, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 JUL } >. 1924 
 
 Division -tj O ^ r ^ I 
 
 Section .M32. 
 
CHRIST: THE GOD MAN. 
 
 Typograviire — Hofmann. 
 
ASPECTS OF CHRIST. 
 
 STUDIESl 
 
 A 
 
 JUL J -^ 1924 
 
 \ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MODEL LIFE. 
 
 BY 
 
 BUKDETT HART, D.D, 
 
 NEW YOEK : 
 
 E. B. TREAT, 5 COOPER UNION. 
 
 1892. 
 
^ COPYRIGHT. ^C 
 
U© ©BE 
 
 Mbo wftb mc bas Unoereb lana fn tbc 
 
 (Balleri? ot Ibolp Scripture 
 
 ^Before tbe one portraiture 
 
 m Ibim 
 
 Mbom not bavino seen we love 
 
 Snt> wbose Blesseb iface 
 
 me Ibope 
 Bre long to see togetber 
 
IFntrobuctor^* 
 
 It was in the soft atmosphere of the home of a 
 scholar and teacher that I first saw the com- 
 posite photographs, which, in that instance, com- 
 bined and expressed the strongest facial traits of 
 his family and of a class of students who had 
 been under his instruction in a striking portrait 
 of each group. 
 
 It was the phenomenal and weird workman- 
 ship of light. 
 
 Unique, condensed, unified, character was 
 represented b}^ the combined result. 
 
 It were impossible to reduce into one personi- 
 fication the manifold Aspects of Christ. As 
 even the world itself would not contain the 
 books that should be written to fully set forth 
 all the things that Jesus did, if they should be 
 written every one, so the representation of Him 
 would be imperfect however multiplied and 
 varied might be the forms and statements which 
 should be intended to characterize Him. Not 
 only is Humanity fully indwelling in Him, but 
 Divinity is expressed in Him as well. When we 
 have said all, tliat which remains unsaid is greater 
 than all that is spoken. 
 
 May the perusal of these essays, a few out of 
 many that might be written of the impressive 
 Aspects of the Christ, quicken our appreciation 
 of the Divine Redeemer and deepen our love for 
 Him who first loved us. 
 
 BuRDETT Hart. 
 
 New Haven, 1892. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Christ ; the God- Man Frontispiece. 
 
 \_Hofmann.\ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Healing the Sick, in the Temple 43 
 
 \Benj. West.\ 
 
 The Great Teacher 69 
 
 \Le Loir.} 
 
 The Commemorative Feast 169 
 
 [Rubens.] 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 Christ the Pre-eminent One 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Christ in Childhood 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Christ tlie Divine Carpenter 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Power and Fame of Christ 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Homes and Friends of Christ 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Clirist as an Ethical Teacher 69 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Christ the Saviour of Men 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Indwelling Christ 93 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Christ's Presence in Perplexity 107 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Beauties of the Christ-Life. . 117 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. PAGE 
 
 Christ the Confiding Friend 129 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 Christ in Sympathy with the Sorrowing 139 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Clirist the Zealous Leader 153 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Christ at the Commemorative Feast 169 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Christ the Bosom Friend 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Christ the Enliglitener of Men 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Christ Manifest to All 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Tiie Unselfish Clirist 221 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Clirist the Revealer of God 223 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Christ the People's Preacher 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Christ the Unchanging Friend 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Christ's Claim on Men of Influence 277 
 
THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 I. 
 
 CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 
 
 ]HE foremost thought of the world to-day 
 is of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Other great matters indeed are on the 
 minds of men. There never was a time when 
 so much attention was given to the development 
 of mechanical and physical forces as is given at 
 this day. Great as have been the achievements 
 of the recent past on all this line of results, stu- 
 dious and inventive and productive research is 
 not satisfied. Greater power is called for. The 
 latent and unemployed energies of nature are to 
 be discovered and evoked and put to use. 
 
 There never was a time when so much heroic 
 and laborious study was given to physics, as is 
 given in our day. Nature, in its laws, in its 
 arcana, in its manifestations, is fairly laid siege 
 to by students, who, with reverent devotion and 
 untiring energ}^ seek to know what demonstra- 
 
10 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 tions arc awaiting them in the world-old labora- 
 tories, by what subtle chemistries the great ele- 
 ments of creation are kept in order, and what 
 light may be given by the hitherto unread 
 records to that which was before discovered. 
 
 There never was a time when the laws of 
 social life, the principles which should be con- 
 trolling in the relation of men with men, were 
 receiving such investigation as they now are. 
 The world never had so many good homes as it 
 has to-day. The institutions for the relief of 
 human ills and for the comfort of the unfor- 
 tunate, now surpass any that have heretofore 
 been known. The great hospital at Greenwich 
 publishes over its inviting gates that it is kept 
 open for the sailors of all nations. Human 
 brotherhood is coming to the front. Great 
 statesmen are seeking to solve the problems 
 which not only entei^ into the current history of 
 their respective nations, but which affect the 
 relations of all nations. Education — what a 
 hold it has on best minds ! Reform — how ar- 
 dent are its apostles! Progress — how deter- 
 mined on every line aic its pr(^mulgators ! 
 There is an aroused intellectual activity, a fiery 
 zeal like that of crusaders, a generous charit)', 
 a cordial recognition of what is worthy, a signifi- 
 cant unselfishness in tlie matters of the com- 
 mon humanity, which mark our day with red 
 letters in the calendar c^f the nations. The com- 
 munity of })i€n, of mankind, is getting enlarged 
 
CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 11 
 
 recognition. However strong tiie local pride 
 may be, however intense the patriotic sentiment 
 may be, it is felt that there is a brotherhood 
 which is bounded by n(^ territorial lines, and is 
 constrained within no narrow places. 
 
 But great as are these subjects of thought and 
 activit}', absorbing as they are with the special- 
 ists, who are devoted to their own lines of inves- 
 tigation, it is very plainly clear that, in the 
 world's thoughts and among the world's forces, 
 there is a Person who is pre-eminent. Christ is 
 Lord and Master. The wfjrld's intellect bows 
 before Him. The world's progress yields 
 place for Him. The world's kingdoms recog- 
 nize the supremacy of His kingdom. The 
 order of the world and the adjustment of human 
 relations are " that in all things He might have 
 the pre-eminence." 
 
 This is seen, in the first place, in the fact that 
 account is taken of Christ in each separate 
 realm of investigation and activity. Statesman- 
 ship, science, social progress, philosophies, do 
 homage to the Lord Jesus. If, in only one 
 department of human labor He were owned as 
 Lord, He would not have necessarily the pre- 
 eminence. But if in all departments this be 
 true, if the statesmen of largest forecast, and the 
 naturalists of deepest investigation, and the 
 hardest students of social science, and the 
 philosophers who do the most patient work, 
 accord to Christ lordship, and hold themselves 
 
12 THE MoDKI, LIFE. 
 
 ill their various duties as His servants, then it is 
 plain tliat so far He has the pre-eminence. There 
 may be men in all and each of these spheres of 
 thought and action who do not own Christ, who 
 reject the revelation of Him, and who deny all 
 Godhead and so all manifestation of God. But 
 these are exceptions. A large proportion of 
 these leaders are personally loyal to Christ: are 
 professed Christians. Another proportion ac- 
 knowledge His claims though they may not 
 have individually given their saving faith to 
 Him. The doubters are half-inclined toward 
 Him. And the open rejecters are few. One of 
 the first leaders of the world to-day, the man 
 whose influence is largest, is one whose supreme 
 trust is in Christ as a personal Saviour. When 
 you read of such a man, with the world's burdens 
 that are upon him, with responsibilities enough 
 for many men, taking into his study the dis- 
 obedient and reckless son of a helpless woman, 
 and there talking with him and praying with 
 him and urging him to a new life, you under- 
 stand that there is the supremacy of a divine 
 Saviour in the life of that great leader before 
 which are willingly subordinated all measures 
 and choices and affections to which his time and 
 thought and energ}' are given. There can be 
 no doubt who has the pre-eminence. 
 
 And when you hear the man who is close to 
 him in the world's leadership acknowledging 
 that his great career would be a failure except 
 
CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 13 
 
 for the faith in the Redeemer which insures his 
 future, you understand that above any princi- 
 pality in human empire is the sovereignty of 
 the divine Saviour who can command the 
 supreme allegiance of such a mind. In effect, 
 the same thing is true in each sphere of respon- 
 sibility and labor. It is not loyalty to Confucius 
 which is controlling with our leaders to-day. It 
 is not lo)Mlty to Budda which challenges the 
 first attention. It is not loyalty to heathen 
 mythologies, nor to nature, nor to humanity, 
 nor to conquering mind, which draws forth the 
 devotion of our foremost thinkers and workers. 
 Christ has the place of loyalty and of love. 
 
 As the first hour of every day was given to com- 
 munion with Christ in His word and in prayer 
 by a most successful merchant, who has lately 
 closed his service with us, so the first place in 
 affection and in service is given to Him by those 
 whom the world most trusts and to whom it 
 looks for guidance to-day, and that not in a 
 single sphere of service alone, but in each 
 separate realm of investigation and activity. 
 
 This is seen, in the second; place, in the fact 
 that the impulse of the sublime moral forces 
 which are moving in society comes from the 
 love of Christ. There is a love of humanity for 
 humanity's sake. There are men who are 
 engaged in great moral work who are only 
 philanthropists. There are those even who 
 
14 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 deny Christ who are the advocates of great 
 moral principles. But all this is exxeptional. 
 
 The sublime movements for the world's moral 
 renovation, which are systematically and strenu- 
 ously carried forward, with courage in their ex- 
 ecution and with faith in their triumph, have their 
 profound impulse in the love of Christ. Out of 
 Christian nations, and with the support of 
 Christian societies, and with the encouragement 
 of Christian sympathy and prayers, proceed 
 those world-wide charities which aim at the bring- 
 ing up of the whole race of mankind, from night 
 and chaos and barbarism, from gloomy and cruel 
 heathenism, from blood and wars and savagery, 
 into order and peace and liberty, into the com- 
 forts of civilization and into the blessings of 
 Christianized society. The men who to-day are 
 effectively laboring in India and China and Japan, 
 in Turkey and Egypt and the islands of the 
 sea, are men in whom the love of Christ is a 
 master-passion. They are men like the veteran 
 Moffat, who, in a great old age, has lately died 
 in England, leaving light to shine after him 
 forever across the Dark Continent : like Living- 
 stone, who was found dead on his knees, with 
 his face on the soil of the land for which his life 
 was consecrated and his last prayer given. 
 They are men with Apostolic zeal : men with 
 the martyr firmness : men with prophetic fore- 
 sight : men to whom Christ is first and last, is all 
 and in all. 
 
CUEIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 15 
 
 And not only is this true of these comprehen- 
 sive charities. It is strikingly true of those more 
 contracted and localized reformatory movements 
 which affect classes, which strike at single vices, 
 which aim at the overthrow of national evils. 
 
 That revolution which we have seen in our 
 day, in our land, which has entirely changed the 
 status of one-tenth of our population, which 
 converted the nation from a slave power to a 
 free empire, which placed us in an entirely new 
 relation toward the other nations of the world, 
 had its dominant and unconquerable impulse in 
 love to Christ. That revolution was one which 
 could no more be stopped than tlie New Testa- 
 ment could be annihilated. And the fact that it 
 eventuated in such dreadful issues, destroying so 
 much wealth and so many lives, only demon- 
 strates how strong, how invincible the impulse 
 is that in all things Christ may have the pre- 
 eminence. 
 
 That other revolution which is working to- 
 ward the freedom of our communities from in- 
 temperance, which is seeking by moral forces to 
 change the drinking habits of society, to change 
 the laws by which the manufacture and sale of 
 poisonous drinks may be restricted, is one that 
 can be successfully carried forward only by mo- 
 tives drawn from the love of Christ. The poor 
 drunkard, victim of a debasing appetite, must be 
 looked at as redeemed by the blood of Christ, 
 and therefore to be labored for that the Re- 
 
16 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 deemer's work for him may not be in vain. The 
 woes of drunkards' homes, of wives and chil_ 
 dren, the guilt of those who tempt the young 
 and who encourage the debauched, must be 
 measured by those who estimate all moral action 
 by the love of the Saviour and the peril of the 
 soul. 
 
 The inspiration of the men and women who 
 are now giving their lives to secure social order 
 and worth and purity, is the pre-eminence of 
 their Master and their Redeemer. Take that 
 away, and these moral forces that are electrical 
 in the atmosphere and that are regenerative in 
 society would expire. It is this that keeps the 
 churches open and makes the ministry effective, 
 that gathers the prayer-meeting and the Sunday 
 School, that gives so much influence to women in 
 their sanctified endeavors, and that, through the 
 greed and grime of politics will, on occasion, 
 move the voters, in solid columns, to put prin- 
 ciple above spoils and to recognize the suprem- 
 acy of moral convictions. 
 
 It is this that makes such a man as Von Moltke 
 the leader of temperance reform in Germany, 
 that gives such popular power to the eloquence 
 of Senator Wilson in Iowa when he calls on the 
 young men of that State in this crisis of the 
 reform there, " to keep in line with the better 
 thought and the moral forces of the times." It 
 is the pre-eminence of Christ, of His Person, of 
 His authority, of His love, that is thq controlling 
 
CHRIST THE PRE-EMiNKNT ONE. It 
 
 impulse of all that moral revolution which Is 
 working changes in the nations. 
 
 And, once more, this is seen in the fact 
 that Christ has the first place in the confi- 
 dence and affection of His friends. There is 
 no divided dominion here. When the test 
 comes, in times of great public trial, in per- 
 sonal sorrow, in the final struggle, it is seen 
 that Christ is the Lord of His people. They 
 show it too little on ordinar}^ occasions. It 
 is not marked enough in ever^'-day life. But 
 the latent principle is in every truly redeemed 
 soul. Men and women and children have not 
 shrunk from severest persecutions and terrible 
 martyrdoms to make it known that Christ was 
 first. In the disappointment and suffering which 
 have shrouded individual lives, how clearly and 
 beautifully has it shone forth that He was trust- 
 ed, that He was the joy of His people in their 
 bitterest sorrow, that He was their strength in 
 their utter weakness, that He was with them, an 
 unfailing friend, when all other friends failed. 
 And in the last great agony, the whole world 
 dark, and every human support fallen, His name 
 has held undying charm, and His presence has 
 sustained the lonel}^ but victorious soul. That 
 beautiful queen, whom all German}' idolizes, 
 whose gieat portrait is the charm oi Cologne, 
 whose pictures are beloved in every city of the 
 proud empire, whose sweet name sounds in the 
 love-songs and the battle-odes of a grand people, 
 
18 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 as slie breatlied her brave life away in the Villa 
 of Hohen-Zieritz, with those who were dearest 
 to her, helpless to save her, turned from king 
 and friend with her dying prayer, " O Jesus 
 make it easy." 
 
 In humble homes, He has been the Light of 
 the poor man's cottage, and the feeble saint, ex- 
 piring there, with little of worldly comfort and 
 the homely attentions of faithful friends, has 
 lifted up the same pra3^er to the same Deliverer, 
 who is no respecter of persons. From regal 
 couch and from hard bed He receives the same 
 devoted loyalt}^, the same love and trust, which 
 death only intensifies. We cannot doubt His 
 place with His friends. They who know Him 
 best, love Him most. They who dwell and 
 walk nearest to Him, give Him the divinest 
 pre-eminence. 
 
 What place has our Lord with us? We may 
 well put to ourselves to-day this question. He 
 is not here in personal and visible presence. But 
 His representatives are here. His Cliiirch is 
 here. What is our relation to His church, which 
 is His body ? Are we giving it foremost place 
 in our affections and in our service? Are we 
 willing to deny ourselves for it? Will we see to 
 it that the Church, in which the Lord dwells, 
 lacks nothing which is for its honor and prog- 
 ress in the world ; that it has our prayers, our 
 money, our service ? 
 
 His souls are here : the souls which at t-reat 
 
CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 19 
 
 cost He redeemed ; the souls that He wants fcjr 
 the gems of His crown and the glory of His 
 kingdom. Will we seek to save them for Him ? 
 Will we seek, by self-denial, by parting with 
 that which we prize the most, by giving that 
 which we are accustomed to call our own, to 
 bring the unsaved world to Him, so " that in all 
 things He might have the pre-eminence?" 
 
 His viinistry is here : the ambassadorship on 
 behalf of Christ, commissioned to entreat men to 
 be reconciled to God ; the ministry of reconcil- 
 iation, to declare to the world that God was in 
 Christ reconciling the world unto Himself ; by 
 manifestation of the truth to commend itself to 
 every man's conscience in the sight of God. It 
 is for us to aid that ministry, to give it our sym- 
 pathy and affection and support, that it may have 
 success in the great work for which itis appoint- 
 ed. It stands for Christ : it announces its divine 
 message in His name ; and its one mission, its 
 absorbing undertaking, through the preaching 
 of the gospel and through manifold labor, is 
 " that in all things He might have the pre-emi- 
 nence." 
 
11. 
 
 CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 
 
 HE boy Jesus was twelve years old when 
 He was so spoken of. I suppose that, to 
 look at, He was much like many another 
 boy of that winning age. That is the real, sweet- 
 est bo3''-age. The reserve and rawness of the 
 child have passed ; the self-assertion and over- 
 confidence of a few years later have not begun. 
 It is the prime of boyhood. 
 
 Who would not have been glad to have seen 
 the boy Jesus then? You think of other boys 
 whom it would have been a pleasure to have 
 seen and known. Such was the bo}' Moses, who 
 was taken out of the ark of bulrushes by the 
 daughter of a great king, and was brought up in 
 the palaces of Egypt : a beautiful boy, as the 
 story goes, so that those who passed him turned 
 to look at him again. When he was twelve 
 years old, he was studying under careful and 
 wise teachers, who instructed him in the learn- 
 ing of the Egyptians, then the most cultured of 
 all peoples. It is told of him that finding the 
 crown of the monarch one day, he sent it spin- 
 ning across the floor with a kick of his foot, as 
 
 [21] 
 
22 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 though the crown were only fit for his play- 
 thing. 
 
 Such was the bo}- Alexander, who when he 
 was thirteen years of age was placed under the 
 tutelage of the great Aristotle; one the con- 
 queror of the world in arms, the other the con- 
 queror of the world in philosophy. When I 
 was twelve 3'ears old I used to read with pride 
 how Alexander subdued Bucephalus, a grand 
 war-horse, that afterward carried his master 
 through many famous battles. He was so fierce 
 that no one dared to mount him. But Alexander 
 saw what the trouble was and was vexed that so 
 noble an animal shouUl be rejected for want of 
 skill to handle him. His father gave hitn per- 
 mission to try it, and the young prince soothing 
 the proud animal with gentle tones and strokes 
 sprang upon his back and gave him the rein and 
 subdued him, so that afterward no one could 
 mount Bucephalus but Alexander. 
 
 Such was the boy Luther, who when he was at 
 school at Magdeburg, with other boys, sang at 
 t'.ie doors of the houses for bread, and cried 
 " Panem propter Deum," and who afterward 
 became the great Reformer and changed the 
 state of the whole world by exalting the Bible. 
 This fine German bo}' with his sweet voice and 
 his thrilling songs won the heart of Madame 
 Cotta, who t(jok him into her house and taught 
 him music and made a good home for him. 
 
 Such was the boy George IVashington, our own 
 
CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 23 
 
 American boy, too good to tell a lie and brave 
 as Alexander, with a fiery horse which he 
 mounted, but which, unlike Bucephalus, in the 
 contest burst a blood-vessel and died. Washing- 
 ton became a man of prayer, having early 
 learned to pray, and not forgetting, as some men 
 do, in manhood, the good lessons and habits of 
 boyhood. 
 
 Many others too we can think of, some of 
 them now living, whom it would have been good 
 to see in their fair boyhood. But of all boys 
 who ever lived in any land, I think we would all 
 prefer to have seen and known the boy Jesus. 
 He was different from all other boj's. He knew 
 more than Moses, who was learned in all the 
 wisdom of the Egyptians. He was braver than 
 Alexander, and conquered more of the world 
 than that great conqueror. He had a heavier 
 task than Luther and did more for every land 
 than Washington did for our great land. 
 
 What was it that made Him so different from 
 other boys? His earthly parents were no better 
 than the parents of many children. His schools 
 were not as good as the schools we have. The 
 society in which He moved was not as refined 
 and cultured as much other society. The time 
 in which he lived was not as enlightened as 
 many other times in the world's history. 
 
 Yet the boy Jesus was the first Boy of all the 
 boys of the world. There was more to him : 
 He was fairer and more lovely : He stood higher 
 
2-1: THE MODKI. J>IFE. 
 
 in every worth}' respect tlian any otlicr boy has 
 stood. Men and women seeing Him would see 
 that there was something finer, nobler, more 
 attractive, more heavenly in Ilim than in any 
 other boy they had ever seen. The apocryphal 
 stories, as they arc called, that is, stories that are 
 fictitious and have no real basis, that are told 
 about Him, show that those who invented them 
 and those who handed them down from age to 
 age, thought He was a peculiar bo}'. He was 
 Wonderful. 
 
 There is ver}- little that we certainly know 
 about His boyhood. A few words in the his- 
 tories of the gospels include it all. They tell us 
 that His parents, Joseph and Mary, dwelt in 
 Nazareth, an obscure town in one of the pictur- 
 esque valle3's of Galilee. We read, " And the 
 child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wis- 
 dom ; and the grace of God was upon Him." 
 They tell us, that when He was twelve years 
 old, His parents went up to Jerusalem at the feast 
 of the passover, after the custom of the Hebrew 
 people : that when they had fulfilled the usual 
 observances and were returning, the boy Jesus 
 tarried behind in Jersusalem ; and His parents 
 knew it not; but supposing Him to be in the 
 company of their kinsfolk and acquaintance they 
 went a day's journey : then seeking Him and not 
 finding Him, they returned to the city, looking 
 for Him as they went : that after three days the\' 
 found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of 
 
CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD, 25 
 
 the doctors, both hearing- them and asking- them 
 questions: and all that heard Him were amazed 
 at His understanding and His answers : that 
 wlien His [)arcnts saw Him there they were 
 astonished ; and His mother said unto Him, Son, 
 why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold thy 
 father and I sought thee sorrowing. And He 
 said unto them, How is it that ye sought me ? 
 Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's 
 business? They understood not the saying 
 which He spake unto them. Then we read. And 
 He went down with them, and came to Nazareth ; 
 and He was subject unto them : and His mother 
 kept all these sayings in her heart. Also, And 
 Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favor with God and men. That is all that is 
 said. It is enough. 
 
 It shows us what a wonderful boy He was. 
 It separates Him from all other bo^^s, and it 
 unites Him to all other boys. He was like 
 them : He was also unlike them. 
 
 He was like them in that He had a similar 
 home-life. He knew the sweet names, father, 
 motiier, brother, sister. He had cousins and 
 friends. He was obedient to His parents. Do 
 I say he was like other boys in that ? He was 
 like some boys and like what all boys should be. 
 It is a most precious thing to have a father and 
 mother to love. A good father and mother are 
 God's best gift to a child. The Scripture says 
 of Jesus that he was subject unto his parents. 
 
20 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Ill tlial he has left an example to all children. 
 The rule of Holy Scripture is that children 
 should obey their parents in the Lord. God is 
 first. His commands are first of all to be obeyed, 
 and when the parental commands are in hai-- 
 mony with them, they are to be obeyed. But we 
 ought to obey God rather than man. God must 
 always be put first. Christ must be about His 
 Father's business: then subject to His human 
 parents. 
 
 The child grew and waxed strong, filled with 
 wisdom. He advanced in wisdom and stature. 
 That he should grow and become a strong and 
 healthy child in the out-door air of His Galilean 
 life was to have been expected. That we see in 
 most children in the same condition. But He 
 grew also in wisdom, and more than that, in 
 favor with God and man ; and the grace of God 
 was upon Him. 
 
 What were the books He studied } He was 
 not a High School scholar, nora university stu- 
 dent, nor did He have the training of the Jewish 
 doctors. He was taught by His parents in their 
 home-life and by the teachers in the synagogue, 
 as we have our Sunday School instruction and 
 our preaching service. He had a mind open to 
 all the voices of nature, in all her volumes of 
 truth, in all her display of ceaseless miracle. He 
 mingled with the people and heard their talk. 
 He was familiar with the Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament: those Scriptures of which He after- 
 
CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 27 
 
 ward said, " In them ye think ye have eternal 
 life, and they are they which testify of me. 
 Sanctify them through thy truth : thy Word is 
 truth." In the great truths of the divine Word 
 He found food for His mind, uplift and expan- 
 sion for His soul, as any other boy might do. 
 Men wiio become great by their study of, and 
 familiarity with, the Bible, are strong men. It 
 is worth more than all other books to an}' boy, 
 no matter what business he is preparing for. 
 He had better shut up all his school-books, all 
 books that he is interested in reading, than to 
 shut up the Bible. If he can have but one book, 
 that is the Book for him, for that one Book of 
 God is able to make him wise unto salvation. 
 Wisdom, wisdom of schools and of books, is vain 
 wisdom if it does not make the learner wise 
 unto salvation. Any course of study or training 
 that stops short of salvation, stops short of the 
 main thing, the only thing of chief concern. 
 It is pitiful, inexpressibly pitiful, to see a boy 
 go out from his schools and his home into 
 the world of men and of business without salva- 
 tion. He is like a ship going out from port 
 without compass or rudder, to be driven by wild 
 winds, on stormy seas, to meet the iceberg and 
 the hurricane, and to go down in terrible wreck ! 
 Pity the boy, who, whatever he may have, has 
 not the Christian faith to meet the temptations 
 and trials of the world ! How many have I 
 seen, in a life not now short, who started out 
 
28 TIIK MODEF. MKR. 
 
 fair!)-, like the ship with its sails all spread to the 
 breeze and its pennons streaming toward the 
 skies, with music rins^ing from its decks and the 
 shouts of its sailors flung to the air, in a few 
 short months brought home with draggled sails, 
 and shattered masts, and hulk battered and leak- 
 ing at every joint, fit only for the fire, or thrown 
 on a rocky coast a niisciable wreck ! If these 
 were my last words to the boys whom 1 love, I 
 would charge them to love the Bible and to 
 obey it, and especially t(^ love Him who made 
 the Bible and who made them. Dare not to 
 neglect Christ, to put off salvation, to run the 
 risk of everlasting ruin. 
 
 The boy Jesus rdso learneJ from communion 
 with His heavenly Father. He was a boy of 
 prayer. N(3 day passed when He did not have 
 intercourse with God. H-^ looked up for health 
 and strength and wisdom. Any boy without 
 prayer is weak. He who takes hold of the arm 
 of God takes hold of infinite strength. 
 
 By such means it was that Jesus advanced in 
 wisdom and stature, and also in favor with God 
 and man. Favor with God first : then favor 
 with men. " Would'st have a friend? Have 
 God thy friend who passeth all the rest." 
 
 The Jews marveled and said: " How knoweth 
 this man letters, having never learned ?" Ah ! 
 they did n(jt know the secret of His wisdom. 
 But you may know it. The Bible and Prayer, 
 
CHKIST IN CHILDHOOD. 2d 
 
 these were the keys that unlocked all the doors 
 that He needed to enter. 
 
 There may be one thing in which the boy 
 Jesus was unlike all other boys who have ever 
 lived. He was loithout sin. He never did anyone 
 thing for which He needed to repent. He never 
 spoke a word which He should not have spoken. 
 He never had a thought which He should not 
 have had. He never injured a pla3mate, nor 
 wronged another child, nor disobeyed any good 
 rule. He was a perfect boy : perfect in thought, 
 in purpose, in act, in word. 
 
 He was a true, pure, holy boy. He had the 
 favor of God. Day after day, through all the 
 sweet years of his boyhood He lived without sin, 
 and no wrong thing was ever known of Him, 
 seen in Him ; never, in fact, existed in Him. 
 
 Sin is that which makes so much sorrow and 
 sufifering in the world. It spoils human lives. 
 It makes wretched fathers and mothers and chil- 
 dren. It makes tears flow. It breaks human 
 hearts. It wounds the heart of God. Sin made 
 it necessary for the Saviour to die. He died to 
 save sinners. 
 
 Boys begin to sin when they are very young. 
 They go on in that way too often. Too often 
 they grow up to be sinners : sometimes very 
 bad ones. They break away from their parents, 
 stop praying and reading the Bible, leave the 
 Sunday School, never go to church, reject 
 Christ and His salvation, mingle with hard and 
 
30 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 wicked persons, and finally become as hard and 
 wicked as any. And so it is that the prisons are 
 filled with young men, thousands and thousands 
 of them, who have gone off into bad company 
 and become low and criminal. 
 
 In the boy Jesus we have a better example, 
 the brightest example in all the history of the 
 world ! Copy His true, pure, life. He grew and 
 waxed strong, filled with wisdom ; and the grace 
 of God was on Him. Men admired Him and 
 God loved Him. There was n(jthing wrong 
 about Him. He did no sin, neither was guile 
 found in His mouth. He loved and obeyed His 
 parents. He was always about His heavenly 
 Father's business. He kept the Sabbath holy. 
 He worshiped with God's people. He studied 
 God's Holy Bible. His life made the world 
 bright. 
 
 Be like Christ. Imitate His life. Be boys 
 that your parents will be proud of. As you 
 move til rough the world make a path that will 
 be brilliant with light as the light of noons, that 
 will ring with music as the songs of heaven, that 
 will bless others all the way as dews and flowers 
 make the morning and the evening glad. And 
 let us be so about our Father's business that, 
 when our work here shall be done, we shall all 
 meet in our Father's House ! 
 
III. 
 
 CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 
 
 HE CARPENTER! It is at first, almost 
 impossible to think of the Saviour of 
 the world, the Son of God, as employed 
 in the work-shop of the village carpenter. But 
 there was His place and His occupation. 
 Through His youth and His early manhood He 
 was known in the humble town of Nazareth as 
 the carpenter. If, as the tradition goes. His 
 reputed father, Joseph, died when Jesus was 
 nineteen years of age, it would fall to Him 
 to keep on with the business for the support of 
 the family: and, in that case, for eleven years, 
 He was at work on the simple dwellings of 
 Nazareth, adjusting doors and windows to their 
 stone walls, making plain furniture for them 
 and fashioning plows and yokes for out- 
 door labor. From early morning till evening, 
 assisted perhaps by His brethren, He was 
 handling the saw and the plane, the hammer 
 and the chisel, and was passing from house to 
 house to fulfill the orders of the village people. 
 So they all knew Him in His business : and 
 when, after His public life began, after He had 
 
 [31] 
 
32 THE MODEL UFE. 
 
 gone away from Nazareth and entered upon 
 that wonderful ministry which aroused the 
 attention of the nation, after miracles of power 
 had attested His divinity, He came into His 
 own countr}', and on the Sabbath stood forth in 
 the synagogue of His village as a teacher of the 
 Scriptures, the people, hearing Him, were 
 astonished, and they said, one to another, 
 Whence hath this man these things? What is 
 the wisdom that is given unto this man, and 
 what mean such might}' works wrought by His 
 hands? Is not this the carpenter? Was He 
 not working here for us a few months ago? 
 Are not His brothers and His sisters here with 
 us, and His mother Mary ? They could not 
 understand it. With a wisdom which surpassed 
 that of the learned rabbis, with a power beyond 
 that of man, His words and His woiks were 
 unexplainable by them. He had not been taught 
 in their schools of learning. He had not been 
 familiar with the leaders of the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees, with the educated scribes. He had 
 not been a pupil of any Hillel or Gamaliel. The 
 books of oriental and Greek philosophy were 
 unknown in the home of Joseph and Mar3\ 
 They were well surprised, therefore, at the 
 wisdom with which He taught, at the grace 
 which flowed from His lips. They had known 
 Him only as the carpenter. 
 
 The mysterious life which He had lived 
 among them for thirty years was out of their 
 
CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 33 
 
 sight. His open life as a workman, building 
 their houses and tools, was familiar to them. 
 But His life with God, His deep communion 
 with His Father, the absorption of His lonely 
 hours in silent meditation on things divine and 
 heavenly, were all unobserved b}' them. After 
 all, they were not acquainted with Him. He 
 had indeed learned something from His father 
 and his mother in their home instructions : He 
 had learned something in the humble village 
 school of the synagogue. But His real wisdom 
 was divine. He was taught of God. All human 
 learning was but the preface to his knowledge. 
 The world was an open book to Him. The sun 
 and the midnight stars, in their sublime circuits, 
 printed His lessons. The beautiful landscapes, 
 with their pictured lakes and forests, with 
 marching shadows and the music of winds that 
 rustled the leaves and dimpled the waters, the 
 bloom of lilies and the songs of birds, mountains 
 that lifted their serene sunuiiits toward the blue 
 of the skies, were the leaves on which he studied. 
 The human heart, bare to His scrutiny, with its 
 joys and sorrows and its sober aspirations, as 
 He saw it in the homes where He labored, 
 among the simple people with whom He lived, 
 torn by the tragedies of life, soothed by the 
 tenderness of sympathetic love, was a volume 
 of profound meaning for His constant thought. 
 Memories of the glorious world where His 
 eternal life had been spent, the music of the 
 
34 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 angel-choirs, the splendor and peace of a holy 
 estate, the glory of the Throne and the infinite 
 perfections of Godhead, filled His soul and 
 brought perpetual uplift to his lowly being. 
 Nature and history, biography and living men, 
 were His instructors. One who has looked upon 
 the scene has vividly described the historic plain 
 which the Saviour saw from the hill which 
 rises six hundred feet above the village of 
 Nazareth. " It was in the heart of the land of 
 Israel. The standards of Rome were planted 
 on the plain before him : the language of Greece 
 was si)oken in the towns below. And however 
 peaceful it then might look, green as a pavement 
 of emerald, rich with its gleams of vivid sun- 
 light, and the purpling sliadows which floated 
 over it from the clouds of the latter rain, it had 
 been for centuries a battle-field of nations. 
 Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Emirs and Arsacids, 
 judges and consuls, had all contended for the 
 mastery of that smiling tract. It had glittered 
 with the lances of the Amelekites : it had trem- 
 bled under the chariot-wheels of Sesostris ; it 
 had echoed the twanging bow-strings of Senna- 
 cherib ; it had been trodden by the phalanxes of 
 Macedonia ; it had clashed with the broadswords 
 of Rome ; it was destined hereafter to ring with 
 the battle cry of the Crusaders, and thunder 
 with the artiller}' of England and of France. In 
 that Plain of Jczrccl, Europe and Asia, Judaism 
 and heathenism, barbarism and civilization, the 
 
CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 35 
 
 old and the new covenant, the history of the 
 past and the hopes of the present, seemed all to 
 meet. No scene of deeper significance for the 
 destinies of humanity could possibly have 
 arrested the youthful Saviour's g-^ze." 
 
 Under such instructive influences, earth and 
 heaven being His teachers, the strange boyhood 
 and youth and young manhood of the Messiah 
 had passed away : and when He came before the 
 people who had known Him well through those 
 preparatory periods, opening tlieir sacred record 
 with a wisdom which sui-passed that of their 
 learned scribes and rabbis, they asked with won- 
 der and skepticism. Is not this the Carpenter? 
 
 A poet of our day has indulged in the conceit 
 that somewhere in Nazareth or in some part of 
 Palestine there may 3'et be found some surviving 
 memento of the workmanship of Christ : 
 
 " Some dear relique 
 Of work by Joseph's Son. 
 Some carved thoug-ht, some tool of toil, 
 
 Some house with stones grown gray, 
 A home He built who had not where 
 
 His weary head to lay. 
 It were a thing most beautiful. 
 
 Of rare and rich design : 
 And something very true and strong. 
 
 Made by a skill divine. 
 The road-side stones at sight of Him 
 
 Could scarce their rapture hush : 
 What felt His touch and art must yet 
 
 With conscious beauty blush." 
 
36 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 But as there are no pictures preserved of Him, 
 so there are no memorials of His known handi- 
 work. Such memorial, if preserved, would be 
 idolized. It would be considered a sacred thing 
 and supeistitious men would even worship it. 
 
 A recent number of " The Century " contains 
 an interior of a carpenter's shop in Nazareth, 
 with the tools that were in use and articles that 
 were made, and the writer says : " Whatever 
 the Palestine carpenter produces is from the 
 fragrant cedars of Lebanon or from the eccen- 
 trically knotted and gnarled olive-wood." Mem- 
 orials of His handiwork in fragrant cedar or 
 beautifully grained olivewood would be indeed 
 precious treasures to those who cherish His 
 memory and love Him and all His works. But 
 though no such relics have been handed down, 
 there may be, yet, in the old interiors of the 
 houses of Nazareth woodwork which the hand 
 of this Carpenter wrought, doors and shelves and 
 window-sills which he framed and set in place, 
 which it were good to see. In an old and well- 
 preserved house in Oxford, wainscoted and 
 ceiled with English oak, as we were examining 
 its elabt)rate panels and the tasteful wcjrkmanshij) 
 of its woods, one of its refined dwellers said to 
 me of a room into which we had entered, " This is 
 a thousand years old !" The hard}' cedar and 
 the undecaying olive-wood of Lcl)anon would 
 remain well-preserved for two thousand years in 
 its original beaut}' and form. So that the travel- 
 
CHRlSt THE DIVtNE CARrENTER. 37 
 
 er, exploring the white dwellings of Nazareth to- 
 day may, unconsciously, come upon the very 
 handiwork of this most illustrious Carpenter! 
 
 But if he should not, and could not, assure him- 
 self of this, he would yet be among known works 
 of Christ. The heavens that bend above that 
 historic town declare His glory, and the firma- 
 ment showeth His handiwork. Day unto day 
 uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
 knowledge of His creations. Eacli star that 
 beams from its remote place, in the unmeasured 
 distances of space, is from His forming hand. 
 Tabor with it, groves of oak, and Carmel in its 
 rugged features, and Hebron with its crown of 
 snow, were made by Him. The Sea of Galilee, 
 the wide plain of Esdraelon, the fruitful hills of 
 Samaria, are all the products of His thought. 
 The endless variety of flowers that garnish the 
 rocks and the wayside with their luxurious 
 beauty, are His own ideas in those graceful and 
 fragrant forms. And every man, and every 
 child, in that old town where He wrought with 
 saw and chisel at the carpenter's bench, is the 
 statuesque production of this divine Artist. Not 
 in Nazareth canyon go amiss of works of Christ. 
 The very ground on which it is builded He 
 made. The birds that flash over it on their 
 wings of blue, and the camels that shamble 
 through it in their patient pace, and every soul 
 that gives a strange character to that early home 
 of the Lord, own him as their Author. And the 
 
38 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 signals of Him are not alone at hoary Nazareth. 
 They are all over the world which is sanctified 
 by His tread and toil, by His blessed works 
 and words, by his vicarious sufferings and death. 
 Would we find relics and memorials of Him? 
 Would we see remembrances of our Lord? We 
 need not cross the sea. We need not climb the 
 rocky path from Gil boa to Nazareth. We have 
 only to look around us. We have only, if we 
 are His, to look within us. Around us and above 
 us are His creations. Within us is His new 
 creation, most wonderful of all ! He who made 
 the heavens and the earth, made and re-made, 
 renewed our souls, and wrought them into His 
 moral image. The poet to whom I have alluded 
 has wrought the fact into harmonious verse: 
 
 " O soul of mine ! I tell thee true, 
 
 If Christ indeed be thine, 
 No more made He Himself thy kin 
 
 Than makes He thee divine. 
 As thro' His soul there frequent beat 
 
 Our human hopes and loves, 
 So midst thy varying joys and fears 
 
 His spirit lives and moves. 
 
 *' But O my soul, as I thy good 
 
 Anil evil ways explore, 
 I seem to see the Christ in thee 
 
 His earthly life live o'er. 
 Thou art another Holy Land, 
 
 (Ah! holy might'st thou be !) 
 The olden joys and griefs of Christ 
 
 Repeat themselves in thee." 
 
CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 39 
 
 Study yourself, if you are renewed in Christ, 
 and you shall find that which memorializes Him. 
 If 3'ou are like Him, it is His hand that has 
 fashioned you after that divine likeness. If in 
 you are the graces of the spirit, it is by Him that 
 they are wrought. If you are redeemed unto 
 God, it is through the redemption that He made 
 at infinite cost. If you are healed from the 
 wounds of sin, it is by His stripes that you are 
 healed. If your transgressions are blotted out, 
 it is His blood that has blotted them out. The 
 new creation of the human soul is the new crea- 
 tion of Christ. It is no more true that He made 
 the world and its varied organisms, than that 
 He re-makes the soul and develops its divine 
 life. It is no more true that, as the carpenter of 
 Nazareth, His hand fashioned the woodwork in 
 the houses of that village and the tools of its 
 people, than that He fashions our souls into His 
 image and will fashion anew the body oi our 
 humiliation that it may be conformed to the 
 body of His glory. There is vast and tender 
 meaning to tliat word of the apostle, " For we 
 are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 
 good works." You, so far as you are a Christian, 
 are the workmanship of Christ : and you have 
 not to go beyond yourself to find memorial of 
 Him of whom the Nazarenes said, Is not this 
 the carpenter ? 
 
 The signs of Christ, then, are not far to see. 
 " The invisible thiuijs of Him since the creation 
 
40 rm-: modkl life. 
 
 of the world arc clearly seen, being' perceived 
 through the things that are made." The things 
 that are made are ever in our sight. II we look 
 upward, there is glorious revelation of Christ. 
 Everv star that flashes in the brilliant constella- 
 tions, and helps to form the Milky Way, is a 
 globe formed b}' Him. The sea is His and He 
 made it ; and His hands formed the dry land. 
 His woik at Nazareth was an insignificant part 
 of what He has wrought. Is not this the car- 
 penter? Is n(jt this the maker of all worlds, of 
 the landscai)es that spread around us, with their 
 hills and water and the glories of vegetation? 
 All things were made by Him. Without Him 
 was not anything made that was made. But a 
 diviner creation is that creation which is bring- 
 ing on the moral renewal of the world. He is 
 even now creating new heavens and a new earth 
 for the dwelling-place of righteousness. The 
 foundations are laid by His own hand. The 
 structure is rising on every land to which the 
 gospel has been carried. And the former things 
 He assures us shall not be remembered, nor 
 come into mind. The pick has dug into the 
 earth's mines of treasure. The tubes have been 
 pointed into the peopled spaces of the heavens. 
 The glass has magnified the minute forms of life. 
 Science has searched into all seas and along all 
 shores, and the graves of the centuries have 
 been made to give up their dead. Trophies of 
 research have been published in books and in 
 
CHRIST THE DIVINE CAKPENTISR. 41- 
 
 charts, and have crowded great galleries and 
 museums. The spoils from the material crea- 
 tions have rewarded the study and investigation 
 of men. 
 
