^i^Y Of mtti

BX 7233 .B4 S4
Beecher, Henry

6th ser. 187^
Ward, 1813-

1887.

The sermons of

Henry Ward

■R fi fi r* h «a T- in Pi

irm/^i 1 +■ H

THE SERMONS

HENRY WARD BEECELER,

Plymouth Churchy Brooklyn,

FROM VERBATIM REPORTS BY T. J. ELLINWOOD.

"PLYMOUTH PULPIT,"

SIXTH SERIES:

MARCH— SEP rEMBER, 1871.

NEW YORK:

J. B. FORD & COMPANY,

I 872.

CONTENTS.

Paob.
— L God's Disinterestedness (Matt, v., 48) . « , 9

Lesson: Gal. V. *Hymns: 173, 648, 680.

II. The Liberty of the Gospel (Acts xxi. 15-26^ . 33
Lesson : Acts xv, 1-33. Hymns : 40, 683, 1262.
III. Love-Service (Gal. v., 13, 14) . , , , 55
Lesson: Eph. lli. Hymns : 31, 431, 1259.

IV". The Social Principle in Religion (Eph. ii., 19-22) 13

Lesson : Luke xxi. Hymns: 639, 668. 717.

_ V. The Faith of Love (John xx., 29) . , , 97

LE3BON: Isa. Ix. HYMNS: 284, 255. 653.

VI. Special Divine Providence (Matt, vi., 33) • . 115
Lesson: Matt, vl., 19-31. Hymns: 73, 193, 663.

VII. The Law of Benevolence (Gal. vi., 10) . . 135
Lesson: Rom. xii. Hymns; 199, 816. 1001.

VIII. The Ages to Come (Eph. ii., 1) . . . , 159

Lesson: Heb. xii., 1-11; 22-25. Hymns: 725, 878, 1259.

IX. The Two Revelations (Rom. ii., 14-16) . . 179

Lesson: Matt, v., 3-16. Hymns: 687, 849, 78.

X. God's AVorkmanship in Man (Eph. ii., 8-n) • 197

Lesson : Heb. iv. Hymns : 130, 905, 1185.

XL The Name of Jesus (Phil, ii., 9-11) . . . 217
Lesson : Phil. 11.. 1-13. Hymns : 268, 292. 551.

XII. The Lesson from Paris (Rev. xviii., 7, 8) . . 235
Lesson: Rev. xviii., 1-8. Hymns: 1020, 1011, 982.

XnL Suspended Moral Convictions (John xii., 42, 43) 253

Lesson: John xii., 30^. Hymns: 24, 514, 898.
XIV. Truthfulness (Col. iii., 9, 10) . . . . 275

Lesson : Psa. xxxiil. hymns : 693, 619, 657.

XV. Heart-Conviction (Rom. x., 10) . . . . 293

Lesson : Col. 1. Hymns : 104, 112, 21.

XVI. The Glory of Jehovah (Ex. xxxiv., 5-7) . . 313
Lesson : Job xxxviil. Hymns : 199, 128, 888.

XVIL Soui^BuiLDiNG (1 Cor. iii., 10, 11) . . . 335

Lesson: I Cor. Hi., 1-17. Hymns: 270, 607, 1263.

XVIII. Reugious Fervor (Rom. xii., 11) , • 351

Lesson ; Kom. xH. Hymns : 40, 247,

• PLYMOUTH COLLECTIOir.

IV CONTENTS.

XIX. A Safe Guide for Young Men (Genesis xxviii., 20-22) 371

liESSON: Psa. Ixxiii., 1-26. HYMNS; 898, 878, 353.

XX. TuE Heart-Power op the Gospel (Rom. i., 16) . 391

Lesson: Matt, xiii., 1-17. Hymns: 725, 096, Shining Shore.

XXL The Lord's Prayer 409

Lesson: 1 Pet. ii , 9-25. Hymns : 1335, 816, 715.

XXIL Remnants (Rom. ix., 27) 425

LESSON : Psa. xc. Hymns : 868, 816, 1230.

XXIIL The New Birth (John iii., 5-7) . ... 443

LESSON : Eph. Hi., 13-21. Hymns 813, 854, 784,

XXIV. Working out our own Salvation (Phil, ii., 12, 13) 461

Lesson: Psa. xxiil. Hymns: 847, 865, 1251.

XXV. The Preacher's Cojoiission (Matt, xxviii., 19, 20) 477
Lesson : 2 Thess. ii.. 16, 17; II., 1-16. Hymns: 1008, 981, 1163.

XX VL The Privilege of Working (Eph. iii., 8) . . 497
Lesson : 1 Pet. I. Hymns : 43, 424, 666.

GoD'S DiSINTEKESTEDNESS.

INVOCATION.

Accept our praise, and lead us from praise to joy, and into the holy con-
fidence which thou dost grant unto them who have the secret of the
Almighty. Breathe upon us afresh, this morning, with reviving light and
power. Grant that every one of us, and each in his own necessity, may find
thee. Draw near to every one; and may thine hands be so full of blessings
that each shall find that which he needs. Help us, we pray thee, in fellow-
ship one with another, to sing rejoicingly thy praise. Help us all, with
common weakness, and common sin, and common needs, to draw near in
humble supplication, and commune with thee by prayer. Lift upon us, we
pray thee, by the Holy Ghost, the light of the other world, that we may see
in it the remedies for aU the wants and deficiencies of this. Grant that
every service, whether of devotion or of instruction or of enjoyment, in
the sanctuary or at home, through all the hours of this day, may have thine
approval and inspiration. Which we ask in the name of the Beloved.
Amen.

PKIHCETOIT \^

THSOLOGIG^

GOD'S DISINTERESTEDNESS.

•' Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is per-
fect."—Matt, v., 48.

I suspect that almost every one reads this merely as a command
that we should become perfect persons. And very many suppose it
to be a command that we shall be as perfect as God is — that the meas-
ure of perfection in us shall be as complete as is the measure of per-
fection in God.

In the first place, the command, He ye therefore perfect^ is not to
be considered in a rigidly imperative sense. It is not, in other
words, to be supposed that perfection can be attained by men with
the mode of organization employed in their creation, in their rela-
tions to this world, in their relations to social life, and in their re-
lations to God and the future. It is not to be supposed that the
perfect outline which is to be filled \ip before we can be perfect is
the creature of volition. It is not to be supposed that a man can
be perfect simply by willing to be perfect ; or, that perfection is a
state wrought in men by a supernal power, with instantaneousness,
with miraculousness, if I may so call it. It is not the supposition
that men, being called from darkness to light, can, either by the
force of their own will, or by the overwhelming power of the Divine
Spirit, rise suddenly into conditions of spiritual perfection. For
evei-ywhere throughout the Bible there is the recognition of that
which we find always to be the fact, that even under the best con-
ditions men reach toward perfection by growth.

"Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ."

But growth is in its nature gradual. It is a process of gradual
evolution. And it is said, even of Christ himself, that he was made
perfect, though a Son, by the things which he suffered.

He developed in his mortal state by assuming conditions of mor-
tality. He became subject to this law of gradual development ; and
he grew in knowledge and stature, and in favor with God and man,
and in the elements of wisdom and goodness. And that which was
true of the Saviour, was true of the apostles. And that which was

Sunday Morning, Mar. 12, 1871. Lesson : Gat. V. Hymns (Plymouth Collection) :
Nos. 173, 048, 680.

10 GOB'S DISINTERESTEDNESS.

true of the apostles, has been true of good men in every age since
that time. They have come gradually, and through a process of
education, into the higher conditions of a spiritual life. So it is
not to be supposed that we are commanded, by a jump, to come to
that which experience teaches us we can come to only by growth —
by gradual succession.

We might, therefore, give to this J3e ye, the force of Strive to
be. This is a general command implying that an action is already
set on foot. It implies that this is a thing to be done in your seeking
to be perfect. The spirit of the passage is, Be perfect as, or according
to the manner in which, God himself chooses to be perfect. Do not
fall on the wrong model. Do not have a false conception of the di-
rection in which you are to seek your true manhood. It is not this :
Be as perfect as God is. That is a wrong interpretation of it. It is
not this: Be just as full and just as complete in perfection as God is.
It is this : Take the divine notion of what perfection is, and attempt
to be perfect according to that notion, and not according to the mere
question of fullness, largeness, symmetry, and so on. Look at the
context, and you will see that this is the true construction which I
have given.

" Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shaltlove thy neighbor and
bate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-
fully use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be children of your Father
which is in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them
which love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans [the
worst sort of men] the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what
do ye more than others ? do not even the publicans so ? Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

That is the way in which he is perfect. Disinterestedness is the
perfection which is meant. He makes his sun to rise upon the just
and upon the unjust. He loves the unlovely. He does good to the
undeserving. And when you undertake to be perfect, remember the
way in which God himself is j^erfect, and be perfect according to that
manner. It is an exhortation to disinterested benevolence as a su-
preme ideal, both of divine perfection, and of individual perfection.

A little more lengthy consideration of this will, perhaps, give us
a power of inference which we could not otherwise get.

You have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bor, because there is good reason for it. Either he is lovable, or he
loves you ; or he has performed kindly offices toward you. There
you have a motive. You have been taught to hate your enemy be-
cause he is ugly ; because he is unjust ; because he stirs you up wick-
edly and wrongfully. And there is a motive and a reason. But
Christ says, " I declare that you are to love your enemies."

GOD'S disinti:ei!st£;dni:ss. 11

How can a man love his enemy ? He is wrong ; and can a man love
that which is wrong ? He is directing that wrong so that it becomes
keenly appreciated by me because it is measured by my own sensitive
selfness, if not selfishness ; and are we commanded to love a man so ?
He maligns me. He follows me. He curtails my comfort. He de-
stroys my usefulness. He embitters my life. He vexes my friends.
He weakens my standing. He throws around about me a malignant
glamour. And what motive, what inspiration is there that shall en-
able me to love any man who is, in his declared conduct, and in his
whole attitude, hostile to me ? How can a man love hatefulness ? —
especially hatefulness active, and addressing itself directly to me ? It
cannot be done.

Yet Christ says, " Love not those that are lovely alone : love the
unlovely ; and love them in their most active form. Unlovely peo-
ple that are brought right home to you in personal contact and
conflict — love them. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them
that hate you. Those that have in them that hate which is of the
fire of hell, and which shall consume and burn and destroy — do good
to them. And do it that you may become like God ; that is, that
you may become the children of your Father, which is in heaven."

And in order that he may not be misunderstood, he says, " This
is what God is doing. He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on
the good [in his career over the world, the sun sees many more men
that do not deserve his blessing than those that do, and still he shines
on with a bounty of light, and has done so through ages] ; and he
sendeth his rain, not according to men's deserts, but on the just and
on the unjust alike."

Men are accustomed, when they state their distinctions, keepino-
up their ideas of moral government, to say that God does send his
natural bounties on men without any regard to character ; but that
he cannot be understood to send his personal favors and his spiritual
favors upon men without any regard to character. But that is not
the question at all. The Saviour is endeavoring to teach this point :
" When you attempt to form an ideal of manhood and true charac-
ter, you must take God's character as a pattern. You are to love
that which is hateful and that which is oppugnant to you. You are
to bless those that curse you, and forgive those that hate you. Ideally,
you must raise up in your mind a picture of what God's character is,
and you must attempt to be perfect according to that character."

This is not a delineation of the divine moral government, but a
declaration of what the constituent elements of the divine character
are. And that declaration is that those elements are disinterested
goodness, divine benevolence, and kindness to the undeserving. That

12 GOD'S DISINTERESTEDNESS.

is the type of God's character — if there can be such a thing as a
type spoken of where there is but one.

