 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 221 
 
 his lifetime. The cure of spiritual or moral color- 
 blindness is often a severe operation, an operation 
 from which both flesh and spirit recoil ; but there is 
 no safety until it is accomplished. 
 
 Our ancestors in this country, North as well as 
 South, were as conscientious in slave-holding, in rum- 
 making and rum-drinking, in lottery-running and in 
 dueling, as they were in battling for political inde- 
 pendence. Their consciences, meanwhile, were active 
 enough ; the trouble was in their moral eyesight. 
 
 It is said to be an authenticated fact, that godly old 
 President Stiles, of Yale College, wrote a letter to a 
 friend in the West Indies, proposing to send a hogs- 
 head of New England rum in barter for an able-bodied 
 negro slave. Still later, the Rev. Dr. Nathan Strong, 
 pastor of my old home church in Hartford, was, as I 
 have been told, the owner of a distillery while in the 
 active pastorate. Not being so successful a distiller 
 as he was pastor, he failed in the rum business, and 
 a civil judgment was rendered against him accord- 
 ingly. To evade the sheriff's execution, he was com- 
 pelled to shut himself in the parsonage week-days for 
 a series of weeks ; but when Sundays came he moved 
 out in solemn dignity, with his cocked hat and knee- 
 breeches, and passed across to the church to preach 
 the gospel as usual. No civil process could disturb 
 him on Sundays. His conscience does not seem to 
 have disturbed him, on the distillery question, any day 
 of the week. There are churches still standing, here 
 in New England, which were built with the proceeds 
 
2 2 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 of lotteries duly authorized for that sacred purpose, at 
 the prayerful request of ministers and church-members. 
 
 If our consciences work differently from the con- 
 sciences of our fathers, on these points, it is because 
 our moral eyesight has been trained to finer distinc- 
 tions in color, under the treatment of those whom God 
 has set to be spiritual oculists. 
 
 Even now, and among ourselves, there are those 
 who can not see the difference between red and yellow, 
 or between black and white, on important moral ques- 
 tions. Many whose moral eyesight is now clear as 
 to the black and white, have a blur in their vision 
 as to the yellow and red when they look at the civil 
 rights of the Chinese or the Indian in our country. 
 There are others who really believe that it is right to 
 lie when a good purpose can be helped on by lying, 
 or when lying seems a practical necessity. Men of 
 wealth, or men of moderate means, do not always 
 know when they are using their property faithfully and 
 in wise prudence, as God's stewards, and when they 
 are shutting their pockets and hearts against a call 
 which they can not refuse without sinning. Signs of 
 moral color-blindness or of imperfect moral vision are 
 still to be seen by us on every side ; and mark you, 
 also, they are still to be seen in us by those who test 
 our knowledge of moral colors. 
 
 Be it remembered, however, that a man's thinking 
 he sees the truth aright does not shield him from the 
 consequences of his error. Conscientious wrong- 
 doing is never safe doing. *' Look therefore," says 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 223 
 
 our text, ''whether the light which is in thee be not 
 darkness"! And ee'/zj' look? Because in moral color- 
 blindness there is moral peril, and you may be morally 
 color-blind without knowing it. 
 
 The Mosaic law declared : *' If any one sin, and do 
 any of the things which the Lord hath commanded 
 not to be done ; though he knew it not, yet is he 
 guilty, and shall bear his iniquity" (Lev. 5: 17). 
 The lips of the loving Jesus said also of the sinning 
 servant : " He that knew not, and did things worthy 
 of stripes, shall be beaten " (Luke 12 : 48) — although 
 with fewer stripes than the conscious transgressor. 
 The divine law runs through the kingdom of both 
 nature and grace. "Whatsoever a man soweth," — 
 not what he thinks he sows, not what he purposes to 
 sow, but what he actually does sow, — " that shall he 
 also reap " (Gal. 6 : 7). 
 
 If a color-blind engine-driver mistakes a red signal 
 for a white one at an open drawbridge, the resulting 
 calamity is as terrible to the train-load of passengers 
 as if he had deliberately defied a token of danger 
 which he read correctly. If one violates the civil law 
 unconsciously, he is not exempt from legal penalties 
 because of his false sense of security. If a man has 
 bought stolen goods without knowing it, their real 
 owner can reclaim those goods at the holder's cost. 
 If there is a flaw in the title of a man's homestead, 
 the home-dweller can be driven from that home mer- 
 cilessly. No matter what he paid for it ; no matter 
 how much he is attached to it ; no matter how neces- 
 
2 24 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 sary it is to the comfort or the safety of himself or 
 of his family, — if his title is not sound he must leave 
 it ; he must go out, it may be, into the cold world, 
 unsheltered and homeless. His color-blindness in 
 reading the title does not make the false title a true 
 
 one. 
 
 Nor is one's danger of misreading the signals along 
 his personal life-course, of misconceiving the ethical 
 requirements of the law to which he owes obedience, 
 or of mistaking the value of his homestead title-deeds, 
 any less in the moral world than it is in the material 
 world. It is the gentle-spirited Cowper who empha- 
 sizes this truth in his verse : 
 
 " Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd, 
 His ship half founder' d, and his compass lost, 
 Sees, far as human optics may command, 
 A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land ; 
 Spreads all his canvas, every sinew pUes ; 
 Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies ! 
 Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, 
 His well-built systems, philosophic dreams ; 
 Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell ! 
 He reads his sentence at the flames of hell. 
 Hard lot of man — to toil for his reward 
 Of virtue, and yet lose it ! Wherefore hard ?— 
 
 "He that would win the race must guide his horse 
 Obedient to the customs of the course ; 
 Else, though unequaled to the goal he flies, 
 A meaner than himself shall gain the prize. 
 Grace leads the right way ; if you choose the wrong, 
 Take it — and perish." 
 
 Ah ! there is a weight of meaning in the words of 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 225 
 
 our Lord, ''Look therefore whether the hght that is 
 in thee be not darkness." Look ! for a woe comes 
 from mistaking the wrong for the right. "Woe unto 
 them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put dark- 
 ness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter 
 for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! Woe unto them that 
 are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own 
 sight! " (Isa. 5 : 20, 21) — but whose eyes are not sin- 
 gle, and whose sight is not clear. 
 
 It is a sad thing to be serving the Devil conscien- 
 tiously ; to be a scoundrel, and not to suspect it ; to 
 be dishonest, or unfaithful, or selfish, or vile, while 
 thinking one's self honest and true, and generous and 
 pure ; to be starting one's self or one's companions 
 in the way of evil, without a thought of error or dan- 
 ger, — a sad thing, I say, and as ruinous as it is sad. 
 
 But just what is the cause of all this trouble ? and 
 where is its cure ? If man does not know rieht and 
 wrong by nature, if his conscience depends for its 
 proper guidance on instruction from outside, how is it 
 that he so often mistakes wrong for right? and how 
 can he know the true shades of distinction between 
 right and wrong ? 
 
 Men's consciences are at fault because of their re- 
 ceiving wrong instruction, and of their being subjected 
 to wrong influences. Every person does receive in- 
 struction, and every person is influenced by his sur- 
 roundings. Not every person, however, is rightly 
 instructed or rightly influenced. Hence the wrong 
 standards of conscience-judging. 
 
226 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 I knew of a young girl in New York City, born 
 blind, who, until she was eight or ten years of age, 
 and so long as I knew of her, was utterly ignorant of 
 the fact that she was blind. Her parents had per- 
 sistently kept from her the fact that she was different 
 from other children. All her training had in view the 
 concealment of this fact ; and as she had never seen, 
 she did not know what it was to see or not to see. 
 She used freely the language of sight, with her own 
 ideas of that language. She spoke of being glad to 
 see those whom she met, and of being pleased with 
 their looks ; of enjoying the sunlight, and the clear 
 sky, and the fine scenery, when she went out after a 
 storm had passed away. So little thought had she 
 that she was walking in darkness, that on one occa- 
 sion, when a stranger child spoke out pityingly, in her 
 hearing, of her misfortune, she ran merrily to her 
 parents and said, "There's a little girl over there who 
 says I am blind. I think I can see as well as j/^^ can." 
 
 Is it strange that a child trained like that one should 
 have wrong ideas — should conscientiously be in error 
 — as to the differences between colors ? There is a 
 great deal of such training in the world of morals. 
 
 Orientals are taught from infancy that lying to an 
 enemy, or where anything can be made by lying, is a 
 duty ; and they try to attend to that duty. American 
 Indians are taught that a man's character is best rated 
 by the scalps he can show ; so they risk their lives for 
 scalps. The Dyaks of Borneo are taught that skulls 
 are \vorthier trophies than scalps; and they ''hunt 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 227 
 
 heads" accordingly. Our fathers were taught that 
 human slavery was a divine institution, and that rum 
 was to be swallowed gratefully as a "gift of God;" 
 and they lived up to those teachings. How could it 
 be that men's consciences would discern truth from 
 error on points where their instruction had from the 
 begfinnine been as much at fault as in these instances 
 in the case of our fathers and others ? Is it not in- 
 deed possible, if not probable, that in lesser points or 
 in greater ones zve also have been wrongly instructed 
 on points of morals down to the present hour, and 
 that this will be evident to those who come after us 
 with better instruction than we have had ? 
 
 Even if men are not explicitly taiigJit that wrong 
 is right, they are likely to infei' that error is truth from 
 the prevailing practices about them. The conscience 
 of even the well-instructed man is, at the best, like a 
 ship's compass ; not like the polar star, at which the 
 compass is supposed to point. The compass is safe 
 to steer by as long as its needle points where it ought 
 to point; but the compass needle may be forcibly 
 deflected from the pole, or it may be drawn aside 
 by the metallic attractions, or by the meteorological 
 influences of its surroundings, and then, of course, it 
 is untrustworthy. 
 
 Scotch ship-builders on the Clyde are accustomed 
 to send their newly launched vessels fifty miles down 
 into the open sea, in order to test their compasses 
 away from the diverting attractions of the iron-stocked 
 yards near their building. And, in crossing the At- 
 
2 28 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 lantic, our steamships have to calculate each day, and 
 make allowance for the ** magnetic variations" of the 
 compasses by which they steer. It would be well if 
 all of us understood just how far from the true meri- 
 dian our moral compass needles were deflected by the 
 attractions of gold, or pleasure, or appetite, or ambi- 
 tion, or love, or hatred, or by the social atmosphere 
 of our immediate neighborhood. 
 
 Out of all the choicer children of Judah who were 
 prisoners in Babylon in the days of Daniel, young men 
 who were ** skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in 
 knowledge, and understanding science, and such as 
 had ability to stand in the king's palace " (Dan. i : 4), 
 there were only four who had independence and cour- 
 age enough to choose for themselves what they should 
 eat and drink, regardless of the habits and customs 
 of the people among whom they lived ; and to prove 
 in their own experience — as has been so often proven 
 since — that water drunk in the path of duty is a safer 
 drink than ** the native wines" of a wine-growing 
 country drunk in accordance with the social demands 
 of the region. 
 
 Modern travelers commonly do not get half-way to 
 Babylon before they conclude that it is more prudent 
 to follow the example of the multitude, on the drink- 
 ing question, than to stand out all by themselves, as 
 did Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abed- 
 nego ; and so they drink the light wines of the Euro- 
 pean tables, as " everybody else does." And when 
 they have come to that conclusion, they are in a good 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 229 
 
 state to consider further whether it is wise to be cast 
 into a den of'Hons or a fiery furnace of invidious com- 
 ment, rather than conform to the universal custom of 
 the country they are in, as to times and modes of 
 worship, as to local amusements, and as to a courteous 
 recognition of the images which King Fashion has set 
 up to be admired and extolled. 
 
 If, indeed, they remain at home, they are still liable 
 to have their standards of conscience-prompting 
 shaped for them by those who are about them. Isn't 
 it all right to go to the theater if some of our foremost 
 church-members go there? How can card-playing 
 be wrong if some of our prayer-meeting leaders 
 practice it ? The dances in which the Sunday-school 
 superintendent takes a part so freely — are they not 
 to be counted harmless for the teachers as well ? 
 What harm can there be in tobacco-using when so 
 many ministers enjoy their cigars ? Who can put up 
 another business standard than the generally accepted 
 standard in business? If the party methods of the 
 best political party are not to your liking, where can 
 you look for purer methods? And so all along the 
 scale of morals. 
 
 As, when one holds to his eyes a bit of colored 
 glass, he sees through it the whole face of nature 
 tinged accordingly, — paled with the sickly blue, flam- 
 ing with the glaring red, or softened with the 'refresh- 
 ing green, — so they who look at customs and methods 
 through the medium of their local public sentiment, 
 receive within themselves, through the window of 
 
230 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 their eye, only the hue of moral light which colors 
 that public sentiment ; and all things at which they 
 gaze are blue, or red, or green, accordingly. ** But 
 they themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, 
 and comparing themselves with themselves, are with- 
 out understanding" (2 Cor. 10: 12). The light that 
 is in them is dimness, if not indeed darkness. 
 
 In view of all this, however, what hope is there of 
 our knowing clearly the right from the wrong? How- 
 can we have a correct standard for our conscience- 
 promptings? 
 
 God is the source of moral light. The revelation 
 of God in his Son and in his word, gives to our con- 
 sciences their only safe standard and guide. He 
 who uttered the words of warning in our text, "Look 
 therefore that the light which is in thee be not dark- 
 ness," said also, "I am the light of the world: he 
 that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but 
 shall have the light of life" (John 8 : 12). Of the 
 Scriptures he said, "These are they which bear wit- 
 ness of me" (John 5 : 39). His prayer to his Father 
 for his loved ones was, "Sanctify them [keep them 
 holy] in the truth [within the limits of truth] : thy 
 word is truth" (John 17: 17). 
 
 The knowledge of God's truth came originally from 
 without, through the eye, into man's inner being for 
 the rie'ht instruction of his conscience. Nor is there 
 a human being who has not before him some vestige 
 of God's primal revelation of his truth ; some gleam 
 on his conscience of " the true light, even the light 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide 231 
 
 which hghteth every man, coming into the world " 
 (John I : 9). And, however small may be the meas- 
 ure of this light remaining to others, we have it avail- 
 able in all its fulness and purity. 
 
 "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 
 By taking heed thereto according to thy word " (Psa. 
 119 : 9). "The commandment of the Lord is pure, 
 enlightening the eyes " (Psa. 19 : 8). " The command- 
 ment is a lamp; and the law is light" (Prov. 6 : 23). 
 "Moreover by them is thy servant warned" (Psa. 
 
 19 : 11). 
 
 I have said that the conscience is like a compass ; 
 but, in another sense, it is like a chronometer, — the 
 watch used at sea in determining a vessel's longitude. 
 The chronometer is not itself the true standard of 
 time ; but it is conformed as nearly as may be to that 
 standard, and then its rate of gain or true loss is care- 
 fully noted, in order that true time may be learned 
 from it. A wise shipmaster is jealously watchful of 
 that piece of delicate mechanism, on which depends 
 his knowledge of his bearings and the safety of his 
 navigating. Before each voyage it must be newly 
 rated by the great central light of day ; and at all 
 times it must be tenderly handled, and shielded from 
 harsh jarring, lest its nicer adjustment be destroyed. 
 
 Thus, also, should man's conscience be set by the 
 true standard of the Sun of Righteousness, rated 
 frequently by the Bible record, and guarded watch- 
 fully, lest by harsh using its accuracy be lost, and the 
 soul be in mid-ocean without a guide. Unless you 
 
232 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 know how much your conscience-chronometer slows 
 or quickens in the various latitudes where you sail, 
 you will never be able to learn your bearings accur- 
 ately or to lay your course correctly across the sea of 
 life in your voyage homeward. 
 
 When your conscience would justify you in getting 
 even with one who has wronged you, and in "giving 
 him as good as he sent," take a fresh look at the Bible 
 injunction : ''Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but 
 give place unto wrath : for it is written. Vengeance 
 belongeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the 
 Lord" (Rom. 12 : 19), and observe that your con- 
 science-chronometer runs ahead of the Bible standard 
 just there. 
 
 If you find, by the Bible teachings, that one-tenth 
 of your income and one-seventh of your time belong 
 to the Lord absolutely and outright, to begin with, 
 and that your hold on the other nine-tenths of your 
 income and six-sevenths of your time is not that of 
 unconditional ownership, but of conditioned Christian 
 stewardship, then see whether your conscience-chro- 
 nometer does not run pretty slow in that latitude. A 
 rating up of Christian consciences generally, by this 
 standard, would add ciphers pretty fast at the right 
 hand of benevolent contributions. There would be 
 little trouble then about the support of missionaries 
 or the building of new churches. 
 
 You may have been accustomed to feel that you 
 had ov\y yojirself \.o consider in all questions concern- 
 ing dress, or diet, or amusements ; whereas the Bible 
 
Conscie7ice not a Safe Guide 233 
 
 lays stress on your duty in such things, in view of the 
 tender consciences and temptabiHty of weaker disci- 
 ples about you; since "we that are strong ought to 
 bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please 
 ourselves" (Rom. 15 : i); therefore, " It is good not 
 to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything 
 whereby thy brother stumbleth " (Rom. 14:21). Rec- 
 ognizing the fahing-off of your conscience-chronome- 
 ter at this point, have the discrepancy in mind in all 
 decisions of duty. 
 
 Understand, in fact, at every turning-point of con- 
 duct, that "there is a way which seemeth right unto a 
 man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" 
 (Prov. 14 : 12) ; and let your cry, at every such time, 
 be to your Saviour, — not to your conscience, but to 
 your Saviour: "Shew me ///y ways, O Lord; teach 
 me thy paths" (Psa. 25 : 4) ; for "I esteem all thy 
 precepts concerning all things to be right " (Psa. 119: 
 
 128). 
 
 " The opening of thy words [to the eye] giveth 
 light [to the conscience] ; it giveth understanding unto 
 the simple " (Psa. 1 19 : 130). From the precepts and 
 principles laid down in the Bible, you can learn (under 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit who inspired that 
 Book, and who is ready to make its teachings plain) 
 your personal duty on any point of morals in question. 
 God's " commandment is exceeding broad " (Psa. 
 119: 96), his " testimonies are wonderful " (Psa. 119: 
 129). " Thou shalt meditate therein day and night, 
 that thou mayest observe to do according to all that 
 
2 34 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way 
 prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success " 
 (Josh. I : 8). Your conscience, fairly rated by that 
 standard, will be a conscience that can be depended on. 
 
 But, mark you ! your conscience must be conformed 
 to \Nh.2X you find to be the Bible standard, — not to 
 the standard which some one else says is set up in the 
 Bible. " Let each man be fully assured in his own 
 mind" (Rom. 14 : 5). ** To his own lord hestandeth 
 or falleth " (Rom. 14 : 4). For example : as to all 
 that I have said, incidentally, in this discourse, con- 
 cerning various personal and social habits and cus- 
 toms, I would not have your opinions shaped merely 
 by mine ; nor would I have you accept on my affirma- 
 tion any spiritual teaching as a teaching of God's 
 word. 
 
 Do not, I beg of you, think that is wrong to drink 
 wine, or to play cards, or to dance, or to use tobacco, 
 or to go to the theater, or to lie, or to be mean, merely 
 because I seem to think so. Do not, on the other 
 hand, think that any one of these things is right and 
 proper merely because some persons else — even some 
 thousands of Christians — evidently think so ; nor yet 
 because you have yourself long indulged in that thing 
 "without any qualms of conscience." "To the law 
 and to the testimony" (Isa. 8 : 20) as to all these 
 things, and as to the principles underlying them. If 
 you are still to approve them, let it be because you 
 find them approved by the word of God ; not because 
 your mind inclines to them, your neighbors practice 
 
Conscience not a Safe Guide .235 
 
 them, or some minister insists that they are all right. 
 And so let it be concerning every other point in this 
 discourse, or in any other address which I may make 
 to you here or elsewhere. 
 
 Moreover, during all the time you are here in this 
 Students' Conference for Bible-study bear in mind 
 that error as well as truth may be — -doubtless will be 
 — proffered to you by those who are set to be your 
 leaders in this study, and that you have it laid upon 
 you to decide for yourselves just what in the words 
 of these teachers is God's truth, and just what in them 
 is man's error. Remember that you are here to learn 
 how to study the Bible so as to find its true teachings, 
 not to be told by others what you are to find in the 
 Bible as its true teachings. You have a right, for ex- 
 ample, to feel that everything which our dear friend 
 Mr. Moody says to you is worth hearing and is worth 
 considering, but you have no right to feel that any- 
 thing which Mr. Moody declares as God's truth is to 
 be accepted as God's truth merely because Mr. Moody 
 deems it so. Nor would he have you rest for a 
 moment on his words as always sure to accord with 
 God's words, although he always means to have 
 them thus. 
 
 As in the case of Mr. Moody, so in the case of every 
 Bible teacher ; what he says to you may seem like 
 Bible truth, and yet not be Bible truth ; it may be ap- 
 proved by your conscience as Bible truth, and yet not 
 be Bible truth. And this thought it is that ought to 
 deepen your sense of personal responsibility as you 
 
236 Shoes a7id Rations for a Long March 
 
 bear a part in this Students' Conference for Bible- 
 study. A question of questions for each of you in- 
 dividually is, Is the light that is in me light, or is it 
 darkness ? May the Holy Spirit guide you every one 
 into all truth ! 
 
DUTY OF MAKING THE PAST A SUCCESS 
 
X 
 
 DUTY OF MAKING THE PAST A SUCCESS 
 
 It was while I was doing my work as a chaplain in 
 the Lord's army among young men in the schools 
 and colleges of our country, that I was led to con- 
 sider the truth as taught in the Bible and in human 
 experience that we have practical duties toward those 
 who have gone on before us, as well as toward those 
 who are coming after us. This truth, with its cor- 
 relative duties, grew on me in its importance. I came 
 to press it again and again on the young, with the ever 
 added responsibilities which they should feel. 
 
 This sermon also I preached at the opening of an 
 annual session of the World's Student Conference at 
 Northfield. An incident in connection with that 
 preaching touched me deeply. My son, a then recent 
 graduate of Yale, was at that Conference. He came 
 to me and said, " Father, that truth lays a new burden 
 on me. I have been thinking of the importance of- 
 my doing well, on my own account, before God. But 
 I had never thought before that if I fail you will suffer 
 by it, not merely in your feelings, but in your reputa- 
 tion. That gives me an added incentive and stimulus 
 to right-doing." 
 
 239 
 
240 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 I was more than glad, I was profoundly grateful, 
 that I had preached that sermon. In the hope that 
 its truth may stimulate some other son to a similar 
 view of his duty, I pubHsh it herewith. 
 
OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PAST 
 
 God having provided some better thing concerjung 
 us, that apart from us they shoidd not be made peifeci 
 (Heb. 1 1 : 40). 
 
 To God's children, the present is better than the 
 past. Aye ; and the past waits on the present for its 
 completion by God's children. That is the truth that 
 is suggested by this text, with its correspondent sug- 
 gestion of our duty of making the incomplete past a 
 success in the present. 
 
 This eleventh chapter of Hebrews, of which our 
 text is the closing verse, is a sublime exhibit of the 
 surpassing power of a godly faith, illustrated out of 
 the history of the ages. Its inspiring imagery is bor- 
 rowed from the Isthmian games of ancient Greece ; 
 and the whole force of the chapter can be realized 
 only through an understanding of the locality and the 
 main features of those games. 
 
 Between cultured Athens and commercial Corinth 
 stretched the " Isthmus," or " Bridge of the Sea," a 
 neck of land connecting Peloponnesus, or the modern 
 Morea, with the continent of Europe. There, at the 
 narrowest part of the Isthmus, between " the winding 
 shores of the * double sea,' " — the gulf of Lepanto, 
 
 241 
 
242 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 or Corinth, on the west, and the Saronic gulf and 
 Grecian Archipelago on the east, — was the place of 
 these biennial games. Eight miles to the southward 
 lay the splendid and wicked city of Corinth, with its 
 magnificent temple to Aphrodite, or Venus, crowning 
 the lofty height of the Acrocorinthus, at the foot of 
 which the new city of money-making and lust was 
 built. Beyond this height rolled the mountains of 
 Peloponnesus. Thirty-five miles or more, in an air- 
 line to the northward, — out of sight from the Isthmus, 
 but distinctly seen from the Acrocorinthus, — was 
 Athens, in its intellectual pride and its architectural 
 glory, its Acropolis surmounted by the Parthenon and 
 clustering temples, while towering above all was the 
 far-famed bronze statue, by Phidias, of Athense, or 
 Pallas, or, more familiarly, Minerva Promachus; its 
 burnished surface, as it stood in gigantic proportions 
 with its upraised spear and shield, flashing back the 
 sunlight, and visible from fifty miles away, on land or 
 sea, as the protecting divinity of Athens and Attica. 
 Away beyond loomed up the snow-clad peaks of Par- 
 nassus and Helicon. 
 
 Here on the Isthmus, with these classic surround- 
 ino-s was a stadium, or race-course, of the usual six 
 hundred feet measurement. Here also was a theater 
 for the " legitimate drama " of that day. The amphi- 
 theater, for gladiatorial contests, was nearer the city. 
 Here again was the great temple of Poseidon, or Nep- 
 tune, in honor of whom the Isthmian games were 
 celebrated, and at whose feet the victors bowed to 
 
Duty of Making the Past a Success 243 
 
 receive their honors. From the stadium to the temple 
 was an imposing avenue, hned on one side by the 
 statues of former victors in the games, and on the 
 other by a row of pine-trees, from whose boughs were 
 woven the wreaths to crown the conquerors. The 
 contests of racing, wrestUng, and boxing, and with 
 swords and spears by foot-men and from chariots, 
 were here witnessed each alternate spring, by vast 
 multitudes from the neighboring cities and from all 
 along the Mediterranean coast beyond. 
 
 Notwithstanding the heathen character of these 
 Isthmian games, there was a nobler side to them, in 
 contrast with the effeminacy and self-indulgence which 
 marked the life of the Corinthians generally. The 
 contestants must all be of pure Hellenic stock, free 
 from the taint of crime, above suspicion of bribery. 
 They must deny themselves during at least ten months 
 of preHminary training, being careful in diet and tem- 
 perate in all things. When they came to the contest, 
 their whole being must be in the struggle, or all their 
 training- would be found fruitless. To win the fading 
 crown of pine they must count not their lives dear in its 
 comparison. And if they won it, they were applauded 
 and admired by the surrounding multitude. Their 
 names and the names of their fathers — whom their vic- 
 tory now honored — were sounded aloud by the herald. 
 Their statues were soon to be added to the long row 
 between the race-course and the temple. They were 
 now an example to those who should come after them. 
 
 Do you not now see the imagery of the Isthmian 
 
244 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 games in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews? The 
 writer of this book, be he Paul or ApoUos, clearly 
 is familiar with these games and their surroundings. 
 He places himself and his readers at the entrance of 
 a spiritual stadium. Looking up along the avenue of 
 the ages which leads to the temple where sits the pre- 
 siding Divinity of the contest, he points to the statues 
 of former victors in this course, which line the way 
 thitherward, and recalls the memory of their spirit and 
 achievements. Look at them ! he says. 
 
 There is Abel, of the oldest family of earth, first 
 among conquerors through faith ; his voice rings in- 
 spiringly in our ears to-day. Enoch ; what a w^alk 
 was his, and what a reward ! Noah ; why, he stood 
 out against the world, and the whole earth was his 
 inheritance and his triumph. Abraham and Sarah ; 
 did they lose anything through their self-denial and 
 their trust ? And Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph ; do 
 you suppose they are sorry that they passed over this 
 course victoriously? Moses, leader and lawgiver, 
 with richer treasures than those of Egypt for his pos- 
 session! Joshua, heroic and successful soldier! 
 Rahab, rescued from death and yet worse, because of 
 her simple-hearted faith ! 
 
 *'And what shall I more say?" as the long line 
 glows and grows in the extending vista; "for the 
 time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, 
 Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: 
 who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
 eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of 
 
Duty of Making the Past a Success 245 
 
 lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed 
 mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. 
 Women received their dead by a resurrection: and 
 others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; 
 that they might obtain a better resurrection; and 
 others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, more- 
 over of bonds and imprisonment : they were stoned, 
 they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were 
 slain with the sword : they went about in sheepskins, 
 in goatskins ; being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated 
 (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in 
 deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the 
 earth." Could ever anything be grander than this 
 array ? Is not there a line of heroes to glory in, and 
 to admire? 
 
 But the writer to the Hebrews has a practical end in 
 view in all his reminiscences. He has no thought of 
 pointing out the achievements of the past only that 
 they may be wondered over. Remember, he says, 
 that these men and women of long ago began a good 
 work which they left for us to carry on. They looked 
 forward with keen desire to the coming of our present 
 opportunity, but they died without attaining it, — " God 
 having provided [or, foreseen] some better thing con- 
 cerning us, that apart from us they should not be 
 made perfect [or, complete]." 
 
 Then, as if he saw the spirits of these heroes of 
 faith leaning over the battlements of heaven, and cheer- 
 ing the present contestants to the completion of the 
 
246 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 course which they had begun, he raised his voice in 
 the clarion call: "Therefore let us also, seeing we are 
 compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, 
 lay aside every weight [or, all cumbrance], and the 
 sin which doth so easily beset us [or, which so entan- 
 gles our feet], and let us run with patience [or, with 
 constancy] the race that is set before us [in this sta- 
 dium], looking [up the statue-lined way] unto Jesus 
 the author and perfecter of our faith [our starter and 
 sustainer in this course], who [when he ran this race] 
 for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, 
 despising shame, and [in the heavenly temple yonder] 
 hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of 
 God." 
 
 There is the lesson of this portion of Hebrews. 
 There is its call to you and to mc this evening. The 
 past is ever dependent on the present for its highest 
 value and its completest efficiency. Unless you and 
 I do our duty, all that went before, in the line of our 
 life and labors, is a practical failure. 
 
 What profits it that David has prepared with all his 
 might for the house of his God, unless Solomon is 
 faithful in carrying forward the temple building? Sup- 
 pose a church was founded in Laodicea; if the fol- 
 lowers of the first converts there prove but lukewarm 
 and self-satisfied, the best labors ol the beginners 
 shall be fruitless to posterity when the church itself 
 has ceased to exist. How came there so different re- 
 sults from the early coming to New England of the 
 Norseland navigators, and the later following of the 
 
Duty of Making the Past a Success 247 
 
 English Puritans, except that the children of the 
 Northmen took no advantage of the discoveries of 
 their fathers, while the descendants of the Puritans 
 have maintained and extended the Puritan faith and 
 the Puritan works ? 
 
 It would be of comparatively small account in his- 
 tory that the Declaration of Independence was signed, 
 and that the old State House bell rang out the joyous 
 announcement of that fact on July 4, 1776, if July 4, 
 1892,^ were not to show a nation in any sense worthy 
 of that beginning, worthy of the living and the dying 
 of its founders and its defenders. Any cause of the 
 fathers is a "lost cause " when the children are untrue 
 to it. It is ever God's plan that the work of those 
 who went before should not be made complete with- 
 out the work of those who follow after. 
 
 It is right that the grandeur of the historic past 
 should be recognized in the present, but only in order 
 that its inspirations may tell on the work of those 
 who are now making their place in history. Said Na- 
 poleon, at the head of his army in Egypt, " Soldiers, 
 from those pyramids forty centuries look down on 
 you." But Napoleon had not brought his soldiers 
 there to study Egyptian monuments or memories or 
 mummies. He had hard fighting for them to do ; 
 and he called on them to do it bravely and well, as in 
 sight of the "cloud of witnesses" of the forty fore- 
 going centuries, the work of which he had come pro- 
 fessedly to improve on and complete. 
 
 1 This sermon was preached on the eve of the Fourth of July. 
 
248 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 There is something uplifting and expanding in the 
 sense of a " historic consciousness," in the thought 
 that we belong to a race, or a nation, or a city, or a 
 church, or a college, or a family, with a noble history. 
 But if this sense of a historic consciousness satisfies 
 us, if it lessens our determined purpose to live up to, 
 and to carry forward, and in our sphere to improve 
 on, the history already made in this line, it would 
 have been better for us never to have had it. 
 
 It is all very well for a young man to say that he 
 is in an academy or a college where Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, or Archibald Alexander, or Horace Binney, or 
 Noah Webster, received his early education. But the 
 practical question is: Is that institution of learning to 
 gain, or to lose, in its reputation, through having that 
 young man as a graduate, in the line of this succes- 
 sion ? Unless, indeed, he does his part as well as the 
 more famous of the old scholars there did theirs, he 
 will not only gain nothing through their repute, but 
 he is actually aiding to dim the luster which their 
 names gave to his Alma Mater. 
 
 And as to your family, my young friend, if you are 
 doing more nobly than your grandfather did, you may 
 rejoice that he lived an honored life ; but it were better 
 for you to have been a Bushman of South Africa, and 
 improved your privileges, than to belong to one of 
 the best old families of Massachusetts or Virginia, 
 and not improve on its record. The question is not 
 whether you are proud of your grandfather, but 
 whether your grandfather would be proud of you. 
 
Duty of Making the Past a Success 249 
 
 It is a good thing to be in a family line which had 
 a fine start long ago, and has been and still is im- 
 proving, generation by generation. It is a sad thing 
 to be in a family line where the best men and women 
 were in its former generations. 
 
 Some years ago, as I met one of our distinguished 
 Union generals, I asked that I might bring my son 
 to take his hand and have his greeting, so that he 
 could remember it in the years to come. As, with 
 his consent, I introduced my boy, he said to him: 
 " Charley, I'm glad to see you. I hope that you will 
 grow up to be a man, and that you will make a good 
 man, — a great deal better man than your father." 
 " That's right, general," I said ; " if he isn't a better 
 man than his father, both of us will be failures." 
 There is no other way to look at it ! Your and my 
 lives will, in the main, prove a failure unless our chil- 
 dren do better than we do. Our parents were meas- 
 ureably a failure unless we carry forward their lives 
 and their life-work toward perfection. 
 
 Some years ago, in company with a distinguished 
 friend of mine, I was presented to Josiah Quincy, then 
 one of " the solid men of Boston," an ex-mayor of 
 the city, and an ex-president of the state Senate. He 
 was a son of President Quincy of Harvard University, 
 a grandson of the Revolutionary orator, a brother of 
 Edmund Quincy the writer, and the father of the 
 poet Josiah Phillips Quincy and of General Samuel 
 Miller Quincy. As my friend gave expression to our 
 satisfaction in meeting one whose honored name and 
 
250 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 whose honored family name were so familiar to us, 
 Mr. Quincy said, with gracefulness and modesty: 
 " Personally, I have done little to command public 
 attention ; but I am linked with those who have. I 
 am perhaps best known as the son of my father, and 
 as the father of my sons." Such a family as that is 
 in the line of true progress, its members of each gen- 
 eration making available the better things than those 
 of former days, which God has provided for them, 
 and without the wise use of which the work of their 
 fathers would not be made perfect. 
 
 The Chinese exalt this idea of the value to their 
 ancestors of the well-doing of the children, so that 
 it becomes a main feature of their religious system. 
 They hold that the happiness of all those of former 
 generations is dependent on the fidelity to their mem- 
 ory, and the attention to their wants, of those who 
 come after them. Even the emperor, *' Son of Heaven," 
 as he is styled, declares in his hour of most solemn 
 worship, '' My thought is to carry out the aims of 
 those who preceded me, thus ensuring the gift of 
 long prosperity for thousands and tens of thousands 
 of years." Every success of a Chinese youth is sup- 
 posed to increase the dignity of all his ancestors ; and 
 if his father be still living when he carries off any 
 great competitive honors, the chief award is made to 
 the father, rather than to the son. 
 
 Is there not a certain reasonableness in this way of 
 looking at the matter? When a young man rises up 
 above the common level of his fellows, he lifts on his 
 
Duty of Makmg the Past a Success 25 1 
 
 shoulders, as it were, the former generations of his 
 family into a new prominence before the world. How 
 old Captain Ezekiel Webster grew in public esteem 
 when his son Daniel was fairly in the practice of law! 
 What could have honored Mary the mother of Wash- 
 ington in comparison with the career of the son of 
 her love ? 
 
 Think of this, young man just setting out in life! 
 Consider your part in making the work of your 
 parents, and of those who were 'before them, a suc- 
 cess! Is not here an added stimulus to exertion? 
 Perhaps your mother toiled to secure you an educa- 
 tion. Her face wrinkled, and her hair whitened, and 
 her strength lessened, in her effort to make provision 
 for you. And now comes the question. Was she 
 using her time and strength to good advantage? 
 That question it is for you rather than for her to 
 answer ; God having provided some better thing con- 
 cerning you, that apart from you her work should not 
 be made complete. 
 
 Every son of a dead mother, or of a dead father, 
 here this evening, has a responsibility, not alone for 
 his own success, but for the success of that dead 
 parent, in his coming life-struggle. By his love for 
 the dead let him be faithful in his day. 
 
 " He mourns the dead who lives as they desired." 
 
 Why, the completest life which the world ever 
 knew left somewhat of its filling out to be done by 
 those who should come after! Paul, speaking of his 
 
252 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 sufferings for Christ's sake, and for the sake of Christ's 
 church, says : " I ... fill up on my part that which is 
 lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his 
 body's sake, which is the church " (Col. I : 24). Or 
 as St. Augustine puts it, in applying this truth to every 
 disciple of Jesus: "Whosoever therefore thou art, if 
 thou art a member of Christ, whatsoever thou sufferest, 
 was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. Therefore 
 that suffering of thine is added because it was lacking; 
 thou art filling the measure, not making it flow over. 
 Thou sufferest so much in thyself as was to be poured 
 in the universal passion of Christ, who suffered in our 
 Head, and who suffers in his members, — that is, in us. 
 The whole measure of suffering will not be filled up 
 till the world comes to an end." 
 
 " Strange words ! and even stranger thought! 
 But yet to inspiration due ; — 
 We ' fill up that which is behind' 
 Of all the suffering Jesus knew. 
 
 "We are thy body, Lord, and what 
 As man thou didst not undergo, 
 Thy suffering members still supply, 
 To ' fill up ' what thou didst forgo. 
 
 '• And so, O mystery of love ! 
 
 'Tis ours to prove, by kindred mind, 
 This deepest fellowship with thee, 
 ' And fill up that which is behind.' " ^ 
 
 Your sorrow, your disappointment, your bereave- 
 ment, your struggle with temptation, Jesus could not 
 
 1 Mary K. A. Stone. 
 
Duty of Making the Past a Success 253 
 
 himself meet and bear fur you while he was in the 
 flesh; therefore he left them for you to bear for him. 
 And as with his sufferings, so with his labors. Jesus 
 could not teach your Sunday-school class, as he sat 
 by the shores of Gennesaret. He could not visit that 
 poor mother whom you know of only a short distance 
 from your home, as he walked up and down the land 
 of Palestine with weary feet. He could not watch by 
 the sick-bed of your dying neighbor, while out on 
 the mountain he continued all night in prayer to God. 
 These labors of love were not for him to complete, 
 God having provided some better thing concerning 
 you, that apart from you his labors should not be 
 wholly performed. 
 
 And you who have not yet accepted Christ's offer 
 of salvation,— if such a one should be here this even- 
 ing,— j^-^st think of all the past which waits on your 
 decision for its completion! The whole plan of re- 
 demption, in its marvelous story from the first promise 
 in Eden to the ascending into heaven of our crucified 
 and risen Lord near Bethany; and well-nigh nineteen 
 centuries of Christian history and Christian effort; 
 and all your training thus far; every prayer which 
 has been offered for you; every sermon which you 
 have heard ; every word of warning or invitation which 
 has been spoken to you; every lesson which you 
 have read out of the book of God,— all, all is yet im- 
 perfect and incomplete, so far as you and your salva- 
 tion are concerned ; all, all will, so far, be a failure, 
 unless your submissive, trustful voice shall say, " Lord, 
 
254 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 I believe; help thou mine unbelief." What interests 
 out of all the past, as well as what consequences for 
 all the future, are involved in your decision concern- 
 ing your personal salvation ! And Jesus himself 
 waits lovingly for your answer to his invitation, 
 *' Come unto me," that in your coming he may so far 
 see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. 
 
 How this great thought — of our part in making all 
 the past a success — does uplift and ennoble the fact of 
 life and of living! We stand as it were between the 
 centuries, the hope of former ages as of future. How 
 much to the universe may depend on our fidelity and 
 courage in the doing of present duty, here and now ! 
 
 Beginning this new session of these Students' Con- 
 ferences here at Northfield, we have a measure of re- 
 sponsibility for all the conferences of this sort that 
 have preceded this. It is for us to show in our spirit 
 and ways and words whether those earlier conferences 
 were wisely planned and managed, and whether the 
 work undertaken by them was work that was worth 
 planning and worth doing: "God having provided 
 some better thing concerning us, that apart from us 
 they should not be made perfect." 
 
 " Noble things the great Past promised, 
 Holy dreams, both strange and new, 
 But the Present shall fulfil them. 
 What he promised, she shall do." 
 
 And "thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
TRUSTING BETTER THAN WORRYING 
 
XI 
 
 TRUSTING BETTER THAN WORRYING 
 
 A marked difference between good and disciplined 
 soldiers and new recruits or soldiers poorly trained, 
 is in the readiness with which, on the one hand, they 
 obey orders or wait where they are stationed until 
 they receive orders to move elsewhere ; or, on the 
 other hand, chafe in inaction and incline to complain 
 because their commander does not do differently. 
 This was a practical lesson impressed on me in my 
 army-life. 
 
 Later I found that the same difficulty is as common 
 in civil life as in military. And there is more sym- 
 pathy with one who worries than with one who quietly 
 trusts. In my observation and my reading I have found 
 that the majority see more good in bustling, fault- 
 findinG^, inefficient Martha of Bethanv, than in calm, 
 restful, competent, and true Mary, who knew her place 
 and filled it, who understood her duty and did it. 
 
 To my surprise I found many eloquent preachers 
 and many learned commentators ready to disagree 
 with Jesus where he commends trustful Mary and 
 rebukes bustling Martha. This newly convinced me 
 that, in camp and field, in home-life and in ordinary 
 
 257 
 
258 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 business, the qualities that have approval with great 
 earthly commanders, and with the Captain of our 
 Salvation, are not popular qualities. In view of this 
 I wrote and preached this sermon, which I always 
 found to be unacceptable to my hearers, but which I 
 desire to have preserved as expressing my view of 
 the positive teachings of Jesus, and of the uniform 
 duty of his disciples. 
 
MARY A BETTER HOUSEKEEPER 
 THAN MARTHA 
 
 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered 
 into a certain village : and a certain woman named 
 Martha received him into her house. And she had a 
 sister called Mary, zvhich also sat at Jesus' feet, and 
 heard his word. 
 
 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and 
 came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my 
 sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her tlierefore 
 that she help me. 
 
 And Jesus answered arid said unto her, Martha, 
 Martha, thou art carefid and troubled abojit many 
 things: but one thing is needfid ; and Mary hath 
 chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away 
 from her (Luke lo : 38-42). 
 
 This is a very familiar passage of Scripture, but a 
 much abused one. Few Bible incidents are more 
 commonly misconceived in their explicit teachings 
 than is this interview of our Lord with the sisters at 
 Bethany. 
 
 Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem from the east of 
 Jordan, had reached the little village of Bethany, on 
 the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, near 
 
 259 
 
2 6o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 its base, not quite two miles from the Holy City. 
 Bethany was the home of Lazarus and Martha and 
 Mary, all of whom Jesus loved tenderly (John 
 II : 5). Their home was one of his homes, — a home 
 of sacred friendship to him ; a home where he was 
 always welcome, always sure to give and to receive 
 the affectionate sympathy of a friend. It is in con- 
 nection with that home in Bethany that we know 
 more of the tenderer side of the human nature of 
 Jesus — more of the social qualities of the Son of 
 man — than from any other portion of his life-story. 
 
 On this occasion of his coming, both sisters wanted 
 to do Jesus honor. Mary recognized him as Master 
 and Teacher, and promptly took her place at his feet 
 — the Oriental position of a pupil — to hear and to 
 heed his word. Her first thought was of learning his 
 wishes. Her first desire was to do as he might direct. 
 But Martha had plans of her own. She was sure as 
 to what ought to be done in that house that day. 
 Without stopping to learn what Jesus wanted, she 
 began to work and to worry in the line of hospitable 
 provision for her friend and guest. To Martha the 
 restful inaction of Mary at such an hour seemed 
 strangely unseasonable. In the natural freedom of 
 a real friendship, but in a pettishness that was none 
 the more excusable for being natural, Martha came to 
 Jesus to tell him of her personal trouble and to ask 
 his help out of it. " Lord, dost thou not care that my 
 sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her therefore 
 that she help me." 
 