 But there is another study, and another world 
 of thought. Christ, the former and the informer 
 of our souls, is working out the plan of salvation 
 as it exists in the designs of God. You see the 
 ongoing of it. You see the child, with the 
 warm affectionateness of his nature, won to the 
 love of the Saviour. You see the father, who 
 has lived without hope and with no God, conse- 
 crating his manly powers to Christ. You see 
 a whole family renouncing the vanities of the 
 world, giving themselves together to the service 
 of this blessed Master. You see parishes and 
 communities wrought on by a power viewless 
 as the wind and forceful as the tornado, revolu- 
 tionized in their common life and turned toward 
 heavenly things. You see, if your minds are 
 open to current histor}^ the progress of a new 
 creation which is changing the world's history, 
 which is sweeping away night and old chaos 
 from the nations, which is gilding the horizon 
 with the glory of a new and better day, whose 
 light is to lighten all the peoples and to make 
 Christ the Light of the world. 
 
 You would find some relics of the workman- 
 ship of the Galilean carpenter ! You need not 
 seek for them in the fragrant cedar and the 
 beautiful olive-wood on which He worked in 
 
42 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Nazareth ! Here and now, around you, in the 
 world abroad, wherever His gospel goes, you 
 may plainly see what He has wrought. Men 
 are His memorials! Renewed souls are memen- 
 tos of His work. The restored world is monu- 
 mental of Him. By and by, lighted with His 
 love, made glorious by His redeeming ministry 
 upon it, it will swing through the heavens, 
 among other spheres of light, the chief among 
 ten thousand, the one altogether lovely, for His 
 accomplished work uj^on it! 
 
 This is the carpentering of the Master Build- 
 er ! This is the city whose builder and maker 
 is God. Jesus Chiist is He " in whom each 
 several building, fitly framed together, groweth 
 into a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom ye 
 also are builded together for a habitation of God 
 in the Spirit." 
 
HEALING THE SICK IN THE TEMPLE. 
 
 TypoRravure — Benj. West, 
 
IV. 
 
 THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 
 
 STRANGE Life had come into the 
 world ! strange in its beginnings, in its 
 continnance, in its ending ! The pre- 
 annoLincement of it was such as has no parallel 
 in histor3^ The Birth of this Pers(jn in a humble 
 place drew from heaven a multitude of angels 
 who filled the mountain-air above Bethlehem 
 with their exultant praises. It brought wise 
 men from a far country, guided by a phenom- 
 enal star, with regal presents of gold and frank- 
 incense and myrrh, to worship Him. In the 
 house of the village carpenter at Nazareth there 
 was a wonderful boyhood. When He was 
 twelve years old His parents found Him in the 
 temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
 hearing them and asking them questions. His 
 parents did not understand what He spake unto 
 them. Even in His earliest infanc}' they 
 marveled at the things which were spoken con- 
 cerning Him. He lived with them : He was 
 obedient unto them : but, with all His winning 
 traits there was mystery about the Boy which 
 they could not fathom. He was unlike all other 
 
 [43] 
 
44 THK MODKL LIFR. 
 
 boys. Who was He? From what world had 
 He come to this? On what mission had this 
 mystic life been launched into the living foices 
 of the world ? 
 
 Then came a period of eighteen years of 
 obscurity and silence, in which this remarkable 
 youth followed the trade of a carpenter in the 
 village where His father had pursued that occu- 
 pation until his death. No history tells us of 
 these years. We can only wonder what they 
 were in the discipline and growth of Him of 
 whom we read, that He advanced in wisdom and 
 stature and in favor with God and men. 
 
 When He was thirty years of age His public 
 ministry began. It burst on the people as some- 
 thing extraordinary. At his baptism, the Holy 
 Spirit, in bodily form as a dove, descended from 
 the open heavens upon Him, and a voice came 
 from the firmament: "Thou art my beloved 
 Son ; in thee I am well pleased." John the Bap- 
 tist testified that he saw the strange occurrence : 
 " I saw and bare record, that this is the Son of 
 God." The spirit of power abode upon Him 
 and abode with Him: so that immediately He 
 became the prominent figure before the people. 
 A wide fame went out concerning Him through 
 all the regions round about: and He taught in 
 their synagogues, being glorified of all. Luke 
 mentions this before he makes mention of any 
 miracle as wrought by Christ. It was the power 
 of His preaching ; it was the wonderful doctrine 
 
THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 45 
 
 that he taught ; it was the new meanings which 
 He brought out of the old Scriptures ; which 
 made His name and fame so pervasive and 
 prominent. It was so in Galilee: it was so in 
 Samaria. He spoke, as the Roman soldiers after- 
 ward testified, as no man ever spake. His very 
 first journey was a triumph. Grace was poured 
 into His lips. But his words were confirmed by 
 that wonderful series of miracles which proved 
 His innate and irresistible divinity. Without 
 them He was great : with them His power was 
 incontestable. Matthew, almost at the beginning 
 of the history, says, Jesus went about in all Gal- 
 ilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching 
 the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all man- 
 ner of disease and all manner of sickness among 
 the people. And the report of Him went forth 
 into all Syria, and they brought unto Him all 
 that were sick, holden with divers diseases and 
 torments, possessed with demons, and epileptic 
 and palsied, and he healed them. Then comes a 
 statement by Matthew, which introduces a fact 
 of marvel in this unique life and which is with- 
 out parallel : " And there followed Him great 
 multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and 
 Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond Jordan." 
 The people were drawn to Him by a magic 
 attraction. They could not be kept away from 
 Him. Over and over again, in all the gospels, is 
 it repeated that multitudes, great multitudes, 
 clung to Him, followed Him wherever He went, 
 
46 THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 from the beginning of liis ministr}', till in snd 
 and glooniy ranks they closed aiound llini on 
 Calvary and wept at the tragic event of the 
 cross ! 
 
 Matthew writes: " And seeing the multitudes, 
 He went up into the mountain." And then he 
 gave the Sermon on the Mount, as it is called. 
 See now how often the fact is taken notice of. 
 The multitudes were astonished at His teaching. 
 When He was come down fiom the mountain 
 great multitudes followed Him. When the 
 multitudes saw it, they were afraid, and glori- 
 fied God, who had given such authority unto 
 men. When He saw the multitudes. He was 
 moved with compassion for them, because they 
 were distressed and scattered, as sheep not hav- 
 ing a shej)herd. Jesus began to sa}' unto the 
 multitudes concerning Jolui. While He was 
 3et speaking to the multitudes, behold. His 
 mother and brethren stood without, seeking to 
 speak to Him. On that day went Jesus out of the 
 house, and sat by the sea-side. And there were 
 gathered unto Him great multitudes, so that He 
 entered into a boat, and sat ; and all the multi- 
 tude stood on the beach. Then He spake many 
 things to them in ]:)arables. Then he left the 
 multitudes and went int(3 the house. In vari- 
 ous great divisions of the country the same thing 
 occurred. When Jesus had finished these words, 
 He departed from Galilee, and came into the 
 borders of Judea beyond Jordan : and great 
 
THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 47 
 
 multitudes followed Him. And as they went 
 out from Jericho, a great multitude followed 
 Him. At Sychar, in Samaria, the mass of the 
 people turned out to see and hear him. 
 
 Once, as He approached Jerusalem, there was 
 a remarkable demonstration. Dore has made it 
 the subject of one of his greatest and most im- 
 pressive paintings. From the mount of Olives, 
 from which afterward He ascended to heaven, 
 He was escorted by a great multitude, Avho 
 spread their garments in the way before Him 
 and cut branches from the evergreen olive-trees 
 and spread them in the wav. From the country 
 where He had been emplo3'ed a great multitude 
 accompanied Him. From the city which He 
 was about to enter another great multitude 
 came forth to escort Him. And the multitudes 
 that went before Him, and that followed, cried, 
 saying, " Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed 
 is He that cometh in the name of the Lord : 
 Hosanna in the highest." They gave Him 
 royal salute. They escorted Him as in tri- 
 umphal procession. They gave Him entrance to 
 the capital as great kings are given entrance. 
 And when he was come into Jerusalem all the 
 city was stirred, saying : " Who is this ?" And 
 the multitudes answered : " This is the prophet 
 Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." Then they 
 would have crowned Him, and placed Him on 
 the historic throne of David, as from time to 
 time the multitudes attempted to do. By a 
 
48 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 whirlwind of popular excitement they would 
 have swept down opposition and brought on con- 
 flict with the power of the Roman Empire. The 
 narrative goes on to say : When the multitudes 
 heard it, they were astonished at His teaching. 
 Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to His 
 disciples. And repeatedly it is stated that His 
 angry enemies dare not touch him for fear of the 
 people, lest a tumult arise among the people. 
 
 The Gospel of Mark is just as full of similar 
 statements. He says, many were gathered to- 
 gether, so that there was no longer room for 
 them, no, not even about the door. He went 
 forth by the sea-side, and all the multitude re- 
 sorted unto Him, and He taught them. Jesus, 
 with His disciples, withdrew to the sea: and a 
 great multitude from Galilee followed : and 
 from Judca, and from Idumea, and beyond Jor- 
 dan, and about Tyre and Sidon,agreat multitude, 
 hearing what great things He did, came unto 
 Him. And he spake unto His disciples, that a 
 little boat should wait on Him because of the 
 crowd, lest they should throng Him. When 
 Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto 
 the other side, a great multitude was gathered 
 unto Him : and He was by the sea. 
 
 Mark is characteristically graphic in his des- 
 criptions of this point. Jesus and his disciples 
 went apart into a desert place. And the people 
 saw them going, and many knew them, and they 
 ran there together on foot from all the cities, and 
 
THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 49 
 
 out-went them. Again, the people knew Him, 
 and ran about that whole region to gather the 
 sick. And wheresoever he entered, into villages 
 or into cities, or into the country, they laid the 
 sick in the market-places, and besought Him that 
 they might touch if it were but the border of 
 His garment : and as many as touched Him were 
 made whole. 
 
 Luke is just as full in referring to this striking 
 fact : and it is very often noticed in the different 
 history of John. I do not need to quote any 
 further : but if you will notice the statements in 
 your reading you will see how all the gospels 
 dwell on it. Nor are we left in doubt as to the 
 size of these multitudes. Luke says, " When the 
 many thousands of the multitude were gathered 
 together." Mark tells us that they that ate the 
 loaves were five thousand m^n. Mark says, 
 they that did eat were four thousand men, beside 
 women and children. They were multitudes, 
 great multitudes, many thousands, five thousand 
 at one time, four thousand beside women and 
 children at another time. These immense con- 
 gregations of people, from different nations and 
 regions of country, poured along wherever He 
 went. Nothing like it was ever elsewhere 
 known in history. They amounted to armies. 
 It was a wide fame. He could not appear any- 
 where without this overwhelming mustering of 
 forces. Those who heard him speak, told of it. 
 Those who were healed spread His fame. John 
 
50 THE MODKi. I.TFK. 
 
 tlic Baptist heard of it bcliiiul prison bars. 
 Herod heard ol it in his luxurious paUices. 
 Greeks heard of it, and when they came to 
 Jerusalem they wanted t(3 see Jesus. Joseph, of 
 Arimathea, heard of it, and sought to do Ilim 
 honor. All the synagogues were open to Hi:n. 
 The cities were stirred by His entrance. Far in 
 the country, be^'ond the Hebrew border. He 
 could not be hid. The Scribes, Pharisees, and 
 Sadducees were combined for His ruin. The 
 throne trembled at His name: for His armies 
 wished to make Him King. He was the idol of 
 the people. He carried the popular enthusiasm. 
 Nothing could have stood before Him. No 
 human power could cope with One who could 
 feed His armies by miracle and so needed no 
 commissariat: who could heal His w'ounded and 
 restore His dead, and so needed no medical staff 
 and no recruiting of forces. It was a most won- 
 derful phenomenon. 
 
 To what are we to ascribe it ? How can it 
 be accounted for ? It is to be explained, first of 
 all, by His remarkable pcrsotiality. Christ had in 
 Him the hidings of divinity. Ordinarily, as 
 when He was a carpenter in Nazareth, and was 
 engaged in common duties, men w'ould have 
 noticed only that He was no ordinary man. 
 But on extraordinary occasions, the divinity 
 flashed in His dark eye, spoke in His voice of 
 authority, was seen in the wave of his hand, and 
 
THfi roWER AI^D FAME Ot CHRtSt. 61 
 
 was revealed in the pose and majesty of His 
 person. 
 
 He was every inch a King ! Royalty sat on 
 His brow like a crown. The lifting of His 
 finger was like the lifting of a scepter. His 
 word was sovereignty. The seat on which He 
 sat, though it were in a boat on Galilee, was a 
 throne. 
 
 When, in his own town of Nazareth, roused to 
 wrath by His words, the people cast Him forth 
 out of the city and led Him unto the brow of 
 the hill whereon their city was built, that they 
 might throw him down headlong. He calmly 
 passed through the midst of them unharmed. 
 When ofificersand soldiers came into Gethsemane 
 to apprehend Him, He went to meet them and 
 asked them, Whom seek ye ? And when they 
 answered, Jesus ot Nazareth, he said, I am He. 
 On that, they went backward and fell to the 
 ground. No crowd of men, no soldiers trained 
 to arms, could stand before his daunting look. 
 God zvas in it. The omnipotence of Jehovah lay 
 dormant, but regnant, in His person. Himself 
 was the absolute miracle. Men of power have 
 something of this. When a slave came into the 
 prison to kill Marius, then seventy years of age, 
 that mighty Roman only said, "Slave, wilt thou 
 slay Marius?" and the cowering creature fled 
 away. When the boatmen who were rowing 
 Caesar across a lake were frightened b}^ a sudden 
 storm, he restored them by saying, " You need not 
 
52 TrtE MODEL LtFl5. 
 
 fear : you are carrying C^csnr." Napoleon had 
 that power over his soldiers, so that when, in his 
 majestic manner, lie handed them their eagles 
 and l)id them swear, their oaths were the vows 
 of enthusiasm. But no man possessed the per- 
 sonal, mysterious, reserved majesty that Christ 
 possessed. It gave Him fame as the one man 
 among men of acknowledged supremacy. 
 
 It is to be partly explained also by the tvords 
 wJiich He spake. His tone was that of a prophet. 
 He had the language of a seer. More than 
 that : He spake like the Son of God ! He 
 taught as one who had authority, and not as the 
 scribes. The scribes taught as those who were 
 learned in the Scriptures. But Christ taught as 
 one whose own words were on an equality with 
 Holy Scripture. Scripture was only His own 
 word, spoken through holy men. 
 
 His words were for the deepest needs of men. 
 He spoke to the human heart, to its wants, and 
 sorrows, to its conviction of sin and its desires 
 for escape. He represented God in the two 
 great aspects of His character, as offended with 
 sin, and as willing to be reconciled with the 
 sinner. Men knew then, as tliey know now, 
 what sin is. Christ made them realize its 
 enormity. Those denunciatory words with 
 which He rebuked tiie hypocrites of His da)% 
 had in them the terror of the judgment. They 
 rolled on the sinful world like the voices of the 
 seven trumpets of doom. Poor, depraved, full 
 
THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 53 
 
 of sorrow and woe, lost men needed the words 
 of hope. And Christ drew them with His 
 tenderness. He told them of the divine love. 
 He told them of a Father who would come forth 
 to meet them on their penitent return to Him ; 
 who would run and fall on the prodigal's neck 
 and kiss him ; who would welcome him to the 
 old home and put the best robe on him, and put 
 a costly ring on his hand, and make a glad 
 festival of the day of his home-coming. Sinful 
 men wanted such words as these. They struck 
 on their hearts like the tones of inspiring music. 
 They lifted them out of their forlornness. They 
 kindled aspirations of better things in their 
 souls. No wonder that great multitudes, many 
 thousands, hung on His lips, thronged Him 
 wherever He went, looked upon Him as a divine 
 friend ! No wonder that frotr. all villages and 
 all cities, not in Judea alone, but in Galilee and 
 Samaria and in heathen territory, they gathered 
 at the magic of His name and the graciousness 
 of His words and the healing of His touch ! 
 
 It is to be explained also by His miracles of 
 poivcr. Disease of all types recognized His mas- 
 tership. He was the Healer of the body, as of 
 the soul. He spent a day in Capernaum, and at 
 nightfall there was not a sick person within the 
 limits of that city. He visited town after town, 
 and the market-places, instead of being filled 
 with commodities for trade, were filled with the 
 couches of the sick, and He healed them all. 
 
54 TiiK Monia, life. 
 
 Death recognized Him ns the Giver of life. The 
 beloved daughter of one household He called 
 back to life with one word, Arise, as He 
 took her by the lifeless hand. He arrested a 
 funeral procession on its way to the grave and 
 gave back to a widowed mother her only son. 
 He called Lazarus from the tomb where he had 
 alread}' lain four days. Such acts, which were 
 those oi God alone, thrilled the popular mind 
 and stirred the nation with the sentiment that 
 God was with them. 
 
 Moret^ver, the ovcrtJiroiv of diabolism contrib- 
 uted to this effect. The irruption from hell 
 ot evil spirits, who desired to counteract the 
 Saviour's presence in the world, was the occa- 
 sion of a diabolic malady which, though some- 
 what seen at all times, was peculiarly formidable 
 at that time. But with abject fear and utter 
 impotence the demons trembled at His pres- 
 ence and obeyed His word. The people said, 
 "What thing is this? for with authority com- 
 mandcth He even the unclean spirits, and they 
 do obey Him." He was Sovereign of three 
 worlds! Heaven was His own and His home. 
 Hell, from beneath, bowed at His mandate. 
 Earth thronged to do Him homage. 
 
V. 
 
 HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 
 
 HERE were a few homes which our Lord 
 tenderly loved : in which He was sure of 
 a warm welcome: wherein dwelt the 
 friends who were always true to Him and whom 
 He could unfalteringly trust. One was " Peter's 
 h(juse," in the beautiful and busy city of Caper- 
 naum, on the fertile and fragrant shores of the 
 Sea of Galilee, the gem of the seven seas of 
 Canaan, in whose limpid waters were reflected 
 the marble dwellings of the city, the blossoming 
 oleanders that fringed its waves, and the palms 
 that towered loftily around. There, in the family 
 of that brave and devoted disciple, He found 
 rest, after the fatigue of His exhausting labors of 
 instruction and healing and journeying, and 
 solace, after the vexations and reproaches which 
 He endured from men of shallow and hostile 
 character. The low murmurs of the Galilean 
 waters as the surf broke upon the beach, the 
 music of the winds as they sougiied through the 
 stately palms and the evergreen olives, calmed 
 His soul, and among these beloved friends He 
 slept in peace. There many of His mighty 
 
 [551 
 
50 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 works were wrought, as the great multitude 
 surged around the dwelling, bringing the sick 
 and all who had any malady to the gracious 
 Healer. Once, on entering the house, Me found 
 the mother of the apostle's wife sick with a great 
 fevcn With a touch of His hand He healed her, 
 so that she inimcdiately rose and ministered unto 
 them. From that blessed home our Lord began 
 His troubled ministry. At Capernaum fourgreat 
 roads centered, on whose crowded highways 
 traffic passed from Jerusalem, from the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea, and from the valley of the Jordan. 
 Four thousand vessels vexed the waters of the 
 Sea of Galilee, rude boats of fishermen, mer- 
 chant vessels, yachts of nobles, and the armed 
 craft of conquering Rome. In its busy marts 
 men of many nationalities met in the keen con- 
 tentions of trade. The amazing miiacles of the 
 Master and His words of authority were the 
 theme of many tongues, and a wide fame of Him 
 went forth into all the region round about and 
 far into the territories of heathendom. 
 
 Anotiier of the homes of our Lord was the 
 house of the little family at Bethany, whose 
 members He greatly loved. Bethany was a 
 quiet hamlet, a little out of Jerusalem, and thither 
 He turned His footsteps after His day's labors 
 in the hot and turbulent places of the noisy 
 capital. Grateful to Him then were the holy 
 calm of skies that bent in their serene splendor 
 above Him, jeweled with the revolving worlds 
 
HOMES AND FKIENDS OF CHRIST. 57 
 
 that His own hand had made, the peace of fields 
 waving with luxurious harvests and fragrant 
 with dewy flowers, the low evening songs of 
 birds fluttering to their hidden nests, and the 
 brooding silences of the solemn olive-woods. 
 With His dear friends, — Martha, full of domestic 
 solicitude, Mary with devout tenderness listening 
 to His every word, and Lazarus thoughtful and 
 sensible,— He spent the cool evenings in holy 
 meditation and delightiul talkand in communion 
 at the family altar of prayer. For that home 
 He wrought the most striking of all His miiacles 
 in the raising of His friend Lazarus from the 
 dead : bringing back joy to the stricken family, 
 and asserting, almost in the very sight of the 
 scoffing capital, His kingly divinity. In that 
 home, or by one of its inmates, the exquisite 
 offering oi the precious s[)ikenard was made to 
 Him, when Mary in the promptings of her deep 
 love brcjke the alabaster vase and poured the 
 costly perfuiue upon the head and then upon 
 the feet of her adored Friend, and, while the 
 house was filled with the delicate odor, wiped 
 His anointed feet with her own flowing hair. In 
 that home, too. He spent one of the last nights 
 of His stay on earth. He had turned away 
 from the city, from its throngs of cruel men, 
 from its profaned temple ; from the heights of 
 Olivet, looking down upon the fated city that 
 had rejected its one Deliverer ; He had spoken 
 His tender and warning and doom-full words ; 
 
58 THE MODKL MFE. 
 
 and sadiv, thinking of all that He would have 
 (lone for tiiose who abused and vilified Him, 
 thinking of that lonely, sacrificial death in which 
 He was soon to make atonement for the sins 
 not of Jerusalem alone, but of the world of sin- 
 ners, He passed to the repose of Bethany, to 
 the sympathies of those with whom He was 
 moie than all the world beside. 
 
 Still another home of our Lord may have been 
 that in the large upper room of which He par- 
 took of the Passover feast witii His disciples, 
 and where He instituted the sacramental supper. 
 He seems to have been familiar with the owner 
 of the house, for He sent two of His most trusted 
 disciples into Jerusalem, telling them that they 
 would there meet a man bearing a pitcher of 
 water, and that they should follow him into the 
 house whereinto he should go, and that they 
 should ask the goodman of the house for the use 
 of the large furnished upper room for Jesus 
 and His disciples, in which they might observe 
 the Passover. Other homes also there may 
 have been in which Christ was received as an 
 honored and beloved guest, of which no mention 
 is made in the sacred record. But from what 
 is stated of these •auA of their inmates we may 
 estimate the great, dear friendship of our Lord. 
 
 It was the friendship of a large nature. It 
 took in men of all degrees. It touched and en- 
 folded humanit}- at every point. Men of learn- 
 ing were strongly attached to Him ; ignorant 
 
THK HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 59 
 
 men as well. Men of wealth were His friends; 
 the poor were so also. Students and fishermen, 
 rulers and servants, alike gave Him their hearts. 
 Not only did He know all men, but He loved 
 all men. His mission to our world was a mis- 
 sion of love, and so He was ready to welcome 
 to His confidence and affection all who proved 
 themselves worthy. The distinctions that men 
 affect were of little consequence or concern with 
 Him. He looked through the outward and 
 seeming to that which was genuine and con- 
 trolling. His friendships, therefore, were with 
 real persons, with those who were what they 
 claimed to be. For men to be His confidants, 
 His chosen apostles, founders and propagators 
 of His religion among men, He called plain fish- 
 ermen ; men of brawny arms, but of brainy 
 heads and hearts full of warm blood, who would 
 do and dare for one they loved to the death of 
 mart3'rdom. To them He opened as fully as 
 He could the nature of His kingdom, and al- 
 though they did not fully grasp it till their 
 friendship was sanctified in His death, thence- 
 forth their love turned into passion, and Christ 
 and His cross were the theme of their words 
 and the mastery of their lives. 
 
 His own life was such that human friendships 
 were inevitable. He was a man amonof men. 
 In Nazareth, from His youth up. He was a 
 plain, busy carpenter. He did not live in 
 luxury. He did not court the style of kings, 
 
60 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 He was approachable by all. The cries that 
 came to Him for help from the blind beggars 
 by the wayside were as irresistible as those 
 that came from the luxurious home of the Roman 
 centurion. 
 
 The {)itcous appeal of the Syro Phoinician 
 woman, over in the regions of Tyre and Sidon, 
 beyond the range of His usual ministrations, 
 woke the sensibilities of His responsive soul as 
 deeply as the courteous request of a nobleman 
 from the court of Herod. One appealed for 
 the healing of her beloved daughter, with a stren- 
 uous faith that would take no denial : the other 
 for the healing of his dying son with a passionate 
 imperiousness which mocked the discipline ot 
 delay: while heathen woman and haughty Roman 
 alike warmed in their love to Him who pitied 
 the brokenness of th.e parental heart. The 
 sn(jws of Lebanon had not chilled the one, nor 
 the ice of the court the other. 
 
 The friendships of Christ are strikingly and 
 beautifully illustrated in the relations of woman 
 to our Lord. These relations characterize and 
 distinguish the Founder of the Christian faith : 
 they remove and separate Him from all others 
 who are responsible for religious systems and 
 serve to exalt Christianity to its true and fore- 
 most rank. Woman was the friend of Christ. 
 He ennobled that sex in the righteous claims 
 that He made for it; His religion was its cham- 
 pion : and the result has been seen in the exalta- 
 
The Homes akd li-RlENDS of Christ. 61 
 
 tion of woman to her true place of equality with 
 man wherever Christianity has wrought its 
 blessed works. The reward came quickly and 
 generously to the Master Himself in the pure 
 love and the gracious sympathy of the women 
 who came into personal and intimate acquaint- 
 ance with Him. We have already seen how it 
 was with His friends, Martha and Mary, whose 
 house in the quietude of Bethany was His favor- 
 ite home. Mary sat at His feet as though He 
 were a beloved brother who had many things to 
 tell which she dearly loved to hear. Martha 
 makes complaint to Him, with utter frankness, 
 of her sister's neglect, as though He were the 
 master of their house. The woman of Samaria, 
 entirely a stranger to Him, yields to the magic 
 of His words— w(jrds that reveal His knowledge 
 of her secret and sinful life, startle her out of 
 her delusions and force her ackowlcdgment that 
 He is indeed the Messiah for whose coming her 
 people were expectantly waiting. 
 
 It is an impressive incident which is given of a 
 sinful woman coming to the Saviour in the 
 house of a Pharisee whose courteous invitation 
 He had accepted, that she might express her 
 deep repentance and her glowing love. She 
 did not look into His face, but she bowed lowly 
 at His feet, wetting tliem with her flowing tears, 
 and wiping them with her luxuriant hair, and 
 kissing His feet, and anointing them with 
 costly ointment. Joy came to her broken and 
 
6^2 *rHE MObKL LIFE. 
 
 contrite heart as the Master graciously said to 
 her, " Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath 
 saved thee; go in peace." A mother who loved 
 the Lord, and who had been nuich with Him, 
 and whose two sons held eminent rank among 
 His aj)OStles, wdien it looked as though His 
 kingdom was growing in power, came to Him, 
 with a generous confidence, yet with a glowing 
 ambition for her children, and besought that 
 they might sit, one on His right hand and the 
 other on His left hand, in His approaching 
 royalty. 
 
 It was not long in the course of our Lord's 
 ministry before a group of women who loved 
 Him, and had notable occasion to love Him, 
 were united in care for the ^Lister and His 
 chosen twelve. They were women of position 
 and property, whose influence was great and 
 whose character and standing were without 
 reproach. The first in this female circle was 
 Mary that was called ^L^gdalene, from whom 
 seven demons had gone out. She is reputed to 
 have been a woman of wealth and rare beauty, 
 who was won from her earlier life by the 
 awakening of her better nature under the 
 influence of Christ, and who thenceforward 
 gave herself, her fortune and her time to a 
 cheerful ministry to the One to whom she 
 owed herself. Her name has passed into the 
 languages of Christendom as the representative 
 of true repentance and devoted love, and insti- 
 
THE HOMKS AND FRIE^fDl9 OF CHRlST. 63 
 
 tutions of Christian charity have welcomed to 
 their loving hospitality the Magdalens of the 
 sinful world. The second of this circle was 
 Joanna, the wife of Chuzas, a steward of Herod's 
 palace. This Chuzas is thought to be that king's 
 offjcer, whose son lying at the point of death 
 was healed by the will of Christ, so that Joanna, 
 after the death of her husband, gladly attached 
 herself to the great Restorer of her boy. 
 Susanna, meaning Lily, is mentioned as one of 
 them : and there were many others. 
 
 This choice company of noble and devoted 
 souls belonged to the family of our Lord, and 
 wherever He went through cities and villages 
 that crowded the fertile territories of Galilee 
 and Judea, bringing to their sinful and worldly 
 populations the good tidings of the Kingdom of 
 God, they were present with their womanly 
 tact and their domestic skill, to make a home 
 for the weary Teacher and the benevolent 
 Healer. 
 
 We hear of them again among the last scenes 
 of the life of Christ. They stood in sadness and 
 horror on the heights of Calvary when the mer- 
 ciless tragedy of the crucifixion was enacted. 
 Their sobs broke on the awful stillness of that 
 hour of darkness. Their loving hearts were 
 wrung by the agony of their dearest Friend. 
 Any one of them would have taken His place 
 that so He might be spared. Possibly they 
 thought He would exert His miraculous power 
 
64 THE MODEL LiFfi. 
 
 for His own relief. They tiiought of all that He 
 had done for the poor and the suffering during 
 tlie years that they had accompanied Him. Ah ! 
 they could not know the still diviner work which 
 in His wounds and bitter pain and broken heart, 
 He was accomplishing on the cross for the 
 atonement of the sins of the world ! 
 
 There were Mary Magdalene and Mary the 
 wife of CIoj)as, and Salome, and his own beloved 
 mother, Mary, in the supreme trial of her life, 
 for whom almost His last thought was given and 
 His last word spoken. These, last at the cross, 
 were first at the tomb, to which in the ghjaming 
 of the morning they brought precious spices, 
 after the manner of their people. Again they 
 were Mary Magdalene and INL-uy the mother of 
 James and Joanna and the other women, and to 
 them, so faithful and beloved, the risen Saviour 
 first appeared : and first of all to Maiy Magda- 
 lene, whose soul burned with the enthusiasm of 
 a love which death could not destroy, and who 
 first of all thrilled the souls of the paralyzed 
 apostles with the victorious words, " I have seen 
 the Lord !" 
 
 Most sacred was the relation of these true 
 soids to Christ. He returned their love with 
 the benignity and affection of one who brought 
 from heaven a divine nature to be m3'steriously 
 united to our human nature, with its wants and 
 sympatliies and pure aspirations. He restored 
 to woman her ap[)ropriate dignity and entrusted 
 
THE HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 65 
 
 to his world-religion the maintenance of her 
 rights and the sacredness of her character. 
 
 Art and poetry have alike honored and pre- 
 served the love of our Lord for little children. 
 Children loved him and were drawn to Him by 
 that attraction which they instinctively feel for 
 great souls who have the God-like spirit. When 
 He took them from their mothers, and folded 
 them in His royal arms, and laid His gentle 
 hands upon them, and blessed them, they nestled 
 in his bosom, laid their heads over the great 
 heart that throbbed with a divine love for them, 
 looked love into eyes that spake back a pure 
 affection for them, and caressed the mighty man 
 who was the God of children. Memorable for 
 all time are the thrilling words of the Master as 
 He spread forth His arms in welcome to the 
 little ones who eagerly came to Him : " Suffer 
 the little children to come unto me: forbid tliem 
 not: for to such belongs the kingdom of God." 
 And then, as putting new honor on the child- 
 like disposition, He spoke, with the blessed 
 children in His arms, to the great outside, proud, 
 self-willed world : " Whosoever shall not receive 
 the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in 
 no wise enter therein." He thought of the many 
 children whom He had welcomed to heaven, 
 lost out of lonely homes on earth, but saved for 
 the glad reunions that are to come, and He said, 
 " In heaven their angels do always behold the face 
 of my Father who is in heaven !" 
 
66 THK MODE I. LIFE. 
 
 The friendships of Christ were also with strong 
 men. Two distinguished members of theSanlie- 
 drim, men of leaining and of enormous wealth ; 
 men of candor, but with the timidity which 
 sometimes marks those whoare in high positions, 
 who had sought Christ perhaps secretly to learn 
 of the kingdom and of the way of life, proved 
 their affection by the honors which the}^ paid to 
 the wounded body of the Lord, when they took 
 charge of it, embalmed it in fine linen and costly 
 aromatic spices, and laid it gently awa}- in a new 
 tomb which one of them had cut in the solid 
 rock for his own place of burial. We recall the 
 tender love which Christ had for the wealthy 
 and ambitious young ruler who inquired of Him, 
 " What good thing shall I do that I may inherit 
 eternal life?" and who could not endure the cru- 
 cial test which the Master gave him. We recall 
 the beautiful friendship, the love that was 
 wonderful, passing the love of women, which 
 subsisted between the Saviour and that disciple 
 whom Jesus loved. We recall that three-fold 
 inquiry which He put to His trusted, brave but 
 weak, disciple, as if to fasten his affection firmly 
 to Him," Lovest thou me?" We recall the eager- 
 ness with which publicans attached themselves 
 to Him and especially the zeal of Zaccheus, who 
 consecrated his person and his property to 
 Christianservice. Men, true men in every grade 
 of life, loved this Man of men, jioured their souls 
 into His soul, gave Him all that they had to give, 
 
HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 67 
 
 toiled with Him, died for Him. There is noth- 
 ing in history more supremely impressive than 
 the affection, which life could not altogether 
 express, which only death could sanctify, that 
 strong men have cherished for their divine 
 Redeemer. 
 
 Still, the divinest fact, and the one that should 
 touch and thrill all our souls, which makes 
 this dark world light, which revolutionizes our 
 human history, and evolves new destiny for a 
 ruined race, which makes tender and irresistible 
 appeal to each one of us, is the blazing truth, 
 which should be engraven in every place of our 
 assembling, and should be burned ineffaceabl}' 
 upon our souls, that He, the Lord of glory, was 
 the Friend of Sinners. 
 
THE GREAT TEACHER. 
 
 Typoyravure— Le Loir 
 
VI. 
 
 CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 
 
 IjHRISTIAN ethics defines the practical 
 principles of human dut3\ A life con- 
 formed to the ethical system of the New 
 Testament would be a perfect human life. The 
 relations of men to one another would be con- 
 genial and harmonious were they entirely con- 
 trolled by the dominance in each individual of 
 the truths of Christianity as applied to personal 
 conduct. Society and business and government 
 would be elevated and transfigured were they 
 modeled on and pervaded by the doctrines of life 
 and of responsibility which our Lord has clearly 
 established. No other religious legislator has 
 comprehended so thoroughly the need of man- 
 kind as the Son of Man has comprehended it. 
 No other system has been so sagaciously adapted 
 to the conditions of the human race as the Chris- 
 tian system has been adapted. The more fully 
 men, individually and socially, have accepted 
 and practiced the principles of personal and 
 common duty as laid down b}^ Christ, the nearer 
 society has come to a state of ideal perfection. 
 It is plain to see that the supposed millenium 
 
 [69] 
 
YO THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 must rest upon the adoption and universal prev- 
 alence of ideas ol conduct which belong, if not 
 exclusively, predominatingly, to Christianity. 
 The Christian system of morals is closely allied 
 to a perfect system of religion: and in this fact 
 rests its superiority. Other theories of philoso- 
 phy and religion, which are of human invention, 
 are superficial and limited: but Christianity is 
 profound in its adaptation to human wants and 
 its requirements of human action. It is a system 
 for men, as they are, and as God sees that they 
 are, and is divinely adapted to them for their 
 elevation and their congeniality and their com- 
 mon happiness and prosperity. 
 
 So an able writer of our day, not writing from 
 a religious stand-point, says: " It was the distin- 
 guishing characteristic of Christianity, that its 
 moral influence was not indirect, casual, remote, 
 or spasmodic. Unlike all Pagan religions, it 
 made moral teaching a main function of its 
 clergy, moral discipline the leading object of its 
 services, moral dispositions the necessar}^ condi- 
 tion of the due performance of its rites. By the 
 pulpit, by its ceremonies, by all the agencies 
 of power it possessed, it labored systematically 
 and perseveringly for the regeneration of man- 
 kind. Under its influence, doctrines concerning 
 the nature of God, the immortality of the soul, 
 and the duties of men, which the noblest intel- 
 lects of antiquity could barely grasp, have 
 become the truisms of the village school, the 
 
CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. J 1 
 
 proverbs of the cottao^e aiul of the alley." Chris- 
 tian men, Christian families, Christian society, 
 Christian nations, show the excellence of the 
 Christian system, in the ordinar\' conduct of life. 
 Apart from that which is spiritual, the ethical 
 principles of the Christian scheme tend to the 
 elevation of character and to the ritrhteousness 
 of conduct, and to the fair treatment of others on 
 narrow or on broad fields of human relation. 
 
 The ethics of Christ tends to noble life and up- 
 lifting influence. Short-sighiedness and selfish- 
 ness are rebuked. Justice to others is required. 
 We are not at liberty to look on our own things 
 exclusively ; we are to have regard for the real 
 welfare of others. Human frailty appeals pity- 
 ingly to us; and as Christ bore our sins and 
 carried our sorrows, so we are to be helpful to 
 the unfortunate and the suffering. We are not 
 to measure duty by the flaccid claims of ease 
 and self-indulgence, but we are to rejoice in the 
 privilege of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation. 
 Personal influence should be as the salt of the 
 earth : personal example, as the light of the 
 world. Manhood should stand forth in its ideal 
 significance to us. Each human soul should be 
 weighed in balances that bear the stamp of 
 eternity. 
 
 The great principles of the equality of men, of 
 the co-equality of women, of the dignity of 
 labor, of the rights of the lowly, of the sacred- 
 ness of the home, of the perpetualness of the 
 
72 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 marriage-bond, of personal freedom, of the title 
 of each man to himself, of civil liberty, are made 
 fundamental and controlling. Brotherhood is 
 co-extensive with the human family. Charity 
 ministers to the needy everywhere. Love 
 binds and blesses all men with its sweet and 
 sacred cords. Such is the range and dominance 
 of ethical purity and power. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount, the longest and 
 most comprehensive of the Discourses of Christ, 
 is full of the ethics of His S3Stem. In it, with 
 the grace of beatitudes. He puts in the forefront, 
 poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness, mercifulness, 
 purity, peacemaking. 
 
 Then, He puts the crown on persecution. 
 Those Avho bear His royal Name are to let light 
 shine forth from them into the darkness of the 
 world. They are to honor the old law of con- 
 duct by principles that are deeper and that sway 
 unseen thought and feeling, so superseding 
 the primitive commandments by a life against 
 which they could not be leveled. Mui-der, adul- 
 tery, perjury, revenge, the whole breed of base 
 indulgences, were traced to their source and 
 seat and were outlawed there. Lo\e, by the 
 new commandment, extends to enemies as 
 well as to friends. Beneficence, prayer, fasting, 
 are not of show and outward observance : the}' 
 are secret graces known of God : soul treasures 
 sent forward and laid up in heaven. 
 
CHKIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 73 
 
 The world, with what it can give, is relegated 
 to its true place of subordinate concern, and God 
 is enthroned, in the mind. So carking anxiety 
 about this life, as to what we shall eat and drink 
 and wear, is rebuked, and aspiration for the 
 heavenly kingdom is stimulated. Confidence in 
 God, the confidence which puts us in the place 
 of children before a Father who is able and will- 
 ing to do for us all that we can properly desire, 
 is sanctioned and urged. 
 
 Such life, ethically ideal, making the divine 
 kingdom dominant, may be like the entrance to 
 a narrow gate and a strait way, but it leads 
 plainly and victoriously to a joyful ending. It 
 would be known here by the blessed fruits of it, 
 and it would give free admittance to the kingdom 
 of heaven. So the building of human life, on this 
 Christian model and by these Christly specifica- 
 tions, would be like the erection of a house upon 
 a rock, which tempests of rain and wind could 
 not move: while anything lower and less would 
 be like placing a structure upon quicksands, 
 which, smitten by hurricane and flood, would 
 fall, and great would be the fall thereof! 
 
 This ethical Discourse, in its wonderful terms, 
 has wrought into and through it the religious 
 sentiment. Christ could speak no otherwise. 
 To Him life is one. Man, in this world, is the 
 child of God. He is not to live under one set of 
 principles as a man of the world, and under 
 another set of principles as a member of the 
 
74 THK MODKL LIFE. 
 
 licaveiily kingdom. Whatever place he may 
 liold here, the phice of a hiborer, or the place of 
 a sovereign, he is to be perfect, he is to aim to 
 be like God. 
 
 Faith is a universal principle. It is to control 
 the whole life. It is to hold the free soul to an 
 unwavering and constant confidence in God. 
 And so when Christ is presented, the free soul 
 will gladly and hrnily lay hold on Him as a Sav- 
 iour. Religion is the crown of ethics. It is the 
 fulfillment of the ethical system. Christianity is 
 the doctrine of right living. It is the perfection 
 of dut}'. And any science of conduct which does 
 not include repentance for sin and faith in the 
 Redeemer and obedience of divine law, is imper- 
 fect and insufficient. In this is the superiority 
 of the ethics of Christ. It sweeps the field of 
 human relations and conduct, for time, for im- 
 mortality as well. 
 
 The ambitious disciples wished to know who 
 would be the greatest in the kingdom of whose 
 coming they thought they saw the signs. The 
 Lord's answer was that he who was last would 
 be fiist, that he wIkj served most would be on 
 the throne, that the most childlike would be the 
 most kingly. 
 
 The young ruler thought that he was an asjjir- 
 ant for the heavenly life. lie had kept the old law. 
 But Christ challenged Him to that full surrender 
 which would prove his genuineness, the surien 
 dcr of his worldly wealth. He had great posses- 
 
CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL Tf^ACHER. Y5 
 
 sions, and he clung to them with a supreme h)ve. 
 He could not stand so severe a test. He nnght 
 have been another Paul. But his name was 
 never known. 
 
 And when Peter, roused by the incident, put 
 in a claim for himself and his colleagues as hav- 
 ing forsaken all to follow Christ, the Master 
 encouraged him by the rewards which are sure 
 to self-sacrifice, rewards which mount to hun- 
 dred-fold receipts even here and the glories of 
 eternal recompense hereafter. The doctrine of 
 self-sacrifice was one to which Christ gave great 
 stress in His ethical teachings. There must be 
 self-denial, cross-bearing, persistent following of 
 the Master if one would save his life. That life 
 is a lost life which is employed, used up, in gain- 
 ing the world, even if it amasses the whole 
 world. The forfeit is too great. It is laying 
 down an immort.il soul for the perishable earth. 
 The deeds of this life are in the reckoning for 
 immortality : they, in fact, are the terms which 
 determine decision for eternity. Christ urged 
 upon men that they should count the cost. 
 Count the cost of action : of the plans you make, 
 of the enterprises in which you engage, of the 
 warfare that you plunge into, of the structures 
 that you build. Put your hand to the plow, not 
 to turn back, but for tillage and for harvest. 
 Life, to be true and fruitful, must be a service: 
 hard perhaps, thankless possibly, little appreci- 
 ated by the unintelligent, often lonely, depress- 
 
76 THE MODEL MFE. 
 
 ing, sacrificial, rcspoiKled to by words which are 
 weak and not by acts wliicli hohl strength and 
 sense: yet self-rewarding, having the beginnings 
 of heaven in it. 
 