Here, then, we have, by the hand of Christ himself, an authorita-
tive, and explicit, and incontrovertible declaration, that this is an
attribute of the divine nature, and that it is the very point in the
divine nature which we are to recognize as the model for our imita-
tion. God's nature, in other words, is such that he does good, not
because men are good, and not because they deserve that which is
good, but simply because He is good. And it is this that I want to
dwell upon at some length.

God does not love men because they are amiable. He does not
confer gifts upon men because they deserve them, or have eai-ned
them. He confers them because the fullness of bis own nature needs
expression. It is the outward pressure in himself of vast love and
beneficence that wants expression. And he sends that love and
beneficence abroad. He does good to people in heaven and on
earth, and will, to all eternity, because there is such a fullness of this
need in himself, working out in the happiness and benefaction of his
creatures.

Can we understand this ? Yes. We see it in life. The highest
form of any faculty is that in which the force of the feelings gives
it an automatic development. That is a low condition of faculty
which requires to be solicited and brought out by something that is
presented to it. And in men, where any part of their nature is highly
organized ; where they have, as we say, eminent gifts ; where they
have first-class endowments, the token of it is that the faculty, or
power, or whatever you choose to call it, is in such a condition that
it does not need any outward solicitation to develop it — that it de-
velops itself from the nature that is in it.

Thus, for example, there is in some natures such a large organ-
ized tendency to music that they develop music, not because some
one asks them to, not because if they do it may give them fame or
reputation ; but because it is there, and demands expression. It does
not nee<f outward solicitation. They think music ; they sing. Why ?
Because it is in them to do it. Because they want to, in themselves.
Tliere is many a person who, if you were to put him on an island in
the ocean, where there was no soul but himself, would be thinking
choruses and symphonies. He could not help it. This is something
that works out from the inside. It is inspiration. It is automatic.
It is self-moving.

So it is with poetry. There are many men who write poetry, just as
farmers raise corn, and send it to market. Some think that they will
make money by it ; some think that they will make fame by it ; and

OOD^S DISIKTEBESTEDNIJSS. 13

they sweat, and tug, and make poetry by the hardest There are
others through whose whole lives there is a tinge of poetic color in
almost every thought ; and at times there will be hours of rapture.
They cannot help it. They see visions, and they dream dreams ; and
their thoughts flow musically, and almost in numbers. We call
them inspired. We say that they are men of genius.

What do you mean by men of genius ? I mean this : that where
a man has any faculty that is carried above the middle line, so that
it is self-moved, he has genius. Genius, and genius only, enables a
man to be creative. If any man has faculties that are automatic in
their action, and that develop themselves, not by outward solicita-
tion, but according to some inward invitation or want, he has in him
the elements of an inventor. Many persons invent because they are
asked to, or because they are stirred up to. Others invent because
invention is in them. It is their nature to be fruitful in that way.

Now, many men are benevolent because they are provoked to
benevolence ; and many others are benevolent because they are so
full of kindness and love that these qualities flow from them steadily*
as silver streams flow out of the sides of mountains.

So on persons that are called good-natured, good dinners have a
pleasing influence. Good luck has a very cheering influence on
them. Some rare stroke of fortune comes to them, and they are emi-
nently good-natured. And you can tell the reason why. But there
are good-natured men about whom you never think of asking the
reason why. They are always so. They cannot be any diflferent.
The current runs spontaneously in that direction in them. They
cannot help it.

Some men are benevolent at intervals. Some are benevolent
when the proper time comes round, and they are never benevolent at
any other times. But there are persons who are bathed in an at-
mosphere of benevolence, and are never out of it. Benevolence is
in them by original organization and tendency.

This is what we call inspiration, or genius. It is a certain full-
ness of nature that leads action to be from within outward, and,
from the reason of inwardness, so full and sensitive that it shows
itself in outward action. It is the highest conception among men.
There is no faculty that men love to praise more than genius. It
stands superior to all other conditions of the faculties. And it
points to this conception of the divine nature. It points to the
same thing in God — a Being whose attributes are so full and so sen-
sitive that they do not need the solicitation of outward circumstances.
The divine Heart pours forth its bounty from reasons that are in
itself — from its infinite fullness, its infinite necessity, and not from

14 GOB'S DISINTJEJRHSTJBBNUSS

its self-love, as we do in a lower sphere, and according to the laws
of that lower sphere.

The imperfect moral conditions in ns know something of what it
is to have spontaneity and overflow of life and inspiration ; and car-
rying that ideal up, and enlarging it to the full measure of all the
attributes of God, we perceive that he sits in the heaven, eternally
willing, thinking, governing, by the outflow of a nature righteous,
pure, holy, just and good, and moved, not by argument, nor by per-
suasion, nor by inspection, but by an infinite necessity in himself to
pour out the goodness and the fullness that is in him.

Look at the thought of the Apocalypse, where the throne is de-
scribed, and where it is said that out from under it proceeds the
river of life, and that on either side of it are trees whose leaves are
for the healing of the nations. It is as if it had been said, " Thc^
life of God (for Throne means God) who sits there, flows like a river.'''

A river, according to our way of looking at it, is that which has
in itself its own motion, as it were. Its power is not derived from
the will of man. It is not the miller that coaxes the river to flow by
his mill : it is the river that coaxes the miller to set himself down on
its bank with his mill. It is its nature which gives it automatic power.
It has its rise in the mountains, and streams flow down to form it,
and it has a power of its own by which it flows on and pours out its
waters into the ocean or the lake. In summer and in winter, through
all time, it pursues its course from a force which is inherent in itself.
And so through ages the old Amazon has poured its mighty flood
into the Atlantic ; and the Mississippi has emptied its vast volumes
into the Gulf; and the St, Lawrence has flowed into the upper ocean,
melting myriads of tons of ice. And they are forever flowing. And
God sits with an inexhaustible stream of benevolence flowing out
from under his throne. All that vast treasure of sympathy and
love ; all things which go to constitute the highest Fatherhood, are
represented as coming forth from under the throne of God. And
all those things that grow on the banks of the river of life, and
whose leaves are said to be for the healing of the nations, are repre-
sented as issuing from beneath the throne.

Or, take the favorite image of our God as a Sun. It is said of
Christ, " He is the light of the world." Consider that the sun is not
an orb that shines because it is solicited. Consider that fire is not
struck out of him as men strike fire out of a flint. We do not get flame
from the sun as men get flame by rubbing a match. The sun is a
globe of heat and fire that, in an incessant stream, pours out
and radiates from itself these boundless stores of light and heat.

GOD'S DISINTERESTEDNESS. 15

And God forever radiates, sends from himself, from the necessity of
His nature, these boundless stores of beneficence.

This is the Being that presides central throughout the whole
universe. He is not One that is to be conceived of according
to the penurious, beggarly notion of an earthly monarch. He
is not one who needs to be approached, to be worshiped, to be so-
licited, in order to be kept good-natured. He is not one that gives
upon a consideration of the desert of the recipient. The true idea
is, that God is a Being who sits in the center of the universe, with
a nature so full of all bounty that it has an endless flow, and is like
a river that, through summer and winter, and through ages unum-
bered, moves steadily on. He is the Regent, the Center of all things ;
and from him all things proceed.

When, therefore, we are commanded to be like God, it is not
meant that we should be as large as he is, nor as wise as he is. It
is not even meant that we shall be symmetrical as he is. It is not
meant that we shall be perfect as God is in any artistic sense. This
is what is meant : If you would imitate God aright, remember that
he loves unlovely beings ; remember that he forgives hateful folks,
who do not deserve forgiveness ; remember that it is not the bounti-
ful alone to whom God gives ; remember that the stingy old miser
receives the rain and the sunlight as much as the philanthropist.

I think everybody feels, at once, " Why, these do not deserve it !"
No ; but God's nature is such that he outpours his own feelings, so
that the good and the bad get his bounty ; so that the just and the
unjust get it. And you cannot get away from it. There it is de-
clared by our Lord Jesus Christ that the pattern which you are to
imitate is God's nature in this thing, that he makes his sun to rise
on the go- d and on the bad, and that he sends his rain on the just
and on the unjust alike.

The doctrine to which I beg to call your attention, is that the
truest and noblest conception of moral quality is one that has the
reason of its being and action in itself, and not in that which is out-
side of it. It is disinterested, in other words.

I shall not now risk the strength of tliis subject by undertaking
to square it by the proper pattern of the schools. I shall not qualify
these statements by saying that God has a personal partiality which
proceeds on a divine pattern, in other words, I shall not attempt
to show that God, in forming friendships, in selecting his personal
companions from among men, if I may so say, does it on the divine
principle of moral loveliness. I suggest that there is a subject in
this direction, but that ought to be treated by itself; and you might
better have this other side exaggerated^ than not to have it in your

16 GOD'S I>I8INTEEESTEDNESS.

mind at all, or to have it there in a form that is comparatively weak.

I remark, then, in view of this explanation .

1. This is the distinctive peculiarity of God's nature which was
thought of by our Saviour, which he emphasized, and which he held
up for us to imitate — goodness from his own love of goodness. We
cheat ourselves because our ideal of God is erroneous. We fall into
endless mistakes in regard to human conduct because we fail to per-
ceive this peculiar feature of God's character — that he does kindnesses,
that he acts kindly, because he himself hungers to be kind. It is the
efflux and proper expression of his own nature. And this kindness,
this goodness, is to be in us.

Compare this with the notions which are prevalent. What is
goodness ? An ascetic will tell you that the proper idea of the
Christian state is to deny yourself in every possible way ; to mortify
the flesh, and the passions and appetites of it ; to circumscribe your
enjoyment ; not to be seduced by any evils ; to live in a state of
perpetual cross-bearing and self-denial, with tears and groans and
anguish, that you may at last be found fit to enter into the kingdom
of God. It is false/ It is a lie/ and the worst kind of a lie, be-
cause it is against the genius of the universe ; because it is in oppo-
sition to the very marrow of the Gospel — if men are, in God's provi-
dence, ordained to work out the problem. Our sins and troubles
are to bring tears and sorrows, to be sure ; but it is not the distinc-
tive characteristic of Christianity, that a man is to have an ascetic
love for pain and sorrow, as though they were good in themselves.
" Be ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," who
lives and administers by a disinterested kindness, which is the pat-
tern that men are to follow.

There are many who think that being pious signifies a cold
scrupulosity — an exact circumspection. And this idea is united to
another idea, of self-culture. That men shall keep themselves un-
spotted from the world ; that they shall be radiant all the time,
growing brighter and brighter ; and that they shall build themselves
up in a certain symmetrical and stately strength and excellence —
that they think is piety. It may be one of the things which will
make piety stronger ; it may give a. man a greater power in using
himself, as undoubtedly it does ; but that which makes a man
Christlike is not the fact that he is doing so much for himself, that
he is building himself up in various right things, and ridding himself
of various wrong things : it is that he is perfect, as his Father in
vheaven is, who makes His sun to shine on the good and on the bad,
and who sends His rain on the just and on the unjust. Disinterested
love, disinterested goodness — that is the pattern.