Trusting Better tJiaji Worrying 261 
 
 Now, if Martha's view of this case was a correct 
 one, Jesus knew it. If Mary was at fault, he was 
 aware of that. If both were right, — each after her 
 own sort, — with different way of doing God service, 
 and of honoring the Son of God, Jesus did not fail to 
 understand it accordingly. If, however, Jesus took 
 sides with either sister in this variance of opinion, he 
 had a good reason for so doing. Jesus never made a 
 mistake. What course did he pursue? "And Jesus 
 answered and said unto her " (speaking in the kind 
 familiarity of a trusted friend), " Martha, Martha, thou 
 art careful and troubled [full of worrying anxiety] 
 about many things." TJiat wasn't right. Jesus 
 taught his disciples to have no anxiety, or worrying 
 care, concerning what they were to eat, or drink, or 
 wear; and to let not their hearts be troubled. "But 
 one thing [one thing only] is needful," he added ; "and 
 Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be 
 taken away from her." Mary here is in the right 
 place, and at her proper work just now; and she 
 must not be interfered with. 
 
 It is just at this point that there is such a wide- 
 spread reluctance to admit the plain truth of this Gos- 
 pel passage. Martha had a house to look after, it is 
 said; and no house will run itself There is work to 
 be done in it every hour. With company to entertain, 
 it will never do to sit down with folded hands, in the 
 morning, leaving the arrangements for the day all un- 
 attended to. Was not Martha right in feeling a bur- 
 den which Mary ought to share ? Busy housewives 
 
262 Shoes and Rations foi^" a Long March 
 
 and sorely tried mothers are inclined to sympathize 
 with Martha in her anxieties and in her complaint, 
 and to wonder how anybody can count Mary a model 
 woman for this matter-of-fact world of ours. Hus- 
 bands and fathers also are likely to feel that Martha 
 was on the right track for a housekeeper, and that 
 Mary ought not to be set before their wives and 
 daughters as a pattern. 
 
 These opinions on the merits of this case are by no 
 means unnatural. They have a certain show of rea- 
 son about them. But the difficulty with them is that 
 they are not consistent with our Lord's evident view 
 of the matter. Jesus did commend Mary, and did re- 
 buke Martha. If he had not expressed himself on 
 the question, it might be called an open one ; but as 
 it is, those who would champion Martha in her con- 
 duct must admit at the start that they disagree with 
 their Lord as to prudence and duty. 
 
 Christian commentators, unwilling to assert that 
 our Lord was in error, unwilling to affirm that be- 
 cause he was a man he never could understand the 
 work and the trials of a woman, — yet unprepared to 
 accept the apparent truth taught in his rebuke of 
 Martha, — have variously endeavored to explain away 
 the obvious sense of his words by strained renderings 
 of the simple text. Some say that Jesus sought to 
 assure Martha of the few temporal wants of himself 
 and his disciples. " Do not be anxious," they under- 
 stand him to say, " to spread a great dinner of * many 
 things' for us to-day. A single dish is all that we 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 263 
 
 require." And so the ** one thing needful " is Hmited 
 in its appHcation to a dinner bill of fare ! Such a 
 perversion as this would seem too trifling for serious 
 mention, were it not that so many have accepted it as 
 reasonable. A yet more common incorrect applica- 
 tion of the one thing needful is to the salvation of 
 the soul. By those who hold this view, Mary's choice 
 is called wise for eternity, even though she neglected 
 the things of time. She was preparing for a place in 
 heaven, however poorly she filled one on earth. 
 
 Others again consider that both sisters did well in 
 their way. " Martha was zuctt employed," says a dis- 
 tinguished divine; "but Mary, on this occasion, ^^Z- 
 /^r." In the same line of thought, one of the best 
 approved modern commentaries declares : *' The one 
 [sister] represents the contemplative, the other the 
 active style of the Christian character. A church full 
 of Marys would be as great an evil as a church full 
 of Marthas. Both are wanted, each to be the com- 
 plement of the other." Only think of it ! A church 
 full of the sort of person approved by our Saviour 
 as great an evil as a church full of a sort disapproved 
 by him ! The idea of this commentary — and it is 
 perhaps a popular idea — is that Martha was the sen- 
 sible, active, efficient matron who did the housework 
 in the Bethany home, while Mary was a fair candidate 
 for a nunnery cloister, a devout and weak sister, who 
 found comfort in thinkiiig about good things, instead 
 of doing them. 
 
 Away with all such misconceptions and distortions 
 
264 Shoes and Ratiojis for a Long March 
 
 of the text as these ! Jesus meant what he said, — ^just 
 what a httle child would understand from his words. 
 Martha was wrong in being anxiously worried over 
 the many things in her household duties ; wrong in 
 thinking that it would be a loss of time to stop and 
 receive counsel and instruction from Jesus while he 
 was in her home. Mary was right in trusting her 
 Lord and Master utterly ; right in her readiness to 
 wait when he said wait, and to act when he said act. 
 Mary was doubtless a better housekeeper than Martha. 
 She probably did more work in a day, and did it bet- 
 ter. Martha's worry did not lighten her burdens, nor 
 do her work. On the contrary, it increased her bur- 
 dens and delayed her work. Bustle is never the test 
 of true efficiency. Faith never hinders wise service. 
 The housekeepers in this congregation — or in any 
 other — who do most work, and who do it best, are 
 not those who bluster and complain most, nor are they 
 those who count time taken for prayer and for com- 
 munion with God as lost time. The Marys are 
 always the best housewives, as well as the best church- 
 members. There is no gain for the life that now is — 
 nor for any of its activities — in following the exam- 
 ple of the restless, care-filled, over-anxious, impatient 
 Martha. 
 
 Suppose you had just hired a new servant, and you 
 told her to stand before you while you gave her direc- 
 tions concerning the work you had for her to do. 
 While she waited patiently, listening to your words, 
 suppose another of your servants should rush into 
 
Trusting Better thaft Worrying 265 
 
 the room, declaring that it was washing-day, and 
 almost dinner-time, and she couldn't be expected to 
 do all the kitchen work alone at such a time, and that 
 you ought to send out that new girl to help her. 
 Which of those girls would you count the best serv- 
 ant ? the one who did, or stood, as you directed, or 
 the one who chafed restlessly under your way of 
 managing your own affairs? The error of those who 
 think that Martha's course was better than Mary's, is 
 in forgetting that Jesus was Lord and Master — as 
 well as Friend — in that Bethany home, and that both 
 sisters ought to have shown themselves his willing — 
 and, if necessary, his zvaitmg — servants. Martha 
 called Jesus both " Lord " and '* Master " (John 11 : 2 1 , 
 28). Mary showed by her conduct that she so con- 
 sidered him. 
 
 To illustrate from another and more active sphere ; 
 for this lesson is not to housekeepers only: A sol- 
 dier's chief duty is to obey orders. This involves, at 
 times, the waiting for orders. I have seen the officers 
 and men of a veteran regiment lying inactive on the 
 ground in the hour of thickest fight of a day of 
 bloody battle. The roar of artillery and the rattle of 
 musketry were heard on every side. Charge and 
 countercharge were made, with ringing cheers, at 
 right and left, along the sharply contested lines. Shot 
 and shell passed over, or fell among, the reclining 
 soldiers. The dead and wounded were carried past 
 them to the rear. Frightened stragglers from battal- 
 ions already in action, and timid orderlies and aides, 
 
266 Shoes and Rations for a Long Mai^ch 
 
 carrying messages hither and thither, told nervously 
 how " everything was going against us," and wondered 
 why this regiment was not ordered forward. Yet 
 all the while the waiting soldiers seemed free from 
 anxiety. They drank their coffee, or munched their 
 rations, or read home letters, or chatted with one 
 another, or even slept. 
 
 But their inaction was not because they were un- 
 suited, or unwilling, to have a share in the engage- 
 ment. They were simply ** in reserve." They were 
 waiting orders. Meanwhile they trusted their com- 
 manders. They had no worry; no care beyond their 
 responsibility. The first call of their colonel, "Atten- 
 tion! " would bring every soldier of their number to 
 his feet, ready to do or to die in the contest, and that 
 long quietly waiting regiment would be worth more 
 in a fight than a whole brigade of worrying soldiers 
 who doubted the skill or thoughtfulness of their com- 
 manding general, and were afraid that he had waited 
 too long before calling them, or would fail to use 
 them to best advantage now that they were in action. 
 So always in God's service : 
 
 " Who best 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best ; his state 
 Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest: 
 They also serve who only stand and wait." ^ 
 
 '* Wherefore," says the apostle to the soldiers of 
 Christ, "take unto you the whole armour of God, that 
 
 1 Milton. 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 267 
 
 ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having 
 done all, to stand " (Eph. 6 : 13). *' In your patience 
 possess ye your souls" (Luke 21 : 19), says Jesus. 
 •' Here," says the disciple whom Jesus loved, '* Here is 
 the patience and the faith of the saints " (Rev. 13 : 10). 
 
 Martha lacked patience because she lacked faith. 
 Mary had a faith which showed itself in patient wait- 
 ing when waiting was in order, and would have shown 
 itself to like advantage in patient household work 
 had such work been then her duty. Remember that 
 it was this same Mary who, on another occasion, 
 brought so costly an offering of love to Jesus as to 
 startle the calculating disciples by its extravagant 
 lavishness (Mark 14 : 3, 4; John 11 : i, 2). Remem- 
 ber that it was of her that Jesus declared, " She hath 
 wrought a good work. . . . She hath done what she 
 could," — done her utmost; and '* Wheresoever this 
 gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, 
 this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a 
 memorial of her " (Mark 14 : 6-9). Of what other 
 woman's work was there ever such a record ? 
 
 Whether it were giving, or doing, or waiting, that 
 Jesus asked for, Mary was ready. He knew best 
 what was her duty of the hour, and what were his 
 wants. Lovingly, restfully, she was at his service, 
 and this it was that he commended in her so heartily. 
 
 " Christ never asks of us such busy labor 
 As leaves no time for resting at his feet ; 
 The waiting attitude of expectation, 
 
 He ofttimes counts a service most complete. 
 
2 68 Shoes mid Rations for a Long March 
 
 "We sometimes wonder why our Lord doth place us 
 Within a sphere so narrow, so obscure, 
 That nothing we call work can find an entrance ; 
 There's only room to suffer — to endure ! 
 
 " Well, God loves patience ! Souls that dwell in stillness, 
 Doing the little things, or resting quite. 
 May just as perfectly fulfil their mission, 
 Be just as useful in the Father's sight, 
 
 " As they who grapple with some giant evil. 
 Clearing a path that every eye may see ! 
 Our Saviour cares for cheerful acquiescence. 
 Rather than for a busy ministry." 
 
 This is the blessed teaching of the incident of the 
 text. Let us recognize its appHcation to our individ- 
 ual needs. 
 
 " But one thing is needful." " One thing." What 
 thing? Mary had it. Martha lacked it. We ought 
 to want it. Just what is it ? Implicit faith, restful 
 trust, in the Lord Jesus Christ, is this one thing 
 needful; needful in the greatest matters, needful in 
 the least; needful at one time, needful at all times. 
 To begin with : This faith — this resting one's self on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ — is essential to salvation. 
 
 We can not save ourselves. We must be saved — 
 or we must continue lost. All of us have sinned. 
 " The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is 
 eternal hfe through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 
 6 : 23). This truth is the distinguishing feature of 
 Christianity, of the religion of the Bible. Mark that ! 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 269 
 
 He who studies most closely the " science of compar- 
 ative religions," can find in no sacred books, of old 
 faiths or new, anything to show a Saviour of sinners 
 except the story of Jesus, — Jesus in prophecy, and 
 Jesus in history. " Neither is there salvation in any 
 other: for there is none other name under heaven 
 given among men" (Acts 4 : 12), — even proposed or 
 suggested, — "whereby we must be saved." 
 
 Think for yourselves ! What is the grand, distinct- 
 ive peculiarity of the Christian religion ? It is not 
 the purity of its moral code; not the prominence it 
 gives to unselfish love for others; not the inducement 
 it offers to men to live for eternity. Christianity has 
 power through all these features. Yet in false re- 
 ligions there are glimpses of the same great truths. 
 The exceptional and glorious characteristic of Chris- 
 tianity — separating it utterly from every other religion 
 — is its presentation of a Redeemer for the lost. 
 Yes ! the truth of truths in the Bible is, not in the 
 Ten Commandments ; not in the Sermon on the 
 Mount; not in the Golden Rule; not in the Parable 
 of the Prodigal Son, or of the Good Samaritan ; not 
 in the description of the City of God ; but it is in 
 the story of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. 
 
 It was to the young man who claimed to have kept 
 all the commandments from his youth up, that Jesus 
 said, " One thing thou lackest" (Mark 10 : 21). The 
 "one thing" which the young man lacked was the 
 " one thing " which Mary had chosen, — a willing- 
 ness to give up everything — one's self, one's plans, 
 
2 JO Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 one's possessions, one's occupation — to Jesus, and to 
 trust him utterly (Matt. 19 : 21). The young man 
 was as wilHng to work as was Martha, but he could 
 not trust like Mary. Whatever else a sinner has, if 
 he lacks this one thing he has no safety. Only Jesus 
 can give salvation. *' He that believeth on him 
 [trusteth himself to him] is not condemned: but he 
 that believeth not [trusteth not] is condemned already, 
 because he hath not believed [not trusted] in the 
 name of the only begotten Son of God " (John 3 : 18). 
 Remember that these are the words of Jesus himself. 
 They are words of truth ; God's words. 
 
 And this implicit faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
 which is essential to salvation is the only thing on 
 which our salvation depends. This is clearly implied 
 in the words of our Lord in the text, " But one thing " 
 — one thing only — " is needful." The one needful 
 thing is the one thing needful. It is the only thing 
 needful, because it includes all else that is of impor- 
 tance. *' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16 : 31). These 
 were the words of the inspired Paul and Silas to the 
 inquiring jailer of Philippi. They are as true now 
 as then ; and they state fully the terms of salvation to 
 every lost sinner seeking to be saved. 
 
 Of course, a man must realize that he is lost, or he 
 will not seek to be saved. There can be no salvation 
 unless there is something to be saved from. But he 
 who knows that he is lost, and wants to be saved, can 
 have salvation by simply trusting himself to Jesus as 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 2 7 1 
 
 his Saviour. Saving faith has been well defined by 
 Dr. Bushnell as " that act by which one person, a 
 sinner, commits himself to another person — tJic 
 Saviour." That is all there is of it — the "one thin^^" 
 needful. 
 
 Oh ! how many sinners who want to be saved are 
 like Martha, " careful and troubled about many 
 things," when " but one thing is needful," and that 
 one so simple. They are troubled lest they are not 
 enough troubled. They are afraid that they are not 
 enough afraid. They question whether they know 
 enough about all the questions which will force them- 
 selves upon every one who thinks at all of religion. 
 They let the fact that they are sinners stand in the 
 way of their faith, when in truth they could not be 
 saved unless they were sinners. They worry over 
 doctrines, or duties, or feelings, or experiences, when 
 all the time they might be like Mary sitting in restful 
 peace at the feet of Jesus, hearing gladly his word. 
 
 And now one step further. Implicit trust in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is needful, and is the one thing 
 needful, to give us success and peace in meeting the 
 duties and trials of every-day life. 
 
 We — and when I say "we" I mean to include all 
 those who look to Jesus as their Saviour — we are 
 quite as dependent on Jesus for protection and guid- 
 ance and supply hour by hour as for the hope of 
 eternal salvation. " The Father had given all things 
 into his hands " (John 13:3), " and by him all things 
 consist" (Col. I ; 17). What can we feel capable of 
 
272 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 doing, or of holding, without his consent and assist- 
 ance ? 
 
 Just at this point is where Mary's discipleship was 
 satisfactory to Jesus, as Martha's w^as not. Martha 
 recognized Jesus as the Messiah. She trusted him in 
 what she counted his sphere. Had she been dying 
 she would not have doubted him for then, and for 
 thenceforward. But she felt no dependence on him 
 in her daily household work. TJiat was her burden, 
 and not his. She was, indeed, out of patience with 
 Mary for looking to Jesus for direction and counsel 
 before dinner was ready. '' I enjoy Christian exer- 
 cises," she might have said, " as much as anybody, at 
 a proper time. I like spiritual communings when I 
 have leisure for them. But work is work, and religion 
 is religion. It is no time to talk religion when work 
 presses as it does in this house just now." To Martha, 
 Jesus was a Teacher and a Master only with reference 
 to things spiritual — in their time. 
 
 Mary's faith in Jesus was, on the other hand, all- 
 inclusive. She believed that he knew better than she 
 what she ought to do, and when and how. He would 
 not, she was sure, let any lack remain through her in- 
 action when he bade her wait. She drew no such 
 line of distinction between work and religion as would 
 keep them apart in her daily living and doing. She 
 could get along without divine help no more easily in 
 the "kitchen than in the parlor ; in her home than in the 
 sanctuary. She would be, in either place, at the call 
 of Jesus. She would trust him absolutely in both. 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 273 
 
 Ah ! it was Mary — not Martha — who trusted and 
 best served God in every-day Hfe. Mary was the 
 practical Christian woman ; Martha was the speculative 
 one. Mary's religion was good for seven days in the 
 week. Martha's was good for the Sabbath, and for 
 week-days — after her work was done. When her 
 brother Lazarus was dead, Martha wished that Jesus 
 had been at hand. When dinner was to be made 
 ready, she only wanted Mary. Yet her need of Jesus 
 was no greater, and her rest on him should have been 
 none the less, in the one case than in the other. This 
 lesson was included in our Lord's rebuke of Martha 
 when she complained of Mary. 
 
 We are all prone to divide our needs into two classes : 
 Those where we must have God's help, and those 
 where that does not seem so essential. The little boy 
 who wanted to ask God to take care of him nights, 
 but didn't think he needed to pray mornings, " be- 
 cause he could take care of himself day-times," was 
 a good deal like the rest of us in counting God's pro- 
 tection and ministry more necessary at one time than 
 at another. 
 
 Many Christians who will pray earnestly for for- 
 giveness of sins, for strength against temptation, for 
 support in sorrow or trial ; and who will call on God 
 for safety in personal danger, or for restored health 
 in sickness, — never think of going to Jesus trustfully 
 for instruction and assistance in training their children, 
 in curbing their own tempers, in improving their 
 speech and manners, in managing their business, in 
 
2 74 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 _ — . . — ■ <\ 
 
 doing a difficult task — balancing a cash account, 
 driving a spirited horse, learning or teaching a lesson, 
 choosing a place of summer resort, buying a coat, 
 trimming a bonnet, finding a servant, or making a 
 loaf of bread. But who shall say that any one of 
 these things is beneath our Saviour's notice — if it is 
 of importance to one of his disciples ? Or who shall 
 affirm that any such thing is within our sphere of un- 
 aided control ? 
 
 ''Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven 
 thee; or to say, Arise and walk?" (Matt. 9 : 5) asked 
 Jesus, when he stood ready to cleanse a guilty soul, 
 or to cure a diseased body. He asks the same ques- 
 tion now, of those who feel their need of him in spir- 
 itual things, but think they can take care of them- 
 selves in things temporal. If you can answer the 
 prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread," why can 
 not you also grant the petitions, " Forgive us our 
 debts," and " Deliver us from evil "? The words of 
 Jesus on this point to his disciples are, "Without me 
 ye can do nothing " (John 15:5). 
 
 It is because so many Christians who trust Jesus in 
 greater things fail to trust him in the lesser, that their 
 religion appears to such disadvantage in their ordinary 
 daily life. Martha showed a far more lovely spirit 
 while struggling under a sense of her brother's loss 
 than when perplexed in preparing a dinner. And, as 
 a bright New England preacher has suggested, " Many 
 a man's Christianity could stand burnings at the stake, 
 which would fail over a burnt biscuit, or a bad cup 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 275 
 
 of coffee." ^ Even wives who sympathize with Martha 
 in her worry will be inclined to admit the truth of 
 this statement concerning the average Christian hus- 
 band. But what a low estimate it is of the grace 
 which is in Christ Jesus that limits its exercise to 
 great occasions, or that doubts its potency outside of 
 the spiritual realm. God's love is no more to be re- 
 strained in the one direction than in the other. '* He 
 that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for 
 us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us 
 all things? " (Rom. 8 : 32.) Why should we distrust 
 God's readiness to supply our minor needs, since he 
 has given us unasked the costliest treasure of the uni- 
 verse ? 
 
 As a Christian disciple, you have no more right to 
 worry about your household work, your business, or 
 your profession, than you have to worry about your 
 salvation. Worry of any sort is out of place in a fol- 
 lower of Jesus. It is a load we have no need to carry. 
 One of my little daughters brought to me, a while ago, 
 a quarto geography having on its cover a picture of 
 fabled Atlas, bearing the globe on his shoulders. 
 Pointing to the over-burdened man, with his bowed 
 head, up-strained shoulders, and distended muscles, 
 staggering under the weight that seemed just ready 
 to crush him, she said, in pitying sympathy, '* Papa ! 
 why don't that man lay that thing down ? " " Well, 
 my dear," I answered, "it would be a great deal better 
 if he did. But that man has the idea that he must 
 
 1 President Foss of Wesleyan. 
 
276 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 carry the world on his shoulders. There are a good 
 many men of that sort, as you will find when you are 
 older." That child's question is a pertinent one to 
 any of you who are struggling under an oppressive 
 burden of personal anxiety of any nature whatsoever. 
 " Why don't you lay that thing down ? " " Cast th\' 
 burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee " 
 (Psa. 55 : 22). It is not always the work that is to be 
 given up, but it is the worry about it. " Come unto 
 me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," says that 
 Jesus at whose feet Mary sat trustfully, " and I will 
 give you rest " (Matt. 1 1 : 28). Why will you not 
 heed that invitation, and so '' find rest unto your 
 souls " ? 
 
 But may we be sure, you perhaps ask, that this 
 invitation includes all the ordinary burdens of daily 
 life ? that it is not limited to spiritual things ? Hear 
 how our Lord explains it. ''Therefore take no 
 thought," — retain no burden of anxiety or worry, — 
 " saying, What shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? 
 or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? . . . For your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
 these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, 
 and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be 
 added unto you (Matt. 6 : 31-33)- Not much doubt 
 as to his meaning there ! 
 
 But all this was to the personal disciples of Jesus, 
 you say, while he was here in the flesh, working mira- 
 cles for the benefit of his loved ones. We can look 
 for no such wonderful help as he gave to them in 
 
Trusting Better than Worrying 277 
 
 their need. How was it with Martha ? The personal 
 Jesus was there, in her home. He who had fed five 
 thousand with five loaves, and four thousand with 
 seven loaves (Matt. 16:9, 10), was her guest and her 
 friend ; yet she was in a fret lest dinner should be 
 lacking for a household of less than a half-dozen. 
 