 Our Loid had stern rebuke and denunciation 
 of the piidc and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. 
 He could not brocjk their ceremonial formalism, 
 their vaunted self-righte(jusness, their contempt 
 of others, their falseness and avarice and pride. 
 He honored humil.ity antl repentance and the 
 benevolent spirit. He cliaracterized the mean 
 and crafty and perjuicd Herod as " that fox." 
 He called the venomous Pharisees, "offspring of 
 vipers." He told the wicked Jews that they were 
 of their "father the devil." But He was full of 
 tenderness for the suffering and the penitent. 
 Out of His heart went sympathy for the lowly, 
 help for the burdened, compassion for the dis- 
 tressed, forgiveness for the penitent. With 
 withering scorn He frowned on those who 
 would gratify their malice, or justify their 
 wickedness, by inflictions of pain on others: but 
 His hand was strong to heal and to raise up the 
 wounded and fallen. 
 
 Love to God and love to man summarized all 
 law, all commandments, all duty. 
 
 The most comprehensive and practical maxim 
 of Christian ethics is that which, for its perfect 
 adaptation to control men in their relaticjn to 
 one another, has been called the Golden Rule. 
 Something like it has been suggested in other 
 
CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 77 
 
 systems, but in limited or negative forms. 
 Christ promulges it as an affirmative and posi- 
 tive and all-controlling principle. It is a law of 
 laws. It reaches to all conduct, all acts, as 
 between man and man. We are to put ourselves 
 in the other's place. We are to think how we 
 would wish to be treated in the present con- 
 ditions. We are to represent our neighbor. We 
 are to stand in our brother's footsteps. Then, 
 as we would that they should do unto us, even 
 so are we to do also unto them. How such a 
 golden rule of conduct does away with harsh 
 judgments ! How it prevents the anticipation 
 of evil, the forming of uncharitable opinions, the 
 charges of supposed wrong-doing, the easy 
 acceptance of dark suspicions, the indulgence of 
 envy and low-running jealousies, the cultivating 
 of unwarranted prejudice, the utterance of sharp 
 and severe accusations, the reflection upon 
 personal honor and the intimation of a lack of 
 personal magnanimity ! Stand there for your 
 fellow-man ! Put yourself in his place. Then 
 ask, how you would like to have him judge you, 
 what treatment you would be pleased to receive 
 from him, and then according to your opinion 
 so formed, judge and treat your fellow-man. 
 Truly the practice of that maxim would work 
 an ethical revolution in manners and morals. 
 
 But the ethical system of Christianity acquires 
 its greatest authority and influence by the living 
 example of its Founder. He was the Perfect 
 
THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Man. In Him met and harmonized all excel- 
 lences and all virtues. The boy Jesus was a per- 
 fect Boy. The carpenter of Nazareth was a per. 
 feet workman. He was a perfect Friend, a |)er- 
 fect Leader, a perfect Saviour. All His relations 
 to men were squared by the Golden Rule which 
 He announced : nay, they rose above that rule, 
 as the heavens rise above the earth, in the incom- 
 parable grandeur and hcavenlincss of their ben- 
 eficent experience. He spake indeed as man 
 never spake: yet he spoke to human need and 
 for men's recovery. He healed as God would 
 heal : yet His healing was for the relief of the 
 sufferers to whom He came near and whose 
 human cries awoke His pity. He saved as only 
 a divine Redeemer could save : yet it was our 
 sins He bore, our sorrows He carried, our trans- 
 gressions for which He was wounded, our in- 
 iquities for which he was bruised. Never has 
 there been another so perfect and winning exam- 
 ple in all the history of mankind. He draws all 
 men unto Him by the power of a Love which 
 embraces them all as an atmosphere. It is a 
 Love that fills the world as the sunshine fills its 
 air, pours its glory on all landscapes, streams 
 into clefts and fissures and all deep,- dark places, 
 gilds the foliage and the flowers, glimmers on the 
 crests of waves and makes the great sea a golden 
 mirror, lights our dwellings and flames on our 
 altars and cheers all our hearts and makes the 
 whole globe glad with the life that it preserves 
 
CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 79 
 
 and nourishes and invigorates ! Nothing hin- 
 ders it : nothing but men's rejection of it. It 
 gives to Caesar the things whicii belong to 
 Caesar. It companies with publicans and sinners, 
 and wins publicans and harlots into the King- 
 dom of God. It teaches all voices how to pray 
 to " our Father. ' It weeps with a more than 
 human sorrow over men and cities of men whose 
 doom is written on the sk}' that bends above 
 them. It ennobles labor and sanctifies grief 
 and lifts the helpless and suffers that others may 
 rejoice. It enters all homes and would make 
 heaven in each of them. It calls to every soul, 
 in every condition of human experience, " Come 
 unto me !" 
 
 And this example is of power. It is the 
 strongest force in the world. It has swayed 
 men in all the Christian ages, in all differing 
 nations, under all conditions and varieties of 
 human life, as the hurricane stirs and sways the 
 sea to its deepest abysses. It has reformed soci- 
 ety. It has effected a humane civilization. It 
 has made Christian government a possibility. 
 It has brought honesty into business, public 
 spirit into legislation, humanity into the treat- 
 ment of criminals and animals, order into soci- 
 ety, refinement into personal intercourse, bless- 
 edness into homes. There is no power like 
 Love : and Christ's example is the example of a 
 boundless love. It has kindled responsive love. 
 Men and women and little children have been 
 
80 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 ennobled and sanctified and thrilled by it, so that 
 through trouble, through sacrifice, under bur- 
 dens, under crosses, they have wrought for 
 Christ that they might become like Him and 
 that the world might be made better and that 
 righteousness and peace might kiss each other 
 and that the Golden Rule might be the accepted 
 law of mankind. 
 
VII. 
 
 CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 
 
 HE errand, I might rather say as implying- 
 more, the mission, of our Lord to this 
 world was one of Salvation. Other things 
 were included in it and contributed to tliis one 
 overshadowing object. A Life was to be lived out 
 here which would be as a model human life. A 
 Teaching was to be set forth which would be a 
 correct ethical guide to conduct. A Discipline 
 was to be endured which would be for the sup- 
 port and consolation of all who are in the experi- 
 ences of trial. A Testimony was to be given for 
 righteousness which would rebuke the pride of 
 Pharisee, the skepticism of Sadducee, the petti- 
 ness of Scribe, the formalit}' of Essene. 
 
 But all this, important as it might be, was only 
 secondary and subordinate to the great intention 
 of His coming. The one purpose, masterful of 
 all others, which brought the Son of God into 
 the human Sonship, was to become the Saviour 
 of our sinful race. Christ Himself declared this 
 most plainly. " God sent not His Son into the 
 world to judge the world ; but that the world 
 should be saved through Him." This He said 
 in His memorable conversation with Nicodemus, 
 
 L81J 
 
82 tllK M(»i)KL LIFE. 
 
 a learned nieinber of the Jcwisli Sanhedrim, to 
 whom our Lord, early in His ministr\-, stated 
 the great fundamental principles of His mission. 
 Nicodemus came to Him as a candid but timid 
 inquirer, and he received a frank exposition of 
 what the Master considered most essential in 
 His system : God's love, man's perishing need, 
 salvation by the death of the Son, faith as the 
 means of securing the benefits of Christ's death, 
 and the sad, patent fact, that although the 
 Redeemer has brought light into the world on 
 this most vital matter, men, by reason of their 
 evil works, love the darkness and hate the light, 
 and will not come to the light that they may be 
 convicted and recovered. That was the plat- 
 form of principles upon which Christianity 
 rested, and it remains the same in this, as in pre- 
 ceding centuries, as when the Lord first 
 announced it. 
 
 On another occasion, when the mother of the 
 sons of Zebedee, who were of the apostles, 
 worshiping, sought of our Lord promotion for 
 her sons to the highest places in His victorious 
 Kingdom, He closed the interview with words 
 full of meaning and quite the opposite of their 
 ambitious vauntings: "The Son of man came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to ministei', 
 and to give His life a ransom for many." The 
 high places on His right hand and on His left 
 hand were places of the cross, and the cuj) 
 which He was to drink, and which they said 
 
CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 83 
 
 they could also drink, was a cup of suffering; 
 in His case suffering in which no friend could 
 share, which no mortal lips could taste. 
 
 This great truth became the banner-truth of 
 the spreading gospel. It was the watchword of 
 the Apostles. In the dark days when the whole 
 Jewish power was put forth to exterminate the 
 infant church, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, 
 boldly declared to a hostile gathering of rulers 
 and elders and scribes and priests, that in none 
 other than Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they 
 crucified, is there salvation : for neither, he said, 
 is there an}' other name under heaven, that is 
 given among men, wherein we must be saved. 
 This swept away the whole Jewish ritual, and 
 brought Christianity to the front for Jew and 
 Gentile alike. Paul, writing to the Romans the 
 truth which he had intrepidly preached in all 
 his missionary tours, in the foremost cities of 
 civilization, declared, " God commendeth His 
 own love toward us, in that, while we were yet 
 sinners, Christ died for us." John also urges 
 the same thing in his first epistle : *' Herein was 
 the love of God manifested in us (in our case), 
 that God hath sent his only begotten Son into 
 the world, that we might live through him." 
 Peter, in his first epistle, also says, "Ye were 
 redeemed with precious blood, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot, even the 
 blood of Christ." The testimony of the whole 
 word is, therefore, most emphatic on this point, 
 
84 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 that, whatever subsidiary objects were in view, 
 the preponderating purpose of Christ's coming 
 was the salvation of men by His death for them. 
 
 The reason for this, and the necessity of it, 
 lay in the fact that men are lost. We may not 
 like to think so: but that is God's thought. 
 We may prefer to believe that we are unfoitun- 
 ate, unhappy perhaps, somewhat perverse ; but 
 the divine estimate is, that we are lost. 
 
 There are two conditions into which this life 
 issues, and there are no others : one is a con- 
 dition of eternal blessedness : the other is a con- 
 dition of eternal wretchedness. Those eternal 
 states depend on conduct and character in this 
 life. In fact, life, as to that which is real and 
 essential, is one. It is not interrupted, in its 
 essentiality, in that which makes it what it is, by 
 the circumstance of death : but is only removed 
 from one place to another. It is no more inter- 
 rupted by crossing what is sometimes called the 
 stream of death, than it is by crossing the sea 
 from one land to another, by passing across 
 the territorial boundary which separates 
 one country from another. The landscape is 
 changed : the social conditions are changed : but 
 the man remains the same. So man continues to 
 be what he is when he crosses the boundary 
 which separates mortalitv from immortality. 
 His surroundings are different, his opportun- 
 ities are different, his associates may be different: 
 he is in another world. But himself is the same. 
 
CHRIST THK SAVIOUR OF MEN. 85 
 
 The old name would call him. The old traits 
 characterize him. And if he were to come back 
 he would have the old personality. 
 
 Our Lord, in His teaching, makes much of this 
 fact. He solemnly teaches, that when the Son 
 of Man shall come in the glory of His father, 
 with a retinue of angels, that He will render 
 unto every man according to his deeds. He 
 teaches that we enter now a narrow gate which 
 leads unto life, or we enter a wide gate which 
 leads to destruction. He leaches that by the 
 course we now take we can lose our life, or 
 we can find it. He teaches that it is better to 
 cut ofi a hand or a foot, or to cast out an 
 eye, if such a member hinders us from entering 
 into life, rather than to go into hell unmaimed. 
 He teaches that our fidelity here to the trusts 
 that God has given us will insure great rewards 
 in the future, like authority over many cities, 
 and that our unfaithfulness in that which is now 
 intrusted to us will determine our loss and 
 poverty hereafter. And with this all Scripture 
 agrees. 
 
 Inasmuch, therefore, as souls are lost who pass 
 over the boundary of time into the changeless 
 conditions of eternity without having secured 
 salvation, and since the real life, which is based 
 on character, there and here, is one, it is cor- 
 rectly said that unsaved men are now lost. They 
 are in that relation to God which necessitates ruin. 
 They are on the road which runs straight into 
 
86 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 hell. They have begun, and are continuing, a 
 sinful career, whose legitimate end is eternal 
 death. As they will be without God and with- 
 out hope who enter eternity with the guilt of 
 their sin on them, so now they who are in the 
 state of sin are said to be without G^ d and with- 
 out hope. On both sides of the line impenitence 
 and guilt are characterized by the same terms. 
 Christ teaches that the life is forfeited on this 
 side of the line. Here and now the ultimate de- 
 cision is made. One distinction only exists : in 
 this world there is hope; in that world there is 
 only despair. Here there is hope because the 
 Son of man is here to seek and to save that which 
 was lost. There, is onl)' despair because there is 
 no Saviour there. Christ's recovering work is 
 fortliis world onl3\ Now men may come out of 
 their thraldom into sweet liberty. Now the 
 bondslave of sin ma}^ become the free servant 
 of tiie Lord Jesus. Now the lost may be recov- 
 ered and saved. 
 
 And this, superlatively, is the purpose of 
 Christ's coming. It crowds everything else into 
 the background. On the front of the pictorial 
 representation of Christ's work stands the Cross: 
 back of it is the lowly manger and the home and 
 shop at Nazareth : back of it is the form of the 
 teacher with the mighty multitudes hanging on 
 His words of lift ; back of it are his miracles of 
 mercy ; blind men opening their eyes on a new 
 world ; deaf men listening to the music which has 
 
CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MKN. 87 
 
 never before thrilled them ; dumb men singing 
 for joy to the praise of their Healer ; the sick 
 rising to duty in perfect health, the lepers clean 
 in body and in soul, the dead happy in their re- 
 stored life and the demoniacs cleared of their foul 
 and base possessions. But, brilliant with its sug- 
 gestive meanings, filling the whole picture with 
 its light and glory, standing as in memorial of a 
 rescued world, hope of the lost and joy of the 
 saved, is the Cross on which the Redeemer died ! 
 His sufferings were for our salvation. His death 
 was for our life. 
 
 It was a favorite symbol of the early church 
 which represented the Saviour as a shepherd 
 bringing home, on his shoulder, from the peril- 
 ous wilderness, the lost sheep which he had 
 sought and found. Christian song has celebrated 
 with tender terms this representation of the 
 work of Christ. It is suggested by his own 
 words, in which He presents the divine love 
 under the image of a man who has a hundred 
 sheep, one of which has gone astray, who 
 leaves the ninety-and-nine and goes unto the 
 mountains and seeks that which is astray until 
 he finds it, when he rejoices more over it than 
 over the ninety-and-nine that went not astray, 
 and he says to his friends and neighbors, rejoice 
 with me, for I have found my sheep which was 
 lost. 
 
 We have from Christ's lips, also, the represen- 
 tation of a woman who lost one of ten pieces of 
 
SS lllli MOIJEL I.IFli. 
 
 silver wliicli she had, who lit a lamp, and swept 
 the house and sought diligently until she found 
 it, and then called in her friends and neighbors 
 to rejoice with her because she had found the 
 piece which she had lost. We hear also from 
 Him the story of the prodigal son, which has 
 moved men of all tongues by its inimitable pa- 
 thos, which is concluded by those affecting words 
 of the father, " It was meet to make merry and 
 be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is 
 alive again ; and was lost, and is found." By all 
 symbols, through all figurative forms, we are 
 brought face to face with a race of lost men and 
 with the Lord coming in mercy and by infinite 
 service to seek and to find them. He came not 
 to call the righteous, but sinners. It was not 
 His will, nor the will of His Father, that any 
 should perish. His whole life-work found its 
 fullest expression in the word. Salvation. 
 
 Was it necessary for this that He should hum- 
 ble Himself? He went down to the lowest 
 place. Was it necessary for this that He should 
 suffer? He not only humbled Himself but He 
 became obedient unto death, even the death of 
 the cross. From lowly Bethlehem to mournful 
 Calvary was a long pilgrimage of atonement. 
 Bursting from heaven in their absorbing won- 
 der, angel hosts filled the mountain air with their 
 exulting gloria, as they announced to the aston- 
 ished shepherds, " there is born to you this day 
 a Saviour, who is Ciirist the Lord." 
 
CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 89 
 
 Following the suggestion of the angels, the 
 adoring shepherds found the wonderful babe, 
 and returned glorifying and praising God for all 
 the things that they had heard and seen. Magi 
 from the Orient, guided by a phenomenal star, 
 came to this new Light, even to the brightness 
 of its rising, bringing, with reverence to the 
 Child, their gifts for kings, gold and frankin- 
 cense and myrrh. Heaven and earth alike were 
 moved by this advent to the sinful world of One 
 who had come from the supernal glory. When 
 the boy Jesus was twelve 3'ears of age. His par- 
 ents found Him in the temple, sitting in the 
 midst of the doctors, who were amazed at His 
 understanding and answers ; and to their won- 
 dering inquiry, why it was, He replied, with a 
 revelation of His divine origin, that it was for 
 Him to be engaged in the things of His Father. 
 Since, however. He must know our life, in order 
 that He might be its complete deliverer. He 
 lived at Nazareth, and was subject to His par- 
 ents, and was occupied up to full manhood in 
 the avocation of His reputed father. So, too, 
 that He might fulfill all righteousness. He was 
 baptized of John, was driven of the Spirit to the 
 long fast of the lonely wilderness, and met the 
 tempter in a three-fold trial and with a three- 
 fold victory ; and thus having suffered being 
 tempted He can be touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities and is able to succor them that 
 are tempted. 
 
90 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 From the walks and occupations of ordinary 
 life, men, whom He selected with divine insight, 
 and whom He impressed by the peculiar grace 
 and majesty of His person, left all and followed 
 Him. And then came His short and eventful 
 public life, crowded with impressive incidents, 
 and ineffaceable on the spiritual records of the 
 race. Miracle followed miracle in attestation of 
 His divine power and sympathy and love. A 
 greater than any of the prophets or wise men of 
 old was there. In His voice nature recognized 
 the voice of its Creator. Its limpid water 
 turned into exhilarating wine at His word. 
 The wild sea, tossed in tumult, heard His com- 
 mand, "Peace, be still!" and mirrored on its 
 placid bosom the twinkle of over-revolving stars- 
 Disease disappeared at His more than' magnetic 
 touch. Health flowed like a blessed river with 
 trees of life on its luxuriant banks where He 
 dwelt with men. Whole cities and wide re- 
 gions felt the restoring power and the healing 
 grace of His beneficent presence. Even death, 
 at His call, gave back its prisoner to life. 
 
 Memorable were His discourses to the vast 
 multitudes who followed Him wherever He 
 went. Speaking to their famished soids, hungry 
 for spiritual nourishment, He told them that He 
 was the Bread of Life, heaven-given, more to 
 them than the manna was to their starving fathers 
 in the Arabian deserts. He told them that He 
 was the Water of Life, of which if they should 
 
CRRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 91 
 
 drink they would never thirst again. He brought 
 heaven to them, so that here, as there, redeemed 
 souls should hunger no more, neither thirst any 
 more. He told them that He was the Light of 
 the World : that, as in the festal illumination of 
 the Temple the people and the priests rejoiced 
 with music and dances, so, following and loving 
 Him, they might walk in heavenly light, even as 
 the nations of the saved in that city which has 
 no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine 
 upon it : for the glory of God does lighten it, and 
 the lamp thereof is the Lamb. He revealed to 
 them His equality with the Father: He opened 
 the doors of the eternal worlds : He wept over 
 the people who were miserably to perish in the 
 woes whose blackened clouds were already low- 
 ering : He rejoiced in spirit that though His mes- 
 sage were hidden from the wise and prudent, it 
 was heralded unto babes ; and that He could 
 sound forth the call of divine merc}^ " Come unto 
 me ; and ye shall find rest unto 3'our souls." All 
 this, wonderful in deed and in word, led on to 
 the tiagic event, to the supreme sacrifice, to 
 Gethsemane's agony and Calvary's death of min- 
 gled terror and triumph. 
 
 Alone, the divine Victim, the Lamb that was 
 slain for our sins, endured an anguish of body 
 and of mind of which we can form no conception 
 and of which there is no parallel. It was more 
 than He could bear. The weight of our sins, the 
 awful burden of our guilt, crushed Him to the 
 
92 THE MODKL LIFE 
 
 Earth. His cries of agony rent the stillness of 
 that darkest midnight. His poor body was lorn 
 with the torture of His 1 icerated spirit, and His 
 sweat became as it were great drops of blood 
 falling down upon the ground. His prayer, with 
 strong crying and tears, went up to God, His 
 beloved Father, with whom all things are possi- 
 ble, but who could not take away that dreadful 
 cup from Him. The Cross was still before Him, 
 with its heavier woe, with its renewed agony, 
 with the hiding of His Father's face, with its pub- 
 lic infamy and its personal anguish, on which He 
 expressed His boundless pity and forgiveness for 
 men, and commended His spirit to His Father, 
 His great work forever Finished. For the Son 
 of man came to seek and to save that which was 
 lost. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 
 
 ITH mystic monosyllables was ended the 
 siiblimest and tenderest prayer that ever 
 31 r(^se from earth to heaven : the prayer 
 of our dear Lord for all His followers. Spener, 
 near death, caused this prayer to be read aloud 
 to him three times : he had never ventured to 
 preach upon it, because he thought the under- 
 standing of it went be3^ond the faith which the 
 Lord is wont to impart to His disciples. 
 
 Yet tills prayer was for us : and reverently we 
 may draw near to the divine oratory, listening 
 and learning, as we hear the Christ, in the full- 
 ness of His infinite affection, say, in the earnest 
 language of a suppliant: "I pray for them: 
 I will that they also be with me where I am: 
 I pray that they all may be one as thou, 
 Father, art in me and I in thee, that they 
 also may be one in us. I in them and thou in 
 me, that the}^ may be made perfect in one." 
 
 You will notice that after the concluding sen- 
 tence, " that the love wherewith thou hast loved 
 me may be in them," as though His loving heart 
 
 [93] 
 
04 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 dwelt in an affectionateiiess that could not allow 
 Ilim to be sundered from them, He adds still 
 these last words, " And I in them." 
 
 As a German commentator remarks, "The 
 last zvord of alii after the last, is, " / in t/uin." 
 Says another, " This is the last and most ap- 
 proved word of this sublime prayer." And 
 another remarks, " It is a better seal than any 
 doxology or amen." I do not know what it means. 
 I do not suppose we can understand the fullness 
 of its infinite meanings. We can take something 
 of it superficially ; but its interior and profounder 
 contents are not a thing of theory or statement but 
 of solemn experience. We can go down into them 
 only as the Lord takes us down ; onl}- as He re- 
 veals Himself to us as an indwelling person and 
 presence ! It is not a philosophy that we want, 
 but a revelation : not an exegesis, but an experi- 
 ence : not logic, but life : not a Christology, but 
 Christ. Christ in us : the infinite in the finite : the 
 God in the temple of God : the greater in the 
 less: this is the reversal of our dynamics, the ab- 
 rogation of our human axioms. On the surface, 
 it means, that the Lord is in all believers with the 
 fullness of His love and the Father's love; that 
 He is in them by His doctrines, teaching them 
 of Himself and of His Kingdom, and by His 
 Spirit who shows to them the things of Himself: 
 and so all the commentators explain it. But it 
 means more, far more, than this, " Thou in me 
 and I in thee, and I in them : " here is the trinity 
 
tUK INDWELLING CHRIST. 95 
 
 of relations out of which comes both the unity 
 of believers with one another and their higher 
 and more mysterious unity with the Father and 
 the Son : " That they all may be one and that 
 they also may be one in us." Christ in the saint 
 brings the saint into God. So the human, be- 
 comes the partaker of the divine, nature. God 
 in us and we in God are the relations of the 
 supernatural life. How far the realization of this 
 mysterious unity affects personality, how fully it 
 is comprehended in the conditions of mortal 
 life, what may remain for its perfectibility in the 
 future experience, we may not be able to state. 
 That there is a life in this world which though 
 essentially human is also essentially divine we 
 may not doubt. That there is a life beyond which 
 rises into higher and more perfect degrees of 
 this blessed unity we may well believe ; although 
 "it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we 
 know that when He shall appear, we shall be 
 like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is." The 
 life in this world runs into the life beyond. 
 Heie it is begun ; there it is perfected. But it 
 is one. The union of the Saviour and the be- 
 liever is one on earth and in heaven. 
 
 Leaving the more sacred and subtle mysteries 
 of the theme, we may look at it outwardly and 
 relatively and get inspiration in it for our tasks 
 and comfort in it for our trials. 
 
 Man needs some greater one in him. We are 
 all controlled by some indwelling {principle, pas- 
 
96 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 sioii, person. We do not barely live our own 
 life, which would be a bare life, if we should 
 attempt it. Even those who affect solitariness 
 are under the mastery of an overpowering^ prin- 
 ciple orai-e in slavehoodto an imperious passion ; 
 their seclusion does not place them alone. From 
 the world which they claim to have left, along 
 the highways of memory or desire or remorse, 
 troop in upon them influences which they can 
 shut out by no blockade or isolation. They have 
 carried in with them themselves, with the hearts 
 tliey had, with the intellectual progress they had 
 made, with the masterful will owning no subjec- 
 tion. And although they may hide themselves 
 from men and may see no longer their old asso- 
 ciates, still are they united by unseen influences, 
 powers that work through thoughts and unob- 
 structed affections. Man is never less alone than 
 when alone. The unpeopled spaces are crowded 
 with being. Few can be with us in bodily form, 
 but spirits, which take no space, can thrcing to 
 us in innumerable companies. The withdrawal 
 from men, therefore, may be the entrance to great 
 assemblies. The lone watcher on the solitary 
 column, the solitary hermit in the wilderness, the 
 devotee in his thick-walled cell, may be thronged 
 by those whom his bodily eye may not discern 
 but whom his spiritual senses recognize. 
 
 Most men in the world, are controlled by 
 sordid passions or low running ambitions. Their 
 possessions are of inferior spirits. That in them 
 
THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 97 
 
 which gives significance to their life is far below 
 the claim of their immortality. They are pushed 
 on by the passion for pelf : as though it were a 
 great object to get property whose title must be 
 vacated in a few days: to heap up riches for 
 other parties soon to gather or to scatter : to 
 hold broad acres of that a few feet of which will 
 soon hold themselves. Or they are ambitious for 
 place out of which they will be crowded before 
 they are fairly seated in it: for power which 
 their unsteady or palsied hands can retain but 
 for a little while : for honor which will die away 
 almost as soon as the huzzas which have hailed 
 it. For these lowest worldly, perishable things, 
 of one sort and another, the whole being is 
 aglow and in struggle. The immortal devotes 
 himself, with his fine possibilities, to that which 
 is impossible. Try as he will, he cannot be sat- 
 isfied with that which is merely worldly. Suc- 
 ceed as he may, he cannot find gratification in 
 that which has no permanence. 
 
 Yet on these levels the race is run. The world 
 only is in men. It possesses them. It absorbs 
 their being. Some move to higher moods. 
 They would find gratification in noble sentiments. 
 The intellectual life is absorbing. Says one, 
 " Be sure that there has been great moral strength 
 in all who have come to intellectual greatness. 
 During some brief moments of insight the mist 
 has rolled away, and they have beheld like a 
 Celestial City, the hc^me of their highest aspira- 
 
98 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 tions ; but the cloud has gathered round them 
 again and still in the gloom they have gone stead- 
 ily forward, stumbling often, yet maintaining 
 their unconquerable resolution. It is to this sub- 
 lime persistence of tiie intellectual in other ages 
 that the world owes the treasures which they 
 won. Their intellectual purposes did not break 
 their moral nature, but exercised and exalted it. 
 All that was best and highest in the imperfect 
 moral nature of Giordano Bruno had its source 
 in that noble passion for Philosophy, which made 
 him declare that for her sake it was easy to en- 
 dure labor and pain and exile, since he had found 
 in brief labor lasting rest, in light grief 
 boundless joy, in contracted exile broadest 
 country." Humboldt sold his inheritance that 
 he might pursue in remote fields his studies of 
 nature. Kane consecrated his mature life to 
 unlock the mystery of the Arctic zone. Faraday 
 renounced certain fortune for the results of 
 uncertain discovery. Livingstone passed out of 
 sight that he might solve the unknown problem 
 in the heart of i\frica. Patriots have given all 
 to country. In men have lived and worked 
 great and worthy jjrinciples to the subjection 
 and absorption of their entire nature. Them- 
 selves have been but the agents of something 
 mighter than themselves, wliich has possessed 
 and controlled them. Sublime ambition, lofty 
 work, worthy service, have supplanted all selfish 
 
THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 99 
 
 passions and worked in the new man with sole 
 control. 
 
 Sometimes another man has been in them. 
 They have lived a life not their own but this 
 other's. The familiar incident of the wounded 
 French soldier illustrates this, who said to his 
 surgeon probing- and cutting in his breast, " Cut 
 a little deeper and you will find the emperor." 
 There was a magic about the emperor which 
 swayed his soldiers. They were emptied of 
 themselves and he lived in them. To accom- 
 plish his designs and not their own was all their 
 soldiery. The great emperor marched in them 
 on long marches, endured in them in great pri- 
 vations, toiled in them over snowy Alps, charged 
 in them in the bloody charge, exulted in them 
 in magnificent victories, and when they came to 
 die, in their heart of hearts was enshrined the 
 emperor himself. Forty years after his death, 
 four thousand miles from his tomb, I met an 
 aged conscript of the immortal emperor. He 
 was broken and bowed, and all the forces of his 
 life had retreated ; but at the name and mention 
 of the great commander he rose erect as a gren- 
 adier of France, and the fire of the unconquera- 
 ble guard burned within him and he would have 
 marched again to Moscow at a signal from his 
 dead captain, who, though his body la}^ in the 
 vault of the Invalides, lived in the soul of the 
 soldier. 
 
 Here we come near to that which is practical 
 
100 THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 in our Saviour's service. It cannot be doubted 
 that there have been and are great numbers in 
 whoni He lias lived as the controller of their life 
 and their destiny. Their most absorbing thought 
 has been the thcjught of Him. Their stiongest 
 and purest and most vital affections have been 
 for Him. Their intensest purpose has cen- 
 tralized in Ilim. Their being has been blended 
 in His being. He has lived in all their life and 
 vitalized everything that has remained in them 
 and has proceeded from them. This is putting 
 tiie case strongly : and ycju may feel rather too 
 strongly for an}- experience that you have 
 known. But it is not more strongly put than 
 the testimony of the individuals themselves, n(jr 
 than their lives wariant. This prayer of the 
 Master came to quick and marvelous answering ! 
 No sooner was His life ended than it pissed into 
 His followers, it was re-lived in them. They, 
 with sublime devotion, entered into that which 
 remained of His work. He was t(^ them more 
 than themselves. They were dead. He lived in 
 them. Said one of them, the greatest perhaps 
 of all in his devotion and service," 1 am crucified 
 with Christ : nevertheless I live; yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now 
 live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son 
 of God, who loved me and gave Himself for 
 me." As to his own and old personality he was 
 dead. The fiery student in the schools of Jewish 
 law, the bold contestant of Pharisaic formulas, 
 
THE Indwelling ciiRisT. lOl 
 
 the wild persecutor of every alien faith, was no 
 more. Saul, who came with his hot blood from 
 Tarsus and issued a zealot from the school of 
 Gamaliel in Jerusalem, was dead. But Paul 
 lived, yet not Paul, but Christ lived in him. A 
 divine power wrought in that great Apostle of 
 Christianity. His splendid intellect, which grap- 
 pled with theprofoundest questions of philosophy 
 and theology, was taught of God. His sublime 
 eloquence, which over-matched the oratory of 
 Rome and on the Areopagus riveted his Athenian 
 hearers, and roused men in every place where 
 he spoke, was from the divine Spirit who spoke 
 in him. The generous and noble and self deny- 
 ing qualities which characterized him in all the 
 relations of his life, which made him so kind a 
 friend, so sweet a comforter, so opulent a bene- 
 factor, so patriotic a citizen, so magnanimous a 
 foe, so mighty a champion, were all the work of 
 God in him. It was the divine energy within 
 him which made him first the Apostle to his own 
 people and then the Apostle to the Gentiles, so 
 that he visited the cities of Syria, and went over 
 into Macedonia, and sailed along the capes of 
 the Grecian Sea, and stood under the shadow of 
 the Acropolis, and maintained the simplicity of 
 the gospel in voluptuous Coi inth and, by tempes- 
 tuous seas, made his way to imperial Rome. It 
 was by an inspired pen that he wrote his living 
 epistles, of which Luther said, " His words are 
 not dearl words, they are living creatures with 
 
10'2 tHE MODKL LIlTE. 
 
 hands and feet." His whole life, so full and rich 
 and blessed, with memorials in so many import- 
 ant places where he himself was seen, and in so 
 many other places where he himself was never 
 seen, was the Lord's life in him. Nothing- could 
 separate him from the love of Christ. Because 
 Christ was in him his spirit was life. And his 
 desire for his beloved disciples was that " Christ 
 might dwell in their hearts by faith :" and that 
 they might be " complete in Mini." 
 
 This wonderful Apostle has had his successors. 
 The same cause has led to the same devotion. 
 Christ has lived on in imperishable being in those 
 who have given themselves to Him. Many a 
 lowly life has been glorified by flis being in it. 
 Tlie missionary records aref^illofthe devotion ivhich 
 He lias inspired. Friends, home, country, civiliz- 
 ation, honors, have been freely sacrificed and left. 
 Another life. His life, has taken the place of the 
 man's own. 
 
 This is what we want. We want Christ in us. 
 If the world is in us, or if we have only ourselves 
 in us, we are in great want. The author of Rob- 
 ert Falconer writes : " Our hearts cry out, to 
 have God is to live. We want God. Without 
 Him no life of ours is worth living. We are not 
 then even human, for that is but the lower fc^rm 
 of the divine. We are immortal, eternal; fill us, 
 O Father, with thyself. Then only all is well." 
 
 It is the glory of the Redeemer to dwell in the 
 redeemed. His work is not fulfilled until we 
 
THE INDWELIJNG CHRIST. 103 
 
 abide in Him and He in us. He has come not 
 only to free us from sin but to impart unto us 
 Himself. He seeks to make His abode with us 
 and to make us temples of Himself. He invites 
 us to partake of Him : " He that eateth my flesh 
 and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in 
 him. " His honor is concerned in the fulfillment 
 of His work. Regeneration, to be perfect, not 
 only casts rnit the old possessions of the mind, but 
 it enthrones Christ there, and keeps Him there. 
 Lord of all. He should have his rightful place. 
 
 And as it is His glory to dwell in them, so it is 
 their glory to have Him. It is the chief glory 
 of man. All other glories of the earth, of the 
 universe, arc pale by the side of this. There is 
 glory in a crozvn which has been worn by great 
 nionarchs: and in a throne which has stood for 
 centuries : and in honors which come from old 
 universities and from grateful peoples. But the 
 glory of having the Lord of glory within one, 
 surpasses all other glories. There is honor in 
 entertaining a prince or a great scholar or a noble 
 citizen : but this honor is given to His saints to 
 entertain the Lord Himself. " Abide in me and 
 I in you." 
 
 Here is inspiration for service. Not to live 
 out our lives, but to live out His life who liveth 
 in us ; not to honor ourselves, but to honor Him 
 who is worthy of the praise and glory of the uni- 
 verse : not to serve an}' inferior being, but to serve 
 and please Him who is superior to all other beings, 
 
104 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 to whom we owe all that wc can do, all that we 
 can love, ourselves ; herein is motive sufficient 
 to stir all our nature. It has proved sufficient. 
 In all the Christian ages the succession of true 
 and toiling disciples has been preserved, apostles, 
 confessors, martyrs, reformers, saints, in ever}^ 
 land and in every speech, and the}' have all 
 maintained with unanimous testimony that their 
 inspiration has come from the same infinite source, 
 tlieir common confession has everywhere been : 
 " Yet not I, but Christ livclli in me." 
 
 Furtherm(3re, the power of the Church over 
 the world must come through the disciples from 
 the indwelling Christ. It is not they who have 
 power. They receive it. It works through 
 them : but it comes from a higher cause. It is a 
 divine power. It is Christ who is to subjugate 
 the world. But the world cannot see Him. It 
 can only see those in whom He dwells. But it 
 can see them and it can feel the influence of his 
 divine life in them. They may be feeble and un- 
 worthy to represent His amazing love. Yet are 
 they His witnesses: they stand for Him before 
 the world. They are, in their i)urc and conse- 
 crated lives, to set forth His life, in their gen- 
 erous and sympathizing love to icproduce His 
 love, in their humble places and in their lowly 
 service, and with their feeble powers to make 
 Christ known as the living, loving, perfect 
 Saviour. 
 
 Ill the grand old capital of Normandy, rich in 
 
THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 105 
 
 the highly sculptured architecture of a florid era, 
 among imposing civil and ecclesiastical buildings, 
 rises the magnificent Church of St. Ouen. No 
 more gorgeous effect of light and shadow can 
 anywhere be seen, than where the many-tinted 
 beams stream through its elaboratel}^ painted 
 windows and are brought into positive effect by 
 the dark shade of its lofty buttresses and towers. 
 It were hard for the eye, at a single sweep of 
 vision to take in the sublime view of its gorgeous 
 and lofty interior. But beneath the majestic 
 nave is placed a little font, the water of which 
 you could almost hold in your double hand, so 
 constructed and located that by looking into it 
 you can see as in a perfect mirror the stately 
 columns and springing arches and the deep vault 
 above, with the storied windows and the holy 
 altar and all the tracery and adornments of the 
 sacred edifice. The vast temple is repiesented 
 in the basin of water, in us should be the image 
 of the Lord. The eye that cannot sweep through 
 the grandeur of His character and the infinitudes 
 of His affection and the depths of His passion 
 may be able to see enough of Him in those who 
 love Him to be won to His blessed service, may 
 find enough in them to awaken admiration and 
 to challenge devotion. The heart that cannot 
 yet hold so much as Christ may comprehend the 
 lowly who are Christ-like. The mind that would 
 be lost in the attributes of the divine Lord may 
 seek and find Him in the qualities of His faithful 
 
106 THE MODKL UFE. 
 
 followers. Let Christ be in us, in our hearts, in 
 our lives, and then shall we be His consecrated 
 temples. So may we bring the unbelieving 
 world to the worship of our Lord. Christ is in 
 us and we are in the world that the world may 
 be saved by all tliat we can do lor it. Christ is 
 in us that we may be controlled by Him, and that 
 we may aspire both to be like Him here and to 
 be like flim and with Him forever. Christ is in 
 us that He may fulfill His own purpose in His 
 chosen and beloved people, and through them 
 His purpose for a sinful and lost race. 
 
 Come then into our hearts, O divine and be- 
 loved One! Abide with us and make us thy 
 temples ! 
 
IX. 
 
 CHRIST S PRESENCE IN PERPLEXITY. 
 
 HE promise of Christ's presence is for 
 tlie whole Church throughout all time. 
 It was, primarily, for the apostles and 
 the five hundred brethren who were gathered 
 around Him on the mountain from whose summit 
 He was to ascend to heaven, who were beginning 
 to feel the desolateness of His withdrawal from 
 them, the bereavement into which His departure 
 would plunge them. They loved Him with a 
 strange love, unlike the love which they had 
 given to any other, and they wanted Him to 
 remain with them as He had been, their Teacher 
 and their trusted Friend, But His words 
 implied that He was going away and He had the 
 upward and far-away look of one who was to 
 pass from them into the invisibilities of the 
 heavenly world. So, for their comfort and 
 peace, He united with His last commission t(^ 
 them the encouraging promise; " Lo, 1 am with 
 you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 And when He said, even unto the end of the 
 world. He included all those who should believe 
 on Him through their word, all who should 
 succeed them in the work of spreading the gospel 
 
 [107J 
 
108 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 among all the nations of numkind clown " to the 
 last syllable of recorded time." 
 
 It is therefore His word of solace and of joy 
 to us, as it will be to those who shall come after us. 
 
 He said : Lo, behold, and rejoice and be com- 
 forted in this : I aui tvith you, youi" very Friend ; 
 I whom you have known and loved so well: / 
 ajH ever present, unchanging, Immanuel ; ahva)\ 
 all the days, every day, in days of trial, in days 
 of jo}', in days of gloom and of sunlight, on not 
 a single day will I be absent from you : even 
 unto tJic end of the li-'orld, through all your labc^rs 
 for me and for my kingdom everywhere, until 
 you shall be with me where 1 am and shall 
 behold my glory ! 
 
 Blessed assurance to every Christian ! To the 
 toilers on the frontiers of civilization and to the 
 heralds who cry in the dense wildernesses of 
 heathenism : to the discouraged preacher in the 
 da^'S of supreme indifference, wh.en the gospel 
 goes unheeded and the dreams of the world fill 
 the minds of thoughtless hearers : to the bereaved 
 and lonely children of God, when the only light 
 is on the upward path which they have taken 
 who have passed into the glowing gates and 
 when they wonder at the meaning of those 
 occurrences which no philosophy can explain : 
 to the weak because His strength is shown to be 
 perfect in their weakness, and to the strong 
 because they are strong in the strength which 
 He supplies : to those who are in the midst of 
 
Christ's presenck in perplexity. 109 
 
 tlie battle, ns to those who are lifting up the 
 voice of victory: to the living in all conditions 
 and to the dying who can never die because they 
 live and believe in Him ! It is not, indeed, any 
 moi'e, a visible and bodily presence. The time for 
 that is passed. The work for which there was 
 that manifestation is finished. It was expedient 
 that He should go away, out of sight, into the 
 glory which no mortal eye can look upon. But 
 in many other ways is lie present. 
 
 He is with us by His living Word. That which 
 He spake to the ears that listened in Judea and 
 Galilee and which inspired pens have preserved 
 can never pass out of the thought of Chiisten- 
 dom. It is the sacred truth wdiich is imperish- 
 able, which the world needs. It is the light 
 which shineth in a dark place. We would have 
 answers to great questions. Who is Christ that 
 we may believe in Him ? What was His 
 mission to this melancholy planet, and what was 
 the work that He triumphantly accomplished ? 
 What is the meaning of Bethlehem's manger 
 whose fame has gone into the world's poetry 
 and has glorified the world's high art? What 
 is the lesson of the transfiguration? 
 
 What to us are the cries from dark Geth- 
 semane and the miracles that startled the world 
 at the mysterious event on Calvary? What 
 shall we do to be saved ? We ask in our awaken- 
 ing and in our despair and in our hope. When 
 is the acceptable time and the day of salvation ? 
 
