BV 4010 .T57 
 
 Tiiroe, William Edwin, 1861 
 Sent forth 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ fc 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sentforthOOtilr 
 
SENT FORTH 
 
 / 
 
 W. E. TILROE 
 
 Professor of Historical and Pastoral Theology 
 Maclay School of Religion 
 University of Southern California 
 
 Introduction by 
 
 EZRA A. HEALY 
 
 Dean Emeritus, Maclay School of Religion 
 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
Copyright, 1923, by 
 
 W. E. TILROE 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
To Wife and Children 
 
 “Away with weary cares and themes , 
 Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams ” 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction. 7 
 
 All Day With God. Poem. 11 
 
 At the Bars. 13 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I. Perspective. 17 
 
 II. The Personal Equation. 26 
 
 III. The Preacher’s Ideals. 36 
 
 IV. Star Preachers. 48 
 
 V. Little Foxes. 59 
 
 VI. Jesus the Preacher. 68 
 
 VII. The Shepherd Christ. 78 
 
 VIII. The Cultural Christ. 93 
 
 IX. The Pedagogy of the Nazarene.. . 103 
 
 X. The Thrills of the Bible. 121 
 
 XI. The Regnant Christ. 138 
 
 XII. The Curative Christ. 146 
 
 XIII. The Son of the Carpenter. 157 
 
 XIV. The Despair of Pilate. 168 
 
 XV. The Bible Church. 178 
 
 XVI. The Seven Churches. 192 
 
 XVII. An Unconverted Preacher.202 
 
 XVIII. Evangelism.218 
 
 XIX. The Posthumous Gospel.230 
 
 XX. Over the Border.245 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 To persuade men to be reconciled to God, 
 to illumine the levels of the nobler life, to 
 “allure to brighter worlds and lead the way,” 
 must always be the grandest mission possible 
 to men. Any real contribution to the literature 
 that aims at a true appraisement of this work, 
 preparation for it, and success in it will there¬ 
 fore be welcomed by all right-thinking persons. 
 
 Such a contribution, I venture to say, will 
 be found in this volume. 
 
 I began its perusal in anticipation of some¬ 
 thing at once original and valuable, and have 
 read on with growing interest from “At the 
 Bars” to “Over the Border.” 
 
 The purist in style and language may some¬ 
 times pause over some colloquial phrase or 
 quaint expression. The reader may here and 
 there feel that these cryptic sentences seem to 
 lack close relation, but a little thought is sure to 
 supply the link. Doctor Tilroe’s style is his 
 own and does not fail to hold the eager interest 
 of either auditor or reader. 
 
 Of most importance, however, is what the 
 author of Sent Forth offers us in elucidation 
 of his theme. 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 By implication he ridicules the small souls 
 of those men of the cloth who, posing as 
 moderns, smile patronizingly on “theology” as 
 they might on astrology, and seem to class them 
 together. Our author recognizes all fields of 
 quest as included in the old Chautauqua 
 motto, “The Word and the Works of God.” 
 It is at once characteristic and refreshing to 
 read, under “The Personal Equation,” “The 
 preacher who is not a theologian should be 
 ashamed to accept a salary.” 
 
 A broad view is here taken of essentials in the 
 character and equipment of a preacher which 
 may well be pondered by preachers young and 
 old. The study of the great Model, beginning 
 with “Jesus the Preacher,” is both challenge and 
 inspiration. The balance of the educational 
 and the persuasive in the pulpit is finely held. 
 With insistence on the “Cultural” Tilroe says, 
 “When we hear it said that modem preachers 
 cannot exhort, it means that they cannot 
 preach.” The evangelist whose constant plea 
 is “Accept Christ” should study carefully the 
 paragraphs on “The Regnant Christ.” 
 
 Rich in homiletical suggestion are the chapter 
 on “The Thrills of the Bible” and the letter 
 to the “Seven Churches.” A true evangelism 
 is here shown in a glory that needs no scaf¬ 
 folding of gymnastics or vulgar stories. As one 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 9 
 
 reads he thinks of Spurgeon, Joseph Parker, 
 and Jowett, of Beecher, and Brooks, and 
 Simpson, and prays that the church may never 
 lack such gospel heralds, gloriously equipped 
 and sent of God. 
 
 Ezra A. Healy. 
 
 Dean Emeritus, Maclay School of Religion, 
 University of Southern California. 
 
ALL DAY WITH GOD 
 
 One word with Thee is conquest, 
 
 One touch of Thee is calm, 
 
 The radiance of Thy presence 
 Makes all my day a psalm. 
 
 To hear Thee in the morning 
 Say, “Welcome to this day,” 
 
 Makes all my deeds of service 
 A happy holiday. 
 
 To hear Thee in the noontide 
 
 Say, “Break thou bread with Me,” 
 Doth change my daily hunger 
 To sacrament with Thee. 
 
 To hear Thy voice at evening 
 Say, “Tired child, take rest,” 
 
 Is better than the moonlight, 
 
 Or gentle mother breast. 
 
 Thus, every day is comfort, 
 
 When spent, my Lord, with Thee, 
 
 And every step is onward, 
 
 And all’s all well with me. 
 
 —William A. Quayle. 
 
 11 
 

 
 
 
AT THE BARS 
 
 There is some excuse for this book. Ap¬ 
 prentice of the manse, an ancient pilgrim, a 
 teacher for a season, one might not well make 
 tryst with the setting sun and leave no sign. 
 He owes too much to a world that has been kind 
 to him. To pay one’s debts is virtue if it were 
 not wisdom. 
 
 And the time needs all its friends. The old 
 earth has quite too little of its treasure left. 
 The thieves are in the cage, but the loot is gone. 
 The world is in a mood to get. He who 
 would give gives twice. 
 
 Besides, with whom is sharing of one’s own 
 more fitting than with him who earns only that 
 he may give? The dozen men and women who 
 could keep their one brave heart in khaki 
 cheerful at his task are forever to be envied. 
 Their company is honor. 
 
 This man sent forth, the man of a mission, 
 who is not his own, has not been therefore 
 simply a tool, a bridge to cross, a handle to real 
 affairs. He has been himself a real affair. Men 
 do not write history and overlook the prophet, 
 the priest, the minister, preacher, apostle, 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 pastor. The hours and paths are few that have 
 not known him. That he is one of many names 
 is but a minor note of his high place. Rabbi, 
 dominie, clergyman, ecclesiastic, rector, father, 
 bishop, elder, deacon, licentiate, theologian, 
 chaplain, man of God, is added suggestion: 
 neither list nor catalogue. In some guise, from 
 the earliest days, among all peoples, in every 
 land, the holy man has had his room and rank 
 and rule. Whether leader of men, or gladly, 
 proudly servant of men, he has forever found 
 standing as a man among men. He was the 
 inescapable. There was magic with him. 
 
 Sometimes it was the witchery of words. He 
 was the original “tongue of silver.” Again it was 
 the lure of tradition, the spell of the trail. Com¬ 
 monly the beauty of holiness, the regnancy 
 of plain goodness, worked its will. Often it 
 was his kindly ministry in sorrow. By the 
 record, signs and wonders were not rarely in 
 his hand. Seldom enough was he a fool, and 
 usually he was held the wise man of the parish. 
 He wrote books, guided the annals of his times, 
 founded libraries, was good counsel to all 
 comers. Princes and kings named him friend. 
 The altar, the desk, sowing and harvest, grief 
 and joy, the cradle and the grave, were lonely 
 in his going. With the old man of the tribe the 
 holy man was one to be reckoned with, to be 
 
AT THE BARS 
 
 15 
 
 set apart from his kind, to be held in honor, in 
 the seats of the mighty to sit at home. From 
 ancient days, for good or ill as one might deem, 
 the minister has been a man of worth and note. 
 There was good great reason for him. He did 
 not happen. 
 
 The layman will not largely see these pages. 
 To know his minister well has been to get under 
 his load, and he has one of his own. Then, too, 
 he thinks it is a family matter, and he has good 
 manners. The kindly friend who could not 
 forget his pastor of another day does not count. 
 He would lend him money, not to say time and 
 patience. As to a sort at least, the layman does 
 not read books. He is licentiate of the morning 
 paper, and ridden of the rush. Reading books 
 means leisure. That homiletics is a new process 
 in supply and demand he is not sure. The 
 preacher man is another story. There is truly 
 no fraternity on earth like the brotherhood of 
 the ministry. We chat an hour ere we sleep. 
 
 To be more serious, one’s deeper convictions 
 are the heritage of his kind. He would never 
 know how far they stray did he not tell his 
 fellow. Till what is true comes by, the world 
 forever waits. The price of one preacher may 
 be the cost of another. 
 
 It has been suggested that these pages might 
 be of interest in the classroom. They are the 
 
16 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 sowing and harvest of the classroom. During 
 eight school years not a few great-hearted 
 fellows, coming to place in the ministry, have 
 considered these sayings among many and will 
 greet them again as none others may. General 
 literature needs only a guiding hand to have a 
 textbook value of the largest worth. What one 
 may do with his own is, of course, quite another 
 affair. How far one’s voice shall carry is forever 
 of the tentative. The prime concern is that at 
 its reach it shall be of use. 
 
 W. E. T. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 PERSPECTIVE 
 
 A rod quite straight in air or water, in air 
 and water, will bend. A railway train is large 
 or small as near or far. We know better; we 
 cannot see better. The rod has not changed; 
 the train is the same. How they appear is a 
 different matter. That is the world of perspec¬ 
 tive. An artist will put wide leagues on an inch 
 square. He is master of perspective. Perspec¬ 
 tive has to do with things as they look. As 
 diagnosis is knowing through, perspective is 
 seeing through. What is the minister in 
 perspective? Of what manner of men? As a 
 minister? 
 
 Of course, the minister is one with a mission. 
 His credentials are not his own. He is sent. He 
 is one with a commanding mission. He is sent 
 of God. “How shall they hear without a 
 preacher ?” is the logic of the skies. Even the 
 Eternal Father could not content himself 
 except in sending forth his Son to preach. “I 
 must preach the kingdom of God to other cities 
 also: for therefore am I sent.” Whether popular¬ 
 ly so or not, preaching is of an autocracy, the 
 
 17 
 
18 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 autocracy of God. As a minister’s credentials 
 are not his own, so neither are they of the 
 neighbors. As to him, all ordination, all 
 ecclesiastical polity, is second hand. Whether 
 patriarch, prophet, priest, bishop, evangelist, 
 or of any name, he is a man sent from God. 
 The King of kings has haled him forth. He is 
 forever an ambassador. . 
 
 Then there is no minister except as there is a 
 man. If so be he is a woman, she must be 
 “the eternal feminine.” By so much as she or 
 he is conventional, the preacher is a failure. The 
 elemental human is a primary matter in this 
 business. If his health, his mental outlook, his 
 social connections, his business affairs, his family 
 ties are in anything abnormal, his wings are 
 lead. The usual minister is far too much an 
 appendage of the church. The church did not 
 build him; he built the church. The preacher 
 must be a man among men. Jesus of Nazareth 
 was much of an ordinary Jew. The minister 
 must be plain man. 
 
 The normal minister has his family about him. 
 He is to be helpful to men and women and 
 children, young folks and old people, brothers, 
 sisters, wives and sweethearts, mothers, fathers, 
 husbands—every kind of humanity—and will 
 need to say the less the more he is. The good 
 son, husband, and father, brother and uncle, is 
 
PERSPECTIVE 
 
 19 
 
 half way through his sermon at the first hymn. 
 The monastery can never take the place of the 
 manse. The home is a high pulpit. 
 
 The preacher is an executive. He is an 
 official of the church. He has a representative 
 character. He is himself and more. What 
 he might accommodate as a man he must often 
 refuse as not his own. In free America this note 
 of the minister is largely lost. We are not 
 heard as ambassadors. Our sermons are opin¬ 
 ions. God speaks his will in a world of order, in 
 an organized family, in differentiated races, in 
 tribes and nations, in congenialities and cults, 
 in a mighty world of books, in his immortal 
 church, in shapes and forms, in system and 
 organism everywhere. The minister is an 
 apostle of the organic. He is sent not alone to 
 speak but also to build. The work of his hands 
 may abide when speech is silence. 
 
 The minister is a cultural force. God became 
 incarnate that men might know. So the 
 preacher must be a rabbi. He is bound to be 
 as far beyond his parish as he can get. He is to 
 be as far above as he can fly. He is to dig till 
 his spade falls through. The very wealth of 
 culture among his people is his call to be their 
 master. They have not half the opportunity to 
 command him that he has to rule them, and to 
 fail is folly. The churches are not wiser in 
 
20 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 counseling their ministers to pray and to be 
 holy, than at insisting they must know. The 
 whole round world is a school, and will not be led 
 of the scholars. With a minister culture is not 
 an elective. It is a major. It is never a choice. 
 It is of the day’s work. 
 
 The preacher is a citizen. As a specialist in 
 culture he is an architect of public opinion. He 
 is not so much to follow as to lead. In a 
 democracy where the people rule, the leaders 
 are a vital affair. Somebody must find the 
 front, and if the moral captains do not, another 
 sort will. All times of crisis bring the clergymen 
 to the fore, and they uniformly acquit them¬ 
 selves well. Any distaste for politics, econom¬ 
 ics, social welfare, should be early discounted. 
 No man can be indifferent to the roof over his 
 head. The call of one’s country or community 
 is the call of God. 
 
 The preacher is a social factor. He is a good 
 neighbor. If tempted to counsel overmuch 
 with his books, he should remember that the 
 lives of men are libraries. Men are the cradles 
 of books. Folks are the original sources. The 
 soil, the mine, the sea, are no more primary to 
 economics than people to the preacher. To be 
 away from them far, or long, is to lose them. 
 One must be with his parish to be of it. To 
 feel as if he w r ere coming down, or back, or in, 
 
PERSPECTIVE 
 
 21 
 
 or from, somewhere, is to know that he has been 
 away too far. It is the honor of God that he 
 tabernacles with men. The Grecian deities 
 over fond of Olympus are no more. 
 
 The preacher is a pastor. His social life may 
 be his choice. His pastorate is of his duties. His 
 shoes are his pulpit. If to like it is not natural, 
 he is to learn. While going because he should 
 he is an excuse and takes the room of a better 
 man. His Master went about doing good, and 
 if straining to be like him, he should say his 
 prayers. He is comfort to the heavy-hearted, 
 warning to the careless, guide to the wandering, 
 strength to the weak, and companion to him 
 appointed to die. Brother, friend, and fellow 
 traveler with his kind he is at the King's 
 business. The Shepherd of Souls is of God’s 
 nobility. 
 
 The preacher is an evangelist. He fishes for 
 men. He catches men. If God did not mistake 
 himself in calling him to the brookside, he will 
 surely have weight in his creel. It is of his 
 commission. The physician whose patients all 
 die, the farmer who must buy for his own table, 
 the aviator who cannot keep off the ground 
 should awaken no more suspicion than the 
 preacher who only preaches. The whole crowd 
 are doubtful characters. 
 
 The preacher is, finally, a man of convictions. 
 
22 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Should the modern wisdom of the wise come to 
 fruition in the abolishing of denominations, it 
 would only be a breathing spell till cults and 
 societies within the great Sahara would spring 
 to life and wide utility. Jesuitism was unrest 
 with Romanism. Methodism could not quiet 
 itself within the State Church of England. The 
 dozen forms of Methodism are not shapes of 
 death, but incarnations of an abundant life. 
 The tides of local churches are signs that all is 
 not dead. True ministers are thinkers of their 
 own thoughts. They have no ambition to 
 crystallize. 
 
 A man called of God to be a minister, a 
 teacher, an executive, a social force, a good 
 citizen, an evangelist, a pastor, a friend and 
 helper of all men, cannot be standardized and 
 delivered overnight. Time is of his making as 
 surely as his curriculum. It is a great world and 
 a great work the minister is upon, and only a 
 great readiness is at all fitting. He is to learn 
 how to store his mind, and then how to use it. 
 He is to find how preaching and teaching get on 
 together. He is to consider when to enter his 
 study and when to leave it. The varieties in 
 ministers are to startle him. The ease and 
 artistry with which good men blunder and waste 
 their way through life will amaze him. The 
 impossible prophet he has dreamed of being. 
 
PERSPECTIVE 
 
 23 
 
 and that only his brother can be, will discourage 
 him. How men do their stumbling over little 
 things—awkwardness, prejudices, narrow out¬ 
 look, careless dressing, choice in reading and 
 company, emphasis on the indifferent—will 
 amuse him and break his heart. How the very 
 wisest missionary is needed for the denser 
 ignorance and depravity; that many heathen 
 wear purple and fine linen; how entirely stupid 
 a saint can be; that the utterly foreign field is 
 the heart of a great city; that the spit is often 
 turned of angels, and fingers are thumbs in this 
 old earth, will give him an idea preaching is 
 much of a business. 
 
 A really worth-while minister gets his second 
 and hundredth call to preach w T hile wisely about 
 his work. The brother who lost his religion in 
 the seminary was a long step toward being 
 really a preacher. The wdiirlwind is a full year 
 in any decent theological course. The failure 
 of thousands who occupy but never fill a pulpit, 
 is simply that they were rarely deep enough in 
 their business to have doubts. No man 
 preaches well who has not been twin to tragedy. 
 The slain Egyptian of Moses, the deep waters 
 of Jonah, the heart-breaks of David, the thorn 
 in the flesh of Paul, the cross of Jesus, did not 
 happen. A minister dies of the commonplace. 
 The tragedy of life is living. The preacher 
 
24 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 whose parish is ease is hardly even an incum¬ 
 bent. He is more probably an encumbrance. 
 The theological student, sorry his course is 
 done and wishing his three years seven, is the 
 minister with his best ahead. A world in flood 
 with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters 
 cover the sea, spells a sort of preaching yet 
 to be. We speak of perspective. We are wise 
 men who see through. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 By so much as he or she is conventional, the 
 preacher is a failure. 
 
 The monastery can never take the room of the 
 manse. 
 
 With the minister, culture is not an elective. 
 
 The whirlwind is a full year in any decent theolog¬ 
 ical course. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 No man can be indifferent to the roof over his head. 
 
 Time is of the making of the minister as surely as 
 his curriculum. 
 
 The ease and artistry with which good men blunder 
 and waste their way through life, are of the wonders 
 of the world. 
 
 No man preaches well who has not been twin to 
 tragedy. 
 
 The soul of the world is the world of the soul. 
 
 The cross is kindness. God is never contented 
 with what may be relieved. 
 
 The miracle of religion is the clinic of the Bible. 
 
 The pulpit, and Simday school, and family altar, 
 are resurrection of the dead. 
 
 25 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PERSONAL EQUATION 
 
 It was a saying of Moses, mighty among his 
 kind, that men have wings. “The days of our 
 years are threescore years and ten, and if by 
 reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet 
 is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon 
 cut off, and we fly away.” And we plod as 
 having but feet and hands. What would life 
 be did we but know ourselves? A dozen better 
 men were of our cradle. A request of a certain 
 chair in a Western university is that each man 
 entering the class shall furnish an autobiog¬ 
 raphy. What he is then is of purpose to what 
 he is to be. Second only to the unveiling of 
 God is the discovery of man. 
 
 As we have seen, the preacher is an official, a 
 social force, an apostle of culture, a citizen, a 
 neighbor, and things yet other. He is likely to 
 be lost in his clothes. That ministers are 
 colorless is not seldom of their defeat. They 
 should flee the commonplace as criminal. The 
 lighthouse on a rockbound coast is given an 
 interval and intensity, a character of its own. 
 Great fleets, and lives of men, are at its private 
 
 26 
 
THE PERSONAL EQUATION 27 
 
 call. So no minister should hide his light under 
 any bushel. An immortal soul might strand and 
 die. The world and the kingdom of God have 
 rights in head, and heart, and hand, and all of 
 every minister. j 
 
 Many American ministers are men of cosmo¬ 
 politan parentage and training. It may mean 
 much. To have English, Scotch, German, 
 French, Scandinavian, Latin, or Holland blood 
 in one’s veins does not hurt him. To have 
 missionaries in the family, to have been a 
 doughboy, to have seen the world in any eyes, 
 to have been what a versatile bishop calls “a 
 child of the manse,” to have lost one’s self to his 
 own dooryard in any fashion, is an arrow at the 
 ordinary. Such influences lead straight to a 
 planetary vision. John Wesley did not monop¬ 
 olize the world as a parish. A wide traveler 
 speaks often of the “township mind.” He does 
 not dwell upon it as an acquisition. Our 
 habitat is a big one. It should grow big men. 
 
 A democratic cradle is an asset. If one has 
 missed it, it is a matter to get. The Good Book 
 calls the great crowd, the masses, “the common 
 people.” The uncommon people would hardly 
 make a congregation. One of the great givers 
 of America was found by his pastor kneeling at 
 the altar of the church he had grandly helped to 
 build. 
 
28 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “Why are you here?” asked the kindly 
 shepherd, later Bishop McIntyre. 
 
 “For my own soul’s good,” was the ready 
 answer. 
 
 The personal equation was more than wealth. 
 Pastor and layman are now within the veil 
 where gold is dust. To find one’s self caring 
 overmuch for place or fame or possessions is a 
 matter to be gotten over. 
 
 “It is the way the Master went. 
 
 Should not the servant tread it still?” 
 
 One thing need never be forgotten—the 
 kindly spirit of one’s father’s house. How few 
 the thorns among the roses! As out in the 
 great world we find people hard to please, ready 
 to suspect, fires in their eyes, a clinch in their 
 fingers, we may be glad it was not so at home. 
 It does not happen that religion is a gospel. 
 The earth is weary for glad tidings. The true 
 preacher is a welcome body. Nor is kindliness 
 a garment. It is a tang of the blood. If children 
 and dogs do not love us, it is well to consider. 
 
 As no one should need telling, pretense or 
 affectation is folly and waste. If one has little 
 of what the world thinks wealth, he should 
 enjoy it. There is no device of the devil to make 
 the sun go down at noon like sham or jealousy 
 or envy. The first syllable of being is to be. We 
 
THE PERSONAL EQUATION 29 
 
 rarely fool the neighbors. Why try it? If that 
 pride is folly sinks deeper than that pride is sin, 
 let the drill drive down. The good time and 
 strength wasted among men at appearing 
 would double the sweetness and the worth of 
 living. The sun pays scant attention to its 
 reputation. It is the sun. Daylight is. The 
 thing we are might walk alone. 
 
 The standardizing of duty is a lesson to learn 
 early. If a thing is right, the battle should be 
 over. Some rumble and echo here and there 
 might linger, but the lightning should be faded. 
 In every minister’s life there are stale hours, 
 waste places, the valley and the shadow. He 
 will not always enjoy religion. He will need to 
 learn over and over again that religion means in 
 its primer “to bind.” If he finds this out in the 
 morning, it will be several hours longer until 
 night. The outstanding sermon of the Great 
 War is the Day of Judgment. To set right in 
 the earth so that it will bear fruit is worth all 
 the pain and tears. Justice is the habitation of 
 God’s throne. As anthracite, dull and dis¬ 
 figuring not rarely, yet light and heat and power 
 are in its keeping. 
 
 Possibly the planetary, the democratic, the 
 kindly, and the true are all at bloom in our 
 lives with yet more besides. Or we may have 
 been reared more tenderly than others, and be 
 
30 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 something of a sensitive plant. And human 
 life is not yet a conservatory. So our task is 
 not a little to unlearn. The world is a thing of 
 the open air. It is rarely under roof. There 
 will be wind in our curls. In the Civil War and 
 the great World War, to the surprise of all con¬ 
 cerned, the supposedly pampered youth of the 
 cities made wonderful soldiers. The heroes of 
 the Argonne were largely a town-bred crowd. It 
 is not ruin, always, to unlearn. 
 
 Some of us may have been so unfortunate as 
 never to have been poor. There was always 
 meal in our barrel. Peter of Russia was Peter 
 the Great, that as a common sailor he toiled in 
 the Holland dockyards, drudging for his people. 
 The world is not sure about socialism, but 
 when a millionaire forgets his gold in men, 
 women, and children, it has its hand to its ear. 
 The array of dollar-a-year men in all lands of 
 earth has taken vast tarnish from its treasures. 
 It is not money, but the love of money, that is 
 the root of evils. 
 
 Possibly too school advantages may not have 
 been of the best. One so gets years ahead of his 
 neighbor. The poor fellow can never catch up. 
 His golden spoon was failure. For opportunity 
 there is no resurrection of the dead. But if he 
 does not manage to forget his better chances, 
 his neighbor’s crown may be of diamonds when 
 
THE PERSONAL EQUATION 31 
 
 his own is tin. How to learn and not to ad¬ 
 vertise is an art. The weakness of one’s 
 strength may be unsuspected, as the rose on the 
 consumptive’s cheek is herald of the tomb. It 
 was a well-remembered saying of Miner Ray¬ 
 mond, the white-haired prophet of the Evanston 
 campus, that “No man knows till he knows that 
 he knows.” To greatly excel is to be greatly 
 tempted. It is always sad when an Eden is lost 
 in memory of a fall. One has not been at school 
 while his schooling shows. 
 
 Who said anything about awkwardness and 
 the slovenly? The neighbors did. Those who 
 had no choice but to meet him, see him, hear 
 him preach, live with him till moving time. No, 
 his coat never fitted, his trousers were too short, 
 his cuffs and the laundry were not over friendly, 
 his hands were paws, his feet were useful 
 mainly in reaching the ground, and his hair 
 was a jungle, but that was too personal, to 
 mention. It was the nondescript that got into 
 his mind. He could hardly read his text without 
 some sort of a blunder, and a hymn was an 
 early aeroplaning over the Atlantic. He gave 
 no sign that there had been anything new found 
 out about the Bible in a generation. He 
 bandied personalities and barnyard rhetoric, as 
 if men and women were built of wood. He said 
 so many things that occurred to him. He went 
 
32 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 into the pulpit with a slouch. He preached too 
 long as with little to say. His illustrations had 
 been standardized. They were from books. 
 Men remembered rather than listened. The 
 church was a hall of echoes. Then he wondered 
 that being a good man, and orthodox, and 
 having a nice family, he moved so often. He 
 suspected the episcopacy. His churches were 
 hard to serve. It did not occur to him that the 
 personal equation had him, and was holding 
 him fast. 
 
 “Whatever you do, don’t send us a little 
 fellow.” “He is all right, but things are not well 
 with her.” “We know him too well.” “He 
 undoes his pulpit in the parish.” “He turns on 
 the waterworks.” “He is careless about his 
 debts.” And all the time the good man never 
 dreamed that the personal equation was on the 
 job. 
 
 A commendably popular pastor once said, 
 “My people will do anything for me but be 
 good.” It was in one sentence a pleasing and 
 pitiful thing. The personal equation works for 
 a man and against him. It is the business of the 
 minister to be as attractive as he can make him¬ 
 self. The whitest soul that ever lived is said to 
 have drawn men unto him. With Omnipotence 
 in his fingers, the great God leads. The Mighty 
 shepherds men. Power to entice is the super- 
 
THE PERSONAL EQUATION 33 
 
 lative dynamic. John the Baptist in raiment 
 of camel’s hair with leathern girdle about his 
 loins, and eating locusts and wild honey, was 
 perfectly well dressed and fed, for the wilder¬ 
 ness. Jesus walked otherwhere, and did not 
 wear leather and camel’s hair. Angels dwell in 
 glory. The preacher who does not dress, eat, 
 live, work, and speak as pleasingly as in him 
 lies falls from grace. What he is should never 
 quarrel with what he says. 
 
 Of course men impose upon good nature. 
 They are impertinent with God Almighty. 
 “Because sentence against an evil work is not 
 executed speedily, therefore the heart of the 
 sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” 
 They will do anything for him but be good. Yet 
 it is not written that God, who is Love, is ever 
 anything else than love. To any intelligence 
 but a sinner God is always attractive. It is of 
 the misery of the lost that they cannot hate. 
 Hate is the citizen of but one world. Neither 
 heaven nor hell will have it. It must make its 
 home on earth. Love is forever of the immortal. 
 
 When the Rabbi of Israel told us to love our 
 neighbor, he told us how: we are to love him 
 as ourselves. We are to love God by the measure 
 of our own heart and mind and strength. He 
 who will not consider the personal equation can 
 love neither God nor men. The world is much 
 
34 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 in need of a sanctified selfishness. Religion has 
 never worn its robes as it should. Its report of 
 the promised land has been very honestly that 
 of the ten spies. “It is all fine enough, but its 
 cities have walls, and there are giants in the 
 land, and we are as grasshoppers.” The 
 minister is as Joshua and Caleb, though as one 
 to five, and though the congregation shall stone 
 him with stones. The ten spies died without 
 the promised land. The congregation that took 
 up stones dug their graves with them. It is the 
 personal equation that companies with the glory 
 of the Lord. 
 
 i 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 When, and where, and how we are, are of small 
 moment as compared with what we are. 
 
 John Wesley did not monopolize the world as a 
 parish. 
 
 To get a congregation of uncommon people one 
 would need the whole county. 
 
 Kindliness is more than clothes. It is a tang of 
 the blood. If children and dogs do not love us, it is 
 well to consider. 
 
 There is no device of the devil to make the sun go 
 down at noon like sham or jealousy or envy. 
 
 Men rarely fool the neighbors. They should be 
 too wise to try. 
 
 The world is a thing of the open air. There will 
 be wind in our curls. 
 
 For opportunity there is no resurrection of the 
 dead. 
 
 The weakness of one’s strength may be unsus¬ 
 pected, as the rose on the consumptive’s cheek is 
 herald of the tomb. 
 
 It is always sad when an Eden is lost in a memory 
 of a fall. 
 
 With Omnipotence in his fingers, the great God 
 shepherds men. Power to entice is the superlative 
 dynamic. 
 
 What one is should never quarrel with what he 
 says. 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 The ancient word for prophet was Seer. “He 
 that is now called a prophet was aforetime 
 called a Seer.” We think of one that tells. 
 The older world considered one who saw. In a 
 day when press and public have their opinion of 
 ministerial efficiency, and preachers are on the 
 grill, it may be some of our troubles are with the 
 seeing. The preachers’ ideals are no small 
 affair. 
 
 Some one said to a great painter that his 
 sunsets were impossible; no mortal eye had ever 
 seen their like. “Do you not wish you might?” 
 retorted the artist. The painter is vision more 
 than facile hand, or canvas, or color. The 
 preacher is vision more than culture, pulpit, or 
 speech. “Your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, 
 your young men shall see visions.” If every 
 child of God is to see visions, his ministers 
 cannot be blind. Beyond any other, the 
 preacher must be a man of dreams. 
 
 To the age we live in ideals are hardly 
 indigenous. There has not been found among 
 
 36 
 
THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 37 
 
 those born of woman a great poet or a great 
 philosopher in an unconscionably long time. 
 The latest climax in literature is the short story. 
 The novelist runs to quantity. Copy for the 
 printer is vastly much the eclipse of fame and 
 the epitaph of worth. The multitude is at 
 school to the moving picture and the morning 
 paper. The historian of the times is the 
 reporter. The ancient pride of men was the 
 sword and is now the lead pencil. The great 
 god Business is in his holy temple. The 
 argument against war is not its wrong but its 
 economic waste. The conscience of its day 
 wrestled with slavery, to see it thrive; its 
 extinction becoming a military necessity, it 
 died in a day. The American saloon is having a 
 like funeral, but the undertaker is the American 
 dollar. The mighty argument against pro¬ 
 hibition is the shift or loss of capital. Evil 
 rarely sickens anywhere, that it is vile, but that 
 it does not pay. Alexander Dowie and Mary 
 Baker Eddy lived and died appreciated. Good 
 citizenship and a decent reputation are religion 
 to millions. In the boyhood of the writer his 
 wise old father was wont to note, “The marble 
 fingers of the graveyard all point up.” The 
 preacher will hardly find his ideals in his age. 
 He must gather them from the Eternal Quiet 
 where God dwells or be as other men are. 
 
38 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 It is usually a compliment to be considered 
 up to date. To the minister that is to be behind 
 his date. The architect is not up to his bridge, 
 the civil engineer to his railroad, the merchant 
 to his store, or the general to his army. Each 
 is ahead of his job. If not, he is behind it. 
 His day’s work is to be in front. The herald of 
 good news is above his times; beyond them, not 
 up to them. 
 
 How about the rarity of accurate Bible 
 interpretation? How many ministers make 
 lasting impressions as expositors? Our real 
 theological seminaries, in pitifully many cases, 
 are the commentaries and teachers’ helps of the 
 Sunday school. Whether standardized thinking 
 spells either progress or power is hardly a 
 problem. Who knows but that the current 
 epidemic of religious humbug is the pestilence 
 after famine of doctrine, because it is dry, and 
 of theology, supposedly a bore? Doctrine is 
 simply teaching. Theology is a word about 
 God. It would seem that to a minister their 
 mastery went with the day’s work. A preacher 
 who is not a theologian should be ashamed to 
 draw his salary. Who would dare say our 
 hysteria over modern scholarship might not be 
 less acute were we ourselves masters of our 
 mighty book? The pressure of executive work, 
 the routine of engagements, the glare of public- 
 
THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 39 
 
 ity, the van and vacation habits of the day, the 
 secularizing of ideals, explain much. An old- 
 time prophet on the peak of a hill received one 
 day a message: “Thou man of God, the King 
 hath said, 4 Come down.’ ” As never in the 
 ages, the world is king: It bids the man of 
 God, “Come down.” It is better if he shall 
 stay up. 
 
 What shall the preacher preach? The answer 
 is, 4 ‘Preach the thing the people have the right 
 to expect.” Pertinence would save many a 
 pitiful sermon. A wise man noting a very 
 uncertain effort on a certain occasion said, 
 “That brother has a genius for the inappro¬ 
 priate.” The big business not rarely done on a 
 small ministerial capital has usually a ready 
 explanation: the man has the wit to preach 
 appropriately. The great Napoleon rocked the 
 empires of the earth as in a cradle by being 
 strongest at the point of contact. The preach¬ 
 er’s campaign is going on a long week of one 
 hundred and sixty-eight hours, and a possible 
 eight half hours are his points of contact, his 
 victories or defeats. Knowing this as well as 
 himself, his people gather looking for smoke, 
 eyes eager for banners, and “the dread cir¬ 
 cumstance of war,” and “circumstance of 
 war” is what they ought to get. The sermon 
 that is not an event is a failure. When homi- 
 
40 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 letic graveyards tell the truth a usual epitaph 
 will be, “All quiet along the Potomac.” 
 
 The preacher commonly gets what he goes 
 after. We may think just that highly of him. 
 An ecclesiastical Nimrod, he goes gunning for 
 the respectful attention of his ordinary con¬ 
 gregation, and has it. He aims at a fairly decent 
 sermonic deliverance twice on Sunday, and 
 brings it down. He goes after such an influence 
 in his church and community as will maintain 
 or improve its standing, and he gets that. He 
 strives for a reasonably correct ethical life 
 among his people; he establishes institutional 
 churches; he keeps close watch on mayor. 
 City Council, and Board of Education; he 
 smites the saloon hip and thigh; the thing he 
 cold-bloodedly goes after comes home in his bag. 
 Did he go after six per cent increase in his 
 membership, legal rate of interest as against his 
 current one per cent, the rarity of his failure 
 would surprise him. To live for a thing is 
 deadly. The one great test in business, culture, 
 politics, human life generally, is results. The 
 faithful people expect results. The appropriate 
 thing is results. 
 