GOD'S DI81NTEBE8TEDNESS. 17

There are others whose idea of piety is largely shaped by the
esthetic feeling. Nothing seems to them to be good that is not sym-
metrical. Nothing seems to be good to them that is not harmo-
nious. Taste, rather than benevolence is their divinity ; and every
fault disgusts them. They are apt to be full of class-selfishness.
They are apt to separate themselves from men. They are apt to
have the Pharisaism of the pew, and to be satisfied only with walk-
ing in the midst of things that are well-ordered and beautiful. I
love beauty and regularity, too, where they are under the guidance
and inspiration of a disinterested benevolence ; but where they are
substitutes for it, I abhor them. I would as soon undertake to raise
my harvest by the pale moonbeams instead of the glory and fervor
of the sun, as to undertake to raise anything like character, or give
it anything like power in the world, by the esthetic principle. As
an adjuvant, as a collateral, wielded by the hand of power, it is
good ; but of itself it is not piety — though many make it to be.
Benevolence is the center of true Christian character. Christian
character is an automatic state of benevolence. It is a state of benev-
olence so full that it overflows, not upon consideration and measure,
but as a lamp sheds its light abroad.

Do you suppose a candle, standing in the window, says, " I will
look down the road, and if I see a miserable, lone fellow travelino-^ I
will not shine upon him" ? No, it says, " I will treat all alike." The
first that comes over the hill is father Good-heart ; and the candle
shines along the road and lights him on his way. And how little
that candle wastes its light ! It is a guide to this wayfaring man. And
it does not say, " It is for me to be just," but shines without regard
to any such question as that. Next comes a hard, stingy man, who
is traveling ten miles at a shilling's expense to collect a six2:)ence
from some poor widow. And the candle says, " Yes, that is the road.
That is the way. Travel on." Next comes a poor orphan boy, cry-
ing because he is afraid that he shall be belated at night ; and the
candle shines for him, to cheer him on his way. Next comes a
robust shepherd boy, whistling with joy ; and the candle shines for
him. And everybody who walks that road gets the guidance of
that candle without discrimination. They are all human beino-s
needing guidance. Not one of them deserves it ; the best of them
have forfeited their right to it ; but the candle shines for them all.
And so the sun sends its light abroad over the world.

This is to be the supreme ideal of a true manhood in Christ
Jesus. A man that is intellectually perfect, and therefore doc-
trinally correct, and stands forever turning the wheel of some eccle-
siastical machine, grinding out dogmas and propositions and prin-

18 GOB'S DISINTEBESTEDNJSSS.

ciples and truths for mankind, is not ministering to the spiritual
wants of the race. Men do not feed on such shadows as these. He
has Christ who is perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. Benevo-
lence is the genius of perfection.

Oh ! how far are the surly-browed and wrinkled-foreheaded men
that with fierce zeal and intense determination push the right
although it goes like a sword, from being God-men, after the pattern
of Christ Jesus !

2. There is a relation that this idea sustains to the popular
notions of justice which require a consideration. There are many
who are confounded on this subject. They have a notion about
justice that I think will never be found outside of the bounds of this
world, as it is mechanical and physical. As justice has been ad"
ministered — and it has been administered in very imperfect ways —
it has generally followed a simple line of action proceeding upon
intellectual perceptions, in setting apart men, right and left, as good
and bad. Justice to the good requires that they have prosperity ; and
justice to the bad requires that they be unprosperous. This has been
the line of demarcation. This treating men according to their deserts
has been the supreme idea of justice. It has acted upon the plan of
giving to good men what they deserve, and of giving to bad men
what they deserve.

Now, I aver that there is no possibility of justice according to
this idea. You do not know what a good man deserves, if he deserves
anything. You cannot measure it. You do not know what a bad
man deserves. You cannot measure it. You would not have me
treat that man other than strictly according to his deserts ? But
can you tell whether there is in that man's state anything that he has
inherited? Can you tell what ancestral strains have come down
into that man's nature ? Can you tell what infelicities there have
been in that man's education, which gave him warp and bias ? Can
you tell me what expei-ience has struck into his being and stained
him through and through ? Can you tell what are the trials of that
man's heart ? Can you tell how hard it is for him to overcome the
passions and appetites and circumstances that tempt him to be bad ?
Can you tell what is the secret spring of his action ? How little do
you know of his motive, and of the operation of that motive I And
yet, you talk of giving to that man according to his deserts. You
have not the first element of judgment in his case. You know
nothing about it.

You remember how Christ Jesus, in contrasting the Pharisees
who seemed to be first-rate people, were men well-to-do in the
world, and were overgrown from excessive indulgence in the luxu-

GOD'S JDISINTEEESTEDNESS. 19

ries of life, but who were exemplary, and about as deserving aa
anybody in the community — you remember how Christ in contrast-
ing them with persons in the street, that were steeped in vice and
crime, and that seemed ready to dissolve like ichor into the abyss
of hell, and deserved nothing but reproach and condemnation,
apparently, said,

" The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."

How little can' we administer justice in one case or another !
How far are"^the thoughts of God from our thoughts !

" As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than
your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

On the other hand, if justice be kindness suitably administered,
then there can be very little doubt as to the reality of justice, and
very little doubt as to its benefit. What is justice but the adminis-
tration of kindness in the way that shall suit each man's necessity,
and his necessity in his social liabilities and relationships? That which
is drawing every man with love, and which is drawing him with that
which love inspires, and which every man needs in himself and in the
relations which he sustains to his fellow-men — that is justice. The
administration of benevolence is justice. It is the tendency to do
good to a man, first from a consideration of what he is, and second
from a consideration of the relationship in which he stands.

Although, oftentimes, justice may take on a pain-giving form, it
is not on that account a malign feeling. It is necessary, not unfre-
quently to give pain to one that you love.

I remember very well, when I used to come in from my sports,
soiled and smouched (for I did not spare myself), and was to be
brought into decent society, and it was necessary for the sisterly
hand to rub the dirt from my face, I never liked it. And I know
that when my hair, that went with the winds, and played with every
one of them, had to be smoothed out, I never liked the passage of
the comb through it — although they were seeking beauty. (I hope
they found it !) It was done with the utmost kindness. It was done
from the best feeling, by the nurse, or the sister, or the mother ; but
to me it was vexation and torment — in a small way. I never liked
it. When I had committed any ofiense against brother or sister,
and it became necessary for me to have my moral sense awakened
in order that I might see that I had violated the law of kindness,
and feel those mysterious tinglings, which were eye-openers, that I
might see the way of love which I had missed, and come back into
it, these things were not pleasant to me.

"No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;
nevertheless!, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness."

And all the Avay through the household there is this infliction of

20 GOD'S DISINTUEHSTIJDNUSS.

pain. There is nothing in this world that inflicts so much pain, and
saves so much, as love. It is the judicious administration of restraint,
it is the judicious administration of pungency, it is the judicious ad-
ministration of enforced duty and instruction, that educates the child.

The great-bosomed mother, the great radiant face of a love watch-
ing that pain shall not go a bit too far, but still pressing it, and still
insisting upon it, says, " My dear child, I will not suffer you to grow
up so. I cannot live and see you become bad". My darling, you
shall not be bad. By all the love that is in me, and by all the hope
that is in me, and by all the prophecy of a mother's heart, you shall
not be bad. I will cry with you, but cry you shall 1 It is neces-
sary to make you sweeter and better and nobler." Is not that justice?

There is another way of estimating justice. " Who is this ? Fetch
him up. He has been here half a dozen times before. Drunk again,
eh ? Here, officer, give him four months. Public purity must be
preserved. It is time for us to go to dinner. Send the others up
three months apiece. Never mind, I will hear those cases after din-
ner." That is justice, is it? Men say, " We must keep up the dig-
nity of the law ; we must see that authority is not trodden under
foot ; we must maintain morality in the community." I say that it
is hideous injustice. I say that selfishness and indifference to human
character and suffering are infernal. And nothing can change the
nature of things. He that does not care in his heart, though he does
the right thing, is unjust. Where a judge commits a criminal ; where
he strikes the law down upon the wrongdoer, and says, " He
ought to have it, and I am glad that he has got it," it is infernal.
It is not justice, even though the man may merit stripes, and though
it may be best that he should have them. There is not, in God's
universe, any man that has a right to put his hand upon another
man except it be the hand of love. He that has no love has no right
to touch anybody.

God, himself, in the infinite expansive government of the universe,
sits regent, as the God of love, saying, " Be perfect as I am. And I
tell all mankind what I am by making my sun to rise upon the good
and the bad, and by sending my rain upon the just and upon the
unjust. Be ye perfect in that way."

If this be the true notion of justice — the notion of love educating
men, of love using whatever is needful for men's education, of love
seeking to administer for men for their good, in all their relations ;
that is, with a wise regard to all their necessities which spring out
of their social connections in society — if this be the true notion of
justice, ought it not to revolutionize the literature, and amend the
thought and procedure of almost all mankind ?

GOD'S BISINTEBESTEBNESS. 21

Now, justice is vengeful. Now, justice springs from blood. Now,
justice helps that which is animal in man. Now, justice is the un-
purged, uncleansed, unripened, blind impulse of the beast that
is yet in mankind. But justice in God is the . efflux . and the
power and the wisdom and the goodness of love, shaping men
out of poverty, and out of imperfection, and out of sin ; molding
them ; and bringing them out into the bright and glorious image of
the God of love. And every man under the divine administration
has a right to that justice. He has a right to as much kindness and
to as much goodness as he can profit by consistently with all the re-
lations which he sustains to the mass of society.

The application of this thought, which is made by our Saviour
himself, is one that ought to be made by us a thousand times where
we make it once — its application, I mean, to the forgiveness of men.
What is the ground of forgiveness ? It does not lie in the recipient
at all. It lies in the giver. • We forgive simply because it is the
nature of goodness to do it. Kindness, love — this does not take any
oflense. It has nothing to avenge. It is a spontaneous outflow of
generous feeling. Love seeks to remedy evils. When it sees a fault
or a mistake or a sin, it seeks to efface it. God forgives men. Why ?
Because he loves to do it. He does it for his own sake. Misinter-
preting that expression, old theologians supposed that God forgave
men for his own sake just as a king put a crown on his head for his
own sake. They gave it a monarchical significance. But I believe
that God forgives for his own sake in a psychological sense. A
generous man gives away handful after handful of money, why ?
Because the act bounds back with pleasure to him inwardly. For-
giveness ig the instinctive action of a true generosity in a man. Why
do some men speak with figures of beauty ? Because it is their duty
to do it ? No ; but because they cannot help themselves. They see
visions in the air, and they paint pictures unconsciously. In their
nature they do it because their nature tends to act in that way.
Why does God forgive? Because it is his nature to forgive. And
he forgives perpetually. He loves to forgive.

Well, do you mean to tell me that all stand on an equal footino-?
No, but the condition docs not lie in desert. Nobody is benefited
by being forgiven unless he takes the bounty. The mere act of kind
feeling does not do anybody any good.

After many wanderings I come back to the place of my birth. I
have lost all trace of my friends. .My father and mother were livino-
when I left home and became a sailor boy ; but I have lost commu-
nication Avith them. They have moved out of the city. As near as
I can learn, they are in such a near country town. And, foot-bare, I

22 GOB'S bisi:ntebestebness.

set out and go there. It is twilight when I reach the town. And
weary and worn I sit down on the steps of a little dwelling. I can-
not help shedding tears, I am so miserable. I say to mybclf, " I have
come back home, and I cannot find that anybody who knows me
lives ; and I have no place to go. I have no father and no mother."
And I lean my head upon my hand, and against the door, and can-
not sleep for my thoughts. Quite unknown to me or theni I have
sat down right where my father and mother live. They are sitting
by the hearth. The mother, knitting, and looking into the fire, sees
strange ships, and on every one of them is her sailor boy. And she
says, " Oh, that he would come home !" And the father, drawing
out his handkerchief, wipes tears from his eyes. They look at each
other ; and each knows what the other is thinking of ; but they do
not speak. The thoughts and aifections of those old people center
about me. They would give all they have in the world if they knew
my whereabouts. And there I sit on their doorstep. They fain
would minister to my wants ; but the bounty of love which they
would bestow upon me is inside, and does not get outside, I do not
press in to get it, and so I do not have it.