110 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 How can we become the inheritor of eternal 
 life? Whose is the victory tliat overcometh 
 the world ? These are the transcendent inquiries 
 of luinian intelligence and of honest endeavor. 
 And all these Christ now answers. As truly and 
 plainly as he spoke to Nicodemus who came to 
 Him by night, or to the woman of Samaria who 
 came to draw water from Jacob's well, or to the 
 young ruler, who came running to Him with the 
 salutation of a learner to a teacher who could 
 make no mistake, so does He yet speak to 
 us, answering with divine patience and wisdom 
 these questions that concern our life and our 
 destiny. How readest thou ? In the volume of 
 the Book it is written, and the words of life are 
 His own words to you, as though you heard 
 them fr()m His mouth. He is with us by His 
 words, alwa}', even unto the end of the world. 
 No sinner need to be in the dark as to his duty. 
 Christ plainly tells him what he must do to 
 be saved. No Christian, whatever may be his 
 spiritual experience, lacks the sources of con- 
 solation and encouragement and enlightenment. 
 Christ teaches him of the way, the truth, and 
 the life. No man, no lost man, no saved man, no 
 man on the road to immortality, can doubt what 
 are the things of greatest moment to himself if he 
 will study the preserved and luminous instruc- 
 tions of the divine Master. Because He has spo- 
 ken, men have no excuse for their sins. Because 
 He has spoken, the joy of believers may be full. 
 
Christ's rRESENCK in terplexity. Ill 
 
 He is with iis by His unobsctired example. His 
 life was in the sight of the world. It was 
 an illuminated life. It shone on all the path- 
 ways where He trod. His footsteps have never 
 been effaced. We can follow Him in the sweet 
 relations of His Hebrew home life : as He passed 
 into the solitude of the wilderness for Satanic 
 temptation : as He came into the synagogue 
 on the Sabbath-day for worship as His custom 
 was: as He taught and wrought for the good of 
 men : as he went about doing good : as he 
 suffered and died for others, carrying their sor- 
 rows and wounded for their transgressions. 
 
 All this is before us : a sacred object lesson, 
 from which we can learn what we should be. 
 It is as though He were still here, leading those 
 who love Him, bidding them, as He bade James 
 and Peter and John, " follow me." For He left 
 us an example, that we should follow His steps. 
 Though He went away. His example remains. 
 He did no sin. He delighted to do God's will. 
 He was a dutiful child. He was a loving friend. 
 Nazareth was made sacred because His child- 
 hood was spent there. Bethany became a dear 
 name because He so loved one of its humble 
 homes. Capernaum came to eminence in human 
 thought because His mighty works were 
 wrought therein. Jerusalem gained its chief 
 renown as the scene of great events in His life 
 and tragic death. He pleased not Himself. He 
 took on Him the form of a servant. He was 
 
112 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 about His Father's business. He loved us and 
 died for us. Wc cannot mistake as to what He 
 was. We can see Him : wc can walk with 
 Him : we can feel His touch. No brother is 
 more real to us. No friend leaves a clearer 
 evidence of what he is. And so a«jain is ful- 
 filled His promise Lo, I am with you alway. 
 
 He is with us by tJie presence and power of tJie 
 Holy Spirit. There is a sacred mystery in the 
 three-fold personality of the One Divine Being. 
 The Persons are distinct, and they are one. It 
 is a blessed mystery, which glorifies to us the 
 Godhead. It is a fact supremely significant. 
 It is far more than the unitarian idea of one God 
 operating in three modes, revealing Himself in 
 three distinct relations to us. He is three 
 Persons as truly as any three of you are distinct 
 persons, and yet He is but one Being, one God. 
 I (one Person) will pray the Father (another 
 Person), and He shall give you another Com- 
 forter (the third Person). Although we cannot 
 explain it, cannot even understand it, we accept 
 it as a grateful and profound truth, which states 
 to us the glory of Him who must be a mystery 
 to us if He be God. 
 
 The doctrine of the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit with Christians as Christ gave it is this: 
 He comes in Christ's name, to glorify Christ, to 
 take of the things of Christ and to declare them 
 unto those who are Christ's, to guide disciples 
 into all truth, to teach them all things and to 
 
CHRIST S PRESENCE IN f ERPLEXITT. 113 
 
 bring- all things to their remembrance that 
 Christ has said unto them, and to abide with 
 them and to be in them forever. So, as one 
 with Christ, He is Christ in them. Christ went 
 away that He might send the Comforter, who 
 is the Holy Spirit. He, by His spiritual pres- 
 ence, could be more to them than Christ could 
 be in His bodily presence. So, we have the 
 Spirit and having Him we have Christ, forever 
 with us. He works in us both to will and to 
 work for His good pleasure. God sent forth the 
 Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, 
 Father. Led by the Spirit of God we are the 
 sons of God : and if sons, then heirs, lirst-heirs 
 with Christ in the eternal inheritances of the 
 Kingdom ! 
 
 He is with us in our participation of the Holy 
 Sacrament of the Supper of our Loid. When 
 He instituted it He had respect to His departure 
 from His disciples, and so He said, " This do in 
 remembrance of me." It is His body and His 
 blood that are symbolized in the sacred ele- 
 ments, and so partaking of them we do, in a 
 sense, partake of Him. It was in the structure 
 of the ordinance that it should be observed by all 
 believers throughout all time : for He said, " As 
 often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye 
 proclaim the Lord's death till He come," i. e., till 
 His second coming to judge the world and to 
 close the world's mournful and wonderful history. 
 So long, in this holy communion, will He be 
 
114 TilE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 witli His followers alway even unto the end of 
 the world. Here He conies to them in the 
 snprcnie event of His niissicjn to the earth. 
 Those who love Him arc here in the goodly 
 company of His trnsted and faithful friends who 
 reclined with Him at the institution of the sup- 
 per, His beloved apostles, who heard indeed 
 His words, " This do," but could not understand 
 their meaning, as the event made it plain to them 
 and to us. We are among that great company 
 of people and of women who bewailed and 
 lamented Him. We stand by the cross of Jesus 
 with His own mother, through whose soul there 
 pierced the sword as predicted, and His mother's 
 sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Mag- 
 dalene. We bow there with the disciple whom 
 He loved and hear His dying words. 
 
 Ah ! that Cross was uplifted for us. Those 
 nails were driven because we were the sinners. 
 That crown of thorns whose spikes started the 
 blood from the forehead of the Master was that 
 which we deserved to wear. The spear thrust 
 which wounded Him miglit have properly 
 pierced us. The body, sacred body ! was broken 
 for us. The blood, blood of Divine atonement! 
 was shed for us. As we realize this (and nowhere 
 else do we realize it so fully) the Lord seems in- 
 deed present with us. We can feel it. His voice 
 thrills our souls. His touch vitalizes us. His ben- 
 ediction falls on us. As we go away, we say, "He 
 whom we love, was with us at the feast to-day !" 
 
Christ's presence in perplexity. 116 
 
 There is another, more mystic, meanin^^ in 
 which He is with us, which is expressed in His 
 own words : " Ye shall know that I am in my 
 Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. Abide in 
 Me and I in you. Apart from Me ye can do 
 nothing. We will come unto Him and make 
 our abode with Him. 1 am the vine, 3'e are the 
 branches." Such language implies that f/icn- is a 
 couivion life of the Redeemer and His members. 
 He lives in them, and they live in Him. When 
 by faith the soul takes hold of Him, His life 
 streams into that soul, as, when a cutting is 
 grafted into the parent stock, the life of the stock 
 flows into the engrafted wood and it becomes 
 thenceforward a part of the one growth. Chiist's 
 life came into humanity and all human souls 
 joined to Him become Christian souls, partakers 
 of Christ, one with Him. This is mystery : but 
 mystery is everywhere : and this spiritual mys- 
 tery is no more unsolvable than the ni3'sterious 
 processes which are before our eyes in natural 
 growths and changes all around us. 
 
 The outward exj)ression of it is in the Church 
 and its membership. The Church is Christ's 
 body, outwardly manifesting Him before human 
 sight and offering itself to human study. The 
 members make it up, enter into such confes- 
 sional and sacramental union to it that they are 
 constituent parts of it and so members of His 
 body, of His flesh and of His bones. They suf- 
 fer together: they rejoice together: they serve 
 
116 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 together : Christ and His members one. The Best 
 name foi a Christian Church is Itnmanuel, God 
 wilh lis. This is the Scriptural name of Christ, 
 and it therefore i)roves His essential divinity, and 
 it proves also that we, in our union to him, are, 
 as St. Peter calls the Christians, " partakers of 
 the divine nature." And so, again, is wonder- 
 fully fulfilled His word, " Lo, I am with you 
 ahvay, even unto the end of the world." He, 
 our Lord, is present with us now, where we are. 
 But the days are drawing nigh when we shall 
 be present with Him where He is. He is, with Jis 
 now, in all through which we are appointed to 
 pass; in joy and in trial; in days brilliant with 
 sunlight and in days heavy with enswathing 
 clouds ; in our youthful struggles, and in the 
 easy victories of our age ; in our quiet home-life, 
 and in our battles against the world's opposing 
 forces; while we live and when we come to die. 
 We live and trust in our Immanuel. 
 
 We shall be zaith Him then, on the golden 
 floors, within the massive gates of pearl, before 
 the throne of whiteness, in the light which is 
 brilliant as the light of a thousand suns ; forever 
 free, yet confirmed in holiness ; like unto Him, 
 sharers with Him in a life whose wonderfulness 
 even our imagination cannot estimate, advanc- 
 ing in strength of holy character and in the wide- 
 ness of certain knowledge through milleniums 
 that shall never end. 
 
X. 
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST-LIFE. 
 
 EN live in that which most absorbs and 
 occupies them. He who gives his 
 thought and time and influence and 
 means to the success of a political party lives in 
 politics. One may so give himself to his daily 
 business tiiat he has no care for anything else, 
 that he is only a boarder at his own home, that 
 he keeps up acquaintance with his wife and chil- 
 dren only because of the fortunate recurrence of 
 the first day of the week on which it is illegal 
 and immoral to keep at his avocation, and that 
 man may very truly be said to live in his 
 business. 
 
 A student may devote himself to some speci- 
 alty in science or to some particular branch of 
 learning with such absorption of mind and body, 
 such daily toil and forgetfulness of everything 
 else, that ever3'one would say that he fairly lives 
 in his specialty. 
 
 An astronomer may live among the stars. 
 
 A sailor may be so homesick for the great and 
 wide sea when he is ashore, that his look is ever 
 toward it, that his love goes out to the crested 
 
 [I '7] 
 
118 THE MoDKL LIKE. 
 
 waves and his heart sinji^s in harmony with the 
 deep bass of the ocean, that his gait on land is 
 tliatof one who walks the rocking deck of a ship, 
 and that man may be said to live on the sea 
 though ho may be ashore. 
 
 Patrii)ts have had such devotion to their 
 country that it has been a joy to them to give 
 their lives to it. "My countr}- was my idol !" 
 said an eloquent patriot bef(jre he died f(jr it. 
 
 Men have braved polar cold and freezing floes 
 that they might rescue their imi)eriled fellows, 
 and so have lived in them. Livingstone lived in 
 Africa because he lived and died for it. For 
 Bismarck to live is German}-. For some men to 
 live is country, or commerce, or science, or 
 philosophy, or politics. Intense devotion, un- 
 limited absorption or occupation, defines and 
 designates life. 
 
 There was a man, in the early history of Chris- 
 tianity, who announced, "For to me to live is 
 Christ!" That was a new and strange declara- 
 tion. Men had lived, as we have seen, f(jr vastly 
 diffcicnt things. St. Paul was then a prisoner of 
 the Koman government at the capital. Accord- 
 ing to the custom he was chained to a Roukui 
 soldier. Those of whom he saw the most weie 
 the blood-stained veteians of the conqueiing em- 
 piie and the slaves of tiie palace. To them the 
 brave apostle made Christ known. And when 
 he closed his letter he wrote, "All the saints 
 salute you, especially they that are of Ccesar's 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 119 
 
 household. " Right there he had made converts 
 to the Christian faith, so that in the pahace, dark 
 with lust and reeking with crimes that cannot be 
 mentioned, there were real saints, men and 
 women led by the apostle to love the divine 
 Christ. The temptations of a voluptuous court 
 and the fascinations of a profligate frivolity could 
 not make them swerve from a true Christian life. 
 For Nero to live was crime and lust. For Paul 
 to live was Clirist. The palace and the prison 
 were oppositcs. Debauchery and infamous vice 
 reigned in one. Prayer and hymns, and the invi- 
 tations of Cliristian love, were heard in the other. 
 
 To Paul to live was Christ. And so in prison 
 and expecting any day to be summoned for trial 
 before the heathen emperor, equally as when 
 free; in Rome equally as in Philippi; he lived 
 our. the Clirist who lived in him. This was his 
 new nature. He had been a different man, as 
 we well know. But the new creation had passed 
 on him and he was a new man in Christ. To 
 him, once, to live was rank Judaism: now to live 
 was Christ. And all his grand and consecrated 
 life proved it to be so. 
 
 Some of us may be aspirants for a similar life, 
 all of us should be : and it may be of service to 
 consider some of the elements that enter into it 
 as a practical experience. 
 
 First of all the individual life must be given to 
 Christ. It must be made over to Him. 
 
 This is the fundamental principle of our 
 
120 TIIK MODKL LIFE. 
 
 religion. It is the first C(jinj)i"elieiisive experi- 
 ence that is required in an accepted Christianity. 
 
 The person in coming to Christ, in becoming 
 a Christian, must become Chrisfs. 
 
 He did belong to Himself, or He belonged to 
 the world. He made His own will supreme. 
 He followed wealth or pleasure or fame or some- 
 thing worldly as the one thing that held satisfac- 
 tion. But when he was convinced of sin and of 
 his need of a Saviour from the power and from the 
 guilt of sin, he gave himself to Christ. If he 
 did not, if he went only half as far as this, he 
 did not, in the deepest sense, become a Christian. 
 He may have gone so far as to admire the Chris- 
 tian ethics, the morality of Christianity ; to 
 admire the character of its great and benign 
 Founder which lifts Him above all other men of 
 all ages ; to admire the kingdom which He has 
 set up in this world and which is so manifestly a 
 kingdom of power and conquest ; but this is not 
 to become a Christian, and no one can truly 
 become such unless and until he becomes Christ's, 
 so that he can say, like the apostle, To me to 
 live is Christ. 
 
 The magic lies in that name. The experience 
 consists in transferring one'sself into Christ. 
 There is new creation. The old personality 
 disappears. We have seen this wrought in 
 inany cases, and we cannot doubt it. It is a 
 conversion. It is a change from one person into 
 an(Hhcr person, and the latter more real than 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 121 
 
 the former. Paul was an early and a very strik- 
 ing instance of it. The old Saul who hated 
 Christ and would have tortured and killed every 
 one of His followers, passed off the stage as 
 truly as though he had died and been buried. 
 No one ever saw him after that fierce ride to 
 Damascus. When he fell on the highway before 
 the light of a revealing Christ, it was as though 
 he had fallen dead. The man who came forth 
 from Damascus, in his clothes, was another man. 
 His outward appearance, to be sure, was like 
 him ; but even that, no doubt, was a good deal 
 changed, so that all who heard him were 
 amazed. 
 
 But inwardly he was another man. Nothing 
 remained of him as he was. New thoughts, new 
 hopes, other purposes, a different love, a higher 
 life, worked in him. The new Paul came on to 
 the stage and the tragedy of a vaster and a 
 grander life unrolled its sublime acts. Men for- 
 got the old Saul : but they never forgot, and 
 never will forget, the new Paul. He left to the 
 world a legacy of devotion and service which has 
 been an inspiration, which has thrilled our sen- 
 sitive natures through all Christian centuries, 
 and has sent forces of revolution and benediction 
 into nation after nation, and which to-da}' is call- 
 ing forth from Christian homes and Christian 
 schools consecrated youths to carry Christ, whose 
 they are and whom they serve, to lost and be- 
 nighted and sinful and suffering men and women 
 
\-22 TIIK M(»I)KI- LIFE. 
 
 and children on all continents and pagan islands 
 of the sea. 
 
 St. Paul could say, " It is no longer I that live, 
 but Christ liveth in me." He was "dead unto 
 gin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus." He was 
 whoU}' converted, wholly given to Christ. That 
 must we be if we would worthily bear the 
 Christian name. Wc cannot use this language, 
 " to me to live is Christ" unless we are Christ's. 
 And this must carry everything with it. We 
 cannot be Christ's, and be at the same time the 
 world's, or be self-controlled. Wc cannot say, 
 in a selfish spirit, my property, my time, my 
 learning, my business, my influence, for all are 
 Christ's. Giving ourselves to Him, we give all 
 that belongs to us to Him, and we are not our 
 own. 
 
 That is the standard of Christianity. Religion 
 never lowers that standard. Paul came up to 
 it. Many since his day have come up to it. Many 
 in our day are meeting it. For them to live is 
 Christ. They do not live, but Christ lives in 
 them. Their lives are all active and aglow with 
 the Christ whose living heart beats the music of 
 their divine walk. 
 
 Also, the consecration to Clirist must reveal 
 itself, and justify itself, in the visible conduct of 
 life. Our Christ is a revealed Christ; He is 
 a Christ of the world and for the world. He is 
 not a cloistered Christ: He does not keep Him- 
 self in the clouds nor in the dazzling glories 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 123 
 
 of heaven. His work, His great redeeming 
 work for us, was done in the sight of men, 
 on the conspicuous places of the world. He did 
 not atone for us in the far heavens, but He made 
 our common walks illustrious by His footsteps 
 on them, and our common places luminous and 
 glowing by His endurances in them. Bethle- 
 hem was a town of no great distinction till His 
 birth in it lifted it to a glorious renown. Naza- 
 reth was a despised village until his life in it gave 
 it a wider fame than any royal city of the Caes- 
 ars. Gethsomane and Calvary have inspired the 
 poeti"}' of the people by their voices of pathos 
 and agony beyond any other great endurances 
 of heroes and martyrs, because the memory 
 of His voluntary and priceless sufferings rever- 
 berates and thrills in their enduring and un- 
 forgotten names. He was in the world. He 
 was seen among us. The tones of heaven were 
 in His voice. The light of heaven was in His 
 e3'es. The help of heaven was in His hand. We 
 beheld His glor}-, glory as of the only begotten 
 from the Father. 
 
 And since He went away His followers have re- 
 produced his life, in lowly and unworthy ways it 
 may be, but in methods and experiences which 
 He has graciously accepted and blessed, and on 
 which He has pronounced His, Well done. 
 
 It is not enough to experience religion in the 
 closet. It is not enough to come alone to God 
 in repentance and faith and to make loyal vows 
 
124 THE MODEL MFE. 
 
 ill private. They who follow the Master will 
 follow him openly, before kings and populace, in 
 country and in city, in the temple and by the well- 
 side. Paul's life was a life of declaration. He 
 said, 1 stand unto this day, having obtained the 
 help that is from God, testifying both to small 
 and great. He was an open witness and confessor. 
 He wanted to know Christ and the fellowship of 
 His sufferings. He wanted t(j be a partaker 
 of His sufferings. He woidd have gone into an- 
 other Gethsemane and borne a cross up another 
 Golgotha. He said, I fill up on my part that 
 which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for 
 the church. He knew what he said, when he said, 
 I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. 
 From our land and from our best institutions 
 lately went a young scholar, with the honors of 
 high scholarship, with promotion already offered 
 to him, to pursue further stud}' with the 
 advantages which German research and learning 
 might give him. He was possessed of Christ, 
 and his devotion was apparent in the daily life 
 he lived, in the language which he spoke, in the 
 purposes by which he was plainly contiolled. 
 Among the students with whom he associated 
 he was known as a real lover of the Lord. 
 His walk attracted the attention of a young 
 American who had come to the German capital 
 and had engaged in profitable business there. He 
 sought in repeated interviews to learn the secret 
 of the life which had won his respect and 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 125 
 
 regard. He found it in the remark of his friend : 
 " I know of but one thing in this world worth 
 living for, to be Christ's and to bring others to 
 Him." So different was this from anything in 
 his own life that it brought him to the Saviour; 
 and he abandoned his brilliant business, returned 
 to this country, and established himself in the 
 State of Washington, where, with his business, he 
 could enjyaire in active Christian work. And this 
 was but one instance of many where that life 
 wrought on other lives for their union to Christ. 
 And when, a few months ago, this young scholar, 
 in the Austrian Tyrol, closed his earthly work 
 too soon, it was seen that he had not lived in 
 vain, for the life that he lived was Christ. 
 
 If we can truly say, to me to live is Christ, 
 we must know something of it. Our Christian 
 life must be lived out before the world. As, in 
 olden time, men saw Him on their streets and 
 in their homes and in their assemblies, and knew 
 that the Christ was visible, so they must see 
 you in places of business and study, in places 
 where men are, and know tliat Christ, in the 
 person of one who loves Him and serves Him 
 and represents Him to them, is verily present. 
 They must see Him in you. 
 
 You must speak His language. Such words 
 as those which reached the intellect of 
 Nicodemus and the conscience of the woman of 
 Samaria, as revealed the young ruler to him- 
 self and made Pilate fear, as fell on the sad 
 
120 THE MOr)EL Lit-E. 
 
 hearts of tlic multitudes who in their hunger 
 and thirst hung on His lips, as led Roman 
 officers, awed by His language, to say, never 
 man so spake, must be yijur words to your 
 associates and to strangers. You must speak the 
 language of heaven in the midst of the Babel 
 tongues of the world. Christian songs have 
 awakened responsive tones in dull souls, and 
 Christian testimon\' has convinced gainsayers 
 of the reality of personal faith in Christ. 
 
 You must interpret the meaning of disciple- 
 ship. From you men must know that it means 
 Christ, repr(Kluccd in His loving spirit, in His 
 tender sympathy, in His attractive grace. They 
 must see that religion is not a mere profession, 
 but that it carries a large, generous, winning 
 practice. Light must go out from you into 
 darkness and wretched souls, so that duty shall 
 be made clear to them, so that they shall see 
 the peril of sin, the way of deliverance, the 
 attractions of the cross and of heaven. There 
 was profound meaning in the words of Him who 
 was the Light of the world, to His disciples, 
 when He told them, F<? are the light of the world. 
 
 You must make it clear that your religion is 
 one of helpfulness. Help was laid on one who 
 was mighty, when our salvation was laid on 
 Christ : and the pitiful cry of the helpless to 
 Him when He was here, was. Lord help us. 
 Men need it now. Involved in sin, tangled in 
 the meshes of worldliness. taken captixe by 
 
BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. l27 
 
 Satan at his will, they want the helping hand of a 
 brother for their rescue. It is for us to give it, in 
 His name. 
 
 The joy of giving it, the joy of helping to save 
 a brother, is the sweetest joy this side of heaven ; 
 it is akin to the joy of Clirist who for the joy 
 that was set before Him endured the cross- 
 Jeannie Deans' words in the " Heart of Mid- 
 lothian" are: " It is na when we sleep soft and 
 wake merrily, oursels, that we think on other 
 people's sufferings. But when the hour o' 
 trouble comes to the mind and to the body, and, 
 when the hour o' death comes to high and low 
 then it is na what we hae dune for oursels, but 
 what we hae dune for others, that we think on 
 maist pleasantly." 
 
 We must remember out of what trouble the 
 Helper rescued us, when He sought and found 
 
 us. 
 
 " But none of the ransomed ever knew 
 How deep were the waters crossed, 
 Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through 
 Ere He found his sheep that was lost. 
 Out in the desert He heard the cry, — 
 Sick, and helpless, and ready to die." 
 
 Now, if our own personal consecration to Christ 
 reveals itself and justifies itself, in such visible 
 union to our Lord, it will be no assumption for 
 us to say. For me to live is Christ. 
 
 It is the Christian way to live: and, so living, 
 we shall be ready to appropriate the other part of 
 the same Scripture, for me to die is gain ! 
 
XI. 
 
 CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 
 
 HE new relation in whicli Christ would 
 stand to those who had been with Him 
 in His blessed ministry was a relation 
 oi tender and trustful friendship. He would 
 henceforth take them into His confidence ; make 
 His jo}'^ the joy of them all ; permit them to share 
 with Him in whatever there might be in His life 
 and work that would take hold of their strongest 
 enthusiasms and their impassioned devotion ; and 
 to look on with Him to the peaceful termination 
 in the mansions of rest which He had promised 
 to them. It was a wonderful thing that they 
 could be admitted into this relationship of friend- 
 ship with Hitn. They had been servants, and it 
 was enough that they should have the honor of 
 service under one like Him. Men aspire to the 
 service of great, trusted leaders. They offer 
 themselves and their fortunes in life-long devo- 
 tion to one who is undertaking conquest, who is 
 building up national power, or is on a career 
 of personal glory. Much more might one be 
 satisfied to be, what St. Paul seems to glory 
 in calling himself, the servant of Jesus Christ. 
 
 [129] 
 
130 THE MODEL MKK. 
 
 But Christ advances those whom He loves and 
 who love Him, to a higher place. " Henceforth 
 I call you not servants: for the servant knoweth 
 not what his Lord docth ; but I have called you 
 friends; for all things that I have heard of my 
 father I have made known unto you." 
 
 It is for us to consider, and to share in, the 
 Friendship of Christ. 
 
 We know what it is to pass out of mere 
 acquaintance with some one with whom we have 
 met and with whom we have conversed and 
 labored, into the larger and riper relation of 
 friendship. Everything is changed with that. 
 Reserve, formality, conventionalism, the barriers 
 that separate souls, fall away, and frankness, 
 confidence, ease, geniality, freedom, take their 
 place. 
 
 We learn more, too, of him who has become our 
 friend. We look deeper into his nature and see 
 its wealth and strength and loveliness as we 
 could not before. We learn to build on him. 
 We distrust ourselves until we have stated the 
 case to our friend. In his approval we find the 
 highest reason. His judgment is judicial with 
 us. We enjo}' his presence : we take satisfaction 
 in labor with him, and the future is brighter by 
 reason of this friendship. Now all this and 
 more comes of the Friendship of Christ. 
 
 See how it leads the human soul into the place 
 of rest. Men are uneasy, disturbed, and they 
 ought to be, when they are simply in a state of 
 
CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIICND. 131 
 
 nature. There is nothing in sin to produce 
 peace. What sort of a condition is that which 
 is expressed by enmity with God ? Who can 
 have comfort in a world like this who has no 
 assurance of a happ}^ future? Christ's great call 
 to the troubled world, is, Come unto me and I 
 will give you rest. The soul that has the experi- 
 ence of His friendship is like a ship that has 
 reached the haven. It is out of the storm and 
 the fury of wave : it has cast anchor : it rides 
 securely in port. For although the Christian 
 has trials, although losses and sorrows and many 
 adverse things may come to him, yet he has that 
 which calms him and supports him and more 
 than makes up for all calamities, in the love of 
 Christ. He is united to one who knows the 
 extreme of sorrow and endurance: whose worn 
 feet have gone on every hard path that their feet 
 must go on whom He calls His friends : whose 
 burdened heart has carried not His own pains 
 alone, but the miseries of unnumbered multi- 
 tudes, yes, the griefs and the sins of a world. 
 
 And when in the trustfulness of true friend- 
 ship the soul learns to lean on Him, it learns that 
 it leans on strength, on eternal love, and it finds 
 the place of rest, rest for the wearied soul. This 
 is the first thing, and it is not the least thing. We 
 want anchorage. We want something to take 
 hold of, as when the flukes find the ribs of rock 
 below the lashed and angry surface of the sea. 
 We don't want to be forever tossed at random, by 
 
132 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 any wind or storm : but to be at peace. When 
 we repose in Christ's friendship, know that He 
 calls us no longer servants but friends, we have 
 security, rest now, and the promise of everlast- 
 ing rest. 
 
 Notice the reciprocity that goes on between 
 those who are united in this friendship. Friend- 
 ship implies mutual exchange of love and con- 
 fidence and favor. There is a wide difference 
 here between the parties. On one side is greatness 
 and power, and on the other feebleness and need. 
 Yet Christ does not expect from His friends 
 more than they can give : He prizes, beyond all 
 statement, just what they can give. He does 
 not need the things that the world puts first: but 
 He does prize affection, faith, loyalty. He pours 
 out to Hii friends the fullness of God's gifts, 
 and then He takes from them, and is glad to take 
 their confidence and love. And so this peculiar 
 friendship waxes: the Great Friend lavishing of 
 Divine blessings upon those whom He loves, and 
 the}^ offering their tribute of myrrh, and frank- 
 incense, and gold as symbols of an affection that 
 would gladly give the best it could to One in- 
 finitely worthy. 
 
 There springs then :\ personal interest in each 
 other. Being friends, the feelings and the for- 
 tunes of each are dear to the other. So gracious 
 and personal is Christ's regard for those whom 
 He has chosen, that He calls them all by name. 
 How dear are the naines of our friends to us! 
 
CHRIST tHE CONPlDiNCJ FRIEND. l33 
 
 If we hear them spoken anywhere our hearts 
 bound in response. They thrill in our souls like 
 strains and tunes of most familiar and loved 
 music. Christ knows his own, not by looks, not 
 by characteristics, nor by walk or manner only, 
 but by name. He has a personal knowledge of 
 them and a personal interest in them. He never 
 forgets them. And they cling to Him. He is 
 all to them. The last name they speak is His 
 name. The One for whom they would dare the 
 most, for whom they would sacrifice the most, 
 all other friends, fame, property, life, is He. 
 They are devoted to Him. The friendship 
 mounts into fiery passion, into consuming love. 
 
 Observe here the basis of unity. Not only are 
 they one in Him, so consolidating the kingdom 
 which is gathering in the world, but they are 
 one of themselves. One fold, one shepherd. 
 They who separate themselves from the mem- 
 bers, separate themselves from the Head. That 
 they all may be one, was His prayer for His fol- 
 lowers. And it is delightful to see the unity of 
 the church, as drawing its common life from its 
 common love. It is enough for me that one is 
 Christ's. Our children get their Christ-name in 
 baptism : there they become the lambs of the 
 flock. But we get Christ Himself when we join 
 His body which is His church. And though we 
 may have outward denominations by which we 
 stand in the world, to be known by the world, 
 they should not separate us in our work or in 
 
\',H THE MODKL UFK. 
 
 our communion. Our unity rests in Christ. It 
 is sacred. We should wound Him if we drew 
 away from our brethren, for He is in them. 
 
 Out of this friendship starts the inspiration of 
 service. Great watchwords have rung in battle. 
 Caught up in the crisis of struggle, and passed 
 from mouth to mouth, they have been in all the 
 air, and have fired all hearts with irresistible 
 passion. They have saved whole armies from 
 rout, and have wakened courage beneath the ribs 
 of despair. 
 
 But there has been no watchword like the 
 name of Christ, and no- inspiration like the love 
 of Christ. 0!d men have felt it, kindling their 
 burned out ambitions. Children have felt it, cre- 
 ating new experience in their untried souls. It 
 has swept through all ranks, making prince and 
 beggar, scholar and dullard, one brotherhood in 
 the common service. All barriers have fallen 
 down before this sublimest inspiration, and one 
 object has risen supreme above creeds and 
 nationalities and inherited prejudices. Christ, 
 divine Saviour, infinite Friend, has overshad- 
 owed all the world. It is a marvel of marvels 
 how much men have been willing to do for Him, 
 and with what self-forgetful ness they have re- 
 sponded to His call for service. It is as though 
 there were but one name in all the world to live 
 for and one cause to die for. 
 
 We read a poem like " In Memoriam," and we 
 feel that the poet's friendship has peopled all the 
 
CHRTST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 135 
 
 world and all the universe with emblems and re- 
 minders of his lost love. They stand on eveiy 
 mountain-side, along every city path : they 
 breathe in the airs that blow from every land, 
 and flash on the rays of light that stream from 
 sun and star: they speak in the unnumbered 
 voices that sound in all the tones of nature and 
 in cathedral music and the melody of choirs : they 
 are as the sails of ships that, push forth from port, 
 and as the flags that fly toward the piers of home : 
 armies of men suggest them and the lonely pil. 
 grim as well. 
 
 " I find no place that does not breathe 
 tsonie gracious memory of my friend. 
 Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
 
 Love deeplier, darklier understood ; 
 
 Behold I dream a dream of good, 
 And mingle all the world with thee. 
 Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 
 
 1 hear thee when the waters run ; 
 
 Thou standest in the rising sun. 
 And in the setting thou art fair. 
 
 Though mixed with God and nature there, 
 I seem to love thee more and more." 
 
 And this, which is the poetry of human friend- 
 ship, is the reality of Christ-friendship. He is 
 all and in all, and life is but a poor offering to 
 bring to Him, and consecration to His name and 
 cause is the gladness of being. 
 
 And here we find the basis of prayer. Com- 
 munion with Christ on the terms of friendship, 
 
136 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 speaking with Him of the things that concern us 
 most, stating anxieties, and fears, and sorrows, 
 yes, and sins, and all great matters of experience, 
 to Him, as one would do in the utter confidence 
 of tried and genuine friendship ; asking the put- 
 ting forth of His ahnightiness and the shaping of 
 events in His wisdom, just as we would ask from 
 one who had given us proof that he wanted us 
 to ask ; what is there so true in prayer as this ? 
 This is insured by tlie place in which Christ 
 welcomes us. Not with the cringing, nor the 
 remoteness and formality of servants, do we draw 
 near to Him ; but in the warmth and confidence 
 of a mutual love we speak of all our desires, as 
 friend talketh with his friend. Prayer that can 
 stand on that basis is genuine and involves 
 mutual confidence. " The Lord said, shall I 
 hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?" 
 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, 
 as a man speaketh unto hisfriend." " The secret 
 of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 
 
 From this blessed friendship arises joyftibiess 
 in death. Because He lives we shall live also. 
 Whosoever liveth and believeth in Him can never 
 die. When death came to the family of Bethany, 
 whose home was His home, Christ said, " Our 
 friend Lazarus sleepeth : but 1 go that I may 
 awake him out of sleep." All His friends sleep, 
 sleep in Him ; but they will be awaked out of 
 sleep by Him. They leave other friends : but 
 they go to a closer union and friendship with 
 
CHRIST THK CONFIDING FRIEND. 137 
 
 Him. He will never leave nor forsake them. 
 This world is His : the other world is still more 
 His, for it has fuller revelations of Him, and the 
 things which are not known of Him here are 
 known of Him there. When then we draw near 
 to our departure it need not be with any gloom 
 or sorrow, but with the joyful anticipation of the 
 new meeting of friend with friend. 
 
 To such friendship, so full of all best privileges 
 and immunities, are we called. When wegather 
 at the Lord's table, it is the table of One who has 
 called us friends ; and therefore are we there. 
 He meets us as we come, and says, " Eat, O 
 friends: drink, O beloved." These symbols are the 
 pledges of the best friendship that this world has 
 known. It is a friendship that sanctifies all other 
 friendships. It is a friendship that survives all 
 other friendships. It is a friendship that glori- 
 fies all who are admitted to it. 
 
 Blessed are we if we value our calling ; if we 
 adhere to Christ ; if through changes and through 
 conflicts and trials we hold on with unfaltering 
 constancy to the hand of our dearest Friend ! 
 For that hand will surely lead us home. 
 
XII. 
 
 CHRIST IN SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 
 
 HREE times the Son of Man is repre- 
 sented as in tears. We cannot think of 
 Him as in a light or trivial mood. He 
 was here on serious, earnest, burdensome busi- 
 ness. Undoubtedly He wore an expression of 
 calm happiness as well as of intense sympathy. 
 The joy with which children sprang to His em- 
 brace indicates His loving and pleasant look. He 
 was an invited guest at a marriage festival of those 
 who knew Him, where His cheerful presence 
 gave to the blessed estate an uncommon bene- 
 diction. He closed His most tender parable 
 with the sentiment, " It was meet to make merry 
 and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and 
 is alive again : and was lost, and is found." The 
 poor and distressed ever came to Him with hope 
 and confidence : were attached to Him, and not 
 repulsed by any look of His. It was only willful 
 sinners who could not bear His majestic holiness. 
 We may believe that the multitudes who 
 thronged around Him were won by a tenderness 
 which touched their deepest sensibilities and by 
 a divine winsomeness which was a reflection of 
 His own heavenly glory and bliss. 
 
 [139] 
 
l-iO Till!; MoDKL LIFE. 
 
 But three times he is represented as a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief, as the weep- 
 ing Christ. 
 
 The first was in His sympathetic grief and 
 tender friendsliip for His friends, Martha and 
 Mary, when their brotiier Lazarus had died. 
 
 The second, was in His deep sorrow for Jeru- 
 salem, when from the Mount of Olives He looked 
 down upon its glory and thought of its approach- 
 ing (loom. 
 
 The third, was in the more than mortal agony 
 of Gethsemane, when alone He sunk under the 
 crushing weight of the burden which He bore 
 for the world. 
 
 In the first case, there was the silent flow of 
 tears as He walked with the bereaved sisters, 
 who, in answer to His question, Where have ye 
 laid him, had replied. Lord, come and see. 
 
 In the second case, it was with loud bursts of 
 grief and voices of lamentation which could be 
 heard by all the company who were going up 
 with Him to His triumphal cntr}- into that city 
 whose fate He so bewailed. 
 
 In the third case, it was with groans and 
 agonizing cries, when in agony He prayed more 
 earnestly and His sweat became as it were great 
 drops of blood falling down upon the ground. 
 
 "Jesus wept." This is the shortest sentence 
 of Scripture, but it holds the largest meaning. 
 It stands forth in the narrative, quite by itself, as 
 though printed in letters of gold. In that gospel 
 
SYMPATHY WITH THE SOUKOWINO. 141 
 
 which most fully declares the divinity of Christ, 
 was brought out this strongest trait of His 
 humanity. Jesus loved Martha and Mary and 
 their brother Lazarus: and they all loved Him 
 with devoted affection. Their home was His 
 home : and whenever He was in their neighbor- 
 hood He knew where He would be received 
 with the wannest welcome. From His work 
 in the gi^eat and wicked city He enjo3'ed the re- 
 tirement at evening in this quiet home of Bethany 
 and among these loving friends. 
 
 On a missionary tour, He received, one day, a 
 message from the sisters. Lord, behold, he whom 
 thou lovest is sick. When He reached the place 
 he had been in the tomb four days already. Very 
 touching was His meeting with the bereaved 
 sisters: and their loneliness and loss, and the 
 sorrowing words which they spoke of their 
 brother, and the trustful words which they 
 spoke to Christ, reached the deepest fountains 
 of His sympathy, and when He saw Mary weep- 
 ing and the friends who came with her also 
 weeping and wailing. His own tears flowed in 
 silence, and the Jews who saw it said, Behold, 
 how He loved him ! 
 
 It is a new revelation of Christ. Miracles had 
 shown His power. He had turned water into 
 wine. He had fed thousands with a few barley 
 loaves. He had stilled the tempest and walked 
 on the rocking sea. He had healed the sick, 
 and restored speech to the dumb, and given 
 
142 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 sight to the blind, and raised the dead to life. 
 He had spoken with authority, and not as the 
 scribes. He had indicated, by great words and 
 deeds. His title to a supreme divinity. But here 
 in His deep sympathy with beloved friends in 
 their sorrow He sliowed how strong and true 
 was His humanity. 
 
 That scene of sadness sanctifies Christ to us in 
 all our sorrows. We have not an High Priest 
 that cannot be touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities. The old prophecy was fulfilled 
 in Him, " Surely he hath borne our griefs and 
 carried our sorrows." All our bodily ills, all our 
 mental anguish, are within His tender S3nipath3' 
 and His sufficient help. When He was here, 
 it is told of Him that " He healed ail that were 
 sick," so that the old word was made true, 
 '' Himself-took our infirmities, and bare our dis- 
 eases." And what He was while on earth, that 
 is He now in the heavens, where He keeps 
 the names of all who love Him. In every sick 
 room He is present, more sympathetic than an}'^ 
 of His ministers, greater to heal than any physi- 
 cian. With you He watches the slow ebbing 
 of the life of one in whom 30ur life, all the 
 happiness of your life, is bound. The stealthy 
 progress of fatal disease is within His cogniz- 
 ance, and He ministers to the sick out uf the full- 
 ness of His grace. You have seen how the sick 
 rij)en in character, mature in all lovelv graces, 
 get the expression of heaven on their faces, and 
 
SYMPATHY WITH Tni<: SORROWING. 14.'{ 
 
 the disposition of heaven in their souls. You 
 have seen how those who naturally had a strong 
 fear of death, to which they were in bondage all 
 their life-time, have overcome all dread of that 
 cold stream through which our feet must pass and 
 have come to anticipate with calm serenity the 
 time when they should be summoned from home 
 and friends and all the endearments of this life. 
 You have seen the moral sublimity of that vic- 
 tory which has issued in immortality, when the 
 songs of Paradise have rung in earthly homes, and 
 the angels have come down to be the convoy of 
 the spirit released from the flesh. 
 
 You have seen how the old could joyfully 
 abandon that to which they had become used 
 throughout a lifetime, and how the young in the 
 full flush of anticipation could give up all that 
 they had fondly looked forward to that they 
 might obey the call to come up higher. All 
 this is of Christ. He whose silently flowing tears 
 were mingled with those of Mary and Martha, 
 has come with his tender sympathy to the sick 
 room and the dying bed, and has wrought the 
 patience of hope and the cheer of triumph in the 
 souls that he was fitting to dwell with Him. 
 And after the blow has fallen ; after the house- 
 hold has lost its head and the sister is plunged 
 into sadness for the brother who is no more. He 
 comes again to the home where He loved to 
 dwell and to the mourners who were alwa}'s 
 His friends, and says, *' I am the resurrection 
 
144: THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 and the life; he that believeth in me, though he 
 die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou 
 this ?" And then, through tears, the soul turns 
 to Him : "I have believed that thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of God." The tears of the Son 
 of man give revelation to the Son of God. In 
 every darkened home sits one with a form like 
 that of the Son of God. With every Mary and 
 Martha, with every sorrowing group on the way 
 to the grave, walks one who can say, and will say, 
 to the dead, Come forth. He mourns witli every 
 mourner. " Jesus wept." 
 
 We pass to the second instance. 
 
 *' And when He drew nigh, He saw the city, 
 and wept over it." The Greek language 
 expresses here, what our English tongue does 
 not, a difference between this weeping and the 
 weeping at the grave of Lazarus. There it is 
 edocHftvffev, from the verb to shed tears : here it 
 is i'uXavGsy, from the verb to wail, implying not 
 only the shedding of tears, but also every 
 external expression of grief. Accompanied by 
 a great multitude of His disciples, our Lord had 
 left Bethany for a triumphal entry into 
 Jerusalem, two miles awa}'. As the procession 
 gained the summit of the Mount of Olives, the 
 renowned city of the world lay in grand 
 panorama before them. Ever}' spire sprung to 
 the glittering sky, and the golden roof and the 
 white marble of the temple and of palaces shone 
 
SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 145 
 
 in the glory of morning sunshine. On the 
 whole earth there was then no such sight as 
 that. The temple was the wonder of all lands. 
 Old associations made Jerusalem the one sacred 
 city. There Almighty God had enthroned His 
 worship and revealed His glory. 
 