 Concretely, appropriate preaching is some¬ 
 thing optimistic about Thanksgiving Day, a 
 word of the incarnation at Christmas, the hope 
 and glory of beginnings at New Year, a vision 
 
THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 41 
 
 of the living Christ at Easter, the ministry 
 of the summertime in June, the benediction of 
 the ordinary after vacation, and if sadly the 
 angel of sable wing is abroad in the land, a tale 
 of the world that passes not, where “Day shall 
 break, and shadows flee.” It means forever¬ 
 more to recognize the congregation that is on 
 hand. Rich or poor, ignorant or learned, old 
 or young, sinner or saint, each has ears to hear 
 and a soul under his coat. Preaching for people 
 and preaching to them are two things. To say 
 the proper word at the time the people look for 
 it, and after some little fashion, in the way they 
 like it, is to be two thirds sure of a good sermon. 
 That motion in the Preachers’ Meeting as to 
 Sunday baseball would have been wiser had 
 there been no snow on the ground. More good 
 men fail than one would think from their “genius 
 for the inappropriate.” 
 
 One of the temptations a preacher must 
 conquer, as if it might be the devil, is any 
 disposition to say little things in a big way. It 
 is one variety of mendacity. His high calling, 
 solemn environment, the tragedy of human 
 living, the dread secrets of immortality speak 
 loudly of the large and great. The pulpit is 
 surely a step higher than the platform. More 
 than one good man and minister of God has 
 been known to gnash his teeth in sorrow that 
 
42 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 lie found a reputation as a wit, a lecturer, an 
 entertainer, and lost the Himalayan atmosphere 
 of the Prophet of the Eternal. Like Runyan’s 
 mighty man, the minister is one that tumbles 
 mountains around with words. He falls to 
 trifle. It is not a harsh or thoughtless word 
 should one say the modern ministry is ill of the 
 ordinary. Its strength is of the hills. 
 
 The preacher should preach that only which 
 burns in his own heart. Every sermon should 
 be a message. The other thing may be oratory, 
 lecturing, dramatics, but it is not preaching. 
 If so be the pulpiteer cannot enthuse his soul 
 except over Browning, or some late publication, 
 he may still preach. The Bible has no monopoly 
 of the gospel. If salvation is nebulous and 
 sociology keeps him alert, let him talk the thing 
 that stirs him. A live gospel of the birds is 
 better than a mummy gospel of the Lord. 
 Momentum may make up for weight. A candle 
 may be fired through boards. The great God 
 leaves room in his universe for dead worlds and 
 reflected light. We are all glad of the moon, 
 though mostly we are sleeping as she shines. 
 
 The institutional church is the life belt of 
 religion in many minds just now, and in any 
 storm where needed it should be girded on. 
 However, it is perfectly easy to be manager of 
 such a projection, do enough work for two men. 
 
THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 43 
 
 die before one’s time, and never rise beyond the 
 glory of a floorwalker. Would the institutional 
 church really sell a few more goods in souls made 
 white and lives transformed, we might see more 
 hope in it. When a man’s heart is full with 
 soup-kitchen, bowling alley, reading room, 
 rummage sale, dispensary, he need think no 
 shame. He is neither parrot, impersonator, 
 echo, nor phonograph. He is true soul doing 
 man fashion the will of the Master as made 
 known to him. Nevertheless, loaves and fishes 
 were never staples to the Nazarene. Not even 
 miracles went far with him. Life belts do not 
 conquer worlds. The drift of ministers to 
 Young Men’s Christian Association work has 
 been inevitable for half a decade, and a bene¬ 
 diction beyond words. As a perennial shelf for 
 prophets, there is more to be said. The record 
 as to selling out apostles for a supply of 
 deacons is not encouraging. The church as a 
 collection agency is hardly more hopeful. 
 Whether we can save a w T orld when we do not 
 save our neighbors is a matter for fasting and 
 prayer. Absolute losses within the gates while 
 building other gates miles down the road may 
 be quite normal. And they may be an arrow 
 that flieth by day. 
 
 One reason why often city preachers fail on 
 going to the country, and without going to the 
 
44 
 
 SENT FOETH 
 
 country fail also, is just here. They have 
 become conventionalized by doing something of 
 everything. They remind the people of a 
 machine. The very shake of their hand speaks 
 the undying affection of a pump handle. They 
 do so many things that no thing matters. They 
 let their churches drag them into a dozen 
 services on Sunday, and their heart sleeps while 
 hand and foot and tongue work overtime. 
 There are things a preacher may do with his left 
 hand, but preaching is not one of them. 
 
 Lyman Abbott says of Henry Ward Beecher 
 that he would usually not select his text for a 
 sermon till a few hours before preaching. He 
 wanted to be sure of saying the thing fresh at 
 his heart. The sermons of Bishop Simpson, 
 wonderful to hear and seldom read, took for 
 target the heart of the common people. A few 
 uncommon, exotic souls read sermons. Thou¬ 
 sands hear them. John Bunyan, dreamer, 
 novelist, philosopher, has given the world the 
 best definition of a preacher in all literature. 
 “Now I saw in my dream that the pilgrims went 
 on and Great Heart went before them.” 
 
 “See here how then the child doth play the man, 
 And weak grows strong, when Great Heart leads 
 the van/’ 
 
 No man will wisely say that any preacher 
 should content himself with a low intellectual 
 
THE PREACHER’S IDEALS 
 
 45 
 
 ideal of preaching. Nevertheless, for him to 
 preach anything he does not feel, to say great 
 words of that which is little to him, is a sight to 
 make devils grin and the angels of high heaven 
 weep. Dr. Frank Gunsaulus with solemn 
 earnestness was wont to tell how in the midst 
 of his ministry the valley of sorrow brought him 
 visions of the hills of God. Newell Dwight 
 Hillis, literary master, turns heartily to evangel¬ 
 istic leadership. Dawson’s Evangelistic Note 
 is a monument to the cry of a deeper soul. It 
 was John Wesley, preacher and missionary, 
 whose heart was strangely warmed at the 
 meeting in London town. Saul of Tarsus 
 became Paul the apostle that he traveled the 
 Damascus road. No man really preaches 
 except as he meets God. There is no vision but 
 to the heart that burns. 
 
 In the old tale of Samson is a hint at tragedy 
 too deep for words. ‘‘And he wist not that the 
 Lord was departed from him.” That the Lord 
 may dwell with a man, that a man may know 
 that the Lord dwells with him, that the Lord 
 may depart from a man—these are mighty and 
 terrible conceptions. But that the Lord should 
 depart from a man and the man not know it, 
 is the terror unspeakable. To have a Samson 
 reputation, and to feel like Samson, when 
 Samson is walking around dead, is the crum- 
 
46 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 bling edge of doom. The fall is far. How sad and 
 pitiful to be preaching out of a chilled or lost 
 enthusiasm, to echo the ringing heraldry of other 
 years, to mumble and chatter where once was 
 the shout of them that sing, to say to wide- 
 eyed men that twilight is the blaze of noon, to 
 declare the Lord is in his holy temple when the 
 rustle of his garments has vanished into the 
 night! That, judged by results, so many of us 
 did our best work when we were boys at the 
 preaching business, is a story for the shadow and 
 the silence where God dwells. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 Copy for the printer is vastly much the eclipse of 
 fame and the epitaph of worth. 
 
 Evil rarely sickens anywhere, that it is vile, but 
 that it does not pay. 
 
 “The marble fingers of the graveyard all point 
 up.” One hardly gets his ideals in his age. 
 
 The preacher who is not a theologian should be 
 ashamed to draw his salary. 
 
 Pertinence would save many a pitiful sermon. 
 
 The sermon that is not an event is a failure. 
 
 To live for a thing is deadly. 
 
 The modern ministry is ill of the ordinary. 
 
 A live gospel of the birds is better than a mummy 
 gospel of the Lord. 
 
 The record as to selling out apostles for a supply of 
 deacons, is not encouraging. Life belts do not 
 conquer worlds. 
 
 There are many things one may do with his left 
 hand, but preaching is not of them. 
 
 To have a Samson reputation, and walk around 
 dead, is the crumbling edge of doom. 
 
 47 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 STAR PREACHERS 
 
 Ministers, in some markets, go cheap. It is 
 well to know their worth. When we are told, 
 “He. . . holdeth the seven stars in his right 
 hand” we spell the ministers of God as vastly 
 more than ordinary. In the Bible symbolism is 
 a tale of their surpassing dignity. They rise 
 above all cheapening. We dare not hold them 
 commonplace. 
 
 Symbols are signs of things; Bible symbols of 
 great things. Seven churches are all churches; 
 every vital detail being found in that selection. 
 Seven lamps of fire are the seven spirits of God 
 sent out into all the earth, the rounded com¬ 
 pleted teachings of God which dispel all dark¬ 
 ness. Seven seals are the ineffable wisdom of 
 God which hides till the fitting hour to reveal. 
 Golden vials are said explicitly to hold the 
 prayers of the saints; prayers are things worth 
 keeping. Great beasts of varied descriptions 
 are mighty influences toward lower conditions; 
 animals are inferior to men. Perhaps wealth 
 and rank and fashion and empire are the 
 masterful affairs which, brutally strong, are 
 
 48 
 
STAR PREACHERS 
 
 49 
 
 yet of a cheaper order. Real genuine conditions 
 of human life and progress are set forth in these 
 striking Bible pictures. The only caution we 
 need to exercise is in finding what they actually 
 do represent. The wise one who said, “The 
 book of Revelation finds men crazy or makes 
 them so,” had this in mind. Each and all 
 mean something. The seven stars held in the 
 right hand of the Lord of men stand for a glory 
 good to remember. 
 
 The dignity of the ministry is seen not only 
 in the technical symbol but also in Him who 
 sends it. When the crazy girl in Philippi said 
 that the servants of the most high God were in 
 town Paul was grieved. Whom it may be that 
 feed us compliments makes some difference. It 
 is the Son of God, God himself manifest, who 
 holdeth the seven stars in his hand. God 
 manifest is always a more precious concept 
 than God existent. God existent is forever 
 academic. God manifest is at home in any 
 human soul. So we call ourselves Christians as 
 of more gracious content than simply followers 
 of God. Christ is God of the noontime, the 
 high tide, the mountain top. With our thought 
 of God set at its zenith we can get no further in 
 a great notion of what it means to be a minister. 
 It is God of the glorious garment down to the 
 foot, God of the golden girdle, God of the snow- 
 
50 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 white head and hair, God whose eyes are flame, 
 God whose feet are as burnished brass, God 
 w T hose face is as the sun shining in its strength, 
 God of the voice of many waters, who held the 
 seven stars in his right hand. A minister may 
 doubtfully think little of himself. The neighbors 
 may not rate him high. He may come to his 
 own and his own receive him not. But to the 
 great God he is abundantly,and forever worth¬ 
 while. “He.. . holdeth the seven stars in his 
 right hand.” 
 
 Again, the dignity of the ministry is seen in 
 its commanding use. As the candlestick holds 
 the light, so in his right hand God holds the 
 seven stars. In great content he makes himself 
 a candlestick for his ministers. The Bartholdi 
 Statue of Liberty in New York harbor has a 
 torch in her right hand. Liberty is not fool¬ 
 proof. She is Liberty enlightening. Liberty is 
 not obvious. Men may stumble over her. She 
 must swing her lantern. Glorious France, the 
 great republic, the mighty world, the city of 
 New York, the art of the sculptor, the towering 
 statue, the hopes and fears of freemen every 
 where, all wait upon the flickering torch. So 
 the great God is happy at breaking into flame 
 in his ministers. “We are ambassadors.” 
 “As though God were entreating you,” said a 
 Master of the order. W T ith Omnipotence on the 
 
STAR PREACHERS 
 
 51 
 
 leash, why is it not frankly used? Earthquakes, 
 great voices out of the sky, handwriting on the 
 wall, would surely fashion as wax the stony 
 hearts of men? Not when God has his ministers. 
 
 It is they that go into all the world to preach 
 his gospel. Why are miracles forever few and 
 temporary? God has his ministers. Why does 
 the second coming of the Lord tarry, and 
 why is it coterminous with the end of the 
 world? God has his ministers. Why do not 
 angels preach? God has better ministers. 
 Angels might bungle at it. Ministers are not a 
 makeshift. They are God’s wisdom for the 
 ages. They are the tool God is serenely willing 
 to stand or fall with. “He. . . holdeth the 
 seven stars in his right hand.” 
 
 The dignity of the ministry is seen in its use 
 of human superlative. There are seven stars. 
 It took seven types of men to make a full- 
 orbed ministry. No one man can be a model 
 minister. It takes seven. In seven men one 
 only is the composite ideal. 
 
 “ ’Tis not a cause of small import 
 The pastor’s care demands. 
 
 But what might fill an angel’s heart, 
 
 And filled a Saviour’s hands.” 
 
 There are diversities of gifts, difference of 
 administrations, diversities of operations, man- 
 
52 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 ifestations of the Spirit, the word of wisdom, 
 knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of 
 miracles, prophecy, interpretations of tongues; 
 no one man can fulfill the mighty calling of the 
 minister of God. He may turn hopeless at once. 
 Only the bottom best that in him lies may be 
 his dream and prayer. Even then he is but one 
 seventh of the model minister. He is an un¬ 
 profitable servant. That which was his duty 
 to do only hath he done. 
 
 The dignity of the ministry is seen in its 
 expansiveness. Bible stars are merely points of 
 light. The author of Genesis says “He [God] 
 made the stars also.” His world was geocentric. 
 Stars were a convenience, an annex. We 
 know the stars are worlds. To the Genesis 
 writer they were an appendix to the earth. The 
 science of Patmos was not more advanced. 
 The stars were but symbols of light, and leading, 
 and plenty, and kindness. To us they spell a 
 universe hardly less overwhelming than the 
 Eternal. So in this symbol of the stars is seen a 
 ministry that will never grow less but forever 
 widen with the years. There have been rain¬ 
 bows while there have been mist and sun. But 
 on a day God gave the rainbow a new message. 
 It was henceforth not only bow but promise. 
 The earth was no more to be shaken out of its 
 place. So as the stars grow on us, and the rain- 
 
STAR PREACHERS 
 
 53 
 
 bow grows on us, the ministry grows on us. Its 
 To-morrow is forever mightier than its To-day. 
 If one sometimes queries whether ministers are 
 to lose their mission in the crushing egotism of 
 the earth, he may assure himself God’s ministers 
 are an immortal breed. The room of him who 
 falls is taken by the comrade at his heels, and 
 the victory draws ever nearer. 
 
 “What, then, is he whose scorn I dread, 
 
 Whose wrath or hate make me afraid? 
 
 A man; an heir to death; a slave to sin; 
 
 A bubble on the wave.” 
 
 Bible stars stand for the glorious. That he 
 calleth the stars by their names is the glory of 
 God. That ministers are ranked as stars is 
 their glory. Bible stars are useful. They give 
 light, rule the night, follow the seasons, guide 
 the journeys of men, awaken their minds, 
 declare the glory of God. So the ministers, as 
 the stars, earn their keep. The pastor is a 
 minister, one who serves. Clergymen are 
 granted favors as being of worth in social and 
 economic affairs. Bible stars are symbols of 
 abundance. Sand on the seashore and stars in 
 the sky spell plenty. The ministry is an asset 
 to the earth. Armies, institutions, churches, 
 hospitals, home, market, school, empire, the 
 cradle, or the grave, cannot write their history 
 saying little of the ministry. 
 
 i 
 
54 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Probably holding the stars in his right hand 
 has in it the idea of shielding and protection. 
 God is between his servants and trouble. 
 “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets 
 no harm.” But the larger concept is of strength 
 and command. Jesus standing at the right hand 
 of God in Stephen’s vision is a symbol of the 
 throne, authority, the dynamic. Stephen falls 
 and dies. Stephen’s Lord is King of kings. A 
 few persecutors are negligible. So holding the 
 stars in the right hand means more than simply 
 holding. In our Protestant reaction from 
 apostolic succession we may easily swing too 
 far. God would have us know that to the end 
 of time he has large business for his ministers. 
 His gospel is not geared to get on without 
 preaching. It was a preaching of the cross from 
 the beginning, but it was preaching. It was not 
 to be a failure and need the return of Jesus to 
 cover its retreat. “Faith cometh by hearing, 
 and hearing by the word of God.” “How 
 beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
 him that bringeth good tidings. . . of good.” 
 Organization is never to take the place of 
 preaching. The candlestick is a farce without 
 the candle. Sacraments do not supplant 
 preaching. The altar is below the pulpit. 
 Fellowship does not take room from preaching. 
 The church is more than a meeting house. 
 
STAR PREACHERS 
 
 55 
 
 Social service, philanthropy, culture, all are 
 good and wise, but the staple of the gospel is 
 preaching. “He.. . holdeth the seven stars in 
 his hand.” 
 
 The dignity of the ministry suggests practical 
 lessons without number. What a pitiful spec¬ 
 tacle is a ministerial trifler! It is suggested that 
 money returns are keeping men out of the 
 ministry. Men so kept out are v^ell kept out. 
 No man with social, literary, financial, or 
 political ambitions beyond an ordinary com¬ 
 mon sense, should dream of preaching. The 
 preaching is improved when ecclesiastical am¬ 
 bition is added to the list. David is not alw ays 
 happy in the back pasture. No man readily 
 discouraged should preach. The juniper tree 
 is poor timber for a pulpit. What a sense of the 
 dignity of the ministry it w T as that led to 
 monasticism! The comfort of home, the joy of 
 life, the honor of parentage, the passing on of 
 the family name, the w T ealth of friendship w r ere 
 supposed a small price for the dignity of the 
 ministry. Of what great worth in a minister is a 
 worthy daily manner and conduct! The 
 custom of those churches which insist on their 
 ministers wearing a garb is not all folly. A 
 conventional garment is a conservator of 
 dignity. Doubtless the regnancy of the holy 
 man, the priest, the prophet, the monk 
 
56 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 has been much in his robe in all ages and 
 lands. 
 
 It is doubtful if a reputation as a raconteur 
 is any large help to a minister. Men laugh but 
 do not linger. The story-telling gate to heaven 
 is on a side street. The lecture habit among 
 preachers has grown with the decline of the 
 evangel. It is the actor who graces the stage. 
 The inviting grin waiting for applause is better 
 veiled. Here is the evil of slang in the pulpit. 
 It is not wicked but cheap. The oft-quoted 
 reaction from the legendary long face of the 
 fathers is moonshine in the main. The soldier 
 of the Argonne did not come home with a 
 smirk. He had looked Death in the eyes. With 
 vision of two worlds he had grown great. Here 
 is the value of mastery in scholarship. No man 
 can feed on the mighty thinking of the ages and 
 be a clown. Human life is neither circus nor 
 sawdust. The minister travels up rather than 
 around. Elis commission is from Him who holds 
 the seven stars in his right hand. 
 
 Its affiliation with the churches is of the 
 dignity of the ministry. The seven golden 
 candlesticks were a sky for the seven stars to 
 shine in. Organization is preaching. The 
 minister is in company with the constructive. 
 He is of the family of law and order. The great 
 institutions of life are preachers. .The in- 
 
STAR PREACHERS 
 
 57 
 
 stitution of sex, the institution of races, the 
 institution of tribes and nations, the insti¬ 
 tution of sacrifices, the institution of the sacra¬ 
 ments, all are sermons in form and shape. The 
 very universe is a ministry. It is a platform, a 
 house for men, an opportunity for service, that 
 it may preach. “The heavens declare the glory 
 of God. Day unto day uttereth speech.” 
 
 Likewise the Bible is preeminently preaching. 
 Its history, ritual, legislation, poetry, prophecy, 
 doctrine, are of the pulpit. The historian is 
 through with one when he has finished his 
 record. The legislator adjourns when his law 
 is on the statute books. The teacher’s lesson 
 is his epitaph. The singer is done with his song. 
 The empire of other men is the mind. The 
 empire of the minister annexes the conscience. 
 Every other man rests with culture. The 
 minister is content only with character. Every 
 other man deals with what men think and feel 
 and do. The preacher deals further with what 
 they are. The literature, science, art of the 
 Bible are small affairs to its preaching. The 
 ministry is in company with the greatest book 
 on earth, and is at ease. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 In some markets ministers go cheap. 
 
 The Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York 
 harbor has a torch in her hand. Liberty is not fool¬ 
 proof. She must swing her lantern. 
 
 Angels do not preach. God has better ministers. 
 Angels might bungle at it. 
 
 No one man can be a model minister. It takes a 
 composite of seven of the best to be that thing. 
 “He .. . holdeth the seven stars in his right hand.” 
 
 To the Bible the stars are an appendix to the earth. 
 
 They have grown on us. The ministry grows on 
 one. 
 
 It is suggested that money returns are keeping men 
 out of the ministry. Men so kept out are well kept 
 out. 
 
 The juniper tree is poor timber for a pulpit. 
 
 The regnancy of the holy man is often in his robe. 
 A conventional garment is a conservator of dignity. 
 A preacher may die of his dressing. 
 
 The soldier of the Argonne did not come home 
 with a smirk. He had looked two worlds in the eyes. 
 The prophet has little business with the inviting grin. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 LITTLE FOXES 
 
 A minister is especially liable to become 
 irreverent. His worship is also of his day’s work. 
 The church, the Bible, the prayers, the sermon, 
 the song, even the sacraments, are the tools of 
 his trade. As men take sun, and air, and food, 
 and drink, and garments, and sleep, the vital 
 things, as matters of course, so human nature 
 nods in its Holy of holies. The danger is that 
 the commonplace to the minister may turn 
 commonplace to his congregation. To be 
 perfunctory or phonographic is a ready tempta¬ 
 tion. And every moment of it is irreverence. 
 The established reputation of ministers as 
 story-tellers is certainly doubtful, as now and 
 then desirable. A prophet lost in a good fellow 
 is questionable gain. Because the preacher can 
 talk he turns lecturer. It does not lift the 
 platform to the level of the pulpit. One who 
 listens to be entertained is not the man who 
 tarries to pray. The flippant wit so often heard 
 as to hell and heaven is the ruin of souls un¬ 
 numbered. The great and good are found as sin¬ 
 ners not rarely just here. A careless play with 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Scripture is as common and hurtful. Attention 
 drawn to the sermon or to the machinery of 
 worship, does not better the worship or the 
 sermon. If one has not the reverence in his 
 soul, it is useless as a garment. There should 
 be nothing negligible in a minister’s readiness 
 for his work. The people have rights to the 
 best. And God has a care for his servants. 
 
 It is of his day’s work that the minister be an 
 optimist. He has in charge a gospel, good 
 news, glad tidings. To him all lanes have a 
 turn. He knows no blind alleys. All things 
 work together for good with him. And this 
 optimism is expected. Other men being called 
 may not answer. He must hear and come. 
 Then, too, he walks in an atmosphere of the 
 supernatural. He breathes high air. Seas have 
 opened to a path, lions have lost their teeth, 
 angels have ministered, to the like of him. How 
 perfectly natural that he should often uncon¬ 
 sciously become an exaggerator!—one variety of 
 liar. His stories are told till he believes them 
 himself. Said one of the boys a while since, 
 “Professor, are you lecturing, or just talking?” 
 
 Whatever we do tends to be of a piece. What 
 a pity when overstatement, undue enthusiasm, 
 “drawing the long bow,” has brought its dis¬ 
 count! Just here is an excellent reason more 
 for a ministerial mastery of the best literature. 
 
LITTLE FOXES 
 
 61 
 
 It will keep the good man from economy and 
 extravagance with the truth. In revival serv¬ 
 ices, particularly, a course of reading in 
 rationalistic channels is immensely helpful. A 
 faith that will not stand a cool brain would 
 better be lost. To understate, to earn a re¬ 
 putation for carefulness, is wiser than to amaze 
 and astound. 
 
 After some fashion all men are warped. A 
 particular window into life, an especial line of 
 interest, or work, narrows us into something 
 less than our best. The age of specializing 
 catches us in its current. But, after all, are not 
 ministers ministers to men? Children, women, 
 young people, sick people and well, democrat 
 and aristocrat, scholarly and otherwise, poor and 
 rich, get strangely set in the same parish. Why 
 should any master of a manse be a pastor and no 
 preacher, or a preacher and no pastor? Why 
 should one be an evangelist, another a teacher, 
 another a Sunday-school man, another a civic 
 force, another great on finance? It is, of course, 
 very human, but why raise it into a principle? 
 Whether we really are made of the congenial is 
 much of a question. The oak is the child of the 
 storm. Religion as an exotic may have its 
 place. 
 
 There is a thing we may not be sure is a little 
 fox. Do we not underrate the dynamic in our 
 
62 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 religion? The mother of Jesus advised that 
 whatsoever he said, it would be well to do. Till 
 power came upon them the most earnest 
 disciples waited. A great apostle was not 
 content with believers except as they became 
 receivers. All power is given that we may go, 
 therefore. Thinking it over, are ministers as 
 masterful in the dynamic gospel as with the 
 cultural, ethical, economic, civic, philanthropic 
 gospel? The herald of the earlier day expected 
 God in his toil. His mission was to be not as 
 other men are. His excuse for being was a 
 command of the situation. Scriptural holiness 
 was the power of God unto salvation rather 
 than something of a sort. To him prayer was 
 to be answered. Into the secret of this presence 
 it is the minister who must lead. 
 
 An unmistakable little fox is the relatively 
 small attention given to music by the minister. 
 There are many of him actually ashamed that 
 he cannot sing. Many more can use no instru¬ 
 ment of any kind. The general spread of train¬ 
 ing in music, the hearty love of it in widen¬ 
 ing circles, the glorious history of Christian 
 hymnody, the frittering folly of so much secular 
 music, the burdening sorrows of the earth all call 
 for ministers with the voice of song. 
 
 What about caste in the Christian ministry? 
 The chatter about grade, fine people, better 
 
LITTLE FOXES 
 
 63 
 
 classes, city and country churches, is con¬ 
 siderably nothing less. And it helps no one. An 
 episcopal polity leads to ranking and place as 
 surely as efficiency, and as straight. Let no one 
 fall when tempted. To be given charges that 
 are tasks is honor. The royal purple is the 
 aristocracy of hard knocks. How ministers deal 
 with each other is much of a proposition. To 
 follow a popular pastor is only a degree harder 
 than to succeed the brother criticized and un¬ 
 appreciated. The thing to remember is that 
 whatever was left is foundation to him that 
 cometli after. The skill with which one can 
 adjust and adapt is the measure of his success. 
 Our predecessor had his faults; and when we 
 move on, it will be found that we had ours. To 
 be reminded earlier has happened. “Why 
 should the spirit of mortal be proud?” 
 
 It may not appeal overlargely, but the ac¬ 
 commodated use of the Holy Scripture is always 
 a questionable matter. If the Bible is virtually 
 a word of God, it is a compelling situation. To 
 make a plaything of it is worse than doubtful 
 taste. It should be used in no fashion but as 
 the heraldry of the highest. A mistake is not 
 germane. Mistakes are inevitable. But to use 
 deliberately any portion of the great good book 
 except in its original intent has no final end but 
 evil. All laughable turns of the Bible, except 
 
64 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 as humor is of the record, should be absolutely 
 unknown. There is something unethical in 
 the frequent tirade against scholarly study 
 of the Bible. All we should ask of any man is 
 scrupulously honest intention. With open sin¬ 
 cerity no man can damage the book of God. 
 The hypocrite cannot harm it. The world 
 needs rather more than less of what men call 
 Bibliolatry. 
 
 A very common evil among ministers is pro¬ 
 fessionalism. With those of liberal notion of 
 ordination, costume, etc., it is particularly un¬ 
 necessary. It is worth while any time to be 
 taken for a man rather than a minister. The 
 man will take all care for the minister. The 
 traditional notions of ministerial ethics are com¬ 
 monly a burden grievous to be borne. The 
 red-blooded contact of brother men, common 
 toilers in a common field, can always be attained 
 if there is a will thereto. True courtesy, to its 
 owner, always comes easy. 
 
 Perhaps the most dangerous perplexity min¬ 
 isters encounter is in their dealings with woman¬ 
 kind. The overmastering strength of passion 
 or plain infatuation, in either men or women, is 
 suspected by few. The devil garments himself 
 in light not rarely. There is a careless ideal in 
 thousands of very decent people. The standard 
 as seen in novels, plays, magazines, papers, is 
 
LITTLE FOXES 
 
 65 
 
 often misleading and debasing. The average 
 physician is a poor adviser. The ideals even of 
 good women are strangely complex, and they 
 often deceive themselves. The only solution 
 is a perfectly sane, white attitude in every 
 situation. The idea of a husky man putting 
 himself in an alarmed suspicious relation toward 
 half the human race, having his wife invariably 
 call with him, insisting on a study in the par¬ 
 sonage, acting constrained or conventional 
 toward his faithful women parishioners is to be 
 one sort of plain fool. A man who cannot, with 
 open eyes, informed mind, and white soul, 
 calmly meet all comers anywhere would better 
 leave the ministry. It is the first step, the 
 picnicking with fascination, that is dangerous. 
 To be forewarned is much the battle. The 
 farther one gets beyond the halfway house, the 
 greater the wisdom he will see in these words. 
 
 These reflections lead naturally to the domes¬ 
 tic situation with the preacher. The average 
 minister sadly needs a home. What he has 
 is usually an annex to the church. His family 
 and he are in such a unique relation to the 
 parish that the pathetic human side of it rarely 
 appears. One might almost pity those whom 
 Bishop Edwin Hughes so fitly styles “the 
 children of the manse.” They do turn out 
 surprisingly well, but it is of the Lord’s mercies 
 
G6 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 that they are not consumed. The point is that 
 if a minister is to be a minister to other people’s 
 homes, he should have one of his own. The 
 elemental is his stock in trade, and the brand 
 under his own roof is meaning or decay. 
 
 It is evident a line of investigation of this sort 
 might ramble on a quarter section of forever. 
 There is no advice for all situations. Let the 
 minister be a big-brotherly white soul and little 
 foxes or large will not spoil the vines. They 
 will blossom and bear fruit. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 A minister is especially liable to become irreverent. 
 Worship is so largely of his day’s work. 
 
 A prophet lost in a good fellow is doubtful gain. 
 
 Attention drawn to the machinery of worship or 
 of the sermon does not better either worship or 
 sermon. 
 
 It is perfectly natural that a minister should now 
 and then turn out exaggerator, one variety of liar. 
 Both economy and extravagance with the truth are 
 so handy. 
 
 After some fashion, all men are warped. Special¬ 
 izing is a matter of no age. 
 
 A faith that will not stand a cool brain would 
 better be lost. 
 
 Whether men are made of the congenial is much 
 of a question. 
 
 Religion as an exotic may have its place. The 
 oak is child of the storm. 
 
 An episcopal polity leads to ranking and place as 
 surely as efficiency, and as straight. 
 
 To be given churches that are tasks is honor. The 
 royal purple is an aristocracy of hard knocks. 
 
 All laughable turns of the Bible, except as humor is 
 of the record, should be absolutely unknown. 
 
 The average minister sadly needs a home. What 
 he has is usually an annex to the church. 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 JESUS THE PREACHER 
 
 A large part of the preacher’s business is to 
 teach. The world is to know more because he 
 is around. He is a builder of worlds. He 
 widens horizons. He pushes up the blue. He 
 gathers treasures in the deep. As the world 
 grows better it grows greater. The world 
 suffers from its littleness as largely as from its 
 wickedness. The preacher is an enemy of the 
 small as of the bad. As in another time he will 
 find old folks sending children to the rear; saints 
 will be calling down fire; Martha will be thinking 
 of her manners rather than piety; Peter with 
 drawn sword, and Saul of Tarsus at the stoning 
 of Stephen, will appear in the flesh. He will see 
 good men at the worship of politics, making 
 Jesus a King, and sending their gods to the 
 cross, not knowing what they do. He will hear 
 holy men mourning that the Son of God does 
 not walk on earth to-day, as sorrow filled the 
 heart of other holy men when he went away. 
 In a word, mistakes will be his business as surely 
 as will meanness. The minister must minister 
 
 68 
 
JESUS THE PREACHER 
 
 69 
 
 evermore in teaching, as Jesus ministered in 
 teaching long ago. 
 
 But teaching is not the whole story. Jesus 
 said he came also to preach. “I must preach 
 the kingdom of God to other cities also: for 
 therefore am I sent.” What is preaching as 
 distinguished from teaching? Briefly, it is 
 teaching applied to moral results. It is teaching 
 in bloom, at harvest, come to harbor. The end 
 of teaching simply is the lesson. Preaching 
 begins with the lesson. It ends only with the 
 learning. When Jesus called attention to the 
 Commandments he was teaching the rich young 
 man, as also in telling him to sell what he had. 
 As the young man went away sorrowful he left 
 the preacher. Jesus loving the young ruler, 
 patiently putting duty into his mental perspec¬ 
 tive, disappointed that seeing his way he walked 
 in another, was Jesus the preacher. 
 
 When Jesus seeing multitudes of the simple- 
 hearted following him in utter sincerity, re¬ 
 joiced in spirit, it was Jesus the preacher. 
 Nicodemus in coming to Jesus was in search of 
 a teacher. His surprise lay in finding a preacher. 
 Nicodemus must learn, but learn to be born 
 again. The drive to make a man something as 
 well as to tell him things is a mark of the 
 preacher. 
 
 The frequent expression, “He that hath ears 
 
70 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 to hear, let him hear,” is the preacher in theory. 
 Being in earshot, they will hear. But what will 
 the hearing come to? “Thou hast taught in our 
 streets,” said the multitudes at the judgment. 
 “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” said 
 the Judge. The teacher was not allowed to 
 preach. 
 
 Illustration can hardly he at too great length, 
 for the reason that ministers are in constant 
 terrible temptation to sink the preacher in the 
 teacher. There was never so scientific an age. 
 To know is an obsession. The scholar is in 
 honor. Many men leave the preaching business 
 to teach, to write, to lecture, to reform, to 
 better the economic situation. In every sermon, 
 the literary, the didactic, the aesthetic, the 
 philanthropic call so sweetly, so siren-like, that, 
 ere the good man is aware, the lure and the 
 rocks have won. Not that it is wrong to lecture. 
 But how much lecturing would be done did the 
 audience suspect an altar call went with the 
 ticket? The lecturer commonly sells out the 
 preacher to lecture. There is some writing that 
 is preaching. But how much preacher writing 
 goes further than the fascination of composition, 
 the search for a wider world, the hunger for 
 immortality? Jesus of Nazareth wrote only in 
 the dust. 
 