 Ah ! it was a want of faitJi, not of sigJit, that was 
 the trouble with Martha ; that is always the trouble 
 with a worrying disciple. If only Martha had had 
 Mary's trust, she would have found time and inclina- 
 tion to listen to Jesus, — dinner or no dinner. The 
 promise of Jesus to his disciples is, " Lo, I am with 
 you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 
 28 : 20). He is working wonders continually for 
 those who trust him. There are multitudes who, 
 through faith in him, do live without worry, who do 
 Martha's work in the spirit of Mary. Yoii ought to 
 be of that number. 
 
 Lord ! *' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
 mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee " 
 (Isa. 26 : 3), — because he trusteth in thee ! Not be- 
 cause everything runs smoothly is the believer kept 
 in perfect peace, but because his trust is implicit in 
 Jesus, who is over all and in all, however things run. 
 When things go wrong in his family, or in his busi- 
 ness ; when he is misunderstood or slandered, or 
 betrayed ; when he is in sickness or in sorrow, in 
 loneliness or in want ; when duties and responsibili- 
 ties multiply, — he can trust the Lord for sympathy, 
 for support, for guidance; can trust him to provide 
 
278 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 for him and for his, and to bring good even out of 
 what now seems only evil. When, on the other hand, 
 all is bright in his home and in his friendships, and 
 his business prospers, and his influence extends, and 
 he has health and honors and opportunities, — he can 
 trust the Lord to give him wisdom and grace to fill 
 his place acceptably, and to use his possessions prop- 
 erly. He can, indeed, say with Paul, in all heartiness, 
 *' I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
 to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I 
 know how to abound : every where and in all things I 
 am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both 
 to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me " (Phil. 
 
 4: 11-13)- 
 
PERIL AND POWER THROUGH 
 TEMPTATION 
 
XII 
 
 PERIL AND POWER THROUGH 
 TEMPTATION 
 
 Early in my Christian life I learned that no place 
 of spiritual privilege lifted one above the possibility 
 of temptation. A disciple is liable to be tempted to 
 special sins while on his knees in prayer, or while 
 engaged in effort to win a soul to Christ, and even 
 while sitting with his fellow-disciples at the table of 
 Communion with his Saviour. 
 
 This truth I found confirmed in my chaplain ex- 
 perience in the army. In consequence, I desired to 
 caution Christian soldiers to be on their gruard at all 
 times against the ever-watchful enemy of their souls. 
 I preached in New Berne, North Carolina, in 1862, a 
 sermon on the subject of " Peril and Power through 
 Temptation," as based on the story of the temptations 
 of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 4 : i-i i. This sermon, 
 for which I made notes, but which I did not write out, 
 I preached again in Columbia Jail, in 1863. Yet later I 
 preached it to my regiment before Richmond, in the 
 spring of 1864; and I then repeated it, near the same 
 place, before the Eleventh Maine regiment of my 
 
 brigade. 
 
 281 
 
282 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 The truth of this discourse I had occasion to em- 
 phasize in prayer-meeting talks and in personal con- 
 versation with young beUevers, at various times, as 
 the years passed on. But not until nearly forty years 
 from the time of its first preaching did I write out 
 this sermon for preaching in a home pulpit. My 
 earliest notes, however, gave me reminder of the illus- 
 trations as I first gave them, and as I wrote them out 
 twoscore years later. The sermon here given is prac- 
 tically the same as preached in the camp of my regi- 
 ment in New Berne, in 1862, soon after I joined my 
 regiment as an inexperienced chaplain and untrained 
 preacher. 
 
 I wrote it out for preaching in the pulpit of my 
 pastor. Dr. Dana, in the Walnut Street Presbyterian 
 Church, Philadelphia. But before the day came when 
 I was to preach it, I was stricken down, and became 
 practically a '* shut-in." So this sermon, as thus 
 written out, was the last sermon of my life-work, and 
 after being thus written out, it was never preached. 
 
ADDED DANGERS WITH ADDED BLESSINGS 
 
 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder- 
 ness to be tempted of the devil (Matt. 4:1). 
 
 " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil- 
 derness to be tempted of the devil." " Then ! " When ? 
 After he had been baptized of John in the Jordan, 
 and the heavens had been opened above him, and he 
 had had a new glimpse of their glories, and he had 
 seen the Spirit of God coming down upon him from 
 above, and he had heard the loved voice of his Father 
 speaking out of the heavens, saying, "This is my 
 beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." " Then;' 
 just then, *' was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
 wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 
 
 Marvelous record ! Strange time for such an event! 
 Yet this is the Gospel story. 
 
 For thirty years Jesus had been living the lowly 
 life of a carpenter's son in Galilee, with no evidence 
 in his surroundings that he was heir to a throne, — 
 himself a king, and the Son of the King of kings. 
 If, in those long years, Jesus had at times been 
 tempted to be discouraged, or to doubt, or to be 
 impatient, it would not, indeed, have seemed to us 
 very strange or improbable ; but now, when he was 
 
 283 
 
284 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 newly uplifted in spiritual privileges, it does seem 
 strange. 
 
 Yet, strange as seems the fact, it is a fact ; and we 
 may well learn a lesson for our own course in life 
 from this experience of him who is our Example as 
 well as our Saviour. If he was approached by the 
 tempter in an hour of a spiritual uplift, we must 
 expect to be. 
 
 /. Spiritual privileges are often accompanied by spe- 
 cial temptations. 
 
 It was while the Hebrews were ''fresh from the 
 miracles of the Red Sea and the Nile," and were en- 
 camped before the very mountain that flashed and 
 smoked with the signs of God's presence, that they 
 were tempted to make a golden calf and to bow down 
 before it in worship. 
 
 It was from the very supper of the covenant love 
 of Jesus with his disciples, that one of those disciples 
 went out to betray him. Jesus had just given to 
 Judas the sop, or dipped morsel, which was a token 
 of favor and fidelity, and it was *' after the sop " that 
 Satan entered into Judas (John 13 : 27). 
 
 As it was in Bible times, so it is in our day. It is 
 when we might suppose ourselves freest from spiritual 
 peril, that we have need to watch against special 
 temptation. Now as always, " Let him that thinketh 
 he standeth take heed lest he fall " (i Cor. 10 : 12). 
 
 A young soldier came to my tent one day in war- 
 time, — the Civil War I refer to, — with a heavy heart. 
 
Peril and Power Throiigh Temptatio7i 285 
 
 " Chaplain," he said, " I'm discouraged. It don't 
 seem to be any use trying to be good. This morning 
 I got up before sunrise, and went outside the camp 
 into the woods to pray. I asked God to help me do 
 right to-day. I had a good time in prayer. I came 
 back into camp feeling pretty strong for the day. 
 But some one got me mad before breakfast, and soon 
 I was swearing and cursing as if I'd never prayed at 
 all. It doesn't seem as if praying helped me a bit." 
 
 That young soldier was simply finding that a tem- 
 porary spiritual uplift does not raise one above the 
 danger of temptation. The fight is from the begin- 
 ning to the end ; it is now in days of peace as it was 
 in war-time. 
 
 A disciple of Christ often finds that he is specially 
 tempted as he goes from the prayer-meeting or the 
 Communion table, or from an hour of peculiarly pre- 
 cious intercourse with his Saviour in private devotion. 
 Nor is this to be in any degree wondered at. 
 
 John Newton says, *' It is the man who is bringing 
 his dividend from the bank door who has most cause 
 to fear the pilferer's hand." It is the full purse, not 
 the empty pocket, that is attractive to the plunderer. 
 Or, as an old divine says, *' The Devil strikes at his 
 foes, not at his friends." 
 
 There is a sense in which it may be said that the 
 nearer we get to the summit the harder we have to 
 struggle for the overcoming of difficulties in our up- 
 ward spiritual journey. This may seem discouraging 
 to one who is just setting out in the Christian life; 
 
286 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 but those who have been longest on the road will be 
 readiest to admit this truth. 
 
 " ' Does the road wind up hill all the way ? ' 
 ' Yes, to the very end.' 
 ' Will the day's journey take the whole long day? ' 
 ' From morn to night, my friend.' " ^ 
 
 Yet who would have an easy time slipping down 
 hill, in preference to a hard time struggling upward ? 
 
 " Theit was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil- 
 derness to be tempted of the devil," — then, when he 
 had reached a lofty height of spiritual privilege. 
 
 2. Tejnptations may come of a most unexpected char- 
 acter. 
 
 This was so in the case of Jesus. " If thou art the 
 Son of God," said the tempter. The first suggestion 
 was to doubt the Father's word, as if it were '* too 
 eood to be true." So it has been with children of 
 God since that day. 
 
 The divine record stands, ** Now the man Moses 
 was very meek, above all the men which were upon 
 the face of the earth (Num. 12:3). Yet, when he 
 had reached the zenith of his spiritual power as a 
 leader, Moses yielded to the temptation to lose his 
 patience with the people whom he led, and in so doing 
 he dishonored God before them at the rock of Ka- 
 desh (Num. 20 : 7-12). Who would have thought it? 
 Who can doubt it? 
 
 Elijah was a bold and daring hero-prophet. He 
 
 1 Christine G. Rossetti. 
 
Peril and Power Through Temptation 287 
 
 defied king and priest in behalf of his God. He met 
 and vanquished the hosts of Baal, putting all their 
 priests to the sword. Then when, in the hour of 
 spiritual triumph, he seemed above an ordinary man's 
 weakness, he was tempted to discouragement and de- 
 spair, and he fled like a coward before the threats of 
 a woman, and he wanted to die because life seemed 
 not worth Hving (i Kings 18, 19). Who would have 
 thought it ! Who can doubt it ? 
 
 Peter was the " rock-man " among the apostles. 
 His confident cry to his Master was, " Though all 
 men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never 
 be offended" (Matt. 26 : 33). And when he was ex- 
 plicitly warned of his peril in this direction by that 
 Master, Peter " spake the more vehemently, If I 
 should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Like- 
 wise also said they all " (Mark 14 : 31). Yet that very 
 night every one of those confident disciples forsook 
 Jesus, and fled in fear for their safety ; and Peter, who 
 began by drawing his sword in defence of Jesus (John 
 18 : 10), actually stood trembling and lying and swear- 
 ing before a servant girl, within sight of that Master 
 for whom he declared he was ready to die (Mark 
 14:66-71). Who would have thought it ? Who can 
 doubt it ? 
 
 When Jesus was transfigured on the mount (Matt. 
 17 : 1-13 ; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9 : 28-36), there ap- 
 peared Moses and Elijah with him, and Peter had 
 accompanied him to that place of privilege. All 
 these had known what it was to meet temptations of 
 
2 88 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 an unexpected character in connection with exalted 
 spiritual opportunities. Can any later disciple of 
 Jesus confidently hope to escape similar trial in this 
 life ? "A disciple is not above his master, nor a serv- 
 ant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that 
 he be as his master, and the servant as his lord " 
 (Matt. lO : 24, 25). 
 
 Temptations are likely to assail us on our strongest 
 side, or rather on what we deem our strongest. We 
 are, indeed, more likely to be on our guard against 
 what are our known weaknesses ; but we may be 
 over-confident or careless where we feel strongest. 
 This it is that causes our special danger from unex- 
 pected temptations. 
 
 When a man says confidently, " If the Lord will 
 guard me at other points, I can take care of myself 
 with reference to this, or that, particular sin, because 
 I can never be tempted in that line," that man needs 
 watching, or rather he needs to watch himself. He 
 does not know himself, and he may not even be 
 known by his fellows. 
 
 " Beware of Peter's word ! 
 Nor confidently say, 
 ' I never will deny the Lord,' 
 But, ' Grant I never may.' " 
 
 A loved elder of this church who has entered into 
 rest, and who was honored and looked up to by others 
 than myself, newly impressed this truth upon me by 
 one of his wise utterances. He was one of the clean- 
 
 1 W. Cowper. 
 
Peril and Power Through Temptation 289 
 
 est and purest spirits I ever knew. It was, therefore, 
 something of a surprise to hear him say frankly, as 
 he spoke of himself: 
 
 ** I never hear of a sin or a crime committed by 
 any man, however shocking or horrible it may be, 
 without the feeling that / might be capable of doing 
 the same thing if I were tempted to it." 
 
 Yet that frank confession, because it was a frank 
 confession, only gave me added confidence in that 
 noble man. It was because he had no trust in 
 his own goodness of nature, or purity of life, or rich 
 spiritual experience, and was not therefore thinking 
 that he stood firmly, that he was all the less likely to 
 fall. 
 
 As we ascend the pathway of life, we do not rise 
 above possible and unlooked-for temptations. We 
 ought not to feel that because we have never been 
 tempted in a certain direction, therefore we never shall 
 be, any more than we should because we have been 
 tempted many times in a certain line, and have as often 
 resisted the temptation. 
 
 Many a soldier of earth, officer or enlisted man, 
 who has fought bravely through a dozen battles, has 
 shown himself cowardly in the thirteenth. Many 
 another who has been courageous in the thirteenth 
 has been tempted not to be so. Any old soldier will 
 tell you that this is so, even if he cannot explain it. 
 As long as we live the life that now is, we are liable 
 to encounter temptation, and we have no right to feel 
 that we are sure to keep up even to our own highest 
 
290 Shoes and Rations foi^ a Long March 
 
 level of hitherto. Any man's Hfe is hkely to have 
 surprises in the temptation line, even to the day of 
 his death. 
 
 Yet, just here, we ought not to ignore the encour- 
 aging fact that 
 
 J. Temptations triumphed over are a means of nezv 
 strength. 
 
 There is no sin in being tempted. It is distinctly 
 declared in our text that Jesus was at this time " led 
 up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of 
 the devil." Surely the Spirit of God did not err in 
 leading Jesus to where he would meet temptation ; 
 nor did Jesus sin in following the lead of the Spirit 
 of God into the place where temptation was to be met. 
 Sin is in yielding to temptation, not in meeting it in 
 the path of duty where God would have us go. 
 
 There was a gain to Jesus, as our Saviour, in meet- 
 ing and battling temptation. He understands our 
 case the better in consequence. " For in that he him- 
 self hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour 
 them that are tempted" (Heb. 2 : 18). He can "be 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities," since he 
 hath been "in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
 without sin " (Heb. 4:15, 16). 
 
 Similarly there is a gain to us, not in encountering 
 temptation, but in triumphing over it when we are 
 called to meet it in the providence of God. A man 
 grows strong, not weak, by exercise. His character, 
 like his muscle, gains power through effort and strug- 
 
Peril and Powe7' TJiroitgh Te7nptation 291 
 
 gle. Strength and beauty show themselves in the 
 form and face of the man who has fought and con- 
 quered, without giving way through weakness to 
 temptation, as they cannot appear in one whose God- 
 given and God-kept spiritual faculties have never 
 been called into exercise and tested. Manly virtue 
 is more than childhood's innocency, as God sees it, 
 or even as man sees it. 
 
 We are not, however, even in view of this truth, to 
 seek temptation, or to meet it unnecessarily. When 
 Jesus was asked to cast himself down from the temple 
 pinnacle in order to be held up supernaturally, he de- 
 clared that we must not put God to a test just in order 
 to be a gainer by God's help. Temptations come 
 often enough to us at the best — as many as we need 
 to meet. 
 
 It was after Jesus had had his struggle with temp- 
 tation that he taught his disciples to pray, " Lead us 
 not into temptation" (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4). 
 That clearly enough indicates our duty, whether we 
 understand the reason for it or not. Yet we are 
 also able to "count it all joy when" we "fall into 
 divers temptations " (Jas. 1:2) in the God-led path, 
 because of the good result that may follow our resist- 
 ing. There is no contradiction in these two things. 
 It is not the man who is longing for a fight who is 
 bravest in a fight. The bravest man shrinks from a 
 battle, unless he realizes that it is his duty to go into 
 one. Then, indeed, he may rejoice that he can do good 
 and get good through his fighting and his victory. 
 
!92 Shoes a?id Rations for a Long March 
 
 God is more interested in us than we are in our- 
 selves. God understands us better than we understand 
 ourselves. God will measure our strength and our 
 temptations if we will follow as he leads. He knows 
 just what temptations we are best fitted to meet, or 
 are to be the greater gainers through resisting. Thus 
 it is now ; thus it ever has been in our course. 
 *' There hath no temptation taken you [at God's call] 
 but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, 
 who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
 are able ; but [he] will with the temptation also make 
 a way to escape [or supply the means and power of 
 resistance], that ye maybe able to bear it" (i Cor. 
 
 lO : 13). 
 
 Many a tempted believer has come to feel the truth 
 of this. Out of my own experience I can bear testi- 
 mony to it. At one time, while I was engaged in spe- 
 cial religious work, I found myself tried and tempted 
 in an unusual way. I could not account for it. I 
 had often been before, as I have often been since, 
 tempted in ways that I could account for only too 
 well ; but this was a different matter. It gave me un- 
 rest and perplexity day and night ; and neither prayer, 
 nor effort at calmness of mind or spirit, seemed to be 
 of any avail. 
 
 At last, in my worry, I dropped on my knees before 
 God, and cried out to him for help. I told him that 
 I was beine drawn aside from his work to battle with 
 a temptation that I was not responsible for, and which 
 was in a direction where I had no inchnation to go 
 
Peril and Power Through Temptation 293 
 
 astray. I said that it forced me to a struggle that 
 seemed unnecessary, yet was very real, and I asked 
 him if he would not give me relief from the struggle, 
 so that I could be wholly in his work which so pressed 
 just then. 
 
 And God's answer seemed to come even while I 
 prayed. God said — that is, God impressed upon me 
 the truth — that he coidd at once relieve me from that 
 struggle with that temptation ; but which would I 
 prefer, present relief with the loss of the added charac- 
 ter through the struggle, or a continuance of the strug- 
 gle, and of his grace sustaining me in it, with the result 
 of more manhood as a consequence ? 
 
 Instantly I replied, in my heart, *' Lord, let it be as 
 thou wilt. Give me added manhood, even if I have to 
 fight temptation all the time in order to get it." 
 
 As I then rose contented from my knees, I found 
 that the temptation was gone, and so was the worry. 
 It maybe that it had already done its work for me for 
 then — as God saw my case. 
 
 God will give us gain through conquered tempta- 
 tions if we will but trust him utterly — as we have 
 need to. And this brings us to the thought, or the 
 truth, of our hope of triumph when we are tempted. 
 
 /J.. Victory over temptation conies through a sense of 
 zveakness. 
 
 Even Jesus, after his victory over his temptations 
 in the wilderness, said with reference to his depend- 
 ence, while in his humanity, on his Father as the 
 
294 Shoes and Rations fo7^ a Long March 
 
 source of all strength, ' I can of myself do nothing" 
 (John 5 : 30). Yet, on the other hand, Paul says con- 
 fidently in his dependence on that same source of 
 help, " I can do all things [that I ought to do] through 
 Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4 : 13). 
 
 Paul learned that lesson out of his own trying ex- 
 perience, as he tells us. When he prayed for more 
 streng-th of his own for God's work, God's answer 
 was, " My grace " — not your strength, but *' my grace 
 is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect 
 [or complete] in weakness" (2 Cor. 12 19). God is 
 readiest to help that child of his who feels that he is so 
 weak that he can not get on without God, not the one 
 who thinks he is strong enough to fight through alone. 
 
 When Paul had learned this lesson, he was ready to 
 say, ** Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
 infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon 
 me. . . . For when I am weak, then am I strong " (2 
 Cor. 12:9, 10). Nor was Paul the only child of God 
 to realize this truth. It was thus with those who 
 went before him, and it has been thus with those who 
 have come afiier him. " Time would fail me to tell of 
 Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jeph- 
 thah ; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets : 
 who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
 eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of 
 lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
 waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
 the aliens" (Heb. 11 : 32-34). 
 
Peril and Power ThrougJi Temptation 295 
 
 Feeling a sense of his weakness in himself, and 
 resting confidently on Him who is mighty, not only 
 to save but to uphold, day by day, the child of God 
 can meet every temptation which he encounters in 
 the path of duty in ordinary daily life, whether it be 
 a common temptation or a temptation as unlooked- 
 for as it is severe. He may have resisted the tempta- 
 tion many times before, and yet have to fight the old 
 fight over again. He may never have met it until 
 now, and therefore be surprised that it conies in just 
 this shape at this time. In either case his strength is 
 found in his sense of his weakness, for when he is 
 weak then is he strong. God will give him victory 
 through faith. 
 
 There is yet another case which makes a harder 
 fight than either of these. Temptation is sometimes 
 fiercest when a man or a woman has already given 
 way to it until the will is weak to resist the often in- 
 dulged propensity. Yet God can give strength to one 
 who has fallen seven times, or seventy times seven, 
 and that soul may yet have victory, if it will but turn 
 again and cling trustingly to the arm that is mighty 
 to save in even that emergency. 
 
 Let me give an illustration of this truth that was 
 impressed on my mind most forcefully, as I heard it 
 told by John B. Gough many years ago. 
 
 Mr. Gough was, on one occasion, lecturing to the 
 outcasts of Glasgow, gathered to hear him by the city 
 missionaries, with the assurance given by the civil 
 authorities that no one should be arrested while in 
 
296 Shoes and Rations for a Lo?ig March 
 
 quiet attendance there that evening. The provost of 
 the city was by Mr. Gough's side on the platform. 
 
 The roughest and vilest of the city were there. A 
 woman, popularly known as " Hell Fire," was among 
 them. The city provost told Mr. Gough that she had 
 been arrested scores of times, and she was so violent 
 when drunk that he never sent one policeman alone 
 to arrest her. She sat before the lecturer and lis- 
 tened to his words. As he told of the curse of rum, 
 and of the sufferings of the drunkard, she cried out, 
 " True, mon. It's a' true." And again, " How d' ye 
 ken it a', mon? " 
 
 When an opportunity for the signing of the pledge 
 came, and Mr. Gough gave the invitation, she stepped 
 forward and asked to sign. A bystander said that 
 she'd not keep a pledge until midnight. At this she 
 squared away toward him for a fight. Mr. Gough 
 appealed to her, and asked if she could keep the 
 pledge. 
 
 " If I say I wull, I con." 
 
 "Will you say you will ?" 
 
 " I wull." 
 
 " Then give me your hand on it." 
 
 She took Mr. Gough's hand, and then signed the 
 pledge. Mr. Gough said to her, " May God help you 
 to keep it, my good woman." And he left her. 
 