 Yet that city, proud and glorious, was now 
 about to reject Christ, its Messiah, once and 
 (orever. 
 
 He was coming to it with His divine love, 
 with His offers of salvation, to make it a 
 perpetual praise and a joy to the whole earth. 
 But He foresaw the melancholy result — His 
 betrayal, trial, mocking, crucifixion. From the 
 Mount of Olives He saw on another mount a 
 ^ross, and for Him. He saw also the end, the 
 pitiful doom, for the city: how another wall, of 
 Roman besiegers, should be built outside its 
 wall ; how those unconquered legions of the 
 world's mistress should surround it; how the 
 children within it should be dashed to death ; 
 liow its strong ramparts should be leveled and 
 be buried as they are to-day twenty feet under 
 ground ; and how, alas ! all this temporal ruin 
 should be the prophecy of an eternal ruin for 
 the souls of its people. 
 
 Before, at the grave. He had wept in silence. 
 Here, over the doomed city. He wept in loud 
 lamentation. Before, he wept ior oihtrs' sorrow. 
 Here, He wept for others' sin. 
 
14:6 THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 And as much as sin is <^reater and sadder tliaii 
 sorrow, so greater and deeper was his grief. 
 
 It was the sin of Jerusalem which caused this 
 profound sorrow of the Son of Man. It would 
 be cast down from its worldly throne. The wor- 
 ship of its temple would be obliterated. A curse 
 would rest on its people. 
 
 Years after its overthrow, an attempt was 
 made to rebuild it, but fires burst forth from its 
 foundations and drove the builders awa3\ It 
 was doomed. 
 
 Wherever there is sin there is a sorrowing 
 Saviour. He brings the blessings of His salva- 
 tion to guilty men. They are free to accept or 
 to reject them. But if they decide to reject, 
 there is One who weeps for them, if they do 
 not for themselves. His compassionate sorrow 
 follows them to the end. 
 
 He has a heart of love for even His enemies. 
 He would not have them to be lost. He knows 
 the bitterness of sin's end, the remedilessness of 
 the sinner's overthrow. His mind goes on beyond 
 the present, where their minds stop, into the 
 future with its certain misery, with its hopeless 
 and endless sorrow. He knows the meaning of 
 hell, the terrible vvoe of being lost, the dreadful 
 society of devils, the utter anguish of final 
 despair. He looks beyond thoughtless life, 
 beyond the gloom of death, beyond the sentence 
 of banishment, into the countless ages of the 
 soul's wretchedness, into the unbroken ioneli- 
 
SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 147 
 
 ness and sorrow of a world on which no day- 
 light rises, in which no glad song is heard, where 
 are no greetings of friendship, throughout whose 
 gloomy boundaries no gospel is heard forever- 
 more. He knows the facts of the case, and appre- 
 ciates them. His eyes overflow with tears as 
 He looks on any unrepentant sinner. His heart 
 breaks with sorrow, as He feels for any penitent 
 rejector of His grace. You laugh your life 
 away. But on Olivet stands one who laments your 
 folly and presumption. You squander your 
 golden opportunities. But a divine Saviour, 
 with unsounded pathos, mourns for your wretch- 
 ed choice. Over you, as over miserable Jerusa- 
 lem, He laments, in words, which like minor 
 music, have sobbed through the centuries, say- 
 ing : If thou hadst known, even thou, in this 
 day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! 
 but now they are hid from thine eyes. He 
 laments your spiritual blindness : sees how Satan 
 is leading you blindfold to a ruin whose mourn- 
 fulness mocks all thought : and though He 
 would save you, understands that you know not 
 the time of your visitation. 
 
 Do we so weep for sinners? We do not know 
 when the fatal line is passed. We do not know 
 when the last hour of hope has sounded. We 
 do not know when the eye is glazed forever. 
 We do not know when the hardening of the 
 heart has progressed to the last extremit3^ We 
 do not know when the candidacy for hell has 
 
148 THK MODEF, I.IPK. 
 
 ripened into reprobation. We hope, and hope, 
 and hope on. 
 
 We pass to the tliird instance. 
 
 It is described in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 " Who in the days of His flesh, having offered 
 up prayers and supplications with strong crying 
 and tears unto Him that was able to save 
 Him from death." This refers to His experience 
 in Gethsemane. Into that lonely garden He had 
 retired, leaving eight apostles just outside its 
 boundary, taking three apostles into its recesses, 
 and then going alone into the still deeper shadow 
 of its olive trees. We do not know what that 
 experience was. Words are poor to describe it. 
 There were no human witnesses of it. I give 
 now the language of Scripture. He began 
 to be sorrowful and sore troubled. He said, 
 *' My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
 death." He fell on the ground, and prayed that 
 if it were possible the hour might pass away 
 from Him. He said, " Father, remove this cup 
 from me ; howbeit, not what I will, but what thou 
 wilt." " And there appeared unto Him an angel 
 from heaven, strengthening Him. And being 
 in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His 
 sweat became as it were great drops of blood 
 falling down upon the ground." 
 
 In this loneliness and sorrow, with strong cr}-- 
 ing and tears, was the experience of the Saviour 
 in the work of our redemption. The sins of the 
 world were upon Him. It was more than He 
 
STMPATFIY WITH THE SORROWING. 149 
 
 could bear alone. It was not the agony of 
 death: that came later, upon the cross. It was 
 the agony of soul. It was more than death. It 
 was bearing the death of all sinners. Tlie agony 
 of Gethsemane was a part of the passion which 
 culminated on Calvary. 
 
 It was the prepai^ation for the cross. 
 
 You that have eyes can see Him there. 
 
 You that have ears can hear His mournful 
 sorrow. 
 
 You that have hearts can feel some sympathy 
 for that Sufferer, who is more than man, who is 
 suffering for you ! 
 
 Out of those dismal shadows breaks the 
 voice of piteous petition, crying to God for 
 relief. The voice that hushed the turbulence of 
 storms, that bid the dead come forth from tombs, 
 there trembles in anguish, in cries almost of des- 
 pair. Dimly there, now on His knees with hands 
 uplifted to the frowning skies, then prone on 
 the cold earth in writhing sufTering, is the form 
 that entered the door of Mary and Martha with 
 benediction, that stood among the gathered 
 multitudes as the representative of heavenly 
 blessings. A strong angel, swiftly flying from 
 the appalled heavens, lifts up the wounded man 
 of sorrows, and girds Him with the strength 
 of God. Yet it is only that He may pray more 
 earnestly. The paroxysm of agony returns upon 
 Hini with redoubled force and He is covered 
 
150 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 with drops of blood which fall down upon the 
 ground. 
 
 It is the cost of sin. It is the burden of our 
 woe that crushes Him. It is expiation for us 
 that rends Him with such frightful torture. 
 The cup which belonged to us to drink is that 
 which could not be removed from his sinless lips. 
 His strong crying and tears measure our release 
 from a pitiless doom. 
 
 These are the three instances of the tears of 
 Chi'ist : Bet Jinny, Olivet, mournful Gethsematie. 
 Tears of silent sympath}' : voiceful lamentations 
 over a sinful city: strong cries of agony under 
 the burden of the world's redemption. 
 
 Tears for your sorrow : tears for your sin ; 
 tears for your salvation : tears that you might 
 weep not in vain : tears that you may weep 
 nevermore again ; that you may be of those for 
 whom God " shall wipe away every tear from 
 their eyes." Sorrow you will have. This world 
 is a " vale of tears." Sacred circles must be 
 broken. Disappointed hopes, loncdiness, want, 
 grief, these are the terms of human life. 
 
 With all that is joyous; with the sweetness of 
 blessed friendship : with the exuberance of 3'outh 
 and the calm dcliglit of age ; with the charm of 
 music and the ministr}- of art and the solace of 
 truth : there must be the sorrow of partings and 
 the sense of loss. Sometime we shall walk alone. 
 Somewhere we shall know our weakness. 
 
SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 151 
 
 We shall need Him who mingled His sorrow 
 with that of the sisters of Bethany. 
 
 Sin is a present and a gloomy reality. It 
 taints our blood ; it spoils the fair earth ; it 
 forces on us the curse of God. From it there 
 would be no relief, no redemption, were it not 
 for the sympathy and the sorrow and the suffer- 
 ing of the Son of God. He who looked down 
 from Olivet on sinful Jerusalem with loud 
 laments for its folly and its guilt, is equally 
 moved in our behalf. He discerns the day of 
 our visitation. And now, while the offer of His 
 salvation is open, and while we have the oppor- 
 tunity to repent and believe and be saved, He 
 would have us fly to the shelter of His cross, to 
 the welcome of His arms. 
 
 Learn these melancholy lessons of the Sav- 
 iour's sorrow. Walk with Him to the tomb of 
 Bethany. Stand among the rejoicing multi- 
 tude on the summit of the Mount of Olives, 
 hushed by the sorrows of their Lord. And, 
 then, enter the shadows of sad Gethsemane. 
 
 And let our hearts be broken, with fullest 
 gratitude, with deepest repentance. 
 
XIII. 
 
 CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 
 
 HE great artists have chosen for their im- 
 mortal works the impressive events in 
 the life of Christ. The great galleries 
 of older lands contain nothing so attractive as 
 the pictures which represent to us the Lord. 
 The holy cathedrals are made more sacred by 
 those unrivaled paintings which set forth the 
 life and the d3'ing of Him for whose glory the 
 temple itself was reared. Scenes in nature are 
 subordinate to the Author of nature. Repre- 
 sentations of the greatest human achievements 
 cannot rival those which relate to Him in whom 
 all men live. No pastoral scene so moves our 
 hearts as the sacrifice of the Lamb who was slain 
 for our sins. Before every leader is He who 
 leads the race from their dreadful bondage out 
 into the liberty of the sons of God. Christ's 
 work is foremost. Christ's person stands out in 
 unrivaled prominence. Sacred and high art 
 can select nothing which will live in the life of the 
 ages like the undimmed deeds and the eventful 
 experiences of the Lord. Men sweep across the 
 stage as in a drama : and the results of their life- 
 work pass into oblivion. But the divine Re- 
 
 [153] 
 
loi THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 deemcr moves on in unclianging pre-eminence,the 
 foremost figure of the world's marvelous history, 
 the head of a kingdom whose progress widens 
 with the centuries and whose power augments 
 from age to age as its conquests include more 
 hearts and divers nationalities. 
 
 One scene has been wrought by the hand of a 
 great Master, into an impressive picture, which, 
 once seen, cannot be forgotten. It is in the open 
 way of the country of Galilee on a roadside 
 leading to Jerusalem, that city of joy and of 
 glory to which all the tribes went up for their 
 national festivals, that a striking group of stal- 
 wart men are represented as walking forward. 
 One among them is a Leader and a teacher. He 
 had been telling them in His wonderful way of 
 the great things of His kingdom and of Himself, 
 so that they were " astonished at His words," 
 so that " they were astonished out of measure." 
 As they went forward, as they drew nearer to 
 the time and the place of His sufferings, a kind 
 of sublime enthusiasm possesses Him ; and He 
 moves in rapt and absorbed devotion, and with 
 quickened step, to the front of the company, as 
 though hastening to the sacrifice ! A holy light 
 kindles His whole countenance and His entire 
 person assumes an air of majesty. 
 
 As they look upon Him they sec the Divinity 
 that is in Him registering itself in every ex- 
 pression and every step. It is more than an 
 intrepid leader who is marshaling them for the 
 
CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 155 
 
 trial. It is the God in Christ! "And Jesus 
 went before them." They are awed by the 
 sight. It is a new revehition of their Master. 
 They do not know Him yet. They are begin- 
 ning to comprehend the wonderful faculties of 
 their divine Leader. They feel how far He is 
 above them. Dim dawnings of the truth of 
 which He has long taught them flash and lighten 
 in their minds. 
 
 " And they were amazed ; and as they followed 
 they were afraid." It was not the fear of the 
 result. It was the aive of Him that was upon 
 them. They were walking now in the footsteps 
 of one whom they could not fathom : on whom 
 were the signals of divinity : the mystery of 
 whose Being and whose work He was evidently 
 leading them to the quick solution of. He could 
 not wait. A holy passion was burning within 
 Him, preparatory to the great final passion. 
 The world was waiting to be saved : He would 
 hasten to its salvation. One over mastering 
 purpose controlled all others, absorbed all 
 thoughts, all plans, all friendships, and in the 
 strength of it He moved right forward, leading 
 His disciples and leaving to them the impressive 
 memory of His sublime and courageous devo- 
 tion. 
 
 I have thought that in this scene on the high- 
 way of Galilee we might get the suggestion of 
 what Jesus is and is to be to us on many paths: 
 of what He is ?is going before His people. 
 
156 THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 So we come to The Antecedence of Christ. 
 
 His footsteps are foregoing in the ways of our 
 human life. It is pleasant to think that Christ 
 has been here. There is a pcciih'ar charm in 
 the places that have been associated with the 
 daily lives of good great men. We like to feel, 
 as we visit the homes and the haunts of such, 
 here dwelt the great scholar, the thrilling singer, 
 the devoted patriot, the earnest saint. On 
 these paths he often walked : in these bowers he 
 refreshed himself. We are sitting in the seat he 
 occupied. We are looking on the beautiful 
 objects which feasted his siglit. Out of the rich 
 couit of Magdalen College at Oxford, by the 
 banks of the little Cherwell and under shadowy 
 old trees, is a walk which is still called 
 " Addison's walk." There he loved to go. At 
 Forest Hill near Oxford, where Milton lived, one 
 feels, these are the very paths on which the great 
 Puritan scholar and poet walked : tiiese are the 
 charming scenes on which he gazed and from 
 which he caught his inspiration. As he sings: 
 
 " Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 
 Whilst the landscape round it measures." 
 
 At Lincoln College are the very rooms where 
 John Wesley studied. Helvellyn is to the scholar 
 another Parnassus because he feels as he climbs 
 its steeps that the feet of Scott and Wordsworth 
 and Southey in company have walked there be- 
 
CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 151 
 
 fore him. The chair of Calvin is still preserved 
 in the pulpit where he preached. The oak still 
 grows on the spot where Luther burned the 
 Papal bull. The world is full of such associations. 
 The world is made holier and lovelier by them. 
 We are held to it the stronger because these 
 worthy ones have had their experience in it. 
 And if this is so of our fellow-men how much 
 stronger and dearer the impression from the an- 
 tecedence of Christ in it! He has been here. 
 He has dwelt among us. He has walked on these 
 ways. He has looked upon these scenes. He 
 hasfelt the throb and stir and glow of this human 
 life. The Son of God has been the Son of man. 
 It is not a difficult tiling, as it seems to me, to 
 accept the Dlvviity of Christ: I have more sym- 
 pathy with those who fail to comprehend His 
 full humanity. His whole life is crowded with 
 the incontestable proofs that He was more 
 than man. Divinity flames in speech and act 
 and impressive presence ; in the unrepressed 
 witness of evil spirits and the joyful voices of 
 angels; in the subordination of nature and in the 
 decisive testimony of the Father. Yet He was 
 also man, with a human body and a reasonable 
 soul. It behooved Him to be made like imto His 
 brethren. He was born as we are born. He 
 grew in stature and in wisdom. His childhood 
 was under the conditions of tutelage and obedi- 
 ence. His manhood was tested by temptation 
 and discipline and the variety of earthly trial. 
 
158 TlIK MODEL LIFK. 
 
 He was nol lifted above the lot, nor shielded 
 from the vicissitudes, of our mortal life. Even 
 the divinity, with which His humanity was in- 
 timately associated, did not so hedge Him round 
 that He did not feel as we feel, rejoicing in the 
 things in which we rejoice and saddened by the 
 things that bring us sorrow. On all the ways of 
 our human life His blessed footsteps are fore- 
 going. Everywhere we may say, Jesus has been 
 here before us. The prints of His feet are on 
 the earth. He walked here as a man before us. 
 He had a human body and it was susceptible to 
 the influences which act upon us. A day of 
 hard labor or long travel brought to Him weari- 
 ness. He experienced physical exhaustion, and He 
 gained restoration from sleep and quietness and 
 the ministry of attentive friendship. He was 
 sensitive to pain. The thorn that wounds us 
 wounded Him, The blow that would make our 
 nerves quiver shocked all the sensibilities of 
 His refined organism. The nail, the spear, met 
 acutest response to their dreadful wounding. 
 His body was alive at every point; every fibre 
 was charged with intensest sensitiveness. His 
 eye reveled in the loveliness of the lily and the 
 glories of the western sky. His responsive ear 
 caught the majestic music of nature and thrilled 
 at the matchless songs of birds. He was in 
 quick sympathy with nature. He saw more in 
 its manifold moods and its wondrous vestures 
 and its beaming glories than our feebler vis- 
 
CHEisT THE Zealous leader. 159 
 
 ion can discern. While He suffered more He 
 also enjoyed more. His whole bodily system 
 and nature were attuned to finer harmonies and 
 to keener pangs than belong to'men. So He was 
 Leader of all, ranking all, preeminent among 
 them, above them, as before them. 
 
 He had also a human mind. His intellectual 
 faculties were developed by observation and 
 study and experience. He grew in wisdom. 
 His feelings were powerfully acted upon by what 
 He saw of human conduct and by what He knew 
 of the inevitable and far-reaching results of 
 actions. His pitiful lament for human weakness 
 and wretchedness, sounds like the voice of a 
 brother in his agony. His heart is almost 
 broken. While His passions flamed with a holy 
 indignation against sinners who were bold and 
 bad in their iniquity. He was touched by the 
 world's great sorrows, which surged in upon 
 His great nature like waves, moaning and broken. 
 To all the afflicted He was a friend. It was a joy 
 to Him that by His power, He could rescue from 
 death the son of a lonely widow, and give him 
 back to his mother: that He could heal the sick : 
 that He could restore the lame and comfort the 
 distressed, and be the Healer of the world's 
 wounds. 
 
 His whole life was controlled by the overmas- 
 tering purpose to be about His Father's business 
 and for the glory of God to save the world. 
 Temptations came. The worldly and even the 
 
160 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Satanic appeal was made to Him : but He had 
 no vulnerable point. There was no jcjint in the 
 harness that panoplied the Son of God. His whole 
 mind and soul and strength were enlisted in the 
 one work that he had to do. He went before 
 all His followers in His mental devotion to His 
 absorbing and loving service. The mind that 
 was in Christ should be in all of us. Over the 
 w'orld's claims and all the demands of friendship 
 and ambition and business, should be the one 
 claim of the race to be saved. For this should 
 be the expenditure of choicest tliought, the quick- 
 ening of intensest feeling and the devotion of 
 solemn, sacramental purpose. 
 
 Christ had also a hiivian experience. He was 
 made like unto His brethren. He was a member 
 of a certain family. His voice uttered the dear 
 names of father and mother and brother and 
 sister. He loved and was loved. There were 
 those whom He called preeminently His friends. 
 Love and devotion and sympathy were dear to 
 Him. After days of wearing toil and peril, He 
 eagerly sought the home at Bethany and was re- 
 freshed in its peace and rest and loving hearts 
 and hands. In the coldness and desertion of the 
 world, He turned with longing tenderness to 
 His disciples, with the question, " Will ye also 
 go away ?" He reached out for comfort and 
 support. Having loved His own which were 
 in the world He loved them unto the end. 
 
 He felt also the might and woe of trials. He 
 
CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 161 
 
 was despised and rejected by those whom He came 
 to save. He was abandoned and betrayed by one 
 whom He had called into his own family. Though 
 He had entered Jerusalem as a King, He was led 
 out of it as a malefactor. So honor and shame, 
 joy and pain, love and cruelty, were mingled in 
 His human experience. In it all He went before 
 His people, in their varied and mingled experi- 
 ence, I might make this more personal to us by 
 saying that He has gone before each one of us in 
 the allotments of our earthly life. We have a 
 personal experience: we walk each one in his 
 own way: in some particular in a different way 
 from that of any other. Though we have a life 
 that is common to our fellows, we also have one 
 that is luicommonand particular. While we are 
 allied to our brethren, we are separated from 
 them. They cannot know all that we know, 
 nor feel all that we feel. But we are not sepa- 
 rated from Christ. So wide was His experience, 
 so much was He able to take in of the life of 
 men, that it is as if He had walked on every way 
 on which His people go. And I venture to 
 believe that the universal thought and feeling of 
 all Christians in the manifold ways of their earthly 
 life, are, that Christ has been there before them, 
 so that they can state their case to Him and go 
 to Him with the assurance that He can feel for 
 them, (hat He has known something of it by his 
 own earthly discipline, as though He had walked 
 on that very path, and been through that very 
 
102 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 door, and left His blessed footsteps for them to 
 walk in. 
 
 The Lord became man. The Word became 
 flesh and dwelt among us. Our whole life gels 
 its deepest significance from the fact that this 
 ' has also been His life. We look on the world 
 differently when we think of it as sanctified and 
 glorified by the life of its Creator upon it. We 
 walk with greater trust and firmer hope and more 
 abundant joy because we are on paths where the 
 Lord, our Lord, went before us. 
 
 He has gone before us in the way of Atonement. 
 It was a great problem to solve, how sinful men 
 could be restored to favor and union with God. 
 Probably there was but one way in which this 
 might be ; by the voluntar)' sacrifice of the Son 
 of God. No expedients that lay within the con- 
 ditions of human conduct or offering could have 
 availed. No intervention, as of angels, could 
 have secured the needful reconciliation. On 
 the one hand man was lost. The fact of sin was 
 fatal. It could not be overlooked. It could not 
 be forgfiven. The interests of the world and of 
 other worlds, the sanctity of the divine law and 
 its claim on moral beings, required satisfaction. 
 God alone could help. He who was injured, 
 whose authority was insulted, was the only being 
 who could interpose to sustain the law and tt) 
 save the sinner. God enduring on account of 
 sin and for sin ; God proving in His own person 
 and bv His own suffering the worth and sanctity 
 
CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 163 
 
 of the broken law, as well as the value oi the lost 
 soul ; would make atonement possible. 
 
 This was the work of Christ. He went for- 
 ward to meet the claims of this necessity : going 
 before every sinner to make reconciliation for 
 him with God possible: leading the race out of 
 bondage, by a new and living way, He came to 
 save that which was lost. God sent His Son in- 
 to the world that the world through Him might 
 be saved. Christ hath once suffered for sins that 
 He might bring us to God. We are to follow 
 Him. He has gone before us on this way of 
 reconciliation. He has suffered that we may be 
 free from endless suffering. He has borne the 
 cross that the burden of sin may be lifted from 
 us. He died upon the cross that we might gain 
 everlasting life. 
 
 He has gone before us into the heavenly rewards. 
 He was on the earth, walking before His people 
 on these paths of earthly experience, at last 
 dying to open the way of Atonement. But His 
 home was on high. His enipty throne was 
 waiting for the King to return and to receive 
 His own. Praises that had been specially for 
 Him had been hushed, and golden harps, during 
 all the years of His absence, had stood silent 
 and unstrung. His course on earth had been 
 eagerly watched by angels who loved and 
 honored Him and who would gladly have taken 
 His place if their intervention could have 
 availed. Their intense interest is shown by 
 
lf)4 TIIK MODEL IJFE. 
 
 their appearance at times to comfort and 
 strengthen Him in the terrible sufferings that 
 He underwent, and in His own declaration that 
 legions of them would gladly and quickly move 
 to His rescue. They had seen the final act and 
 they knew that He was to return on high. 
 " For Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to 
 appear in the presence of God for us." " 1 go," 
 He said to His saddened disciples, " to prepare a 
 place for you, and I will come again and receive 
 you unto myself that where I am there ye may 
 be also." For us who love Him and before us He 
 has returned to His home and His throne and 
 His Father. " Now to appear in the presence 
 of God for us." For us He careth there. He 
 has a work for us there, as He had here. Not 
 till the last redeemed man is brought salely 
 within the heaven that contains the Lord will His 
 thoughts turn awa}' from the world on which He 
 achieved salvation. As He was Redeemer, He 
 is Intercessor. He presents the merits of His 
 sacrifice as an argument and a reason why we 
 should be saved. He stands for us, in His 
 might and in His merits and in His mediation 
 and nothing can turn away the Father's favor, 
 nothing jan pluck us out of the Father's hand. 
 If He had not risen from the dead and arisen to 
 heaven, there would have been no assurance of 
 (Hir victory. Now the bright pathwav on which 
 He has gone up is open for us and we shall rise 
 to be with Him where He is. We follow where 
 
CflRlSt THE ZEALOtrS LEADER. 165 
 
 He leads. We too shall appear in the presence 
 of God, " whither the Forerunner, Jesus, is for 
 us entered." He has opened the way. He has 
 prepared the place: we walk in His footsteps 
 and reach His royal home. 
 
 Nor does even this end His leadership. Among 
 the blessed scenes which the Scriptures give of 
 the heavenly world, of the happiness and rest and 
 royalty of the saints, is this: "For the Lamb, which 
 is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them and 
 shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." 
 The Lamb shall lead them. Into the blessed 
 scenes of that radiant and glorious world, into 
 its everflowing sources of happiness, into its ex- 
 alted and happy society, into its service which 
 is pleasure and its pleasures which are pure. He 
 shall lead them who led them throug^h the world 
 and led them to heaven. This Leadership is eter- 
 nal. His dear footsteps will be forever forego- 
 ing. Those who have followed Him on earth 
 will follow Him in heaven. Those who have 
 followed Him in service will follow Him in glory. 
 Those who have followed Him bearing- crosses 
 will follow Him wearing crowns. The Lamb 
 shall lead them. With His infinite knowledge 
 and love and power, with His control of all the 
 universe, He shall lead them : calling them all by 
 name, owning them as brethren, rejoicing to 
 admit them to heirship with Himself. 
 
 There have been great leaders of men. There 
 
U){j THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 have been those, from time to time, who have 
 outranked their fellow-nien and risen by the vol- 
 untary consent of others to thrones. Their high 
 intelligence, their fine capacity, their lordly man- 
 ners, their noble presence, some extraordinary 
 qualit}', dazzling genius or executive force or 
 magnetic attraction, have invested them with 
 command or preeminence and they have had the 
 following of nations or wider communities, or 
 stood at the head of the world. By their uncon- 
 querable energy or steady ambition or trusted 
 goodness the}^ have led forward the race and 
 left their names as a heritage or a talisman to the 
 luture. All through time other races and gener- 
 ations are roused and led by the call of their 
 great names. 
 
 But there has been no Leader like the Lord. 
 When Jesus goes before it is wise and safe to fol- 
 low. He leads out of difficulty and danger, out 
 of sin and sorrow ; He leads through the world's 
 temptations and trials and conflicts ; He leads to 
 heaven's glory and unceasing joy and He leads 
 in heaven to experiences beyond our present 
 thought and fancying, to scenes full of beauty, 
 and to truth full of delight, and to a wealth of 
 satisfaction which will only augment forever. 
 
 Clearly and sweetly then upon our hearing 
 falls the voice of Christ, Follow mc ! Where He 
 goes before us let us joyfully follow. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 167 
 
 ' He goes before ! And so we may not look 
 Backward at all, but onward evermore : 
 
 Keeping in sight the blessed path He took. 
 
 Patient to bear each cross He meekly bore : 
 
 Trusting His wisdom in the darkest hour : 
 
 O'ercoming every trial through His power !" 
 
THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 
 Typogravure— Rubens 
 
XIV. 
 
 CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 
 
 OUR hundred years ago, on the wall 
 of the refectory of an old monastery in 
 Milan, Leonardo da Vinci painted his 
 great picture of the Last Supper, in which, al- 
 though the work is sadly defaced and faded, 
 may still be recognized the majesty and solem- 
 nity of the Master, as He stated to the agitated 
 group of His apostles the tragic fact of his 
 betrayal. During the eventful years of His 
 earthly ministry they had shared with him the 
 trials and successes of His wonderful career: 
 they had learned something of the greatness of 
 His character and the exaltedness of His pur- 
 pose and the depth of His mercy : and it was 
 with intense feeling and melancholy apprehen- 
 sion that they gathered at this final feast with 
 Him. They had noticed the urgency with 
 which He had approached it, the importance 
 which He had attached to it, the careful prepar- 
 ation which He had made for it. Christian art 
 has only followed Christian thought when it 
 wrought its most renowned works in commem- 
 
 [169] 
 
170 THK Mot)KL LIFE. 
 
 oration of an event which was to be perpetuated 
 through the Christian ages. 
 
 The very first words of our Lord, as He 
 sat down with the Apostles, revealed the depth 
 of His emotion and the solemn meanings which 
 the occasion held : " With desire I have desired 
 to eat this passover with you before I suffer." 
 A greater Passover was to be transacted. A 
 greater Paschal Lamb was to be slain. A diviner 
 work was to be wrought. The Hebrew passover 
 was for one people : this was to be for the whole 
 world. That celebrated the deliverance of a 
 single nation : this the redemption of the race. 
 That was observed wherever Israelites dwelt: 
 this was to be observed by dwellers in all 
 the lands of the earth. Let us trace, as we may, 
 the reasons for this absorbing longing of Christ 
 to partake of that passover with His Apostles. 
 He had sat down with them at other passovers. 
 For more than thirty years He had observed 
 with His people this great commemorative 
 festival. But the climax of the old economy was 
 at hand. Its ancient types were to be fulfilled in 
 Him. Its sacred rites were to be absorbed 
 in the simpler ceremonial of the new dispensation. 
 The blood that had been shed for a thousand 
 years on the sacrificial altars was to be super- 
 seded by the shed blood that once for all was to 
 take away the sins of the world. Redemption, 
 for which the race had waited, for which toiling 
 minds had struggled in vain, was to be fully 
 
CftRISt AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 171 
 
 accomplished by His own death upon the 
 cross. 
 
 The time of tlie passion was drawing near. 
 Calvaiy rose before Him. A few days more, and 
 the great atoning sacrifice would be made. He 
 foresaw it all. The dreadful events crowded 
 into His mind and filled His imagination with 
 their phantoms. He knew that Gethsemane 
 must be endured ; that Golgotha must be 
 climbed ; that alone He must tread the wine- 
 press of the wrath of God ; that on His unsup- 
 ported shoulders must be borne the sins of the 
 world. The thought of it all burned within Him 
 like a devouring flame. The mental fever fired 
 His whole nature. He would hasten to it. 
 " How am I straitened," He said, ** until it be 
 accomplished ! With desire have 1 desired to 
 eat this passover with you before I suffer !" Ah ! 
 that suffering was in His mind. The bitter cup 
 that He was to drink ! And he would drink it. 
 He had come from heaven to do this work, and 
 He would have it done. There is a mental pro- 
 cess by which, in view of a supreme act, the 
 whole mental power is centered upon that act, and 
 everything contributes to its accomplishment. 
 The love of Christ for sinners made Him long for 
 the occasion of this passover, during which the 
 critical and crucial event should occur by which 
 their salvation should be achieved. " It is as if 
 He longs for the death which is to give life to 
 
172 THE MODEL LIKE. 
 
 the world." He would, if possible, shorten the 
 delay, and speed the issue. 
 
 Everything, so far in His life, had been work- 
 ing toward this one fateful end. All His toil, all 
 His teaching, all His sublime miracles, all His 
 disinterested self-denial, were His personal 
 contributions to the final bestowment of Himself 
 as a willing sacrifice for man's deliverance. At 
 this passover He intended to transform the 
 ancient feast into a memorial Supper of His 
 supreme love for sinners. He looked forward to 
 it, therefore, with deepest interest. It would be 
 the annulling of that which was typical and tran- 
 sient and contracted, and its transference into a 
 commemoration that would become permanent 
 and world-wide and which would keep alive by 
 its simple but suggestive symbols a spiritual 
 redemption, in comparison with which the physi- 
 cal preservation of the Hebrew people would be 
 unworthy of mention. He rejoiced that the 
 better economy was to supplant the earlier and 
 preparatory one. 
 
 Evidently, too, His mind went forward in 
 thought of the consummation of the earthly 
 memorial in the communion of the redeemed 
 Church in heaven. " For I say unto you, I shall 
 not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of 
 God." He knew what the glory is of that estate 
 into which they will be finally admitted, who 
 share in His sufferings below, who are loyal to 
 Him in their day of trial. At this passover. He 
 
CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 173 
 
 would meet with His chosen friends, " His little 
 children " as He tenderl}^ called them, in condi- 
 tions of anxiety and gloom : but with them He 
 would look forward to the glory which the 
 Father had given Him, and which He would 
 give to them, to the tranquility of a place which 
 would be prepared for them, and to the rest of 
 a heavenly home. We may believe, also, that 
 in the approach of the awful tragedy, He wanted 
 the fellowship ind sympathy of those who were 
 His chosen friends. He said. With desire, I have 
 desired to eat this passover ivith you before I 
 suffer. So closely did He connect His suffering 
 with this interview with them ! They had been 
 with him in all His ministry, and He had made 
 them confidants of His purposes and His acts. 
 Although they did not fully comprehend Him, 
 groping, as they did, their way slowly out of their 
 Jewish prejudices, yet they had been in a meas- 
 ure, true to Him. They had made mistakes. 
 They had done things which grieved Him, 
 which sometimes provoked Him. But they had 
 been His best earthly friends. And He was a 
 man, and nothing essentially human was foreign 
 to Him. 
 
 Therefore, when darkness was gathering 
 around Him, when a trial, greatest of all trials 
 that human nature ever bore, was instant, He 
 wanted the succor of His friends. Their blessed 
 sympathy would gird Him for His task. In 
 their strength He would be strengthened for 
 
174 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 endurance. We know how, afterward, when the 
 consternation of His sufferings fell on Him, He 
 took with Him into the depths of Gethsemane 
 three of His most trusted disciples, and said to 
 them, " Watch with me." We recall His word 
 to them, " Rise and pray," when He was exhaus- 
 ted by the agony from which His own pra3'er 
 had not saved Him. We recall the silent horror 
 which He felt when at His own table His be- 
 trayer sat, with the mask of hypocrisy upon his 
 demon face, his polluted soul consigned by him- 
 self to Satan, when the professed friend who had 
 eaten bread with Him, who had been with Him 
 in work and in worship, foully lifted up his heel 
 against Him. His whole nature prized true 
 friendship, shrunk from the treachery of pro- 
 fessed friendship. Christ was a man, and we 
 can, even from our human stand-point, form a 
 feeble estimate of His great recoil from one who 
 had proved himself to be an ingrate and a traitor, 
 and His longing for the cheering sympathy of 
 those who truly loved Him. 
 
 He did not wish to be alone. No one, indeed, 
 could bear for Him the burden of human sins, 
 nor carry for Him the load of human sorrows: 
 but His friends. His dear children, those who 
 owed everything most precious in their lives to 
 Him, could stand by Him, could help Him by 
 their loving looks and their sympathizing words 
 and their souls saddened by His sorrow : they 
 could watch with Him: they could rise and 
 
CHRIST AT THE COMMIi:MORA.TIVE FEAST. 175 
 
 pray : they could go with Him to the judgment- 
 hall : they could boldly say that they were the 
 friends of the Nazarene : they could protest 
 against His illegal arrest and trial : they could 
 smite His assailants with the sword : they could 
 keep close to Him as He bore the cross and weep 
 while He suffered on Calvary. Jesus would 
 have prized their personal devotion. He had 
 the feelings of a man. And who can say that the 
 Godhead, enclothed in the human form, was 
 not, in this, in sympathy with the manhood of 
 Christ ? 
 
 He desired, also, to prepare them for the catas- 
 trophe which was near: to, once more, do for 
 them what he could, before the blow should fall 
 with its stunning severity upon them. He knew 
 how poorly they were fitted to bear a trial like that 
 which already lowered on them. Thev had their 
 ambitions, hopes and projects. Their eyes were 
 filled with the glare of a kingdom which existed 
 only in their imaginati(^ns. Even here, when 
 the tender words: "With desire I have 
 desired to eat this passover with you before I 
 suffer," had hardly passed His lips, there arose 
 a contention among them, which of them was 
 accounted to be greatest. They were aspi- 
 rants for the highest places under the King. 
 They would sit, one on His right hand, and one 
 on His left hand, at His royal court. Filled 
 with such ideas how could they stand before 
 the onset of that terrible trial which would dash 
 
176 THE MODFL LIFE. 
 
 their hopes and leave them without a Leader 
 and without a solace ! So the gracious Master 
 would lead them, while He could, to truer, higher 
 thoughts : He w'ould have them ready, if it 
 might be, for the final disaster. 
 
 First of all He gave them a lesson of humility. 
 He washed their feet and wiped them with the 
 towel wherewith He was girded : and He said 
 " If I, the Lord and the Master, have washed 
 your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's 
 feet." There was no sound of the throne and 
 the highest places in that. 
 
 Then He told them, in symbols which spoke 
 to their hearts, of His coming death, as He gave 
 them the broken bread to represent His body 
 which was given for them and the wine to repre- 
 sent his blood which was poured out for them. 
 
 He pointed them to the mansions which He 
 was going to prepare for them. He promised 
 to them the presence of the Comforter who 
 would abide with them. He urged them to 
 love one another, even as He had loved them. 
 
 And, then, in prayer, beyond all other prayer 
 that was ever offered. He commended them to 
 God, and asked that they might behold that 
 supernal glory which the Father had given Him, 
 and might share in it. 
 
 In these various ways He wrought on their 
 too unresponsive minds to fit them for the 
 painful crisis which was at hand. 
 
 Furthermore, He desired to associate, with 
 
CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST, 177 
 
 these memorial and farewell observances of re- 
 ligion, the indulgence of His personal love for 
 them. His mind went back to the time when He 
 first became acquainted with them, when from 
 their ordinary business He called them to follow 
 Him ; when He called Peter and Andrew and 
 James and John from their fishing boats and nets, 
 telling them that He would make them fishers of 
 men ; and Matthew from the place of toll ; and 
 Nathaniel and the others from their various oc- 
 cupations, " Ye did not choose me," He said, 
 " but I chose you and appointed you." He 
 dwelt upon all the time in which they had been 
 together, upon their weary journeys through 
 Galilee and Judea, upon instructions and mighty 
 miracles and hard endurances and rejections, 
 mingled with joys and blessed anticipations, upon 
 the one supreme object of His life on earth and 
 the training with which He had sought to make 
 them ready for carrying on the work which He 
 would begin. He thought, too, of the trials that 
 would come to them after His departure; the 
 bitter hatred of men, the wide rejection of the 
 blessed gospel, their own disappointments. He 
 spoke of these things to them, and said, " These 
 things have I spoken unto you, that when their 
 hour is come, ye may remember them, how that 
 I told you." And that they might not grieve 
 too much for His absence. He assured them that 
 He should still remember them and that He 
 would send the Comforter to abide with them. 
 
178 THE MODEL LI^E. 
 
 He gave expression to His warm, undying', 
 attachment to them. " No longer," He said, " do 
 I call you servants: but I have called you 
 friends." With tender sympathy He said, " Let 
 not your heart be troubled." " M3' peace I give 
 unto you." He desired that His joy might be 
 in them and that their joy might be made full. 
 He poured out His heart to them : " I have loved 
 you : abide ye in my love." He told them that 
 He would prove His greater love than all other 
 love for them by laying down His life for them. 
 And He assured them that whatever should 
 come He would not leave them desolate, He 
 would come unto them. " Because I live, ye 
 shall live also." And He pointed them for- 
 ward to eternal mansions, His home and their 
 home, where He would receive them unto Him- 
 self, that where He is there they should be also. 
 
 So this farewell meeting, in the festal observ- 
 ance of religion, was indeed a feast of love. By 
 the institution of the sacramental Supper, He es- 
 tablished a monumental memorial of His love 
 and perpetuated His presence with them. As 
 often as they observed it, they would do it in re- 
 membrance of Him. 
 
 They were indeed to separate : their long and 
 blessed service together was to be interrupted : 
 no more would they observe the holy rites of the 
 people of God together : no more would He 
 who had been their Leader go before them, 
 would He who had been their Instructor speak 
 
CHRIST AT THE COMMEMOKATIVE FEAST. 179 
 
 to them, would He who had been their Friend 
 dwell with them. He was about to go to His 
 Father and to His throne and to His waiting 
 Home : they were about to go into the hostile 
 world, heralds of his kingdom of grace. 
 
 But they would still be bound together by 
 mutual love : He on the throne caring for them : 
 they in the conflict holding His name high and 
 irresistible. 
 
 At this farewell feast He would draw them in- 
 to close and indissoluble communion with Him- 
 self and with one another: a communion which 
 no changes could shatter, nor time, nor eternity 
 dissolve. Painful truly the separation would be. 
 Were they not His "little children?" Was it 
 not His own voice which had called them to His 
 service? Had they not been in His company, 
 under His guidance and instruction, sharers with 
 Him in the beginnings of the gospel, in the plant- 
 ing of the hoi}' church ? 
 
 But He would still be with them. His exam- 
 ple would never die. His words would sound 
 on with the tone and thrill of other time. His 
 spirit would animate them, and they would 
 meet again. A few years of toil and trial, and 
 then the world of eternal calm and joy, where 
 they shall see His face and His name shall be on 
 their foreheads ! 
 
 For Himself, for them, for the world, with de- 
 sire did He desire to eat that Passover with them 
 before He suffered. 
 
XV. 
 
 CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 
 
 OT without some significance of meaning- 
 to the readers of the gospels, is this fact, 
 that one of the disciples leaned on the 
 breast of the Lord at supper, several times 
 spoken of in the sacred narrative. The writer is 
 not one of those who would take pride in stating 
 it, as though a special privilege or honor were 
 granted to himself in being allowed such intim- 
 acy with the Lord : like those boasters of inter- 
 views with princes and crowned heads and 
 persons of distinction and rank who plume them- 
 selves on the event. He is a man of marked 
 modesty who keeps out of sight his own name 
 in the account, so that we know who it was only 
 by inference, by setting one fact over against 
 another. It is not told of a weak man, of an 
 effeminate disciple, who would choose to lie off 
 in indolent repose or dreamy sentimentality, 
 breathing his life luxuriously away, rather than 
 to encounter the tasks of manly service. It is 
 told of a bold, strong Apostle, of a man of 
 fiery energy and dauntless purpose, and nervous 
 eloquence, of a man who was foremost to face the 
 
 [i8ij 
 
1S2 THK MODKL LIFE. 
 
 enemies of his Master and of liimself. The artists 
 represent him as most like the Lord of any of 
 the Apostles, as very likely he was, being His 
 own cousin. He was a man of polished grace of 
 manner, with the courage of a soldier. When 
 any thing new or great was to be undertaken, he 
 was summoned to undertake it. He was modest 
 and loving, as such men are apt to be. But 
 under his surcoat beat a heart of fire ; and his 
 gentle hand could strike a blow of sturdiness ; 
 and his polished speech had ringing in it an 
 undertone of thunder. 
 