Now, suppose a man, going on in a sinful course, wants to be
forgiven? God ofters forgiveness to him; but it may be that it does
not reach him. God does not force forgiveness upon men. It re-
quires, in order to be efiectual, to be accepted. Unless it be a fact,
a reality, to a man, it can do him no good. And so, though God
pours abroad heart-love for all men, all men do not enjoy its bless-
ings. The sunlight does not guide blind folks ; and love does not
smile upon men, though it be never so bountiful, if they do not open
their eyes to behold it ; but the moment they do open their eyes,
and see it, they feel its inspiring power. And for a man to pray for
forgiveness whose heart is in a condition to receive forgiveness, is like
a man's praying for rain in an equinoctial storm. The whole heaven
is full of it, and the whole earth and atmosphere are saturated with
it. Take it. It never will be anything to you till you do take it.
Melt it into your consciousness. Coin it into your own experience.
Then it will bring forth rich and blessed results. The trouble is that
you do not take forgiveness. Forgiveness is not prepared for yoix and
for the occasion : it pours forth its bounty ceaselessly and endlessly.
And shall father, shall mother, shall lover never forget to love, and
their love never forget to be gracious, and shall God, who is so much
greater, and so much grander, and so much better, sit with unextin-
guished hate and revenge ? Shall he not love on and forever, who
symbolizes himself by the ever-shining sun, which pours its bounty
on the good and the bad, and who sends his rain on the just and the
unjust alike ?

GOD'S BISINTEBESTEDNESS. 23

You will be very apt to like this side of the subject — the forgive*
ness of God to you ; but now, on the other side, do you forgive in
that way ? I have noticed one thing — that men are always willing
to forgive after an offense has been acknowledged, and the effect of
it has been done away, and they have been suitably worshiped, and
patted, and " set up." When they have subdued the person, and
got an advantage over him, then they are willing to forgive him.
That is a domineering and most hateful despotism, instead of for-
giveness. It is as far removed as possible from divine forgiveness.
Love forgives without conditions. Love forgives once for all. Love
forgives without regard to any after consideration. Love covers
down the offense which it has forgiven.

God's love does to the sinner what a mother's love does to a frac-
tious child. The child disobeys her, and gives her pain, for days,
and weeks, and months, and years ; and yet she forgives it. Do you
forgive men thus ?

You say men who have committed an offense against you do not
deserve forgiveness. But the question of forgiveness is not one of
desert. The question of forgiveness is a question of your resemblance
to God. It is a question of your being filled with this divine benefi-
cence. It is a question of your having regard for the well-being of
others, and yearning to do them good, and being willing, not only
to give them amnesty, but, as it were, to give them your own self.

" Do you mean to say, then, that the moment a man has done you a
wrong you are to fly to his neck ?" Oh, no, not necessarily. It may be
that the manifestation of this feeling would be the worst thing for the
person. It may be that the spirit of love will inspire you to take a
course of discipline. But that which actuates you must not be the
hardness of conscience. It certainly must not be combativeness, with
the monkey-cap of conscience on it. It must not be hatred. It
must not be revenge. It must not be selfishness making believe that
it is conscience. Nobody has a right to chastise till he is in a forgiv-
ing frame of mind ; till he is conscious that his heart is full and sur-
charged with that same love which made Christ die for sinners while
yet they were his enemies.

" Oh, but," say men (how scriptural men become when it is the

malign passions that want to justify themselves !) " how is it in Luke

xviith, 4th ?" Let us see how it is.

" And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times
in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive him."

People say, " As soon as I see evidence of repentance, I am will-
ing to forgive." But is repentance here declared to be a condition
of forgiveness ? Not at all. There is no idea conveyed, that you shall

24 GOB'S DISINTERESTEDNESS.

not forgive a man until he repents. The Saviour is supposing the
case of a man who comes to you to be forgiven of an oflense. The
man says, " I have offended against you, and I beg to be forgiven."
Your clerk comes to you and says, " I promise never to drink again ;
but last night I was overcome by wine. I am sorry for it. Will you
bear with me ?" " Yes," you say, " I will bear with you." And you
do not say it because the man says that he is sorry, though the man
does say so. In the course of a month or two he is overcome again,
and he comes back and implores your forgiveness, saying, " I have
the same sad story to tell, and I am ashamed to tell it. I am heart-
ily sorry for it. Last night I was carried away by my associates,
and led to drink again. Are you willing to bear with me ?" You are
willing ; and your big-heartedness is such that you forgive him, not
simply because he said, " I am sorry," not because of any good thing
that is in him ; but out of regard to his welfare. Repentance was
never made by our Master a condition of forgiveness. On the other
hand, in Matthew xviiith, 21st, it is, without any qualification, taught
that men ought to be forgiven as often as they offend.

*' Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ?"

Here no condition is stated.

" Jesus said unto him I say not unto you, Until seven times ; but, until
seventy times seven."

Now that is language to which it is utterly impossible to apply
any condition. It is definite language. It means: Forever forgive.
Live in a state of mind in which forgiveness will come spontaneously.
Never will a man come to you in such a state that you ought not to
be in a forgiving mood toward him.

But there is this to be said : that in a spirit of true love a course
of discipline pursued with the person forgiven is oftentimes good for
that person. You must impose some limitation that shall be whole-
some. You may say to your child, " I shall not show you kindness
till you have gone and asked forgiveness of your brother whom you
spit ixpon. I love you dearly. I love you too well to let you go
unpunished. I cannot take such a naughty child into my lap. You
shall not sit with me, and you shall not sit at the table, and you shall
not go with your young companions, until you have brought your-
self into a right state of mind. I am in a right state of mind, and
you must be, too."

A man stands by a piano, with one hand on the key and the other
on the chord, and as he tightens the chord it cries, " Don't, don't,
don't, don't," until, at last, it is tuned ; and no harm is done to the
instrument, either.

So God does to us ; and so we do to others. It is a musical ear

GOD'S DISINTERESTEDNESS. 25

seeking harmony — not a hard hand seeking regularity. So we deal
with our children. We do not shield them from the effects of their
wrong-doing. But there must be discrimination in this regard. There
must not be a systematic laying down of conditions. You say, " A
man that has done wrong must take steps to renounce that wrong.
Let him show me that he is sorry, and then I will turn around and
take steps to forgive him." Not a bit of it. That is not the idea at
all. You are to be Father Greatheart. You are to be the soul of
bounty. You are to love that man so much that you can be patient
with him. Yea, more, you are to love him so that you can make him
suffer for the sake of making him better. But it must be unmistak-
able love, full of sweetness and graciousness and gentleness, so that
the sufferer himself shall say, " It is love dealing with me for my
good." There is to be no acerbity in foi-giveness ; there is to be no
sternness in it ; there is to be no cruelty in it. There is to be in for-
giveness nothing but the deepest love, plenary, ample, infinite, as it
is administei-ed in the hands of God forever and forever. And all
subterfuges of hatred and wounded pride must be exposed.

There are thousands of persons lurking in the devil's den who would
have you believe that they are spotless as lambs. They are not.
They are wolves'cubs. They snap with their teeth, and rend with
their claws. And yet, they claim to be acting under the influence
of the spirit of forgiveness. They " stand on right and truth, and
do not forgive until men are prepared by repentance to be forgiven."
4. In organizing the household, and in organizing society, is it
not time that we should attempt to carry out to their full force the
instruments of love and benevolence, in governing and developing
men, and in promoting the well-being of society. We have tried
other things, one after another. We have had eras, we have had
epochs, of various kinds. And so far as love has been tried, it has
been found to be the most universal educator and cultivator of peace.
There is one place where love is more nearly uipreme than any-
where else ; and that is where success has been achieved more nearly
than anywhere else. I refer to the household. There the fountain
of love is never sealed. There love is more nearly on the pattern
of love in heaven than anywhere else. That is the bright spot of
human history. While nations have gone on, voluminous, vast,
dark, with desolation on every hand, groaning and travailing in
pain until now ; while there have been outward conflicts innumer-
able ; while the world has been full of confusion and crying and
misery, there have been in all lands houses with families secluded in
them. And that which the State lacked, and business lacked, and

26 GOB'S BISINTEBESTEBNESS.

all men outside of the household lacked, the household has possessed.
Equity, justice, forgiveness, has flourished in the household.

And is it not high time to break away from the popular notion
in regard to justice and forgiveness,"and substitute the divine idea
for it?

At present I should not abolish the ruder forms of government,
and attempt to govern simply on the principle of benevolence,
because men are not disciplined to it. The government which we
have is better than nothing. The rude forces of law are better than
nothing. You cannot do away with them except by putting in their
place something higher and nobler. But the ideal which we are
to strive toward, and which the school should inculcate, and which
the press should urge, is a government after the pattern of the
divine government. It is time for us to be done working by the
selfish and malign feelings. We have worked long enough by the
basilar faculties. It is time for the pulpit, and the paper, and the
school, as well as the household, to begin to work by the law, irre-
pressible, of love.

" Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is per-
fect."

And how is that ? Let me read again the passage with the
context :

" Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven ; for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

GOD'S I)181NTEBE8TEDNE88. 27

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON. '

We thank thee, O God! for thy pity. How helpless are we, striving
against the mighty forces that are at work around about us, ignorant, in-
constant, and often overborne I How often in our outward and bodily life
do we need the suggestions of thy wisdom and the government of thy care
and kindness ! For all thy mercies through providence we thank thee. And
we rejoice that thou knowest what things we have need of before we ask
thee, and that thou art preparing and wilt prepare, even when thou doest it
through ourselves, working in us to will and to do the things that are right.
We rejoice that thou hast also the knowledge of that which is within, and
that all our hearts' necessities are open before thee, and that thou dost not
sit severely judging. We rejoice that, knowing what is right and what is
wrong to us, thou art not sitting stern and ascerb and unrelenting, sharply
demanding exact rectitude of all thy creatures. Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our
frame ; he remembereth that we are dust. Thou dost behold what might,
what power, in many is working the things that are for the flesh ; and thou
seest how they that strive against the flesh, often strive in discouragement
and defeat, frequently cast down, though not destroyed. And thou dost
have compassion upon their inflrmities. Yea,, and thou dost have compas-
sion upon their sins. Thou dost not wait to be gracious until they have dis-
charged their souls of all iniquity, faithful in word and life. Thou art
beforehand with kindness, and with mercy, and with gentleness, and with
goodness. And it is thy gentleness, it is thy sparing mercy, it is thy long-
suffering kindness, it is thine infinite patience with us that saves us. And
thou art ministering, in this strife within, to that which is good. Thou art
teaching us to overcome that which is bad.

We thank thee that thou hast pity upon the struggles of our souls ; and
that all our dim discernings of things higher and better, which come to tan-
talize us and then to torment us, and that all the yearnings which we have,
are the Spirit striving in us, and with us, with groanings that cannot be
uttered.