 '* Two years after that evening I was again in Glas- 
 gow," said Mr. Gough, ** and I saw her once more, — 
 no longer * Hell Fire,' but respected ' Mrs. Archer.' 
 I sat down at the tea-table with her and her daughter 
 
Peril and Power Through Te77tptation 297 
 
 in their humble Scotch home. She told me of the 
 struggles she had had in her purpose of keeping the 
 pledge in those two years, and of her triumphs by the 
 help of God. But sometimes, she said, she would 
 dream in the night that she was drunk as of old, and 
 then she would get up and go down on her knees and 
 cry out in prayer, * God keep me ! God keep me ! 
 I canna get drunk ony mair.' 
 
 " Her daughter added, 'Yes, Mr. Gough, I'll wake 
 in the night, and I'll hear mither cry, on her knees, 
 ** God keep me. God keep me. I canna get drunk 
 ony mair; " and I'll call to her, " Come back to bed, 
 mither. You'll take your death o' could." And she'll 
 say to me, " No, no, I've been drameing I was drunk 
 again, and I'm praying and crying, 'God keep me! 
 God keep me! I canna get drunk ony mair.'" ' 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Gough, " it was not the pledge 
 that had kept her, but it was her faith that sounded 
 out in the cry of her heart continually, ' God keep 
 me! God keep me! I canna get drunk ony mair.'" 
 
 And this is the hope of the tempted soul, whether 
 he be one who has grown stronger by long resistance, 
 or one who has been weakened by frequent yielding. 
 He is truly strong only when he is consciously weak. 
 
 Here also is our best lesson from the recorded fact 
 in our text. " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit 
 into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil;" "For 
 in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is 
 able to succour them that are tempted " (Heb. 2 : 18). 
 
VICTORIOUS IN DEATH AND IN LIFE 
 
xm 
 
 VICTORIOUS IN DEATH AND IN LIFE 
 
 In all active service in human warfare, victory is 
 the chief thing struggled for. It is victory that is de- 
 sired, it is victory that is hoped for, it is victory that 
 is to be rejoiced in. There may be, indeed, an ulti- 
 mate good that is to be attained through a long war, 
 in which battle after battle is fought at terrible cost of 
 life and limb, and at a fearful outlay by the powers 
 engaged ; but this can come only as a result of 
 victory. Therefore, to the soldiers in active warfare 
 it is victory that has the first thought and place in all 
 their doing and their enduring. 
 
 And veteran soldiers in our Civil War learned that 
 those who lived through a battle had more yet to do 
 and to endure than those who fell in that fight. One 
 who lived worthily and who fell at his post, dying as 
 he had lived, was a victor beyond the necessity of 
 another struggle. But a soldier who lived through 
 one battle in that long war had to realize that he must 
 be ready to meet other dangers, from which his fallen 
 comrades were spared. Hence a lesson of a veteran 
 soldier's experience was that living is, on this account, 
 more to be dreaded than dying. Many a soldier at 
 
 301 
 
302 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 the close of a battle, in that sadly prolonged war, felt 
 in his weakness and exhaustion that his fallen com- 
 rades were happily spared the renewed fights which he 
 must enter. Yet as a true soldier he realized that it 
 was his duty to brave living with its penalties and 
 ever-renewed outlays, as well as dying with its final 
 victory. And this conviction was the truest test and 
 climax of the right-minded soldier. 
 
 In home life, as in army service, I found occasion 
 to consider this truth and to emphasize it before my 
 fellows. Hence there grew this sermon as to our 
 Saviour's assurance that those living in him shall have 
 victory in living and in dying. 
 
NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE 
 
 " For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, 
 7ior ajigels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor thi?tgs 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
 any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
 love of God, zvhich is in Christ Jesus our Lord'' (Rom. 
 8 : 38, 39)- 
 
 "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life " — 
 " neither death, nor life " ! Death stands over against 
 life in ceaseless hostility, here in a world where all 
 who are not mourning their dead are themselves 
 struggling to live. 
 
 In the ancient Roman theaters, on the occasion of 
 the gladiatorial games, the contestants, who had en- 
 tered the arena for its life-and-death struggles, were 
 accustomed to pass in review before the seat of the 
 Imperial " Editor," or Exhibitor, of the games, and, 
 while still in the flush of strength and of bounding 
 life, to say, in conscious recognition of their impend- 
 ing doom, '' Morituri salutamus !'' "We who are 
 about to die, salute you !" And this grim salutation 
 of the battle-arrayed gladiators might well be that of 
 all of us, whenever we leave our homes of a morning, 
 or return to our loved ones of an evening ; or when 
 
 303 
 
304 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 we part with those who are dear to us, for even the 
 briefest vacation, or other absence ; and so when they 
 and we are come together again in gladness : '' Mori- 
 tun sahitavius !'' "We who are about to die, sahite 
 you ! " 
 
 Already we are within the arena of conflict ; we 
 are moving steadily toward the climax of the strug- 
 gle ; and, in more than a poetic sense, our pulsing 
 heart-throbs are the muffled drum-beats of the funeral 
 march. 
 
 You and I are facing death, here in this house this 
 morning, — you in your place, and I in mine ; and 
 there is reason why, in the strictest literalism, I should 
 now preach to you 
 
 " As never sure to preach again, 
 And as a dying man, to dying men," ^ 
 
 It is old Flavel, I think, who has corrected so force- 
 fully the common thought of our nearness to death. 
 We speak of death, he says, as a precipice, toward 
 whose brink we are moving blindly. That brink may 
 be just before us, or it may be still at a distance. 
 When we reach it, one step is our last. TJiat is our 
 thought. But, no, he adds, death is not a precipice 
 between which and ourselves there is a possible, 
 though an uncertain distance ; death is a precipice 
 along the edge of which we have been moving, in 
 blindness, from our very birth. At this moment, as 
 always, there is but a step between us and death (i 
 Sam. 20 : 3). 
 
 1 Richard Baxter. 
 
Victorious in Death and in Life 305 
 
 And death, thus ever-proximate, is always and only 
 our enemy. Death is not, can not be, a friend. We 
 may defy death. We may even come to long for or 
 to welcome death. We may be sure of triumph over 
 death. But neither our courage, our craving, nor our 
 confidence, can change the hostile attitude of death. 
 ''The last enemy that shall be destroyed ['abolished,' 
 the Revision renders it,] is death" (i Cor. 15 : 26); 
 the last enemy that shall be abolished, but that remains 
 as an enemy yet awhile. That is the way the Bible 
 states it ; and that is the way we are very likely to 
 view it — in our testing-times. 
 
 When we look into the faces of our dead dear 
 ones, and when we stand above their sodded graves, 
 we say, instinctively, "An enemy hath done this" 
 (Matt. 13 : 28). Even the certainty of their joy im- 
 mortal can not make their absence our mortal joy. 
 
 " Immortal ? I feel it, and know it ; 
 Who doubts it of such as she ? 
 But that is the pang's very secret, — 
 Immortal away from me. 
 
 " There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard, 
 Would scarce stay a child in his race ; 
 But to me and my thought it is wider 
 Than the star-sown vague of space. 
 
 " Your logic, my friend, is perfect, 
 Your morals most drearily true : 
 But since the earth fell on her coffin, 
 I keep hearing that, and not you. 
 
3o6 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 " Console if you will, I can bear it : 
 'Tis a well-meant alms of breath : 
 But not all the preaching since Adam 
 Has made death other than death." ^ 
 
 But it is deatJiy — this death which can not seem 
 " other than death;" this death which confronts us 
 all and always as our enemy, — this death it is against 
 which the faith-inspired Apostle rings out, jubilantly, 
 in his confident climax of defiance : " I am persuaded, 
 that neither death, nor life, . . . nor any other creature 
 [any other created thing], shall be able to separate us 
 from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
 There are some things which death can not do, 
 even at its worst Death can not separate either the 
 dead believer or the living believer from his Saviour. 
 Jesus came into this world of the dying, and passed 
 out from it through the gates of death into the world 
 of the undying. He knows what it is to sorrow over 
 the work of death, to shrink from death, and to suffer 
 death. He is familiar with the weakness and with the 
 needs of his loved ones here, who are appointed to 
 die. He feels with them tenderly, and his presence 
 and help are assured to them unto the end. " Let 
 not your heart be troubled," he says. " In my 
 Father's house are many mansions. ... I go 
 [on before you] to prepare a place for you. . . . 
 And . . . where I am, there ye may be also" (John 
 
 14 : 1-3). 
 
 1 James Russell Lowell. 
 
Victorious 271 Death and in Life 307 
 
 However and wherever the chasm of death is to be 
 crossed by a behever, Jesus, from beyond it, will give 
 help and cheer to his follower, on this side of it and 
 in its crossing. And the overleaping of that chasm 
 will not separate the Guide and his follower, but will 
 only unite them the more closely, and forever. 
 
 While climbing the upper summits of the moun- 
 tains of Sinai, I was led by an Arab guide who was 
 familiar with every step of the perilous way. Finally 
 we came to the edge of a threatening precipice of 
 granite, which sloped away from our very feet far 
 down to a yawning ravine of jagged rocks below. 
 Closer and closer to that dizzy edge lay our narrow 
 path, until the path actually lost itself, at a point 
 where a jutting crag before us seemed to forbid all 
 passage, unless directly over the mad precipice itself 
 And there my guide disappeared, for the moment. 
 He had swung himself around that crag, over that 
 bewildering cliff, and was now at the base of a 
 mountain dome, above and beyond the path he 
 had left. 
 
 As I stood for a moment, with whirling brain, at 
 that appalling brink of death, I saw, just above and 
 before me, the wiry feet of my trusty guide beyond 
 that jutting crag ; and I heard his voice calling out 
 cheerily : '* Cling to my feet, and swing yourself over 
 the pass ! I can hold you ! Have no fear ! " 
 
 It was not a tempting thing to do. But it was that 
 or nothing. I caught at those sturdy ankles with a 
 grip as for my life! A moment's stay of breath! 
 
3o8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 One spring along the frightful edge ! The crag and 
 the chasm were passed, and I and my guide were to- 
 gether on the unchanging rock — where the crown of 
 that mountain of God was ours. 
 
 So with us all, as we clamber the steeps of earth, 
 under the guidance of him who has passed every step 
 of the way before. When at last our narrow path 
 is skirting the brink of the yawning grave, and the 
 forbidding crag of death juts before us, and we realize, 
 for the moment, that our Guide has gone over be- 
 yond that crag, — even then we can hear the voice 
 of Jesus, calling to us cheerily, '* Come unto me ! 
 I will uphold thee!" And, clinging with the grip 
 
 of faith to 
 
 " Those blessed feet 
 Which eighteen hundred years ago were nail'd 
 For our advantage on the bitter cross," ^ 
 
 We can, with one instant's bated breath, and with a 
 single swing of soul, pass beyond death, to stand with 
 our Guide on the enduring rock of the eternal hills 
 of God. 
 
 If, indeed, for a moment, at such a crisis, we are 
 ** in a strait betwixt two," whether to stay or to go, 
 faith tells us surely, that " to depart, and to be with 
 Christ," is very ''far better" (Phil, i : 23). There- 
 fore it is that " Precious in the sight of the Lord is 
 the death of his saints" (Psa. 116 : 15). Therefore it 
 is that the believer can cry triumphantly, in the face 
 of death as his enemy, '' I am persuaded, that neither 
 
 1 Shakespeare. 
 
Victoriotcs in Death and in Life 309 
 
 death, nor life, . . . nor any other creature, shall be 
 able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 It is, indeed, that very love of God, which is in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord, that permits the dying of any 
 of Christ's dear ones. Herodotus tells, from Solon, 
 a touching story of Biton and Cleobis, two noble 
 young sons of a priestess of Juno. They were cele- 
 brated for their devoted affection to their mother. 
 On a great feast-day of Juno, they insisted on draw- 
 ing their mother in her chariot to the temple, a dis- 
 tance of six miles or so. The populace applauded 
 their filial affection. The mother was gratefully proud 
 of their loving devotedness. 
 
 Taking those sons with her into the temple where 
 she ministered, that mother prayed for them to the 
 goddess whom she served. Not wealth, nor honors, 
 nor long life, she asked for them, specifically, but her 
 prayer was that the goddess would grant to them 
 just that which the goddess should know to be the 
 best of all gifts for sons so worthy. Having thus 
 prayed, the mother fell calmly asleep, with her sons 
 near her, within the temple precincts. 
 
 When the morning came, those two sons were dead. 
 The mother's prayer for them had been answered. 
 The best gift of the goddess was theirs. 
 
 Are not the love and the wisdom of our God as 
 real and as great as are those of the Pagan goddess ? 
 Aye ! "I heard a voice from heaven saying, . . . 
 Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord 
 
-1 
 
 I o Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig MarcJi 
 
 from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
 rest from their labours ; and their works do follow 
 them " (Rev. 14: 13). 
 
 Nor does the death of one's dear ones — any more 
 than the death of one's self — separate the believer 
 from his Saviour, or lessen his sense of that Saviour's 
 loving nearness. On the contrary, eveiy fatal blow 
 of the enemy of life attaches with a new link the sur- 
 vivors in the conflict to the commander in whose 
 service is the fighting and the falling. 
 
 Look at that familiar picture of the veterans of 
 Waterloo gathered for the last time in their annual 
 reunion with the Iron Duke. Is there a barrier, or is 
 there a bond of union, between those war-worn cap- 
 tains and their great commander, in the fact that at 
 his call they and he faced death together on a field 
 where those whom they loved were stricken down in 
 his loyal service ? 
 
 Ah ! my friends, I tell you there is no such loving 
 devotedness of soldiers toward any commander who 
 has been over them only in the days of peace, or at 
 times of parade, as toward one who has led them 
 in a score of hard-fought battles — out of which 
 they have come alive, but bronzed and scarred 
 for life. 
 
 Aye ! and there is no such bond of human com- 
 radeship as that which joins in heart-fellowship those 
 who have stood shoulder to shoulder in the shock of 
 batde, and who have wept together over those who 
 there fell from their sides. 
 
Victoiaous in Death aiid in Life 
 
 311 
 
 " Ho ! comrades of the camp and field, 
 What though the world be wide ! 
 The hands that met above the dead, 
 Earth never can divide." ^ 
 
 So, likewise, there is added love for Christ, in the 
 believer's heart, through each glimpse of Christ in the 
 hour of a dear one's death-struggle ; and there is a 
 closer bond of Christian fellowship between those who 
 have mourned their dead together. 
 
 He who would enter the innermost chambers of 
 Christ's ministering love, must pass through the death- 
 room of those who are dearer than life to him. Only 
 thus can he realize the fulness of the beatitude : 
 '' Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be com- 
 forted " (Matt. 5 : 4). Only thus can he be able to 
 say, out of his sanctified experience, " Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of mercies and God of all comfort ; who comforteth 
 us in all our affliction, that we may be able to com- 
 fort them that are in any affliction, through the com- 
 fort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God " 
 (2 Cor. I : 3, 4). 
 
 '' Even here 
 From his dear children's eyes, God wipes the tear ; 
 And who would mourn a tear should fill his eye 
 
 For God to dry ? 
 Angels might envy man his tearful eyes 
 
 When God's hand dries." ^ 
 
 Heaven is nearer to those whose dear ones are 
 
 1 M. A. Lathbury. 2 a. E. Hamilton. 
 
3 1 2 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 already there, and Christ is dearer to those whose 
 best loved ones have entered into his rest. 
 
 Aye ! and those who for the first time mourn their 
 own dead, are, by that very experience, brought into 
 a holy fellowship of Christian sorrow and Christian 
 sympathy and Christian comfort, the benefits of which 
 no unbereaved soul is privileged to share. 
 
 No ! No ! Whatever else is the power of death as 
 an enemy, "I am persuaded, that" not ''death, . . . 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 " Neither death, nor ///t' " ! Mark that! Death 
 first, and then life, in the ascending order of dangers 
 which confront the Christian believer. Nor is this an 
 anti-climax in the plan of the inspired Apostle, for 
 death is ever a lesser danger than life, in the experi- 
 ence of the disciple of Jesus. 
 
 Dying is but a minor matter, at the worst. A mo- 
 ment, and all is over. Its one struggle is the last. 
 But to live on, with a new struggle eveiy day, and with 
 no end to the fighting, is a very different matter, at 
 
 the best. 
 
 " Blessed are those who die for God, 
 
 And earn the martyr's crown of light; 
 Yet he who Hves for God may be 
 A greater conqueror in his sight."* 
 
 While I was a prisoner of war in South Carolina, I 
 met a brave and determined Southern officer, who 
 
 1 A. A. Proctor. 
 
Victorious in Death and in Life 3 1 3 
 
 spoke in intensest earnestness of the inflexible pur- 
 pose of his people to resist all efforts at their subju- 
 gation. When the war was over, I was again in South 
 Carolina, and I met the same officer once more. 
 Greeting me pleasantly at this time, he said : 
 " I little thought, when we met last, that the war 
 would end as it did. But we were ready for the 
 end long before it came ! It was your General 
 Grant who wore us out. We could stand anything 
 but his eternal pound, pound, pound. We would 
 gladly have gone into one great battle, or another, to 
 fight the thing out. But he just pounded right 
 straight along, with no let-up. If we whipped him 
 one day, he was at it just the same the next morning. 
 A victory didn't seem to help us any more than a 
 defeat. It was just fight, fight, fight, every day of 
 the year, no matter what came of the fighting. We 
 couldn't stand tJiat, and so w^e longed for the end to 
 
 come." 
 
 And that is the sort of fighting which wears out 
 the best and the bravest soldiers, in any line of war- 
 fare ; or which taxes their courage most sorely, if it 
 does not wear them out. It is not the one death- 
 struggle, but the ceaseless life-struggles, that the 
 stoutest heart shrinks from. 
 
 It is the meeting the same temptations over and 
 over again. It is the finding one's self weak at one's 
 strongest point, and again the being assailed unex- 
 pectedly just where one is weakest. It is the failing 
 to find any perceptible gain through a score of vie- 
 
3 1 4 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 tories over a foe which comes up only the more vig- 
 orous after every fresh defeat. It is the seeing that 
 those who are stronger than one's self are over- 
 borne in the fiftieth contest, when they had fought 
 through forty-nine similar fights without a failure. It 
 is the strangeness of God's way of letting those who 
 love him battle on without a conclusive triumph in 
 any one contest — once for all. It is the ceaseless 
 mystery of the life that is, with so much power per- 
 mitted to evil, and such seeming advantages for the 
 time to the adversaries of Christ and of Christ's dear 
 ones. 
 
 It was one of the sweetest-spirited of Christian sing- 
 ers who said, wearily : 
 
 " Oh, it is hard to work for God, 
 To rise and take his part 
 Upon this battle-field of earth, 
 And not sometimes lose heart ! 
 
 " He hides himself so wondrously. 
 As though there were no God ; 
 He is least seen when all the powers 
 Of ill are most abroad ; 
 
 " Or he deserts us in che hour 
 The fight is all but lost ; 
 And seems to leave us to ourselves 
 Just when we need him most. 
 
 "Oh, there is less to try our faith 
 In our mysterious creed 
 Than in the godless look of earth 
 In these our hours of need." * 
 
 1 F. V^. Faber. 
 
Victorious in Death and in Life 315 
 
 Do you question the courage, or the character of 
 behevers who yield to feehngs of this sort, at any 
 point in their hfe-struggle ? Some pretty strong men 
 in the world's history, some stalwart sons of God, 
 have felt that way, whether you and I have always 
 been above such weakness or not. 
 
 It was none other than Moses, — Moses, the meek 
 and majestic man of God, — who, after seeing all the 
 miracles of Jehovah in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the 
 desert, and at Mount Sinai, and after actually com- 
 muning with God ''face to face, as a man speaketh 
 unto his friend " (Exod. 33 : 11), was so weary of his 
 prolonged conflict with evil, that he was tempted to 
 give up both his struggle and his charge, and his tired 
 moan to God for death was, " I am not able to bear 
 all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. 
 And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, 
 out of hand [off-hand, outright], if I have found favour 
 in thy sight ; and let me not see [no longer see] my 
 wretchedness" (Num. 11 : 14, 15). 
 
 It was the even-minded patriarch, Job, — Job, 
 whom God himself pointed out as foremost among 
 the sons of men for uprightness and for fidelity, — 
 who, having bowed himself in loving submissiveness 
 under stroke after stroke of bitter calamity, wilted at 
 last, under the continuing pressure upon him, and 
 longed for the end to come. '' Oh that I might have 
 my request," he cried ; *' and that God would grant 
 me the thing that I long for ! Even that it would 
 please God to destroy me ; that he would let loose 
 
^ 
 
 1 6 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 
 
 his hand, and cut me off! Then should I yet have 
 comfort" (Job 6 : 8-10) in death, if not in hfe. 
 
 It was heroic Elijah, the rugged old prophet of 
 Israel, who — after receiving proof that God was ready 
 to open or to close the heavens, or even to raise the 
 dead to life, at his cry for help ; and after triumphing 
 gloriously in his single-handed defiance of the four 
 hundred and fifty prophets of Baal — was too weak 
 to bear up without wincing under the ceaseless 
 "pound, pound, pound," of his persistent opposers ; 
 and who, hurrying into the wilderness, threw himself 
 despondently under the scanty shade of a retem bush, 
 ** and he requested for himself that he might die ; and 
 [he] said, It is enough [it is too much] ; now, O Lord, 
 take away my life ; for I am not better than my fathers 
 [I make no gain in living on] " (i Kings 19:4). 
 
 It was that most courageous of all the God-called 
 and faith-filled followers of Christ, Paul the Apostle, 
 who, after enduring unflinchingly ** in journeyings 
 often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils 
 from" his *' countrymen [the Jews], in perils from the 
 Gentiles, in perils in the cit}^, in perils in the wilder- 
 ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false breth- 
 ren ; in labour and travail, in watchings often, in 
 hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and na- 
 kedness " (2 Cor. 1 1 : 26, 27), and who, being still 
 kept at the tireless task of battling his own body 
 daily, lest after all his trials and triumphs he should 
 yet become " a castaway" (i Cor. 9 : 27) ; he it was 
 who cried out, in all earnestness, that "to depart, and 
 
VictoiHoics in Death and in Life 3 1 7 
 
 to be with Christ " would be " far better " (Phil. 1:23) 
 than to hve on "at this poor dying rate;" and who 
 was sure that for himself, whatever it was " to live," 
 ** to die " would be a " gain " (Phil, i : 21). 
 
 Aye ! and many another believer, since the days of 
 this apostle, has realized how much harder it is to live 
 than it would be to die ; how much greater are the dan- 
 gers of living than of dying — to one who is ready to die. 
 