 He and his brother James were surnamed by 
 Christ Himself, " Boanerges, which is, The sons 
 of thunder." This designation had a meaning in 
 it, as had that also which Christ gave to Simon 
 whom He surnamed Peter. For Peter was to be 
 the Rock of the Church, as John was to be its 
 bold and eloquent advocate. He was often 
 associated with Peter in the Master's life, in the 
 last scenes of it, and afterward. He was on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden of 
 Gethsemane. At the trial of Christ he walked 
 boldly into the palace of the high-priest, by 
 whom he was well known ; and probably 
 remained in sight of Christ when they took Him 
 into Pilate's judgment-hall; and he kept near 
 Him on the way to Calvary and stood by His 
 cross in His more than mortal agony, where 
 indeed he was powerless to aid his beloved Mas- 
 ter, but where he could bow in tears and prayer 
 
CHRIST THE BdSOM FRIKND. 183 
 
 for Him, where he could testify his undying 
 devotion to Him and where Christ could see him 
 and speak to him, as He did, from the cross itself 
 in tenderest appreciation of his precious love. 
 
 He was sent with Peter to prepare the last 
 passover in a city clamorous for the blood of 
 his Master. He outran Peter to the sepulchre 
 of the buried Christ ; yet reverently paused at 
 its sacred entrance. He was a leader of the 
 little company of Christians, after the Lord 
 ascended, and boldly appeared in the Jewish 
 temple as a preacher through Jesus of the resur- 
 rection from the dead. So that the historian of 
 their acts writes: " Now when they saw the 
 boldness of Peter and John * * they took 
 knowledge of them that the}' had been with 
 Jesus." He was sent to Samaria as one of the 
 first missionaries of the Church. Paul, in his 
 letter to the Galatians, speaks of him as a pillar 
 of the Church. In his old age, though his let- 
 ters are full of love, he commends " faith, which 
 is the victory that overcometh the world." To 
 him it was given to receive the Revelation of 
 Jesus Ciirist concerning the future of His Church 
 on earth and to have the vision of the new heav- 
 en and the new earth ; the sublime Apocalypse 
 whose hidden meanings are yet to be evolved in a 
 history of mingled terror and triumph ! 
 
 Such was the man " which also leaned on His 
 breast at supper." This was the last supper, 
 the first Lord's supper, which we still observe, 
 
184 THK MODKL I.IFK. 
 
 since Christ then enjoined it upon all who 
 love Him: "This do in remembrance of 
 Me." It is written: " Now there was leaning^ 
 on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom 
 Jesus loved.'* And again ; " He then lying on 
 Jesus' breast saith unto Him, Lord :" I have said 
 the singular repetition of this fact has in it some 
 significance of meaning to all who read it. 
 
 Perhaps there is a divine side to it to which 
 we may give heed. It was His breast, the 
 bosom of the Lf)rd, on which the brave, loving, 
 confiding disciple leaned. It is the strong 
 bosom on which the weak and throbbing head 
 reclines. The}' are moving into perils together, 
 and the head rests on one to whom, in his 
 feebleness and uncertainty, the disciple can 
 confidently say. Lord ! So God places Himself 
 for us. It is not on a throne to whose dazzling 
 glory we dare not draw nigh, remote and lifted 
 up. it is not in some brilliant place of Leader- 
 ship to which it would be in vain to attempt to 
 urge one's way, occupied by those in honor and 
 in favor. But it is at the table, at the festival 
 common to the household, in the posture com- 
 mon at the daily meal, at the supper in the upper 
 room where the Lord and His disciples are 
 alone together, that we have this representation 
 of the confiding familiarity which Christ allows 
 on the part of that disciple whom He loves. 
 It is not by some apparent act of condescension, 
 it is not by laying aside something peculiar and 
 
CHRIST THE rOSOM FRIEND. 185 
 
 magnificent that belongs to Him, that He pre- 
 pares the way for the disciple to lean on Hia 
 breast, but it is as a matter of course, as a 
 natural and unconstrained and e very-day thing, 
 even as one friend would conduct toward 
 another. This is the way God reveals Himself 
 to us. For Christ, in all His life, was the revela- 
 tion of God to our human comprehension. We 
 had failed to know God. His works had not 
 taught us of Him. His word had but partially 
 done it. His Providence had left us in the 
 dark. So Christ came, to make that clear 
 which the ages had left obscure, to bring down 
 the divine life into the grasp of our thought and 
 into the reach of our affection, to make God 
 known to us. 
 
 And here is one manifestation of Him holding 
 on His bosom at supper one of His disciples ' 
 I do not characterize this. It seems to me that 
 any language about it would but lessen the 
 effect, would take away from its striking and 
 tender and blessed significance. It stands out 
 like a picture of some old great master, speaking 
 for itself, unable to be represented so well as 
 is represents itself. But we are to take it in 
 its fullest, greatest meaning, just as it is, just 
 as it is set before us in three-fold phrase, as 
 Christ, with the disciple leaning on His breast at 
 supper, as Christ, so, as in all other ways of His 
 life, giving us the representation of God ! And 
 if this gives us other views of God from those 
 
186 THK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 which we naturally have, if it lessens dread and 
 remoteness and awfulness, may it not have the 
 proper influence upon us? May it not harmon- 
 ize with the meaning which is involved in the 
 expression, "Our Father?" May it not make 
 God more approachable by us, more dear to us ? 
 You know how your views have changed of 
 some one whom you have regarded with rever- 
 ence and awe, as you have met him in the confi- 
 dence of friendship and in the familiarity of 
 acquaintance! Come to His table, where the 
 Lord, among us, calling us not servants but 
 friends, permits the disciple to lean on His breast 
 at supper. As you think of it, it will not reduce 
 the dignity of Godhead, it will not draw down to 
 depreciate divine attributes ; rather, it will reveal 
 love, it will show you infinite kindness making a 
 place for the weary, infinite strength holding the 
 weak, infinite greatness taking upon itself appro- 
 priate care for those who are in need! 
 
 We are sure that there is a Jtunian side to it 
 which is adapted to us. If Christ will permit 
 the disciple to come so close to Him, surely the 
 disciple will not lose the privilege. If that posi- 
 tion is one of aflectionateness, then should the 
 disciple take it. It is but a response to the love 
 that has redeemed him. That love was so great 
 that it involved great sacrifice, left a great throne 
 vacant for thirty-three long years, put abjectcst 
 humiliation upon one who had been used for 
 countless ages to loftiest glories, reduced a 
 
CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 187 
 
 divine Creator to the contempt of His creatures 
 and consigned Him to the ignominy and the 
 suffering of the cross. No love on our part can 
 match it, can be the sufficient response to it. 
 All that we can render is called for. His voice 
 speaks to each of us, and there is pleading and 
 claim in it, " Lovest thou me ?" If He will take 
 us to His bosom, will allow us that place of 
 affection, will permit us to come so near Him, 
 where we can whisper to Him our loving grati- 
 tude, where we can call Him by the Name 
 that He loves the best, all other names above, 
 where we can feel our sins to the utmost and our 
 redemption to the utmost also, surely we shall 
 be there ! We know how wonderful it seems to 
 us when one, whom we had indeed thoup:ht of 
 as a friend, but who in culture and knowledge 
 and all graces and all habitudes of life had 
 always seemed far above us, too far for us to 
 come ever very near together, reveals a pure, 
 strong affectionateness for us and takes us to his 
 bosom and enfolds us with clasping arms' Our 
 whole nature flows out to him in a new tide of 
 love, and we become friends as we never were 
 before. So Christ takes us to Himself, and we 
 feel that we are one with him as we have never 
 been before. 
 
 It was at the supper that the disciple leaned 
 on His breast. If ever, at the supper, we come 
 closest to Him, and lay our head on His bosom. 
 Here we see as we do not elsewhere what He is 
 
188 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 to US and what He has done for us. Those 
 symbols set Him clearly before us in His aton- 
 ing offering. We may read of it, we may hear 
 of it, but at the supper we see it : the Body 
 broken, wounded, suffering; the Blood flowing, 
 shed, for us. 
 
 These sensuous objects make the fact more real 
 to us. Then we love much because we know 
 that mucii has been done for us. Our whoie 
 hearts go out to Him whose blood, whose life, 
 went out for us. It is easy, natural, to lay our 
 head in deepest gratitude and love upon the very 
 bosom of One who has done this, all for us. The 
 love is mutual. We love Him because He first 
 loved us. " Lean hard if you love me," said a 
 Persian convert to her accomplished and devoted 
 teacher, one of our own best missionaries, as she 
 saw that, worn and tired, she leaned a little upon 
 her for support as they sat together with many 
 others in their study of the Word. " Lean hard 
 if you love me ," and the grateful strength of the 
 Persian woman supported the weary body of 
 her teacher. He who has all strength and who 
 says to the weakest of His followers " My 
 strength shall be made perfect in thy weakness," 
 bids us lean hard upon His bosom. If we are 
 weak, if we are anxious, if we are troubled, if we 
 are in any doubt or sorrow we can find support 
 and comfort there. We must not keep aloof. 
 We must go to the body that was broken : to the 
 bosom out of whose side flowed tlie blood. Noth- 
 
CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 189 
 
 ing must separate us from the loving and beloved 
 Christ. We must come to Him there, at the 
 supper, if we iiave not lived near to Him at 
 other times. But it must be then in penitence 
 as well as in love : tears of sorrow must flow 
 with our tears of gratitude. Better to have 
 lived near Him elsezvhcre ^\<,o, that it may be easy 
 for us to lean on His breast at supper. These 
 intimacies of affection should be the result of 
 long-time love, of daily, continuous, habitual 
 devotion. John leaned on His breast at supper 
 because he had loved Him beforehand. He had 
 toiled for Him among the people. He had stood 
 with Him on the Mount of Glory. He had faced 
 His foes with unflinching courage. He was 
 ready to go with Him before Jewish priest or 
 Roman governor, to stand by the very foot of 
 His cross as one willing to die with Him or for 
 Him. 
 
 The place of such a follower was on the Savi- 
 our's bosom. The strong arm of the Saviour 
 would fold and hold him there. True faithful 
 service runs into true earnest love. Lay not 
 down your unworthy head on that sacred breast, 
 where lay the head of one like John, unless like 
 John you have been faithful beforehand, unless 
 you come weary in the Master's service, unless 
 you come from toil and testimony and revelation 
 of glory and bold advocacy of your Saviour. 
 Go to His/iV/and not to His bosom, if your life 
 has had no love in it for Him. Go to His feet 
 
UK) TIIK MOt)KL MFFl. 
 
 .'iiid not to His bosom, if your feet have gone on 
 all ways of inclulgencc and sin and vanity, if your 
 bosom has known no devotion, no loyalty, no 
 l)rofound affection. But let not timidity, self- 
 distrust, humbleness, keep you away. If you 
 love you can lean. One without strength can 
 lean. He is strong. He is all-sufficient, He is 
 all- worthy on whose breast you can cast your- 
 self. He is the Saviour, the all-mighty Saviour 
 of the poor and the weak and the lost, who yet 
 repent and love and serve. 
 
 On His bosom one ma}^ come to knowledge 
 beyond what he could gain elsewhere. There 
 John was to ask that which the disciples did not 
 know, and to learn it from Christ. " The secret 
 of the Lord is with them that fear Him." That 
 is the place where may be communicated the 
 divine secrets. Says one : " There is a secret in 
 the da) s of God, with His own children, which 
 sweetens all He does." In the divine intimacy 
 He may make Himself known to the confiding 
 believer, so that he may say as John said, " We 
 know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
 given us an understanding, that we may know 
 Him that is true; and we are in Him that is 
 true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the 
 true God and eternal life." John did not doubt. 
 He knew. The love that he had for Christ was 
 a living and controlling love. His letters to his 
 beloved children in Christ glow with the assur- 
 ance of his union to the Lord. The visions that 
 
C&RIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 19l 
 
 he had on Patmos, when to him the heavens 
 wei-e opened and the ghjries of the Lamb 
 amidst His Father's throne were revealed, were 
 no more satisfying and assuring than the 
 blessed experiences when he leaned on the 
 bosom of his Lord and his Friend at supper. 
 The city, which he discerned and described, of 
 such imperial magnificence and glory, was no 
 more certain unto him when he saw his own 
 name inscribed on one of its garnished founda- 
 tions, than when he received the quiet answer 
 from the lips of the Lord in reply to the question 
 which he asked as he lay on Jesus' breast. That 
 heaven was already begun in his soul. He 
 Avho is the Light and the glory of it was 
 already revealed to His loving disciple. The 
 Apocalypse within him was more than the 
 Apocalypse without and above him. He lived 
 in the peace and joy and love of the inhabitants 
 of the blessed land. He could have no more there 
 that he needed, no more that could satisfy him, 
 than he had when in the blessedness of such a 
 friendship he leaned op the bosom of Christ at 
 supper. 
 
 " Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down. 
 Already life is heaven to me ; 
 No cradled child more softly lies than I ; 
 Come soon. Eternity !" 
 
XVI. 
 
 CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 
 
 HRIST, and the religion of Christ, furnish 
 sufficient light for ev^ery man. Undoubt- 
 edly there are mysterious things, unsolv- 
 ablc problems, which will remain such so long as 
 we are in the present environment. These do 
 not much concern us: although many men very 
 much concern themselves with them. They seem 
 to like to give time and thought and care to the 
 unessentials, to the things which are unknowable 
 or unexplainable, rather than to attend to those 
 which are both plain and practical, and personal 
 as well. They like to take hold of " weapons 
 whose handles are sharper than their blades." 
 They like to argue on what is doubtful, rather 
 than to experience what is certain. The}' prefer 
 to doubt the being of any God rather than to 
 love the true God. They prefer to dwell where 
 they cannot see, rather than to walk in the clear 
 light. Nevertheless, the light has come into the 
 world, and it lighteth every man ! 
 
 Christianity sets a standard for true life. This 
 is a vita! thing for every man. How shall 1 live? 
 is the first question which confronts each soul. 
 
 [193J 
 
194 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 It is possible to utterly waste this life. It is pos- 
 sible to make a terrible curse of it. It is an un- 
 certain possession. It is a hard and doubtful 
 battle which we wage for it. Men are gravely 
 asking, Is life worth living ? That depends 
 upon the use to which we put it : is solemnly 
 answered by our misuse of it. We can make it 
 worth living. We can make it a most unfortu- 
 nate possession. Three centuries ago a strong 
 thinker wrote: " I may be too old to live, I can 
 never be too young to die : I will therefore live 
 every hour, as if I were to die the next." Chris- 
 tianity teaches us to seek first the kingdom of 
 love and the righteousness that belongs to it : that 
 so all other things may be provided for. It holds 
 that it is a practical heresy for any one to delay 
 repentance and faith in Christ, with all the 
 uncertainties and the unavoidabilities that hang 
 over every life. It teaches that the foundation is 
 of prime importance, and that he who goes on to 
 erect his structure upon treacherous sand, is 
 liable to most serious disaster. It antagonizes 
 the make-shifts and perversions in which so many 
 men indulge and sets up a true standard for them 
 to go by. it puts first things first; and makes 
 great things great : it never dwarfs eternity in the 
 presence of time, nor shuts the omnipresent God 
 out of any portion of His universe. 
 
 Would you live up to the standard? Would 
 you improve and rightly use the light? Then 
 abandon, first of all, your indifference to your 
 
CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 195 
 
 real duty. Come into harmony with the 
 representations of the inspired word. If you 
 are a little child, know that this relig-ion is for 
 3^ou, that the blessed Saviour is your Saviour 
 and that He has a fondness for children and 
 seeks their 3'oung love, their tirst and best love, 
 that He desires to pre-empt their hearts and to 
 possess their whole lives. 
 
 You cannot make a mistake in giving your 
 whole lives to Him, in making tlie dew of your 
 youth radiant with His love, in lighting up the 
 morning of your days with the light that He 
 brings from heaven. The religion of Christ is 
 the religion of children. It is meant for them. 
 It is going to be, more and more, in all the 
 lands, their religion. The unfounded prejudices 
 which have held them back, which have made 
 many a child's pillow wet with secret tears, are 
 to give way, and the children are to be the 
 recruits of the conquering Lord, and as the 
 bright heavens are full of boys and girls who 
 enjoy Christ so the redeemed world is to be 
 made full of them. All things indicate it. 
 
 Let the children come to Clirist. The artists 
 have loved to put on canvas the pictorial repre- 
 sentation of that most significant saying of the 
 Lord, " Suffer the little children, and forbid them 
 not, to come unto me; for to such beiongeth the 
 kingdom of heaven." In the great galleries you 
 see His benignant face as He welcomes with out- 
 stretched arms the little ones w ho confide in Him. 
 
196 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 And we must love to enconrag-e in practice 
 what others produce in art. 
 
 If A'ou have passed out of childhood and the 
 ambitions of youth are stirring within you, if 
 )'ou are full of worldly hopes and are planning 
 for worldly success, you have here a guide of 
 authority and of wisdom which you will do well 
 to heed. Many a young man and young woman 
 feel concerned as to the calling which they shall 
 follow in the world. It is a serious thing to 
 decide, when before each are open so many paths. 
 The business of the world is multiform. The 
 professions of life have their separate invitations. 
 What will you choose to do? To what calling 
 will you devote your one life? Many make a 
 mistake. It is said that a good farmer was 
 spoiled b}' going into tlic pulpit ; or a certain 
 l)Oor blacksmith would have made a iirst-rate 
 lawyer ; or that this man and that man have mis- 
 taken their calling. This is very likely to be the 
 case. Persons decide these matters in their 
 immaturit}', and repent with their experience. 
 
 But there is one decision, which each one set- 
 ting out in independent life may make, which 
 involves no mistake, which will excite no after 
 regret: it is the decision to take Christ as the 
 Master, to devote the life to Him. It will not 
 then be of very great comparative importance 
 what the particular worldly profession or calling 
 may be. The 3'oung man or the young woman 
 who starts forth as a Christian, has something 
 
CHRIST THK ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 197 
 
 worthy to live for in any vocation. Any voca- 
 tion, which is fit for a Clii'istian, has the Lord's 
 call in it. It has good work in it. It has 
 success in it. For the final reckoning-, with 
 which every life will be terminated, requires 
 an accounting, not of the propert}^ which 
 one has amassed, not of the fortune which 
 figures in the inventory of the probate court, 
 not of the pleasures which one has enjoyed, the 
 travel which has enlarged the knowledge of the 
 world, the reading which has furnished growth 
 for the mind : but of the growth of the soul in 
 the knowledge of Christ, the good work which 
 has been done to set forward the kingdom of the 
 Lord among men, the help which has been given 
 to the church, the effort which has been made 
 to save other men. A man may come to the 
 end of life poor in worldly property, but rich 
 in faith and in eternal possessions. He may 
 have had a hard time as things go in this world, 
 but be fitted to wear a very bright crown in 
 heaven and to be at the head of ten cities in the 
 coming Kingdom. Some one has well said, 
 " Happiness may fly away, "pleasure pall or cease 
 to be obtainable, health decay, friends fail or 
 prove unkind, but the power to serve God never 
 fails, the love of Him is never rejected." No 
 life can be vain tiiat has good Christian service 
 in it. No life is lost that holds the gain of 
 repentance and faith and love to Christ. He has 
 not made a mistake who has consecrated him- 
 self to the Lord at the opening of his manhood. 
 
198 TIIK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Clirislianity furnishes principle for the right 
 governing of conduct. We all need a rule of 
 life, a law bv which our course shall be directed. 
 We are brought into positions where two ways 
 are open to us. Two parties make their appeal 
 for our suffrages. Two doctrines are urged 
 upon our acceptance. Questions of casuistry 
 arise on which opposing aigunicnts aie made. 
 
 How shall one decide? Which way shall one 
 turn? On which side shall he vote? Which 
 doctrine shall he put into his creed ? What 
 ethics shall he follow ? 
 
 Christ gives him the governing principle. 
 We have in the gospel a golden rule. One 
 overmastering obligation holds us. If we give 
 ourselves to God, to be His and to serve Him, 
 we must do that which is for His glory, we 
 must do for others what we would have them 
 do for us, we must act in every human relation 
 as those who are the servants of Christ. Selfish- 
 ness goes down before this principle. World- 
 liness expires in its presence. 
 
 Before everything else the new man is a Chris- 
 tian. He cannot violate his heavenly vows. He 
 cannot desert the standard of his Saviour. He 
 must obey the Lord, whomsoever he may dis- 
 obey. No friends can stand between him and 
 Christ. Father and mother, brother and sister, 
 must be hated so that Christ shall be loved. 
 
 Christianity affords comfort in sorrow. A 
 factor in all life is the grief that is mingled in it. 
 
CHRIST THE ENLTOHTENER OP MEN. 190 
 
 We cannot escape it. To some souls it is rare ; 
 but when it comes to them it is great. For some 
 families it is long adjourned ; but then it breaks 
 on them as the swift and heavy surges beat 
 against the shore. Friends may stand together ; 
 but the time will come when they will fall as 
 trees fall before the axe of the pioneer. Two may 
 walk together on many and long paths ; but sud- 
 denly the footsteps of one will cease, and the 
 survivor will go thenceforth alone. Tenderest 
 relations are sundered. Beautiful lives, made 
 for each other, are broken apart. 
 
 God's discipline of affliction is on the sinning 
 race. And not till the heavens shall have 
 received all the redeemed will it be said that 
 even for them there is no more sorrow. 
 
 Christ does not remove it : but He gives com- 
 fort in it. Christ does not remove it : but He 
 gives a compensation for it. Christ does not 
 remove it : but He blesses the soul in bearing it, 
 so that, though it be grievous, it works for it 
 an eternal weight of glory. Some of the 
 sweetest human lives are those that have borne 
 the hardest griefs, as there are plants that shed 
 their sweetest perfumes when they are pressed 
 and beaten most rudely. The most graceful 
 plants in the heavenly gardens are those on 
 which the storms swept most mercilessly here. 
 All the while before every Christian are the 
 footsteps of his Lord, who trod the wine-press 
 of sorrow alone, who was a man of sorrows and 
 
200 TIIK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 acquainted with grief, who bore our griefs and 
 carried our sorrows, who passed through every 
 door that is to open for our feet, who carried all 
 the burdens that are to be laid on us, and who will 
 make His grace to be sufficient for us. If 
 religion had no more than this to do for us, it 
 should command our acceptance. If Christ had 
 no greater work than this to do for us, He 
 should have our immediate homage and our 
 grateful service. But He has another work. 
 
 Christianity yields the pardon for sin. The 
 darkest fact of the world is sin. It is a universal 
 fact. We have nothing to do with its origin, 
 with the reasons for its permission, with any of 
 the hard questions which its existence starts. 
 We have only to do with zV and with deliverance 
 from it. It is an existing fact. We are person- 
 ally guilty of it. Then, only one great question 
 confronts and occupies us: Can we be delivered 
 from it? That question the Gospel answers, 
 answers plainly and fully, answers for every 
 man, answers everywhere : answers so that every 
 one can know its meaning, so that every one can 
 know that he is included : answers without any 
 mistake, without any reservation, with a fullness 
 that readies all sinners, and a particularity that 
 touches each sinner. It tells us that Christ has 
 died for sinners, that He has made such a com- 
 plete satisfaction for their sins before the throne 
 and law of God that on their repentance and 
 trust in Him they can be pardoned, utterly and 
 
CHRIST THE KNLIGHTENER OF MEN. 201 
 
 forever, and can be treated as though they had 
 never sinned. This is the burden of the Gospel. 
 This is the supreme meaning of the Cross. This 
 is Christ. Forgiveness of sin, through His death, 
 on repentance and faith. It is the wonder of the 
 universe. It is the one thing that the angels 
 desire to look into. It should be W\q first thing 
 with each of us. 
 
 Moreover, Christianity holds the hope of 
 eternal life. It has the promise of the life that now 
 is, and of that which is to come. Anything less 
 than this would be futile, anything more would 
 be superfluous. We are on the sea ! Winds 
 and strong currents and the forces of giant 
 machinery are bearing us on. To what? The 
 cry from the look-out will soon be heard. To 
 what land will he point us? What fair shores 
 are those which lift their fronded palms before 
 us, from which the soft breezes bear the odors of 
 opulent gardens and the harmonies of exultant 
 choirs, and from which a glory streams, not of 
 the sun nor of the moon, but which is the glory 
 of God ? What serene heights are those on 
 which are dimly seen the outlines of palaces, 
 whose golden domes are lifted into the sky, and 
 that flash with the brilliance of pearls and gems ? 
 What city is that whose walls rise on our sight, 
 whose foundations are of all manner of precious 
 stones, and within which are processions of many 
 nations carrying their tribute to its throne? 
 
 There no sin is found. There no sorrow is 
 
2(V2 TIIK MODKL l.IFK. 
 
 known. There death shall be no more. And 
 there shall be ni^ht no more. Life forever, life 
 in uninterrupted joy, life with the holy ones, life 
 in Christ with God ! 
 
 That Christ gives. That is the sure inheritance 
 of all those who love and serve Him here. 
 
 On these great matters, most vital to all of us, 
 the clear light shines from the gospel of Christ. 
 We may know all that we need to know, and 
 know it absolutely. 
 
 George McDonald, in Paul Fabre, says : 
 " To many souls hell itself seems a less frightful 
 alternative than the agony of resolve, of turning, 
 of being born again." They shrink from the 
 undertaking to become Christians as though it 
 were a crucifixion. They postpone the good 
 resolution as though it were the contraction of a 
 disease. They act as though the best thing they 
 could do were the worst thing they could do. It 
 is told of a man that as he sprang ashore from a 
 boat, his foot was caught in one of the links of an 
 iron chain which was imbedded in the sand of 
 the beach. He was unconcerned until the tide 
 began to rise ! The gray waters murmured in 
 circles around the place where he sat. They 
 rose above his ankles, and the moan of the ocean 
 grew louder as the waves rose higher. It 
 soundetl like his requiem ! Then his cry for help 
 was desperate. He was ready for any sacrifice, 
 to lose the fettered limb, that he might save his 
 life. 
 
CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OP MEN. 203 
 
 Before the hour of desperation comes, before 
 the tide of eternity pours in upon you. be aroused 
 by the hope of immortal life, to gain deliverance 
 through the one only Saviour. 
 
XVII. 
 
 CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 
 
 STRANGE footstep on Gentile terri- 
 tory ! For the first tiine in His crowded 
 ministry the Lord had left the sacred 
 soil of Israel. Once He would go out beyond 
 its borders, as in significant symbol of the out- 
 reaching and world-embracing compass of His 
 mission. Once He would leave a foot-print of 
 His own pointing toward the realms of the Gen- 
 tiles, out into the darkness and foulness and 
 misery of the wifle-sprcading nations, into which 
 His followers might plant their own and by the 
 sight of which they might learn the lesson of 
 their work and see the sign of the way they 
 should afterward take. That foot-mark of the 
 Redeemer pointing outward indicated the track 
 of the Gospel. Though He was sent but unto 
 the lost sheep of the House of Israel, His Gos- 
 pel was for all the lost of every nationality. 
 Though for reasons which lay undisclosed in the 
 divine prudence His own work was to be among 
 the people of His earthly parentage, yet His 
 living and His dying were for all the world. He 
 was the Brother of ever}' man and the Saviour 
 
 [205] 
 
206 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 of every man. Gladly would He have passed 
 over the boundaries of the Hebrew possession 
 and set His foot on every shore. Gladly would 
 He have spoken to the men of every speech in 
 their own tongue, and taken hold with His lov- 
 ing- and strong hand of all the down-cast and 
 crushed. That He went out once was a revela- 
 tion of His heart, a sign to His successors. That 
 foot-print was long ago washed out by the 
 storms that swept down from Lebanon : but the 
 lesson of it endures like Lebanon itself! In the 
 valleys folded by its wild ranges and under the 
 shadow of its snowy cliffs His ministers are tell- 
 ing to-day to the dwellers there the story of His 
 love and death. Farther than the flags of the 
 Tyrian vessels ever flew His disciples have 
 carried His Gospel. 
 
 He went at this time into the borders of Tyre 
 and Sidon to escape, on the one hand, the Jews 
 who were busily plotting His overthrow and, 
 on the other hand, Herod, whose aroused con- 
 science was pricking him to some deed of des- 
 peration. There, He entered into a house, and 
 would have no man know it. Over in the pagan 
 territory, He might hope to find the relief and 
 repose and recuperation which He • >uld not 
 fmd in Galilee, where His miracles had aroused 
 intensest interest and His words had awakened 
 popular enthusiasm. It was a place of rest and 
 retirement. The white rocks of Lebanon, in 
 their substantial majesty and high repose, shed 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. ' 207 
 
 down their graciousness and strength into His 
 weary and troubled spirit. The cool air from 
 the unmelted snows bathed His heated temples 
 and the perfume of the fragrant cedars cheered 
 Him as a cordial. Around that dwelling the 
 mountain birds were singing their wild songs 
 and over it the shadow and the sunshine chased 
 each other in still playfulness. The silence was 
 sweet. There time kept perpetual Sabbath. 
 The toil and turbulence of the towns were far 
 away. There was stillness like that of the fall- 
 ing of dew. And there was sweetness like the 
 scented breath of morning. Surely there the 
 Lord might rest. His tired soul and His hunted 
 body might lie down together untroubled. He 
 would have no man know that He was there. 
 For a while, till He could recover Himself, He 
 would remain still and solitary. Noon should 
 be as midnight. Not a bird of the air nor a 
 wanton wind should tell of the Lord. Men, as 
 they passed by, bold mountaineers from the 
 chase, husbandmen of the plains with their hands 
 full of seeds for planting, should not know that 
 there a King was sleeping and that more than a 
 palace stood by that unguarded roadside. He 
 woidd be unknown, wholly unrecognized. 
 
 But He could not be hid 1 As the fragrance 
 of spices tills the atmosphere and the aroma of 
 roses reveals their presence, as the loadstone 
 attracts metallic iron and the pole directs and 
 holds the trembling needle, as the majest}' of 
 
20S THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 men stands forth through all disguises and 
 royalty is disclosed in look and tone and posture, 
 so Clirist could not be hid. Divinity asserts 
 itself. Where Christ was there He was known 
 to be. The closed house could not contain Him. 
 The guardianship of watchful and faithful 
 disciples could not conceal Him. The deep 
 woods and the bold mountain ranges around 
 could not shut Him in. Lebanon could not 
 inipiison its God. The coasts of Tyre and 
 Sidon were not remote enough to leave His 
 great name and fame behind. He had traveled 
 far, farther from Bethlehem, the spot of His 
 birth and from Jerusalem, the capital and joy 
 of His people, than ever before, but not far 
 enough yet to be hidden. No silence was deep 
 enough to exclude all voice of Him. No seclu- 
 sion was profound enough to enclose all 
 knowledge of Him. He could not be hidden. 
 The Scripture does not say. He was not hid. 
 It is a bolder, stronger statement : He could 
 not be hid. He was self-revealing. He was 
 wanted. Within those pagan coasts were 
 hearts that were aching for Him. Hungry and 
 thirsty, there was but 0)ie who could feed them 
 and give them living water. The heathen 
 world was waiting for His coming. And when 
 once His divine footsteps invaded its dark and 
 bloody soil He was welcomed as a Deliverer. 
 He came unto His own and His own received 
 Him not. He went unto the outcasts and the 
 
CltRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 209 
 
 pagans and He was hailed as Lord. He was 
 not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of 
 Israel. But other sheep He had which were 
 not of that fold, on the strange, dark mountains. 
 Many want Ciirist who have never seen Him 
 nor read His gospel. In all heathen lands there 
 are burdened and longing souls who only wait 
 for the announcement of the Saviour. This 
 they say, is what we have longed to hear : now 
 there is life for us. 
 
 He could not be hid. For a certain woman, 
 whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, 
 heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet. A 
 year before this, in His ministry near Caper- 
 naum, a great multitude of people out of all 
 Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of 
 Tyre and Sidon, had come to hear Him and to 
 be healed of their diseases. They had carried 
 back to their homes the account of the wonder- 
 ful Teacher and Healer. And this poor woman, 
 for she was a S}' ro[)hoenician by nation, had heard 
 how virtue went out of Him and healed them all 
 of whatsoever disease they had. And perhaps 
 some of His precious words had also been carried 
 to her which she had treasured in her heart for 
 months. She was a heathen. She belonged to 
 an accursed stock, to the doomed Canaanites, 
 some of whom had been somehow spared. But 
 she had heard of Christ, and that had given hope 
 to her life and light to her darkness and patience 
 to bear all her troubles. And now this divine 
 
210 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 One had come to her country and was near to 
 her. Hinv she knew this we are not told. It is 
 written that Christ would have no man know 
 that He was there. Also that He could not be 
 hid. For a certain w(jman heard of Him and 
 came and fell at His feet. Did her terrible want 
 direct her to Christ, as the needle sways and 
 trembles till it points to the pole? Did her 
 bursting heart feel its way to the Saviour, when 
 her eyes had not yet seen Him and no voice had 
 told her of His coming? Or lu^d some faintest 
 whisper crept along the foot of Lebanon that a 
 stranger had entered quietly into a house, and 
 did her waiting, longing soul interpret and pro- 
 phesy that it was He ? She lost no time : she 
 was at His feet and her cry was, " Have mercy 
 on me, O Lord." " And she besought Him that 
 He would cast forth the devil out of her 
 daughter." Her daughter's case was her own 
 case. The mother's heart enfolded the child. 
 And it was one cry, Have mercy on me, Have 
 mercy on my daughter. So said the father of the 
 lunatic son, " FLave compassion on ?/^and help us.'' 
 The father and his boy stood and fell together. 
 Compassion on one was compassion on both. 
 So cry all true hearts of fathers and of mothers. 
 There is no joy to them while their children are 
 in sorrow : no light for their feet while the feet 
 of sons and daughters walk in darkness ; no 
 heaven for them to look up to, if the faces of the 
 others are turned to hell. 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 211 
 
 How closely the words stand together, " O 
 Lord, have mercy on me, my daughter is griev- 
 ously vexed with a devil." They suffered to- 
 gether : and mercy for one would be mercy for 
 boih. And to-day as every day, they are many, 
 like this S3^rophcenician, who are falling before 
 the Saviour with burdens for othei's which are 
 also their own. The woes of one heart are the 
 woes of two. By the side of the suffering sinner 
 walks the sufTering saint. Heart to heart the 
 parent accompanies the child. His life is spoiled 
 while the life of the other is spoiled. The cry 
 for the boy's life is the cry for his own life. The 
 two are wound up in affection together. Blood 
 cements them and love which is stronger than 
 life. Have mercy on vie is the cry of agony as 
 parents bring their sons and daughters in prayer 
 to God. Earth hears no other such cry. Heaven 
 answers to no other such supplication. 
 
 Ever^'thing was against this woman. On her 
 own part all was dark. She belonged to an 
 accursed stock. She was a pagan. Jesus was a 
 Jew: and the Jews looked scornfully upon such 
 as she. He had entered her country not for 
 healing and teaching, but to escape them both, 
 and to get rest and strength for His work among 
 His own peo{)le. On His part then there was 
 nothing hopeful. His attendants were also Jews 
 from wiiom she could expect onl}^ repulse. Yet 
 through all these obstacles she urged her way 
 and her petition. It was enough for her that 
 
212 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 Christ was there, within rcacii if she had the deter- 
 mination to reach Mini. She had heard of what 
 He had done elsewhere. She had seen, it may 
 be, others whom He had restored. He was a 
 Saviour for just such as she. His name and fame 
 had readied heathendom. And she would goto 
 Him and seek the greatest boon. It was a you/i^ 
 daughter for whom she would plead. There is 
 something very touching in that phrase, " whose 
 young daughter had an unclean spiiit." Ah ! 
 so it is with the sinful possession often. Into 
 young hearts Satan enters. At an early age 
 we see the developments of sin, the sad proof 
 that the soul is lost. 
 
 For the young Christ is wanted. We cannot 
 plead for the children too early, that they may 
 be saved. Far easier is it to expel these posses- 
 sions in childhood, than when they have become 
 fortified in habit, in affection, in invincible pur- 
 pose. Easier to drive out the enemy behind weak 
 barricades than when fortifications have been 
 builded of adamant. Be earnest for the young ! 
 Parent! teacher! now is the time for the earnest 
 plea with Christ, the cry of the soul that will 
 take no denial. Make the case of each child, one 
 by one, your own. Let 30ur prayer be. Have 
 mercy on }iic ! 
 
 There is suggested here a striking contrast. 
 In the first twenty-three verses of the chapter 
 we have the painful account of the traditions 
 and ceremonial of the self-righteous Pharisees. 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 213 
 
 Christ was with them : He was ready to in. 
 struct them, and to bless them, in fact to save 
 them. They were of His own nation : they were 
 the lost ones of the House of Israel, for whom 
 particularly He was sent. In their sight His 
 divine miracles were wrought. In their hearing 
 His divine words were spoken. He offered 
 them Himself and all that He could do for them. 
 Yet He was hidden to them. They could not, 
 they would not see Him. They were occupied 
 with the washing of hands before eating, the 
 washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and 
 tables. They honored God with their lips : but 
 their heart was far from Him. They taught 
 for doctrines, the commandments of men. They 
 had their own traditions: and these were more 
 than the gospel to them, making void the word 
 of God. Such men wore the life out of Christ. 
 They would not be saved and they hindered 
 others from being saved. They would not enter 
 into the Kingdom, and those who would enter 
 in they hindered. 
 
 But no scjoncr had He reached a pagan coun- 
 try than He could not be hid. If he had 
 remained there probably the whole people would 
 have sought Him, and that beautiful prophecy 
 would have found a partial fulfillment, " I will 
 give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." 
 And the contrast lasts. Brought up with the 
 Bible in y(3ur hands and in your language, edu- 
 cated by pious parents and teachers, listening to 
 
214 TIIK :\I(>DKL LIFE. 
 
 the g^ospcl and knowiiio^, ackiiowlcdt^ini^ even, its 
 value, you do not accept of Clirist. 
 
 Yet shall there conie anion<^ yini one from a 
 land that knows not Clirist nor the Bible, who 
 has had no religious teaching, no Christian 
 parentage, no privileges such as belong to you 
 and have always been enjoyed by you, and in a 
 short residence among )'Ou and after a brief 
 acquaintance with the Bible, he shall learn such 
 things of Christ that he shall want Him for a 
 Saviour and shall see such wisdom in the Bible 
 that he shall yield to its instructions and shall 
 believe in Chiist and shall say, " jNIv onl\' desire 
 is to confess before men that I accept Him as 
 ni}' Saviour and Redeemer." " And 1 desire to 
 connect myself with His Chuich that I may 
 hionor Him by obeying His commandments and 
 by living a life devoted to His service." 
 
 The men of Japan and of China shall enter 
 into the Kingdom before you ! You are occu- 
 pied with your vain traditions. They accept the 
 living word of God. You put faith in morali- 
 ties. They put faith in Christ. You put off 
 your dut}'. They perform it. You stay out of 
 the Kingdom. They press into it. Forms aie 
 one thing: the need of the soul is another. 
 There is avast difference between mere morality 
 and true faith. There is an eternal difference 
 between tlie world and Christ. You may be 
 lost; while they are saved. 
 
 The Syrophcjenician woman was at the feet of 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 215 
 
 Christ. " But He answered her not a word." 
 As Chrysostom says, " The Word has no word." 
 The Lord is silent. He seems to have even 
 turned away from her and moved on. But she 
 cried after Him, so that the disciples besought 
 Him to send her away. Then His speech 
 seemed harder than His silence. ** I am not 
 sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of 
 Israel." She came closer then : and there was 
 a deeper earnestness in her voice, as she said 
 onl}^, " Lord, help me." That cry surely must 
 avail. Yet the Lord coldly said, " It is not meet 
 to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." 
 The Jews considered and treated all other people 
 as barbarians and dogs. And Christ uses their 
 language to try her faith. Was there ever such 
 trial ? Silence : cold speech : contemptuous 
 reproach. Dogs! Can the crushed woman 
 bear that? Will she not now despair? Will 
 she not go away, humbled, broken, ready to give 
 over and to feel that all is lost. 
 
 So would it have been with many. They 
 could not have persevered through such 
 obstacles, indignities. But out of her despair 
 she wrenched an argument. In her misery she 
 used, as one has called it, " the ready wit of 
 faith." Listen to her. " Truth, Lord ; yet the 
 dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs." 
 She accepts the Lord's own word ; takes the 
 title and the place, the lowest place, yet the 
 place where crumbs of mercy fall. As Luther 
 
216 THE M(^DEL LIFE. 
 
 says, " She snares Christ in His own words." 
 She was willing to take the dog's phice if only 
 the wasted food of the children could be her 
 own. Anywhere, anything, if only she could be 
 blessed ! A dog ! if so Christ could be hers. 
 " A slave of Jesus Christ " wrote one of himself 
 who was far greater than she, a man of learn- 
 ing and of ancestral pride and who boasted that 
 he was a free-born citizen of Rome. A slave ! 
 so that Christ should be the Master. The oflf- 
 scouring of all things, the filth of the world, if only 
 for the sake of Christ. " Make me as one of thy 
 hired servants " pleaded the prodigal, so that 
 once more 1 may be within the father's, vty 
 father's, house. Though the Lord be high, yet 
 hath He respect unto the lowly. Blessed are 
 the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven. At the feet of Christ is more than to be 
 on a worldly throne. That is the place of faith. 
 And then came victor3\ The Svrophoenician 
 woman conquered in her lowliness. She knew 
 the /uari of Christ before and to her eye of 
 faith it was not concealed by His words and 
 manner, by coldness and repulse. She trusted 
 His heart ; and now it was revealed to her. " O 
 woman !" He said, *' great is thy faith ! Be it 
 unto thee even as thou wilt!" " For this saying, 
 go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daugh- 
 ter." It was no longer a man, in the garb of a 
 Jew, who stood before her. It was the Lord 
 Himself. It was the King in His beauty and 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 217 
 
 benignity. His words now were all gracious- 
 ness and benediction. His largesses were royal. 
 He spoke and He gave as a King. Only to one 
 other, in His earthly life, did He give such com- 
 mendation, and that other was a Gentile also. 
 Of a Roman centurion He said, " 1 have not 
 found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Faith 
 conquers all things ; it conquers Christ. It con- 
 quers by the might \vhich He gives. For it is 
 " according to His working which worketh in us 
 mightily." 
 
 Faith looks to the right source. It trusts in 
 One who is able and willing to bestow in His own 
 time and way. 
 
 Faith zvaits : waits tiirough the whole trial, 
 though it be through agony, through lowest 
 humiliation, through heaviest loss. Faith holds 
 fast : it holds on though the hand be smitten and 
 wounded and bleeding. It cries with the patri- 
 arch at Peniel, " I will not let thee go, except 
 thou bless me." Faith has an overcoming 
 power. By it the weaker vanquishes the 
 stronger. By it the paralytic overcame material 
 obstacles that he might be placed " before Jesus." 
 By it blind Bartimeus overcame the opposition 
 of his fellow-men that he might come to Jesus. 
 And by it this weak pagan woman, in a land of 
 heathen, overcame Christ Himself. "Great is 
 thy faith." So is challenged our regard and 
 imitation. Our imitation ! To that are we 
 brought. To low faith come scant blessings. 
 