And so, though we cannot see thee face to face, though we know only in
part, and look out upon the brilliant obscure of the other life, thou art
there, and art drawing us up toward thee. How little the drops that go up
by the draught of the sun know that they shall shine in the rainbow, and
glow in the cloud! So thou art drawing us upward, we know not where,
except that it shall be to joy and purity and dignity and glory. We do not
understand these things yet, nor their meanings ; but we have faith to be-
lieve that thou art sitting in an eternal Fatherhood of love, and that thy
heart is full of power, and that all wisdom comes forth from it. Thou art
drawing all things kindly, gently, upward to the land of blessedness ; and
thou wilt overcome, as with an everlasting victory, all opposition; and
thou wilt banish all things from heaven that make offense and destroy with
transgression. Thou wilt utterly purify the universe. Yet the day shall
come when thou wilt have all things put beneath thy power. And we re-
joice, though the fullness of the meaning cannot be apprehended, that we
understand enough to fill us with hope and cheer. We shall be there ; we
shall see thee ; we shall be like thee ; we shall understand even as now we
are understood. All uncertainty will have passed away. We shall begin
the better career, having left behind tormenting passions— the body and all
Its inflrmities and ailments; and we shall be as the angels of God. In the
hope of this blessed consummation we live, and will unto the end.

Nbw, draw near to every one in whom thou hast implanted these desires;

28 GOB'S BISINTEBESTEBNESS.

to every one that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, to teach them which
is the Gate Beautiful. Teach them by it to enter the temple of God. And
having entered, may they abide there. Teach thou thine own to come by
the way of love, in which is all light, and all strength, and all hope, and all
truth, and all rectitude, and all that is divine. '

And we pray that thou wilt interpret thyself more and more to thy people
in the royalty of thy real and innermost life. We pray for the coming of
that kingdom in which love shall be supreme. Let thy will be done upon
earth as it is in heaven. We pray for the day when more and more shall
seek Christ, subduing their pride, their selfishness, and their waywardness,
and becoming gentle, and long-suffering, and patient, and full of disin-
terested kindness, as thou art. We pray that thou wilt grant that those
who are thine may grow not so much in the fervor and visions and rap-
tures of an imaginative experience, as in the reality of self-distrust and
self-denial, and of doing good, and of being good that they may do good.

And we pray that thou wilt increase the power of the church by increas-
ing the power of the faith that works by love in all its members. j
We pray that thou wilt spread abroad this Gospel of purity and of recti-
tude, by the power of divine love in their example. Grant that if there be
any seeking to live a new and better life, they may not hesitate to lay aside
their sins. May they have the inspiration and power which comes from the
higher life in Christ Jesus. May they learn in him what is disinterested
kindness and love. And may they seek this lo^^e with all their heart and
mind and soul and strength, toward God and toward man. May it be the
feeling of their nature.

And we pray that thou wilt grant patience to those that are discouraged,
or those that seek under great difQculties to fulfill the law ot God in them-
selves. Even if they suffer, may they still persevere, knowing that when
they have suffered awhile God will rescue them, or that he will give them
grace to bear, if he take not the thorn from their side.

We pray that thou wilt bless all thy erring children wherever they are.
Grant that they may be conscious that the treasure that waits for them is
greater than the treasure which they seek. How much better is the house
above than the houses which we build below ! How much better are the
friendships that bloom in immortality than those whose seeds we plant in
this chilly soil of life! How much better is the glorious companionship and
noble society of the blessed in heaven than that which we seek among men I
Grant that we may have imperishable riches. Grant that we may have
friendships that never grow dim. Grant that we may have aspirations and
ambitions that shall never die, but that shall have more realization beyond
the grave than they can have here.

We pray, O Lord! that thou wilt grant that this day divine truth may
be ministered in us by these holy thoughts and ardent yearnings. Grant
that we may this day feel ourselves drawn up toward thee. How all things
are looking up'to-day toward the sun, for light and for warmth ! How all
the fields yearn ! How all the sleeping tribes, that have lain long covered
down by winter, begin to solicit, and are drawn unsolicited by the bright
shining of the sun! For the Spring hath come, and warmth revives, and
the singing of the birds is heard again. So, O Sun of righteousness! come
to our winter. So come to all our dormant thoughts and feelings in us, that
they shall spring up with new growth. Make our heart the garden of the
Lord. Walk thou in it. And may we meet thee unabashed and unashamed.
We pray that this thy church, and all thy churches, may rejoice to-day.
May thy servants be able to preach with heart, and with soul, and with
hope of success. Wherever they are in the circumstances of discourage-
ment, wherever they sow much and reap little, may they still have the con-

GOD'/S BISINTEBUSTiJDNESS. 29

I
scious presence of God, and may their faith not fail, and may they have a
longer life in view than that which lies between these horizons. May they
live and labor as those that expect to see another and glorious life beyond,
when resurrection shall have found them, and brought them into the pres-
ence of God. And so may they endure trials and burdens, not fainting by
the way, and knowing that they will reap in due season if they faint not. \

We pray for feeble churches, wherever they are, throughout the length
and breadth of our land. May scattered flocks be gathered together and
may shepherds be found to lead them by the side of still waters. |

And may intelligence prevail. May schools, and colleges, and academies,
and universities, and all seminaries of learning, sacred and divine, have thy
presence and guidance, that the young that are passing through them, may
be sanctified, and grow up to be godly men.

And we pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon the nations
of the earth. We thank thee for coming peace. We pray that all the rav-
ages of war may be repaired. We pray that those that sigh, and that are
bereaved, and that sit in darkness, may find consolation and comforters.
May the day come when justice shall prevail; when there shall be no war;
when this mighty medicine of God shall no longer be given to the nations
that are sick so that they must needs drink blood. We pray thee. O Lord !
that the final glory may come— the new heaven and the new earth in which
dwell righteousness. And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and
Spirit, evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Wilt thou follow with thy blessing, Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
the word of truth and of exhortation which has been spoken. Fill our
hearts with supreme beneficence. May it grow in us. And as from the
ripening tree fall, even in the silence of the summer night, the fruits that
are waiting for the comer, so from our unconscious thought and our uncon-
scious feeling, may there drop down perpetually blossom and fruit of all
goodness and love. Grant, we pray thee, that we may seek more and more
the mind and will that are in Christ. And, may that Spirit which is in the
Father, and which brought him from the throne to the bottom of human
life, and which led him to love the unlovely, and to die for his enemies, and
to return to his glory above, and live for the good of men— grant that it may
be in us. And may we remember that if a man have not the spirit of Christ
he is none of his. And finally may we be brought where we shall need no
more exhortation, and shall be like thee, and shall shine in the luminous-
nes3 of an endless life. And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son,
and Spirit. Amen.

II.

The Liberty of the Gospel.

THE LIBERTY OE THE GOSPEL.

I propose to comment upon the history contained in the 21st
chapter of the Book of Acts, beginning with the 15th, and ending
with the 26th verse.

" And after those days we took up our carriages, and went to Jerusalem.
There went with us also certain other disciples of Csesarea, and brought
with them one Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should
lodge. And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received ua
gladly. And the day following Paul went with us unto .Tames ; and all the
elders were present. And when he had saluted them, he declared partei-
ularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry."

I can scarcely understand why the salutation should have been
mentioned, unless Paul's habit was that of an especially perfect gen-
tleman. He went to Jerusalem, and was received into a company of
prominent Christians; and there must have been somethino- very
affectionate in the mode of salutation which he bestowed on them
or he could hardly have made such an impression as is indicated by
the record.

" When he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God
had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry."

This was a conference-meeting at which one might well have
desired to be present. Even for the least disciple who has been
active in any good word or work, there is always a willing ear and
a ready heart. But to have heard Paul — a man of such universal
nature in spiritual directions ; a man who had traversed every re-
gion, almost, of the then civilized world ; a man who had a breadth
of experience such as, perhaps, can never fall to the lot of any other
man — to have heard him give some account of his own personal his-
tory, was a privilege devoutly to be wished for.

I remember very well to have heard Mr. Nettleton, when he
used to return from his tours of revival labors to the old house of
my father in Litchfield, recount the scenes of the revivals which he
had gone through in Danbury, or Woodbury, or wherever he had
been working ; and certainly, even to me, a little child, they were
golden hours ; and to my father and to him they were hours of
triumph beyond the ordinary experiences of men in the flesh. But
what were these as compared with the hours spent in an assembly

S^T^a)AY MoRNiNQ, Mar. 19, 1871. Lesson: Acts XV. 1-33. Hymns (Plymouth Col-
lection) : Nos. 40, 088, 1263.

34 THE LIBEBTY OF THE GOSPEL.

where James, the brother of our Lord, presided, and where mem-
hers of the Christian church of Jerusalem listened to the Apostle
Paul recounting what he had seen, and heard, and thought, and. felt,
and done, all over the Roman empire !

'• And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him,
Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe ;
and they are all jealous of the law, [the law of Moses]."

The transition seems a little singular here. After Paul had told
of his revival labors, they broke out into a triumphant strain, and
glorified God ; and then they said unto him,

" Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which
believe ; and they are all jealous of the law : and they are informed of thee,
that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake
Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to
walk after the customs."

Though they were in a rapturous feeling of divine love, they were
yet most tender-hearted in respect to the Mosaic law in Jerusalem.
And they went on to say,

"What is it, therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for
they will hear that thou art come."

So, then, you see that Paul had his orthodoxy suspected in Je-
rusalem. Would it not seem strange to you to hear that John
Knox was suspected of being heretical in Edinburgh ? or that
Jonathan Edwards was suspected of being unsound in Northamp-
ton ? or that John Calvin was suspected of being lenient and lax in
Geneva ? And does it not seem strange that St. Paul, in Jerusa-
lem, was not regarded as having got up to the highest mark as a
religious man ? So it was. It was not openly charged that he was
not orthodox. There were rumors to that effect, but no charges —
none whatever. The case was probably this : that when Paul's
name was mentioned among the assemblies of Christians in Jerusa-
lem, they used to say, " Yes, a very zealous man ; but I am afraid."
"What are you afraid of ?'' " Well, I should not like to say. I
would rather not talk about these things, for I hope it will all turn
out right." At other times his name would be mentioned in con-
nection with some transcendent work ; and they would say, " O, yes,
Paul is a successful worker. He has the art of stirring up com-
munities. He is very influential. But then well, I hope it

will all turn out right !" And so, after twenty years of earnest,
faithful labor in almost all the civilized world, Paul came to Jerusa-
lem to find that he was not " orthodox" according to the views of
Christians there. He found that they held him in doubt. And this
is all the more extraordinary considering that these men were
most of them Christians.

The elders, by the voice of James, the brother of our Lord, who

THE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL. 35

presided — the oldest man, and doubtless the natural leader of the
brctlircn there — said to Paul,

" Do, therefore, this that we say to thee : We have four men which have
avow on them [according to the Mosaic system]; them take, and purify
thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their
heads ; and all may know that those things whereof they were informed
concerning thee, are nothing ; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly,
and keepest the law."

That was as much as to say, " Your orthodoxy is suspected. Now
do you go in and subscribe to the entire Confession of Faith, and ac-
ccept it whole, in the midst of all the people ; and then they will say
that yoii are orthodox and sound." Says this council in Jerusalem
to the apostle Paul, the most successful and zealous man that ever
labored in the Christian ministry, '* Go into the temple as thouo-h
you had never heard of Christ, and make yourself a therough Jew
in their sight. Here are four men, Nazarites : you go with them
and pay their charges " — or pay charges with them. Some think that
they were poor and could not pay their own charges and so absolve
themselves from their vow, and that Paul was to pay their charges
for them : others think that he was simply to stand with them, and
be recognized with them as under a vow. When a Nazarite made
a vow, it required his abstenation from intoxicating drinks. It for-
bade him to cut his hair. It forbade him to touch anything, under
any circumstances, that had died. A Nazarite vow, at the time of
our Saviour and during the times of the apostles, could not last less
than thirty days. It might last longer.

And so here were these men ; and the Apostle Paul was to join
them, and to present himself with them w^ith three offerings — a
he-lamb, for a sin-offering ; a ewe-lamb, for a burnt-offering ; and a
ram, for a thank-offering.