 It is a matter of widest comment that preach- 
 
JESUS THE PREACHER 
 
 71 
 
 ers cannot exhort as in the older days. It 
 really means they cannot preach as in the older 
 day. Exhortation is the soul of preaching. 
 Jesus knew all tears were soon to vanish with 
 the rising of Lazarus. But he stood at the grave 
 and wept. The preacher in him would not 
 quiet. Looking at Jerusalem in her beauty and 
 glory, he wept again. The preacher was master. 
 He would have gathered her children as a hen 
 her brood, and she would not. AYhen Jesus saw 
 the multitudes he had compassion. The Jews 
 were a healthy, wealthy, wise, and happy people. 
 To be pitied was not of their wishes. But Jesus 
 pitied them. They were as sheep having no 
 shepherd, and the heart of the preacher broke. 
 
 Jesus went up into the wilderness to be 
 tempted of the devil. Later he was taken up 
 into the holy city. Still later he was led to an 
 exceeding high mountain. Temptations have 
 a queer wearying to travel up. The preacher 
 often goes up into the pulpit to be tempted of 
 the devil. How many sermons like the Dead 
 Sea end in themselves? That excellent notion 
 of the bread upon the waters returning after 
 many days has been the ruin of thousands. It 
 is so thrilling, this talking sense before a con¬ 
 gregation, startling them to listen, to smile, to 
 approve, to come again, and to come again. It 
 may not be preaching. 
 
72 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Sinking the preacher in any other side of his 
 calling is calamity. The opposite, of course, no 
 one will commend. The preacher who cannot 
 teach, who has no new thing to tell his auditors, 
 who tries to make up in good intentions for 
 study, in earnestness for the world of books, in 
 tears for brain sweat, in gymnasties for gray 
 matter, is a discount on the breed. But in this 
 thinking, reading age his empty pews will 
 care for him. The danger comes to the man 
 who can interest, entertain, and help a con¬ 
 gregation and not preach at all. That he can 
 do it is exactly why he is so apt to do it. And 
 preachers of any sort growing scarce! 
 
 Now and then there will be occasion to 
 distinguish between preaching and reforming. 
 The time came to Jesus when the people would 
 make him king. A king was a small affair to a 
 preacher. Not every preacher can get well out 
 of sight when the hunt for kings is on. The 
 latest question the disciples asked their Lord was 
 if the kingdom might early be restored to 
 Israel. And witnessing to the ends of the earth 
 was the thing worth while. To give up trans¬ 
 forming for reforming is a bad bargain. “Master, 
 speak to my brother, that he divide the in¬ 
 heritance with me.” “Who made me a judge 
 or a divider over you?” The conservation of 
 property is useful, but no large affair. The 
 
JESUS THE PREACHER 
 
 73 
 
 time came for Jesus to pay his taxes. He paid 
 them. He had his opinion of some things, but 
 lest he should give offense, he saw that all 
 obligations to existing government were met. 
 The familiar words, “Render to Caesar the 
 things that are Caesar’s,” will recur often. 
 Jesus lived and spoke at a time wdien every 
 other man on earth was a slave. Yet his gospel 
 and human bondage lived side by side for 
 eighteen hundred years. Jesus lived in a time 
 when the man who could was king. And kings 
 are still alive to-day. Jesus lived in a time of 
 grave and grievous legalized social injustice. 
 Yet he was never revolutionary. The lesson is 
 that he felt the larger issue was the preaching. 
 
 Usually preachers are turned aside from their 
 real work as developing special talents in special 
 lines. The better way would be to raise up 
 laymen who are not called to preach. The 
 exceeding great army of preachers who become 
 financial agents, Anti-Saloon League managers, 
 college presidents, secretaries, and what not, is 
 a thing to consider. The executive work forced 
 upon bishops and district superintendents is 
 also a matter for concern. The time was when 
 preaching was their power. Managers may be 
 bought in the market. 
 
 Very strangely the preacher and the phil¬ 
 anthropist are to be distinguished now and 
 
74 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 then. From a variety of sources comes the 
 insistence that the care of the body, the gospel 
 of physical comfort, is a vital element in world 
 evangelism. The institutional church, the cults 
 of healing, the relief of poverty in private charity, 
 are illustrations. No one w T ill dispute their 
 value. The cup of cold water is a thing of high 
 honor. Nevertheless, to sell out preaching for 
 it is to starve the earth. That in some churches 
 deacons are laymen did not happen. Man does 
 not live by bread alone but by every word that 
 proceedeth out of the mouth of God. It is quite 
 often worth while to go hungry and be good. It 
 is not accident that comfort of body was so 
 early cast in the light of a temptation. It is 
 hardly believable men really followed Jesus for 
 the loaves and fishes. To sell out a soul for an 
 appetite seems almost a witticism. Jesus said 
 it was sober fact. The miracles were preaching. 
 The Jews took them for an end in themselves. 
 The manna in the wilderness was not a model 
 but a sermon. It was preaching: a table that 
 was a pulpit, not a market. 
 
 Here lies a paralytic. He has come down 
 through the roof. He thinks, and his friends 
 think, that paralysis is a trouble of the first 
 order. Jesus says sin is the trouble of 
 the first order. His first word is, “Man, 
 thy sins be forgiven thee.” Paralysis can 
 
JESUS THE PREACHER 
 
 75 
 
 wait. The body is to be dust. The soul 
 lives forever. 
 
 Up on the Mount of Transfiguration good men 
 thought that tabernacles might be built for a 
 stay. But there was no congregation for 
 preaching. Moses and Elias and Peter and 
 James and John were already in the good way. 
 The chance for preaching was down in the 
 valley, and down in the valley they went. 
 
 The eagerness of Jesus for soul ministry is 
 a lesson to be studied, pondered and remem¬ 
 bered forever. “Wist ye not that I must be 
 about my Father’s business?” The safety of 
 a twelve-year-old boy was a minor matter. “I 
 must preach the kingdom of God to other cities 
 also.” He was restless in quiet. “If ye had 
 known what this meaneth, T will have mercy, 
 and not sacrifice/ ye would not have con¬ 
 demned the guiltless.” Even keeping the Sab¬ 
 bath may wait if men are to be converted. 
 “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh 
 after a sign.” The sign shall be preaching 
 Jesus and the Resurrection. “The men of 
 Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this 
 generation, and condemn it.” “They repented 
 at the preaching of Jonas, and a greater than 
 Jonas is here.” 
 
 The strong impression of the whole Jesus 
 example is that preaching is of mandatory and 
 
76 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 primary value. Greater than teaching, greater 
 than philanthropy, greater than reforming, 
 greater than all ritual, a man comes down in 
 shading it for anything on earth. The com¬ 
 manding need of the world is a resurrection of 
 the pulpit. Jesus the Preacher is the vision 
 splendid. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The world suffers from its littleness more sorely 
 than from its meanness. 
 
 The ministerial lecturer sells out the preacher to 
 lecture. If he is a go. Usually. 
 
 Temptations have a queer wearying for high 
 places. One casts himself down to fall. “And I 
 saw there was a way to Hell from the very gates of 
 Heaven.” 
 
 Preachers are called of God. Managers may be 
 bought in the market. 
 
 The manna in the wilderness was not a model but 
 a sermon. The cup of cold water is a thing of 
 high honor. Nevertheless, to sell out preaching for 
 a diaconate is to starve the earth. In many churches 
 the deacons are laymen. 
 
 The commanding need of the world is a resur¬ 
 rection of the pulpit. 
 
 To give up transforming for reforming is a bad 
 bargain. 
 
 77 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 To a world that knows what it is to be 
 hungry, Jesus is said to be bread. To a world 
 that dies without water, the call is to come to 
 him and drink. To a world in the dark, he is 
 the Light. To a world familiar wfith raw 
 existence and with death, he is Life. To a 
 world always perplexed about something, he is 
 the Way. So to a world that cannot care for 
 itself, he is the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd. 
 This is the exact definition of a pastor. The 
 pastor is literally a keeper of sheep. When 
 Jesus said he was the Good Shepherd, he gave 
 us the highest model. One cannot do better, 
 would he be a good pastor, than to study the 
 pastorate of the Christ. He may not get 
 details. Galilee and Judea after twenty cen¬ 
 turies show some variety. But he will get 
 principles, and principles that will care for all 
 details. 
 
 He will discover, primarily, that the good 
 shepherd, the good pastor, is ethically good. He 
 cannot be thief or robber. He can neither steal, 
 kill, nor destroy. It is hardly wise to take it for 
 
 78 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 79 
 
 granted that the pastor is a good man. Jesus 
 Christ made mention that he always did the 
 things pleasing to God; that no one might 
 convince him of sin. Only a faultless Christ 
 could be a Christ. Paul said he kept his body 
 under lest having preached to others, he himself 
 might become a castaway. He was out in the 
 congregation. It is not half bad that a preacher 
 have standing as a business man, a literary 
 proposition, a social good fellow, a success in 
 his family, a force in his community; but his 
 mightiest asset is a rating as a holy man. The 
 last thing that is good, is to identify himself 
 with holiness as a specialty, for holiness touches 
 the whole of things. But so to live that men 
 see a mastery of self, and of the life from God, 
 is of vital matters. Possibly here is the widest 
 difference between our earlier and later models. 
 We do not impress the world, above all else, as 
 men of God. Men of the world, men of the 
 Book, men of speech, men of affairs, we are, 
 but not so obviously men of God. Like Martha, 
 careful and troubled about many things, the 
 one thing needful to be careful and troubled 
 about is set aside. The modern minister works 
 no harder, nor for longer hours, than his brother 
 of the older times. He does work at more 
 things. He has more fingers on his hands. It is 
 his task to see that they do not strangle his 
 
80 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 soul. The German shiver at the mystic is likely 
 one germ of their desolated will to war. A 
 little more of the mystic in modern life would 
 help affairs. The good pastor will be a good 
 man. 
 
 The Good Shepherd knew each of his sheep 
 by name. The pastor cares for individuals. He 
 is inevitably a public man. He is an affair of 
 the crowd. He is an official; the soul of an 
 organization. He is a community force. He is 
 an example; a mirror for the many. As a 
 teacher, he has a school. As a pastor he follows 
 a flock. It may be his temptation. All his time, 
 all his attention, all of a great reputation, all 
 his strength, may go to a performance. A man 
 so tried, on being asked to get close to some 
 concrete difficulties, very frankly demurred, 
 saying, “I cannot come down to individuals.” 
 “You seem to have gotten further along than 
 the Almighty,” was the pertinent comment. 
 He had fallen in love with the ninety and nine. 
 
 That Jesus cared deeply to come in contact 
 with his world in any form, we have seen. He 
 did not retreat wffien the world was just one 
 man or one woman. He labored with Nico- 
 demus. He converted the Samaritan woman. 
 He sent the rich young man about his business, 
 sorrowful. He was faithful with Mary and 
 Martha. It is abundantly worth while to re- 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 81 
 
 member that when God sends one man our way, 
 he is a congregation. The whole world is at 
 chinch just then. It has been said the Ethio¬ 
 pian eunuch was the Continent of Africa. 
 Whether that, or one black man more, Philip 
 followed his Master, and so should we. 
 
 This concrete care of the Almighty for 
 individuals is one of the elemental realities. 
 Humanity was with him the building of the one 
 man and the one woman. “God hath made of 
 one blood all nations of men.” The Bertillon 
 system is based on the fact that no two human 
 beings are exactly alike. They are bom one at 
 a time. They die one by one. They stand alone 
 in judgment. They are born again one by one. 
 Perhaps the unity of God is no more marvel¬ 
 ously illustrated than by this unity of man. 
 Made in the image of God, and each man irre¬ 
 trievably himself, we believe in one God with 
 small trouble. There is nothing surprising then 
 that in the outstanding record Jesus was a per¬ 
 sonal worker. As revealing God, he could have 
 been nothing other. 
 
 An early thing to be said is that personal work 
 is preeminently a matter of choice. A minister’s 
 public work is inevitable. The limelight goes 
 with the job. The flash-light is his own. His 
 private personal ministry he looks up. Should 
 he care for it, get his heart in it, he will get it 
 
82 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 in plenty. Should it be otherwise, the world 
 will bring little to him. 
 
 It is a pitiful hour when one finds his people 
 leave him alone. It tells him what he is. It is a 
 compliment when a fellow mortal brings one 
 his cares, or joys, or troubles. He feels there is 
 help in him. The man who said things first 
 about it being well to have the good will of a dog, 
 had this in mind. One at whom baby or child 
 will smile need not fear. There is work in the 
 world for him. 
 
 So the earth found it in its heart to come to 
 Jesus. The thief on the cross knew that Jesus 
 had a kingdom on his hands, but he cried, 
 “Remember me/’ One so wonderful could 
 take on one sinner more. The disciples had 
 some ponderous ideas, but the neighbors sus¬ 
 pected the Master might pet their babies a 
 little, and like it. They did not suspect wrongly. 
 The little men and women had room in his 
 heart, surely. Jesus was glad to go to Bethany, 
 and it was that Bethany was glad to have 
 him come. There are few things more beau¬ 
 tiful than the way the crowds came to the 
 Lord with their sick and suffering ones. The 
 tender-heartedness with which hospitals are 
 soon crow T ded in our day is of the same weave. 
 If it could be the churches could relieve the 
 sorrows of all the worthy poor, how wide the 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 83 
 
 open door! The woman in the city who was a 
 sinner stood at the feet of Jesus weeping. From 
 her deep well of shame she saw the stars in his 
 kindly face. The doctor of the law, rich and 
 proud, came to Jesus by night. He knew he 
 was a teacher come from God. The pious rich 
 young ruler came running, came kneeling, to 
 Jesus. Jesus had word and help for wealth, 
 and power, and holiness, as surely as for poverty, 
 and misery, and wrong. Whether men come to 
 us, or feel we care to have them come, is a 
 mighty interrogation. 
 
 But how did Jesus deal with individuals? 
 Just as we must. According to providential 
 leadings and openings. Weary with His jour¬ 
 ney, Jesus sits on the well. Thirsty, he asks 
 a drink. Being a Jew, the Samaritan woman is 
 startled. The battle is on. And the woman 
 loses and gains. Jesus turns the water into 
 wine. A nobleman is there whose son is sick 
 at Capernaum. One who can turn water into 
 wine might surely turn sickness into health. 
 “Come down ere my child die.” “You would 
 see signs and wonders?” “Not at all, I would 
 see my child alive.” “Go thy way, thy son 
 liveth.” “At what hour did he begin to mend?” 
 “At the very hour that Jesus spoke.” The 
 mighty Master did not even need to be there. 
 So the nobleman believes. Every step is a step 
 
84 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 onward. Here stands a man blind from his 
 birth. The disciples, the neighbors, the Phar¬ 
 isees, all get interested in the theology of his 
 congenital blindness, and the recent stubborn 
 fact that he sees. Jesus never forgets the man. 
 Outside the synagogue and in disgrace, he finds 
 him and leads him into light of soul, as he had 
 led him into light of eyes. No strained unnat¬ 
 ural movement anywhere. With a willing 
 heart, method is forgettable. “Settle not 
 beforehand what ye shall say. It shall be given 
 you in that hour.” The line of duty is self- 
 supporting. The great undertaking for the 
 minister is to be entirely willing toward per¬ 
 sonal work. The way will follow. 
 
 Why take time in the emphasis of these 
 things? Because, for one reason and another, 
 they are the very things the average minister 
 forgets. He allows his other pressing and 
 public duties to crowd this call aside. The 
 priest and the Levite were not loafing. They 
 were not hardhearted. They thought of the 
 man among thieves as a matter they might 
 look after later. They were ridden of their 
 routine. Personal work at bottom is the only 
 real work. A crowd is only a multiplied man. 
 A public affair is only a private affair out-of- 
 doors. All our teaching, ritual, philanthropy, is 
 simply to get at the man. Why fall in love with 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 85 
 
 rod and line when it is fish in the creel that 
 count? Hook, and bait, and fisherman are silly 
 without fish. 
 
 Again our emphasis may help us in keeping 
 small affairs in their places. How much time 
 we waste over the secondary! Shall I go out 
 calling on the families alone? Should I have a 
 study in the church? How much attention 
 should go to a given case? A white soul is 
 safe anywhere. A reputation is immortal till 
 its work is done. The cross of Jesus was a cross 
 of shame. To live in dread of its like is folly. 
 
 The supposed dignity and reserve of the 
 individual soul is greatly stressed in our day. I 
 must not press religion upon my neighbor, for 
 his inmost life is sacred to him. Following the 
 line of Providence will care for all this and more. 
 One cannot find a single case of bad manners in 
 all the personal work of Jesus. There need be 
 none in ours. One does not cease to be a 
 gentleman when he turns saint. Mary was 
 entirely as courteous as Martha, to say no 
 more. If any man opens his door at your 
 knock, walk in. If he will not, walk on. “Ye 
 shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till 
 the Son of Alan be come.” 
 
 The Good Shepherd is considerately good. He 
 is good at heart. He is kind. “He calleth his 
 own sheep by name.” “The sheep follow Him.” 
 
86 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “The hireling fleeth, . . . and careth not for 
 the sheep.” The Good Shepherd cares, and 
 therefore knows his sheep, and his sheep know 
 him. He lays down his life that he cares. The 
 good pastor is a man with a heart. 
 
 The rage for utility, the practical, as men say, 
 often smothers the affections. As if hearts were 
 not practical. The average pastor foregathers 
 with complexities and perplexities till he is 
 likely to get automatic. A good rule is to take 
 on enough things only, and such things, as per¬ 
 mit the heart to function. With a pastor to be 
 automatic is to be no pastor. A pastor is some¬ 
 thing finer than a phonograph. The profes¬ 
 sional tone and manner is not quite as bad as 
 the small-pox, but the pastor begins where the 
 machine leaves off. The unusual play on the 
 pastor’s sympathies and affections tends and 
 tempts to cant and hollowness. It is well to 
 guard one’s self. An actor conquers in this 
 matter; a minister surely should. The Nestor 
 of public speaking at Northwestern University, 
 Robert McLean Cumnock, would never admit 
 his ready tears in a pathetic recitation were 
 ever forced. One who came to know of his 
 great heart always believed him. 
 
 Sometimes the intellectual ambition glazes 
 over the play of the heart. Culture is on 
 vacation in the hour of emotion, it is supposed. 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 87 
 
 It would rather seem that expression took more 
 wit than suppression, in emotion as in anything 
 other. An overdose of the efficient likely had 
 as much to do with the recent Teutonic par¬ 
 oxysm as some other matters. Men do not 
 laugh at their feelings and grow wise. The head 
 and hands of the world are forever in debt to 
 its heart. An underestimate of affectional 
 values is as dangerous as an overrating. Our 
 people should feel as certainly as they some¬ 
 times respect and admire. Nor can love be 
 counterfeited. We must consider, till a genuine 
 love for our people, all sorts of people, sweeps 
 aw T ay every indifference and distaste. It is 
 easy to hunt up our congenial friends. Do not 
 even the publicans so? A compassion toward 
 any kind of man that leaves one eager to com¬ 
 pany with him is the sort of the Shepherd 
 Christ. 
 
 Another thing is true. Sheep are sometimes 
 contrary. The shepherd has a call to be 
 efficient; just anybody may not keep sheep. 
 Jesus went to folks who did not care. He did 
 not press himself long. His earnestness was 
 never impertinence. But he went. He taught 
 his disciples to go into another city when the 
 nearer doors were closed. They were not to give 
 that which w r as holy to the dogs, nor cast their 
 pearls before swdne. Only they were to hear 
 
88 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 the bark and squeal. Where there is a kennel 
 or sty there is usually a house. There were 
 times when he did his preaching with a whip. 
 It was not often. The Hohenzollerns of the 
 earth are scarce. To be scourged of such a 
 whip, and for such a cause, is shame unspeakable. 
 The temple of God had been made a den of 
 thieves. There may be genuine kindness in a 
 sermon with a whip. 
 
 The Pharisees gave Jesus no water for his 
 feet, no kiss, no oil for his head. They did give 
 him criticism. “This woman is a sinner.” 
 And Jesus allows her touch. Nevertheless, 
 with the north wind blowing, Jesus went and 
 took dinner with the Pharisee. He sent his 
 disciples to a village of the Samaritans to make 
 ready for him. He will bring them a blessing. 
 They see him headed for Jerusalem; they will 
 not receive him. So he went to another village. 
 But he had stood at their door. One of the 
 most significant of the Bible pictures is one 
 where it reads, “Behold, I stand at the door, and 
 knock.” An Omnipotent one might walk right 
 in, but he stands at the door and knocks. When 
 the swine were drowned in the sea, the owners 
 beseech of Jesus that he will depart. He is too 
 small a price for pork. “And he entered into a 
 ship, and passed over.” But he had stood at 
 the door and knocked. 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 89 
 
 It is possible to overdo and underdo. The 
 ordinary pastor is supposed to have some wit. 
 The temptation of the congenial is always with 
 us, of course, but giving the whole parish 
 its rights, relaxing with the congenial, is rule 
 enough. A pastor is foolish to make a drudge 
 impression. A treadmill pastorate is no pas¬ 
 torate. It is rarely wise to call when ill or 
 weary. One will get into the hospital often 
 enough without carrying it around with him. 
 It is very possible to find pastoral duties largely 
 enjoyable. When one reads that Jesus “went 
 about doing good,” he feels his Master was 
 delighted with every minute of it. The Edenic 
 picture of the Lord God, “walking in the garden 
 in the cool of the day,” is a happy one. The 
 Hebrew read it as the “breeze of the day.” The 
 pastor should never forget that he is to go about 
 as an inspiration. Neither perspiration nor 
 desperation is called for. A breeze is another 
 matter. If the cool of the day is not in his soul, 
 a visit at the beach or in the mountains, or near 
 the feet of the Eternal Quiet, is the prescrip¬ 
 tion. The sense of toil and burden is not of the 
 five senses with the pastor. He is to be effi¬ 
 ciently good. 
 
 Better than all, the Good Shepherd is 
 shepherd of his own. The sheep are his sheep. 
 He knows them one by one, and name by name. 
 
90 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 No father loses his child in his family. Each is 
 
 */ 
 
 ever of the flock, though called to another fold. 
 In the fold of the upper skies, his heart still 
 claims its own. So it happens no pastor should 
 get over anxious as to his particular fold. He 
 might get into a place that is not his own. 
 Whether his parish is large or small, he must be 
 at home. It is woe to him that cannot belong, 
 As rapidly as possible, one should bring his 
 people to a sense of obligation toward him. 
 Illness, and trouble, and joy, weddings and 
 funerals, special functions of any sort, will 
 find the good pastor not very far away. 
 The sense of loyalty to a stated pastor is a 
 good running start, but one is not a pastor 
 till his person has gently crowded aside his 
 office. 
 
 Especially as one has children born of his 
 loins, as his voice calls, and his hand leads some 
 darkened soul to light, will he come to feel he is 
 shepherd of his own. The family feeling in a 
 church is a priceless treasure. A band of good 
 people the writer knows has called itself “The 
 Church of the Family Circle.” Church love is a 
 rarer gem than church pride. This latter, it is 
 suspected, is sometimes paste. When people 
 linger along the aisles as if loth to leave each 
 other and the Father’s house, white angels slip 
 aside in tears, and a softer sweeter music sings 
 
THE SHEPHERD CHRIST 
 
 91 
 
 their joy. The informal thing is usually the 
 real thing. 
 
 It is commonly a mistake to lengthen a 
 pastorate when any considerable number of 
 people are weary over it. It is a peculiar 
 mentality that is so affected, to be sure, but 
 these queer bodies do not grow less with time. 
 The trouble is, the family feeling breaks up, and 
 the few distress the many. The average church 
 would wisely double its Official Board. The 
 burden sweetens the bother. To belong, to be 
 at home, is a vital atmosphere about a church, 
 and great prices may well be paid for it. Simon 
 Magus is not so great in more of a crowd. The 
 frequent habit of building choirs with money 
 and voices, rather than with souls in white 
 raiment, works large damage. Even good 
 music should not break up the family. The good 
 shepherd will be shepherd of his own. 
 
 “We lean on others as we walk 
 Life’s twilight path, with pitfalls strewn, 
 
 And ’twere an idle boast to talk 
 Of treading that dim path alone.” 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 It is hardly wise to take it for granted that the 
 pastor is a good man. It was an apostle who 
 dreaded that he might become a castaway. 
 
 The modern minister works no harder nor for 
 longer hours than his brother of the olden times. Re 
 does work at more things. He has more fingers on 
 his hands. It is his task to see that they do not 
 strangle his soul. 
 
 It is a pitif ul hour when one finds his people leave 
 him alone. It tells him what he is. 
 
 The priest and the Levite were not loafing. They 
 were not hard-hearted. The man among thieves 
 might be looked after later. They were ridden of 
 their routine. 
 
 One cannot find a case of bad manners in all the 
 personal work of Jesus. One does not cease to be a 
 gentleman that he turns saint. 
 
 Men do not laugh at their feelings and grow wise. 
 The head and hands of the world are forever in 
 debt to its heart. 
 
 There may be genuine kindness in a sermon with 
 a whip. 
 
 A pastor is foolish to make a drudge impression. 
 A treadmill pastorate is no pastorate. 
 
 One is not a pastor till his person has gently 
 crowded aside his office. 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CULTURAL CHRIST 
 
 It is probably the common thought that God 
 reveals himself because he cares to. He 
 chooses to speak. He might choose to be 
 silent. It is the better concept that he could not 
 be dumb. Of Infinite justice, he cannot live 
 to himself. Of Infinite love, he must love 
 outside. As any normal woman aches to get 
 her fingers on a baby, so God wearies for other 
 than himself. God is of infinite power. Simply 
 to have and hold would be to such an one ennui 
 and stagnation. Infinity caged is a contra¬ 
 diction in terms. It is said of a poet, “He 
 lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” 
 The inventor contrives from the cradle. An 
 aesthetic body likes flowers, music, rhythm, 
 beauty before he can tell why. So God ex¬ 
 presses himself, being God. Thus men have 
 wondered if even matter is not eternal. It 
 may be more than incidental that a Hebrew 
 word in Genesis for “create,” means to cut, 
 fashion, shape into form. When God speaks it 
 is from the overflow. He enjoys it beyond any 
 wTlo hear. Who has not marked the profuseness 
 
 93 
 
94 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 of nature? Men call it waste. If it did no more 
 than envisage the unimaginable wealth of God, 
 it is not waste. We simply do not follow. 
 
 We shall see that God reveals himself in 
 Christ as Ruler and King. The soul of order and 
 of law, he could not create an irresponsible 
 world. Things might happen. Being created 
 intelligently, nothing happens. So with in¬ 
 telligent beings on hand, God holds himself 
 under bonds for speech with them. The most 
 utterly responsible being in all the universe is 
 the God of the universe. It is thought and said 
 that the source of law is lawless. “The king can 
 do no wrong.” The wiser thought is, an 
 infinity of love, wisdom, power, justice is carried 
 into a superlative responsibility. “He that 
 teacheth men knowledge, shall he not know?” 
 “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” 
 “God is love.” These superlatives are to say 
 that God holds himself to a superlative standard. 
 He is as good as we are, and better. A man of 
 genuine veracity needs no whip about his head. 
 His disposition is a thousand whips. A woman’s 
 white soul is safer in her own keeping than in 
 that of “all the king’s horses and all the king’s 
 men.” So the earth has rest in its God. He will 
 forever do the best, for the best of reasons: 
 he is the best. 
 
 What greater incentive to law-abiding among 
 
THE CULTURAL CHRIST 
 
 95 
 
 men than this conformity to standard in God? 
 How utterly heinous and hideous are thievery, 
 lying, licentiousness, in such a vision! It is this 
 that makes the ordinary citizen impatient with 
 an insistent pacifism. How one can inherit and 
 enjoy all the benefits of good government, his 
 very life and belongings conditioned thereby, and 
 for any reason refuse to go any reasonable limit 
 in defense thereof, he cannot see. The man who 
 recently said, “The pacifist denies that there 
 is anything on earth worth fighting for,” put it 
 exactlv. That for conscience sake, and with the 
 great God in his eyes, a man should write 
 himself down a nonentitv, is an unthinkable 
 situation to coordinate with sanity. 
 
 When we come to consider God as Teacher or 
 Revealer, this line of reasoning is illuminative. 
 In the early verses of John’s Gospel, it is master¬ 
 ful. “In the beginning was the Word, and the 
 Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 
 “The same,” the Word, “was in the beginning 
 with God.” “All things were made by him,” 
 the Word. “Without him,” the Word, “was 
 not anything made that was made,” “In him 
 was life”—in the Word. “The life was the light 
 of men.” The Word was the light of men. 
 “The light,” the Word, “shineth in darkness; 
 and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” 
 
 Of course w T e know that “'The Word” is a 
 
96 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 New-Testament name for Christ. But names, 
 like other words, are signs of ideas. It is greatly 
 more so in the Bible than in ordinary modern 
 usage. The idea of revealing, of making known 
 something hidden, is the vital concept in any 
 word. Thoughts are secrets except for words. 
 Men think in words. The mind is a Sahara 
 except for words. Jesus called 4 ‘The Word,” as 
 an arbitrary appellation, only a handle to hold 
 him with, is against all Scripture practice. No 
 Bible name for Jesus is insignificant. How rich, 
 then, those long-weighed sayings of the Patmos 
 seer, as to Jesus the Word! Whatever other, 
 he was surely the Cultural Christ. 
 
 If “In the beginning was the Word,” then, 
 Biblewise, culture is of the very philosophy of 
 existence. We not only live and learn but we 
 live to learn. “The heavens declare the glory 
 of God.” “Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
 night unto night showeth knowledge. . . . 
 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and 
 their words to the end of the world.” “When 
 the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by 
 nature the things contained in the law, these, 
 having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” 
 “God, who at sundry times and in divers man¬ 
 ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto 
 us by his Son.” “I must preach the kingdom of 
 
THE CULTURAL CHRIST 
 
 97 
 
 God . . . for therefore am I sent.” “We 
 know that thou art a teacher come from God.” 
 “He opened his mouth, and taught them, 
 saying.” Thus in numberless emphatic forms 
 the great Book draws the picture of the cultural 
 Christ. “The lord thy God will raise up unto 
 thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, . . . like 
 unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” 
 
 That “The Word was with God” is to prepare 
 the mind for the larger concept that “The 
 Word was God.” As God is love, so with John 
 God is culture. All knowledge is sacred. There 
 is no secular learning. The scientist is also a 
 priest. The great world is a temple. The soul 
 of a man is interwoven with his brain. It is not 
 disputable that religion in the earth has lost 
 immeasurably by narrowing itself. The Jews 
 coolly set the whole Gentile world to one side, 
 one man giving law to ninety-nine. Romanism 
 interpreted all religion in its own terms. It is 
 hardly within a hundred years that Christendom 
 has been planetary in its concept. The heathen 
 w^ere all lost. And they were the vast majority. 
 Calvinism narrowed religion to the elect. A 
 recent great deliverance by a great man insists 
 with emphasis that the one word, “redemption,” 
 is the great dominant word in life and religion. 
 Then more than all other the world is a hospital. 
 Then the native air of men is distress. Then 
 
98 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 human life is an emergency. Yet in the 
 beginning, it was the Word that was with God. 
 Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, surely 
 has other air than the anaesthetic. Human 
 life must be at school beyond common belief. 
 “And the Word was God.” God is essentially 
 knowledge. That 4 ‘God is love” we do not 
 object. We think it a wonderful emphasis on 
 the kindness of the Eternal. So that 44 The 
 Word was God” is also an emphasis on the 
 wisdom of the Eternal. Everything other that 
 God may be is shot through with love. We 
 trust his justice that it is kindly. We are glad 
 of his power, for it is never cruel. He is im¬ 
 mutable; His love will never change or pass. 
 As truly as God is love, so truly is he wisdom. 
 44 And the Word was God.” The brightness of 
 his glory, the express image of his person, is 
 the Cultural Christ. 
 
 “The same was in the beginning with God.” 
 Why does John emphasize what he so lately 
 said? For the simple reason that men are so 
 likely to forget. A negligible Christ has been 
 the sorrow of the world. A Christ who was but 
 a man, a Christ who was only a teacher, a 
 Christ who did not atone; a Christ of ritual, 
 tradition, creed, ecclesiasticism against all 
 these true and partial concepts John sets his 
 superlative Christ who was nothing less than 
 
THE CULTURAL CHRIST 
 
 99 
 
 God. “In the beginning/’ from the very 
 earliest hour where we need to think, he was 
 forever God. “The same was in the beginning 
 with God.” For a large Christianity there 
 must be forever a large Christ. The Cultural 
 Christ is never negligible. 
 
 “All things were made by him; and without 
 him was not anything made that was made.” 
 The Cultural Christ was the Creator. All 
 creation has a cultural philosophy. That 
 creation antedated sin this cultural philosophy 
 is primary. It is still primary with sin in the 
 world. God did not drop his wide designs that 
 men went wrong. He did not go on a waiting 
 list. The earth is a school to-day as certainly 
 as a shop, a hospital, and a court. The earth 
 is a shop, a court, and a school more fundamen¬ 
 tally than it is a hospital. Were there any need 
 for a dominant Christ, it would be the Cultural 
 Christ. 
 
 What a vision is this of a unified universe! 
 Unified around the Cultural Christ: all things 
 made by him; nothing made without him; one 
 author, one world, one humanity, one phi¬ 
 losophy, one purpose, one destiny, one revealing 
 of the only God. What a vision splendid that 
 there is nothing insignificant! “Without him 
 was not anything made that was made.” 
 Without the “Word,” the meaningful thing, is 
 
100 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 there nothing that is. It was poetry in Shake¬ 
 speare, but it is the coldest, most inescapable 
 fact that there are 4 ‘books in the running 
 brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every¬ 
 thing.” 
 
 “In him was life; and the life was the light of 
 men.” It is the life eternal, the life of God in 
 the soul, that is in mind. Vegetable life, brute 
 life, ordinary physical life are at the side. The 
 life that is the light of men, that interprets 
 every other, that is to man his superlative 
 glory, that, worked out universally, would make 
 a heaven out of earth—this is the life that we 
 are to consider. That, says the apostle who 
 understood his Master better than anv other, 
 is possible only through the Word, the Cultural 
 Christ. There is no piety without brains. The 
 frequent contrast between the emotions and the 
 intellect, prayer and study, is simply time and 
 energy wasted. Prayer is study and study is 
 prayer. There is no choice between hands and 
 feet, no quarrel between the senses, no friction 
 of the bush and rose. The truth has a thousand 
 teachers. 
 
 These words are written with the profound 
 conviction that the Cultural Christ has been 
 woefully underestimated. Precisely as John 
 says, “The light sliineth in darkness; and the 
 darkness comprehendeth it not.” There is no 
 
THE CULTURAL CHRIST 
 
 101 
 
 ethical note here, no word of distress, simply 
 the incitement to seek the Cultural Christ. 
 The loaves and fishes, the cry of pain, the 
 march of the race are ever near us, but closer 
 than all is the call to learn. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 A man of genuine veracity needs no whip about his 
 head. A woman’s white soul is safer in her own 
 keeping than in the care of all the king’s horses and 
 all of the king’s men. 
 