218 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 To stroiif^, invincible faith, that will take no 
 denial, that will trust God thou<^h He smite the 
 believer, that will cry out of the deepest humili- 
 ation, " Lord, help me," will come at length the 
 royal answer, " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 
 Faith wears the crown this side of heaven. 
 " Even as thou wilt." So the believer ascends 
 the throne and wears the crown. His will be- 
 comes imperial. But it costs something. Great 
 thrones are gained through great struggles, 
 through blood. " Ye have not yet resisted unto 
 blood, striving against sin," writes the Apostle 
 to the Hebrew Christians whom he points to 
 " Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." 
 The Syrophoenician woman went very low but 
 she gained her request. " Her daughter was 
 made whole from that very hour." Her faith 
 was the channel through which Christ's power 
 poured in blessing. She was the conductor by 
 which the more than electric current ran from 
 the Saviour to the saved. She stood between the 
 living and the dead. And through her life and 
 restoration passed over to her daughter. " When 
 she was come to her house, she found the devil 
 gone out and her daughter laid upon the bed." 
 The long sad days of paroxysm and vexation 
 were over, and there was rest and peace and 
 soundness. 
 
 Have you, parents of children, teachers of 
 children, been offering the prayer, Have mercy 
 on me, O Lord, my daughter, my son, my 
 
CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 219 
 
 scholar, * * and then told the story of your 
 woe? Unanswered, tried, sorely amazed be- 
 cause of what )'ou have heard and known of 
 Christ, and now see of Him, have you still, 
 against advice of others, against uprisings of 
 your own heart, against the provocations of 
 delay, held on, held steadily there, to Christ 
 alone, with the one plea, " Lord, help me ?" 
 Have you felt that your son or daughter or 
 brother or husband tiiust be saved and that there 
 was no real joy for you till the rescue came ? 
 That is the wa}' of faith. That is the way to 
 victory. The low place is the next place to the 
 throne. The deepest darkness is just before the 
 dawn. Sorest trials precede surest answers. 
 Delay is not denial. Denial may be only trial. 
 It may be only outward and in words: while 
 the gracious, full answering awaits you. We 
 may not fully answer the question, WJiy God so 
 tiics the faith of His true children. But we 
 know that it brings forth a purer and stronger 
 faith. That word which has in it benediction 
 and coronation, " Be it unto thee even as thou 
 wilt," is onlv spoken when He can also say, 
 " Great is thy faith." That word which lifts 
 saints to the side of Christ, that they also may 
 sit on thrones, follows a trust that has been 
 sorely, bitterly tried and has not been found 
 wanting. " Said 1 not unto thee, that if thou 
 wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of 
 
220 I'lm MODEL LIFE. 
 
 God?" The saint's own victory, the healing, 
 the conversion, the immortal life of those that are 
 his and for whom his unfailinuf prayer was lifted, 
 and the bright heaven at last, are the sure 
 reward. 
 
XVIIT. 
 
 THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 
 
 ICTION has wrought its finest charac- 
 terization in self-sacrifice and devotion 
 for others. Its ideal heroes have been 
 those who have not consulted their own interest 
 or happiness, but who have willingly or sponta- 
 neously or passionately offered themselves to 
 rescue others from a dreaded fate or to crown 
 them with a coveted delight. For this they 
 have exposed themselves to certain peril : they 
 have given up their own undoubted rights 
 or possessions : they have relinquished and 
 smothered the love that has been their brightest 
 dowr}^ and doomed themselves to loneliness 
 and sorrow and want that they might make 
 cheerful and rich and useful other lives, that 
 they might make other paths smooth, though 
 their own should thereby be made rough and 
 rocky. This self-abnegation is the crown of 
 heroic sacrifice. It gives nobility to plebeian 
 blood. It glorifies aristocratic descent. It puts 
 manhood foremost. It makes him chief who 
 possesses it whether he holds titles from noble 
 ancestry or springs from common stock. But 
 
 [221] 
 
222 TIIIO MoDICr. LIFK. 
 
 especially do the writers of fiction enjoy the 
 giving of this excellent grace to those who 
 stand high without it ; as though more than 
 name and culture and blood and noble rank 
 M'ere the heraldry of genuine humanity, the 
 devotion of the true soul to another's welfare. 
 He, who has inherited an illustrious name, in 
 whose paternal halls hang the likenesses of heroes, 
 who looks out on broad ancestral possessions, 
 who holds the keys of social eminence and 
 political power and vast wealth, for whom it is 
 eas}-^ to possess and enjoy all that the world can 
 give to its votaries, who is courted and loved 
 and obeyed and served, is made to be greater 
 and nobler and more opulent by a glad and full 
 self-offering in which he sacrifices everything 
 but his own regal manhood, everything outside 
 of himself, that himself may be more illustrious 
 and grand. 
 
 But in this, fiction works from life. It draws its 
 imaginary picture from actual reality. The great 
 characters of history are the men and women who 
 have sacrificed most. These are the}' who have 
 been lauded in the verse of poets, who have in- 
 spired the eloquence of orators, who have given 
 charm and picturesqueness and power to naria- 
 tive, who are held up as examples to stimulate 
 the young and the aspiring. 
 
 It is not those who have pleased themselves, 
 who have lived merely for their own enjo3'ment, 
 who have been satisfied to hold and improve 
 
THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 223 
 
 what they have received, who have made them- 
 selves the center and have wished all things to 
 be tributary to their personal happiness and ag- 
 grandizement ; it is not those who have made the 
 world's history luminous, who have poured sun- 
 shine and glory on the annals of their time and 
 nation : but rather those who have cheerfully 
 given up their possessions and their rank and 
 their services and themselves with all their en- 
 dowments and advantages and influence and per- 
 sonal power to secure the rights and the liberties 
 and the enjoyment of others. This devotion has 
 been higher than any title of nobility. It has 
 brought the high-born and the base-born on to a 
 common level and has shown that manhood is 
 the chief title and that service is the noblest 
 rank. He is honored in all true history who out 
 of discouraging environment has struggled up 
 into a place where he could devote his strength 
 to the welfare of his fellows, as he also has been 
 who, possessing everything that could satisfy his 
 personal wants, has counted it his personal priv- 
 ilege to deny himself that he might minister to 
 others. It was when Sir Philip Sidney, wounded 
 on the battle-field, refused the cup of cold water 
 that a dying soldier near him might be refreshed 
 by it, that his gentleness and gi^eatness shone out 
 more than when he enjoyed abundance in the 
 banquet-room of his castle. It was when the first 
 soldier of our time and land lay among his men 
 on the ground with only the heavens for his cov- 
 
224: THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 ering and marched with them, as one of tlicm, 
 in his determined endeavor to cut off Vicksburgf 
 from support in the rear, that his heroic purpose 
 was revealed more than when he directed some 
 great action with liis staff around him or rode at 
 the head of his troops at some jiroud review. 
 
 Self-denial, humiliation, sacrifice, are the high- 
 est honors. These put the crown on men. In 
 all benevolent work, in the blessed missionar}'- 
 imdertakings, in that consecration which leads 
 men of humanity and sympathy and love to give 
 tlieir lives for the uplifting and relief and salva- 
 tion of degraded and miserable men, we see the 
 daily and noble illustrations of what they are 
 and of what they can accomplish who do not 
 |)lease themselves, but who hold themselves to 
 be the servants of their fellows and the servants 
 of their divine Lord. 
 
 " Christ pleased not Himself." This is said 
 with reference to His extraordinary work for us. 
 It was something new that He did not please 
 Himself. He had found pleasure during His 
 eternal existence in His communion with the 
 Father and tise S[)irit. They had enjoyed their 
 mysterious and infinite being. In their great 
 thoughts, their counsels, which embraced all 
 space and all duration and all possible creations, 
 in their warm and infinite affections which were 
 full of harmony and sweetness, in their sublime 
 purposes which laid hold of the greatest good 
 which the}' could accomplish as they introduced 
 
THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 225 
 
 one order after another of beings into sensitive 
 and enduring life, Christ had pleased Himself. 
 
 And, as that one of the sacred Persons who 
 was charged with the responsibility of Creation, 
 He had pleased Himself in calling forth upon 
 different spheres and scenes responsible agents, 
 made in His own image, made as nearly like 
 Godhead as finite existences can be like infinite ; 
 inhabitants of His own heaven, retainers of His 
 palace, servants of His throne, swift as light and 
 burning as fire to do His will ; inhabitants of 
 other worlds fitted in their endowments for life 
 where they were placed, fitted to learn and 
 achieve and grow, to grow steadil}' throughout 
 an existence which, begun, should never end, 
 fitted to enjoy or to suffer according to their use 
 or misuse of themselves and their surroundings, 
 fitted also as a chief endowment to decide on 
 their own course, their own character, and so on 
 their own destiny. He had pleased Himself in 
 launching from His Almighty hand the number- 
 less worlds which crowd the heavens, and giving 
 them their appointed orbits so that they move 
 without discord on their separate but harmon- 
 ious paths, those heavenly choirs, without speech, 
 without language, whose voice is not heard, yet 
 whose resonant line has gone into all the earth 
 and their words unto the end of the world : in 
 covering each world with its own wonderful 
 draper}' of organized life, trees that live for a 
 thousand years and perpetuate themselves, flow- 
 
226 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 ers that bloom in almost infinite variety and 
 beauty and fragrance, fruits that refresh and 
 please and satisfy : in peopling air and earth and 
 water with their peculiar and appropriate deni- 
 zens: and in giving to all these their approi)riate 
 and protecting and unchanging and luiiversal 
 laws. 
 
 In all this, anil in much more of which we do 
 not know, and which we cannot even imagine, 
 Christ had been accustomed to please Himself. 
 
 But a new work stood before Him ; a new 
 endeavor rose to His choice. A world had 
 swung out of harmon3\ A race had sacrificed 
 their birthright: had dishonored their Creator: 
 had entered on a black career of sin. The ques- 
 tion arose whether they should be saved. The 
 problem, new, strange, momentous, confronted 
 Christ, whether He would save them. 
 
 We do not know how much it involved. There 
 are m3'Sterious hints in Scripture that it involved 
 personal sacrifices into the meaning of which we 
 are unfitted to enter, sacrifices which God only 
 could take the measure of, which had respect 
 solel}'^ to the relations of the divine Trinity. 
 
 But we know some things, enough to show us 
 that when Christ decided on the enterprise of 
 our salvation. He took on Ilim a burden the like 
 of which had never been b(jrne, and which His 
 shoulders onl)^ were strong enough to bear. We 
 have never stood where He was when He came 
 to that decision. We have never yet entered 
 
THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 227 
 
 that world that was His home. Our eyes have 
 not seen its furniture. Our ears have not heard 
 its music. Our minds have not formed the con- 
 ception of its glory and its wealth. We have 
 not seen God, nor the throne of God, nor the 
 palace of the One King. But we have heard 
 something of it. There have been wonderful 
 revelations about it in the Book. And some- 
 times we have had such longings to know more 
 of it that some of us would willingly die to know. 
 But this matter of our salvation involved 
 exile from that world, discrowning of that King, 
 abandonment of that throne, separation from 
 those who dwelt there. " Christ pleased not 
 Himself." To the amazement of angels, He left. 
 The crown that had never been tarnished was 
 laid aside. He had always worn it till then. 
 The throne which had forever known Him as the 
 Eternal King was forsaken. The Father, with 
 whom He had dwelt before the morning stars 
 sang together, in the old eternity, when there 
 was but one Being in the universe, and He ivas 
 enough to fill it, was left. All that made heaven, 
 its society, its glory and beauty, its worship, its 
 uninterrupted blessedness, all were left. It 
 could not please Him. He loved that world ; all 
 who dwelt there, all that transpired there, all 
 that He had been used to there, beyond any love 
 that we can imagine. He went forth to a home- 
 sickness that never had a parallel. He went out 
 with a heartsickness that Christ only could bear. 
 
225 THE Model lifb!. 
 
 Here we find one deep meaning of the words, 
 " Christ pleased not himself," He had love. Old 
 associations were dear to Him. Old friendships 
 were infinitely precious to Him. He could not 
 break away without sundering ties that were 
 infinitely strong and sacred and sweet. Let us 
 not think it was God who did it, unless we 
 impute to the God who did it, Godlike affection. 
 Godlike strengtii of attachment, infinite tender- 
 ness of association and endearment. He broke it 
 all. He gave up everything. He sacrificed 
 everything that was precious and then — Himself. 
 
 Not only was the glorious abode that had 
 always been His to be renounced, but He, if our 
 salvation were to be undertaken, was to endure a 
 humiliation greater than had ever before been 
 seen. It was the supreme humiliation of the 
 universe ! For the Creator to take the place of 
 a creature were a lowly and a displeasing thing to 
 do. But that was not the extent of Christ's 
 descent. That was only the beginning of it. 
 That excited wonder and consternation among 
 the angels who had always seen Him in tiie first 
 place of heaven ; and Judea was filled with their 
 anxious and excited repiesentatives when the 
 miracle of Bethlehem occurred. In that lowly 
 manger was one who had been used to an 
 unequalcd throne. In that puny form was the 
 nature of Divinity. Hidden in that innocent 
 guise was the adorable God. He wiio had made 
 all things and controlled all things by the word 
 
THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 229 
 
 of His power, was now in tiie place of helpless- 
 ness, a babe in the arms of a human mother. It 
 behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren. 
 If He would be the Mediator between God and 
 man it was necessary that He who had experi- 
 enced all that there is in G(jdhead should experi- 
 ence all that there is in humanity. So He 
 became like unto us and went through all that 
 we go through in our life of growth and develop- 
 ment. And the Sciiptures are careful to speak 
 of His growth in stature and in wisdom and in 
 favor with God and men. 
 
 Now, we do not think enough even of this; we 
 do not realize what a profound condescension it 
 was. 
 
 But, as I said, that was trifling compared with 
 what followed it. He went not only into the 
 place of loivlincss, but He went into the place of 
 weariness and unrecompensed toil and thankless 
 deeds of compassion. Stand with Him in His 
 frightful temptation : stand with Him at the 
 well of Samaria : stand with Him among the 
 surging multitudes who hung on his words, as 
 He pitifully healed the sick, the sightless, the 
 dumb, the lame; as He raised the dead; as He 
 helped the miserable and the sinful into light 
 and comfort and peace; as He bore the griefs 
 and carried the sorrows of men. Weary days, 
 weary nights, fasting, cold, desertion, dread 
 loneliness, were His. But that was not all, nor 
 the worst. He was denied, He was betrayed, 
 
230 THE MODKL MFE. 
 
 He was crucified. He saw His trusted friends 
 deserting Him and He saw His enemies grati- 
 fied in His overthrow and death. There is a 
 mysterious awe about Gcthsemane and Calvary. 
 The profoundest mystery of the passion we do 
 not understand. It is dimly signified to us in 
 the urgent and unanswered prayers of Ihe 
 garden that the Father would permit the cup U) 
 pass from Him, and in the cry of the cross, My 
 God, My God, wh}- hast thou forsaken me! 
 It were sad enough to bear tlie load of human 
 sins, but to have that work someway sepaicitc 
 Him from God, hide the face that He loved so 
 well, that was beyond endurance, and that broke 
 the heart of Chiist. 
 
 We are standing now near to the truth, 
 "Christ pleased not Himself." The nearer we 
 come to the cross, the more we realize the 
 endurance of our Lord, the greater will be our 
 wonder, and the greater should be our grati- 
 tude, that He was willing U) experience such 
 sufTerings for us. 
 
 For us He died. He was happy and glo- 
 rious witlK)ut us: and would iiave been if we 
 had not been saved. He was under no obliga- 
 tion to us, nor to His government, nor to His 
 own character, to save us. Our ruin was self- 
 ruin. Our apostasy was voluntarv. But it 
 was gracious and noble and Godlike in Him to 
 doit. It was an eternal honor to His throne 
 that such humiliation was permitted. It will 
 
THE UNSKLFISIT CHRIST. 231 
 
 forever be the brightest glory of Godhead that 
 redemption was accomplished. The central 
 symbol and characterization of heaven is the 
 Lamb slain. Wherever God is known, wherever 
 the attributes and perfections of God are hon- 
 ored, there it will be forever known and cele- 
 brated that Christ became the Redeemer of 
 men. Though He did not please Himself ; 
 though instead of the joy that was set before 
 Him, He endured the cross and became obedi- 
 ent unto death ; yet in that service and sacrifice 
 was His peerless honor. 
 
 Let us not seek to please ourselves. Let us 
 not ask what is the easy and the pleasant way. 
 Let us not shirk the hard and painful service of 
 our Christian profession. Let us imitate Christ. 
 Let us cherish the heroic spirit of the martyr 
 ages. Let us be like the young Christian who 
 said to the missionary board. Send me to the 
 hardest place : or like another who said, Let me 
 go where no one else will go. Let us in our 
 work for our adorable Lord, take up the cross, 
 deny ourselves, sacrifice personal ease and indul- 
 gence, that we may in all ways and all places, 
 do that which will most effectively advance the 
 honor and kingdom of Him who pleased not 
 Himself that He miglit save us. 
 
XIX. 
 
 CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 
 
 GREAT want of our race is the knowl- 
 edge of God. All men, for we throw 
 entirely out of the account the fools who 
 have denied the existence of their Maker, have 
 felt their accountability to some superior intel- 
 ligence, some divine Being, in whose controlling 
 hand thev are and before whom they are to 
 stand for the decisive investigations of the 
 world's great clay. By whatsoever name they 
 have called Him, under whatever form the}'^ 
 have conceived t)f His existence, it has been a 
 relief to them to think that there is one over 
 them to whose sway they are subject and that 
 the world is not driven forward by blind chance 
 and that they themselves are not bound down by 
 an unrelenting fate. 
 
 Various indeed have been their notions of 
 God. The mystical and philosophic Brahman 
 has invented a divine trinity as best satisfying 
 his refined speculations. Grecian and Roman 
 mythology peopled the universe with gods many. 
 The old Teutonic race enthroned a deity of 
 power above the ivcrld whose will was supreme 
 
 [233] 
 
234- THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 over all human things. Other peoples, unable 
 to distinguish the Creator Irom His works, have 
 seen God in the sun, which, like a divine Eye, 
 gazed daily upon the entire world around which 
 it circled : in the still stars, which, like sentinels 
 com missioned by the great King, stand on all 
 the outposts of his dominions and keep silent 
 ward and watch overall His creatures: in the 
 solemn mountains, on whose turreted pinnacles 
 are pitched His pavilions, now bathed in the 
 glory of sunlight, and then veiled in the mists 
 of massive clouds: in the dark woods, whose 
 awful recesses and unexplored caverns conceal 
 the court of the avenging monarch : in the view- 
 less tempest and the wild storm whose shriek 
 pierces their dwellings at midnight and whose 
 path over the land and upon the sea is marked 
 by uptorn forests and shattered tenements and 
 dismantled wrecks: in the cataract whose mist 
 rises like the smoke of sacrifice to His throne 
 and whose voice is like a ceaseless anthem up- 
 borne to His praise : in the broad, deep streanii 
 whose waters fertilize vast territories: in the 
 solemn sea, whose floods ebb and flow as 
 though by their own will they daily and nightly 
 visited the shores of many lands, now gently 
 advancing and retreating along their sandy 
 bounds and then madly dashing against their 
 I'ocky coasts. 
 
 A God, of some kind, men will have. They 
 know that they arc wxak : that somewhere there 
 
CHKIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 235 
 
 must be power. At times the}' feel a reaching 
 out for better sympathies, for holier love, than 
 they can find in beings like tiiemselves. Yet 
 meagre and unsatisfying are their best unassisted 
 conceptions of the Divine Being. God is remote. 
 Eye hath not seen Him. Ear hath not heard His 
 voice. Heart hath not felt the throbbings of 
 His heart. Man feels like an orphan. He feels 
 like a stranger in his father's home. He feels 
 that the God has no S3Mnpathies with him. He 
 cannot apprehend the Great Spirit, the awe of 
 whose presence falls like a heav)', dark shadow 
 upon him. He feels after God, if haply he may 
 find Him. He looks into the depth : but the 
 depth says, " He is not in me." He looks to the 
 height: but the height says, " He is not here." 
 He takes the wings of the morning and flies to 
 the utmost bounds of the earth: but there he 
 finds Him not for whom his soul languishes. He 
 searches the darkness and the light: but they both 
 declare that He is not in them. He questions the 
 [)lanets as they roll : but from their cold spheres 
 they answer nothing. He calls to the universe 
 peopled everywhere by His power: but all 
 peoples and worlds say, " We know Him not." 
 Still the baffled inquirer knows that God is, and 
 that He is everywhere. Perplexed, saddened, 
 the solitary orphan sobs lor his Father. His 
 human heart yearns for divine, paternal sym- 
 pathies. His voice moans in anxious inquiry: 
 "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where I 
 
236 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 can find Thee. Draw me, and 1 will run after 
 Thee. Oh that Thou wert as my brother!" 
 To man thus dejected and forsaken, comes one 
 fairer than the sons of men, representinjr Him- 
 self as their elder brother, yet claiming equality 
 with God, and says, " Behold Him for whom you 
 long, for whom, elsewhere, you seek in vain." 
 It is Jesus. And He says unto us, " I am the 
 way and the truth and the life : no man cometh 
 unto the Father but by Me. If 3'e had known 
 Me, ye should have known My Father also : and 
 from henceforth ye know Him and have seen 
 Him." And when, like Philip, we say, " Lord, 
 show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," we may, 
 each one of us, hear Jesus saying unto us, " Have 
 I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou 
 not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father : and how sayest thou then 
 ' show us the Father ?' Believe me, that I am 
 in the Father, and the Father in me ; or else if my 
 zvord is not enough, believe me for the sake of 
 the works which I do and which none but God 
 can do." 
 
 In Christ man's greatest want is fully met. In 
 Him he finds his God. Let us think of Christ, as 
 revealing God. 
 
 The Scriptural doctrine is that His advent was 
 the manifestation of God. Says the beloved dis- 
 ciple, •* For the Life was manifested, ant] we 
 have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto 
 you that Eternal Life which was with the Father, 
 
Christ the revealer oe god. 237 
 
 and was manifested unto us." The whole force 
 of the Scripture representation is to this effect, 
 that Jesus Christ proceeded frcjm God and was 
 God and revealed by His life the heart of God 
 to the race. Exclude these ideas from its teach- 
 ings, and the Bible becomes mere rhapsody and 
 its meaning is emptied out. The Son of Man, 
 who is also the Son of God, was not wholly of 
 human, nor wholly of divine, origin. As it is 
 stated in the Apostles' Creed, he" was conceived 
 by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin 
 Mary." That divinity might become incarnate 
 He subjected himself to the necessities of our 
 estate, and that He might be the more closely 
 related to us and might reveal Himself more 
 fully to us, He separated not Himself from the 
 entire experiences of our humanit}'. That we 
 might comprehend Him, He appeared in the 
 likeness of men, felt the burdens of our nature, 
 shared in the infirmities as in the joys of our lot. 
 ''The Word was made flesh." "I came forth 
 from the Father and am come into the world." 
 " He that was in the form of God, and was made 
 in fashion as a UT^n." " In whom dwelt all the 
 fullness of the Godhead bodily," "The Father 
 is in me and I in Him," " Who is the image of 
 the invisible God." " 1 and my Father are one." 
 "O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, 
 with the glory which I had with thee before the 
 world was." Such passages as these, numerous 
 and striking, force us to the conclusion that this 
 
238 Till'; MoDKI, I.I PR. 
 
 extraordinary person, this Jesns, with his won- 
 derfnl j^ifts and claims, with His remarkable life 
 and death, was indeed divine. As we meditate 
 upon them all, we exclaim with the Roman cen- 
 tnrion at the cross, " Truly this was the Son of 
 God !" With Thomas, we cry, " My Lord and 
 my God I" With the disciples (j^aziiii^ after their 
 ascending Lord, we worship Ilini. Witii " every 
 creature which is in heaven, and cjii the earth, 
 and under the earth, and snch as are in the sea, 
 and ail that are in them," we say, " Blessing and 
 honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that 
 sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for 
 ever and ever." 
 
 Christ's advent was the manifestation of God 
 to men. That great fact is the most luminous 
 truth of Scripture. It is the sun of revelation, 
 the center, the light, and the life of all the other 
 truths which circle around this. 
 
 The motive for this revelation was sufficient 
 to secure it. It might be thought a strange thing 
 and improbable, not to say absurd and impossible, 
 that God should thus reveal Himself to creatures. 
 But we have seen what men are, to what con- 
 clusions they come, when unassisted. The great 
 majority are pagans; the minority struggle after 
 unattainable truth. But God wishes to be 
 known. All His works are proofs that He does 
 not seek to conceal Himself. The things that 
 are made declare their Maker. The visible 
 creation reveals the invisible Creator. Ourselves 
 
CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 239 
 
 announce God to us. But who is the God ? asks 
 the wondering student of his works. Where is 
 He, that I may behold Him ? What is He, that 
 I may comprehend Him and worship Him ? 
 These results that we see around us allow us to 
 place no limit to His attributes. That Power 
 which could create the worlds, whose number no 
 finite mind can compute, is such that we stand 
 abashed before it, and because we can say nothing 
 else which expresses the idea any better, we call 
 it infinite ; the infinite being as incomprehensible 
 by us as the God. And then the providence of 
 God, how vast it is ! Who by searching can 
 find it out? It reaches to the tiniest flower on 
 whose fair bosom sparkles the dewy gem ; to 
 the star whose light reaches us only after a 
 journey of a thousand years ; to the little birds 
 that sing in many a shady covert, the sparrows 
 that fall not unobserved by the eye of God ; to 
 the cattle on a thousand hills; to the pearls that 
 lie in the unfathomed abysses of the sea; to the 
 painted leaves of the forest with which Autumn 
 adorns the departing year ; to every wind that 
 blows and every shower that falls; to the ripen- 
 ing corn and all the fruits of the harvest time ; to 
 the dweller on the mountain side ; to the dweller 
 in the thronged city, to those who go down to 
 the sea in ships, to the kings on their thrones, 
 and to lonely, watching ones in their exile. 
 
 And this all-reaching, all-governing provi- 
 dence, we also call infinite. And so as we in- 
 
240 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 vestigate the divine attributes, all, all is infinite. 
 We arc lost in the boundless, incomprehensible 
 existence which we call God. We can only bow 
 down and adore, in awe, afar. There are no 
 sympathies as yet between us. We cannot fall 
 on the bosom of our Father : we cannot come to 
 Him as dear children : He is to us the dreadful 
 God, the almighty and everlasting Jehovah. 
 Now, here it is that the revelation of God in 
 Christ becomes significant to us. In order that 
 God may reveal himself to us, in order that we 
 may know Him, in order that His attributes may 
 come within the range of our perception and 
 sympathy, in order that this distance between us 
 and God may be bridged over, He becomes 
 Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the 
 flesh, the fullness of God revealed bodily. In 
 no other way can the result be reached so well, 
 so directly, as by the incarnation of the Son. 
 And the same motive which would lead God to 
 express Himself at all, which would lead Him to 
 the work of creation, would also lead Him to 
 appear in the likeness of men. Man is God's 
 chiefest work out of heaven. The life of God 
 brought into the history of the life of the race 
 would be no disparagement of His glory, while 
 it would most intimately and impressively and 
 tenderly reveal Him to us. W-^ cannot come 
 directly to Jehovah. The finite cannot stand 
 before the infinite. We must have some me- 
 dium through which we can approach the God- 
 
CHRIST THE KEVEALER OF GOD. 241 
 
 head. His throne is too awful for us. The 
 light in which He dwells is too dazzling for our 
 weak vision. Christ therefore is what we want. 
 Christ the way, the truth, the life, meets human 
 need. We can come unto the Father by Him. 
 To secure such perfect adaptation to a glorious 
 end, the very end of God in all His works, is 
 surely not beneath the benevolent God. If He 
 would have us know Him and, because we know 
 Him, love Him, He will reveal Himself lovingly 
 to us, and that He has done in Christ. '* He 
 that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
 
 The most important perfections of God can be 
 communicated to us through Christ. There is 
 much of mystery about the Incarnation. It is a 
 great, solitary, wonderful fact in the world's 
 otherwise trivial history. But if we take it in 
 its most obvious significance, in the simplest but 
 greatest meaning which it was designed to 
 embody and manifest, God in man, doing and 
 dying for the sins of the world, then it becomes 
 a full and apparent and perfect and glorious 
 revelation of Deity. What we want most of all 
 to know is that God loves us, that He sympa- 
 thizes with us, that He can be reconciled to us, 
 that there can be union between us and Him. 
 If we know these things, if they can be brought 
 home to us as evident and felt realities, then the 
 greatest result is gained. God in Christ 
 secures this. If we accept this one fact, all the 
 rest becomes plain, necessary truth. If God 
 
242 THE Model Mf-fi. 
 
 was in Christ, if Jesus was the Son of God, 
 then how closely to us is brought the infinite 
 heart of God, then how real appears His love to 
 us, then how are we drawn to Him in confidence, 
 in filial affection, in holy intimacy ! 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time :" but 
 we have seen "the only begotten Son, who hath 
 declared Him," " who is the image of the 
 invisible God." We look in wonder and in love 
 at His life. It is all pure, hol3% blessed. It is 
 full of the largest sympathies, the tenderest love, 
 the divinest compassions. It goes to the 
 lowliest, the most miserable, the guiltiest, the 
 most abandoned, with its radiance, its charity, 
 its cheer, its benediction, its warm regard. It 
 arrests thoughtful and wise men, like the young 
 lawyer and the learned Nicodemus, with its 
 loftiness and its disinterestedness. It touches 
 the heart of sympathizing, charitable, affection- 
 ate woman : and she loves and trusts and clings 
 to Him through all adverse scenes and fierce 
 persecutions, not ashamed to wash His feet with 
 tears and wipe them with the hair of her head, 
 not reluctant to open her house to Him against 
 whom the doors of Pharisee and scribe were 
 shut, anointing His head with costliest ointment, 
 weeping at His cross which she is the last to 
 leave, and watching at His sepulchre which she 
 is the first to reach. It beams on the trusting 
 heart of childhood, when His words, " Suffer the 
 little children to come unto me," fall like sweetest 
 
CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 243 
 
 music on their ears, and they look up to His face 
 with smiles and nestle in His bosom as lambs in 
 the bosom of the kind shepherd when he gently 
 carries them in his arms. 
 
 It rises before the poor, the unfortunate, the 
 friendless, the sad, the heavy-laden, with a quiet, 
 attractive loveliness and assures them of aid and 
 comfort and rest. It rebukes the cunning crafti- 
 ness, and meanness, and oppression of wicked 
 men by its nobleness and sternness, and purity, 
 and awful goodness. It is a life ever serene, ma- 
 jestic, simple, reverent, loving, Godlike. And 
 through it all and in its crowning woik, His mys- 
 terious death, God reveals Himself to us, as 
 God was never conceived of before, oculd never 
 have been conceived of. Here is love, rich, over- 
 flowing, unequaled. Here is compassion, mercy, 
 placableness, tenderest union to us, benevolent 
 sympathy for us, all indeed that we need to know 
 of God, to lead us to trust Him, and to love 
 Him. When we look upon God in Christ, He is 
 no longer the stern, remote, ncomprehensible, 
 awful Monarch : He is our kind, most loving 
 Father. " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father." And such a Father ! And this is God, 
 doing all that Christ did, feeling for us all that 
 Christ felt, suffering for us all that Christ suf- 
 fered, dying for us as Christ died. Need we 
 anything more? Is not this a most precious 
 revelation ? Let us then not stay away from 
 this God of ours. Let us not doubt and won- 
 
244 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 der and despise, until we j^erish, as though 
 the great Gotl could not condescend to all 
 this. Let us receive and welcome the rev- 
 elation and say of one who manifests such quali- 
 ties of goodness, such attributes of greatness, 
 every thing indeed to win us : This God shall 
 be my God. 
 
 This revealing of God through Christ is suited 
 to our nature. Responsive chords were struck 
 whatever Christ did in the sight of men. Their 
 heart-strings thrilled at His every tone. Many 
 indeed stood aloof and mocked the carpenter's 
 son. Jews in their bigotry, Greeks in their 
 wisdom, despised Him. Pharisee, Sadducee, 
 scribe, priests, doctors of the law; what was 
 the Nazarene to them ? But ah ! there is a world 
 of meaning in that one recorded fact: "The 
 common people heard Him gladly." He taught 
 them " not as the scribes." Rough soldiers, 
 men hardened in war, sent by those in authority 
 to take Him, dared not touch Him, though He 
 stood alone, unarmed, so awed \vere they by 
 His words, so unconsciously did He draw them 
 to Himself by His wonderful power, and their 
 only excuse was, " Never man spake like this 
 man." 
 
 Wherever He went, along the Sea of Galilee, 
 into the solitary wilderness, into the village or 
 the thronged city, the multitudes were around 
 Him. He was a joy to many an aged Anna and 
 many a waiting Simeon. Many a Mary sat 
 
CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 245 
 
 gladly at His feet and heard His words. Rude 
 fishermen were beguiled by Him away from 
 their nets and boats. Tlie publican lelt his taxes 
 to be gathered by others. Gentle and pure- 
 hearted women, those who ministered to Him, 
 and wept for His loss, loved him through all to 
 the fatal end. 
 
 Now this wide, deep love, this unconquerable 
 attachment, shown to Christ while He was 
 alive; yes, shown still stronger by those who 
 since His ascension have loved Him whom they 
 have not seen, loved Him so well that many 
 floods could not drown their affection, nor 
 many fires consume it : that rack, sword, cruel 
 death, no device of man, no temptation of Satan, 
 could make them swerve from it, proves that this 
 revelation of God, of His heart, of His perfec- 
 tions, is just what is suited to our nature. The 
 best way in which God can reach man is through 
 Christ. God, as revealed in the person of His 
 Son in the flesh, has power over human hearts 
 beyond any other power which could have been 
 brought to bear upon them. In this divine Per- 
 son, who wept like an orphan over Jerusalem, 
 who prayed as a child for an erring parent for 
 th.)se who crucified Him, who, though He had 
 not where to lay His head, toiled on for those 
 who would not receive Him, who bore reproach, 
 persecution, desertion of friends, who at last 
 died for those who nailed Him to the cross, is 
 the Friend, the Brother, the God, for whom the 
 
246 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 human heart, convinced of its need and roused 
 to its guilt and its danger, everywhere longs. 
 O this slglit of God as He is in Christ, this see- 
 ing the Father in the Son, this baring of the 
 divine heart before us, is the greatest, dearest, 
 divinest truth on earth! 
 
XX. 
 
 CHRIST THE people's PREACHER. 
 
 N one day our Lord's audience was made 
 up of publicans and sinners. They 
 wished to hear Him once ; and they 
 streamed together to the place where He stood 
 and quite surrounded Him. It was a picture 
 for a painter. He so calm and grand, with a 
 look of nobleness, and of tenderness mingled 
 on His fine face lighted ever with a radiance 
 from His own heaven, sympathy in every 
 expression of His features, and every movement 
 of His person, and every tone of His rich 
 voice, the central figure on the open market- 
 place : they rough and harsh, from their hateful 
 tasks or their low living, with the grime of the 
 world on them ; old Roman tax-gatherers, hard 
 with the hand of oppression, and the exacting 
 clutch on the poor and perverse ; old Jewish trans- 
 gressors, bred in sin, adepts in wrong and lust 
 and hate, glaring on Him with eyes blood-shot 
 and faces foul from the slums, men who never 
 before met in peace, surrounding with wonder 
 and inquiry and hushed stillness this Man of men, 
 the great Healer and Teacher of the time ! 
 
 [247] 
 
248 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 They came near unto Him : the hanas of some 
 of them mi^ht have reached His hand : they 
 could look into His placid eyes : every word 
 could be heard by them : the shadow of His 
 person would fall on them as the sun declined. 
 
 They came to hear Him : feeling that He had 
 something to sa}^ to them : knowing that they 
 needed to hear what one like Him should speak. 
 There they arc. One can see the group in that 
 Jewish town. 
 
 What will the Saviour say to tiiem ? 
 
 It is a matter of thrilling interest to know. 
 We can imagine what He might have spoken 
 of: He who knew all things: tie whose home 
 and throne were ever of old in heaven: He who 
 knew all that was in man and whose eye ran 
 along every path on which the guilty feet of 
 the men before Him had ever been. What will 
 He say to them ? 
 
 It is a matter that concerns us. For what He 
 said to them is what He would speak, what He 
 does speak to us. If we are not publicans we 
 are sinmrs, and we need the very words which 
 they would need : with them we should come 
 near to Him to hear His word. 
 
 Outside was a group of scowling scribes and 
 Pharisees, big in the conceit of their piety, 
 whose envious and hateful murmur could be 
 heard : '* This man receiveth sinners, and eatcth 
 with them." The Lord heard : the publicans 
 and sinners heard. And He spake : so artlessly 
 
CHRIST THE PKOPLe's PREACHER. 249 
 
 is it told of Him : taking no notice of those 
 proud Pharisees in the outer rim of His audi- 
 ence : looking- only into the eyes, looking deeper 
 only into the hearts, of these who were nearest 
 and who wanted just the right word, who were 
 waiting for it and who perhaps would be saved 
 by it: He spake this parable unto them. What 
 man of you. He said, stretching forth His hand 
 to them, speaking so personally that every onf 
 of them felt that He was addressing him, hav- 
 ing a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth 
 not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, 
 and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 
 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his 
 shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home 
 he calleth together his friends and neighbors, 
 saying unto them. Rejoice with me: for I have 
 found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, 
 that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and 
 nine just persons that need no repentance. That 
 was Christ's first word to those hard but listen- 
 ing men. They knew that they were sinners : 
 that they were lost : and He wanted them to 
 know that they were thought of and loved and 
 sought for: that there was a Good Shepherd 
 who was seeking them to save them. 
 
 What man of you ; any one of you having a 
 flock of one hundred sheep, if one were lost, 
 would leave the ninety-nine in the accustomed 
 
250 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 pasture-ground, and would go after the lost one 
 until you have lound it. 
 
 There is a great meaning in the little word 
 which is rendered " after;" it implies that he goes 
 with the intention and strong purpose to find 
 that strayed one and to bring it back. His 
 whole heart is in the undertaking and he will 
 not be balked in it. He will climb the mountain 
 sides : he will ford the mountain streams ; he 
 will breast the mountain winds and through 
 flood and tempest and wilderness will persevere 
 until somewhere he will find the lost. And then 
 he will not drive it before him and whip it back 
 to the flock, nor even commit it to a hireling, 
 but will lift it to his own shoulders and bear it 
 over the rough way, rejoicing that he has not 
 searched in vain ; that the wild stream did not 
 sweep it off" on its torrent ; that the wild beast 
 did not seize it as his prey ; that the wild storm 
 did not pelt it to death. So glad is he, that, on 
 reaching home, he calls his friends and his 
 neighbors together and bids them rejoice with 
 him that he has found the sheep that was lost. 
 
 The publicans and sinners could all appreciate 
 the parable. Then the Saviour applies it to 
 them : telling them that there is more joy in 
 heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over 
 ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need 
 of repentance. The}' knew, those rough men 
 knew, what he meant. They knew that even 
 then the Good Shepherd stood before them, 
 
CHRIST THE PEOPLe's PREACHER. 251 
 
 that he was even then seeking them to save 
 them. 
 
 Tlicy were as the lost sheep ; He the Shepherd 
 seeking to save. It was not a story merely that 
 they were hearing : it was a statement of them- 
 selves. They could anticipate, as they stood 
 there in the market-place of that old Galilean 
 town, those wonderful pictures of the early 
 Christian art in which the Saviour is depicted 
 as the Shepherd bearing home on His shoulders 
 the lost but found sheep. His tender words 
 were words for them. The Hebrew scriptures 
 were full of the figure of the strayed sheep and 
 of the Lord as the Shepherd of the people. And 
 now in fuller meaning than that of the old scrip- 
 tures. He who was always the Shepherd of the 
 flock set before these listening sinners His own 
 undaunted activity and loving solicitude and 
 heavenly joy in their recovery. What other 
 message could have been so timely and so true ? 
 What else could He have spoken so fitted to 
 touch and subdue those hard natures which 
 would yet respond to sympathy and love ? 
 
 Among them perhaps were some women, 
 mothers, wives, sisters of the men grouped 
 around Him. He, who saw into their hearts, 
 who perhaps knew that some of them longed for 
 peace and forgiveness, quickly spoke a word for 
 them. 
 
 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, 
 if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, 
 
252 THK MODKI, LIFE. 
 
 and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she 
 fmd it? And wlien she hath found it she calleth 
 her female friends and neighbors together, say- 
 ing. Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece 
 which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, 
 there is joy in the presence of the angels of God 
 over the sinner that repcnteth. It was a small 
 thing, one piece of silver, ten of which were not 
 worth two dollars, but it was one-tenth of all that 
 she had. They could understand, those Galilean 
 women, the story of the quickly lighted candle, 
 the broom flying across the floor, the diligent 
 and unceasing search into every corner and 
 cranny, until the white coin was seen and recov- 
 ered. Every piece of that coin bore the image 
 of the Emperor: and that image was n(jt effaced 
 though it were covered with dust and the sweep- 
 ings of the floor. They knew that they, lost 
 women, sinners, bore the divine image and that 
 however depraved they might have become in 
 association with men of sin and perversity, )ct 
 they were thought of and valued and sought for ; 
 and they could not help feeling in that great 
 presence that the very Saviour whom they 
 needed stood before them, within reach of their 
 soiled hands and sordid souls. 
 
 Those were blessed words of hope, taken from 
 the experience of their household life, assuring 
 them that Ihe anxiety pictured in the lighted 
 candle and the sweeping broom and the success- 
 ful search, was that which He felt for them, that 
 
CHRIST THE PEOPLE's PREACHER. 253 
 
 out of all their sins, their lost condition, they 
 might be rescued, and that He had come for 
 that. 
 