This was what was recommended him to do : To go into the tem-
ple, as though all h's prejudices were orthodox, and so place him-
self on a footing -with his countrymen, and to do it on purpose to
produce the impression on his fellow-Christians of the Jewish nation,
that he, like them, had not abandoned Moses, but that he was
" orderly" — that is, that he was in the very way of his fathers.
I They said to him :

*' As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded
that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from
things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from for-
nication."

That is, Jews must go after the manner of the Jews ; but with
a few exceptions, for special reasons. Gentiles are not to be bur-
dened with Jewish ceremonials. They may go after the manner of
the Gentiles. That was the declaration of the council.

36 THE LIBBETY OF TEE GOSPEL.

" Then Paul took the moH, and the next day purifying himself with them
entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purifi-
cation, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

This history of the primitive church in Jerusalem is one of the
most extraordinary, I think, in the New Testament, when all its hid-
den significance is brought out.

1. It strikes us as very strange indeed, that Paul himself should
not have sufficiently vindicated his adhesion to the national faith,
and that he should have been laid under suspicion. It does not fol-
low, however, that all men who are suspected are like Paul. It does
not follow that a man may not be justly suspected. But it does
show that when, in any nation, or at any period, a man undertakes
to develop a higher obligation out of a lower one, a religious life out
of a dead fonn, a vital spirit from a dogma, or the full truth from
its seed, he renders himself liable to misapprehension, as one that is
abandoning the faith. That which people love to hear, is what they
have been accustomed to hear — only they like to hear it in an
original form. They like to see the same truths, but they like to
see them dressed differently. The ideas that men have been edu-
cated in; thb views that men have held from time immemorial,
become, in some sense, parts of their selfness. They identify them-
selves with those views. And when men preach them again, with
vivacity, and with glowing illustration, and with power, it is a
kind of subtle compliment to their believing them already. Men
like old things in new clothes. And in Paul's time they liked to
hear the Apostles preach just what they had always believed, only
making it more plain. Self-love says, " We knew that we were
right ; and now we see how gloriously right we have been." i

When one undertakes to develop out of an imperfect morality a
higher morality, just in proportion as he goes from leaf to blossom,
or from blossom to cluster, he renders himself liable to be appre-
hended for having abandoned the faith. The Christian Jews had
accepted Christ. They had believed in him. They had adhered to
him by the power of faith. And yet they could not bear to break
away from the temple, nor from the routine regularity of the Mosaic
law. So, when they heard that Paul had no objection to circum-
cision, but did not care for circumcision ; that he had no objection
to sacrifice, but that he did not consider sacrifice as necessary, they
said, " This Paul is an invader of settled opinions ; this Paul is a
dangerous man. He may be right ; but you cannot tell where all
this will end. Probably he will go to Hellenic views, and become a
teacher of false philosophies "—and that, because he held the whole
economy of Moses in a higher sense, and with a nobler purpose, than
they did who suspected him!

TEE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL. 37

The question should be always this, in regard to new views or
ideas that are presented : Do the new doctrines tend to loosen moral
obli"-ation ? Do they tend to give larger liberty to the under man
than to the upper man ? Do they tend to produce spirituality, or
its lack ? Are they lowering the moral standard, or are they raising
it ? For, whatever bfings new motives to the higher spiritual life ;
whatever tends to carry men up toward faith, and love, and disin-
terested activity, cannot be far wrong.

2. This scene reveals the fact that some thirty years after Christ's
death (some chronologists say twenty-eight, and some thirty), the
Christians of Jerusalem were in full communion with the Jewish
temple. After our Saviour had been gone from the earth from twenty-
eight to thirty years, the whole assembly of Christians, with James,
the brother of our Lord, at their head, the whole central, mother
Church, in Jerusalem, were in full communion with the temple. We
have the most explicit testimony of this.

" When they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou
seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe ; and
they are all jealous of the law."

They all yet believed in Moses. They all believed in the cere-
monies and ways of the temple. Well, what of that ? A good deal
of that, if you will only consider its meaning.

Where, then, is the claim that Jesus delivered to his apostles, or
that he in any wise shaped out, a Christian Church, or a Christian
polity ? Here, thirty years after Christ's ascension, but a few steps
from the very place where he offered himself as a sacrifice, was the
Mother Church still making oiFerings and sacrifices in the old Jewish
temple ! Nay, so tenacious were they that the temple- worship should
be observed, that, by the authority of James, the brother of our Lord,
and by the consent of the whole Church, the chief apostle of the New
Dispensation was made ostentatiously to go through a portion of the
distinctively Mosaic ceremonial, in order to approve himself to the
Church in Jerusalem. And yet, how many ten thousand times, in
ten thousand books, has it been said that our Lord told the apostles
just how the Church was to be fixed ; just how its frame was to be
laid down ; just what were to be its ordinances and policy and wor-
ship, while here we find that thirty years afterward those very men
yet served God in the temple !

Where, then, is your prescribed polity ? Where are your priestly
orders, your authoritatively ordained ceremonies ? Where is your
exact, systematic worship ? Where are your High and Low schools ?
The fact cannot be gainsaid that the Christians in Jerusalem had no
idea of a church organization thirty years after Christ's ascension.

38 THE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL.

The inference is irresistible. "Why, do you suppose that if our Lord
had said to the disciples, or to the apostles, " Such is to be the pat-
tern of Church service," they would have forgotten it so soon ? Had
he ordained any system of worship, and told his followers that that
was the pattern of his future Church, would they not have remem-
bered it, and acted accordingly ? And yet, there was nothing
which indicated that they had received any such instructions from
the Master,

You cannot find one word that was uttered by Christ which can
be construed into an indication of an outward form for his Church.
Nor can you find in the primitive teachings of the apostles them-
selves the claim that there was any form whatever prescribed for
the Church. And all that which has passed into the faith of modern
times in respect to the external form of the Church, is absolutely of
human invention. It is none the worse for that ; but the divine and
binding authority of the external forms, and ordinances, and cere-
monies connected with church life, is gone, if it is pretended that
such authority is derived mainly from the apostles, or still higher,
from Chrfst. For they gave no such authority.

The Christian scheme was not a philosophy. It was not a cajjit-
ulary of great truths. It was still less an organization. The Chris-
tian scheme was something far transcending a philosophy. It was
something far nobler than an organization. It was an inspiration.
It was a divine afflatus. It was a power introduced into t4ie world
by which the best impulses of men should be led up toward ideal
life. The central peculiarity of Christianity was this : It prescribed
a life transcending all ordinary attainments, and then brought a
moral pressure to bear upon men, to carry them up to that life. It
neither taught, nor was designed to teach, a philosophy. It said
neither, *' Those things are true," nor, " These things are not true."
It left men to find out for themselves whether they were true or not.
And from the time of Christ to our day, Christian theology has been
growing according to the analogy of any other system. It has had
to pass through precisely the same experience that any other form
of philosophy passes through. And church organizations were not
ordained to be just so, and just so many. They have gone on in-
creasing until the number of them is very large ; and we shall still
have more of them. But it is not of these that I designed to speak.
I will now merely speak of the Church in the sense of its having
one external form.

In our Master's teachings, and in the teachings of the apostles
and disciples, there is no hint that there was to be a single outward
organization after a given pattern. The disciples were to assemble,

THE LIBEBTY OF THE GOSPEL. 39

they were to organize, they were to worship, — but, the spirit being
right the method in all cases was to be determined by experience.
And if there was to be a different external form of organization, the
Church at Jerusalem, the mother Church of all, did not know it, and
was still in the temple, and did not hesitate to make Paul go there,
and offer up sacrifices, thirty years after the death of Christ. Thirty
years before, one great Sacrifice for all had been offered up. Thirty
years before, the outward altar had been really smitten ; but it had
not yet been set aside. And they had not found it out, and were
attempting to carry on both the inward spirit of Christ and the ex-
ternal economy of the Jews.

3. It is also shown, here, that the apostles put the Jews and the
Gentiles upon a different footing in regard to ethical duties ; that
the things which were binding on the Jews were not binding on the
Gentiles ; and vice versa. In other words, the apostles did not set
out with one definite economy for all nations. Holiness of life was
to be universal. But all externals of worship and government were
to vary with the circumstances of differing nations. "When among
one class, early Christians insisted upon the law of Moses — circum-
cision and sacrifices ; and when they were among another class, they
waived these things. They said to the Gentiles outside of Jerusa-
lem, " This yoke is not to be laid on you. You are not to be circum-
cised nor to offer sacrifices." But in Jerusalem men were not to evade
the service of the Temple. And how is this consistent with one uni-
form administration — one uniform ritual — one system of universal
ordinances ?

They said to Paul, " You being a Jew, go and perform the duties
of a Jew, and show that you are sound, and that you do believe in
Moses, and in sacrifices, and in the temple. But," said they, " we
have told those people in yonder city that all they need to do is, not
touch blood, or things offered to idols, and to keep themselves from
fornication."

Does not this show that different men, under different circum-
stances, are to be treated differently ? Does it not show that men
must be educated to a certain point before you can successfully at-
tempt to take them from the animal up to the spiritual life ?

In the sight of the apostles, men's prejudices and ignorance were
realities, and were not treated with rude assault, but were taken in-
to tender consideration.

Suppose a surgeon should go into a household where a man had
a vast wen on his neck, and, while he shook hands with him very
gently with one hand, should hit the wen a terrible blow with the
other ? and suppose, when the man complained that that was rude

40 THE LIBUETY OF THE GOSFEL.

•*» ,

treatment, the surgeon should say, " Oh, that is nothing but a wen.
It is no part of you. I have no idea of respecting your wen. I
respect you ; but that wen has nothing to do with you ?" Such a
surgeon would be like many reformers, who, because they are men
of truth, and perceiving that other men have many prejudices and
superstitions, strike them with their fists, as if they were wens, jus-
tifying themselves by saying, " They are superstitions ; they are prej-
udices : am I bound to respect these ?" No, perhaps not ; but you
are bound to respect the palpitating heart that lies behind them.
You are bound to respect the soul whose ,' superstition or prejudice
you assail.

See how gentle the apostles were. See how they said to the
Gentile converts, " You may act according to this simple rule ;" and
see how they turned to Paul, and said, " The brethren in Jerusalem
will not understand it if you take your higher view of spiritual life
and act according to that. By so doing you will tread on their edu-
cated notions. You will grieve and wound them. You will make
yourself a hinderance in their way. You will be suspected of
infidelity. Now put yourself in line with them." And Paul did.

" To them that are under the law, as under the law ;" "to them that are
without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the
law to Christ)."

It is as if he had said, " I did not give up principle. I was held
by a jirinciple ; but it was a higher one."

Now is not this liberality a genuine thing ? Is it not conform-
able to the wisdom of love ? Is it not conformable to the indis-
pensable necessities of the human family ?

Men are blamed because they are breaking away from this or
that system. They are called heretics because they do not walk
more according to the customs of their fathers. A man should do
both things, as far as it is necessary to promote charity : he should
reach toward a higher spirituality, in order to lead men up still
further ; and he has at the same time the liberty of conforming or
non-conforming to the regular customs of the community in which
he dwells. And in both instances he is so to do it as not to ofiend.
It is to be done as a work of true spirituality ; as a means of
developing a higher life.

According to this action of the apostle, principles were pro-
claimed, and then the adaptations of them were left to circum-
stances. The spirit first, and then the form. If the spirit be right,
the principle may safely be left to shape itself. And this is the sub-
stance of the testimony of the church of Christ in Jerusalem.