 All knowledge is sacred. There is no secular 
 learning. The scientist is a priest. The great world 
 is a temple. The soul of man is interwoven with his 
 brain. 
 
 The mighty God did not drop his wide designs 
 when men went wrong. He did not go on a waiting 
 list. The earth is a school to-day as certainly as a 
 hospital, a shop and a court. 
 
 There is no choice between hands and feet, no 
 quarrel of the senses, no friction of bush and rose. 
 Each is a teacher of the truth. Prayer is study and 
 study is prayer. One’s library is a temple. 
 
 Simply to have and to hold would be ennui to 
 such an one as God. 
 
 No Bible name for Jesus is insignificant. 
 
 Religion in the earth has lost immeasurably by 
 narrowing itself. 
 
 102 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 
 
 That Jesus of Nazareth is a great teacher in 
 the earth is nowhere in argument. His Deity, 
 miracles, atoning are an arena. His culture 
 is a throne. There are many masters among 
 men, but the Rabbi of Israel holds his place. 
 Human history is not history in silence with 
 his name. He may be doubted. He has been 
 antagonized. He cannot be overlooked. 
 
 Teaching was of his mission. It was not 
 incidental. It was mandatory. “He went 
 about teaching.” “He opened his mouth and 
 taught them.” “We know that thou art a 
 teacher come from God.” As he came to 
 preach, to toil, to save, to give his life a ransom 
 for many, so he came “to teach the way of God 
 in truth.” “To this end was I born, and for 
 this cause came I into the world, that I should 
 bear witness unto the truth.” To teach was 
 not a happening with the Nazarene. It went 
 with his day’s work. 
 
 The pedagogy of the Nazarene was frankly 
 spiritual. He was a teacher come from God. 
 His classes study to a purpose of his own. His 
 
 103 
 
104 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 curriculum should be judged in light of that 
 intent. Does a school live up to its charter, we 
 do not criticize. No cult has yet arisen the 
 earth dares to substitute for the Jesus pro¬ 
 jection. It is a universal suspicion that failure 
 to resolutely apply it is the wrong and sorrow 
 of the planet. 
 
 From thought of place, time, and condition, 
 the woman of Samaria was shut up alone with 
 God, as being Spirit, and whose worship was 
 in spirit and in truth. Nicodemus came to 
 Jesus on the level of scholarship. He would 
 learn more, know more. To his amazement, he 
 heard he was to be more. “Except a man be 
 born again, born of the Spirit, he cannot see 
 the kingdom of God.” Would men make him 
 king, Jesus hides himself. Must he have 
 money, the mouth of a fish is his bank so 
 negligible is wealth. Priest, ruler, rabbi all 
 meet him on the horizontal. His kingdom is 
 not of this -world. 
 
 The pedagogy of the Nazarene was psycho¬ 
 logical. Our latest half century is wondrous 
 proud in its final mapping of the human mind 
 according to gray matter. Psycholog } 7 is our 
 great last word. The laboratory of Jesus 
 nineteen centuries since was its forecast. The 
 wonder is we find the secret so late. The world 
 of the year One, read success and life in terms 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 105 
 
 of kings and combinings. Our world tells us 
 the whole business is only a convenience. 
 Democracy, the rule of the ruled, is now the 
 wisdom of the earth. No one force under 
 heaven or among men has so brought about this 
 end as the gospel of the Nazarene. Does the 
 individual do well, the world is safe. The 
 message already looks immortal. Not long 
 since a man of many millions died, as he had 
 hoped, a poor man. He had succeeded in 
 giving away nine tenths of it all. And it was 
 Jesus who said a man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of things possessed. Just now the 
 ideals of the world are a league of nations, an 
 end to war, a square deal for men, a living 
 chance for immortality. It was Jesus who said 
 the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart were 
 the salt of the earth and the light of the world. 
 A psychology that could endure and conquer 
 through twenty centuries is probably not far 
 wrong. 
 
 So the pedagogy of the Nazarene is utterly 
 human. 4 'The common people heard him 
 gladly.' 5 The magnet is not far to find. The 
 high level of his utterances had its due weight. 
 The essentially large outlines of the mental 
 man everywhere respond to large appeal. The 
 eloquence of the red Indian, the seafaring man, 
 the mountaineer is illustrative. The helpful 
 
106 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 sympathy with pain and trouble was no small 
 factor. Men feel as deeply as they think. The 
 neglect of caste would attract. Caste is 
 artificial. The human is indigenous. Rich and 
 poor, high and low, cultured and provincial, 
 men, women, and children all found their 
 interesting portion. The domestic, democratic, 
 urban, rural air gave everyone cheer to breathe. 
 The hen and chickens, broom and whip, leaven 
 and meal, sowing, reaping, building, mustard 
 seed, lilies of the field, birds of the air, thorns, 
 tares all found folks where they lived. The 
 irrepressible optimism would get response. Sin, 
 sickness, death, trouble were given a new per¬ 
 spective. The whole man and his whole life 
 so intrigued, one would be an oddity did he not 
 somewhere stop, look, and listen. That the 
 antagonism of sin was never met by com¬ 
 promise, but always by conflict, would not 
 drive so much as draw. There is little more 
 human than the wrong. The human teacher 
 with a human message, and all for human good, 
 one should wonder there was ever an indiffer¬ 
 ence. 
 
 The pedagogy of the Nazarene was con¬ 
 structive. “X am not come to destroy, but to 
 fulfill.” There was no good thing he could not 
 use. He built his gospel out of the planet. 
 The frequent concept, even among good men, 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 107 
 
 of a disappointed God, waiting, finger in mouth, 
 till another age and better environment shall 
 fulfill his will, is as far from the fact as it can 
 well get. ‘‘Known unto God are all his works 
 from the beginning of the world.” He has been 
 building every minute, adding stone to stone 
 out of all nations, under every sun. Naaman 
 the Syrian, Cornelius the Roman, the Queen of 
 Sheba, the Ethiopian eunuch all find their place 
 among the children of the light. “And there 
 shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” The 
 Jews were disappointed that Jesus would not 
 turn king and rule the Romans. He did a 
 greater thing in getting an epistle written to the 
 Romans. To call down fire is easy. To save is 
 task. Hammer and trowel are mightier than 
 the sword. Herod hoped to see some miracle. 
 He saw how a good man could die, and conquer 
 fate. The very apostles could dream no higher 
 than a Palestinian kingdom, a pocket empire 
 for a handful of Jews. Jesus taught and lived 
 after such fashion that no one on the planet 
 finally escapes him. “He reigns where’er the 
 sun doth his successive journeys run.” His 
 house is builded on a rock. 
 
 It is rather strange the original impression of 
 the Sermon on the Mount is one rarely remem¬ 
 bered. “He spake as one having authority.” 
 The pedagogy of the Nazarene was author- 
 
108 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 itative. That so very many people have good 
 great words for what Jesus said, and will not 
 worship him as the Son of God, is either an 
 idiosyncrasy or the sign of a hard heart. Men 
 ran to him or from him, as they faced him in 
 the long ago. There was only one Judas in 
 twelve, and he could hang himself easier than 
 to come back. It was bitter weeping that 
 Peter did. It was doubting Thomas who came 
 to cry, “My Lord and my God.” “Never man 
 spake like this man.” The Son of God was one 
 without a brother. Talking with him, men 
 faced their Judge, their King. So we under¬ 
 stand certain phenomenal matters on record. 
 “And no man was able to answer him a word, 
 neither durst any man from that day forth ask 
 him any more questions.” “But he passing 
 through the midst of them went his way.” 
 “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, 
 except it were given thee from above.” Jesus 
 was significantly the Master. His word is law. 
 
 Just where the teaching of Jesus ran, and its 
 editing began, we do not always know. We look 
 at the prophet of Nazareth through the eyes of 
 his reporters. The mightiest single literary force 
 among men did His only recorded writing on the 
 ground. What we have in the New Testament, 
 precisely, is not what Jesus said, but what some 
 half dozen good people say he said. The 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 109 
 
 Nazarene was strangely careless about his 
 memorials. Possibly he was strangely careful. 
 It may be that poor humans lose by being so 
 mightily thoughtful about themselves. Did 
 they let their friends go gunning for their 
 little high places among their kind, they might 
 find them sooner, and keep them longer. 
 The record is, the Rabbi of Israel left his 
 fame to the mercies of the dust and the 
 treacherous memories of men. When we con¬ 
 sider the pedagogy of the Nazarene we may 
 stray ere aware into the pedagogy of the 
 reporter. The unutterable thing is that the 
 Teacher of Nazareth was entirely content with 
 the risk. His pedagogy was perspicuous, 
 transparent, obvious. It would flame in any 
 lantern. He was so sure, did he give it time, the 
 old earth would be kind to him. And kind 
 beyond all measure it has been. 
 
 “The head that once was crowned with thorns, 
 
 Is crowned with glory now.” 
 
 The critics of Bible criticism have not always 
 been friendly to their Lord. He has entered 
 their house, to be woimded, again and again. 
 Were Jesus as nervous as his followers, betimes, 
 he could neither teach, nor toil, nor rule, nor 
 save the world. Is he veritably the Son of God, 
 Christian polemics are invincible. Apologetics 
 
110 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 and apologies are two things. When we learn 
 the pedagogy of the Nazarene is safe in any 
 hands, we shall know the quiet of the skies. 
 If the geocentric system of the universe, a 
 creative week, a universal flood are not longer 
 considered vital to the Christian faith, there 
 may be things yet other to keep them company. 
 It is little to the credit of good men in any age 
 to be recorded as densely, stubbornly, opposed 
 to what turns out to be the truth. It is not the 
 magic of the Bible that is important but the 
 magic of the truth. It is the Bible itself that is 
 committed to the saying, “We can do nothing 
 against the truth but for the truth.” One who 
 is himself the truth may be trusted with its 
 campaign. 
 
 That the teaching of Jesus should be meas¬ 
 urably misunderstood is inevitable. That it 
 comes to us second-hand is only a beginning. 
 As always happily happens, its reporters differ 
 among themselves and its very first appearance 
 is a complexity. The last thing the masters of 
 human learning ever do is to agree. This copy 
 of the printer comes through differences of race 
 and training. It comes over long years. It 
 filters through varying languages. It is forever 
 at the mercy of its versions. The prejudices of 
 self-interest deflect it early and late. The 
 varieties of Christian thought and creed and 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 111 
 
 practice are exactly to be expected. The truth 
 is the only thing more nearly immortal than 
 mistakes. That the Nazarene did not provide 
 against them is a fair sign they are not fatal. 
 The gospel is no flowering under glass, tender, 
 exotic, but a hardy weatherwise child of the 
 open air, and native to the storm. It does not 
 die of its misreadings. 
 
 All this is so because the pedagogy of the 
 Nazarene was intended to be understood. Its 
 vogue is its dynamic. It thrives that it is 
 transparent. It blooms of the limelight. It is 
 cradled at high noon. So the miracles. They 
 were called signs and wonders. They did not 
 live for themselves. They illumined. Unlike 
 the modern variety quite too often, they did 
 not need explaining and a wondrous patience. 
 That men might know, the lame, the paralyzed, 
 the very dead arose and walked. They did not 
 questioningly feel a little better. So the Christ 
 persistency and emphasis. Jesus literally wasted 
 words. Day and night, to few and many, 
 accepted and disbelieved, over wise and foolish, 
 indifferent and contentious, he flung broadcast 
 the golden seed of harvest. The birds of the air, 
 the thorns, the tares, the rust, took toll, but 
 never more than toll. With the early and the 
 latter rain, the thirty, sixty, and hundred¬ 
 fold held mighty tales of the sower who went 
 
112 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 forth to sow. So also the wealth of illustration. 
 Doubtless the separate teachings of Jesus, 
 stated didactically, might be held in less than a 
 dozen Bible pages. Preachers and pedagogues 
 are wary of repetition. Jesus taught his lessons 
 over and over, and repreached his sermons 
 without economy or dread. Preachers and 
 pedagogues relatively illustrate rarely. It is 
 forced upon them that they really know so 
 little, and feel so feebly the force of what they 
 do know. Jesus had at his command a universe 
 of his own, and was a perfect medium for 
 ready transmission of its lessons to any il¬ 
 lumining end. Had he not been limited by 
 human incapacity to appreciate, the New 
 Testament would be a volume to which men 
 would say their prayers. That it is so far a 
 fetish as it is, may be a warning. 
 
 That the Holy Spirit, and all the time this 
 side the Day of Judgment, was left to guide us 
 unto all truth, is significant. It could only so be 
 borne. What sort of sermon Jesus would 
 preach to angels may not be imagined. As an 
 illustrator the Rabbi of Israel has never been 
 equaled. That his sayings have such a clientage 
 is in a measure interpreted here. The human 
 race is at best a kindergarten. It was a wise 
 man that grappled for it with pictures and 
 stories. He was hungry to be understood. So 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE US 
 
 also the wondrous white life. How very much 
 human wisdom is hidden in its casing of clay! 
 The teachings of Jesus shone through such pearl 
 and diamond beauty as men could never invent 
 nor obtain. No discount that he was incon¬ 
 sistent; no disappointment that his vision was 
 short, or his hand feeble, or his soul stupid. The 
 things he said, he was. The silent sermon was 
 the one men not rarely heard. When cynical 
 Roman Pilate, after search, could find no 
 fault, we are suspicious none other might. And 
 Pilate cared only for the lantern. The finding 
 of the ages is of the light. 
 
 Very strangely the pedagogy of the Nazarene 
 was cosmopolitan. That it dominates the world 
 to-day is both proof and emphasis. It has kept 
 up with the times like food, and sleep, and sun 
 fight, and love. One may speak with signs 
 under any sky. So Jesus will draw a smile 
 from any sort of man. Yet Jesus was a Jew: 
 never more than one of a hundred other men. 
 Perhaps a hundred miles from the manger 
 where he was born was the widest extent of his 
 travels. A carpenter going with the job does 
 not cross oceans. As to culture, the average 
 Hebrew boy was his equal. Like other boys, he 
 asked questions to learn. He was fatherless in 
 much of the plastic years. He never married. 
 He never grew old. He was of Galilee, the 
 
114 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 provincial corner of his fatherland. He was 
 humbly poor, living close to the level of hand- 
 to-mouth. His own mother went out of the 
 family when he died. Yet the sayings of this 
 Prophet of the byway have gone down the 
 highways of the world like the triumph of a 
 king. It is of the wonders of the world. 
 
 His scale of concept does not suffer when the 
 world is all out of doors. The modern universe 
 is confessedly immeasurable: the sides of the 
 house are all out. Two suns lately discovered 
 are said to be seventy-five times the size of our 
 quite infantile luminary. And our now dis¬ 
 counted sun is seven hundred and fifty times 
 the mass of his whole solar system. Yet Jesus 
 Christ was never so little discounted as to-day. 
 It has never been forgotten that Wesley said, 
 “The world is my parish.” Yet Jesus said 
 eighteen centuries ago, “The field is the world.” 
 Probably his world was the world of the 
 Ptolemaic concept, geocentric, its outer reach 
 what was in sight, but he took it all in mind, 
 past, present, future, end. We enlarge his 
 world. We cannot enlarge his grasp of the 
 world. There is nothing this side of God he 
 bows to. The neighbors said he made himself 
 equal to God and sent him out of the world 
 because of it. And it looks suspiciously as if this 
 cosmopolitan outlookwas thetruthof theEternal. 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 115 
 
 There was never a pedagogy so venturesome. 
 Only the straightest truth saves the Galilsean 
 from being adjudged insane, fanatic, liar, or 
 plain fool, by every standard of thinking men. 
 He tells the truth so many times, unques¬ 
 tionably, it looks doubtful if He ever lies. He 
 says so much that works out well that it is a 
 strain to class him insane or fanatic. His wis¬ 
 dom is so respectable that one brands his own 
 sanity to call him fool. The roster of his wild 
 sayings reads like an asylum or the throne of 
 God. “I and my Father are one.” “Lo, I am 
 w T ith you alway.” “I am the resurrection and 
 the life. He that believeth in me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” 
 “Which of vou convinceth me of sin?” “The 
 Son of man hath powder on earth to forgive 
 sins.” ) “All power is given unto me in heaven 
 and in earth.” 
 
 The world is so familiar with these sayings it 
 forgets their impudence, impossibleness, de¬ 
 ceptiveness, devilish wickedness are they not so. 
 There is no such choice laid upon man under 
 the sun as when he is asked to believe or reject 
 Jesus Christ. His brain must whirl or worship. 
 It is no wonder plain faith is made the secret of 
 all religion. It is no wonder such a Christ will 
 have of every man all or nothing. He acts 
 
116 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 precisely as if an ideal God were at his desk 
 and on his job. The risk he runs has nothing 
 like it under the sun. The pedagogy of the 
 Nazarene is radical beyond all compare or 
 measure. 
 
 The pedagogy of the Nazarene was in much 
 amazing. “They were astonished at his doc¬ 
 trine.” In this one thing his ministers may not 
 emulate him. One goes a long way may he 
 meet with God. He spoke in parables: their 
 longevity is their defense. His pedagogy was 
 profound. Its want of pretense deceived many: 
 he was too simple to be great. That a rich man 
 could hardly enter the kingdom of God, that 
 any man must be born again, that he did not 
 ceremonially wash before eating, that he 
 talked at length with a woman, that he would 
 raise the dead were great surprises. The words 
 of Jesus by the record astounded the onlookers 
 more than did his deeds. We have so familiar¬ 
 ized ourselves with the bewildering that we 
 forget the adventure. It was a commanding 
 element in the hearing given the “teacher come 
 from God.” 
 
 Of course the supernatural dynamic deliber¬ 
 ately used by Jesus with his words could not fail 
 of a large result. The miracles were not an end 
 in themselves. They were propaganda pro¬ 
 fessedly; not harvest but tools. “That ye may 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 117 
 
 know that the Son of man hath power on earth 
 to forgive sins, (Then saith he to the sick of 
 the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go into 
 thine house.” “We know thou art a teacher 
 come from God, for no man can do these 
 miracles that thou doest except God be with 
 him.” It is not unlikely that a more utter 
 devotion to the Christ message may bring back 
 the miracle some great day coming. No one 
 less than Jesus said, “Greater works than these 
 shall ye do; because I go unto my Father.” 
 
 To the mind of Jesus his pedagogy was 
 exhaustive. He felt he had the last word. He 
 did not give away what his short time allowed, 
 but made his years hold out till his teaching 
 was completed. Jesus died on time. He had 
 things yet to say, and men were poor for need of 
 them, but to sav them was to waste them. Thev 
 could not be borne. Later these slow scholars 
 might be guided into nothing less than all 
 truth. It is significant that in the very shadow 
 of the cross Jesus should say his teaching was 
 of his business under the sun. There is a 
 cultural Calvary. “To this end was I born, and 
 for this cause came I into the world, that I 
 should bear witness unto the truth.” The 
 atoning values of the literal cross, mighty 
 beyond words, are but a primer to the ever- 
 abiding cross of the Eternal. The sufficient 
 
118 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 cross, the real cross, is forever in the heart of 
 God. The things that happen down the ages 
 are its gospel. By Jesus Christ came the 
 truth. He said, “I am the truth.” He was full 
 of truth. His disciples were to know the truth. 
 We do not with regret consider that the lesson 
 of Jesus was rudely broken off by certain 
 blinded Jews, and we grope weakly in the good 
 way where we might have run wild. We run 
 wild. The truth has made us free. The last 
 w^ord Jesus might wisely say was said. The 
 lesson was done. The chapter needed no 
 appendix nor supplement. The word of Jesus 
 that he had finished his work is the end of the 
 argument. 
 
 In the light of this emphasis we may under¬ 
 stand the not infrequent injunctions of Jesus 
 to secrecy as to certain matters. The day of 
 final judgment is hidden in the heart of the 
 Father in heaven. Transfiguration is held in 
 escrow till the Son of man be risen from the 
 dead. The disciples for a time were not even 
 to say that Jesus was the Christ. The leper 
 must tell no man, but go at once to the priest. 
 The insane man must say nothing but at home 
 and to his friends. The mastery of the Great 
 Teacher was upon his message, and his world 
 was to have it after his own fashion. The com¬ 
 ing Comforter, the Holy Spirit, was his own 
 
PEDAGOGY OF THE NAZARENE 119 
 
 coming. He was not leaving his beloved 
 comfortless. The lesson was to go right on. 
 The posthumous gospel was of the pedagogy of 
 the Nazarene. The school of Christ is no ill- 
 endowed institution of restricted curriculum, 
 uncertain future, and doubtful, disappointing 
 prestige. It is the one authentic University 
 of the Universe. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 What we have in the New Testament, precisely, 
 is not what Jesus said, but what some half dozen 
 good people say he said. The Nazarene was queerly 
 careless about his memorials. Possibly he was 
 queerly careful. 
 
 The Rabbi of Israel left his fame to the mercies of 
 the dust and the treacherous memories of men. He 
 was so sure that, give it time, the old earth would be 
 kind to him. 
 
 The last thing the masters of human learning ever 
 do is to agree. 
 
 The truth is the one thing more nearly immortal 
 than mistakes. 
 
 The gospel is no flowering under glass, tender, 
 exotic, but a hardy weatherwise child of the open 
 air, and native to the storm. 
 
 To call down fire is easy. To save is a task. Ham¬ 
 mer and trowel outcut the sword. 
 
 The Kindergarten gets its kingdom in the utterly 
 natural proclivities of the child. He thinks he plays 
 and learns. So the gospel pleases the big children 
 of the earth and they climb the skies. 
 
 120 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 
 
 No man gets on without thrills. As a bird is 
 built for the sky, so men are fashioned for 
 fascinations. They die of the commonplace. 
 After some sort the millions of the race all march 
 to music. In the penitentiary hard labor is a 
 benediction: prisoners go wild for things to do: 
 final resort, in penalty, is to the solitary. Out 
 of the penitentiary illusioned and disillusioned 
 multitudes cry the blessedness of work. The 
 boy hunts up adventure. Men seek wealth, 
 build empires, go to war. One affair is named as 
 “woman’s whole existence.” We cannot get 
 on without thrills. 
 
 A thrill is a window into one’s soul. It is 
 more: it is his measure: the size of him is in his 
 frown or smile. Weight, and urge, and destiny, 
 all stand naked in his dreams. His longings are 
 the man. Dying with all his music in him, he 
 is still a musician. The artist plays with colors 
 from the cradle. Columbus could not be small: 
 he had worlds in his eyes. Napoleon was 
 inevitably restless. The earth had things 
 
 121 
 
122 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 undone. He died on Saint Helena less of cancer 
 than the cage. 
 
 A great unrest, and the painter threw his 
 dream upon the canvas to trouble or delight 
 the earth. Fourteen long years of toil, but the 
 witching eyes of Rachel were upon him, and 
 they were as few days. Roosevelt writes his 
 Winning of the West, and we know his soul is 
 hot with the march of empire. A daughter of 
 the famous Beecher family gets heartbreak 
 over it, and Uncle Tom s Cabin falls about the 
 ears of slavery, to the speeding of its undoing. 
 Thrills are the soul of deeds forever. 
 
 Among all books the world is agreed there is 
 A Book. The Bible is a page of the auto¬ 
 biography of God. The Bible is a schedule of 
 the universe. To human history the Bible is 
 4 ‘The House of the Interpreter.” The Magna 
 Charta of all religion is the Bible. Do we take 
 its word, the Bible is the doorway to immor¬ 
 tality. To lose the Bible is to beggar the world. 
 It is surely an upper sky this parish of the Bible. 
 And in this rare air we mutter of thrills of the 
 Bible. The breeze of “The Book” has blown 
 upon us. 
 
 In another hour one might wisely consider 
 The Thrill of the Bible. There is a marvelous 
 unity in this uncompanioned book. It had been 
 hardly more manifest if stricken out at a blow. 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 123 
 
 As with a man its body has one soul. As with 
 the day it sees one sun. It has never seemed 
 strange to call it a book of God; the book of 
 God. It whispers, rumbles, moans, and sings, 
 of God. Its very commonplace holds the hem 
 of his garment; the dust of its chronicles is the 
 passing of his feet. 
 
 Whenever and by whomsoever written, the 
 sea level of the Pentateuch is forever the 
 concept of God. It was not accident that the 
 first Genesis use of its documents should be one 
 that mentions God more times than it has 
 verses. “In the beginning God.” As a lover 
 with his own, it screams the only name. 
 The book of Job, of like air with the Pentateuch, 
 is also a gospel of God. That striking volume, 
 Ecclesiastes, takes God and his commandments 
 as “conclusion of the whole matter.” The 
 Psalms are songs to God. The Prophets, Major 
 and Minor, are Prophets of God. “God who at 
 sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
 time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 
 hath in these last days spoken unto us by His 
 Son.” All human history is a desk of the 
 Eternal. Ye “search the scriptures; for in 
 them ye think ye have eternal life, and they 
 are they that testify of me.” To the Nazarene 
 all Scripture was speech of God. One uses 
 neither rhetoric nor faith to say the one thrill 
 
124 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 of the Bible is its vision of God: plain truth 
 answers. The world vogue of the Bible has no 
 secret like the vast conviction that it is a word 
 of God. God has a way of getting Bibles 
 written, and one more is small venture. 
 
 With every emphasis on the Bible as a unit, 
 however, it can never be overlooked that it is 
 also a diversity, a combining, a compilation. 
 The Bible is both a book and a library. Forty 
 streams or more ran into its sea. Somewhere 
 up among the hills a spring broke loose in the 
 life of a man, and he must tell his tale. Out 
 among the tides it was found there were tales. 
 There had been more springs than one. There 
 is not only a thrill of the Bible, but as truly 
 there are thrills of the Bible. In the mind of 
 each writer, or editor, and behind each output, 
 was a master mood that by and by determined 
 the deed. As we have seen, the Bible in the 
 blaze of its thrill has neither master nor mate. 
 It will be found incomparable in the light of its 
 thrills. A clue to the various authorships has 
 worth and charm, as surely as the key to their 
 wedded handiwork. The Book will shine in its 
 books. 
 
 The value of this suggestion we feel easily, for, 
 as is often noted, in many cases the key is in 
 the door. Not a few of the Bible writers say 
 in so many words the things that were at their 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 125 
 
 heart. We begin where we neither study nor 
 infer. We get first into rooms a blind man 
 might enter. It will encourage us when by and 
 by we find the key is lost. 
 
 The latest considerable book of the Bible is 
 the Gospel of John. To modern thinking it is 
 preeminently the soul of the Christian faith. 
 Old age, wisdom, and holiness have small room 
 for little but the inevitable. It is the young and 
 foolish and unripened who see the great in 
 the incidental. The utterly respectful estimate 
 the earth has put upon the Gospel of John has 
 had the best of reasons. The mightiest are the 
 ones the gospel itself writes down. As none 
 others, they interpret Christendom. 
 
 “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the 
 presence of his disciples, which are not written 
 in this book; but these are written, that ye 
 might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
 God; and that believing ye might have life 
 through his name.” “And there are also many 
 other things which Jesus did, the which, if 
 they should be written every one, I suppose that 
 even the world itself could not contain the books 
 that should be written.” 
 
 We understand, of course, the rights of rhet¬ 
 oric. The world could hold the books, though 
 even of such lives. The insistent fact is simply 
 that John has no brain room left, even if it is so. 
 
126 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Everything he can think of is here. His heart 
 keeps silent before God. The world is full of 
 cradles, but to the latest mother there is but 
 one. Through smiles and tears we swear that 
 it is even so. “In the name of God, Amen.” 
 There is such a thing under the sun as losing 
 patience with the truth. Of course the Lovers’ 
 Lanes of the planet are never lonely, but when 
 one man and one woman come to know the 
 neighbors are all dead, we get ready for the 
 funeral. The family has a hard time getting on 
 as it is. When the children of men are more 
 certain their Bible is a very human book they 
 will love it better. The heart of John, the 
 Beloved of his Lord, could bear no more. To 
 quiet the bounding pulses even of his eldest age 
 he must write, and we get his Gospel. 
 
 The John of Revelation is an amanuensis. He 
 writes what he is told to write. He takes 
 dictation. His thrill is the line of duty. “The 
 Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto 
 him, to shew unto his servants things which 
 must shortly come to pass; and he sent and 
 signified it by his angel unto his Servant John: 
 who bare record of the word of God, and of the 
 testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that 
 he saw.” When we remember the puzzle box 
 the book of Revelation has been, this claim of 
 John to be simply a reporter means things. 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 127 
 
 God’s world has been a puzzle box. Why 
 might not God’s Book be, just so, a puzzle box? 
 The puzzle box is a matter of size and eyes. We 
 shall see better later. The book of Revelation 
 is a book of revelation. It was not built for a 
 museum. It is a school. The face of Moses 
 could not be looked upon that he had companied 
 with God. That talking with God we do not 
 hear well, always, is not at all a wonder. We 
 shall learn to listen by and by. “And when I 
 saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid 
 his right hand upon me, saying unto me, 
 Fear not.” 
 
 The Gentile Luke, like John the apostle, also 
 leaves his key in the door. He tells why he 
 writes. “Forasmuch as many have taken in 
 hand to set forth in order a declaration of those 
 things which are most surely believed among us, 
 even as they delivered them unto us, which from 
 the beginning were eye witnesses, and ministers 
 of the word; it seemed good to me also, having 
 had perfect understanding of all things from the 
 very first, to write unto thee in order, most 
 excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know 
 the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast 
 been instructed.” In the Acts of the Apostles 
 he professedly carries ahead the former treatise 
 to his latest considerable recollection. One only 
 needs to take the beloved physician at his word, 
 
128 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 to know what masters him. He wears his heart 
 on his sleeve. The thing on his soul is the 
 credibility of the Christian faith. It is the theme 
 of all he has to say. 
 
 The apostle Peter said of Paul that he wrote 
 some things hard to understand. It was likely 
 a matter of size. Paul never said it of himself. 
 To his own mind Paul was everything other 
 than nebulous, speculative, or mystical. One 
 can usually find early exactly what he wants to 
 say. “A servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an 
 apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,” 
 all roads lead one way. His gospel of God 
 fills the sky. That the faith of the Roman 
 church is spoken of throughout the whole 
 world, he thanks his God, through Jesus Christ. 
 In Corinth he knows nothing, “save Jesus 
 Christ, and him crucified: the power of God, and 
 the wisdom of God.” With the Galatians he 
 marvels that they are so soon removed from the 
 grace of God “unto another gospel.” As to 
 Colossse he is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the 
 will of God. He knows Philippi for its “fellow¬ 
 ship in the gospel,” “For God is my record.” 
 From the day of the Damascus road, writing, 
 speaking, living, suffering, he knows no mastery 
 but the gospel of God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 It is largely supposed that in Mark one finds 
 the mind of Peter, and that Matthew builds his 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 129 
 
 message round it likewise. It is then all the more 
 satisfying that we do not guess the trend of his 
 thought. 4 ‘The beginning of the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” So it is written. 
 We know that to Mark the voice of God was 
 the soul of life. 
 
 Matthew is plain historian. He has no 
 Gospel beyond his facts. His world is a world of 
 skeptics. He will put the hardest-headed, the 
 most callous-hearted, entirely desperate un¬ 
 believer, up against quantities, that if he cannot 
 overthrow them will grind him to powder. The 
 divine Jesus of Mark is the historic Jesus of 
 Matthew. As Mark is a Gospel of the Son of 
 God, Matthew is a Gospel of the Son of Man. 
 If future people come to think so marvelous a 
 character is a myth, a fictional hero, he will find 
 him standing riveted, cemented, built in, with 
 his niche of the book of generations. He is 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of 
 Abraham. “Fourteen generations from Abra¬ 
 ham, fourteen generations from David, fourteen 
 generations from Babylon,” and Jesus who was 
 called Christ was born. 
 
 No foundling Jesus is to burden his religion. 
 The record shows that as to the world, gladly, 
 proudly, Joseph and Mary are father and 
 mother to a first-born child named Jesus. 
 Having so begun, Matthew has now some 
 
130 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 surprising things to tell. He must say that an 
 unsuspected daughter of Israel is an object of 
 shame, that her fiance, an honorable man, runs 
 risk of disgrace, that angels and dreams so 
 move upon him that he takes the supposedly 
 ruined girl to his heart and home, and that 
 the whole stupefying transaction is a fulfillment 
 of sacred prophecy, and the abiding will of 
 God. Straightforwardly, he puts it all down. 
 “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this 
 wise.” The visit of the Wise Men, the flight 
 into Egypt, the murderous pogrom of Herod, 
 the return to Nazareth, the ministry of John the 
 Baptist, the dove and the voice from heaven, the 
 irruption of miracles, the resurrection, the 
 ascension, a thousand unbelievable things, are 
 likewise to be believed with Matthew. What¬ 
 ever we conclude, as to Matthew, they hap¬ 
 pened. His thrill was the magic of the truth. 
 
 As to other various and separate writings of 
 the New Testament, they'speak for themselves 
 in every case as to their purpose and master 
 mood and destination. The elect lady, and 
 Gaius, and Philemon, Titus, and Timothy, get 
 letters of their own, though shared with the 
 neighbors. Jude, John in the first epistle, 
 Peter, James, and the author of Hebrews, write 
 generally and to large sections. The doubt as 
 to who may have written Hebrews is still the 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 131 
 
 discussion of the scholars. There was likely 
 the wisest of reasons why the key should not be 
 handy. Whether the writers of the New 
 Testament are eight or nine, we know not one of 
 them wrote to be writing. A deep, controlling 
 spell was upon them all. No one doubts that 
 they were like other holy men of old, “moved of 
 the Holy Ghost.” The humanness of them 
 all speaks all the more loudly. To be laborers 
 with God, that is the opportunity and treasure 
 of the race. 
 
 With every one of the Minor Prophets the 
 thrill was in his message. It was a word of the 
 Lord, a vision, a burden, something that came 
 to him as from God. He was not his own. 
 He was bought with a price. To Hosea and 
 Jonah there was terror in it. Hosea must 
 smother his ideals for the good of his people. 
 Jonah must company with the grave. It is 
 likely he actually died. It is of the day’s work 
 with prophets to take their lives in their hands. 
 All worlds are home with him who speaks for 
 God. 
 
 How far any prophet is the author of what 
 bears his name is a matter to be studied. The 
 man is commonly lost in the voice. Daniel 
 speaks as the writer of his book, and yet it may 
 be truly said that the thrill of Daniel is Daniel. 
 His experiences are eloquence as certainly as his 
 
132 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 words. It is thought by many that the whole 
 book is about Daniel, rather than by him, as it 
 is with the books of Job and Jonah. Ezekiel 
 was in much like Moses, Ezra, Matthew, and 
 Luke—plain historian; but in his latest chapters 
 he sees visions, and is confessedly apocalyptic, 
 telling as he has been told. Jeremiah, the man 
 of many toils and persecutions, is constantly 
 upheld by his thought that he speaks for God. 
 As with no other writer, only the word of the 
 Lord runs. That there are two or more authors 
 who write Isaiah need hardly be longer ques¬ 
 tioned, but whether it is history, prophecy, or 
 plain preaching there is no higher nor deeper 
 sense of God anywhere in the entire Bible. Men 
 are tools in startling fashion. “Hear, heavens, 
 and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath 
 spoken.” 
 