 Unless, indeed, you and I have more sublime pa- 
 tience than Job, more sanctified meekness than Moses, 
 more stalwart courage than Elijah, more holy zeal and 
 faith than Paul, we also are liable to similar weari- 
 ness and shrinkings, in our life-struggle, — unless, per- 
 chance, it be the case that our lack of strength of 
 character forbids to us the possibilities of such 
 strength, in either direction — of action, or of reaction. 
 
 A while ago I sat by the dying bedside of a dear girl 
 in my Philadelphia home. As I held her hand, which, 
 all unconsciously to herself, the damp of death was 
 already chilling, she said to me with soulful earnest- 
 ness : " Dr. Trumbull, Pm not one bit afraid to die. 
 I know that Jesus is my Saviour, and if I should die 
 now, he would take me right to himself. But Pm 
 expecting to get well, and that's what troubles me. 
 When Pm up again, will Jesus give me strength to 
 live all the time as I ought to live ? " 
 
 And I tell you, my friends, those words did not 
 show spiritual weakness on the part of that dear young 
 disciple. On the contrary, they showed her spiritual 
 discernment. As she lay there, between living and 
 
3 1 8 SJioes and Ratio7is for a Long March 
 
 dying, she realized that to die was a lesser danger 
 than to live ; that the one death-struggle was a small 
 thing in comparison with a long series of life-strug- 
 gles. And in this she was at one with Paul, and Elijah, 
 and Job, and Moses, and many another child of God, 
 in the olden time and in the later ; for to them and to 
 her, and to every spiritually illumined soul, death has 
 fewer dangers than life to the believer in Jesus, be- 
 cause here, in the life that now is, our wrestling is 
 "not [alone] against flesh and blood, but against 
 principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
 darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in 
 high places " (Eph. 6 : 12). 
 
 But life also — life with all its perils — has its limita- 
 tions of power for harm to him who is joined by 
 faith with that Saviour whose loving power is limit- 
 less. It is to life, as well as to death, that Paul bids 
 defiance in the triumphant ascription of our text: "I 
 am persuaded that neither death, nor life," — neither 
 death the lesser peril, nor life the larger; neither 
 death with its single danger, nor life with its dangers 
 upon dangers, — '' neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
 God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 There are ten Bible promises to the living where 
 there is one Bible promise to the dying ; ten prom- 
 ises for the life that is, where there is one promise for 
 the life to come ; ten promises of strength in the bat- 
 
Victorious in Death and in Life 319 
 
 tie of life to one promise of joy after life's battle is 
 over. If, therefore, life's struggles are harder than 
 the struggle of death, the promises of help in the 
 struggles of life are correspondingly more prominent 
 in the Word of God. 
 
 Aye ! there is never a peril to the Christian believer 
 in his life-course, over against which there does not 
 stand a divine token of assurance and cheer to the 
 imperiled one. 
 
 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
 shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, 
 or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? . . . Nay, in all 
 these things we are more than conquerors through 
 him that loved us" (Rom. 8 : 35-37). 
 
 You say that you are spiritually weak, that you lack 
 strength for life's battlings. Christ's cheering assur- 
 ance comes to you : *' My grace is sufficient for thee : 
 for my power is made perfect in weakness " (2 Cor. 
 12 : 9) — my power is shown at its fulness in disciples 
 who are so weak as to feel helpless without me. 
 
 You say that temptations press you on every side, 
 and you are afraid they will overbear you at some 
 point. ** There hath no temptation taken you but such 
 as man can bear : but God is faithful, who will not suf- 
 fer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will 
 with the temptation make also the way of escape, that 
 ye may be able to endure it" (i Cor. 10 : 13). 
 
 You say that it is not so much the greatness of any 
 one temptation, as the incessant pressure of repeated 
 temptations. You are growing tired and faint under 
 
320 Shoes and Rations foT- a Long March 
 
 the ceaseless *' pound, pound, pound," on your over- 
 taxed forces. ** He giveth power to the faint ; and to 
 them that have no might he increaseth strength " 
 (Isa. 40 : 29). 
 
 You say that you can stand it yet awhile, with the 
 strength that is now given you ; but you shrink from 
 the possibilities of the future, if the coming years are 
 to bring no let-up to the strain upon you. Hear 
 God's loving response to this mistrusting: "Even to 
 old age I am he, and even to hoar hairs will I carry 
 you : I have made, and I will bear ; yea, I will carry, 
 and will deliver" (Isa. 46: 4). 
 
 You say that even though you are kept up in your 
 life-battlings, you lack that fellow-help, and that per- 
 sonal sympathy, which you used to think you could 
 depend on ; for so many a trusted one has changed, 
 or has failed you, while those from whom you hoped 
 most have disappointed you, — that you now seem 
 really alone in your strugglings. His answer comes 
 tenderly : ** I the Lord change not " (Mai. 3:6). *' As 
 one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort 
 you" (Isa. 66: 13). "I will not fail thee, nor for- 
 sake thee " (Josh. 1:5). 
 
 Who can despair, in the face of such promises ? 
 
 After all, the believer's life-course is only one step 
 at a time, and every step onward is also a step up- 
 ward ; for 
 
 " The road winds up hill all the way, 
 Yes, to the very end." ^ 
 
 * Christine G. Rossetti. 
 
Victorious in DeatJi and in Life 321 
 
 At the severest, the believer's endurance is only 
 minute by minute, and every improved minute is an 
 attainment for eternity. 
 
 " Do not look at life's long sorrow ; 
 See how small each moment's pain. 
 God will help thee for to-morrow : 
 So, each day begin again. 
 
 " Every hour that fleets so slowly 
 Has its task to do or bear. 
 Luminous the crown, and holy, 
 When each gem is set with care."^ 
 
 Added life-battlings give not only added dangers, 
 but also added possibilities of victory and of glory. 
 Every new triumph in the life that is, is an acquisition 
 for the life to come ; not by way of reward, but by 
 way of development; not in enlarged merit, but in 
 expanded character. 
 
 These conflicts of soul, which furrow the face, and 
 which whiten the hair, and which rack the very heart 
 of hearts, endear a disciple to his Saviour and fit 
 him for greater joys and for higher honors in that 
 Saviour's presence — when the war is over. Aye ! 
 and they give him increased efficiency while the war 
 is still in progress. 
 
 There is one token of a soldier's standing which no 
 gold can purchase, no favor can win, nor can even the 
 government itself confer it as an act of grace ; and 
 that is the ''service-chevron," a little strip of lace upon 
 the soldier's sleeve, which marks a completed full period 
 
 1 A. A. Proctor. 
 
32 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 of army enlistment, — of two years, or three, or five, it 
 may be. And when a uniform shows two, or five, or 
 possibly even ten, of these "service-chevrons," there 
 is an added character to the veteran who wears it, — a 
 character which can come only of experience in hard 
 campaigning, a character which is sure to show itself 
 in the bronzed face, in the compacted muscles, and in 
 the whole manly bearing of the soldier-hero. 
 
 The Queen may put her royal son into the army, 
 in a place of high command, and she can multiply his 
 decorations, which are proofs of her royal favor; but 
 she can never give him a ** service-chevron," or a rib- 
 bon or a medal which marks an honorably completed 
 campaign, until he has served and battled all a cam- 
 paign through. And right alongside of that fair-faced 
 prince-royal, with his uniform showily bedecked with 
 its peace-won honors, there may stand a veteran offi- 
 cer with an armless sleeve, and a sightless eye, and a 
 sabre-slashed cheek, and a breast hung over with 
 battle-medals, who shall deserve, and shall have, the 
 praise of all observers, for his service and his achieve- 
 ments, beyond all that is conceded to the honored son 
 of the sovereign. 
 
 So in the service of the King of kings. The fair- 
 faced child may be promoted by the Sovereign's grace, 
 and stand in heaven 
 
 " A victor, ere he drew a sword ; 
 Before he toiled, at rest." 
 
 But he can never be the veteran of a hundred fights, 
 without fighting through battle a hundred times. 
 
Victorious in Death and in Life 323 
 
 Moreover, in life's battlings, each faithfully com- 
 pleted period of enlistment adds a semce-chevron to 
 the uniform of both the inner and the outer man, to 
 mark the hero-veteran before all the world. 
 
 " Every wrinkled, care-worn brow 
 
 Bears the record, Something done ! 
 Some time, somewhere, then or now. 
 Battles lost, or battles won." 
 
 Thank God, then, \S\-dX you are permitted to live on 
 and become veterans, instead of having promotion 
 without a term of active service. And at the open- 
 ing of every new conflict before you, look forward 
 hopefully to a new victory and a new attainment. As 
 Admiral Nelson said confidently, when the battle of 
 the Nile was beginning, ** Here's for a peerage, or 
 Westminster Abbey !" So you can say, with sublimer 
 confidence, as the combat thickens about you, " Here's 
 for a higher stand in Christ, or for final rest with 
 Christ!" 
 
 Ah ! it is even gloiioiis to live on in life's painful 
 battlings, so long as Christ wants us to fight; as, 
 again, it is blessed to die, when Christ calls us to rest 
 from this fighting. And, surely, if he honors us by 
 trusting our fidelity in prolonged campaigning, we 
 ought to honor him by trusting his fidelity in sustain- 
 ing us until our campaigning is over. 
 
 ** Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, 
 that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, 
 having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having 
 girded your loins with truth, and having put on the 
 
324 Shoes aiid Rations for a Long March 
 
 breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your 
 feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
 withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye 
 shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
 evil one" (Eph. 6: 13-16). 
 
 " Dread not the din and smoke, 
 
 The stifling poison of the fiery air ; 
 Courage ! It is the battle of thy God ; 
 
 Stand ! and for him learn how to do and dare. 
 
 "What though ten thousand fall ! 
 
 And the red field with the dear dead be strewn ; 
 Grasp but more bravely thy bright shield and sword; 
 Fight to the last, although thou fight'st alone. 
 
 "What though ten thousand faint. 
 
 Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee ! 
 Heed not the panic of the multitude ; 
 Thine be the Captain's watchword, — 
 Victory ! " ^ 
 
 And "thanks be to God, which giveth us the vic- 
 tory [in death and in life\ through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ" ! Amen. 
 
 1 H. Bonar. 
 
REJOICING IN PEACE 
 
XIV 
 REJOICING IN PEACE 
 
 Only the boy who has been away from home long 
 enough to be really homesick knows how to appre- 
 ciate the privilege and delights of home. Only the 
 soldier who has fought and endured, and suffered the 
 privations and disappointments and deferred hopes of 
 a prolonged war, knows how to appreciate and to re- 
 joice in finally attained peace. It is impossible for 
 the young in these glad days to understand what were 
 the feelings of the Union soldiers when peace finally 
 came after the four long years of our Civil War. 
 
 When, after Appomattox Court-House, our brigade 
 returned to Richmond, and was given a position, for 
 rest and guard duty, in the suburbs of the long- 
 besieged capital of the Confederacy, the rejoicings of 
 officers and men were unbounded and overwhelming. 
 No more fightings, no more privations, no more fears, 
 no more enemies for us. Peace had come. What 
 more was there to long for now ? The national flag 
 waved over the Confederate capital. Our military 
 department commander had his headquarters in the 
 residence of " President " Jefferson Davis. Federal 
 guards moved undisturbed before the home of Gen- 
 
 327 
 
328 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 eral Lee, and had their stations in Libby Prison, in 
 Castle Thunder, and on Belle Island. On all sides 
 were evidences of victory and of peace. It was almost 
 too good to be true. Yet it was all true, while it was 
 more than good. 
 
 It was then that I wrote and preached to my regi- 
 ment, which was stationed just north of Richmond, a 
 sermon on Peace. By special request I repeated this 
 sermon before the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regi- 
 ment, which was on guard in the city, and the com- 
 mander of which was in charge of Libby Prison, 
 where I had been confined. That sermon I give 
 herewith in its complete form as then preached. Its 
 spirit and its letter seem appropriate for the closing 
 of this little collection of army-chaplain teachings and 
 preachings. 
 
PEACE AT LAST 
 
 *' Thou wilt keep Jam m perfect peace, whose mind is 
 stayed on thee : because lie tnisteth in thee (Isa. 26 : 3). 
 
 Peace ! What a precious word. How joyous and 
 full of comfort to all. And to the soldier how much 
 it means. If any appreciate its full force and blessed- 
 ness, you do. From love of peace, you left your 
 homes and came to the war. To ''seek peace, and 
 pursue it" (Psa. 34: 14), you turned away from 
 mother and sister, from wife and child, gave up all 
 that you had before deemed essential to enjoyment, 
 and entered upon a life of severest trial and greatest 
 exposure and peril. You have suffered and sacrificed 
 for peace, longed for peace, prayed for peace, fought 
 for peace. 
 
 The hope of peace has kept you up in all these 
 weary, waiting weeks of war ; its deferring has made 
 your hearts sick, and has saddened and depressed you 
 in many a troubled hour. While on the lonely vedette 
 post, at the dead of night in the pine forest, with no 
 sound to be heard but the chirp of the cricket or the 
 call of the whip-poor-will, as you peered out into the 
 darkness in the direction of the foe, and watched vigi- 
 lantly while you longed for the next relief, — you have 
 
 329 
 
330 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 thought of peace, and wondered when and how it 
 would come, and whether you would live to see and 
 enjoy it. You have dreamed of peace while you lay 
 in camp, or as you napped it by the wayside or in the 
 battle-line, waiting the order to advance. On guard, 
 during dragging hours in hospital ; on the sea-washed 
 deck, or in the close, dark, dingy hold of the army 
 transport ; bivouacking, marching, throwing up earth- 
 works, resting under cover, broiling in the trenches, or 
 sitting in the chapel tent, — you have had peace before 
 your eyes as a pleasant vision which you hardly dared 
 hope to see. 
 
 You have written home of peace. You have talked 
 of peace with your comrades by the cook-tent or the 
 field camp-fire. The possibility of peace has nerved 
 your arms in the hour of fiercest conflict, and that 
 you might help to secure peace you have stood un- 
 flinchingly while comrades fell from your side in the 
 shock of battle, have pressed forward with the advance 
 in the deadly charge, or grappled with the enemy in 
 the fearful hand-to-hand struggle on the parapet or 
 within the surmounted fortress. 
 
 And when there was a lull in the storm of war, or 
 one victory or another to our national arms had given 
 fresh ground for glad expectation and assured hope, 
 you have asked of some intelligent comrade, or trusted 
 commander, or of your chaplain, how long it would 
 probably be before peace might be attained ; and you 
 have wished that he could give you some better an- 
 swer than that he waited and wondered and longed 
 
Rejoicing in Peace 331 
 
 and prayed with the same restless desire and in the 
 same ignorance and bhndness as yourselves. 
 
 What cared you for victoiy save as an earnest of 
 peace ? What was Roanoke ; what was New Berne ; 
 what was Kinston ; what were James Island and Fort 
 Wagner ; what were Deep Bottom and New Market 
 Heights ; what was Petersburg, to yoti ; — what were 
 Antietam, and Fort Donelson, and New Orleans, and 
 Gettysburg, and Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, and 
 Atlanta, and Savannah, and Charleston, and Richmond, 
 to the nation, in comparison with Appomattox Court- 
 House ? The others brought glor^^ ; that brought 
 peace. Were your hearts ever before so elated ? Did 
 they ever so bound with gladness as then ? Did you 
 ever give God thanks with reverent gratitude so 
 heartily as when the announcement that Lee had sur- 
 rendered brought you assurance that the end of the 
 war was reached, and that at last peace had come? 
 Peace ! Peace ! God be praised for peace ! 
 
 Peace has been ever deemed a synonym of the 
 richest blessing, and its possession the most favored 
 lot of man. ''The Lord lift up his countenance upon 
 thee, and give \h^^ peace'' (Num_, 6 : 26), was the con- 
 cluding benediction of Aaron and his sons upon the 
 house of Israel, according to the divinely ordained 
 liturgy. David declared that the end of the perfect 
 man and the upright is /^<7r^ (Psa. 37: 37). When 
 the Angel of the Lord came to the shepherds on the 
 plain of Bethlehem, bringing the good tidings of 
 great joy to all people, while the glory of the 
 
332 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 jj 
 
 Lord shone round about, the glad ciy of the multi- 
 tude of the heavenly host which rang through the 
 universe in annunciation of the advent of the Re- 
 deemer of the world was, *' Glory to God in the 
 highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men " 
 (Luke 2 : 9-14). And when our Saviour was returning 
 to his celestial home, his gracious words to his be- 
 loved disciples were, in tenderness and love, ''Peace 
 I leave with you, my peace I give unto you " (John 
 14 : 27). 
 
 Isaiah, sweet poet and glad prophet of God's 
 chosen people, describing sadly the course of the 
 church in the following years, told of dark da\'s when 
 God's people were to be tried and sore distressed, 
 and calamity should be over all the land, and utter de- 
 struction would seem to await those who before had 
 been favored in all the earth. But he gave hope of 
 national redemption and of a new season of rarest 
 prosperity, when God should make unto all people a 
 feast of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees 
 well refined, when he would destroy the face of the 
 covering so long cast over the people, and the veil 
 spread over the nations, when he should wipe away 
 tears from off all faces, and take away the rebuke of 
 his people from off all the earth. *' In that day shall 
 this song," Isaiah says, " be sung in the land of Judah ; 
 We have a strong city ; salvation will God appoint 
 for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the 
 righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter 
 in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
 
Rejoicijig in Peace 333 
 
 mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee" 
 (Isa. 26 : 1-3). 
 
 The joy of the saints is pictured as peace — " per- 
 fect peace." And I have often thought that in all 
 the precious pages of the Old Testament writings no 
 single passage is more beautiful, or contains a richer 
 assurance of God's love and power, than the text I 
 have named : *'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, 
 whose mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in 
 thee." 
 
 The peace of the trusting child of God is continu- 
 ous and undisturbed. It is not like an armistice pre- 
 ceded and to be followed by bitter conflict. It is not 
 like the fatal calm just before the battle opens, while 
 the skirmishers are cautiously feeling for the enemy. 
 It is not like the lull for an hour at Petersburg, or a 
 day at Bermuda Hundred, with the nervous conscious- 
 ness ever present that each second of quiet may be 
 the last ; nor yet like the weeks of inaction at New 
 Berne, St. Helena, Seabrook Island, or St. Augustine, 
 with the war still dragging on and a call to a new 
 front likely to come at any time. There is no real 
 rest — no thorough refreshing of body and mind — to 
 the soldier, wherever he may find himself, so long as 
 a state of warfare continues in his country. 
 
 It is only when permanent peace to the entire coun- 
 try is secured, with no danger of a resumption of 
 hostilities, that he can be kept in perfect or unmarred 
 peace. 
 
 As the soldier's rest can be after the war for which 
 
334 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 he enlisted has closed, so is the faithful saint's rest 
 always. He knows that his fighting is at an end. 
 There may be war for others, but not for him. He 
 will look up no spiritual Mexicos in which to exercise 
 his martial spirit, now that the dearest interests for 
 which he battled are secure. Even amid wars and 
 rumors of wars in other lands on every side, he is 
 kept in perfect peace ; nothing alarms, nothing dis- 
 turbs him. By day and by night, in joy and in sor- 
 row, in sickness and health, when tried and tempted, 
 when betrayed by trusted friends, when disappointed 
 in fondest hopes, when bereaved, when forsaken, when 
 God's ways are most inscrutable, when all about him 
 seems darkest, he whose mind is stayed on the loving 
 Omnipotent One is kept in perfect peace. 
 
 He whose mind is stayed on God ! Not all in this 
 weaiy world have peace. *' There is no peace, saith 
 my God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57 : 21). The law in 
 the members is warring against the law of the mind 
 continually of him who does not serve and trust 
 Jehovah (Rom. 7 : 23). The man who lacks confi- 
 dence in Jesus as his Saviour and Friend, has no de- 
 lightful repose of mind and conscience. Any of you 
 who do not count yourselves devoted children of God 
 are at the best restless. 
 
 If }'ou are scoffers, or are deliberate violators of 
 his law, — if you are profane or intemperate or dis- 
 honest, — if you are ill-tempered, or unfaithful in any 
 way to the demands of duty, — you are, with other 
 
Rejoicing in Peace 335 
 
 wicked ones, ''like the troubled sea, when it cannot 
 rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa. 57 : 20). 
 If you are passably correct in deportment, or even 
 reverent toward God and faithful to your neighbor, 
 yet have not your mind stayed on God (Phil. 4 : 7), 
 you lack that peace ''which passeth all understand- 
 ing" which comes from the knowledge that your 
 Redeemer liveth, Jehovah, your Redeemer's Father 
 and your Father, reigneth supremely, and that all 
 things work together for good to you who love him. 
 
 If your inner thoughts in your calmer moments, in 
 seasons of retirement, while by yourselves, on guard, 
 or in your tents, or on your beds, could testify, this 
 truth would stand out before all the world as it is de- 
 clared in revelation : that they — and they alone— are 
 kept in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on 
 God, who have fought the good fight of faith and 
 come off conquerors through him who loved us and 
 gave himself for us, and now have rest from war. 
 
 " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind 
 is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee" (Isa. 
 26 : 3). " Because he trusteth in thee." There is no 
 repose but in confidence. A man standing on the 
 edge of a precipice must be sure of his footing or he 
 can not be at ease. A man on the skirmish-line must 
 be sure of his rifle. A regiment in battle, however 
 gallant and efficient, wants to know that its flanks are 
 protected, and that the regiment at right or left won't 
 break and run at the first fire. 
 
 He who trusteth in God has confidence. He stands 
 
^2,6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 on the Rock Christ Jesus. He shall not be cast 
 down. He is clad in the whole armor of God ; no 
 weapon that is formed against him shall prosper. 
 "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 them that fear him, and delivereth them" (Psa. 34 : 7). 
 They are protected in front, flank, and rear. 
 
 It is easy to have confidence when there is no ap- 
 parent cause for alarm. The very child who would 
 tremble and fear in a thunder-storm is cheerful and 
 undisturbed on a bright summer morning. The fam- 
 ily with its circle unbroken and all its surroundings 
 those of affluence, of refinement, of health, and of 
 beauty, can have confidence that all is and is to be 
 well with them, even though they would be anxious 
 or even terror-stricken if malignant disease were to 
 invade their neighborhood, or if incendiaries and assas- 
 sins were known to be at work in their vicinity. Sol- 
 diers who would be demoralized by hearing an enemy 
 in their rear, or by an unexpected sweep of grape and 
 canister from a masked batteiy just in front, would 
 go on boldly while the enemy was falling back and the 
 shouts of victorious comrades came up encouragingly 
 from right and left far up and down the battle-line. 
 