 And I think that many a poor desolate woman's 
 soul in that strange group around the Master 
 beat with a new hope as she felt sorrow for her 
 sad sin and looked into those eyes of heavenly 
 pity. That was Christ's second word to the 
 gathered sinners. And then He impressed upon 
 them, out of what they knew of the joy of find- 
 ing a lost treasure or a prized coin, their own 
 relation to those who would like to rejoice in 
 their salvation. Likewise, there is joy in the 
 presence of the angels of God over one sinner 
 that repenteth. Let one of you now repent and 
 begin a new life and you shall waken a joy 
 throughout heaven: God will rejoice and angels 
 will rejoice over a soul lost and found. There 
 is jo}' : now, immediately on the conversion : and 
 it is just as natural as when a glad woman re- 
 joices for the piece of silver that is found, or as 
 when a shepherd exults that his wandering sheep 
 has been rescued from the perils of the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 But this is not all ; the Saviour has still another 
 message for them ; perhaps He sees that their 
 hearts are made tender by His kind, loving 
 speech. They did not expect such words from 
 Him ; He so pure and good ; they so mean and 
 sinful. Unexpected words of kindness break 
 down, proudest, hardest natures. It is told of our 
 
254 THE MODEL LIFEl. 
 
 bold Gen. Hooker, who lately died, that, during 
 the war, in the severe winter, he visited our 
 military prison at Rock Island where three 
 thousand rebel prisoners were confined. They 
 were all drawn up in line for his inspection, and 
 he scanned every man from head to heel, as he 
 passed before them. At the end of the line the 
 General halted and half wheeled his proud horse 
 and lifted his plumed hat with knig-htl}- grace to 
 those rebels as though they had been princes, 
 and with gentle look and voice said : " Vouno: 
 gentlemen. [ am sorry, very sorry for you, and 
 hope soon our differences will be settled so that 
 you all can return safely home again." It was 
 so unexpected and so different from what they 
 had been accustomed to hear that it thrilled 
 them like a current of electricity and instantly 
 from those " ragged rebs.'' three thousand 
 throats gave a ringing cheer for fighting Joe 
 Hooker. 
 
 Christ then told them that tenderest, sweetest 
 of all His parables ; the story of the prodigal son. 
 A certain man had two sons. The A^ounger of 
 them, fretting to be free, asked for his portion 
 of his father's estate, and, gathering it all togeth- 
 er, went out into a far country and spent it all in 
 riotous living. A mighty famine came on there 
 and he began to be in want. Me joined himself 
 to a citizen who sent him into his fields to feed 
 swine. He would fain have filled his bell}' with 
 the pods that the swine did eat ; but no man gave 
 
255 
 
 even those unto him. In that degradation, sin 
 and want, the spendthrift came to himself. He 
 said, How many of the lowest servants, the day- 
 laborers, of my father, have bread enough and to 
 spare and I, his son, am perishing here with hun- 
 ger. I will arise and go to my father and will 
 say unto him, Father, I have sinned against 
 heaven and before thee and am no more worthy 
 to be called thy son, make me as one of thy day- 
 laborers. He did not even ask for a Jiome in the 
 house, not to be a house servant, but a common 
 day-laborer. And he arose, and came to his 
 father. But when he was yet a great wa}^ off, 
 his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, 
 and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the 
 son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven 
 and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be 
 called thy son. But the father said to the ser- 
 vants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on 
 him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on 
 his feet; and bring forth the fatted calf and kill 
 it, for there can be no other such occasion of 
 joy ; and let us eat and be merr}^ ; for this my 
 son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost 
 and is found. And they began to be merry. And 
 to the elder son complaining of this treatment 
 of one who had devoured his estate with harlots, 
 the father said. It was meet that we should 
 make merry and be glad ; for this thy brother 
 was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and 
 is found. 
 
256 THE MODKL LIFE. 
 
 O how much there was here for those publicans 
 and sinners who stood around Him ! They were 
 like the prodigal. They knew it, knew it well. He 
 had drawn their picture. He had photographed 
 themselves. They had left their father : had 
 spent all: were in want. Every rough face 
 turned toward Him there was the face of a 
 prodigal. The blood-tints that stained every eye 
 told of sin. The leer that lurked under the brow 
 of one, the defiance that shot from the contempt- 
 uous expression of another, the stolid indifference 
 that mantled the whole look and position of 
 others, were the betrayers of interior depravity, 
 revealers of personal guilt. 
 
 And what words were these that they were 
 hearing ! No accusation was hurled at them : 
 no scorn met their aggravated guilt : no reproach 
 was leveled at their long, bad lives. This Man 
 above all other men; this divine Teacher of His 
 race, looks at them with a face softened to deep- 
 est pity, stretches out to them an open palm, 
 speaks to them in words which thrill with love, 
 calls them from their sad bad lives as a brother 
 with a dying agony might call, as a father in full 
 compassion and ready to forgive might call ! 
 
 The three parables are a three-fold argument 
 and appeal. First, we have the silly sheep 
 exchanging the green pasture-grounds for the 
 wild barren mountains, showing the folly of the 
 sinner in forsaking tlie place of peace and safety. 
 Then, we have the coin fallen and lost upon the 
 
CHRIST THE PEOrLIi: S PREACHER. 257 
 
 floor and concealed in the dust, its stamp 
 unerased and its value undiminished, showing 
 the self-degradation of the sinner, yet with the 
 possibilities of his recovery. 
 
 Thirdly, we have the 3^ounger son in his 
 ungoverned willfulness, breaking away from 
 home, squandering his inheritance, and degrad- 
 ing himself to vile companionship and the care 
 of repulsive beasts. First, there is lost one of a 
 hundred, th.en one of ten, then one of two. 
 First, a comparatively small proportion of all is 
 lost, then a tithe of all, then a superlatively 
 large amount, one of only two sons. First it is 
 a brute, then a coin, and then a man. The sheep, 
 the silver, the son, one in the wild mountains, 
 one i^i the floor dust, one in the swine-pens, 
 bring out vividly the wretchedness of the sinner. 
 The Saviour's hearers knew the meaning of those 
 parables, for they spoke of their own experience. 
 
 Yet they were not left in despair: theirposi- 
 tion was not hopeless. Over against the wander- 
 ing in the wilderness was the determined seeking 
 of the shepherd : over against the concealment 
 in the dust of the floor was the labor and look- 
 ing of the woman : over against the self-will and 
 vileness of the prodigal was the waiting, longing 
 love of the father, not willing that he should per- 
 ish but that he should come to repentance. Then 
 in each case, is the after-joy : the joy of the neigh- 
 bors with the shepherd, the joy of the female 
 friends with the woman, the joy of the household 
 
258 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 with the happy father, fii^urcs of the joy that 
 makes heaven glad when any hjst sinner repents. 
 
 Tlie sheep is brought back: the ccjin is re- 
 stored : the son is at home again, the best robe 
 is brought forth, the seal-ring and the siioes are 
 put upon him, and the stalled calf is killed and 
 there is feasting and merriment in the old house 
 again. The Saviour looked into every eye 
 around Him, spoke to every heart of that group 
 of publicans and sinners, woke memories and 
 fears and hopes and repentings, let us believe, in 
 many souls of them, so that those dead became 
 alive again, and those lost were found. 
 
 Christ, the Preacher to the people in Galilee, 
 speaks the same truthful and tender words to 
 every reader. Those beautiful and touching para- 
 bles, with the color of heaven running thrcnigh 
 them, are His divine messages to every one of us. 
 We are the lost sheep, we are the lost coin, we 
 are the lost prodigal. And there is joy waiting 
 for our recovery : joy, as it may be, of a mother, 
 who has waited long in heaven, as the father of 
 the prodigal waited, for the best tidings from 
 the earth: joy, as it may be, of a child, plucked 
 like a bud out of the earthly conservatory, made 
 glad by the word that fills the heavens with su- 
 premest joy. Many dear old friends of other 
 days, of the happy youth-time, as it may be, the 
 loved, the departed, the longed-for, wait and 
 watch for the decision that shall waken among 
 them the new, old joy. 
 
XXI. 
 
 CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 
 
 ITH loving thoughtf Illness the early dis- 
 ciples dwelt upon the character of 
 Christ. Forms of expression start upon 
 us from their writings and addresses so full of 
 sweet pathos and sterling trustfulness and tri- 
 umphant joy, that we arc arrested by them and 
 from the general subject of the epistle or dis- 
 course we turn to this new theme of which, 
 whatever was his particular subject, the heart of 
 the writer or speaker was fullest. As the prim- 
 itive rocks of our globe rise through all subse- 
 quent formations and crop out in almost every 
 land, so through all other themes, penetrating 
 and rising above them, does the greatest of all 
 themes project itself, in the expressed thought 
 of the early Christians. 
 
 With them, Christ is the granite foundation 
 and the enduring topmost stone. Especially are 
 we struck with this in the nervous, forceful writ- 
 ings of the chiefest of the Apostles. His great 
 soul was full of Christ. Though he would not 
 dare to say it of himself, trembling as he did lest, 
 after having preached to others, he himself should 
 be a castaway, yet his life assures us that Christ 
 
 [259J 
 
260 TIIF MODEL LIFE. 
 
 was formed in him the liopc of ^lory. Christ 
 was with him the first and the hist, the be- 
 ginning and the end, for whom are all things, 
 and by whom arc all things. And so, whatever 
 was his theme, Christ was always tiic foremost 
 character in it. 
 
 As in some grand and matchless harmony, 
 through all the lile-song that he lifted u\^ to the 
 praise of the Jvcdcemcr, Ciirist was ever the 
 sweet and crowning and tmished refrain. He 
 determined to know nothing among the people 
 to whom he wiote or s[)oke, save Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified. It was a tille sufificientl}' 
 honorable for him to sign himself the servant of 
 Jesus Christ. Though a sciiolar among scholars, 
 he gloried in tiiat which the wisdom of the 
 world considered the foolishness of the cross. 
 As a free-born Roman citizen he longed most of 
 all to visit the capital of that proud and all-con- 
 quering empire that lie might " preach the 
 gospel to them that are at Rome also." In his 
 masterl}' argument in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 on the weakness of the law and the efficacy of 
 the gospel as a reliance for lost men, it is with 
 exulting and triumphant language that he con- 
 cludes the eighth chapter, on the impossibility of 
 the separation of Christians from their Lord. 
 
 If in another epistle he mentions the name of 
 Christ, he appends to it the |ihrase"who is 
 blessed forevermore." In another place when 
 he had occasion to say the faiih of the Son of 
 
God, he adds, " who loved me and gave Himself 
 (or me." If he speaks of the love of Christ it is 
 " the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." 
 It is not enough to speak merely of the gospel, 
 but it is " the glorious gospel of the blessed 
 God." 
 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a singu- 
 lar sentence which stands in the midst of practi- 
 cal exhortations, as an independent proposition. 
 It rises like a monument to Christ in the path of 
 common Christian duty. It is as though this 
 one statement were enough to fortify any 
 requirement of Christ. Do this: do that: be 
 faithful here : be earnest there : be watchful 
 ever}^ where : because, '^ Jesus Christ is the same, 
 yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.'' It is enough 
 to strengthen any appeal to connect it with the 
 name of Christ. His immutability is the proof 
 of every argument: the complement of every 
 creed, the crown of every work. All duties are 
 corollaries from that sole proposition. It was 
 enough for the dauntless warriors of France to 
 know that the eye of the adored Emperor 
 watched them as they moved fearlessly into the 
 shock and strife of battle. It is altogether 
 enough for the soldiers of Immanuel to be 
 reminded that their great Captain is the same 
 yesterday, and to-day, and forever: that the eye 
 that has watched the progress of the great earth- 
 struggle from the first, that has marked the spot 
 where each faithful warrior has fallen, still 
 
2^)2 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 watches the fortunes of the contest and will give 
 each one still who falls the grace to shout with 
 the last breath, Thanks be unto God who giveth 
 us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 This sentence reveals that loving trustfulness 
 with which the Apostle and the early disciples 
 clung to Christ. vSome fact in regard to Him 
 who loved them and died for them rises through 
 the tide of rhetoric and the deductions of logic: 
 stands as the corner-stone of every argument and 
 every appeal. 
 
 Here it is CJirisf s unchangeableness. " Jesus 
 Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
 forever," This is a sublime and interesting 
 statement and one well fitted to cheer on in the 
 life of faith those to whom the Apostle was 
 writing and all who inherit or receive the 
 treasure of such a truth. 
 
 The fact of Christ's unchangeableness an- 
 ounces to us His divinity. Its foremost effect is 
 to awaken our adoration. There is but one 
 being of whom it can be said. He is the same 
 yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Change 
 characterizes the world's inhabitants. We speak 
 of the everlasting hills. But they are only of 
 recent origin. Mighty internal forces .have 
 remodeled the surface of the globe, crowding 
 up the mountains and depressing the beds of the 
 seas. The wear of the elements is constantly, 
 slowly but constantly, leveling the hills and 
 erelong they are to be burnt up. The present is 
 
Christ the unchanging friend. 263 
 
 one in a succession of clianges which have 
 altered the entire appearance and adaptation of 
 the solid earth. Different orders of beings have 
 heretofore peopled this planet from any that are 
 now living upon it, and when the " new earth " 
 shall be reconstructed after the final conflagra- 
 tion it will undoubtedly be the habitation of 
 ver}' different beings from those who now dwell 
 upon it. Change too passes over all the works 
 of man. Empires pass away. Cities, once the 
 seats of commerce and busy life, the capitals of 
 power, turn into heaps of ruins. Thrones 
 crumble. Armies, nations, races, fade away like 
 dissolving mists. 
 
 " Like the baseless fabric of a vision. 
 The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
 Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve ; 
 And, like an unsubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind." 
 
 But above the world. Creator and Lord of it, 
 is One who changes not. 
 
 " Of old He laid the foundation of the earth : 
 
 And the heavens are the work of His hands. 
 
 They shall perish, but He shall endure: 
 
 Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment : 
 
 As a vesture shall He change them and they shall be 
 
 changed : 
 But He is the same, and His years shall have no end." 
 
264 THE MODKL LIFE, 
 
 "With Him is no variableness, neither shadow 
 of tnrning^." " Jesus Christ is the same yester- 
 dav, and to-day, and forever." This attribute of 
 divinity is His. We may feel therefore that we 
 come to one wlio is no less than God Himself. 
 Gratefully and linmbly we should ad(jre Him. 
 Whenever weacklress Him, as He presents Him- 
 self to US, in His various offices of grace, whether 
 as our Prophet, our Priest, or our King, we 
 should say with Thomas, " My Lord and my 
 God." From our hearts, in harmony with the 
 praise which rises before the throne from the 
 angels and the elders and the heavenly hosts, 
 whose number is ten thousand times ten thous- 
 and and thousands of thousands, should ascend 
 the ascription, " W(jrthy is the Lamb that was 
 slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, 
 and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." 
 At all times, when we feel the need of superior 
 strength and better wisdom and pardon of our 
 sins and justification with God, we can call to 
 mind the fact that our Redeemer and Advocate 
 is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 
 
 Christ's unchangeableness promotes perfect 
 confidence \\\ Him. We have in our hands the 
 record of His love for man, of His love for, and 
 His gracious dealings with, His people, of His 
 promises to His enemies and to His friends. We 
 know what He has been to us and what he has 
 done for us. When the world lay, prospectivel3% 
 in the guilt of sin, when its populations were all 
 
CHKIST THK UNCHANGING FUIEND. 265 
 
 seen to be estranged from God and exposed to 
 His just and deserved curse, Clirist came for- 
 ward as their Redeemer. He proposed, volun- 
 tarily, to die for them, at such time as should be 
 best ; in the meantime, to have His purposed 
 death so announced to them, that they could 
 look forward to it as a sure thing and rely upon 
 it. When the ages of darkness and human 
 guilt, prepaiatory to His advent, had rolled 
 gloomily into tlie past eternity ; in the fullness 
 of time, when the scattered races of men had 
 universally corrupted their way and their hearts, 
 so that the need, the necessity of Redempti(jn 
 was everywhere felt ; when the earth bore upon 
 its torn and scarred surface the signs of the 
 curse, and death had ridged all its plains with 
 graves so that His presence would be hailed who 
 is the resurrection and the life ; when the pop- 
 ulation of the globe had become immense ; when 
 human power, in the rise and fall of successive 
 empires, had declared its weakness ; when human 
 wisdom in the seats of its finished learning and 
 through the instructions of its sages had mani- 
 fested its utter insufficiency to grapple with the 
 greatest truths and to satisfy the wants of the 
 mind ; when even the Hebrew system, with all 
 its ceremonial magnificence and impressiveness, 
 with its pure morality and its t3pes and shadows 
 the promise of better things to come, had deteri- 
 orated from its ancient puiity into empty tradi- 
 tions and formal routine : and when the way was 
 
266 THE Model life:. 
 
 prepared by divine providence for the spread of 
 the gospel, Christ, long-promised and long- 
 awaited, came ; came, to achieve the redemption 
 of the world. He lived among us in such a won- 
 derful manner as to demonstrate His claim to be 
 the Son of God, speaking as never man spake, 
 walking in a pathway sucii as no other one hath 
 ever used, enduring what mere humanity has 
 never endured from devils, men, and even from 
 His Father. 
 
 At last, after a pretended trial, after cruel mock- 
 ings, after basest ingratitude, sinking under His 
 cross, pierced with a chaplet of thorns, bearing 
 the world's sins, wounded for our transgressions, 
 as a lamb to the slaughter He went to Calvary 
 to die, the just for the unjust, the Saviour of sin- 
 ners. Such as He was throughout that life, in 
 that fearful dying, such is He always. "Jesus 
 Christ is the same 3'esterday, and to-day, and for- 
 ever." He loves sinners still, with the love that 
 He had when He left heaven for them, when He 
 cried, as a heart-broken parent for lost children, 
 to all the weary and heavy-laden, " Come unto 
 me, and I will give you rest." We cannot reflect 
 on what He has done from the over-flowings of 
 His affection for us without feeling a most per- 
 fect ctjutidence in Him promoted by our thought. 
 Ciirist's dear love and gracious dealings with 
 His people also promote confidence. It is for 
 them He preserves the world which He created. 
 Were it not for His people He would permit the 
 
CHRIST THE UNOHANGINO FRIEND. 267 
 
 fire to burst forth and consume the globe. The 
 true liistory of the world is the History of Re- 
 demption. The great mind of Edwards seized 
 upon this central idea, and in his profound work 
 on this subject we can see developed the true 
 theory of human history. Thrones, principal- 
 ities, powers, armies and navies, the contests of 
 nations and races, arts, sciences, inventions, im- 
 provements, trade, commerce, learning, enter- 
 prise, discoveries, these are but the digressions 
 of history : its main volume is the work of Christ. 
 The thread of the world's story is the love of the 
 Redeemer for His people. Before He came, 
 His thoughts were given to them. Throughout 
 the commotions and changes of all time, He has 
 rescued them, at one time calling them to go into 
 a land that they knew not of, at another urging 
 them forth from doomed cities, again bearing 
 them safely in the ark over the sunken world, 
 bringing them forth with a mighty hand from the 
 house of bondage, causing their enemies to flee 
 before them, raising up defenses for them among 
 the powerful, conferring upon them gifts of 
 position, power, influence, control, until, once 
 despised, they are now the foremost in all 
 the qualities of greatness. And He who has 
 thus guarded and blessed His people, is the same, 
 yesterday, and to-da}', and forever. " If He be 
 lor us, who can be against us?" Who can fail 
 to have assured confidence in Him ? 
 
 He stops not with what He has done. His 
 
'268 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 promises to thcin, wliicli shall in no wise fail, 
 insure still larger and ever increasing blessings 
 throughout all time. His people are to have 
 dominion, and through them Christ is to reign 
 supreme over all the earth. Shall we, can we 
 doubt, distrust, such a Head over all things to 
 His Church ? 
 
 Besides, we have been, personally, the sharers 
 in such blessings from Him, that we ought to 
 cherish the firmest trust in Him. He who has 
 loved us, who has died for us, who has pardoned 
 some of us, and accepted us as co-heirs with 
 Himself, is forever the same, and forever will 
 delight to exalt and bless us. What He has done 
 for us is only the proof of what He is willing to 
 do. What He has been to us, through changes, 
 trials, fears, joys, that are past, He is willing still 
 to be. 
 
 Memory, therefore, may bind us, by its spell, to 
 the cross. Thoughts of other days may be as 
 golden links to hold us true to Christ, who is the 
 same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 
 
 Christ's unchangeableness pledges to us, the 
 divine sympathy. If there is au)'^ fact that stands 
 boldly, prominently, out in the recorded life of 
 Jesus, it is His intense sympathy for burdened 
 and distressed humanity. Moved by that, He 
 came among them, on His redemptive work. 
 The sight of earth's woes, the hearing of its 
 groans, the agony of its struggling, perplexed, 
 dissatisfied generations, touched His infinite 
 
CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FiCIEND. 269 
 
 heart, and drew forth expressions and acts of 
 tenderest benevolent synipath}'. And while He 
 was with men, He was moved by their sorrows 
 and distresses. He saw them wandering and 
 scattered and defenseless, as sheep that have no 
 shepherd, and He hjnged to take them in His 
 arms and carry them in His bosom, and lead them 
 beside still waters, and protect them within His 
 fold. The poor, the orphaned, the distressed, 
 those who bore heavy bnidens, and whom the 
 great and powerful and rich scorned, were those 
 to whom He preached the gfispel, and whom He 
 most tenderly welcomed to Himselt. Through 
 the thick darkness in which they groped on sin's 
 mountains He caused the pure light of His love 
 to beam upon them, in which they could walk 
 safely, fearing no evil. Over the floods upon 
 which they were tossed fearfully. He caused 
 His voice U) be heard by them saying, " I am the 
 way, and the truth, and the life: he that cometh 
 to me shall never perish." We might take up 
 particular instances of His manifested sympathy, 
 and learn from them what Ho will be tcj us who 
 is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 
 
 As He looked from Olivet upon the city that 
 slumbered beneath Him, He broke forth into 
 lamentation over it as a Father might bewail the 
 ruin of his children, until His utterance was 
 broken by His grief, so that the sentence is 
 preserved for us interrupted by his tears. " If 
 
270 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 thou liadst known, at least in this thy day, the 
 thinj^s that belonjj unto thy peace, — but now 
 are they hid from thine eyes." 
 
 When grieved by the continued rejection 
 wliich He received from those among whom 
 m<jst of His mighty works were done, so that 
 He could not forbear a declaration of the woe 
 which they were bringing rapidly upon them- 
 selves, as if oppressed by the fearful thought 
 and willing still to do what He could to save 
 them. His heart gushes over in one more appeal to 
 them, " Come unto me, and I will give you rest." 
 With all that wealth of love which was paralleled 
 only by the wealth of His exhaustless supplies. 
 He utters to all the needy this unlimited 
 promise, '• He that cometh to me shall never 
 hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never 
 thirst." And what were all those marvelous 
 miracles which distinguished and graced His life 
 but the manifestations of His blessed sympathy 
 for the poor, the suffering, the sorrowing.? In 
 the clear waters of the Pool of Bethesda, where 
 the infirm man was healed, you raa}'^ see 
 mirrored the heart of Christ toward you, what- 
 ever may be your bodily or mental maladies. 
 He whose life is summed up in that expressive 
 and comprehensive phrase, " He went about 
 doing good :" who restored the withered hand 
 of one ; who gave the blind men sight, and 
 caused the deaf to hear His words, and made 
 the lame leap for joy; who called back to life 
 
CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FKIKND. 271 
 
 the only son of his mother, and she a widow ; 
 who brought joy to the saddened house of the 
 ruler of the synagogue by raising from death 
 his youthful and lamented daughter ; who loved 
 Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus so 
 well that He restored him to them after he had 
 been dead four days ; He will feel for you what- 
 ever may be 3'our sorrows and distresses. 
 
 You cannot lack the tender sympathy of 
 Christ : for He is the same, yesterday, and to-day, 
 and forever. And every scene and act of His 
 blessed life which brings out to view His love 
 for others, His tenderness for the burdened and 
 bereaved, is a pledge of the same sympathy on 
 His part for you. in all your afflictions He is 
 afflicted. When you watch by the sick, Jesus 
 watches with you. When alone you suffer and 
 feel that no one cares for you, )'ou are not alone, 
 for He is with you who will never leave nor 
 forsake His people. When you mourn over the 
 waywardness of those for whom your prayers 
 have been mingled with 3'our tears, you may be 
 sure of His sympathy who came unto His own 
 and His own received Him not. When you 
 stand solitary and smitten by the grave where 
 you have buried the best part of your life, you 
 shall hear his sympathetic voice whispering to 
 you, "Thy friend shall rise again." And when 
 your fluttering and disturbed heart fails to 
 appropriate all the truth of the assurance, you 
 shall hear Him again saying, " I am the resurrec- 
 
272 THK MODEL T,IFE. 
 
 tion.aiul tlielife : he that bcliovofh in me, though 
 he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever 
 liveth, and believeth in nie shall never die." 
 
 Into that heart that will entertain Christ and 
 will believe His words shall come solace and 
 strength sufficient to bear all trials, to press for- 
 ward along every burning track, though it be 
 even in the footsteps of Him who trod the 
 wine-press alone. 
 
 Christ's unchangeablcness assures us of a cer- 
 tain ivay of salvation. As a Saviour also He " is 
 the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." 
 The same love that led Him down from heaven 
 to this world, that led Him forth among men on 
 His divine ministrations, that led Him to endure 
 the agonies and pains of His fearful death for 
 sinners, still fills His heart. He looks now from 
 the heights of heaven with the same compassion 
 upon all who are estranged from God that He 
 had when from Olivet He looked upon Jerusalem 
 and wept over it. The same melting words of 
 entreaty and soirowful symj^ath}- which He 
 addressed to sinners in tones which broke their 
 hearts, He would still address to us. The same 
 plain and simple terms of salvation on which He 
 ever invited the lost to Himself are the terms 
 which He offers to us. And these terms 
 He offers to every one of us. As His redemption 
 was not a Particular Redemption, but a Redemp- 
 tion for all men, a Redemption so broad as 
 to include every sinner in it and not a particular, 
 
CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 273 
 
 limited number of favored sinners, so none are 
 now excluded from His mercy, unless by their 
 own voluntary rejection of Him. If any one 
 among us is lost, it is because he will not come 
 unto Christ that he may have life. His arms are 
 thrown broadly open to welcome and clasp us 
 ail. He is not willing that any should perish but 
 that all should come to repentance : and if any 
 do perish it is by grieving first the heart of 
 Christ and then by hardening their own hearts. 
 
 His sweet love and pity are ever and ever the 
 same. 
 
 He looks upon those who are children, with the 
 same tenderness with which he looked upon the 
 children of Perea, when He laid His hands upon 
 them and blessed them and said, " Suffer little 
 children to come unto me and forbid them not : 
 for of such is the kingdom of God." That sweet 
 Saviour longs to be their Saviour. He has 
 never taken back those precious words, " I love 
 them that love me and those that seek me early 
 shall find me." 
 
 The same full pardon which He freely be- 
 stowed upon the sinner who brought an alabaster 
 box of precious ointment, as He sat at meat in a 
 Pharisee's house, and began to wash His feet 
 with tears and to wipe them with her flowing 
 hair and to anoint them with the ointment, when 
 He said, " Her sins which are many are forgiven 
 her," would He gladly bestow upon any and 
 
274 TFIK MODEL LIFE. 
 
 every one of us, no matter 1k)\v n^any and ^reat 
 our sins have been. 
 
 Thai divine grace which He manifested when 
 in tones of pity and love lie said unto a broken- 
 hearted sinner, " Go, and sin no more," I le would 
 delight to manifest to us. The Saviour of the 
 Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils, 
 would be the Saviour of the most guilty one. 
 He who told the story of the Prodigal Son to 
 illustrate his own feelings for the wayward, 
 would to-day welcome to His heart anyone 
 who has wandered away in the sins and misery 
 of the world like that guilty prodigal. The 
 same love that He had for the rich young man, 
 who went away from Him sorrowfully, because 
 he could not quite give up the world for Christ, 
 He has for those now who only lack the one 
 thing needful. The sad, melting words, wrung 
 from His heart, over the rejection of those for 
 whom He came, " How often would I have gath- 
 ered thy children together — but ye would not," 
 reveal His feelings toward those who now reject 
 Him. Nay, that still more pitiful prayer, which, 
 even in His dying moments He offered for His 
 murderers, " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do," showed what Christ's feel- 
 ings are for those who have crucified Him afresh 
 by rejecting Him as a Saviour. He whose life is 
 given to us in the gospels, whose heart is bared 
 to us in these instances of His pity and compas- 
 
CHRIST TIIK UNCIIANGtNG FRIEND. 275 
 
 sion and forgiveness, " is the same yesterday, and 
 to-day, and forever." 
 
 The personal appeal comes to us, Will we 
 accept Him as our own Saviour, and find, as 
 those found who came to Him when He was on 
 earth, how great and rich and full His love is? 
 
XXII. 
 
 CHRIST'S CLAIM ON MEN OF INFLUENCE. 
 
 N all our so-called Christian communilies 
 there is a body of men, varying in 
 number, in different places, but unvary- 
 ing in their position, who accept Christianity 
 intellectually, but who stand aloof from Christ 
 personally and practically. These men would 
 consider themselves discredited if opposition to 
 Christ or indifference to His Kingdom were 
 imputed to them. They would not be considered 
 so unintelligent as to be thought uncognizant of 
 the perpetual miracle of the history of Christian- 
 ity in the world, which as Mr. Lecky character- 
 izes it, was such " that its teachers should bend 
 the mightiest monarchs to their will, and stamp 
 their influence on every page of legislation, and 
 direct the whole course of civilization for a 
 thousand years." Sometimes they think of 
 themselves as neutrals : not regarding the 
 maxim of the Master, " He who is not with me is 
 against me." Perhaps they claim that they are 
 Christians, though without any standard of 
 Christianity that would sanction the claim. 
 Generally, and more fairly, they honestly con- 
 
 [V7] 
 
278 TFIE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 cede that they have not accepted Christ as a per- 
 sonal Redeemer and Lord : i. c. have not gone to 
 Him for salvation from their sins, and have not 
 yielded their lives to Him in unconditional 
 obedience to all His commands. Still they hold 
 the Bible to be the Word of God, Christ to be 
 the Saviour of sinners, religion to be the duty 
 of man, faith to be the door into the Kingdom, 
 the Holy Spirit to be the renewer of the soul, 
 death to be the end of probation, eternity to 
 be the realm of destiny. Indeed, accepting the 
 Scripture, they accept its doctrines, and recog- 
 nize its prescribed duties. 
 
 They are men of greater or less influence : to 
 whom a certain number look as models or 
 examples for themselves: at least as those to 
 whom less decided and less intelligent men can 
 point in the way of excuse for their own inatten- 
 tion or indifference to Christ. I propose to 
 consider here Tlw claim of Christ on men of influ- 
 ence. 
 
 The claim of Christ is the claim of one who is 
 worthy of the deference of such men. There is 
 not one of them who would deny that prtjposi- 
 tion. Whatever ma}^ be their opinion of Chris- 
 tians, they have a sincere respect for Clirist. 
 Whatever criticisms they may level at the way 
 in which the Lord is represented by those who 
 assume to follow Him, they have no animad- 
 versions to make either in res[)ect to His person 
 or His character or His mediatorial work. In 
 
Christ's claim on men of influence. 279 
 
 their thought they exalt Clirist to the first place. 
 He is Lord of all. He is perfect in His attri- 
 butes and in all that makes Him what He is. 
 His redemptive office is one that demands the 
 homage and gratitude of all men. 
 
 There is no need, therefore, of argument to con- 
 vince them that the Saviour is worthy of their 
 deference. When then He comes to them with 
 the claim for their lives, for their love and loyalty, 
 for their obedience and service, they should read- 
 ily, gladly, gratefully, yield to the claim, and say 
 likeThomas,"M3' Lord, and my God!" They have 
 nothing to object to the worthiness of Him who 
 makes the supreme demand upon them. They 
 respect the reverence which He has received 
 from uncounted numbers of believers, the devo- 
 tion which has made men atid women and chil- 
 dren willing, most glad, to sacrifice anything 
 and everything most dear for Him, the love 
 which has proved itself to be the most intense of 
 human passions as it has burned and glowed and 
 endured for Him. His claim upon them, there 
 fore, should have quick and thorough acquies- 
 cence. They should ask, " Lord, what wilt Thou 
 have me to do?" He is worthy who asks for 
 their lives. 
 
 The claim of Christ on men of influence should 
 be accepted because Christianity is for strong 
 men. " Solid food is for full-grown men, even 
 those who by reason of use have their senses ex- 
 ercised to discern good and evil." The truth of 
 
280 TMK MODKL LIFH. 
 
 Christianity is the weighticsttruth that challenges 
 human thought and attention. It is all solid 
 food, and is, therefore, for full-grown men, for 
 those who b}' reason of experience have had their 
 senses exercised to discern good and evil, to dis- 
 tinguish the true and the false. It is indeed sim- 
 ple in its essentials, so simple that a child can 
 grasp it : but its very simplicity commends it also 
 to mature minds. It is clear truth. The great 
 maxims of law are clear and simple. The facts 
 of science are plain to the understanding. The 
 regulations of life are such that common 
 men can comprehend them. But all these are 
 more or less profound. Indeed, the greatest truths 
 are both simple and profound. The sea has shal- 
 lows in which a child can wade : it has depths 
 beyond the sounding of the strongest man. 
 
 The greatest question that a human soul can 
 ask is the question. What shall I do to be saved ? 
 The answer to that question is within the reach 
 of humble intellect : it has meaning in it deep 
 enough for the profoundest philosophy. No 
 man loses his self-respect who makes that ques- 
 tion foremost. No man misuses his time or his 
 abilities or his opportunities who laj'S every- 
 thing else aside till that question is settled. It 
 is a question whose relative impoitance is meas- 
 ured by the worth of the immortal soul. It is a 
 question whose rank may be determined by the 
 bliss of heaven or the woe of hell. It is a ques- 
 tion that starts from the cross of a suffering Re- 
 
Christ's claim on men of influence. 281 
 
 deemer: that finds its importance in the trans- 
 cendent sacrifice of the Son of God. The bri«rht- 
 est intellects that God has created, the mature 
 and disciplined spirits whose studies have swept 
 through peopled space, who are old and learned 
 in the ways of God, recognize no subject more 
 vast than this, more worthy to look into. Men 
 of influence can find nothing which commands 
 their attention more thoroughly. The claim of 
 Christ, through the work of His redemption, is 
 the first claim upon the strongest minds. 
 
 The whole range and sweep of revealed Chris- 
 tianity, in all its doctrines and demands, chal- 
 lenges the notice, nay, tiie unqualified loyalty, of 
 the sturdiest minds. Longinus, who was called 
 a " walking librar}'^,'' the acutest critic and 
 scholar of his day, a pagan, as we say, called the 
 first sentence of the Bible one of the most sub- 
 lime in any writings. Measure, if 3^ou can, the 
 thought of God, in the beginning, creating. Sir 
 William Jones wrote, " Independently of the 
 divine origin of the Scriptures, I have found in 
 them more true wisdom, more practical good 
 sense, and warmer benevolence, a higher strain 
 of thought and poetry, than I have found * * in 
 all other works put together." He was the 
 broadest scholar of his time. Christianity cannot 
 be exhausted by you. The deeper you go, the 
 richer will be its veins and deposits of truth. 
 
 Strong men have found the claim of Christ to 
 be imperative and exhaustive. They have found 
 
282 tup: modkl mfe. 
 
 that tliere was solid iootl in it for full grown 
 men, that however thoroughly their senses had 
 been exercised to discern truth, there was in it 
 that which was important and deei^ enough both 
 to employ and to satisfy them. It has won on 
 its merits. It has stood all tests. Nothing else 
 has encountered such enmity as has the cross of 
 Christ. Every sword has been unsheathed 
 against it. Ingenuity has spent itself to destroy 
 it. But it has held its place : and it has had 
 the support and the loyalty of the best minds. 
 The roll of faith is a roll of eminent names. 
 Standing among the common men who have 
 embraced Christ, are the scholars of many ages, 
 are the leaders of human opinion, are the men of 
 most eminent manhood, are those who have 
 wrought most efficiently for the good of their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 The books of widest teaching are the works of 
 Christian writers. The science of best authen- 
 ticity rests on the research of Ciiristian explorers. 
 Men of thought, men of acticjn as well, men of 
 the study and men of the cabinet and the camp, 
 have stood for Christ, have acknowledged that 
 they owed all to Him. Their best life has been 
 their life in Christ. Their common confession is, 
 Christ liveth in me. Gladstone, bearing the 
 burdens of an empire, is kept in serenity, because 
 he daily communes with his Lord, who is the 
 Lord of all men. He has lately written : " All 
 I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based 
 
Christ's claim on men of imi.uknok. 283 
 
 upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central 
 hope of our poor wayward race." 
 
 Bismarck, when he presided in the imperial 
 cabinet, daily led his household and his servants 
 in family prayer for divine strength and light, 
 looking to Jesus the beginner and the finisher of 
 faith. In palaces, in universities, in senates, in 
 workshops and in ships, wherever there is leader- 
 ship, there is also faith in Christ. The strongest 
 men are on His side. You join those who weigh 
 the most, intellectually and morall}^ when you 
 become a Christian. 
 
 Men of influence owe it to themselves not to be 
 on the side of Satan. His service is a degrad- 
 ing service : it is as mean as wicked. There are 
 two sides, Christ's and Satan's. Those who are 
 not with Christ are with His enemy. He takes 
 no cognizance of neutrality. Neutrality is ruled 
 out. It simply, is not. The enrollment of men is 
 under one standard or the other — the white ban- 
 ner of Christ, the black flag of Satan. Man 
 must be a free man or a menial : and freedom is 
 only in Christ. 
 
 Not to be with Him, for Him, is to be against 
 Him. Such is His own decision. Men, there- 
 fore, who hold places of influence, who decide 
 for other men, who carry a following, who are 
 thought to be good enough to go by, should be 
 sensitive as to their own Leader, should be care- 
 ful not to be for themselves on a side which 
 their intelligence and their conscience pro- 
 
284 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 nounce hurtful and destroying. Every man of 
 influence should be self-respecting. lie should 
 hold himself aloof from the leader of bad influ- 
 ence, from the instigator of all evil, from that 
 infernal power by which woe with sin has 
 desolated the fair earth and robbed its people of 
 their peace. It is a simple duty which every 
 such man owes to himself, if there were nothing 
 else to be thought of, to be opposed to Satan. 
 
 On the principle of simple consistency men of 
 influence should yield to the claim of Christ. 
 Some of them are fathers, and they claim respect 
 and obedience from their children. Some of 
 them are employers, and they claim diligence 
 and fidelity on the part of their employees. 
 Some of them are magistrates, and they claim 
 loyalty and respect for law on the part of citizens. 
 In whatever position they are, they expect 
 gratitude for favors, they expect kindness in 
 return for kindness, they hold that love should 
 be esteemed, that dependence should be ac- 
 knowledged, that correct principles should 
 regulate business and hold society together. It 
 is as plain as an axiom with them that one man 
 should appreciate what another has done for 
 hi UK 
 
 Consistenc}', simplest consistency, with their 
 own demands, with their own sense of what is 
 right, with the practical principles which they 
 avow and insist upon, requires that they should 
 yield to Christ's claim. He is your Creator, 
 
Christ's claim on men of mFLUENCE. 285 
 
 your Redeemer. You owe everything to Him : 
 everything of the world that is worth having, 
 everything spiritual, holy, heavenly. His law is 
 supreme over you. His love is unbounded 
 for you. His work, His sacrifice, His agony 
 for you, are beyond words to express. His 
 kingdom is the one government to which 
 you owe your highest loyalty. Over everything 
 of personality, of family, of society, of national- 
 ity, of common brotherhood, rises the august 
 and comprehensive and loving claim of Christ. 
 You cannot reject it, without rejecting your 
 own most cherished principles. You cannot 
 ignore it, without casting contempt on all your 
 better judgment in all other affairs. 
 
 You believe and profess that men who have 
 influence in society, in politics, in business, in 
 education, in the progress of mankind, should 
 use that influence for all that is best in all those 
 spheres of action. How can you be consistent 
 with yourself if you do not yield to the claim of 
 Christ for your best service and influence, for 
 )'Our open and avowed loyalty to Him ? Is it 
 for you, and such as you, to take the course 
 which would abolish the sacraments, which 
 would do away necessarily with the organized 
 church, which would leave Christ without any 
 open following, which would antagonize His 
 ordinances and His commands? You cannot 
 really maintain it. You must see that on your 
 own principles you should return love for 
 
286 The MobEL Llffi. 
 
 Christ's love, you should carefully, rigidly, 
 loyally, fulfill all that Christ requires of those 
 whom he has redeemed, 
 
 Meu of influence should yield to Christ's claim 
 because they have influence. Influence is a 
 sacred trust. It is a providential power. God 
 has permitted you to have it for a holy purpose. 
 You might have been where other men are, who 
 are low-down and craven and mean and who lack 
 spirit. The splendid ascendency which you 
 have is the very royalty of manhood. This fine 
 authority which comes from your station, from 
 your intellectual supremacy, from your consist- 
 ent character, from your excellent living, is the 
 regalest crown that can be worn by man. The 
 power that you easily wield over other men, 
 because you are their natural or ordained 
 superior, is higher than any that is represented 
 by scepter, or that is conferred by suffrage. 
 
 No throne stands on such eternal principles. 
 No aristocracv has such undisputed title. No 
 lineage, traced by blood and sanctioned by deeds, 
 gives such undoubted right. You stand where 
 you stand, because you deserve, in the judgment 
 of your peers, to stand there. 
 
 You cannot misapply or misuse your influence 
 without disloyalty to Him who has the highest 
 claim upon you. To refuse to yield it all to 
 Christ is treason to your best friend, to your 
 own divine redeemer. 
 
 God claims it for Himself. Christ, by the 
 
Christ's claim oN Mkn of* INF'LUK^fcE. ^87 
 
 misery, and by the merit, oi His passion, claims 
 it all, to be employed and consecrated in His ser- 
 vice. Christ wants the best. He summons the 
 noblest. He docs not call for only the forlorn 
 hope. 
 
 One of the great pictures of Defregger, the 
 finest artist of our day, in the Pinakothek at 
 Munich, is entitled. The Last Muster. The 
 armies of the Tyrol have gone down in disas- 
 trous battle. The young men who were enrolled, 
 the flower of those mountain valleys, have fallen 
 in defense of their homes. The veterans, 
 schooled in the hard discipline of war, have 
 yielded to superior force. The call comes back 
 from bloody fields and crowded hospitals for 
 fresh recruits. Then comes the last muster of 
 old men, who have long ago seen service, who 
 have retired with the wounds and scars of an- 
 cient battles, who are unfitted by age and feeble- 
 ness for further hardship, yet in whose aged 
 bosoms the patriotic fires burn and who are 
 ready to give their last energies to home and 
 children and country. 
 
 Christ calls for the choicest muster. He calls 
 for the men of chiefest influence, whose power 
 is acknowledg^ed : for those who stand in soci- 
 ety in the very foremost rank. The divine 
 Leader calls for the leaders of men. Because 
 you have influence, because where you go others 
 will follow, because you should lead upward and 
 not downward, Christ's claims come to you 
 
288 THE MODEL LIFE. 
 
 wilh authoritative obligation. lie musters you, 
 with the mandate of kingship, into His service^ 
 Were you less than you are, you should be 
 Christian. Because you are all that you are 
 the Redeemer's claim is stronger upon you. 
 The ascendency of your personality intensifies 
 the Lord's demand for your devoted service. 
 The dominion that you hold through the spirit- 
 ual suffrage of your fellows, co-ordinates your 
 life with the kingdom of Christ on earth. 
 
 THE END. 
 
BS2421.H32 
 
 Aspects of Christ. Studies of the model 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00013 1633