 How much Solomon, the reputed wisest of 
 men, may have actually written, no man knows. 
 As all good stories during a generation were 
 better for their being traced to Lincoln, so words 
 of wisdom for centuries suggested Solomon. 
 It is sufficient always to remember that death¬ 
 less philosophy of the book of Ecclesiastes. 
 “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: 
 Fear God, and keep his commandments: for 
 this is the whole duty of man.” 
 
 The Psalms are, of course, a book of songs. 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 133 
 
 Used in the Temple service, or current among 
 the people, their intrinsic beauty and worth 
 gave them their place. Each sings its own 
 message. 
 
 Did Moses write the book of Job? Is it, 
 with Genesis, a monument of those silent desert 
 years when the chosen people went aside from 
 the neighborhood of men to walk with God? 
 Or is it a relic of that longer, later exile in 
 Babylon? So great a book would call for a 
 great setting, but we have only the book itself 
 on which to build our concept. That tells us 
 the ways of God with men, and that they may 
 be utterly trusted. Whoever the author was, 
 and whatever he wrote, his thrill was the wonder 
 of life and the worthiness of God. 
 
 Probably Ezra was one of the greatest of the 
 scribes who wrote for the Holy Scriptures. The 
 historical books, at least, passed through his 
 editing. Though Jeremiah and others possibly 
 unknown were their writers, the records say 
 the law and the prophets were touched with no 
 uncertain hand by Ezra. The men who lay 
 foundations will one day find their crown with 
 those who fly the towers. 
 
 The human Moses is the victim of his fame. 
 It was of such as he that, apart from their 
 morality, the Greeks fashioned their gods. So 
 deeply is he written into the annals of men that 
 
134 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 the man is buried. The prophet, the legislator, 
 the literary master, the leader of armies, the 
 statesman, the patriarch, the saint, have made 
 him a cult rather than a matter of red blood. 
 That he appears on earth away from his heaven, 
 in company again with the transfigured Son of 
 God, we more nearly say our prayers than we 
 think. We are sorely tempted to leave him with 
 the veil upon his face. 
 
 Rut there is a human Moses. We see him, 
 “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” 
 We see him when come to years, “choosing 
 rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
 God.” We see him killing his man and hiding 
 him in the sand. We see him weakened and 
 worried with burdens beyond his strength. We 
 see him laid to rest where “no man knoweth of 
 his sepulcher unto this day.” Under what a 
 spell did such an one work, in writing words 
 that will not die? There is but one answer. 
 He had walked and talked with God till the 
 divine will was life. For God he fought with 
 the Egyptians, with his own people, with the 
 elders and princes, with his best friends. There 
 was nothing in the world for him but God. So 
 being told that he is to write, we have volume 
 after volume that, even edited, molds the 
 world to-day. After some interpretation the 
 words of Moses were Sinai to the Son of God, 
 
THE THRILLS OF THE BIBLE 135 
 
 and their shadow is rest. The thrill of Moses 
 was his sense of God. 
 
 Do we follow the later critics and consider 
 Moses as hero and soul of his economy rather 
 than literally author or editor of its propaganda, 
 we are the more amazed with his proportions. 
 Priests, prophets, editors, redactors, long cen¬ 
 turies after he is dead, can find nothing so worth 
 doing as to hallow their work with his name. 
 That he could so thrill his age must have been 
 surely the magic of the thrill that in its toils so 
 long held him. The vision of God is immor¬ 
 tality. The vision of God is wings. The vision 
 of God is eternal life. 
 
 That men have had their part, as men, in the 
 book of God is the wisdom of God. They have 
 their part in the world of God. But for men the 
 fields run wild. But for men culture is a farce. 
 Men are the solvent and interpretation of the 
 earth. We know of nothing that looks immortal 
 but man. Only of men is it stated that they are 
 made in the image of God. Only for men has 
 there been speech from Heaven. That the Bible 
 has the finger print of men upon it we can read 
 it. It is of like passion with ourselves. The 
 Son of God was also the Son of man. The 
 Book of God as wisely is the Book of Man. 
 With man at its editing, the Bible reveals God 
 as he could be seen in no other way. That we 
 
136 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 feel the thrills of the Bible it is our own. 
 belongs. It is of the family. 
 
 “Bread of our souls whereon we feed, 
 True manna from on high, 
 
 Our guide and chart wherein we read 
 Of realms beyond the sky.” 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 There is such a thing under the sun as losing 
 patience with the truth. 
 
 The mighty future is at rest if we are at rest. No 
 age is on the way to save us from the age we have. 
 
 God’s world has been a puzzle box. Why might 
 not God’s Word turn out a puzzle box? It is a matter 
 of size. 
 
 That talking with God we do not always hear well 
 is little wonder. 
 
 Men followed Jesus for loaves and fishes to find 
 rebuke. Philanthropy is the religion of multitudes 
 to the decay of piety and worship. 
 
 The heart of a cyclone is said to be so still as to be a 
 terror. 
 
 The smoothest seas lie often long leagues from 
 shore. 
 
 We need no sign-post to the sun. 
 
 No cripple could be a priest. Cripples did not 
 write the Bible. 
 
 To a variety of minds the Bible is a glorified 
 Sahara whose sands of equal value glisten as the 
 gold. It is not at all disconcerting to such an one 
 that in a diamond world diamonds are dust. 
 
 The Proverbs are a collection. They are the ages 
 turned reporter. 
 
 The Book of God comes through in thrills as in the 
 spectrum light breaks up in colors. 
 
 137 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE REGNANT CHRIST 
 
 Were one to say that Jesus of Nazareth is the 
 riddle of his religion, there would be few to 
 disagree. The conventional Christian experi¬ 
 ence, the problem of sin, the mazes of Divine 
 Providence, the dream of immortality, are all 
 simple to the problem of the Christ. This is not 
 strange. It is mostly a matter of size. The 
 largest concept entertainable of the human 
 mind is God. Jesus Christ is an interpretation 
 of God. That little people should find it col¬ 
 lapsing is quite to be expected. Pantheism is 
 hardly more than a jaded brain. It is a vacation 
 to say that God is good, and good is God. 
 Idolatry is simply a differentiating of the 
 difficulty. One can more easily take on gods, 
 one at a time. Necessity, Fate, Irresistible 
 Causation are but creeds of the helpless. Men 
 wilt and drift at vision of the issues. So in the 
 magnitude of the matter even Bible teaching 
 overwhelms. Revelation must itself be re¬ 
 vealed. It is more than a witticism that 
 
 138 
 
THE REGNANT CHRIST 
 
 139 
 
 language conceals thought. The haunting 
 notion that God could make things irresistibly 
 plain if he would is a demand that he make us 
 something other than we are. He might truly 
 make us something different. It is not at all 
 probable the different body would be better. It 
 is quite likely that God does his best in the 
 building of every man. That we reach the 
 highest notch we may is but our day’s work. 
 
 Jesus himself understood the “Messiah,” to 
 be a problem. “What think ye of Christ?” 
 “If David then call him Lord, how is he his 
 son?” Paul said, “Great is the mystery of god¬ 
 liness: God manifest in the flesh.” So, frequent 
 biblical answers to the riddle tell us there is a 
 riddle. 
 
 Jesus may well be called the “Cultural 
 Christ.” A great business of life is to learn. 
 “I must preach the kingdom of God to other 
 cities also: for therefore am I sent.” “In the 
 beginning was the Word.” Jesus may also well 
 be called the “Curative Christ.” A great 
 business of life is reconstruction. We cannot 
 live simply to learn. We must also find help, 
 salvation, correction. Life is both a school and 
 a hospital. “God sent not his Son into the 
 world to condemn the world; but that the world 
 through him might be saved.” Equally true 
 is yet another thing. Life is not only a school. 
 
140 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 a hospital; it is also a kingdom, a tribunal, 
 a court. Jesus is the “Regnant Christ.” “We 
 shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ.” Jesus is “KING OF KINGS AND 
 LORD OF LORDS.” We see here the old-time 
 terminology of Jesus as Prophet, Priest, and 
 King. It is entirely worthy as expressing the 
 threefold aspect of life. It is misleading to 
 consider life simply as to one or any of its 
 phases. Only with all have we truly any. A 
 life purely cultural is cold and formal. It is well 
 to think, but man is more than a thinker. The 
 basal error of Prussianism was just here. Head 
 and hands outgrew the heart. The world went 
 to war with a monstrosity. In the name of 
 culture it did without a tremor things that 
 shocked the earth. Jesus is a teacher, and yet 
 other. 
 
 A life saturated only with the curative process 
 of religion is out of plumb, crippled, morbid, and 
 unhealthy. A hospital is a good place in which 
 to stay. It is not a good place wherein to live. 
 It is possible that Christianity has weakened its 
 hold on men by overemphasis on sin and 
 salvation. Jesus Christ is more than a Saviour. 
 Sin is not the whole of life’s shortcoming. 
 There is also irresponsibility, ignorance, chaos, 
 anarchy. Men must obey and serve as surely as 
 learn, and be saved. The normal man is the 
 
THE REGNANT CHRIST 
 
 141 
 
 scholar, citizen, saint, and toiler, tempered into 
 one. 
 
 In our latest thought the King is at a discount. 
 Democracy holds the stage. It is well to re¬ 
 member, however, that the thing, and not the 
 name, is the vital matter. Kings may go. What 
 they rightly stand for, law, order, strength, 
 obedience, duty, may abide forever. A family 
 with love and no sense of obligation, collapses. 
 A business with brains and small sense of honor 
 goes bankrupt. A world of more than one man 
 must get farther than doing right in its own 
 eyes. Science is more correlation than knowl¬ 
 edge. Art is fitness beyond shape and color. It 
 is things in order that make them available. 
 This is the secret of the latest century. Mul¬ 
 tiplication is rapid addition. One and one make 
 more than two. One chases a thousand and two 
 put ten thousand to flight. A small police force 
 rules a great city. The first thousand dollars 
 comes harder than the latest million. It is this 
 dynamic worth we have in mind when speaking 
 of the Regnant Christ. Names mean little. 
 The things they stand for shape the universe. 
 
 A striking putting of this overturning con¬ 
 ception is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans. 
 “To this end Christ both died, and rose, and 
 revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead 
 and living.” Except for this purpose also, there 
 
142 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 would have been no Christ. The Christ came 
 to heal, to serve, to teach, to atone, but to rule, 
 as well. The Lordship of Jesus is of the phi¬ 
 losophy of the incarnation. He is master of 
 destinies. 
 
 Who can doubt the earth has great need of the 
 notion of authority? One of the Czars is 
 reported to have said, “My son and I are the 
 only men in Russia who do not steal.” A 
 business man once said to the writer, “I would 
 not graft, so put up with less money.” The 
 prices in the markets are always larger or un¬ 
 certain because of speculation. The insistent 
 demand for more government control in every 
 nation on the earth is the mightiest sermon on 
 honesty the world ever heard. Possibly a 
 planetary army discipline was a school of the 
 Almighty for better things. War teaches men 
 to mind. The matter of the family is con¬ 
 fessedly a thing of common concern. So vagrant 
 are the passions of women and men that the call 
 of right is often their only salvation. The 
 excesses and horrors of war are a terrible cor¬ 
 rection. The sentimental droolings of the 
 magazine, novel, theater, and free lance gener¬ 
 ally are shamed and mastered by the terrible 
 logic of elemental distress and despair. In 
 religion we are about at the lowest ebb as to 
 free will in man. We may expect now a return 
 
THE REGNANT CHRIST 
 
 143 
 
 to the sweep of God’s sovereignty. It seems so 
 hard for the human race to be at home with 
 more than one great concept at a time. Whether 
 hard or easy, the demand of the hour is a re¬ 
 surrection of conscience. So we think wisely of 
 Jesus as Lord, the Regnant Christ. 
 
 A peculiar emphasis of the Scriptures in this 
 connection is that laid upon the passing im¬ 
 portance of death. In ordinary human affairs 
 physical decease is a terminal point. It is a 
 distress and a disturbance, an enemy, a some¬ 
 what best to be ended. In view of the Lordship 
 of Jesus, it is a transition. “None of us liveth 
 to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For 
 whether we live, we live unto the Lord; whether 
 we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live, 
 therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this 
 end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, 
 that he might be Lord both of the dead and 
 living.” To be alive or dead is important 
 enough, but the mastery of Jesus is over both of 
 them. 
 
 The relations of men and their neighbors are 
 of large weight, but the controlling concept is not 
 the neighbors but the Christ. No man living to 
 himself and no man dying to himself has the 
 great God in mind, and not the neighbors. 
 Whether we live or die we are in account, not 
 with the neighbors, but with the Lord. In 
 
144 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 practical outworking piety is a larger affair than 
 philanthropy or service. If the prayer meeting 
 were the greatest gathering of the week, it 
 would be entirely normal. To love one’s 
 neighbors comes second to loving God. The 
 serving, teaching, or saving Christ is atrophied 
 when there is no Regnant Christ. 
 
 It is surely and abundantly worth while that 
 a minister should know where his strength is to 
 be put. The very thing our modern religion is 
 failing at should be our glory. The sense of God 
 and his regnancy should be a great emphasis 
 and message to men. We are teachers, enter¬ 
 tainers, comforters, general managers, more than 
 prophets. We should see that men do not 
 forget the Regnant Christ. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The haunting notion that God could make things 
 irresistibly plain if he would is a demand that he 
 make us something other than we are. It is not at 
 all probable that the different body would be better. 
 It is quite likely that God does his best in the 
 building of any man. 
 
 It is more than probable that Christendom has 
 weakened its hold on men by over emphasis on sin 
 and salvation. A hospital is a good place to stay. 
 It is not a good place in which to live. 
 
 Science is correlation more than knowing things. 
 Art is fitness beyond any shape and color. It is 
 things in order that make them of use. One and 
 one make more than two. 
 
 The call of the hour is a resurrection of conscience. 
 
 In practical outworking, piety outranks both 
 philanthropy and service. When the prayer meeting 
 is the commanding meeting of the week it is entirely 
 normal. 
 
 Man is more than a thinker. The basal error of 
 Prussianism was just here. Its head outgrew its 
 heart. The world went to war with a monstrosity. 
 
 A world of more than one man must get farther 
 than doing right in its own eyes. 
 
 145 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 It is a universal failing to talk shop. And we 
 talk shop because we think shop. The sick man 
 chatters of his illness, the jail bird of his crimes, 
 the merchant of his business. The machinist, 
 mason, carpenter, discusses his trade. The 
 artist is full of the statuary, building, painting, 
 song. The farmer talks of crops and markets, 
 the soldier of his battles, the sailor of the seven 
 seas. 
 
 In all this there may be nothing vicious or 
 reprehensible. The trouble is the world is our 
 shop, and we are sure to get things out of 
 proportion. The minister usually carries some 
 sort of certificate that he is a bachelor, master, 
 or doctor in arts. Could it always include the 
 art of seeing things whole, the master art of 
 life, it would multiply its value. Correlation is 
 not a lost art. It is an art not yet acquired. 
 
 In the House of the Interpreter was a flame of 
 mystery; a fire that would not go out though 
 water rained upon it. When the pilgrim found 
 
 146 
 
THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 147 
 
 one hidden behind the flame pouring in oil, 
 there was mystery no longer. He saw it as it 
 was. 
 
 One of the mighty things about the Bible is its 
 solidarity. It bears rarely well a reading wdiole. 
 Its ends a thousand years apart, the work of 
 forty or more authors, divided into sixty-six 
 volumes, fashioned in a wide variety of dialects 
 and languages, and out of an absolute medley of 
 conditions, it is yet over all the earth one book. 
 Had the Jews and early Christians read their 
 Bible whole, the Christ could never have been 
 rejected. Could Romanism have read its Bible 
 whole, there would have been no occasion for the 
 Reformation. The multiform denominations 
 would merge into few, or none, did they read 
 their Bible whole. Every cult taking the Bible 
 as authority, would lose its peril did it learn to 
 read its Bible whole. Reading the Bible whole 
 will one day startle the planet into a following 
 of the one Lord, one* faith, one baptism. 
 
 The questionable Calvinism is simply the 
 over emphasis of the sovereignty of God as 
 against a free human will. The truth lies in the 
 balance of both. The monk and the nun are 
 only a strained concept of individualism. The 
 truth is in a liberal collectivism. The Inquisi¬ 
 tion was a holy Christian zeal warped out of 
 shape. The steady betterment of the earth in a 
 
148 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 thousand ways grows from a larger action and 
 reaction among the sections it will forever 
 maintain. And reading the Bible whole, with 
 the grace of God, will be the mighty tool to the 
 final best for which men hope and pray. 
 
 These words are written to indicate the frame 
 of mind in which one must consider the Curative 
 Christ. That human life needs relief, that it is 
 a hospital, we must sadly admit. There is 
 distress and sin in plenty. But human life is 
 not all a hospital. It is not mainly a hospital. 
 It is not even largely a hospital. To think of the 
 Curative Christ as the sun over half the horizon 
 even, is to think out of all borders. If it were so 
 that the need of the Curative Christ darkened so 
 much of human life, we should have him and be 
 glad for him. It was a great, good man who 
 said, “My God shall supply all your need from 
 his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” And we 
 believe in that Christ. But with all said, who 
 would live in a hospital? One stays in a hospital. 
 He leaves when he thinks of living. Even the 
 Curative Christ cannot make a hospital a home. 
 When the cured man is made well he leaves his 
 bed for others. A widely known philanthropist 
 of the Pacific Coast founded an Old People’s 
 Home, and endowed it for long generations. She 
 made her home on the grounds. But she lived 
 in her own house. A hospital is an emergency. 
 
THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 149 
 
 To consider the whole of life as an emergency, or 
 even dominantly an emergency, is surely not 
 permanently thinkable. We cannot only begin 
 to live when we die. Yet good and great men 
 have thought within themselves that they must 
 read their Bible so. Recent and authoritative 
 statements of this diagnosis of man’s journey 
 under the sun read as follows: “Christianity 
 above all else is a religion of redemption.” “The 
 church is a society of redemption.” “The 
 redemptive note is the dominant note in the 
 life and work of Jesus.” “May we not say of 
 the Bible that the whole of it was written to 
 show the person of the Redeemer, and to say the 
 word, 'Redeemer’?” “The essential unity of the 
 Bible is in its gradual unfolding of God’s plan 
 of redemption for the human race.” “The 
 incarnation in order to redemption has the same 
 place in revealed theology that the creation has 
 in natural theology. It is the very center of the 
 system about which our lives revolve.” 
 
 The worthy names that might be quoted as 
 profoundly moved by a supposedly redemptive 
 unity and dominance in all life command every 
 respect. Nevertheless the Bible is an open page. 
 We cannot build up any of its teachings with the 
 debris of others. Its stated truths are no 
 farther true than as built into the wall with 
 every other truth. The failures and confusion 
 
150 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 of Christian history are traceable more to a for¬ 
 getting just here than to any one thing. . The 
 brighter day at dawning everywhere is under a 
 sun that remembers never less than all the 
 truth. 
 
 Just because they loved their Lord his 
 disciples would call down fire. That their love 
 has become better correlated, religious per¬ 
 secution is at an end. Some truth gives room 
 to all truth. The highest prayer of good men 
 once was that an earthly kingdom might be 
 restored. They find that true religion flourishes 
 under any sort of kingdom. Good men once 
 thought more loaves and fishes, and a release 
 from disease and death, were of primary worth. 
 They see to-day the hungry at the soul of him 
 may have a feast, and a man may live though 
 he is dead. As the alphabet loses itself to 
 live in the finished volume, and the cradle 
 ripens into manhood, so truth is mighty and 
 prevails as coming to vision of all in sight. Left 
 to our eyes, the planet is a plain. Brought to 
 things as they are, it is a globe and wdiirls in its 
 appointed orbit. So redemption, culture, mas¬ 
 tery, providing, ethics, service are all true in 
 life only as in sight of each other, and of the 
 unifying will of the great God. We never see 
 life really except as we see it whole. 
 
 It is easy to see how well-meant confusion 
 
THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 151 
 
 could come about should one read only the 
 redemptive literature—those portions of the 
 Holy Scriptures that deal with this side of the 
 story. “Behold the Lamb of God, which 
 taketh away the sin of the world.” “Thou shalt 
 call his name JESUS: for he shall save his 
 people from their sins.” “God sent not his Son 
 into the world to condemn the world; but that 
 the world through him might be saved.” 
 “Thou . . . hast redeemed us to God.” “Thus 
 saith the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of 
 Israel.” If this were the only sort of literature 
 the Bible held, the case would be made out. But 
 the rigid fact is that the Book of books is 
 crowded with other sorts also, and we must think 
 of them as well. “All things were made by him; 
 and without him was not anything made that 
 was made.” Here is the Creative Christ. “In 
 him was life; and the life was the light of men.” 
 Here is the Cultural Christ. “I must preach the 
 kingdom of God to other cities also: for there¬ 
 fore am I sent.” Here is the Hortatory Christ; 
 Christ the Preacher. “Tell ye the daughter of 
 Zion, Behold, thy King cometh.” Here is the 
 Regnant Christ. “I am the Bread of life.” 
 Here is the Sustaining Christ, the Providential 
 Christ. “The Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God.” Here is the deity of Christ. 
 “The Son of man.” Here is the human Christ. 
 
152 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “I am the way, the truth, and the Life.” “I 
 am the door of the sheep.” “I am the good 
 shepherd.” “I am the resurrection.” “He will 
 give you another Comforter.” As this riches in 
 glory by Christ Jesus breaks upon us, like the 
 high tides of the sea, we understand that to go 
 alone with any one of its rarest treasures, the 
 very sweetest and most precious, is at the ex¬ 
 pense of the truth. “To this end was I born, and 
 for this cause came I into the world, that I 
 should bear witness unto the truth.” “Every 
 one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” 
 We have no choice, can have no will, but to 
 follow the Christ we find. We are to hold the 
 Curative Christ as in keeping with all other 
 aspects of his mission. 
 
 The probable fact is that no one phase of 
 character in the Christ should be said to be 
 dominant, or is dominant, in this world, or any 
 other. One would not say eyes, ears, or hands 
 were dominant. One would not say an ideal 
 father, or mother, or husband, or wife, or 
 sister, or brother, in a family was dominant. 
 If dominant, we would not say ideal. One would 
 not wish deliberately his intellect, emotions, or 
 will should dominate. To have it so with 
 either is trouble. Their strength is in their 
 correlation. One great difference between men 
 and their Maker is just here. No one of us but 
 
THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 153 
 
 is out of plumb, warped, gnarled, or dwarfed. 
 God is infinitely perfect. And Jesus Christ is 
 God manifest in the flesh. 
 
 It is not every discomfort among men that is 
 subject of redemption. The infirmities of child¬ 
 hood are often unhappy enough, but we would 
 not consider being redeemed from them, except 
 as time and culture work their magic alchemy. 
 There are many human shortcomings. We 
 cannot wade through all forms of matter. We 
 cannot fly. We cannot read thoughts. Physical 
 death is quite a normal process. We do not 
 think of being redeemed from such deficiencies— 
 at least while under the sun. Temptation 
 distresses. We are not redeemed from trial. 
 Jesus was tried. Ignorance is an uncomfort¬ 
 able affair, gives one many a bad half-hour. 
 Mistakes and blunders seem to be indigenous. 
 The best of men commit them. So in the matter 
 of scriptural redemption we go no farther than 
 is written. We are redeemed from our sins. 
 “He shall save his people from their sins.” 
 This means their guilt, penalty, defilement, 
 enfeeblement, distress, and committal, as in 
 measure each stated case demands or makes 
 possible. We are quite often redeemed from 
 danger. The Lord “redeemeth thy life from 
 destruction.” He “redeemed them from the 
 hand of the enemv.” In some measure men are 
 
154 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 redeemed from temptation, and in temptation. 
 He “will not suffer you to be tempted above that 
 ye are able” to bear. Men are often redeemed 
 from sickness and pain. Holiness is forever on 
 the trail toward health. The one point to be 
 made is that a careful study of the Bible will 
 give us surely a vision of great things the 
 Curative Christ will do for men. It is not 
 needful to see too much. It is confusion to be 
 wise above that which is written. Just what the 
 Bible says is a marvelous plenty. 
 
 A final word of great consequence is that the 
 Curative Christ gains by every other aspect of 
 his character. That the redeeming Christ is all 
 powerful is a strength to faith. That the 
 Redeemer of men is all wise is comfort. Prosper¬ 
 ity is sometimes ominous. That the Redeemer 
 is the Holy One of Israel is very worth while. 
 We are not saved because of favoritism, or any 
 arbitrary or artificial reason. Only when it is 
 wonderfully, absolutely right, do our sins 
 vanish. “That he might be just, and the 
 justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” 
 That our Saviour was incarnate he understands; 
 that he is the Son of God he cannot fail. That 
 he is the only Christ; that there is no other name 
 under heaven or among men whereby we must 
 be saved, we run to him at once. All other 
 Saviours will be experiments and failures. It 
 
THE CURATIVE CHRIST 
 
 155 
 
 is not at all in the interest of the redeeming 
 Christ to forget there are a dozen other Christs. 
 The greater he is every way, the greater he is in 
 any way. 
 
 The earth is neither a shop, a hospital, a 
 courtroom, nor a school. It is a shop, a hospitah 
 a courtroom, and a school. Human life is 
 neither evolution nor revolution. It is evolution 
 and revolution. “Known unto God are all his 
 works from the beginning of the world.” A 
 redeeming Christ redeems to the end of the 
 needful and possible. That our world might be 
 vastly worse is good cheer. The Curative 
 Christ is at once our study, our hope, and our 
 joy. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 One of the many mighty things about the Bible is 
 its solidarity. It bears rarely well a reading whole. 
 
 To consider the whole of life an emergency is 
 surely not permanently thinkable. We cannot 
 begin to live only when we die. 
 
 We may not build up one Bible teaching v/ith the 
 debris of others. That only is true that shapes into 
 the wall with every other truth. 
 
 Holiness is forever on the trail toward health. 
 
 The earth is neither shop, hospital, court nor 
 school. It is shop, hospital, court, and school. The 
 difference is planetary. 
 
 The minister usually carries some sort of cer¬ 
 tificate that he is a bachelor, master, or doctor in 
 arts. Did it always include the art of seeing things 
 whole, the master art of life, it would multiply its 
 value. 
 
 Reading the Bible whole with the grace of God is 
 the high road to the final best. 
 
 Some truth giving way to all truth is the sunrise of 
 the earth. 
 
 156 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SON OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 The great God is a being of law and order. 
 Chaos and confusion are forever alien to him 
 with whom we have to do. “Known unto God 
 are all his works from the beginning of the 
 world.” 
 
 That the physical universe is under regulation 
 is so obvious as to be commonplace. Disorder 
 would be ruin. A watch and a grain of sand are 
 poor neighbors. Watches do not run with sand. 
 The world is not built to function with con¬ 
 fusion. 
 
 The world of men is under law. God “hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men for to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath 
 determined the times before appointed, and 
 the bounds of their habitation.” Humanity is 
 a child of purpose. That men should seek and 
 find the Lord is behind all their goings. What 
 an astounding matter is the differentiation of 
 the sexes! To this latest day it knows no sure 
 control but the will of the Almighty. The 
 
 157 
 
158 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 solidarity of the great races is much the same. 
 Living often side by side with infinite possibil¬ 
 ities of amalgamation, they persist. The 
 institution of the family and the dominance of 
 monogamy in the face of utterly violent 
 temptation must have acquaintance with Om¬ 
 nipotence. Speaking largely, polygamy, as 
 polyandry, has always been exceptional in the 
 earth. More than one wife is rare even in 
 Islam. The Christian family is the hope and 
 the promise of a white life in the centuries to be. 
 The institution of the Sabbath is law applied to 
 time. Not only religion but perpetuity and 
 progress call for system in the use of time. The 
 Bible is another of God’s thoughts in archi¬ 
 tecture. Its fixed record is court of appeal to 
 failing memories and mental frailties. It is 
 the anchor of all modern civilization. The 
 Jewish people, with their unique and perplexing 
 mission in the earth, have not happened. 
 Neither did the Christian Church come to 
 pass. They are both of the standardizing of 
 the Eternal. They spell stability to the human 
 race in a thousand ways. 
 
 From the foregoing it follows readily that 
 Jesus as a revealer of God would leave behind 
 him the print of his hands. It may even be 
 more than incidental that he was “The Son of 
 the Carpenter.” With all we may say of 
 
THE SON OF THE CARPENTER 159 
 
 individual freedom the regnancy of principle, 
 the dominance of motive and intent, Christ¬ 
 ianity and the Christ stand for human life 
 according to law. Running water is the symbol 
 of the free, but it runs neither long nor far 
 till a channel hems it in, and it runs in order. 
 Restless old ocean sleeps in its bed. Each star 
 takes title to its orbit. So, the Christian religion 
 has its chart of immortality, in its wedding with 
 system and regulation. The kindly, revealing, 
 atoning, Jesus, is also an organizing Jesus. We 
 cannot follow him with small respect for the 
 organic. He is the Son of the Carpenter. 
 
 Things did not happen at the cradle of the 
 Christ. They were the “Fulfillment of the oath 
 and covenant spoken of by the holy prophets 
 since the world began.” Joseph took Mary to 
 wife, Jesus was bom in Bethlehem, the flight was 
 made to Egypt, the dwelling was had in Naz¬ 
 areth, “that it might be fulfilled.” Life is a 
 garment woven of a piece with all of us. It was 
 emphatically so with Jesus of Nazareth. He 
 was subject to his parents, he was about his 
 Father’s business in the Temple, he was 
 baptized to fulfill all righteousness. His one 
 answer in temptation was, “It is written.” 
 When he began to preach in Nazareth he at 
 once identified his message with the Old- 
 Testament Scriptures: “This day is this scrip- 
 
160 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 ture fulfilled in your ears.” “I am not come 
 to destroy but to fulfill.” So in all his ministry 
 to the end. The history, ordinances, prophecies, 
 and testimonies of all the holy ages are sacred 
 to him. 
 
 With his formal work begun, he gathered 
 about him a body of recognized disciples. He 
 did not leave his message in air. Men were 
 charged to follow. Discipleship is taken for 
 granted, and its official ranking often forgotten. 
 The day came w T hen many of the Lord’s disciples 
 went back and walked no more with him. He 
 was so moved that he queried of those nearest 
 him, “Will ye also go away?” One of the great 
 duties of a Christian minister will be to forever 
 insist that, if men will follow Jesus, they do it 
 openly. The frequent distinction made between 
 Christ and his church, his recognized fellow¬ 
 ship, is quite unchristian. “He that denieth 
 me before men shall be denied before the 
 angels of God.” “He that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth 
 not shall be damned.” The weaknesses of the 
 church are of the cross we carry. Jesus bore 
 the vacillation, blundering, complaining, sin¬ 
 ning of his followers. The great God bears 
 forever the same cross. “The servant is not 
 greater than his Lord.” 
 
 By and by, a chosen body of apostles 
 
THE SON OF THE CARPENTER 161 
 
 emerged. He called unto him his disciples: 
 and of them he chose twelve, whom also he 
 named apostles. Of the same nature was the 
 sending out of the seventy. They went two 
 and two. Combination is added to individual 
 consecration. One and one make more than two. 
 
 Doubtless Christian organism has been over¬ 
 rated and abused. Doubtless also it has been 
 depreciated. Our Lord was not content with 
 individualism. It is our mission as ministers to 
 be organizers, and so perforce, perpetuators. 
 We build to endure. 
 
 Prayer is an institution. “Men ought always 
 to pray.” “After this manner, pray ye.” 
 “Where prayer was wont to be made.” The 
 Lord’s Supper is no incident. “This do in 
 remembrance of me.” Baptism is an insti¬ 
 tution. “Baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” 
 The Christian experience has a definite character 
 often forgotten. It is a baptism with the Holy 
 Ghost. Jesus performs it. “He shall baptize 
 you with the Holy Ghost.” “He hath shed 
 forth this, which ye now see and hear.” This 
 was the significance of the giving of the Holy 
 Ghost through the laying on of hands. It 
 emphasized the official character. The Chris¬ 
 tian experience forever should be definitely 
 recognized and conserved. 
 
162 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 The great missions of the organic are two; 
 weight of impact and perpetuity. The world has 
 lately learned in blood and tears that men must 
 stand together as w^ell as stand. Government, 
 law, order, training, system, preparedness will 
 
 mean more for a thousand years to come 
 
 «/ 
 
 because of these long days of ruin and alarm. 
 Sin is divisive. Holiness is constructive. That 
 Jesus is a voice, and more, spells immortal¬ 
 ity. A pile of brick disintegrates. A pyramid 
 abides. 
 
 The Christian minister and man alike has his 
 concrete task. He has no option but to bring 
 the whole world into a visible organized 
 relation to his gospel by as much as in him lies. 
 He cannot wait while the world comes to him; 
 he goes to the world. He has an open Bible in 
 his hand. It is a word of God among other 
 words. It is the word of God as being the will 
 of God. He brings the duty and the privilege 
 of the church, the sacraments, the ministry 7 , the 
 fellowship of the faithful, a daily life ordered by 
 the precepts of Jesus the Christ. Being a 
 Christian himself, he will make the last man 
 Christian if he can. Even if made to appear 
 narrow and illiberal, he carries with him a 
 gospel of organism as certainly as a gospel of 
 life. The good man, the Christian, is never an 
 anarchist. Order and place, a local habitation 
 
THE SON OF THE CARPENTER 163 
 
 and a name, points of the compass, are forever 
 of the day’s work with him. 
 
 But now the hard fact is that the world will 
 not wait till he comes. Men are born, and 
 breathe, and live, and die, while he is on the 
 way. The masses of the dead and gone never 
 knew he started. His Bible, his church, his 
 service, his hope, might never have been, so 
 far as the vast majority of men are concerned. 
 What has the Son of the Carpenter to do with 
 the unevangelized world? Is Christianity the 
 philosophy of the universe? Is it planetary or 
 provincial? 
 
 The expected answer is that the Christian 
 religion is professedly, unmistakably planetary. 
 It was never or anywhere provincial. All men 
 always have been settling the issues of destiny. 
 There is a song built on the query, “Are you 
 ready for the Judgment Day?” It is a pointless 
 question. No man lives anywhere or for any 
 time unready for the Judgment Day. He may 
 not be ready for the closer company w T ith God. 
 He is forever ready for his account. God 
 never left himself without witness. The most 
 degraded heathen is without excuse. God is a 
 Saviour for all men if not to all men. “I saw 
 the dead, small and great, stand before God.” 
 “God so loved the world.” Some years ago 
 there was held in Chicago a Parliament of 
 
164 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Religions. After a street definition of religion 
 it was eminently proper. Naturalism, Judaism, 
 Confucianism, Mohammedanism, Christianity 
 —to the mind of history all are religions and 
 may get together in conventions. As a matter 
 of fact, one world with one God has room but 
 for one religion. It is the work of the Son of the 
 Carpenter. 
 