4. What shall we say to Paul's remarkable conduct under this
advice ? Having been a Pharisee, it is not at all remarkable that

THE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL. 41

by rebound his ideas of Christian liberty should have become the
largest, and that he should have become an apostle to the Gentiles,
even more eminently than Peter himself was. Nowhere is personal
liberty more insisted upon than in the writings of the apostle Paul.
Nowliere shall you find such a noble tribute paid to the authority,
and the sole authority of the conscience, the moral sense of man, as
contrasted with the authority of law or of ceremony, as in his let-
ters. He declares that a man who is truly in Christ Jesus ; who is
learned in the spirit of Christ ; in other words, that a man who has
grown into this higher spirituality, with its intuitions, and its inspira-
tions, will have that which will stand him in stead of all rules and
of all ordinances, and of services of every description ; that he will
be a law unto himself. He resented any intrusion on his personal
liberty ; and he was jealous for the personal liberty of other men.
For more than twenty years he had been preaching this grand doc-
trine of individual liberty in Christ. He had tested the sufficiency
of the Mosaic economy, and had declared that it had failed, through
the weakness of the flesh, to bring to pass the thing for which it
was ordained. Nay, he had declared that if men went back to it,
they abandoned Christ.

And yet, after having preached so long, that Christ was a suffi-
cient sacrifice, and that faith in Christ was a substitute and perfect
fulfillment of the whole law, the moment he went up to Jerusalem
and found that he could relieve the consciences of men in the church
there by conforming to the law of Moses, he did it. He again
ofiered sacrifices !

Was not that insincere ? Well, it" would have been insincere
under certain circumstances. If he had believed that abstinence from
these ceremonies was obligatory, then he would have been insincere.
If he had believed, as the Friends or Quakers do, that outward forms
must not be used, because they were forbidden by the revelation of
the higher life in the Spirit, then he would have been insincere. If
he had believed, as do the high church party in any denomination
(for every denomination has its high-church party) that there was an
exact plan and system ordained of God, and that those who con-
formed to that system were right, and that those who did not were
wrong, then he would have been insincere. But he believed that
in Christ J^esus, neither circumcision availed anything^ nor uncir-
cutncision, but a neto creature.

This is it : When a man has risen from his lower nature, so that
he sees God face to face ; when by invisible truths he learns to love
God and man, he is in a state in which many things are indifferent to
him which would be important under a lower condition. There is an

42 TEE LIBEBTY OF THE GOSPEL.

antinomianism which is spiritually true ; and there is an antinomian-
ism which is immoral and debauching ; but when one has risen to such
a state of moral feeling that he can see God and commune with him,
it makes no difference to him whether he observes this and that cus-
tom or ordinance or not. He is not affected by baptism one Avay or
the other. He may take it, or he may neglect it. He may partake
of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, or he may go without it.
These things are helps ; but if a man has risen to that state in which
he already possesses the Divine Spirit, and is a new creature in Christ
Jesus, he is no longer beholden to them. But they ai^e not forbidden
to him. He may, therefore, sit down in the temple and take meat that
is offered to an idol, and it will make no difference. It will make
no difference whether or not he eats herbs or meat. The thing
for which all ordinances and governments are appointed, is to
instruct men, to exalt them from animal conditions, and to bring
them into a higher spiritual nature. And when one is brought up
there, he may abide there if he can without any external ordinances :
or, if he please, he may observe such ordinances. They are not
masters, but instruments. !

And so, though Paul had preached that men were not to be cir-
cumcised, when he went into Jerusalem, and found that a good end
would be served by it, he permitted it. When, before he went to
Jerusalem, he saw that it would be a yoke upon the Gentile converts
to be held by the Mosaic economy, he told them that they were not
bound by it ; but when he went to Jerusalem, and found that the
Jewish Christians would suppose that he had departed from the
faith of the Fathers, and that it would overthrow their confidence
in him, because he did not believe in the Mosaic economy, then he
conformed.

I know how insincere this will seem to you. But it is because
you are under the bondage of external form. It is because you do not
yet understand the masterhood of the Spirit. Christ's Kingdom is
within us. To Him belongs all that is spiritual. All the external
church is human.

Now, in regard to all outside things pertaining to religion, and
to churches, and to the whole economy of ordinances and doctrines,
you may have them if you can make anything out of them ; and if
you do not want them, you may go without them. Though, when
you go among men that hold them, you will sometimes, for their
sake, observe them. You will be to them that are under the law, aa
under the law.

I should not hesitate, if I went into a Roman Catholic church,
and all that went with me believed that perhaps I was a Christian,

THE LIBBBTY OF TEE GOSPEL. 43

and dipiiccl their finger in the holy water and made the sign of the
cross, to dip my finger in the holy water and make the sign of the
cross. I have as much right to the cross as they have ; and as to the
holy water, if it did not do me any good, it certainly would not do
me any hurt.

" Yes, but do not you give encouragement to their wrong beliefs
and superstitions ?" No more than Paul did to the wrong beliefs and
superstitious of the men that stood around about the altar in the
temple.

But on the other hand, is there not such a thing as havino-
sympathy with a heart that is bound by superstition ? Is it the
best way to cure superstition to treat it rudely ? Would not treat-
ing it tenderly, in such a way as to give a man confidence in
your desire to benefit him, be more likely to efiect a cure ? Is it
not wiser to show a man by your gentleness that you regard his
feelings, than rudely to tread them under foot ? Some things are
sacred to one man which are not sacred to another ; and each should
respect the things which are sacred to the other. Your sacred thinirs
ought to be respected by me, and my sacred things ought to be
respected by you. But I am not bound to conform to all that you
regard as imperative ; and you are not bound to conform to all that
I regard as imperative. Love gives universal liberty in these things.
The spirit of love and faith sets me free from the bondage of cere-
mony, ordinances, and services, and says to me, " Use them if you
need them, and nse any of them that you need" ; and it says to me
■' If you do not need them, you ai-e not bound to use them."

I do not keep Sunday because I think it is obligatory in the sense
that the love of God is obligatory. I keep Sunday because I like to
keep it ; because it is a day of sweetness to my soul. It is my heart's
delight ; it is honorable to me ; and therefore I keep it. I am not
bound by days. I am not bound by services or ceremonies. I feel at
liberty on the Sabbath day to seek my sanctuary in the forest. Men
say to me, " May I worship God in the field ?" I say to them, " If
you are called to worship God in the field, yes." I may pass a criti-
cism on the sincerity of your claim if I see that you do not want
to Avorshij) at all, and that you make this a pretext; but if I see that
you liave a conscience, or spiritual sense, and that the sounding sea,
or the leafy forest, or the open fields, with the chanting insects and
choiring birds, are instruments of God's grace to you, I say, " In
God's name go, dear soul." If you are a child of God, you have a
right to seek your Father's presence wherever you can find him in
the broad universe, as the bird flies Avhere it will in the pathless air.

44 TEE LIBEBTF OF TEE GOSPEL.

The soul that is found out of Christ ; the soul that is awakened
by the fire of divine love ; the soul that is learning to speak the
language of Zion ; the soul that is hearing and seeing and feeling ac-
cording as it is taught of God — that soul is its own legislator. And
it may go through the tranquility of the unspeaking Quaker Church ;
it may go through the zealous joyfulness of the Methodist Church ;
it may go through the polished coldness of the Presbyterian Church,
or the didactic Congregational Church ; it may go through the
stately and complex services of the all-proper Episcopal Church ;
it may go by the Bishop, or with him, or through him, or over him,
or under him ; it may go in one way or another ; it may go as it
pleases — only let it go, go, go !

And for all these heresies (they are shocking heresies I know, in
these modern times), I plead the example of the Church in Jerusalem,
that worshiped by making sacrifices at the altar, in the temple,
thirty years after the death of Christ. I plead the example of the
apostles, which is two thousand years old — and the age of a thing,
from wine up to creeds, is generally a test of its excellence !

We are prepared, now, to consider some of the difficulties which
beset the consciences of men. There has been a great deal of dis-
pute among good and conscientious men as to the doctrine of social
responsibility ; as to the liability of men in regard to the faith of
those whom they countenance. It has come to pass that in a certain
organization designed to work for the spread of morality, where those
of whom it is composed are well-taught orthodox young men, if
those who are invited to cooperate are sadly taught Unitarian youths,
at first there is great hesitation ; and secondly, there is more than
hesitation — there is great conscientiousness — on the part of those
who are orthodox. And they say, " We cannot associate with men
who deny the Lord that bought them. If we do we shall become
partakers of their sins. We shall be lending our countenance to an
erroneous belief." But we have before us the example of the
Apostle, who lent his countenance to an effete and dead system
— that system which was found in the temple, and which Chris-
tianity was to supersede. To that system Paul lent his counte-
nance when he did not believe in it. He did not believe in the altar.
It was a void, an empty thing to him. But other people believed in
it, and therefore he permitted it to do its work for him. He put
himself by the side of men who were less instructed than he was ;
who were wrapped in prejudices ; he went with them ; yea, and for
their sake, he conformed to things externally that to him were noth-
ing. Why did he do it ? On the same principle on which he made
himself " all things to all men " — " that he might win some.''''

THE LIBERTY OF TEE GOSPEL. 45

If a man conforms to superstitions because he does not care for
truth, that is wicked; but if a man has a zeal of God, which is
always a zeal of love, and for the sake of winning men to a higher
life, conforms to things which he has outgrown, but which others
have not — that is to say, acts by the side of men without coming
into unnecessary jar and conflict with their educated beliefs — he
does right.

' It is a narrow orthodoxy that cannot work with anything but
itself. God, that spreads the sun everywhere over the world, works
with everything — even with devils. And they that are of God feel
a certain omnipresence of charity. And they can include in their
honest zeal of love, every human creature, high or low ; and yet
without endorsing their specific beliefs because they work with them.
' When, during the terrible disaster at New Hamburg, men were
rushing in crowds to rescue from the wrecked cars those that were
in them, or to drag from the water those that had been thrown into
it, do you suppose it was necessary for them to stop and say, " Are
you a Republican ? or are you a Democrat ? Because I am not
going to be seen working alongside of a man not of my political
belief, and have people suppose that I endorse all his abominable
political doctrines ?" Would not that have been monstrous ? And
yet, in Brooklyn, within my time, for years and years, the Sunday
schools of the Unitarian churches were not allowed to walk in pro-
cession with the Sunday schools of the orthodox churches, on anni-
versary days ; and the Unitarian churches had to draw off their
schools and form processions on other days ; because it was feared
that the little orthodox children would catch some heresy from the
little Unitarian children, if they were allowed to walk with them in
the streets ! Over that scene, Christ was sad, and the devil was
glad I

Why, if you have the power of Christ with you ; if you are
earnest, honest, genuine in your love of Christ, and if, above all
other things, you have the gift of God, there is not a human being
on earth that worships, that you cannot go and worshijj with him.
What if he is not worthy ? You have nothing to do with that.
You stand or fall to your own Master. But the zeal of love makes
you brother to him. I could sit and worship in many a Unitarian
church ; in many a Universalist church ; in many a Swedenborgian
assembly. I could sit and worship to edification in many an old
hoary church of Rome, and in many a High Episcopal charch, I
could sit and worship with my Methodist brethren, or with my
Baptist brethren. I could go through the water, if there were any
moral end to be secured by it. I would not hesitate to be immersed,

46 THE LIBERTY OF TEE GOSPEL.

as I immerse others, if so I could gain others. "What is immersion
or sprinkling to me ? These things are as nothing. They are but
the straw. Straw may be very necessary to bear up the wheat ; but
when the wheat has been borne up till it has ripened, then I want
the wheat, and not the straw. But churches often save the straw
and chaff", and let the wheat go where it will !