 If the child trusted implicitly his strong and loving 
 father, and had learned to rely unhesitatingly on his 
 word and his supporting presence, he might stand 
 unmoved while the lightnings flashed and the thunders 
 pealed from the dark storm-clouds, and might enjoy 
 the magnificence and grandeur of the scene as pointed 
 out to him by the one on whom his young mind was 
 
Rejoicing in Peace 2)2)1 
 
 stayed. If the family felt themselves already guarded 
 against the dreaded contagion, and had no doubt of 
 the bolts or bars of their dwelling, or the faithfulness 
 of their long-tried watchman, they might still find en- 
 joyment in the delights of their home circle, because 
 they trusted in what had never failed them. 
 
 If the soldiers knew their commander and that he 
 had never been defeated, and they had just received 
 word from him that all was right, or if they were so 
 confident of their own strength that they could rush to 
 the capture of the battery before its second discharge, 
 they would be still steady, still faithful, as though all 
 about them was indicative of present triumph. 
 
 He who trusteth in God, he whose mind is really 
 stayed on God, is just as cheerful, just as calm, or is 
 as fully resigned and hopeful when the sky of his life 
 is overcast, and the atmosphere breeds disease or 
 bodes death to those less favored, and when others 
 seem to be suffering defeat, as in the brightest hour 
 of health and victory. It is just when there is most 
 need of special strength that God gives it to his trust- 
 ful children. It is just when there is room for doubt 
 that assured confidence in a never-failing support 
 comes to the aid of him who enjoys it. 
 
 "As thou wilt ! still I can believe ; 
 
 Never did the word of promise fail. 
 Faith can hold it fast, and feel it sure, 
 
 Though temptations cloud, and fears assail. 
 Why art thou disquieted, O my soul ? 
 When thy Father knows, and rules the whole. 
 
2,2,8 SJioes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 "As thou wilt, O Lord ! I ask no more. 
 
 With the promise, Faith pursues her way ; 
 Patience can endure through sorrow's night, 
 
 Hope can look beyond to Heaven's own day, 
 Love can wait, and trust, and labor still ; 
 Life and death shall be, according to Thy will ! " ^ 
 
 All God's signs of power and sovereignty but give 
 new ground of confidence to those whose rr.inds are 
 stayed on God. Does the young lion shrink from the 
 strong frame, the stout limb, and the sharp claws of 
 the king of beasts ? Or do these but give greater 
 confidence to the dependent creature in whose behalf 
 they are exercised for the obtaining of daily food ? 
 Yet **The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger : but 
 they that seek the Lord shall not want any good 
 thing" (Psa. 34: 10). Does the loyal citizen of the 
 Republic have anxiety and fear because of the vast 
 authority centered in the Chief Magistrate of the 
 nation? Or does he, from a knowledge of this, have 
 restful satisfaction in the thought that his personal 
 and social interests as a citizen are sure of being pro- 
 tected against all foreign and domestic foes ? Yet it 
 is not safe to put implicit trust in man, nor in the son 
 of man in whom is no sure help (Psa. 146: 3) ; for 
 the Lord alone doeth wondrously (Psa. 72: 18), and 
 there is none good but One, that is God (Luke 18 : 19). 
 
 Do you enjoy perfect peace ? The end of the war 
 in which you have fought so bravely and endured so 
 nobly is at hand. Is there no warfare in your mem- 
 
 1 Neumeister, " Hymns from Land of Luther," page 145. 
 
Rejoicing in Peace 339 
 
 bers, the issue of which gives you doubt ? Are you 
 sure of victory over self, of victory over sin, of vic- 
 tory over death ? God keeps those in perfect peace 
 whose minds are stayed on him. If you are still dis- 
 trustful — if you are not yet a rejoicing conqueror — it 
 is because of your lacking restful faith in Jesus, not 
 having your mind stayed on him, as your only, your 
 all-sufficient Redeemer. 
 
 Is your mind stayed on Jesus ? If so, you need 
 never know fear, for perfect love brings perfect peace 
 and casteth out fear. You will not be without trials, 
 but you may have peace of mind in all your trials, 
 and assured confidence for the happy end. '* Many 
 are the afflictions of the righteous : but the Lord de- 
 livereth him out of them all" (Psa. 34: 19). "The 
 Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants : and none 
 of them that trust in him shall be desolate" (Psa. 
 34: 22). 
 
 If your mind is not stayed on Jesus, what is its 
 stay? What is your trust this hour? What gives 
 you comfort in sorrow? What gives you unalloyed 
 joy in peace ? What is your source of strength for 
 daily duty? What is your hope for the eternal 
 future? Who stands for you now in the Father's 
 presence ? Who will welcome you at the final 
 judgment? There is but one Redeemer, but one 
 sure comfort for any sorrowing, sinning child of man. 
 Every other stay will fail as the broken reed, — piercing, 
 not upholding, him who leans on it for support. Peace 
 in the soul is found only under the banner of the 
 
340 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 
 
 Prince of Peace. Whatever other flag waves above 
 or is followed by you, will avail you nothing when 
 you have fought your last fight on earth, however 
 dear it may be to you while you are still a soldier of 
 the government it represents. 
 
 Blessed be God for the peace which opens before 
 us as a nation, with the rest it brings to us as soldiers 
 in the Union army ! Blessed be God for the perfect 
 peace in which those are kept whose minds are stayed 
 on him, and who trust him wholly ! God grant that 
 as you enter upon the joys of peace to our favored 
 land, you may not shut out yourselves from the peace 
 which God speaks to his people and to his saints, 
 the peace which passeth all understanding (Psa. 85 : 8), 
 and which is unbroken and eternal. 
 
 And now may *' the God of peace, that brought 
 again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shep- 
 herd of the sheep, through the blood [the life] of the 
 everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good 
 work to do his will, working in you that which is 
 well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to 
 whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Heb. 
 13 : 20, 21). 
 
INDEXES 
 
TOPICAL INDEX 
 
 Aaron, reference to, 331. 
 Abed-nego, reference to, 228. 
 Abel, reference to, 244. 
 Abraham, references to, 32, 220, 244. 
 Absalom, reference to, 22. 
 Acorn: its prolificness, loi. 
 Acrocorinthus, reference to, 242. 
 Adam, cowardice of, 177. 
 Agricultural College at Amherst, refer- 
 ence to, 216. 
 Alexander, Mrs., quotation from, 152. 
 Alexander, Archibald, reference to, 248. 
 Alexander the Great, reference to, 32. 
 America, foot-gear of women of, 10. 
 Amherst, Massachusetts, reference to, 
 
 147. 
 Amherst College, references to, 52, 
 
 147 f., 216. 
 Andersonville prison, references to, 
 
 86 f., 210. 
 Antietam, reference to, 331. 
 Aphrodite, temple of, reference to, 242. 
 ApoUos, reference to, 244. 
 Appomattox Court House, references 
 
 to, 117, 327, 331. 
 Arabs of Sinai, foot-gear of, 11. 
 Archer, Mrs., incident in life of, 296 f. 
 Arnald, Prince, reference to, 33. 
 Arnold of Rugby, quotation from, 169. 
 Assyria : reference to kings of, 32 ; 
 
 moral teachings of sages of, 190. 
 Astor, William B., reference to. 157. 
 Aihanasius, quotation from, 178. 
 Athenai, reference to. 242. 
 Athens : temple of,4Q ; reference to, 241. 
 Atlanta, Georgia, reference to, 331. 
 Atlas, child's thought about fabled, 
 
 276 f. 
 Attica, reference to, 242. 
 Augustine, Saint : reference to, 165 ; 
 
 quotation from, 252. 
 
 Baal, references to, 287, 316. 
 
 Babylon : reference to kings of, 32 ; 
 
 captivity of children of Judah in, 
 
 228. 
 
 Barak, references to, 244, 294. 
 
 Baxter, Richard, quotation from, 304, 
 
 Bean : its prolificness, loi. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, quotations from, 
 158. 176. 
 
 Beethoven, quotation from, 167. 
 
 Belgium, foot-gear of women of, 10. 
 
 Belle Island, references to, 86, 210, [•28. 
 
 Benhadad, reference to, 32. 
 
 Bermuda Hundred, reference to. 333. 
 
 " Billings, Josh," quotation from, 102. 
 
 Binney. Horace, reference to, 248. 
 
 Biton and Cleobis. story of, 309. 
 
 Blind girl, incident of, 226. 
 
 Bonar, Horatius, cjuotations from, 42, 
 114. 324. 
 
 Boodhism : teaching of, 81 ; reference 
 to, 200. 
 
 Boston Latin School, reference to, 52. 
 
 Brahmanism, teaching of, 81. 
 
 Bright, John, "Punch's" praise for, 
 180. 
 
 British Academy of Medicine, refer- 
 ence to, 173. 
 
 Broadway, incident of lost boy in. 89 f. 
 
 Brougham, Lord : quotation from, 154 ; 
 reference to. 169 ; his work in free- 
 ing England's slaves, 181. 
 
 Brown, John, reference to, 175. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, 
 quotation from, 84 f. 
 
 Buffon, quotation from, 167. 
 
 Bulwer's " Schiller," quotations from, 
 166, 169. 
 
 " Burial of Moses," quotation from, 
 152. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, quotations from. 160, 
 171. 
 
 Burns, quotation from, 136. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu, quotation from, 166 f. 
 
 Bushnell, Dr. Horace : reference to, 
 150; quotation from. 271. 
 
 Bushnell, Louisa, quotation from, 78. 
 
 Bu.xton, Sir Fowell : quotation from, 
 170; his work in freeing England's 
 slaves, 181. 
 
 343 
 
344 
 
 Topical Index 
 
 Campbell, quotation from, 128. 
 Canaan, reference to, 30. 
 Capernaum, references to, 75-78, 85. 
 Card-playing, reference to, 229. 
 Cariyle, reference to, 176. 
 Castle Thunder, reference to, 328. 
 Cecil, Richard, quotation from, 104. 
 " Character," meaning of word, 138. 
 Charles V., Titian's letter to. 168 
 Charleston : incidents of prison life in, 
 43, 84, 86 f., 207-211 ; references to, 
 
 Chatrian. See Ercktnann- Chatrian. 
 Chattanooga, reference to, 331. 
 Chicago, reference to. 64. 
 China, moral teachings of sages of. 190. 
 Chinese: their foot-gear, 9 f.; refer- 
 ence to, 222; ancestor- worship 
 
 among, 250. 
 " Chronology," Newton's, reference to, 
 
 168. 
 Chronometer, conscience compared to, 
 
 231. 
 Clark, President, of Massachusetts 
 
 Agricultural College, quotation 
 
 from. 148. 
 Clarke, Adam, quotation from, 171 f. 
 Clarkson's work in freeing England's 
 
 slaves, 181. 
 Cleobis, reference to, 309. 
 Columbia jail : references to, 52. 86, 
 
 210. 281 ; incident ot life in, 73. 
 Color-blindness: moral, 215-236 ; among 
 
 railroad men. 217 f. 
 Compass : its testing by shipbuilders, 
 
 227 ; conscience compared to, 227 f. 
 Confucianism, teaching of, 82. 
 Conscience : not a safe guide, 215-236; 
 
 compared to chronometer. 231 ; 
 
 compared to compass, 257 f. 
 Corinth, references to, 241 f. 
 Corn : its prolificness, 100 f. 
 " Cosmos." Humboldt's, reference to, 
 
 168 f. 
 Cowper. W.. quotations from, 224, 288. 
 Cromwell, reference to, 175. 
 Cuzco, temple at, 40. 
 
 Dana, Dr. S. W., reference to, 282. 
 
 Dancing, reference to, 229. 
 
 Dandolo, reference to, 176. 
 
 Daniel, reference to, 228. 
 
 David, references to, to8, 151-153, 174 f., 
 181, 244, 246, 294, 331. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, reference to, 327. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, refer- 
 ence to. 247. 
 
 Deep Bottom, reference to, 331. 
 
 Demosthenes, reference to. 169. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, quotation from, 167. 
 
 Disraeli, quotation from. 170. 
 
 Dobcll, Sydney, quotation from, 178. 
 
 Drummond, Professor Henry, refer- 
 ences to, 68, 193. 
 
 Dublin University, reference to, 157. 
 
 Dyaks of Borneo, rating of character 
 among, 226. 
 
 Easthampton, Massachusetts, refer- 
 ences to, 144, 147. 
 Ebal, reference to, 30. 
 Egypt : references to kings of, 32 ; 
 
 reference to, 104, 315; Napoleon 
 
 in, 247. 
 Egyptians, moral teachings of, 190. 
 Eleventh Maine Regiment, reference 
 
 to, 281. 
 Elijah : his bravery before prophets of 
 
 Baal, 175; references to, 286 f., 
 
 316-318. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, reference to, 161. 
 Emerson. Ralph Waldo, quotations 
 
 from, 137. 179. 
 England : foot-gear of women of, 10 ; 
 
 work of Sharp, Brougham, Wilber- 
 
 force, and Clarkson in freeing slaves 
 
 of, 181. 
 Enoch, reference to, 244. 
 Ephraim, hills of, reference to, 30. 
 Erckmann-Chatrian, quotation from, 
 
 164. 
 Esau, reference to, 108. 
 Eton, reference to, 155. 
 " Eugene Aram." quotation from, 130. 
 Euphrates, reference to, 30. 
 
 Fabek, F. W., quotation from, 314. 
 
 Ferguson, James, reference to, 99. 
 
 Fisk & Co., " Jim," reference to, 158. 
 
 Flavel, reference to, 304. 
 
 Foot-gear : in Smithsonian Institution, 
 9; among Chinese women, 9 f.; 
 among peasant women of Holland 
 and Belgium. 10 ; among women 
 of England and America, 10; 
 among Arabs of Sinai, 11 ; among 
 Israelites, 11. 
 
 1 ort Donelson. reference to, 331. 
 
 Fort Wagner, references to, 43, 331. 
 
 Foss, President, of Wesleyan Univer- 
 sity, quotation from, 274 f. 
 
 Fox. Charles James, quotation from, 
 171. 
 
 Franks, reference to, 33. 
 
 Fuller, Thomas, quotation from, 109. 
 
 Galilee, references to, 31, 75, 283. 
 Galileo, reference to, 98 f. 
 Garfield, reference to. 99. 
 Cierizim, reference to, 30. 
 Ciettysburg, references to, 207. 331. 
 (iiardini. reference to, 167. 
 Gibbon's '' Memoir," reference to, 168. 
 Gideon, references to, 244, 294. 
 
Topical hidex 
 
 45 
 
 Glasgow, incident related by John B. 
 Gough in, -^96 f. 
 
 Goethe, quotation from, 180. 
 
 Gough, John B., incident related by, 
 296 f. 
 
 Grant, General, reference to. 313. 
 
 Gray, Elinor, quotation from, 96. 
 
 Greece : moral teachings of philoso- 
 phers of, 190; wisdom of classic 
 philosophies ot, 200. 
 
 Greeks, rights of new-born child among, 
 191 f. 
 
 Grenoble, Napoleon's bravery at, 174 f. 
 
 Guest. William, quotation from, 160. 
 
 Gurney, John Joseph, quotation from, 
 
 153- 
 
 Hamilton, A. E., quotation from, 311. 
 Hastings, Warren, references to, 160, 
 
 171. 
 Havergal, Frances Ridley, quotation 
 
 from. 95. 
 Hawes, Dr. Joel, quotation from, 159. 
 Hazael, reference to. 32. 
 Heber. Bishop, quotation from, 87. 
 Helicon, reference to, 242. 
 '• Hell Fire," incident in life of. 296 f. 
 Henshaw. Principal Marshall, refer- 
 ence to, 145. 
 Herbert, George, quotation from, 139. 
 Hermon, reference to, 30. 
 Herodotus, incident from, 309. 
 Hill, President, of Harvard, quotation 
 
 from, 157. 
 Holland, foot-gear of women of, 10. 
 Hood, quotation from. 130. 
 Hormozan, reference to, 33. 
 House of Commons, reference to, 170. 
 •' Human Body, and its Connection 
 
 with Man, The," reference to, 159. 
 Humboldt's " Cosmos," reference to, 
 
 168 f 
 " Hymns from the Land of Luther," 
 
 reference to, 337 f. 
 " Hypocrisy," meaning of the word, 
 
 122 f. 
 
 Incident : of army experiences in 
 North Carolina, 7; of prison life in 
 Charleston, 43, 84, 86 f., 207-211; 
 of New Hampshire boy, 44-47 : of 
 godless army captain, 63 ; of prison 
 life in Columbia, 73 ; of soldier in 
 Richmond, 83 f. ; of New England 
 prayer-meeting, 88 : of lost boy in 
 New York, 89 f.; of Virginia mur- 
 derer, 111-113; of bravery of Na- 
 poleon, 174 f.; of blind girl, 226 ; 
 of Napoleon at pyramids, 247 ; in 
 life of Mrs. Archer, 2y6 1'.; in ascent 
 of Mount Sinai. 307; from Herodo- 
 tus, 309; of prison-life in South 
 
 Carolina, 312 f.; of dying girl in 
 
 Philadelphia, 317 f. ; at battle oi the 
 
 Nile, 323. 
 Lidia, moral teachings of sages of, lyo 
 Indian corn, prolificness of, 100 f. 
 Indians, reference to, 222. 
 Indians, American, rating of character 
 
 among. 226 
 Indianapolis, National Sunday-school 
 
 Convention at, 66. 
 International Bible Lessons, 66. 
 " Iron Duke," references to, 155, 310. 
 Irving, Washington, reference to, 169. 
 Isaac, reference to, 244. 
 Isis, reference to, 104. 
 Isles of Shoals, reference to, 52. 
 Isthmian games, references to, 242-244. 
 
 Jackson, Thomas : reference to, 167 ; 
 
 quotation from, 168. 
 Jacob, references to, 31, 220, 244. 
 Jacob's Well, references to, 28, 30, 31, 
 
 33 f-. 37. 39- 
 James Island, reference to, 331 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, reference to, 248. 
 
 Jenner. reference to, 168. 
 
 Jephthah, references to, 244, 294. 
 
 Jerusalem, references to, 28, 30, 75, 
 
 259 f. 
 Jesus at Jacob's Well, references to, 
 
 28, 32. 
 Jews, reference to, 316. 
 Jezreel, reference to, 30. 
 Job, references to, 165, 181, 315, 317 f. 
 John, reference to, 283. 
 John the Baptist, reference to, 202. 
 Jonah, reference to, 22. 
 Joseph, reference to, 244. 
 Joshua, reference to, 244 
 Jordan, references to, 30 f., 283. 
 Judas, reference to, 284. 
 Judea, references to. 31, 75. 
 Juno, reference to, 309. 
 
 Kadesh. reference to, 286. 
 Kedor-la'omer. reference to, 32. 
 '• King Duncan." reference to, 132. 
 Kinston, reference to, 331. 
 Klondike, reference to, 53. 
 
 La Gkanja, reference to, 40. 
 " Lady Macbeth," reference to, 132. 
 Laodicea, reference to. 246. 
 Larcom, Lucy, quotation from, 105. 
 " Last Supper," Titian's, reference to, 
 
 168. 
 Lathbury. M. A., quotation from, 311. 
 Lazarus, references to. 260, 273. 
 Lebanon, references to, 33, 104. 
 Lee. Cieneral, references to, 327 f . , 331. 
 Lepanto, Gulf of, reference to, 241. 
 Libby Prison, references to, 93, 210, 328. 
 
46 
 
 Topical l7idex 
 
 London, Carlyle's reference to people 
 
 of, 176 
 Longfellow, quotation from, 165. 
 Lot, reference to, 32. 
 Lotteries as means of building churches, 
 
 221 f 
 Lowell. James Russell, quotations 
 
 from, 192 f., 305 f 
 Luther, reference to, 175 
 Lying : reference to, 215 ; to help on 
 
 good cause 222 ; as a duty among 
 
 Orientals, 226 
 
 Magill, Robert, quotation from, 66. 
 
 Mann, Horace, reference to, 157 
 
 Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, refer- 
 ence to, 181. 
 
 Martha of Bethany, references to, 257- 
 278. 
 
 Mary, reference to, 257-278. 
 
 Massachusetts Agricultural College, 
 reference to, 147 f 
 
 Melzi, reference to, 176. 
 
 •' Memoirs of Sheridan," reference to, 
 171. 
 
 Memphis, temple at, 40. 
 
 Meshach, reference to, 228. 
 
 Mexico, temple at, 40. 
 
 Michel Angelo, reference to, 167. 
 
 Mill. J. Stuart, reference to, 176. 
 
 Milton, quotation from, 266. 
 
 Minerva Promachus. reference to, 242 
 
 Montesquieu, quotation from, i68. 
 
 Moody, Dwight L., references to, 216, 
 
 235- 
 
 Moore, Tom : reference to, 169 ; quota- 
 tion from, 171. 
 
 Morea, relerence to, 241. 
 
 Morris Island, reference to, 43, 52. 
 
 Moses, references to, 10 f., 178, 244, 
 286 f , 315. 317 f. 
 
 Mukhna, Plain of, reference to, 31. 
 
 Nabloos, reference to, 28. 
 
 Napoleon : references to, 10, 99, 155, 
 
 164, i6g f., 174-176, 247, 310. 
 National Sunday-school Convention, 
 
 reference to, 66. 
 Nazareth, reference to, 75. 
 Nebuchadnezzar, reference to, 32. 
 Necho, reference to, 32. 
 Nelson, Admiral, at battle of the Nile, 
 
 323- 
 
 Neptune, temple of, reference to, 242. 
 
 Nero, reference to, 103. 
 
 Neumeister, quotation from, 337 f. 
 
 New Berne, North Carolina, reference 
 to, 281 f., 331, 333. 
 
 New England : prayer-meeting, inci- 
 dent of, 88; reference to, 246 f.; 
 preacher's thought on God's pro- 
 tection, 274 f. 
 
 Nejv Englander, quotation from, 162. 
 
 New Hampshire boy, incident of. 44-47. 
 
 New Market Heights, reference to, 331. 
 
 New Orleans, reference to. 331. 
 
 New York : stock gamblers of, 64 ; in- 
 cident of lost boy in, 89 f.; war riots 
 in, 207 ; incident of blind girl in, 
 226. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac : quotation from, 
 166 ; reference to, 172. 
 
 Newton, John, quotations from, 18,285. 
 
 Newton's '• Chronology," reference to, 
 168. 
 