 Precisely this is the message of the whole 
 Bible. The Christian religion draws a map of 
 the universe. “Day unto day uttereth speech, 
 and night unto night showeth knowledge/’ 
 “Their words [are gone out] to the end of the 
 world.” “Other sheep I have, which are not of 
 this fold.” “Many shall come from the east 
 and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of 
 heaven.” The unevangelized are accounted 
 with on the basis of the Christian evangel. 
 “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ.” “Before him shall be gathered all 
 nations.” There is no annex to the gospel. 
 While knowledge and opportunity vary among 
 men, the same vital element controls every¬ 
 where. The planet is elementally religious. No 
 man lives anywhere or any time in an alien 
 world. It is forever a gospel world. 
 
 Further, the people we are, as well as the 
 world we are in, tells us of religion. Some one 
 
THE SON OF THE CARPENTER 165 
 
 has well said that “The human race is incurably 
 religious.” Our theology that men are born in 
 sin and bred in iniquity does not displace the 
 fact that they are also born and bred knowing 
 the good. Natural religion is a basal teaching 
 of our gospel and plainly of record in the Bible- 
 We do not think of the unevangelized world as 
 absolutely but comparatively unevangelized. 
 They are children of our Father, brothers of 
 ours, judged by the common gospel, varying 
 degrees of which are the heritage of all men. 
 They do not need another world, or more light, 
 or even our light, to be evangelized in any 
 absolute sense. The basis for missionary work is 
 not emergency but duty and privilege. The 
 tremendous advances of evangelism in these 
 latest years are largely due to the broader 
 scriptural views of what we are about, and 
 how God is managing his affairs. The Son of 
 the Carpenter has not been idle. 
 
 Never for one minute has the great God 
 found it necessary to experiment with his 
 world. He has steadily developed great, well- 
 ordered plans in a strategy commensurate with 
 himself. That his thoughts are not our thoughts, 
 nor his ways our ways is only what we might 
 expect. They take account of ebb as well as 
 flow, of night as of day. That Eden, the Flood, 
 Judaism, heathenism, Christendom, are mon- 
 
166 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 uments of failure is a thousand miles from the 
 truth. That the real work of evangelism begins 
 only when Jesus comes again is delusion and 
 libel. Evangelism is honoring God along eve^*y 
 step of the way. 
 
 No man will largely succeed anywhere or at 
 any time who takes a provincial view T of God’s 
 world and God’s work. That work has been 
 planetary all the time and anywhere. That it 
 has not been universal, a work in other worlds, 
 no man can prove. It is at least planetary. 
 The Son of the Carpenter is forever at his 
 trade. His world is a shop, a field, a task. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 Humanity is the child of purpose. “That they 
 should seek the Lord.” 
 
 The institution of the Sabbath is law applied to 
 time. System in hours is not only religion, but 
 perpetuity and progress. 
 
 Running water is the symbol of the free, but it 
 runs neither long nor far till a channel hems it in, 
 and it runs in order. Restless old ocean sleeps in its 
 bed. Each star takes title to its orbit. 
 
 Life is a garment woven without seam for each of 
 us. 
 
 The weaknesses of the church are of the cross we 
 carry. 
 
 The world has lately learned in blood and tears 
 that men must stand together as well as stand. 
 
 Sin is divisive. Holiness is constructive. A pile 
 of bricks disintegrates. A pyramid abides. 
 
 The planet is elementally religious. No man lives 
 anywhere or any time in an alien world. 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DESPAIR OF PILATE 
 
 That Jesus of Nazareth was a likable one has 
 its significance. The tale of the tw^elve-year-old 
 boy leaves us sure the tenderest age is friendly 
 with religion. It is probable the prevalent 
 despair as to just this era among the little men 
 is quite unnecessary. They are not exactly 
 men, to be sure. It is their business to be boys. 
 And there was a Jesus boy. 
 
 With every passing age the earth is to be 
 more and more a world of scholars. Jesus 
 looks well among the wise. One great Bible 
 verse is better known and liked than any other, 
 and it was spoken to a master in Israel. 
 
 One half the race is forever blessed in being 
 feminine. It did not happen that white-souled 
 women were at home with Jesus. 
 
 There is something queer in an age when men 
 are not led of the Christ. The neighbors did 
 not doubt his manliness twenty centuries ago. 
 
 It is a world of beauty and delight we live in. 
 The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the 
 magic of sun and rain, the music of hymns, the 
 caress of the winds, the lure and charm of 
 
 168 
 
THE DESPAIR OF PILATE 169 
 
 friendship and love were precious to the Son 
 of the Carpenter. 
 
 That ministers should be likable is of their 
 curriculum. There is no special piety in the 
 disagreeable. To be drawn to the man is right 
 of way to his message. The beauty of holiness 
 has the best of authority. Though one may 
 follow his model afar off, it is forever well to 
 follow. 
 
 There is a higher vision, however, than the 
 likable Christ. It is the faultless Christ. Our 
 likes are of us. We are never exactly certain 
 about them. But Jesus was ethically, as well 
 as aesthetically, perfect. He is the absolute 
 ideal. Pilate said, “I find no fault in this 
 man.” He himself said, “Who of you con- 
 vinceth me of sin?” A voice from the skies 
 declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
 I am well pleased.” He was faultless in his 
 reputation with his fellow men, faultless before 
 full information, faultless with a perfect con¬ 
 science, faultless before God. “Tempted in 
 all points, yet without sin,” is the word of Paul. 
 He was faultless after trial. He was better than 
 innocent. He was virtuous. In every thinkable 
 fashion Jesus of Nazareth was the faultless 
 Christ. Suspected as wicked, it is nevertheless 
 of the Christian faith to find Him always good. 
 The holiness of Christ is of his credentials. 
 
170 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 It is significant that no sooner was Jesus 
 baptized, officially installed at his work, than 
 the temptation intervened. Full of the Holy 
 Ghost, he was led to trial of the devil. There 
 is among men no holiness untested. So that 
 Jesus kept his first estate is not indifferent, 
 incidental, nor a stage proceeding. It was of 
 his day’s work. The standpoint of the evil one 
 was unrelieved wickedness. It often happens 
 that the ignorance and defective reasoning of 
 men lead to a misunderstanding of the Christ, 
 and they think him mistaken and wrong. In 
 the wilderness it is not weakness, but vindictive 
 and utterly subtle wickedness that Jesus faces, 
 and it is out of that he emerges the Faultless 
 Christ. “Son of God, Saviour of the world, 
 have a care for your comfort. Draw on the 
 universe that you do not go hungry.” For the 
 mighty to waste himself on the little is the 
 temptation. “Man shall not live by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth out 
 of the mouth of God.” Bread is only part of 
 the equation. When the call of the hour is to 
 be planetary, to be provincial falls into sin. 
 “Son of God, compromise and conquer. The 
 kingdoms of the world, the power and the glory 
 of them sanctified to your use are yours if you 
 will worship me.” Anything that adulterates 
 worship is sin. Holiness is wholeness. Men 
 
THE DESPAIR OF PILATE 
 
 171 
 
 are to do God’s work in God’s way or not at 
 all. “Son of God, display your power, cast 
 yourself down, that angels may care for you”— 
 the sin of the short cut, the temptation of the 
 spectacular. God has small use for the theat¬ 
 rical. He does not need to play at being either 
 great or good. So in everything the wicked 
 wish of the evil one went wrong, and Jesus was 
 the Faultless Christ. 
 
 The Pharisees were very sure that Jesus and 
 his disciples were frivolous, and kept doubtful 
 company. “Why do ye not fast and make 
 prayers more frequently? Why do ye eat with 
 publicans and sinners?” In their mind, the 
 most religious soul on earth did not have enough 
 religion. Good people thought the best man the 
 earth ever saw was bad. But was it ever so? 
 Do not the sick need a physician? Is not the 
 gospel good news? Jesus did not allow for one 
 moment that he had in anything gone wrong, 
 or even mistakenly. The scribes and Pharisees 
 were finding fault with the faultless. 
 
 Again, the best of their day were entirely 
 certain this new teacher was a Sabbath-breaker. 
 “Why do they on the sabbath day that which 
 is not lawful?” Like thousands in all the ages, 
 they verily thought within themselves that par¬ 
 ticularity was piety. The noticeable thing is 
 that Jesus insisted his conduct was forever 
 
172 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 correct and right. David ate the shew-bread. 
 The priests in the Temple do manual work on 
 the Sabbath. A man is better than a sheep. 
 It is always lawful to do well on the Sabbath 
 day. The son of man is Lord even of the 
 Sabbath. Jesus is still the Faultless Christ. 
 “This fellow casts out devils by the prince of 
 devils.” He is in league with the wickedest 
 potency in all the universe. “If I cast out 
 devils by the prince of devils, how can his 
 kingdom stand and by whom do your children 
 cast them out? If I cast out devils by the 
 spirit of God, then are you quarreling with 
 God.” When Jesus proceeds to designate 
 these people as a generation of vipers, we know 
 it was not ignorance or mistake but wicked¬ 
 ness that prompted their action. They knew 
 themselves at fault in baiting the Faultless 
 Christ. 
 
 Sitting down to dine with a Pharisee, he does 
 not ceremonially wash before eating. The 
 objective is not as to cleanliness but godliness. 
 Jesus points out that holiness is an inside affair, 
 not an outside matter. It is the inward part 
 that needs the washing. So they talk that they 
 may accuse. The fault finder can always find 
 fault. It is in this connection that Jesus says 
 the leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy. They 
 knew the right and still the wrong pursued. Had 
 
THE DESPAIR OF PILATE 173 
 
 they been true and honest they would not have 
 condemned the guiltless. One must be good at 
 heart to see the Faultless Christ. 
 
 The ruler of the synagogue by virtue of his 
 office would be solicitous about the Sabbath day, 
 and could not see any good in people coming for 
 healing on that day. “If you will lead away an 
 ox to watering on the Sabbath, ought not a 
 daughter of Abraham eighteen years bound 
 under the power of Satan be loosed of her 
 bonds?” “And his adversaries were ashamed.” 
 
 There are few more striking tales in history 
 or fiction than the struggle of Pilate as to the 
 Faultless Christ. Convinced that the evil 
 lay with the accusers, Pilate would let him go 
 free. “I find no fault in the man.” Hearing 
 that he is of Galilee, he sends him to Herod, 
 who has jurisdiction in Galilee. Getting him 
 back, he tells the chief priests he finds no fault 
 in him, nor yet does Herod, and he will therefore 
 chastise him and let him go. The chief priests 
 storm to crucify him. “What evil hath he 
 done?” says Pilate. His wife terrifies him with 
 the story of her dream. He washes his hands of 
 the matter. He puts the King of the Jews on 
 the cross. To the bitter end he quarrels to keep 
 on good terms with his conscience and his Lord. 
 The Faultless One is his despair. 
 
 Another wondrous story is the attitude of the 
 
174 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 crucified thieves. “If thou be Christ, save 
 thyself and us/’ By and by a light breaks in on 
 one of them and he declares, “This man hath 
 done nothing amiss.” Pilate at the extreme of 
 earthly glory, and the thief in the depths of 
 shame, have but one testimony of the Faultless 
 Christ. 
 
 The confession of doubting Thomas, the 
 penitence of the denying Peter, the tragic end 
 of Judas the traitor, the cry of the Roman 
 centurion, “Truly this was the Son of God,” 
 are all tributes to the Faultless Christ. 
 
 The persistent fiendishness with which the 
 Jews again and again tried to put Jesus in the 
 apparent wrong is seen in the case of the woman 
 taken in adultery. It is adultery, a thing men 
 talk about in wdiispers. It is the woman side of 
 it; popularly the blackest. “She was taken 
 in the act. The man, somehow is not here, 
 but we have caught the woman. Now, Moses 
 said, ‘Stone her,’ but what sayest thou?” 
 How better could a white soul have met the 
 whole miserable affair? Jesus writes on the 
 ground. This business is their own affair, it is 
 too base for him to touch except as he must. 
 Let him without sin—let him who has never 
 been just where this woman was caught—cast 
 the first stone. The eldest, he to whom it was 
 the most shameful, went out first, and every one 
 
THE DESPAIR OF PILATE 175 
 
 of them went with him. Then the woman, told 
 she has been a sinner, probably deserving all she 
 gets, is bidden to go and sin no more. How 
 Jesus preserves the very air of purity, how he 
 upholds both law and conscience, how he puts 
 the lash on meanness, how he shows mercy to 
 the weak, how he trains with the beaten! No 
 wonder John remembers for three score years 
 this vision of the Faultless Christ. 
 
 The minister as he is, his office and mission, 
 is forever the worthy study of the minister. 
 What more effective sidelight than to see himself 
 as an ambassador of the Faultless Christ? He 
 learns his pattern is the highest ideal, that a 
 faultless one can never be less than God, that a 
 faultless one will always have large mission 
 among faulty men, that his whole heart’s love 
 may fasten on the perfect, that a thousand good 
 things follow on this wondrous acquaintance 
 with the Faultless Christ. 
 
 The herald of the Faultless is under bonds to 
 the highest virtue, personally. Does he fail to 
 thank God he is not as other men are, he will 
 have a running start toward being the thing. 
 Holiness bears poorly either bisection or dis¬ 
 section. The Christian and the holy man, as 
 two men, have no insurable destiny. As one 
 man they are immortal. A common Bible and 
 hymn book name for a good man is plain 
 
176 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “saint.” That the minister should be saintly 
 calls for no argument. Though in literal deed, 
 probably, one man should be as holy as another, 
 they who bear the vessels of the Lord above all 
 men dare not wilt and fail. Prophets of light, 
 they should walk in light. To talk about it less 
 is to reach it sooner. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The beauty of holiness has the best of authority. 
 
 That ministers should be likable is of their cur¬ 
 riculum. There is no especial piety in the disagree¬ 
 able. 
 
 Our likes are of us. We are never exactly certain 
 of them. Jesus was better than innocent. He was 
 virtuous. 
 
 WTien the call of the hour is to be planetary, to 
 be provincial falls into sin. 
 
 With every passing age the earth is to be more and 
 more a world of scholars. 
 
 It did not happen that white-souled women were 
 at home with Jesus. 
 
 There is something queer in an age when men are 
 not led of the Christ. 
 
 God has small use for the theatrical. He does not 
 need to play at being either great or good. 
 
 Thousands in all ages verily think within them¬ 
 selves that particularity is piety. 
 
 177 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 The modern minister’s work is with and 
 through his Bible and his church. The Bible 
 church is therefore to him a matter of perennial 
 interest. It is more so that never was the 
 church so under criticism. Indeed, a primary 
 question is as to the discount of the church in 
 our time and age. It has a variety of answers. 
 Chief among them is the fact that the church 
 has happily come to be the great organic exhibit 
 of the good as against evil. The wickedness 
 of the world has wit enough to find its foe. 
 Slavery, intemperance, graft, deceit, thievery, 
 murder, lust mobilize great armies. The church 
 cannot complain at what goes with the job. 
 Another obvious consideration is the inevitable 
 weaknesses that run with the human stuff of the 
 church. The church is built of men and not 
 angels. Another factor is the frequent miscon¬ 
 ception of the church genius. Seeing is much a 
 matter of eyes. The world expects what is 
 often not of the church mission or message, and 
 in its absence complains. Again, a changing and 
 various environment has its effect. It is not 
 
 178 
 
THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 179 
 
 always easy to keep up with the times. The 
 right thing often comes late. The church is 
 confessedly in process. It is not built but 
 building. Personal dereliction, ignorant or will¬ 
 ful, or both, not rarely begets hard words, harm¬ 
 ful even when defensible. “They know not what 
 they do.” It is probable that after all explain¬ 
 ing the church will be a target. Criticism, like 
 the poor, will be always with us. 
 
 In using the expression “The Bible church” 
 we get automatically a definition of the church! 
 It is the thing the Bible makes it. Stephen 
 spoke of the “church in the wilderness.” 
 Judaism was a church. Jesus said he would 
 build his church. Christendom is a church. 
 The Spirit said things to the churches. As to 
 the New Testament every formal aggregation 
 of good men for aggressive goodness was of the 
 church. There were other sheep not of their 
 fold. They also were to be brought. Every 
 soul the Christ touches for final good in all 
 times and places is of his church. To every 
 intent and purpose, a sincere formal concept of 
 an organic goodness, anywhere or anyhow, is 
 the Bible notion of the church. It may be 
 called a discipleship, a family, a fold, a way, a 
 kingdom, a people, a brotherhood, a house, the 
 image of God, a doing well, grace in the eyes of 
 the Lord, righteousness, worship, the salt of 
 
180 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 the earth, the light of the world—names in¬ 
 numerable—but the concept of a formal organic 
 goodness persists in all. Each separate title 
 conveys a shade of meaning all its own. A fold, 
 a family, a kingdom, righteousness, worship, all 
 add something. The common denominator is 
 an intelligent organized goodness. Something 
 is shut out and something is shut in. Any 
 institution standing formally for God and the 
 good, as men are given to see the light, is the 
 Bible notion of the church. Our article of 
 religion specifying a visible church evidently 
 dreams of the yet larger concept, the church 
 invisible. 
 
 Unless Bible religion is to be tribal or pro¬ 
 vincial, ancient, mediaeval, or modern, a thing 
 of shreds and patches, a broad defining of the 
 church, one reaching the planet in every age, is 
 inevitable. A world religion must garment the 
 world. Our eyes and hearts and hands must 
 gather to themselves, not some good men, but 
 all good men. 
 
 If Cain, the fratricide, in time does well, he is 
 accepted. If Noah is the last one worth keeping, 
 he will be kept. Abraham and Melchisedec 
 alike are of God’s order. Moses is not in Egypt 
 for the Israelites alone. It does not happen 
 that Jonah goes to Nineveh. Rome does not 
 dominate the earth, even the chosen people, for 
 
THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 181 
 
 nothing; Grecian learning does not saturate 
 mankind by accident; Cornelius, ready to wor¬ 
 ship a man, is still accepted with God. The 
 rawest heathen under the sun is without excuse. 
 He knew God. He had his chance with the 
 Church of God. The altar in Athens was a seat 
 of ignorant worship, but a seat of worship. An 
 apostle of Jesus Christ declared there from the 
 living God. To perceive that in every nation 
 he that fears God and works righteousness is 
 accepted with God may come late, but it must 
 come. The order of Saint Peter must persist in 
 spite of Peter. “God is no respecter of persons.” 
 
 The well-intentioned man who will not link 
 himself up with the Church of God refuses 
 almost universally for some minor reason. 
 Certain individuals are uncongenial. A local 
 church is distasteful. The particular denomi¬ 
 nation is not attractive. The preacher does not 
 please. This particular person should be shown 
 he is divorcing himself from the ongoings of the 
 universe. With everything distasteful, the 
 truly good man will align himself with what 
 stands formally for God in any locality. And be 
 happy. “He that is not for me is against me.” 
 It usually happens that behind the declared 
 intellectual disturbance is a self-will, proud in 
 its isolation, that cannot follow a Jesus of the 
 cross. As fearing God and working righteous- 
 
182 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 ness Cornelius was in God’s church. When 
 baptized he merely sank deeper into the church. 
 A missionary in heathen lands does not discredit 
 or overlook any goodness that he finds. He 
 builds upon it. Because one does not coun¬ 
 tenance Romanism, or Christian Science, or 
 Premillennialism, that he has something better 
 as a whole, he must not discredit the real and 
 larger good that floats these aberrations. The 
 wood and hay and stubble may not stand 
 fire some day, but the gold and silver and 
 precious stones will. The foundation carries 
 far. Only 4 'let every man take heed how he 
 buildeth thereupon.” In a word, the Bible 
 church is quite a larger matter than our usual 
 dreams or definitions. 
 
 “For the love of God is broader 
 
 Than the measure of man’s mind; 
 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully kind.” 
 
 With the Church of God, then in its essen¬ 
 tial essence coterminous with the human race, 
 we have an intense interest in every Godward 
 groping of mankind. Wherever idolatry covered 
 a wicked lustful heart, it was wicked and lustful 
 as everywhere other. Did it happen the god 
 of one’s hands, the brute, the breeze, the sun in 
 his strength, was a stairway to a soul eager for 
 
THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 183 
 
 the best and better, it was worship. It is Bible 
 doctrine that God looketh on the heart, that 
 it is what goeth forth therefrom that defiles a 
 man. That men should seek the Lord, feel 
 after him and find him, though he be not far 
 from any one of us, is religion anywhere, natural 
 or revealed. There is something sacred in 
 every soul on its knees. When the Moham¬ 
 medan declares that there is one God, and 
 prays to him early and late, to be a Moham¬ 
 medan does not make this good thing evil. A 
 hypocrite is a hypocrite in Turkey, Jerusalem 
 or Rome. A true soul is a true soul anywhere 
 and always. The pantheist did not automatic¬ 
 ally lose God in thinking him the sum total of 
 all things. It was much of a Christian who said 
 of us all, “In him we live, and move, and have 
 our being.” That God is good and good is God 
 is not entirely happy, but neither is it totally 
 astray. No man on earth can be guaranteed as 
 having an absolutely correct theology. If he 
 were so guaranteed, he might still be little the 
 better. It is the deliberate slant of the soul 
 toward the true and good that is of worth. 
 
 It should go, then, without saying, that the 
 church is a precious thing to God. When one 
 remembers the slight hold the church often has 
 upon the world and upon the millions of its own, 
 it is astounding to read what it means to the 
 
184 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Eternal Father. Were men and women in 
 thousands to treat their families, their friends, 
 their affairs as they do the church, their homes 
 and business would be broken up, and they 
 would be vagabonds among men. Yet the 
 church is the Church of God. The church is 
 purchased of God, “with his own blood.” Jesus 
 called it affectionately “My church,” and said 
 he would give good time to building it. The 
 Holy Spirit talks with the churches. “Hear 
 what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Such 
 as were being saved “The Lord added daily to 
 the church.” The man who neglected to hear 
 the church was to be as an heathen man and 
 publican. Christ loved the church and gave 
 himself for it. He is the head of the body, 
 which is the church. It is to be a glorious 
 church. The names of this church of the first¬ 
 born are written in Heaven. It is of the grievous 
 sins that men should give “offense to the 
 Church of God.” How strange it looks and is, 
 that literally millions thinking themselves 
 Christians will not formally give their honor to 
 the church! Other millions are utterly absurd 
 and farcical in the actual help they are to the 
 church, though of it and in it. Others rate it 
 with their lodge, club, school, market, pro¬ 
 fession, trade, business, judged by their warmth 
 of heart or expression. The church, precious 
 
THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 185 
 
 to God, is cheap to men. It would be a sad 
 thing for the world did the Roman Catholic 
 Church die overnight. It does overemphasize 
 the church, but it emphasizes it. The lax 
 church condition in Protestantism is in a 
 measure the reaction from Romanism. The 
 time may come when wise men and good 
 will yet more largely respect the Pope. The 
 church needs all its friends. Precious to God, 
 it must be made dear to men. 
 
 The thought of God as related to the church 
 is seen again in the evolution of the church. 
 There is no church except as related to God. 
 Jesus said he would found his church on a 
 certain rock. The crude insistence of Romanism 
 that Peter was that rock is a glaring weakness. 
 No man can be foundation for the church. So 
 Paul said, ‘‘Other foundation can no man lay 
 than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ.” 
 That the dynamic of the gospel is an organic 
 literal machine handed down without break is 
 so artificial as to discredit itself. Organism is 
 but a vehicle of life, a channel in which the river 
 runs. The concept of the confession of Peter as 
 the rock is a step nearer the truth but is still 
 unsatisfactory. The human confession, indeed, 
 is always in evidence. The man that believes 
 the gospel so confesses before men and is 
 confessed before the angels of heaven. But 
 
186 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 the church is more than a fellowship or test 
 of faith. 
 
 The long and wide discussion as to what 
 “this rock” may be is really strange, almost 
 uncanny. It seems so unnecessary. The mind 
 of Jesus was intent upon what the world 
 thought him to be. “Whom do men say that I 
 am?” When Peter declared him “the Son of 
 the living God,” he was told nothing less than 
 the revelation of the Father in heaven had made 
 the declaration possible. God Almighty, making 
 himself known to the world, is the Rock on 
 which the world is forever building. God with 
 us, Immanuel, is the hope of the earth. Not 
 Peter, nor Peter’s abstract confession, nor even 
 the historic Christ, but the mighty fact that 
 God will not keep to himself, is the base rock 
 of the church, the soul of all religion. The 
 visible universe, the inception of life, the 
 superior life of men, the Bible, the incarnation, 
 the spiritual experiences of the soul, the 
 church are all the footprints of the Eternal. 
 God is the great Fact in life. As we learn God, 
 we build his church. 
 
 As in all other life, God builds his church in 
 collaboration with men. The harvests of the 
 earth are sown and garnered. Culture is the 
 fruit of study. He that has friends has shown 
 himself friendly. So the kingdom of heaven, 
 
THE BIBLE CHURCH 
 
 187 
 
 also opened with keys, gives up its treasures to 
 the hands of men. There is a ministry of angels, 
 but it is not the ministry of the gospel. That 
 is the heritage of man. Here is the terrifying 
 benediction of human freedom. Here is the 
 slow march of righteousness in the earth. It is 
 exactly the same as the slow march of science, 
 art, commerce, the social order, and human 
 comfort. Man’s hand is on it and it crawls. 
 There is no evident reason why God the 
 Omnipotent might not have built the physical 
 order of things in literally six days or in six 
 ages. But wdth man on earth, the story changes. 
 He is henceforth in bonds to human freedom. 
 
 God brought the animals to Adam to see what 
 he might call them. God planted his garden, 
 and for dressing and keeping calls in the 
 gardener. God came down to see the city and 
 the tower which the children of men builded. 
 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?” was the cry of the Son of man. The 
 terror of human freedom was on him. It is one 
 of the magic secrets of all history that God 
 forsakes his creatures betimes and they 'walk 
 alone. By and by they will run, and the earth 
 will sing. The keys will not forever stick in 
 the lock. Keys were made and were given to 
 open with. It is a favorite premillennial 
 teaching that the only hope of the world is the 
 
188 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 second coming of the Lord. The first is a 
 disappointment. But Jesus himself, who surely 
 knows, and is a party at interest, says the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven are given to men. What 
 they bind and loose on earth are bound and 
 loosed in heaven. The hope of the earth is the 
 faithfulness of the church. 
 
 As to the future of the church Jesus sees no 
 doubt or fear. The gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it. To the Jews, Hades, or 
 hell, was primarily collapse, ruin, helplessness, 
 failure. There is no failure for the church. 
 That the order of things incident to the first 
 coming of Jesus will not save the world is squarely 
 denied by the whole trend of the New Testament 
 teaching. Premillennialism is a libel on the rec¬ 
 ords of its Lord. “He must reign, till he hath put 
 all enemies under his feet.” “Whose fan is in his 
 hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and 
 will gather the wheat into his garner.” “Be of 
 good cheer; I have overcome the world.” “Fear 
 not; I am the first and the last: I am he that 
 liveth, and was dead; and. Behold, I am alive for 
 evermore, and have the keys of Hell and death.” 
 Yet this is the Lord that must come again, or 
 there is no hope for the earth! 
 
 While perhaps pessimism as to the future of 
 the church among good men is vastly more 
 dangerous, yet a word is worth while as to the 
 
THE BIBLE CHUBCH 
 
 189 
 
 expectations of men of the world. To them the 
 very existence of evil is a reproach. Then, 
 too, there is its persistence. Add to that its 
 frequent dominance. Further, the Armageddon 
 of the earth is not between black and white, 
 but between gray and brown. Good people 
 have their bad half hours, and bad people are 
 often quite presentable. Evil is largely well 
 dressed and comfortable while the good is not 
 rarely in rags and hungry. It is a painful matter 
 to the saints, and that the unregenerate some¬ 
 times consider God is nothing that they should 
 serve him is hardly idiocy, to say the least. 
 
 The answers are numberless and ring with 
 good cheer. Whatever happens, men are free; 
 their evil is their fault, their good is virtue. 
 God takes long time and wide spaces; the wrong 
 and hard to haste and narrowness grows 
 desirable when the whole issue stands revealed. 
 In all the processes character is determined, and 
 character is destiny. There is no waste, or 
 “rubbish to the void,” in any world. The love 
 of God is magnified. The worst never happens. 
 Even to the lost God is forever kind and good; 
 the remainder of wrath is restrained; men 
 never get the length of their rope. The very 
 slowness of moral processes immortalizes their 
 results. Slavery, drunkenness, lust, greed are the 
 more hopelessly dead that they are long in dying. 
 
190 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Concretely, there were never so many people 
 on the earth as to-day: the planet has been a 
 fruitful kindly mother with all its miseries. 
 With every bat-winged thing considered, the 
 average of human longevity rises steadily. 
 Womankind—toy, and tool, and trial, and 
 tears—is queen and companion as in no other 
 age. Childhood comes to years with a full life 
 beyond all other days. Men were never at such 
 premium in court, or church, or market, or 
 school, or the records of history; democracy is 
 hours beyond the sunrise. There was never the 
 publicity of our age: men always right the 
 wrong more readily as they know. Refinement is 
 not the whole of religion, but that vice is driven 
 to be respectable is of the dawn, under any sky. 
 There was never so much everyday human 
 comfort. Our poverty and distress sink all the 
 deeper that we know the worst is behind. 
 
 The Church of God is not yet builded; it is 
 in the building. The gates of hell look less and 
 less like victors. Toil and sowing are forever 
 heralds of the harvest. The school and lesson 
 never fail to widen and deepen knowledge. It 
 is surely a warped and twisted mind, if not a 
 hard heart, that must insist the river will not 
 reach the sea. Nothing other than this Church 
 of God, the dwelling place of the Eternal, is 
 the hope of the earth. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 Any institution standing formally for God and the 
 good as men are given to see the light is the Bible 
 notion of the church. 
 
 The well-intentioned man who will not link 
 himself up with the Church of God refuses almost 
 universally for a very minor reason. 
 
 There is something sacred in a soul on its knees. 
 
 The church precious to God, is cheap to men. 
 
 God with us, Immanuel, is the hope of the earth. 
 
 The slow march of Religion is exactly the slow 
 march of Science, Art, Commerce, the Social Order 
 and Human Comfort. Man’s hand is on it and it 
 crawls. 
 
 It is of the magic secrets of all history that God 
 forsakes his creatures betimes and they walk alone. 
 By and by they will run and the earth will sing. 
 
 The worst never happens. Even to the lost 
 God is forever good and kind. 
 
 The Church of God is the hope of the earth. 
 
 191 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES 
 
 That the book of Revelation should be a 
 manual of practical advice reads queerly when 
 one remembers the chaos men make of it. 
 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God 
 gave unto him, to shew unto his servants 
 things which must shortly come to pass.” 
 “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear 
 the words of this prophecy, and keep those 
 things which are written therein: for the time is 
 at hand.” Whatever the Apocalypse may hold, 
 it holds to be understood. Its native air is not 
 fog but sunlight. The book of Revelation is a 
 book of revelation. Its difficulties are troubles 
 of size. The physical universe is so big it was 
 only this morning that we began to chart it, or 
 read it. The word of God carries a like burden 
 with the world of God. “He that hath an ear 
 let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
 churches.” The trouble is ear trouble. 
 
 A further thing to be remembered is that the 
 Revelation is an integral part of the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ. The same Divine One who spoke 
 his will in Galilee, and Judsea, and later to Saul 
 
 192 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES 
 
 193 
 
 of Tarsus, now appears to John, the son of 
 Zebedee. Whatever lesson we get from the 
 Apocalypse is a lesson from the skies. Rational 
 it is, but never rationalistic. Confessedly and 
 inescapably it is a supernatural affair. The 
 seven candlesticks, the golden girdle, the head 
 and hair of snow, the eyes as a flame of fire, the 
 voice as the sound of many waters, the face as 
 the sun shining in its strength, are but attempts 
 at sketching the majesty of the great God that 
 little people might see. “And when I saw him, 
 I fell at his feet as dead.” The supernatural is 
 assumed in the book of Revelation. Perhaps it 
 is the thing exactly the modern church may 
 need. The supernatural is forever a dynamic. 
 
 As there cannot be a model minister, so 
 there is no model church. It takes the good 
 qualities of seven churches to throw in relief 
 what anv one church is to strive after. Seven 
 with the Hebrew was completeness. “The 
 seven churches which are in Asia,” will give a 
 rounded notion of the ideal church. This is 
 the value of our study, as applied to the modern 
 church life and task. Asia Minor is not so far 
 away as to geography or chronology that we 
 do not get great and wise lessons. 
 
 Strangely enough, the church at Ephesus 
 may be classed as the Church Decadent. It 
 was the church to which Paul wrote his won- 
 
194 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 derful epistle, where both Apollos and he had 
 long labored, where Aquila and Priscilla had 
 lived, a church of great privilege. Yet it was 
 here where men had left their first love, where a 
 church might not be a church, where a church 
 might die. How significant to read the things 
 that keep a church alive!—works, patience, 
 holiness, intelligence, persevering strength. The 
 normal life of a church is an endurance, an 
 overcoming. Too many churches do not 
 take themselves seriously. Its best evidences 
 are the epileptic drives, evangelistic, social, 
 and financial, to which they must subject 
 themselves. The steady labor without fainting 
 is of the first works, to which there must be 
 penitent return. The revival season is a snare. 
 A financial fever is a contagion. It is he that 
 overcomes that eats of the tree of life. Though 
 decadent, Ephesus may regain her glory. 
 
 The message to the church at Smyrna 
 emphasizes the earthly life and mission of 
 Jesus. It was he that was dead and lived again 
 who commands these things. A deified Christ 
 must have been an historic Christ. Men may 
 not say their prayers to a myth. Plow much 
 this would mean to John! He sees his Apoc¬ 
 alypse in the light of the three wonderful 
 years. It is of a startling contingency to study 
 exhaustively the four Gospels. Anyone who will 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES 
 
 195 
 
 do it comes out absolute skeptic or good 
 Christian. He breathes their air or dies 
 of it. 
 
 Smyrna is the suffering church. Its tribula¬ 
 tion, poverty, persecutions, fears are note¬ 
 worthy. Its faithfulness was to be unto death. 
 That is something other than until death. 
 Chronology is not particularly of the virtues. 
 Their comfort at Smyrna was that they were 
 not to be hurt of a second death. He who could 
 live again, having been dead, could see them 
 through. Church success is not always the 
 success of the church. If the church is a 
 vehicle for its citizens to overcome, to escape 
 the second death, it may itself collapse and dis¬ 
 appear. The mothers are not few who die 
 of their children. This is the glory often of first 
 churches in growing communities. Their im¬ 
 mortality is of the suburbs. It is the church 
 invisible against which the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail. To hold to a given organization in a 
 hopeless situation is not necessary. To keep 
 one’s membership from moving, or sending their 
 letters by freight, is doubtful wisdom. To be 
 overproud of our denomination is a temptation. 
 It may be an integral part of our mission to be 
 high priests of failure. The way of the crown 
 is the way of the cross. 
 
 Pergamos might have been called the Church 
 
196 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 of the Holy Compromise. This is the sig¬ 
 nificance of the “sharp sword with two edges.” 
 The sword is decision. Pergamos had in its 
 fold certain Balaamites, and Nicolaitans, people 
 who considered that they might be at once 
 religious and licentious, if not licentious as 
 religious. Good people who consider the world 
 is getting worse, and the worst is yet to come, 
 would better read again the story of the old- 
 time heathen temple and its ritual. The 
 infiltrations of religion with sexual passion at 
 least have passed. It is a perennial sermon 
 that in a day when it was on hand it was faced 
 with a sword, clean-cut, decisive, against it. 
 Men and women are not helpless in the grip of 
 their loves. To say one is human is no end of 
 argument. Men and women are to be holy in 
 any temptation. Satan’s throne may be in 
 Pergamos. For his faith Antipas may die 
 there. Their nearest neighbors may eat things 
 sacrificed to idols, and careless and unashamed 
 run riot. Nevertheless the good man is to 
 overcome. “To him that overeometh will I 
 give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give 
 him a white stone, and in the stone a new name 
 written, which no man knowetli saving he that 
 receiveth it.” A reckless, careless, trifling 
 world, delighted to play with fire, needs still 
 its royal souls who walk in white. It is not 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES 
 
 197 
 
 certain but the modern struggle of religion is 
 beyond all dreams a battle with the night. 
 
 Pergamos and Thyatira were hardly apart an 
 hour’s ride. The degradation of the one was the 
 collapse of the other. There was little ahead in 
 Thyatira but ruin. Its works and charity and 
 service and patience and faith could not save it. 
 “The Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto 
 a flame of fire,” could not long endure its vile 
 debasement. He must witness things sacrificed 
 to idols, and fornication was not only fallen 
 into but was taught, taught by a woman, a 
 prophetess, in the name of the Lord. In spite of 
 warning it had gone on. So very soon there is 
 to be great tribulation, and the churches are to 
 know the Son of God is he who trieth the reins 
 and hearts. The night is dark, but to anyone 
 who will overcome there will be given the morn¬ 
 ing star, the shining of the better day. An 
 impenitent church of Thyatira will be a per¬ 
 ishing church in all the ages. A faithful soul 
 may save itself in any environment. 
 
 The church in Sardis was the original dead 
 church. He that had the seven spirits and the 
 seven stars said that they had a name to live 
 and were dead. The things which remained 
 were ready to die. There were a few names in 
 Sardis, a few individuals who had not defiled 
 their garments, but the church was dead. There 
 
198 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 were not ten left in Sodom. He that should 
 overcome under such conditions was among 
 all men worthy, and should be arrayed in white 
 garments, and his name in no wise should be 
 blotted out of the Book of Life, but should be 
 confessed before the angels and the Father in 
 Heaven. “He that hath an ear, let him hear 
 what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” 
 There may be such a thing as a dead church. No 
 dead church can infect a man who is bound he 
 will live. Even a dead church may live again. 
 To know a dead church when one sees it is an 
 art. To get it alive again is an art also. 
 
 The church in Philadelphia and the church 
 at Smyrna were the only ones against which He 
 that is holy and true found nothing to say. 
 Of what sort may such a church be? It is a 
 working church. It is not content with getting. 
 It gives. It is faithful. Even under persecution 
 it does not deny its Lord. It is a church 
 beloved of God. It is a church of power, its 
 enemies worship at its feet. It is an enduring 
 church—has patience. It is a protected church 
 —saved from trial coming on the whole earth. 
 Its virtues are worthy of permanence. He that 
 overcometh is to be a pillar in the temple of his 
 God. He is to go out thence no more. The 
 name of God, and of the City of God, are to be 
 WTitten upon him. Even in this changeful, 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES 
 
 199 
 
 dying world there may be a live church fit for 
 the commendation of God. 
 
 The word “Pharisaical” will satisfy many as 
 a description of the church at Laodicea. “Be¬ 
 cause thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor 
 hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” 
 “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased 
 with goods, and have need of nothing; and 
 knowest not that thou art wretched, and 
 miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” 
 As of Smyrna and Philadelphia, there was not a 
 reproachful word, so of Laodicea there was not a 
 good word said. The one only hopeful thing was 
 that they might still repent. They might 
 become something other than the thing they 
 were. Because they were so certain of them¬ 
 selves it is the “Amen, the faithful and true 
 witness, the beginning of the creation of God,” 
 that tells them they are utterly unthinkable 
 and worthless. A church cannot live on its 
 record. The riches of a church are in its virtues. 
 The Lord Christ is outside a church of Pharisees. 
 He stands at the door and knocks. There is no 
 future for Laodicea but to let the Lord Christ in. 
 
 There is probably no needed lesson for the 
 churches of our day that is not taught in these 
 significant messages. If every variety is not 
 found in seven, it would hardly be found in 
 more. Each letter gets to its church by way of 
 
200 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 its angel, the pastor or bishop. The ministry 
 is a vital element in church life. A cheapened 
 pastorate is trouble to the parish. Each 
 message is of life or death value. Each message 
 is an honest word. Whether good or bad, 
 cheering or alarming, each church has the truth 
 about itself. Each message is a word of hope, 
 the worst may still become the best. That a 
 church stands is no evidence that it is a church. 
 Like Sardis, it may be walking around dead. 
 Like Smyrna, its sufferings may be its pride. 
 Like Laodicea, its pride may be its shame. Like 
 Philadelphia, if not held fast, its crown may 
 still be taken. Like Thyatira, it may not have 
 salt enough to save it. Like Ephesus, its heart 
 may chill in the work of its hands. Like 
 Pergamos, it may be so politic as to be a peril. 
 Whether a church is a church is forever its own 
 affair. The help of the hills is with it, but only 
 as it chooses. It is the common thought that 
 churches happen. The truth is they are built. 
 More foresight, culture, consecration, service, 
 faith, dynamic, spells a church where before 
 was hardly scaffolding. Churches generally 
 are the work of the left hand. When the right 
 hand functions, they will be of a better sort. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The physical universe is so big it was only this 
 morning we began to chart it, or read it. The word 
 of God carries a like burden with the world of God. 
 
 Seven, with the Hebrew, is completeness. The 
 seven stars tell us there is no model minister. It 
 takes the best of seven to make a model. It takes 
 the best of seven churches to make a model church. 
 
 The revival season is a snare. 
 
 It is of a startling contingency to study the 
 Gospels exhaustively. One comes out confirmed 
 skeptic or good Christian. He breathes their air 
 or dies of it. 
 
 The immortality of the First Church is of the 
 suburbs. The mothers are not few who die of their 
 children. 
 
 To keep one’s membership from moving, or sending 
 on their letters by freight, is doubtful wisdom. Babel 
 was the harvest of the earth. 
 
 To be overproud of one’s denomination is a 
 temptation. It may be an integral part of one’s 
 mission to be high priest of failure. 
 
 A reckless, trifling world, delighted to play with 
 fire, needs still its royal souls who walk in white. 
 
 201 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 
 
 What an anomaly! We do not want to 
 believe it. The thought is unwelcome. Yet, 
 in a true commanding sense, such is the Bible 
 introduction to Apollos. 
 
 One of the best, however. Not prosy but 
 eloquent. Not lazy but fervent. Not an 
 ignoramus but instructed. Whether poetical, 
 rhetorical, or critical, still, 4 ‘mighty in the 
 Scriptures.” If he had any doubt about the 
 Pentateuch, or the Prophets, they did him no 
 damage. “He spake boldly in the synagogue.” 
 Many a pulpit failure is heart failure. But 
 Apollos was a heart success. He did not need 
 power but a change. Not more heart but 
 another sort. His train was on a siding. 
 “Knowing only the baptism of John,” he 
 needed the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He was 
 not ready to preach, as to Aquila and Priscilla, 
 till he “knew the way of God more perfectly.” 
 To be taught, with him, was to learn. Im¬ 
 mediately thereafter we find him “helping them 
 much who had believed through grace; mightily 
 
 202 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 203 
 
 convincing the Jews, and that publicly, showing 
 by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” 
 Apolios as an unconverted preacher is still an 
 Apollos without prejudice. As God gave him 
 to see the light he walked therein. 
 
 Every converted man, like Apollos, learns 
 the way of God more perfectly. Nicodemus 
 knew quite a deal about the way of God as he 
 came to Jesus by night. It had not gotten very 
 deeply into her way of living, but the Samaritan 
 woman evidently knew not a little about the 
 way of God. The three thousand converts of 
 the Day of Pentecost were already “devout 
 men.” Saul of Tarsus, to himself, was doing 
 God service before his vision on the Damascus 
 road. Preaching to raw heathen in Athens, 
 Paul said, “Whom therefore ye ignorantly 
 worship, him declare I unto you.” Of utterly 
 degraded sinners, sinners whose record defiles 
 the Bible, Paul says again, “They are without 
 excuse: because that, when they knew God, 
 they glorified him not as God.” Conviction 
 always precedes conversion. No sinner is an 
 absolute stranger to the way of God. Every 
 converted man, with Apollos, learns the way of 
 God more perfectly. 
 
 It is a matter of prime importance that every 
 minister shall have a clear philosophy of the 
 moral world he lives in. No lawyer willingly 
 
204 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 goes into a case with his client lying to him. 
 No physician undervalues diagnosis. The 
 empires of the planet have learned in a hard 
 school, but are at last in love with preparedness. 
 No minister is a minister who does not see 
 clearly what he is about. Learning where 
 conversion found Apollos, we know where it 
 finds us all. 
 
 That Aquila and Priscilla brought into the 
 life of Apollos some new thing is evident. What 
 was that new thing? The normal answer 
 would be that it is a simple case of New- 
 Testament conversion. With the large number 
 of accepted instances on record the Christian 
 world has no trouble. The three thousand 
 added to the Lord at Pentecost were converted. 
 Later, the many who, “hearing the word of the 
 Lord, believed,” were converted. When “believ¬ 
 ers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes 
 both of men and women,” it was easily so many 
 more conversions. When the number of 
 disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a 
 great number of the priests “were obedient to 
 the faith,” their experience was conversion. 
 So the eunuch, the Philippian jailer, Lydia, 
 Saul of Tarsus, Cornelius and his company are 
 considered commonly as having been converted. 
 That the Samaritans, the Ephesians, the one 
 hundred and twenty, and Apollos showed 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 205 
 
 certain variations, they have been given other 
 classification, to no end but confusion. They 
 were simply so many more New-Test ament 
 conversions added to the long roll of the 
 conquests of the Lord. Apollos, like the 
 Ephesians, “knowing only the baptism of 
 John,” is led like them into the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost, a common term for New-Testament 
 conversion. 
 
 One trenchant reason for saying Apollos was 
 an unconverted preacher when Aquila and 
 Priscilla found him, is the intriguing character 
 of Luke’s writings. The most masterful penman 
 of the New’ Testament is the author of the Acts 
 of the Apostles and the Gospel bearing his 
 name. No one w’hose contributions might be 
 dropped out would be so great a loss as Luke. As 
 to quantity, Paul wrote a trifle more. But the 
 writings of Paul are letters sent to eleven 
 destinations, and the subject matter, therefore, 
 is repetitious. Luke was the first historian of 
 Christendom, the Heredotus of the gospel. To 
 say that “history repeats itself” is, in fact, 
 only magnificent rhetoric. No event but has 
 its day in court. To write events is rarely to 
 run to brevity. Luke is the Bible artist in 
 events. He probably put himself behind more 
 happenings than any one author of God’s great 
 book. Any item he records is in great company. 
 
206 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 It was the pride of Luke to write consecu¬ 
 tively, “in order.” This experience of Apollos 
 is not a chance mention of a unique or peculiar 
 experience. It is an integral part of a designed 
 purpose in a master builder. It is said the 
 conversion of the eunuch was the salvation of 
 Africa. The conversion of Cornelius was sal¬ 
 vation at play upon the Gentiles. So perhaps 
 Greek scholarship and Hebrew mysticism are 
 wedded in the conversion of Apollos. Alexan¬ 
 dria, Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome are met in 
 Ephesus. Apollos was particularly cosmopol¬ 
 itan, a citizen of the world. Great enough to 
 rival Cephas and Paul, in Grecian Corinth men 
 said, “I am of Apollos.” Great scholars say 
 that he was quite competent to the writing of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. A paragraph to 
 tell how he became a normal and model Chris¬ 
 tian was fitting, as it was fitting of Paul. 
 There is nothing so reasonable as that it 
 should be the story of his conversion. 
 Confessedly, Luke writes the tale of many 
 conversions. Why should Apollos stand as an 
 exception? 
 
 Upon Luke’s roll of beginnings is no one he so 
 emphasized as the gift, or baptism, of the Holy 
 Spirit. Not even Paul or John speaks of it so 
 often, and no one nearly so much. Luke’s 
 writings might almost be called the Gospel of 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 207 
 
 the Holy Ghost. Now, as is well known, 
 chapters and verses are a comparatively recent 
 invention as to the Bible. When in the very 
 next paragraph, with no break of thought or 
 purpose, we find the instance of the Ephesians 
 who knew only the baptism of John, we in¬ 
 evitably connect it with the case of Apollos. 
 Emowing only the baptism of John, Apollos 
 and the Ephesians must know the baptism of 
 the Holy Spirit. That without this coming of 
 the Spirit a man is in the flesh and none of 
 Christ’s, was the insistent teaching of this same 
 Paul, and is the accepted truth of the whole 
 New Testament. It is but another way of 
 saying that Apollos was a preacher before he 
 was converted. 
 
 This appears yet more conclusively when we 
 remember that not only does Luke make 
 repeated record of this experience, but it is the 
 only distinct experience he does record. In 
 Luke’s writings one will find the common 
 words, “converted,” “justified,” “sanctified,” 
 “forgiven,” “repentance,” “believed,” “eternal 
 life,” and many others as applied to the influx 
 of God to the human soul. His usual and 
 favorite words, however, are in the terminology 
 of the Holy Spirit. “Baptized with the Spirit,” 
 “gift of the Spirit,” “filled with the Holy 
 Ghost,” “pouring out of the Holy Ghost,” 
 
208 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “falling of tlie Holy Ghost,” “receiving the 
 Spirit” are his dominant turns of expression. 
 
 If one goes beyond a single crisis experience 
 for a Christian, he cannot stop with two, in 
 the multiplicity of terms. The only consistent 
 interpretation is to read them all as varying 
 phases of the one experience. The one great 
 spiritual event all schools of thought have 
 agreed upon is conversion, the new birth, 
 that happens normally but once. When a 
 distinct single uplift of soul comes to Apollos, 
 without positive word to the contrary we dare 
 not make it any other than the standardized 
 conversion familiar to us all. 
 
 Because the word “conversion” is not used 
 here of Apollos, we need not hesitate to face 
 the inevitable conclusion, for our commonest 
 word is the most uncommon Bible word. There 
 are but one or two passages in the whole Bible 
 where “conversion” (or any of its cognates) 
 means exactly what we mean by it to-day. The 
 whole number hardly exceed a dozen at the 
 most. Paul and Barnabas, “declaring the 
 conversion of the Gentiles,” speak our language. 
 Conviction, repentance, faith, pardon, regenera¬ 
 tion, the witness of the Spirit—all our familiar 
 concepts—may be accepted here as in the word 
 “conversion.” No other such passage may be 
 found. By so much as New-Testament conver- 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 209 
 
 sion was of more novel or larger content than 
 Old-Testament conversion, we cannot apply it 
 accurately to Old-Testament terms, even when 
 quoted in the New Testament. When Isaiah 
 said, “Their eyes have they closed lest they 
 should be converted and I should heal them,” 
 the dynamic is the healing. Conversion is con¬ 
 ceived as preliminary. To us it is the whole 
 transaction. When Peter said, “Repent ye 
 therefore; and be converted, that your sins may 
 be blotted out,” conversion has the same con¬ 
 tent. It is a preliminary. The dynamic is 
 the blotting out. 
 
 So, in yet other cases, conversion falls short of 
 our common concept. “Conversion” to James 
 was recovery from backsliding, and is modified 
 by so much. In a word, “conversion” is hardly 
 at all a Bible word for the initial Christian 
 experience. That it is our most usual word 
 must not blind us to what was usual to the 
 Bible writers themselves. In using the term¬ 
 inology of the Holy Spirit, Luke was doing his 
 usual thing in writing of conversion, the 
 unusual thing to us. In the better time coming 
 good men will read the Bible as it is written, and 
 save themselves endless confusion. They will 
 not divide into camps and cults over holiness, 
 or religion, or Pentecost, or names of any sort, 
 but will worship God in spirit and in truth 
 
210 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 under every name. It will then occasion no 
 distress to hear one talk of unconverted preach¬ 
 ers. Apollos and John Wesley, if not one or two 
 others, will be in great good company. 
 
 The simple fact is the Bible conversion is so 
 dominant a thing that any word used to express 
 it commonly means some partial phase of it. 
 Like looking at the sun, it blinds us, and shows 
 only a face at a time. Conversion connotes the 
 idea of change. Regeneration is conversion as a 
 new life. Justification is conversion as a right 
 relation acquired. Sanctification is conversion 
 as cleansing, a setting apart from the unclean, 
 a proper condition acquired. Holiness is con¬ 
 version lengthening over the years, a state as 
 fruitage of an event. Pardon is conversion with 
 the concrete sin in view. “Death to sin” is con¬ 
 version as unmistakable severance from wrong. 
 So with “crucifixion of the old man,” “destruc¬ 
 tion of the body of sin.” Conversion is never 
 a compromise. The baptism of the Spirit, the 
 gift of the Spirit, wherever ethical, is conversion 
 wrought by and with the Holy Spirit. Con¬ 
 version has perhaps a thousand names in the 
 mighty Book of God, and no one of them tells 
 the wdiole truth. Could all of them be found 
 together, we could not face the whole truth. 
 The pitiful divisions over special blessings are 
 only a pathetic proof that being human, saints 
 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 211 
 
 sometimes go blind. Apollos, “Taught the 
 way of God more perfectly,” was led into a 
 standardized New-Testament conversion. We 
 do not libel him as having been an unconverted 
 preacher. 
 
 A thing often forgotten is the epochal char¬ 
 acter of New-Testament conversion. Pentecost 
 was cradle of an era. “I will pour out of my 
 Spirit on all flesh, saith God, in the last days.” 
 “I indeed baptize you with water, He shall 
 baptize you with the Ploly Ghost.” “If I go 
 not away, the Comforter will not come unto 
 you; but if I depart, I will send him.” “Tarry ye 
 in the city of Jerusalem, till ye be endued with 
 power from on high.” “As I began to speak, 
 the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the 
 beginning.” “Of which salvation, the prophets 
 have inquired and searched diligently who 
 prophesied of the grace that should come to 
 you unto whom it was revealed that not unto 
 themselves but unto you they did minister the 
 things reported unto you by them that have 
 preached the gospel unto you with the Holy 
 Ghost sent down from Heaven, which things the 
 angels desire to look into.” 
 
 Could this wonderful benediction of a world 
 era have been some special secondary affair 
 which only a few especially good men here and 
 there may attain or obtain? It is more likely 
 
212 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 that nothing short of the one great blessing by 
 which all men become sons of God is the fitting 
 fulfillment. This one epochal experience inter¬ 
 prets the signs and wonders of the apostolic 
 age. As Jesus worked miracles, that he was a 
 unique and new Person in the world, the Son of 
 God, so tongues and gifts of healing testified 
 to the advent of the Holy Spirit. This one 
 epochal experience explains the tarrying in 
 Jerusalem. It was worth it. 
 
 This one epochal experience justifies the care 
 and emphasis of the early church in its pro¬ 
 jection and statement. The first sermon at 
 Pentecost offered the gift of the Holy Spirit to 
 the penitent sinners at Jerusalem. Philip 
 carried it to Samaria. Peter and John prayed 
 and laid on hands that men might have it. 
 Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, “Jesus hath 
 sent me that thou mightest be filled with the 
 Holy Ghost.” Cornelius and his household 
 were given the “falling of the Holy Ghost.” 
 Paul would not be content until the Ephesians 
 who had not heard of such a thing should 
 “receive the Holy Ghost.” Aquila and Priscilla 
 would not let Apollos preach longer till he knew 
 this something larger than the baptism of John. 
 
 This one epochal experience explains the 
 ethical situation of saved men before Pentecost. 
 “Were not the disciples converted before 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 218 
 
 Pentecost?” Certainly, with the conversion 
 attainable in their day: as the eunuch was 
 converted before he met Philip; as Cornelius 
 was converted before Peter crossed his path; 
 as the Ephesians were converted before Paul’s 
 questioning; as Apollos was converted before 
 the impertinence of Aquila and Priscilla. In all 
 these cases it was being 4 ‘Taught the way of 
 God more perfectly,” the going on to a greater 
 conversion. It was eminently fitting that these 
 souls, so near the Kingdom, should be led into 
 the full experience they were to preach. They 
 would then be examples of their own preaching. 
 
 The same Bible that said Cornelius was 
 accepted of God said also he was yet to be 
 saved. The same Bible that said Jerusalem 
 was crowded with devout men said likewise 
 they were to receive the Holy Ghost, without 
 which men are in the flesh and none of Christ’s. 
 The same Bible that said Paul was void of 
 offense toward God and men, said he still 
 needed to receive the Holy Ghost. So the 
 Ephesians, measured by John’s baptism, are 
 converted; measured by Paul’s question, they 
 are unconverted. So Apollos, measured by 
 John the Baptist, is converted; measured by 
 Aquila and Priscilla, he is unconverted. This is 
 what Jesus meant when he said, “Among them 
 that are born of women there hath not risen a 
 
£14 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding 
 he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is 
 greater than he.” This is wdiat Peter meant 
 when he WTote, “The Spirit testified of the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
 follow.” 
 
 What we call the Christian experience has a 
 greater content since Pentecost. It has a 
 distinctly stated epochal character. The whole 
 second blessing propaganda in all the denom¬ 
 inations has sprung from misinterpretation just 
 here. It has not discerned the epochal variation 
 brought with Pentecost. To the evangelized 
 generation living through the transition it 
 might be truly said there came to them a second 
 blessing, an enlargement of what they had. 
 With every one coming later, the God revealing 
 was, as from the beginning, always unitary. 
 “Though the apostles before the Pentecost were 
 holy after the less perfect dispensation of Moses, 
 and so heirs of heaven, it was by this out¬ 
 pouring that they w T ere wrought to the higher 
 and doubtless highest dispensation of the 
 Spirit.” What Doctor Daniel Whedon has so 
 well written of the apostles is the succinct 
 statement of the situation affecting every 
 genuine Jewish convert happening to live during 
 the current Pentecost generation. They learned 
 the way of God more perfectly. Speaking 
 
AN UNCONVERTED PREACHER 215 
 
 popularly, to them it was a second blessing. 
 Ma kin g it the standard for all time and all 
 men can lead to nothing but unrest. 
 
 The Christian experience as to the Scriptures 
 is fundamentally unitary. It is never bisected 
 except at needless cost. The matter is clearly 
 stated by Docter W. F. Tillett, 1 of Vanderbilt 
 University, in the following language: “Per¬ 
 sonal salvation is not so much a complex thing 
 or a compound thing, or many things, as it is 
 one thing. Spiritual life manifests itself in many 
 ways, but it is essentially in itself a unit.” 
 “Not diversity but unity therefore is the great 
 law, the fundamental principle of spiritual 
 life.” “Repentance, faith, righteousness, son- 
 ship, holiness, are not so much different things 
 which together constitute salvation as they are 
 different ways of looking at or setting forth one 
 and the self same thing—spiritual life.” “Per¬ 
 sonal salvation is divinely imparted spiritual 
 life, and this, as we have seen, is an indivisible 
 unit, not a compound of many things.” “If 
 it be true therefore that the Bible warrants 
 the foregoing analysis of salvation into distinct 
 and separate elements, it is also true that the 
 Bible in many places utterly ignores its own 
 distinctions and speaks now of repentance as if 
 
 1 Personal Salvation, Lamar & Barton, agents, publishers, Nashville; 
 
 Term. 
 
216 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 it were the whole of salvation, and now again 
 of faith as if it were the whole of salvation, and 
 now again of righteousness, or regeneration, or 
 holiness, as if they were severally the essence 
 of salvation.” “Holiness is not so much an 
 element of salvation, or a special experience of 
 some of the saved, as it is religion itself; it is 
 but another designation of personal salvation 
 which, though manifold, is yet a unit.” 
 
 Of course the concrete conclusion writes 
 itself. If a preacher unconverted may not rest 
 content, so neither may any man. There is no 
 more vital question than to learn the way of 
 God more perfectly. Apollos is an example for 
 the race. Like all ministers, he runs before his 
 ministry. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 Every converted man, like Apollos, learns the 
 way of God more perfectly. Conviction inevitably 
 precedes conversion. 
 
 It is a matter of prime importance that every 
 minister shall have a clear philosophy of his moral 
 world. 
 
 No one whose contributions might be dropped out 
 of the New Testament would be so great a loss as 
 Luke. 
 
 Chapters and verses are a comparatively recent 
 invention as to the Bible. 
 
 There are hardly more than one or two passages in 
 the whole Bible where “conversion” (or any of its 
 cognates) means precisely what we mean by it 
 to-day. 
 
 Bible conversion is so dominant a matter that any 
 word used to express it means commonly some 
 partial phase of it. 
 
 Conversion has perhaps a thousand definitions 
 in the Book of God, and no one of them tells the 
 whole truth. 
 
 Pentecost was the cradle of an era. 
 
 The Christian experience as to the Scriptures is 
 fundamentally unitary. It is never bisected except 
 at needless cost. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EVANGELISM 
 
 To many minds, the extensive or intensive 
 side of things is an academic affair. It is like 
 rehearsal of the play, or the walking for exercise; 
 wise and useful probably, but negligible. As a 
 matter of fact, it is incurably practical. The 
 atmosphere garments the planet. Its compo¬ 
 sition and currents determine daily life. The 
 pair of lungs we carry, however, is no less vital. 
 Do they not function, we die. The garnering 
 of the harvest is a stupendous affair. An ill- 
 ordered stomach makes it useless. Seeing is 
 astoundingly a matter of eyes. The extensive 
 and intensive are of the market and the street. 
 
 In all ages, religion has suffered from its 
 narrowness. Out in the world there are temp¬ 
 tations. Therefore, asceticism. Certain beset- 
 ments are found only in the married life. 
 Therefore the monk and the nun. Piety and 
 brains are not always good neighbors, and 
 Voltaire could say that “Ignorance is the 
 mother of devotion.” The wrestle of conscience 
 is often tortuous and takes time. Therefore, the 
 Papacy, the State Church, the Inquisition, 
 
 218 
 
EVANGELISM 
 
 219 
 
 Christian Science, and Premillennialism. The 
 greatest evangelist of recent times insists 
 that God is not trying to save the world as 
 matters are. With the Second Coming things 
 will happen. For a time the Almighty works 
 with his left hand. So the truth may be an 
 enemy of the whole truth. As if God could be 
 God and soldier, waste good time, wait only his 
 own good pleasure. 
 
 The fact is an evangelism as wide and deep 
 as the world, and as high and strong as God, is 
 always needed to save the world, or save God to 
 the world. Exactly that, and nothing less, is 
 Bible evangelism. God is never with us, but 
 at his best. 
 
 Nothing less than the physical universe is one 
 of God’s evangelists. “In the beginning was the 
 Word.” God spoke in what he did. The 
 heavens declare his glory. Rain and fruitful 
 season are his witnesses. The lilies of the field, 
 the birds of the air, the stars in the sky are 
 more than rhetoric. Except as to its sin the 
 very universe is evangelistic. 
 
 The course of human events is evangelistic. 
 Nations have no souls, but God takes note of 
 nations, tribes, and tongues. For something, 
 every people is a chosen people. Their times and 
 places of habitation are of the foresight of the 
 Eternal. 
 
220 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 “God setteth the solitary in families.” A 
 family has no soul. All families attenuate till 
 lost to segregation, or fixity, as sand in the 
 desert, or rivers in the sea, but God takes note of 
 families. Families do not happen. God goes 
 to weddings. He is never nearer than at the 
 cradle. The temerity with which men and 
 women dictate and deflect the family life is not 
 one of the lesser evils of the planet. The passion 
 of human love is essentially pious. And men 
 and women are few who soon or late are not 
 mastered thereby. The conservation of the 
 family has been of the mighty mission of 
 Christendom and Judaism alike. That mar¬ 
 riages are not made in heaven is one of the 
 startling messages of the Book of books. The 
 ready reflection is that the family has unique 
 significance in the earth. It is another of God’s 
 evangelists. 
 
 The evangelistic economy of the crowd is not 
 to be forgotten. Humanity falls into races. The 
 chosen people were segregated into tribes. In 
 the desert a whole generation was taught a 
 lesson of unity and solidarity. Who will say one 
 inscrutable reason for a divine permission of the 
 Great War was not the writing in blood and 
 tears the solidarity of the human race? It was 
 God’s policing of anarchy. It was leading to a 
 league of nations, a Washington World Con- 
 
EVANGELISM 
 
 221 
 
 ference. The bringing together of the Jews in 
 feasts and assemblies was the cradle of Pente¬ 
 cost. The three thousand were so many mis¬ 
 sionaries. John the Baptist gathered crowds. 
 Jesus called the multitudes. Our great inter¬ 
 church affairs have their purpose. God sets 
 his lights on candlesticks, and his cities on hills. 
 The crowd is of God’s evangels. 
 
 Miracles are of extensive evangelism. Men 
 were never saved by them. They were wrought 
 that the earth might know that God was around. 
 “That ye may know that the Son of man hath 
 power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to 
 the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, 
 and go into thine house.” Rushing winds and 
 tongues of fire were not vital matters, while 
 vital matters rode upon their wings. The 
 attempt to make bodily healings an integral 
 part of true evangelism will always fail. They 
 never w 7 ere. They are forever secondary and 
 incidental. 
 
 Another of God’s evangelists is the church. 
 The relative discount put upon it, often with the 
 best intentions, is not warranted by the 
 Scriptures. “The Church in the Wilderness” 
 is a name for the whole Jewish economy at one 
 time. Jesus said he would build his church and 
 the gates of hell should not prevail against it. 
 The Holy Spirit sent messages to the churches. 
 
SENT FORTH 
 
 222 
 
 The apostles wrote epistles to the churches. 
 The church is the Church of God. Heaven is 
 the church of the first born. Whatever relative 
 interpretation we may make of the church, 
 it is forever to be kept at a premium in our 
 estimate. 
 
 The Bible is one of God’s evangelists. To be 
 sure, there are more people in heaven who never 
 saw a Bible than have gone there by its teach¬ 
 ings. Also the world got on practically without 
 a Bible for two thirds of its historv. Also it is 
 
 t/ 
 
 a small minority indeed that has ever been 
 mastered by its presence. Nevertheless its 
 mission, in the providence of God, is ever of the 
 highest. God does not leave his kingdom to 
 memory and tradition. It is also enriched by 
 the Book of books. Moses wrote of the Son of 
 God. The writings of the apostles are known as 
 Scriptures. Holy men of old wrote as they 
 were moved of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the 
 Scriptures testified of him, and that in them 
 men found eternal life. The day of the Bible is 
 only at sunrise among men. It is to know no 
 night. 
 
 With many the ministry is supposed to be a 
 quarter section of the church. It is wiser to 
 consider it as of itself. The personal element 
 forever outranks the organic. Man as made in 
 the image of God is transcendent. So patriarchs. 
 
EVANGELISM 
 
 223 
 
 prophets, priests, ministers, apostles, evan¬ 
 gelists, teachers are of God’s right hand. No 
 church rightly ordains one who has not been 
 first ordained of God. So, however closely knit 
 in church economy the living ministry may be, 
 it has room of its own. It takes orders of the 
 Eternal. 
 
 There is, of course, no intensive evangelism 
 independent of the extensive. The physical 
 universe, Providence, the Bible, the church, the 
 ministry, in their measure must go and speak. 
 We know the soul only through the body. 
 “How shall they hear without a preacher?” 
 Here lies the mission of all religious machinery. 
 The speaker, the music, the crowd, the methods, 
 all are preachers. The earthquake, wind and 
 fire have their place and purpose for the still 
 small voice. Intensive evangelism is the flame, 
 and light, and heat, and power, for which 
 dynamo, pole, and wire have being. Intensive 
 evangelism is the ripe red fruit for which tree 
 and soil, and sun and rain, have learned to 
 labor and to wait. Intensive evangelism is that 
 firing line where one man fights that there are 
 six other men to get him there and have him 
 ready. Extensive evangelism is largely ten¬ 
 tative. Intensive evangelism is inevitable. 
 
 What vast concerns, for instance, lie within 
 the province of conscience? Noisy Pharisees 
 
224 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 wilt and fade under its lash. Pilate’s wife is 
 driven by a dream. The Gentiles having no 
 law are a law unto themselves. Nicodemus, 
 coming by night is at the lure of the elemental. 
 Nathanael under the fig tree, alone, is seen of 
 his Lord. Every man under the sun, as if there 
 were no other body on earth, does business with 
 God. It is just this phase of revival effort that 
 is neglected in our modern day. We all too 
 rarely trust a man alone with his conscience. 
 The conviction a man can shake off will not 
 often convert him. It may get him up the 
 sawdust trail, or to some altar, or to join some 
 church, or even to turn wonderfully fussy at 
 religion. It will rarely get him converted. No 
 man gets converted till he is mastered, till in 
 his heart Jesus is Lord, till he is born again, born 
 of God. All too many Christians are living 
 without life. The way good people can keep 
 deaf and dumb and blind with God Almighty 
 in their souls is ominous. They look so dead. 
 The great masses of all New-Testament con¬ 
 verts, till Gentilism was invaded, were profes¬ 
 sedly good people. When the train load of 
 soldier laddies pulled away the bands were wont 
 to play that they might not think too much. In 
 evangelism that is not good ethics. To stand 
 in the presence of God is a thing to think about: 
 with foot unshod and head uncovered. “The 
 
EVANGELISM 225 
 
 ground whereon thou standest is holy 
 ground.” 
 
 Intensive evangelism finds its play in personal 
 work. It is a battle where one fights it out with 
 himself, and where he fights it often with 
 another. There is usually none but the most 
 elemental work on hand when it is one and one. 
 The Scripture word about the two or three 
 gathering together in one sacred name is hardly 
 intended for small meetings that justly should 
 be big. It is, rather, a sermon on the worth of 
 small meetings that justly should stay small. 
 “Adam, where art thou?” “David, king of 
 Israel, thou art the man.” “Nicodemus, a man 
 must be born again.” “Woman of Samaria, 
 thou hast had five husbands, and he whom 
 thou now hast is not thy husband.” The one 
 hundred and twenty, and the three thousand, 
 and the five thousand, were named as being 
 each one worth counting. The eunuch, the 
 jailer, Lydia, Cornelius, Saul of Tarsus, Apollos, 
 the twelve charter members at Ephesus all 
 emphasize the asset there is in one man. The 
 decay of testimony, anywhere, is a sign of an 
 underrating of one man-values. 
 