 Niagara Falls, reference to, 169. 
 
 Nile, references to, 30, 284, 323. 
 
 Nineveh, temple of, 40. 
 
 Noah, references to, 102, 244. 
 
 Norseland navigators, reference to, 
 246 f. 
 
 North Carolina : army experiences in, 
 7 ; reference to, 207. 
 
 North Pole, reference to, 53. 
 
 Northampton, reference to, 147. 
 
 Northfield, reference to, 216. 
 
 Northfield Students' Conference, refer- 
 ences to, 218, 239, 254. 
 
 Nuffar, temple of, 40. ^ 
 
 Olives, Mount of, reference to, 259. 
 
 Omar, reference to, 33. 
 
 Orientals, lying to enemy a duty among, 
 
 226. 
 Owen, Dr., quotation from, 165. 
 
 Pallas, reference to, 242. 
 
 Parliament, reference to, 171. 
 
 Parnassus, reference to, 244. 
 
 Parthenon, reference to, 242. 
 
 Parton, James, quotation from, 165. 
 
 Paul, references to, 57, 153 f., 178, i87f., 
 220. 244, 251 f., 270, 27b, 294, 316- 
 318. ^ 
 
 Payson Church, Easthampton, Massa- 
 chusetts, reference to, 216. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, reference to, 129. 
 
 I'eloponnesus, reference to, 241 f. 
 
 Penn, William, quotation from, 104 f. 
 
 Per.>epolis, temple at, 40. 
 
 Peter, references to, 287 f. 
 
 Peter the Hermit, reference to, 175. 
 
 Petersburg, reference to, 331, 333. 
 
 Phidias, reference to, 242. 
 
 Philadelphia: references to, 27, 64; 
 Bi-Centennial of, reference to, 104; 
 deathbed incident in, 317 f. 
 
 Philip V of Spain, reference to, 40. 
 
 Philippi, reference to jailer of, 270. 
 
 Philippines, reference to, 33. 
 
 Philistines, David's bravery before the, 
 
 175- 
 " Photo-sculpture," reference to, 135 
 Pitt, William, quotation from, 171. 
 
Topical Index 
 
 347 
 
 " Plain of the Cornfields," reference to, 
 
 31- 
 Poppy : its prolificness, loo. 
 Poseidon, temple of, 242. 
 Prayer, child's thought on, 273. 
 Prentiss, Mrs, E. P., quotation from, 
 
 86. 
 Proctor, A. A., quotations from, 312, 
 
 321. 
 Ptolemies, reference to, 32. 
 *• Punch," quotation from, 180. 
 Puritans, reference to, 247. 
 
 QuiNCY, Josiah : reference to, 249 ; 
 quotation from, 250. 
 
 Quincy, President, of Harvard, refer- 
 ence to, 249. 
 
 Quincy, Edmund, reference to, 249. 
 
 Quincy, Josiah Phillips, reference to, 
 249. 
 
 Quincy, General Samuel Miller, refer- 
 ence to, 249. 
 
 Quotations from : 
 
 Alexander, Mrs., 152. 
 
 Arnold of Rugby, 169. 
 
 Athanasius, 178. 
 
 Augustine, St., 252. 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 304. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 158, 176. 
 
 Beethoven, 167. 
 
 " Billings, Josh," 102. 
 
 Bonar, Horatius, 42, 114, 324. 
 
 Brougham. Lord, 154. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, 
 84 f. 
 
 Buffon, 167. 
 
 Bulwer's " Schiller." 166, 169. 
 
 " Burial of Moses." 152. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 160, 171. 
 
 Burns, 136. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu, 166 f. 
 
 Bushnell, Dr. Horace, 271. 
 
 Bushnell, Louisa, 78. 
 
 Buxton, Sir Fowell, 170. 
 
 Campbell, 128. 
 
 Cecil, Richard, 104. 
 
 Chatrian. See Erckmann- Cha- 
 trian. 
 
 Clark, President, of Massachusetts 
 Agricultural College, 148. 
 
 Clarke, Adam, 171 f. 
 
 Cowper, W., 224. 288. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 167. 
 
 Disraeli. 170. 
 
 Dobell. Sydney. 178. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 137, 179. 
 
 " Eugene Aram," 130. 
 
 Faber, F. W., 314. 
 
 Foss, President, of Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity, 274 f. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, 171. 
 
 Fuller, Thomas, 109. 
 
 Goethe, 180. 
 
 Gray, Elinor, 96. 
 
 Guest, William, 160. 
 
 Gurney, John Joseph, 153. 
 
 Hamilton, A. E., 311. 
 
 Havergal. Frances Ridley, 95. 
 
 Hawes, Dr. Joel. 159. 
 
 Heber, Bishop, 87. 
 
 Herbert, George, 139. 
 
 Hill, President, of Harvard, 157. 
 
 Hood. 130. 
 
 Jackson, Thomas, 168. 
 
 Larcom, Lucy, 105. 
 
 Lathbury, M. A., 311. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 
 
 165. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 192 f., 305 f. 
 Magill, Robert, 66. 
 Milton. 266. 
 Montesquieu, 168. 
 Moore. Tom, 171. 
 New Englander, 162. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 166. 
 Newton. John, 18, 285. 
 Owen, Dr., 165. 
 Parton, James, 165. 
 Penn, William, 104 f. 
 Pitt, William, 171. 
 Prentiss. Mrs. E. P., 86. 
 Proctor. A. A., 312, 321. 
 " Punch." 180. 
 
 " Record of Noble Deeds." 161. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 167. 
 Rossetti, Christine G., 286, 320. 
 "Schiller," Bulwer's, 166, 169. 
 Seelye, Professor L. Clark, 147 f. 
 Shakespeare, 308. 
 Smiles, Samuel, 160. 
 Smith, Sydney, 167. 
 "Son of Heaven," Emperor, 250. 
 Stone, Mary K. A., 252. 
 Tennyson, 132. 
 Titian, 168. 
 
 Wadsworth, Rev. Dr. Charles, 155 f. 
 Webster, Daniel, 169 f. 
 Whipple, E. P., 159. 
 Woolsey, Theodore, 161. 
 Young, Edward, 160. 
 
 RahAB, reference to. 244. 
 
 Railroad men, color-blindness among, 
 
 217 f. 
 Rameses, reference to, 32. 
 Ray. the botanist, reference to, 100. 
 " Record of Noble Deeds," quotation 
 
 from. 161. 
 Red Sea. reference to, 284, 315. 
 " Reputation," meaning of word, 138. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, quotation from, 
 
 167. 
 Rezin of Syria, reference to, 32. 
 
48 
 
 Topical Index 
 
 Richmond : incident of soldier at, 83 f.; 
 references to, 117, 120, 147, 281, 327 f, 
 
 331 
 
 Roanoke, reference to, 331 
 
 Robinson, President E. G.. reference 
 to, 216. 
 
 Roman theaters, reference to, 303. 
 
 Romans, new-born child among, 191 f. 
 
 Rome: temple at, 40; reference to, 
 103 ; moral teachings of philoso- 
 phers of, 190; wisdom of classic 
 philosophies of, 200. 
 
 Rossetti, Christine G., quotations from, 
 286. 320. 
 
 Rum as "gift of God," 227. 
 
 Salaueen, reference to, 33. 
 
 Salem, Massachusetts, reference to, 8. 
 
 Salisbury prison, reference to, 210. 
 
 Samaria, references to, 31,75. 
 
 Samaritans, references to, 28, 31 f., 34. 
 
 Samson, references to, 244, 294. 
 
 Samuel, references to, 11 i., 244, 294. 
 
 Sarah, reference to, 244. 
 
 Saronic Gulf, reference to, 242. 
 
 Savannah, reference to, 331. 
 
 St. Augustine, references to city of, 52, 
 
 74. 93. 333- 
 St. Helena, reference to, 333. 
 " Schiller," Bulwer's, quotations from, 
 
 166, 169. 
 Scotch ship-builders, reference to, 227. 
 Seabrook Island, references to, 51 f., 
 
 333- 
 Seelye, Dr. Samuel T., reference to, 
 
 147. 
 Seelye, Professor L. Clark, quotation 
 
 from, 147 f. 
 Sennacherib, reference to, 32. 
 " Service-chevron," reference to, 321 f. 
 Sety, reference to, 32. 
 Shadrach, reference to, 228. 
 Shakespeare, quotation from, 308. 
 Shalmanezer, reference to, 32. 
 Sharp, Granville, manly individualism 
 
 of, 180 f. 
 Shechem, Valley of, reference to, 30, 
 
 Sheridan. Richard Brinsley, reference 
 to, 170 f. 
 
 Shishak, reference to, 32. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, reference to, 35, 161. 
 
 Silas, reference to, 270. 
 
 Simon, reference to, 77. 
 
 Sinai, Mount : incident in climbing, 
 307; reference to, 315. 
 
 "Sir Lancelot of the Lake," reference 
 to, 132. 
 
 Slavery : work for abolition of, in Eng- 
 land and America, 180 f.; as divine 
 institution, 227. 
 
 Smiles, Samuel, quotation from, 160. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, quotation from. 167. 
 Smith College for Women, reference to, 
 
 147 
 Smithsonian Institution, exhibit of foot- 
 gear in. 9. 
 Soldier, cowardice of brave. 289. 
 Solomon, references to, 151, 155 f , 174, 
 
 246. 
 I " Son of Heaven," Emperor, quotation 
 
 from. 250. 
 South Carolina, war incident in, 312 f. 
 Stewart. A. T., reference to. 157. 
 Stiles, President, as barterer of slaves, 
 
 221. 
 Stone, Mary K. A., quotation fron^ 
 
 252. 
 Strong, Rev. Dr. Nathan, as a distiller 
 
 221. 
 Students' Conference at Northfield 
 
 references to. 218, 235 f., 254. 
 Sunflower : its prolificness, 100. 
 Sychar, reference to, 31. 
 Susa, temple at, 40. 
 
 Telemachus, St. : his bravery at th 
 
 Colosseum, 175 
 Tennyson, quotation from, 132. 
 Theater-going, reference to, 229. 
 Thebes, temple of, 40. 
 Thotmes. reference to. 32. 
 Tiglath-pileser, reference to, 32. 
 Timothy, reference to, 100. 
 Tithe-giving, Bible teachings on, 232. 
 Titian, quotation from, 168. 
 1'obacco : its prolificness, 100 f. ; refer 
 
 ence to its use, 229. 
 Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regi- 
 
 inent, reference to, 328. 
 
 Ukiah, reference to, 108. 
 
 Venus, temple of, reference to, 242. 
 
 Vicksburg, reference to, 331. 
 
 Virginia murderer, incident of, 111-113. 
 
 Wadsworth, Rev. Dr. Charles, quota- 
 tion from, 155 f. 
 Wagner, reference to fight at, 84. 
 Walker, Hon. Amasa, quotation from, 
 
 161. 
 Walnut Street Presbyterian Church of 
 
 Philadelphia, reference to, 282. 
 " War Memories of an Army Chaplain," 
 
 reference to, 3. 
 Washington, George, reference to, 251. 
 Washington. Mary, reference to, 251. 
 Waterloo, battle of, references to, 155, 
 
 310. 
 Webster, Daniel : quotations from, 
 
 169 f. ; reference to, 250. 
 Webster, Captain Ezekiel, reference to, 
 
 251. 
 
Topical Index 
 
 1 
 o 
 
 49 
 
 Webster, Noah, reference to, 248. 
 Westminster Abbey, reference to, 323. 
 Wheat, germinating power of, 104. 
 Whipple", E. P., quotation from, 159. 
 White, Ambrose, reference to, 27. 
 VVilberforce's work in freeing England's 
 
 slaves, 181. 
 Wilkie, David, reference to, 99. 
 Williams College, reference to, 148. 
 Williamsburg, Long Island, reference 
 
 to, 28. 
 Williston Seminary, reference to, 144, 
 
 216. 
 Winckelried, Arnold de, reference to, 
 
 174. 
 
 Wine-drinking among modern travelers, 
 
 228. 
 Woolsey, Theodore, quotation from, 
 
 161. 
 World's Student Conference, references 
 
 to, 216, 239. 
 Worry, wickedness of, 259-278. 
 
 Yale College : references to its boat 
 
 crew, 58, 148, 178, 221. 
 Young, Edward, quotation from, 162. 
 
 ZoKOASTRiANisM, teaching of, 81 f. 
 Zutphen, reference to, 35. 
 
SCRIPTURAL INDEX 
 
 GENESIS 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 I : II, 24 77 
 
 3 : 12 177 
 
 9 : 20, 21 102 
 
 14 • • • 32 
 
 EXODUS 
 
 2:2 154 
 
 23 : 2 178 
 
 33 : II 315 
 
 LEVITICUS 
 5:17 223 
 
 NUMBERS 
 
 6 : 26 331 
 
 II : i4» 15 315 
 
 12 : 3 286 
 
 20 : 7-12 286 
 
 DEUTERONOMY 
 
 6:5. 153 
 
 8:4 II 
 
 29 : 29 97 
 
 33 : I II 
 
 33 : 25 . . 9,11 (twice), 
 
 ... 14, 16 f., 21, 24 
 
 34 : 7 154 
 
 JOSHUA 
 
 1:5 320 
 
 1:8... 233 
 
 1:9 21, 173 
 
 I bAWJ 
 
 [yjiLL, 
 
 2:9. . . . 
 
 .... 12 
 
 4:9. . . . 
 
 .... 166 
 
 9:2. . . . 
 
 .... 154 
 
 16 : 7 . . . 
 
 .... 97 
 
 20 : 3 ... 
 
 • . • 304 
 
 2 SAMUEL 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 6 : 14 153 
 
 12 : 9-13 108 
 
 23 : I 151 
 
 I KINGS 
 
 2:2 151-182 
 
 3 : 10 156 
 
 18 287 
 
 19 287 
 
 19 : 4 316 
 
 I CHRONICLES 
 29 : 2 153 
 
 JOB 
 6 : 8-10 315 
 
 17 : 9 165 
 
 19 : 25-27 181 
 
 PSALMS 
 
 2:8 82 
 
 17 : 15 82 
 
 19 : 8, II 231 
 
 19 : 12, 14 126 
 
 25 : 4 233 
 
 34 : 7 336 
 
 34 : 10 338 
 
 34 : 14 329 
 
 34 : 19' 22 339 
 
 37 : 37 331 
 
 42 : I, 2 39 
 
 48 : 14 12 
 
 55 : 22 276 
 
 63 : I 39 
 
 72 : 16 101 
 
 72 : 18 338 
 
 84 : 2 22 
 
 85 : 8 340 
 
 116 : 15 308 
 
 119 : 9 231 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 119 : 96 56, 233 
 
 119 : 128-130 233 
 
 139 : 10 173 
 
 146 : 3 338 
 
 PROVERBS 
 
 4 : 7-13 
 
 4 : 23 
 
 5 : 22 
 
 6 : 10 
 6 : 23 
 
 10 
 II 
 II 
 
 12 
 13 
 13 
 
 14 
 14 
 16 
 20 
 20 
 21 
 22 
 22 
 23 
 23 
 23 
 28 
 
 159 
 
 160 
 
 60 
 
 163 
 
 231 
 
 4 1*^7 
 
 18 108 
 
 31 57 
 
 14 108 
 
 4 167 
 
 6 60 
 
 10 96 
 
 12 233 
 
 22 156 
 
 I 39 
 
 ^9 154 
 
 16 156 
 
 I 62, 160 
 
 8 108 
 
 7 159 
 
 29 59, 154 
 
 30 59 
 
 19 173 
 
 ECCLESIASTES 
 
 2 : 26 
 
 7 : 28 
 
 9 : 10 
 
 9 : 16 
 
 10 : 20 
 
 11 : I 
 
 ISAIAH 
 
 200 
 176 
 
 153 
 156 
 136 
 
 lOI 
 
 5 : 20, 21 
 8 : 20 
 26 : I, 2 
 
 225 
 
 234 
 332 
 
 351 
 
352 
 
 Scriptural Index 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 26 : 3 .... 277, 329-340 
 
 29 : 8 41 
 
 35 : 5, 6, 10 205 
 
 40 : 8 19 
 
 40 : 29 320 
 
 41 : 10 20 
 
 43 •■ 2 20 
 
 46 : 4 320 
 
 46 : 6 38 
 
 55 : I 47 
 
 57 : 20 . . . .59, 195, 335 
 
 57 : 21 • . . . 59> 195. 334 
 66 : 13 320 
 
 JEREMIAH 
 
 2 : 13 40 
 
 29 : 13 86 
 
 EZEKIEL 
 21 : 27 128 
 
 DANIEL 
 1:4 228 
 
 MARK 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 I : 32-34 76 
 
 ^ : 35 77 
 
 ^ : 37 75 
 
 4 : 20 106 
 
 4 •■ 28 98 
 
 9 : 2-13 287 
 
 10 : 21 269 
 
 M : 3» 4. 6-9 . . . 267 
 14 : 31,66-71 287 
 
 LUKE 
 
 2 : 9-14 
 
 9 : 28-36 . . 
 
 332 
 . 287 
 
 HOSEA 
 
 4 : II 
 8: 7. 
 
 39 
 103 
 
 10 
 II 
 
 38-42 259-278 
 
 4 291 
 
 II : 34 
 
 218, 219 
 
 II 
 12 
 
 12 : 2, 3 
 12 : 48 . 
 18 
 21 
 
 35 217-236 
 
 I, 2 .... 121-140 
 
 63 
 223 
 
 338 
 
 19 
 19 
 
 267 
 
 JOHN 
 
 MALACHI 
 3:6 320 
 
 4 : 
 
 4 : 
 
 5 : 
 
 5 : 
 
 6 : 
 6 : 
 
 6 : 
 
 7 : 
 9 : 
 9 : 
 9 : 
 10 
 10 
 II 
 12 
 13 
 13 
 15 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 19 
 22 
 
 24 
 26 
 
 28 
 
 MATTHEW 
 I 281, 283-324 
 
 2-11 
 
 4 311 
 
 6 •87 
 
 13 291 
 
 23 219 
 
 31-33 276 
 
 16. 17 97 
 
 5 274 
 
 29 173 
 
 36, 37 192 
 
 : 24, 25 288 
 
 = 42 35 
 
 : 28 276 
 
 : 35 129, 160 
 
 : 28 305 
 
 : 30 108 
 
 : " 165 
 
 : 9» 10 277 
 
 : 1-13 287 
 
 •2-5 195 
 
 : 21 269 
 
 ■ 3,8, 39 153 
 
 139 
 
 287 
 
 20 277 
 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 : 
 
 4 
 
 5 : 
 
 5 : 
 
 5 : 
 
 8 : 
 
 8 : 
 
 10 
 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 18 
 18 
 
 9 • • 
 24, 25 
 18 . 
 
 36 . 
 
 .... 230 
 
 96 
 
 270 
 
 202 
 
 13, 14 30-47 
 
 24 202 
 
 30 294 
 
 39 230 
 
 3i» 32 194 
 
 12 230 
 
 : 10 206 
 
 : I, 2 267 
 
 : 21, 28 265 
 
 : 25, 26 201 
 
 : 3 271 
 
 ■13 197 
 
 : 24-27 18 
 
 : 27 284 
 
 : 1-3 306 
 
 : 27 199' 332 
 
 : 5 274 
 
 : 2 220 
 
 •17 230 
 
 : 4-8 177 
 
 : 10 287 
 
 ROMANS 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 6 : 23 201, 268 
 
 7-7 220 
 
 7 : 23 163. 334 
 
 <5 : 16, 17 ic)7 
 
 8 : 22 201 
 
 8 : 26 81 
 
 8 : 35-37 319 
 
 8 : 38, 39 303-324 
 
 12 : 19 232 
 
 13 : 14 162 
 
 14 : 4 234 
 
 14 : 5 178, 234 
 
 14 • 21 233 
 
 M : 23 173 
 
 15 : I 233 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 
 
 3 : 17 59 
 
 6 : 19, 20 154 
 
 9:7 108 
 
 9 : 25 57 
 
 9 : 27 316 
 
 10 : 12 284 
 
 10 : 13 . . 21, 164, 292,319 
 
 11 : 3 187-211 
 
 II : 13 162 
 
 15 : 26 305 
 
 15 : 37 loi 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS 
 
 I : 3.4 3" 
 
 4 : 8,9 41 
 
 5 : 10 no, 139 
 
 6 : 9, 10 41 
 
 10 : 12 230 
 
 II : 26, 27 316 
 
 12 : 9 .... 20, 294, 319 
 12 : 10 173, 294 
 
 6 
 33 
 
 ACTS 
 
 4 : 12 200, 269 
 
 6 : 15 205 
 
 13 : 36 181 
 
 16 : 31 270 
 
 26 : 9 220 
 
 GALATIANS 
 
 2 : 20 203 
 
 4:7 197 
 
 5 : 17 163 
 
 5 : 22, 23 113 
 
 6:7 95. "4. 223 
 
 6 : 8 
 
 EPHESIANS 
 
 "3 
 
 4 : 13. 15 
 6 : 10 . 
 6 : 13 
 6 : 14-16 
 
 . . . I»2 
 
 • • • 173 
 266, 323 
 
 • • 323 
 
 PHILIPPIANS 
 
 21 202, 317 
 
 23 308, 316 
 
 7 335 
 
 11 . 278 
 
 12 ig8, 278 
 
 13 21, 278, 294 
 
Scripttiral Index 
 
 353 
 
 I PETER 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 1 : 24,25 19 
 
 COLOSSIANS 
 
 I : 17 271 
 
 I : 19 196 
 
 1 : 24 252 
 
 2:9 79 
 
 2 : 10 83, 203 
 
 3 : 23 153 
 
 I TIMOTHY 
 1:5 100 
 
 2:5 177 
 
 4:8 162 
 
 6:6 61 
 
 2 TIMOTHY 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 1 : 10 82 
 
 2:1 173 
 
 3 : 15 100 
 
 HEBREWS 
 1:1,2 190 
 
 2 : 10 173 
 
 2 : 18 290, 297 
 
 4 : 13 96 
 
 4 : 15. 16 290 
 
 II : 32-34 294 
 
 11 : 40 241-254 
 
 12 : 17 108 
 
 TEXT PAGE 
 
 13 •■ 8 II, 67 
 
 13 : 20, 21 340 
 
 JAMES 
 
 1:2 291 
 
 3 : 12 97 
 
 I JOHN 
 
 2 : 14 153 
 
 REVELATION 
 
 3 : 20 211 
 
 13 : 10 267 
 
 14 : 13 309 
 
 22 : 17 47 
 
a 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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