 Intensive evangelism is illustrated in the 
 local church. It is more than probable that the 
 interdenominational, commonwealth, munic¬ 
 ipal idea in evangelism is overdone. The tie 
 
226 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 is too loose. The talking about tilings; the 
 crush of inexpert committees; the crowd instead 
 of the Christ; the meeting as against its purpose; 
 the battle against time; the hoarse, wornout, 
 professionalized evangelist—if the local church 
 would stand or fall with a genuine revival, 
 much of these artificial weaknesses would be 
 avoided, and the real task would be better 
 done. “Not by might, nor by power, but by 
 my Spirit, saith the Lord.” 
 
 Intensive evangelism finds its play in an 
 insistence upon a satisfying, mastering, indi¬ 
 vidual experience. John the Baptist had great 
 crowds, an ecclesiastical machine, a ritual, a 
 system of ethics, a concrete purpose and 
 mission. They were each and all but heralds 
 to the baptism with the Holy Ghost. The 
 children of Abraham might all stay vipers did 
 they stop short of the fan and flame. Our 
 modern day saves its face by insisting the gift 
 of the Holy Spirit is an annex to conversion, a 
 baptism for service, a reconsecration, an entire 
 sanctification, as against something immature 
 and partial. In the New Testament the Spirit 
 baptism, gift, indwelling, birth, witness, are 
 primary, fundamental, vital. “If any man have 
 not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” 
 The evangelistic peril of our day is a Christen¬ 
 dom quite content with the baptism of John. 
 
EVANGELISM 
 
 227 
 
 We are told that as Jesus held true to this high 
 ideal of evangelism, “Many of his disciples went 
 back, and walked no more with him.” They 
 did not slide back. They went back. When 
 loaves and fishes ran out, when the Rabbi 
 would not be ruler, when a profound experience 
 within, and self-denying service without, was 
 mandatory, they went back. Jesus was not 
 sure even of his twelve apostles. They might 
 also go away. One of them did. Apollos got 
 converted. Judas never did. We follow either 
 Judas or Apollos. “And I saw there was a 
 way to hell from the very gates of heaven.” 
 In any age there is nothing to take the place of 
 being, getting, keeping right with God. To 
 churn up large enthusiasm over anything else 
 is to miss entirely the Bible emphasis. To 
 specialize religion is to belittle it. It is of the 
 warp and woof of life; woven without seam. 
 Here is the intensive evangelism. 
 
 The practical lessons drawn from this survey 
 of evangelism are voluminous. The physical 
 universe, Providence “miracles” the empires of 
 men, the church, the Bible, the ministry, 
 as God’s evangelists, is an enormous beginning 
 to our thinking. That they end nowhere and 
 never but at the complete, willing, joyous 
 surrender of the soul to the will of God, or its 
 wandering into a hopeless night, gives life its 
 
228 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 significance, its terror, its delight. It is good¬ 
 ness, not evil, that has the run of the house. 
 Sin is sneak and porch-climber in the earth. 
 How could a minister be put to it for something 
 to say, and how be other than aggressive, how 
 be ignorant, narrow or conventional? Life is 
 so eloquent, alarming, kindly, all the Lord’s 
 people would be prophets, it would seem. And 
 here is one asleep on the top of a mast. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The truth may be the enemy of the whole truth. 
 That we are the people and wisdom will die with us 
 is an unlikely proposition in any age. The modesty 
 of ignorance is forever a desirable virtue. 
 
 An evangelism as wide and deep as the world, and 
 as high and strong as God, is always needed to save 
 the world, or save God to the world. Exactly that 
 is Bible evangelism. 
 
 A family has no soul. All families attenuate till 
 lost to segregation or fixity as sand in the desert or 
 rivers in the sea. Yet God takes note of families. 
 Families do not happen. “God setteth the solitary 
 in families.” 
 
 The attempt to make bodily healings an integral 
 part of true evangelism will always fail. They 
 never were. They are forever secondary, temporary, 
 and incidental. 
 
 The conviction a man can shake off will rarely 
 convert him. To be converted is to be mastered. 
 
 The way good people can keep deaf, and dumb, 
 and blind, with God Almighty in their souls, is 
 ominous. They look so dead. 
 
 When the trainloads of soldier laddies pulled away, 
 the bands were wont to play that they might not 
 think too much. In evangelism that is not good 
 ethics. 
 
 The evangelistic peril of our day is a Christendom 
 quite content with the baptism of John. 
 
 229 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 
 
 The gospel of Jesus did not end when he was 
 dead. It did not end with his ascending. It did 
 not even end with Pentecost. It did not end 
 with the third heavens that Paul saw. It did 
 not end with the wonder of Patmos. It did not 
 end with a unified Bible. It did not end with a 
 diversified church. It does not end with 
 political, social, economic, comfort in the earth. 
 It does not end with democracy. It ends only 
 when men are guided into all truth. While they 
 can bear them, and as they can bear them, Jesus 
 has things to say. He said there were many 
 things. It looks suspiciously as if a matter like 
 that might be immortal. “Of his kingdom there 
 shall be no end.” The glory of sunrise has a 
 fame with men, because their eves can take it in. 
 The blaze of noon is blinding. With better eyes 
 we may one day see the dawn has business only 
 as it leads to day. The gospel of Jesus did not 
 end when he was dead. 
 
 Unwittingly the incarnate Jesus is with quite 
 too many the enemy of the real Jesus. The Son 
 of man shadows the Son of God. That the 
 
 230 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 231 
 
 Nazarene went away, sorrow filled the hearts 
 of his best friends. That he stays away, 
 his religion is a memory to millions. That he 
 comes again is confessedly the only substantial 
 hope of the great and good in pitifully surprising 
 numbers. Their name is Thomas. They will 
 believe, but only with the print of the nail. 
 
 “I think when I read that sweet story of old, 
 
 When Jesus w~as here among men. 
 
 How he took little children as lambs to his fold; 
 
 I should like to have been with him then.” 
 
 Did the sentiment, sweet to tears, end with 
 the music, one might wait in silence. But with a 
 better Jesus just here, his hand on our head, 
 and his peace unspeakable at heart of us, it is 
 not far from waste. A Jesus one worships is 
 surely nearer than a Jesus one remembers. A 
 Jesus who opens the holy writings till our 
 hearts burn within us is not a Jesus whose 
 absence is to be mourned. A Jesus whose going 
 away is more expedient than his abiding should 
 be taken at his word, to an end of distress. The 
 real man is the man of the soul. The real 
 Jesus is the Divine One, to whom the incarna¬ 
 tion was an incident and the historic gospel a 
 phase of the passing years. Time and space and 
 circumstance have a way of fading, does one 
 walk with God. v 
 
232 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 The Jesus of the resurrection is the abiding 
 Jesus. The supposedly nine times he appeared 
 before the ascension were, every one of them, 
 matters of choice. The normal Jesus is the 
 hidden Jesus. His appearance to Saul of 
 Tarsus was a choice. His appearance to John in 
 Patmos was his choice. Should he unmistak¬ 
 ably appear again, it would be that he so 
 chooses. It will be his joy to appear at the 
 climax of all ages, the end of the world. The 
 Jesus of the resurrection is our Jesus. We 
 worship him as did those who saw him with 
 their physical eyes. Our hearts burn as he 
 talks to us by the way, even as it was with the 
 travelers to Emmaus. He sends us about our 
 duties as he directed Peter to feed the lambs. 
 He orders our lives as he willed that John should 
 tarry till he came. If, like the son of Jonas, we 
 glorify God by dying, or, like the son of Zebe- 
 dee, we tarry to meet him at some Patmos, 
 it is his affair. He cared whether his children 
 had any meat. He is not careless that we dine. 
 As he knew Mary and stilled her weeping he 
 quiets us. As peace was in his sending of his 
 disciples so our way of duty is the way of 
 blessing. It is a loss immeasurable when good 
 men shade their sense of an ever-living Christ 
 for a dream of a Christ to come. Not rarely 
 they lose their vision of any Christ. It is neither 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 233 
 
 in a mountain nor in Jerusalem that men 
 worship God. “God is a Spirit, and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth.” Adventism is a ready road to ruin, a 
 Bypath Meadow, for pilgrims not a few. The 
 gospel of Jesus did not end when he was dead. 
 
 If anything is plain in Scripture, it is that 
 Pentecost, and the things it stands for, was 
 speech of Jesus. In some farreaching sense 
 Pentecost could not be, the Holy Spirit could 
 not come, till Jesus went away. “If I go not 
 away, the Comforter will not come unto you; 
 but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” 
 “I indeed baptize you with water, but he shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire.” “This Jesus hath shed forth this which ye 
 now see and hear.” The Posthumous Gospel 
 includes the mission of the Holy Spirit. The 
 deity of Jesus Christ has no credential to sur¬ 
 pass it. The Sermon on the Mount is famous. 
 The Sermon of the Tapper Room is yet more 
 famous. The Sermon of the Holy Spirit is 
 immortal. 
 
 This compelling generalization is in no sense 
 a matter of inference or discovery. It is a 
 simple Scripture statement. “I will not leave 
 you comfortless; I will come to you.” “The Son 
 of God is come.” “He shall not speak of 
 himself; ... he shall glorify me: for he shall 
 
234 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” 
 ‘ 4 They took knowledge of them that they 
 had been with Jesus.” “When it pleased God 
 to reveal his Son in me, immediately I conferred 
 not with flesh and blood.” The gospel of the 
 Holy Ghost is the gospel of Jesus. The accent 
 of the last half century on the terminology of 
 the Holy Spirit brought no new thing whatever. 
 It simply deepened, widened, flew, the gospel 
 of God which is the gospel of Jesus. “I am he 
 that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am 
 alive forever more. Amen.” The things men 
 could not bear when Jesus was on the earth, 
 matters reaching the limits of all truth, are to be 
 uncovered under the sun forever. The gospel of 
 Jesus was not completed with his historic life. 
 He preaches to the end of time. 
 
 The revelation of Patmos is of the Posthumous 
 Gospel. The voice John heard behind him, as 
 the voice of many waters, was the voice of 
 Jesus. As he appeared to his disciples after the 
 resurrection, even to five hundred brethren at 
 one time, so now he speaks again to the son of 
 Zebedee. The marvelous imagery of the 
 Apocalypse should not blind us to the literal 
 truth that the Son of God once more revealed 
 himself. It is probable that the wealth of the 
 unusual was for the very purpose of confirming 
 the reality of the supernatural spiritual world. 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 235 
 
 It is unmistakably a different world. No wiser 
 way seems open than to give it a different, if 
 astounding, expression. Eyes as flames of fire, 
 voices as the sound of a trumpet, candlesticks 
 and stars, seals, vials, great beasts, the sea of 
 glass, the mighty book, the new song, all speak 
 another world of higher commanding order. To 
 believe that just exactly these things are to be 
 seen and heard, or have been seen and heard, in 
 this world or any other, is neither vital nor nec¬ 
 essary. They simply tell the spiritual realities 
 they stand for are on hand, and will never pass. 
 That God is here with us, his name Immanuel, 
 is the delightful inescapable thing. Though we 
 touch but the hem of his garment, we are at 
 peace. The particular games of the kinder¬ 
 garten we are glad to forget with maturing 
 years. Whatever was the lesson, the veritable 
 fact, we grapple to with hooks of steel, though 
 grown as wise as Solomon. No one knows when 
 any true thing may become significant. Odds 
 and ends not rarely save lives, and fortunes, and 
 the future. The Apocalypse assuredly often 
 seems odds and ends at our human stage of 
 learning. It is as assuredly another chapter of 
 the Posthumous Gospel of Jesus, the gospel of 
 our God. 
 
 Christian scholarship has never failed to be 
 impressed with the unshaken sense of the 
 
236 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 supernatural Jesus in the apostle Paul. Con¬ 
 senting to the death of Stephen, breathing out 
 threatenings and slaughter against the disciples 
 of the Lord, waxing exceeding mad against 
 anything Christian, he became a veritable 
 pillar of the faith. He never wearied in insisting 
 that he had seen the Lord, the Son of God, not 
 only on the Damascus road, but repeatedly. 
 “I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which 
 was preached of me is not after man, for I 
 neither received it of man, nor was I taught it, 
 but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” “The 
 things which I write unto you, behold, before 
 God, I lie not.” “Lest I should be exalted 
 above measure through the abundance of the 
 revelations, there was given to me a thorn in 
 the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me.” 
 
 It is not too much to say that the whole 
 ministry of Paul is of the Posthumous Gospel 
 of his Lord. To be his bond slave was more than 
 rhetoric with him. Though as one born out of 
 due time, he had the same full message of all 
 the other apostles. We get the gospel of Jesus 
 from the story of Saul of Tarsus as assuredly 
 and authoritatively as from Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John. The earth was getting able to 
 bear, and it had. 
 
 The saying of Jesus that he would build his 
 church very plainly indicates that it also is of 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 237 
 
 the Posthumous Gospel. In plain words, the 
 church is not a product but a process. The 
 mighty Master Builder is daily at its finishing. 
 The common supposition that did we know 
 exactly what the situation was in New Tes¬ 
 tament times, we would have our model is 
 hardly the case. We would assume no later 
 development, would antagonize or nullify the 
 foundations laid. We may also assume that all 
 future buildings are to be frankly on these 
 foundations. Beyond that, the hand we trust 
 for what is written, may be trusted for all that 
 is to come. No one doubts the great missionary 
 activities are the will of the Master Builder. The 
 Sunday school is no interloper. The Young 
 Men’s Christian Association, The Woman’s 
 Christian Temperance Union, The Salvation 
 Army, and like projections, are not outside but 
 of the church. It is likely that much good 
 breath and time have been wasted in bewailing 
 denominationalism. Some of these various 
 units may have been born of folly. Many of 
 them are distinctly of the Lord. As things 
 appear, variety is of the divine order of the 
 world, and why should the Church of God 
 be an exception? The pyramids of Egypt were 
 the outcome of an architect’s plan, and have 
 stood complete for centuries. Any change was 
 disintegration and decay. Except for their age 
 
238 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 and massiveness their glory is of the dead. 
 They are tombs. Such is not the Church of 
 God. It is forever new as being forever in 
 construction. Its glory is to come. It does not 
 shrine the dead. It is speech of Jesus the Son 
 of God, a section of his Posthumous Gospel. 
 
 Who can doubt a unified Bible is of the 
 Posthumous Gospel of Jesus? It surely did 
 not reach the earth till Jesus was dead. It 
 carries his message. It is hard to conceive any 
 reason for delay in its arrival than that men 
 were not readv for it. There is no louder, 
 sweeter voice under the sun, now that it is here. 
 If a guiding into all truth is the horoscope of 
 the race, the unified Bible must have and hold 
 its place, as of the deathless gospel of our Lord. 
 Though men are not yet ready to bear its mes¬ 
 sage, they do bear its presence, and that 
 interprets its coming. It is of the gospel of 
 Jesus after he was dead. It is of the many 
 things he could not say while living. 
 
 A true perspective of the whole Bible problem 
 is, from its immensity, concretely impossible. 
 Vastly more souls now in heaven never saw the 
 Bible than any other kind or sort. It is a 
 rarity or novelty after fifteen centuries to the 
 great majority of men on earth. With those to 
 whom it is handy it is a terra incognita beyond 
 anything else. The Christian Church was 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 239 
 
 securely anchored in the harbor of the world’s 
 heart without it. It is a solvent of earthly ills 
 beyond anything other when honestly applied. 
 The New-Testament story was enacted and 
 reported almost entirely under help only of the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 The printed Bible is but beginning its career. 
 Two thousand years knew little other Word of 
 God but a written Word of God. The most 
 utterly divergent cults and theologies base 
 themselves upon the same Bible. It is the most 
 popular and the most neglected volume under 
 the sun. It is the despair and hope of the human 
 race. Similar things might be truly said well- 
 nigh at will. We understand why it waited till 
 it might be borne. It is borne but poorly now. 
 In any absolute sense a gospel of God will 
 forever be beyond its bearing. 
 
 Broadly interpreted, the progress of the 
 human race may be written in that happily 
 prevalent word “democracy.” The rule of the 
 people is the destiny of the planet. We can 
 see no sufficient reason for the earth but its 
 inhabitants. It may not be capable of proof, 
 but a universe for anything other than men, or 
 similar intelligences, is nowhere on the horizon. 
 At any rate, neither angels nor devils have ever 
 been other than transients under the sun, while 
 men are forever at home. We may infer and 
 
240 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 assume the future from the past. Culture and 
 discipline have been the especial affair of 
 humanity. The call of the wild is never 
 silenced but at the will of man. A month’s 
 vacation and the dust has gathered in a distinct 
 layer in the most fleckless room. The grave¬ 
 digger has been filling in. The white soul made 
 in the image of God was set at gardening, dress¬ 
 ing, and keeping what would not keep itself. 
 Eden is a wilderness where men do not come by. 
 Wealth is unknown except of men. The 
 squirrel gathers his store for winter, not to have 
 and to hold. Only men are artists or inventors. 
 Only men fight any considerable conscious 
 battle with mortality. Only men contend with 
 ignorance, poverty, discontent, or sin. War, 
 slavery, dissipation, greed, cruelty, and lust 
 have been the evil monopoly of man, and their 
 overthrow his strife. The earth is the home of 
 its citizens. Kings, oppressors, autocrats, 
 tyrants, the proud and selfish, drift to the rear 
 in the onward march of men. 
 
 What may all this be but that neighborhood 
 is the will of God and the true genius of the 
 race? No teacher of men ever led his fellows to 
 this light like Jesus of Nazareth. Could the 
 earth have borne it, an Emancipation Procla¬ 
 mation would not have waited for Abraham 
 Lincoln. When slavery dies it must stay dead. 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 241 
 
 Sober men have not been few in all the ages. 
 A sober world must keep its feet forever. 
 Comfort and quiet are rights of the race. For 
 the race to get and keep them the struggle must 
 be more than overnight. The only utter safety 
 under the sun is holiness, and holiness is never 
 bought, nor hired, nor inherited, nor found. 
 Holiness is dug and fought for. The fall of one 
 holy pair deflected long ages. The fall of a holy 
 world would be irreparable. To save from sin 
 takes more than fiat. A heaven of the unwilling 
 is no heaven. The Saviour of men saves no 
 more slowly than he must. He has many 
 things to say, but will not risk their waste. 
 
 As men may bear them he will speak. His 
 Holy Spirit will guide into all truth, as all truth 
 will bring forth fruit. Every sure and solid step 
 the earth takes forward is of the gospel of Jesus 
 after he was dead. It is a saying that finally 
 the earth can bear. It is of the Posthumous 
 Gospel. 
 
 The story of the ages is written black with 
 gospels that are not gospels. Jewish disciples 
 of Jesus could see the future only in making 
 their Master a King. With less than twenty 
 centuries making kings disreputable, to whom 
 would the earth now say its prayers? An 
 apostle drew his sword and cut, and crippled, 
 and shed blood, that the preaching might not be 
 
242 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 hindered. With the round world sure there is no 
 future to sharp edges, ashamed of its crusades 
 and inquisitions, proud of its Washington 
 disarmament, a Master of Swords would have 
 small standing. The Jesus who cures where 
 other men cut is still here. The good people 
 who set the preacher above the prince did it 
 at their prayers. The plight of the Holy 
 Father is not encouraging. The Jesus of Rome 
 is having trouble at being the Jesus of a world. 
 The utterly certain saints who would have 
 Israel master at Jerusalem have been in mourn¬ 
 ing long centuries. Had Jesus joined their 
 company, he would have shared their grief. 
 
 Of exactly the same sort is the modern 
 gazing into heaven for a Lord that can be seen. 
 The processes of preaching and faith take too 
 much patience and disappointment. Salva¬ 
 tion must be made compelling. Had religion 
 by edict been wise in any age, it was surely 
 folly to wait at all. The ways of God with 
 men cannot be justified if he has done less than 
 his most and best at any moment. All fault 
 must be with the faulty. That as men can 
 bear they are given the truth, is the outer edge 
 of all Omnipotence. To look and linger and 
 mourn for more is to impeach the wisdom of the 
 Wise. The Son of God did not trust his gospel 
 of three short years to save the ages. He did 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS GOSPEL 243 
 
 consider that with his gospel after he was dead 
 it would be invincible. The world is poor that 
 it has not always remembered the Posthumous 
 Gospel. 
 
BLUE MONDAY 
 
 The gospel of Jesus did not end when he was dead. 
 There were many things the world could not yet 
 bear. 
 
 The religion of Jesus to many is a religion of 
 memory. To other millions it is a religion of a hope. 
 It is no religion at all if not a religion of to-day. 
 
 It is a poor bargain to trade an ever-living Christ 
 for a Christ to come. The Sermon on the Mount is 
 famous. The Sermon of the Upper Room is pro¬ 
 phetic. The Sermon of the Holy Spirit is immortal. 
 
 The accent of the last half century on the ter¬ 
 minology of the Holy Spirit brought no new thing 
 whatever. It simply deepened, widened, flew the 
 gospel of God, which is the gospel of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 The particular games of the kindergarten we forget 
 with maturing years. Their lessons we grapple to 
 with hooks of steel. 
 
 No man knows when any true thing will become 
 significant. Lives and fortunes and the future are 
 at the mercy of odds and ends. 
 
 The Church of God was never a product but a 
 process. To complain till one sees how it turns out 
 is to be nearsighted. 
 
 The Bible is the most popular and the most 
 neglected volume under the sun. It is the despair 
 and the hope of the human race. 
 
 There is no sufficient reason for the planet except 
 its citizens. It is prey to the call of the wild. 
 
 Every sure and solid step the earth takes onward 
 is of the gospel of Jesus after he was dead. 
 
 244 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 OVER THE BORDER 
 
 A minister dumb as to human destiny is 
 waste of room. A deifying of the passing day, 
 a swift decay of evangelism, a peril to all 
 Christendom is in a tentative hold on the last 
 things. Hope and Fear bowed out of human 
 thinking leave a chasm vast and ominous. The 
 vogue and magic of the Nazarene are much 
 that he has words to say of the long To-morrow. 
 Men suspect that the Bible is the voice of God; 
 that it is a message of other worlds. Do we 
 pray, it is to the Father in heaven. Called to 
 be citizens, it is in a kingdom of heaven. The 
 righteous man is heir of a life eternal. He that 
 works iniquity goes away into an outer darkness. 
 Things that offend are cast into a furnace of 
 fire. “And the ruin of that house was great.” 
 In the shadows and the light, mortals are made 
 to know^ that dying they live again. Mighty 
 contingencies beyond the grave are integral 
 elements of all revealed religion. The prophet 
 doubtful of a far-flung future may be no longer 
 prophet. 
 
 In each and every circumstance where hu¬ 
 man destiny is unfolded in the Holy Scriptures, 
 
 245 
 
246 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 some larger vision explaining its advent will 
 appear. Any full survey is discouraged by their 
 wealth and w T ide extent. Assuming that in 
 nothing vital do these unmated records disa¬ 
 gree, we select among them the tale of the rich 
 man and the beggar as our worthy guide to the 
 purpose in hand. It will be found at once sug¬ 
 gestive and sufficient. 
 
 Our evident presupposition that men are 
 immortal, and, even if desirable, never cease 
 to live, is at the door of this significant story. 
 The beggar carried of angels might well have 
 thought that he was only beginning to live. 
 The rich man was never so alive as when he 
 was dead. That after death men live, tragi¬ 
 cally, gloriously, live, is at once the terror and 
 the triumph of the tale. It is the more star¬ 
 tling that, aside from the ancient accepted 
 teaching, there is no concept so scripturally 
 plausible as that the determinedly wicked 
 finally cease to be. That the man of faith 
 comes to an everlasting life has no more think¬ 
 able antithesis than a cessation of life an ever¬ 
 lasting death. A day that bums as an oven, 
 that finds the proud as stubble, that leaves 
 them neither root nor branch, sounds exactly 
 like the thing it says. When the righteous 
 scarcely are saved, where indeed might the 
 sinner and the ungodly appear? 
 
OVER THE BORDER 
 
 247 
 
 Nevertheless, if the Scriptures are to be 
 interpreted as a whole, and consistently, there 
 is no apparent escape from the old-time belief 
 that righteous and wicked alike live forever, 
 whether happy or despairing. “And these 
 shall go away into everlasting punishment: but 
 the righteous into life eternal.” ‘kind who¬ 
 soever was not found written in the book of 
 life was cast into the lake of fire.” “For the 
 wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is 
 eternal life.” “And I saw the dead, both small 
 and great, stand before God.” The passages 
 seeming to say extinction cannot stand against 
 the multitude that declare, with any character, 
 men live, and die, and live again, forever. 
 Destruction and ruin are the more terrible that 
 they do not kill. It is the pitiableness of 
 nervous collapse, insomnia, and kindred ail¬ 
 ments, that one does not escape from himself. 
 The rich man could not get aw T ay from the rich 
 man. Under all bludgeoning, he was there. 
 The worm died not and the fire was not 
 quenched. As it is the manifest joy of the 
 Bible heaven, so a manifest horror of the Bible 
 hell is continuity. That hell is bearable is an 
 unbearable thing about hell. There is neither 
 suicide nor annihilation for the lost. In heaven 
 they go out no more forever. 
 
 Neither the Bible heaven nor the Bible hell 
 
248 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 is a matter of locality. As place is of all things 
 finite, they have a place, but place is not of 
 their making. Not where but what is the key 
 of destiny. The rich man was in Hades, whiclT 
 is the world of spirits, whether good or bad. It 
 was his torment, and not his hell, that was of 
 moment. For a bad man there is always 
 probably a worse hell than any hell he gets 
 into, and that hell is heaven. Both the rich 
 man and the beggar were in touch with three 
 worlds; where they had been, where they were, 
 and where they could look. But location was 
 not of the essential. The map is negligible in 
 the world of the dead. The Bible heaven and 
 hell alike are intrinsic. Either might be any¬ 
 where. 
 
 Neither heaven nor hell is a physical matter. 
 The physical rich man and the physical beggar 
 were in their graves. The burning flame, the 
 parching tongue, the cry for water, were of a 
 soul in torment. The comfort of Lazarus was 
 comfort of soul. The physical but garments 
 the soul. One can live with the house of this 
 tabernacle, with the building of God, or with 
 neither, as to the Bible. The frequent pro¬ 
 vincial waste of words as to a literal lake of 
 fire might all be spared. The Christian might 
 leave a sensuous heaven to the Turk. The 
 rich man was in torment, with no body to burn 
 
OVER THE BORDER 
 
 249 
 
 or shrivel. Lazarus was comfortable with his 
 body underground. While in the body we 
 may use terms of the body in reaching an under¬ 
 standing, but to reach farther is to overreach. 
 The resurrected body is a spiritual body, and 
 has, doubtless, joys or troubles of its own 
 beyond all imagining. A common experience 
 under the sun is to outgrow ourselves. Heaven 
 will be unspeakably more precious than any 
 earth terms have made it. Hell will be a 
 sinking below all earlier definitions. Immortal 
 souls soon travel to terminologies of their own. 
 One day it will be common usage to say that, 
 as to its earthly home, a soul has a body rather 
 than a body has a soul. Another day it will 
 be well-nigh entirely true that man is a soul. 
 
 Bible destiny is a reign of the right. Good 
 things and evil things, comfort and torment, 
 are no longer so sadly tangled as in the life we 
 know most about. A first impression made on 
 convicts in the penitentiary is that they are 
 now in a world where one does not trifle with 
 law. “Good behavior,” behind the bars, is 
 good behavior. It is good behavior where ill 
 behavior finds no patience. In our ordinary 
 world consideration fills so large a place we see 
 but little real justice. Indeed, so finite is 
 mundane life, real justice is probably impos¬ 
 sible. The last thing one would ask with open 
 
250 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 eyes, this side the grave, is his rights. Beyond 
 the grave one’s rights are his life. The rich 
 man cannot be comfortable in hell without ill 
 effect on the beggar. With the beggar among 
 dogs, it might be done, but the beggar among 
 angels is another matter. Should one consider 
 how much of his life on earth is of his earning, 
 he would get a notion of the differences in 
 heaven and hell. The spoiled child of the dust 
 is there grown to a stature where he may bear 
 the regnancy of right, and reap what he has 
 sown. It is a world he never knew. If it is 
 not glorious, it is pitiful and terrible. The 
 Bible destiny for men is a reign of the right. 
 We sing of heaven as a land of the leal. 
 
 We are not largely informed, but heaven and 
 hell alike are somewhat in their restrictions. 
 One cannot do some things in heaven. There 
 are more he cannot do in hell. Between them 
 is a great gulf fixed. Familiar with the finite, 
 as we grow to be on earth, at home with the 
 shut in and the shut out, it abides with us 
 when we fly away. Content or otherwise, we 
 stay. “He which is filthy, let him be filthy 
 still.” “He that is righteous, let him be right¬ 
 eous still.” If in the earth nothing is so 
 unchangeable as change, the country where 
 we journey will be a wonderland. 
 
 The Bible hell is a prayerless land. In heaven 
 
OVER THE BORDER 
 
 251 
 
 we shall almost discover prayer. The rich 
 man prayed in hell. He prayed three times. 
 Not one prayer was answered. The soul in 
 hell is sane after a fashion probably unknown 
 on earth. When one has learned the law of 
 the place, he will no longer, automatically, 
 blindly, crazily, or despairingly pray. The 
 Bible hell is a prayerless land. There is no 
 other such a prison. One lives forever to him¬ 
 self. While he lived his God was self. He is 
 simply allowed his God. The rich man’s 
 wealth, and purple, and fine linen, and sump¬ 
 tuous fare, and abounding health, had been his 
 life. He had been sure he could serve both 
 God and Mammon. To be covetous was the 
 way of his w T orld. Why live at all if one could 
 not shine before his neighbors? Why should 
 one be tied to a wife did he want another woman 
 worse? Divorce has been a prerogative with 
 the worldly through long ages. Self all the way 
 has been the end of the argument. Now that 
 he will forget self and pray, he finds he must 
 content himself with self. The Bible hell is a 
 prayerless land. With all hindrances left be¬ 
 hind, the very air of heaven must be prayer. 
 No longer much a way to get things, its ancient 
 worth, communion with God, comes into its 
 own. For the convert of the cross to be in 
 heaven with Jesus was quite enough. “And 
 
252 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 Enoch walked with God: and was not; for God 
 took him.” Good terms with God is heaven 
 enough as it is enough for earth. It will be 
 nothing strange to find, as in old Jerusalem, 
 that the Father’s house is a house of prayer. 
 
 The Bible hell is a land of discomfort. Com¬ 
 fort is enough for heaven. A great theologian, 
 Dr. Miner Raymond, was once accused of fash¬ 
 ioning a doctrine of a tolerable hell. He said 
 what he cared more about was a tolerable God. 
 With all credit given to the mercy and love of 
 God, the hard cold fact remains that the Bible 
 hell is nowhere written as tolerable or comfort¬ 
 able. Its citizens call it torment. The soul 
 is sick within itself, sick with the world it lives 
 in, sick that it cannot sink, sick that it cannot 
 go, sick that it cannot keep away its best be¬ 
 loved. Every thinkable quiet is a door to 
 trouble. A sip of cold water will not be denied. 
 It is denied. Could one hate somebody, it 
 would help. But the difficulty is the great 
 gulf fixed, not that all heaven would not be 
 glad to come. If comfort may not be brought, 
 one may go after it. Not so, for they that 
 would come out must stay. There is no com¬ 
 fort in the universe save outside of hell, and the 
 great gulf is fixed. Neither may heaven help 
 the earth where hell is at interest. One who 
 will not hear Moses and the prophets has no 
 
OVER THE BORDER 
 
 253 
 
 ear for any world. God is forever doing his 
 final best in every world of his dominion. Any¬ 
 thing other would be an echo, shadow, dream 
 of something that was better. The Bible hell 
 is the last word in misery. Its very shadows 
 fail of night. 
 
 The Bible hell is as needless as it is deserved. 
 Moses and the prophets w^ere the whole wealth 
 of God to shut one door and open wide another. 
 The steward has only to be faithful in all as he 
 is in some. A beggar gone to the dogs can still 
 keep out of hell. One takes more trouble to 
 get to hell than anywhere else; it is an utterly 
 idiotic journey. One can get on with almost 
 any sort of a wife but one, as to the Bible itself. 
 The Pharisee was under no compulsion to a 
 divorce, to be covetous, or to be proud. That 
 the lost find no one to blame but themselves is 
 of their despair. The just made perfect enjoy 
 their heaven as being just. 
 
 The Bible hell is the death of hope as heaven 
 is its fruition. Every wish the rich man had 
 was folly. Henceforth he will suspect and 
 dread all wishes will be folly. There is forever 
 nothing new he will not rather miss. There 
 is probably under heaven or among men no 
 sweeter joy than a bright to-morrow, and hell 
 is a hopeless land, utterly strange and fearsome. 
 One would smile delirious welcome to a scorch- 
 
254 
 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 ing flame. A soul with care no longer for a 
 future, unexpectant, stale, is a supreme horror 
 of all language and all worlds. 
 
 Perhaps no single concept is more nearly true 
 than that either hell or heaven is the thing one 
 is. The rich man and the beggar were both 
 Jews. Racial distinctions do not run beyond 
 the veil. Lazarus, Dives, Abraham, the angels 
 find themselves at a common interest. As in 
 sleep, shipwreck, famine, there is no caste when 
 men are dead. Political, cultural, economic 
 bars, all are down. The beggar was not in 
 heaven that he was poor. The rich man was 
 not in hell that he was rich. Abraham was 
 rich. Not every beggar may consort with 
 angels. This particular beggar carries his 
 heaven with him. The sort of rich man he 
 had been w T as the rich man’s hell beyond all 
 else. Covetous, proud, self-indulgent, sensual, 
 there was no table where he might sit, no room 
 in all his world where the manner of man he 
 was might feel at home. His hell was under 
 his purple robe. Does one not have a heaven 
 in his soul there is no heaven to be found. As 
 in nothing other, the thing we are is our world, 
 in any world. 
 
 Did one say in a word that heaven is the neg¬ 
 ative of the lost world, he would say the truth, 
 but probably not at all the whole truth. Dis- 
 
OYER THE BORDER 
 
 255 
 
 comfort gives way to comfort, and despair to 
 hope. The rule of right is a felicity rather 
 than a penalty. Such restrictions as even good 
 men still may need, will be hailed as benedic¬ 
 tions. Prayer will be native air. Service will 
 be joy. The company of the sad and hateful 
 will be escaped for that of saints and angels. 
 Rather than no welcome future it will seem as 
 if life were all To-morrow. With the im¬ 
 mortal dreamer, the vision is a lonely weari¬ 
 ness with the dust and night. “And when I 
 saw, I wished myself among them.” 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S. A. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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