But many feel bound to be witnesses for the true religion. Now,
I can understand that in corrupt periods, in times of darkness, and
as a transient device by which to produce a moral impression, minis-
ters and churches may hold themselves exclusive. I can understand
that, where a church has corrujDted the notions of the community,
a handful may separate themselves from it, and refuse to commune
with it, without necessarily violating the spirit of love, because they
are trying to make an impression in favor of a higher spirituality.
For a limited period, and for a specific purpose, that may be right ;
but ordinarily such exclusiveness would not be right.

There be many persons who will not commune at the Lord's
table in their own church. Why ? Because there is a wicked
family going to sit down there, and their conscience will not permit
them to sit down at the Lord's Table with a family that is so no-
toriously wicked. It may be that they have taken the wickedest
advantage of you ; it may be that they have robbed you of your
property or your good naraie ; but they shall give account of their
conduct to God, as you shall of yours. You go to the Lord's
Table to commune with your Lord. And you might just as well say
that you would not live in the same town with these people, or that
you would not obey the same laws that they obey, or that you would
not drink water out of the same river that they do, or that you
would not take the same sunshine that they take, or receive the
same showers that they receive, as to say that you will not go to
the same church that they go to, or sit at the same table that they
sit at. To your own Master you stand or fall. You might sit at
the Lord's Table with a pirate on one side of you, and a murderer
on the other, and it would be no testimony that you believed in
piracy or murder. It would simply be a testimony that you sought
Christ for yourself The Church of England has been thrown into
a nine days' horror because a Socinian scholar was allowed to sit at
the communion table with orthodox scholars ! It was not the Bishop's
table. They were not Lords, giving entertainments to their Peers.
They were themselves but miserable sinners asking God's grace
among other sinners equally miserable.

Nay, more than that, if I thought that by going into an assembly
of heretics I could leaven heresy with orthodoxy, or substitute ortho-

TEE LIBEBTY OF lEE GOSPEL. 47

doxy for heresy, and replace lies by truth, I woi;ld not hesitate to go
among them. I will associate with those that are out of the way if
I can do good thereby. The whole theory of the Gospel, the whole
spirit of Christ, is opposed to that rigidity, to that fear of compro-
mising orthodoxy, which has prevailed in the Christian Church.

" Well, but, is there not to be a distinction between truth and
error, and between good men and bad men ?" Oh, yes, righteous-
ness is to be the distinction. A better spirit is to be the distinction.
A truer, deeper love is to be the distinction. More disinterested zeal is
to be the distinction. A purer spirituality is to be the distinction.
The distinction between a man and his fellow-men is not to be in
the shape of his hat, nor in the cut of his coat, nor in the color of his
garments. The marks of distinction are not necessarily to be exter-
nal. You are to be more disinterested than they are. You are to be
more free from pride and anger than they are. You are to be more
richly bountiful, more nobly generous, more truly liberal, than they
are. Such is to be the distinction between you and the woi*ld.

Here is a miserable old cinnamon rose, that does not bear blos-
soms to amount to anything ; but it is very proud because it stands
in rich, yellow loam. And it has great contempt for that dam-
ask rose, which stands in gravel and naturally poor soil, although it
is covered with fine blossoms. The blossoms on the cinnamon rose
are Avretchedly poor ; they look like an old bachelor's niggardly kiss,
all shriveled and shrunk up ; but the blossoms on the damask rose are
large and beautiful and fragrant ; and yet, the cinnamon rose will
not commune with the damask rose. Why ? Because it stands in
sq.cred yellow loam ! It makes no account of the fact that it has
poorer leaves and poorer blossoms, and is poorer every way, than the
other rose.

And so it is with Christians. You shall see poor, starveling
Christians in fair pots, and rich, plump, blossoming Christians in
poor pots. Here is a miserable, leafless, blossomless Christian ; but
he has got into a High-Church pot ; and he will not speak to one
of those great blossom-bearing Methodist people in that vulgar tub !

Is it not time, now that Christianity has traveled down as far as
to our day, that at last we should learn that in Christ Jesus all are
one, and that the point of unity does not lie in creeds, nor in Church
forms, nor in Church ceremonies, nor in Church governments, nor
in Church polity. The unity which Christ came to bring into the
world, is that which comes from that higher state of mind which is
the spirit of universal love. There we are to stand together.

Lastly, this history will throw a light upon the spirit of modem
reformation. Tlierc are many men who think you are not sincere if

48 THE LIBEBTY OF TEE GOSPEL.

you do not tell all you know, and just as soon as it dawns on you.
And so, what they got yesterday, they empty themselves of to-day ;
and what they get to-day they will empty themselves of to-morrow.
There are many who think the truth must not be withheld, and that
they must be forever gushing, gushing, gushing. There are many
who suppose that if a man thinks anything, he must of necessity say
it ; and that to withhold it is suppression ; and that to adapt it to the
growing necessities of the community is inconsistent with sincerity.

Now, that a man may have interested reasons for withholding
the truth, is certain ; but if a man is to let out all he knows and
thinks on all occasions, then there are no such hypocrites as school-
masters— unless it be mothers. A mother does not tell her dear
little daughter everything that she knows — not when she is five
years old. When she is five years old, she tells her what she needs
to know at five years of age. And when she is ten years old, she
tells her a great deal more. And when she is fifteen years old she
tells her a great many more things. The mother adapts her telling
to the need and capacity of the child. For love rules. And the ob-
ject of truth is not to make a man stand as a light-house and shine
out his own glory. Truth is food that we feed to the soul ; and we
are to adapt it to the soul, as we adapt food to children. It is
medicine ; and we must use it as medicine. If, therefore, withhold-
ing works best for the cause of truth, withhold ; and if speaking
works best for the cause of truth, speak. We are not half so much
under obligation to speak all the truth as we are to keep the iTnity
of the spirit in the bond of perfectness. We owe more allegiance to
love than to anything else.

The heart is my master. It is the heart that God ci'owns. With
the heart man believes xanto salvation. We are to strive, therefore,
to keep our hearts right. And in working for others, our object
should be to make the right impression on their hearts. I mean to
make men better ; and sometimes I do it by silence, and sometimes
by oral instruction. And I have a right to exercise my judgment as
to the method which it is best for me to pursue.

I do not preach here everything that I think. Why do I not ?
Because I do not know that I believe it yet. There is nothing in
this world that requires such long seasoning and ripening as new
thoughts. Men seem to think that the pulpit ought to be like an
apple-press where greedy boys run, and each sticks his straw into
tlie vat, and sucks the unfermented juice. The farmer would say to
the boys, " No, let the juice stand, and let the impurities be worked
off"; and then, in six or eight months, you will see the real, true cider,
or wine of the apples." And so it is with truth. It takes longer for

TEE LIBEETY OF TEE GOSPEL. 49

the trutli to work itself free from impurities than any other thing.
And only after it has some age do you know the real quality of
truth. And who am I that I should undertake to explore the illimit-
able fields of truth ! The truth requires ages and the concurrent
thoughts of myriads of men to give it confirmation, God does not
reveal the truth through single heads, but by multitudes and thi-ough
the ages.

Therefore, for a man who has a brilliant idea to rush at once
into publicity with it, is not acting in the spirit of true charity, nor
according to the dictates of sound philosophy. It is not the duty '
of investigators to make known their discoveries, or fancied discov-
eries, instantly. I would say to every young preacher or teacher,
You are not bound to say things just because you have thought of
them, or because they seem to you to be true. You have a higher
mission. You are sent into the world to lead men to God and heaven.
And it is your business, as far as you can, to do it by old truths.
But so far as it is necessary for you to have newer truths, if you
can find them, use them. I am bound to take care of God's children,
that are so dear to him. My children, the babes that blossomed in
my household, were dear to me as myself, and were a part of myself;
and into what paroxysms of indignation would I have been thrown
if any nurse had played experiments on those babes ! And God
looks with indignation upon men who are playing fantastic tricks
with his children, by their crude philosophies and half-fledged notions
of theology, no matter under what names they are doing it.

Your allegiance is to God, and to the souls of your fellow-men ;
and these other things are subsidiary and instrumental. The great
end to be sought is the elevation, the ennobling, and the salvation
of men. Do not lose sight of that, whatever means your judgment
may lead you to employ in bringing it about. And remember that
they who turn many from their sins, shall themselves at last shine
as stars in heaven.

50 TEE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.*

Again, blessed SavioHr, thou hast been in our midst, and little children
have come unto thee. Thou hast called them. Thou hast taken them, as it
were, in thine arms, and laid thine hands upon them, and blessed them.
Bless them from day to day. And grant that the blessing of love and wis-
dom in their parents may be to them as a crown of gladness all the days of
their life. Oh, how many weary steps must their little feet tread ! Oh, how
many unknown ways must they pursue! What storms shall beat upon
them ! No love can shelter them from pain, and sorrow, and temptation,
and sin, and repentance, and sin again. They must take up their march in
the long and weary procession which has been moving through the world
since the race began.

God of our fathers, and our God, whose mercy has been upon us, and in
whose strength we have been able to walk, and whose love has watched over
us, and whose spirit has been breathed into us, vouchsafe tbat same mercy
to these little ones that has been vouchsafed to us. And grant that their
lives may be preserved. Or, if they are ordained to go early, grantthat their
parents may be comforted, and that they may be purified by zeal for the
inheritance of life.

We pray that in all the families of this Church the truth may abide, as
in a temple. And wl il > parents have their children with them, may they
guide them ; and may they not forget, from day to day, to give thanks to
God for all the mercy which he has bestowed upon them through their chil-
dren. For the joy which they have had, for the instruction which they
have received while instructing their children, for all that they have learned
of Christlike ways, for all that they have learned of self-sacrifice, by giving
their lives for the lives of others, may they give thee thanks.

And we pray that wherever thy Spirit dwells in any household, it may be
rich and strong. And in any household where the light of thy love is not,
let it be kindled. Let there be no family in our midst which has not an altar
of Devotion. Let no parent who is attempting to rear a household of chil-
dren, be ignorant of God from whom all their mercies come. We pray that
parents may be a blessing to their children, and that children may be ables-
ing to their parents. And may they both live in the purest joy which is
possible to this hither life. Grant that they may live with something of im-
mortality in that life.

And we beseech of thee, O Lord our God ! that thou wilt grantto this whole
Church the Spirit of Christ. May the young that are in our midst come up
continually in memory before us. May we pray for them, in the sanctuary
and in the household. And we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that the
prayers of parents that can no longer be heard on earth, for their children,
may at last be effectual ; and may many be brought back by the memory of
the petitions of their father and mother in their behalf. And may the teach-
ings of their parents at last take effect, and they be held by a secret anchor
amidst the currents and storms of life.

And we pray that thou wilt bless all that labor for the young, in Sabbath-
schools and Bible-classes. We pray for thy blessing upon teachers that in
schools are from day to day seeking to instill knowledge, and especially that
knowledge which is the foundation of a virtuous character, into the minds
of those that are under their charge. May they more and more feel the
Spirit of Christ, and be sustained by the comforting hope of immortality.

And we pray that thou wilt remember those who have none to care for
them ; whose parents are their worst foes. Raise up friends for those who
* Immediately following the baptism of children.

TEE LIBERTY OF THE GOSPEL. 51

are outcasts. May they be rescued from temptations that are carrying them
away as a flood.

Aud may this whole community be cleansed of immorality and of ani-
malism. And more aud more may men believe in morality and virtue and
true piety. May men learn the things that pertain to a true charity. We
pray that thou wilt cleanse the hearts of men from all bitterness, and all
evil and malign passions, and all things that are unholy. And we pray that
the whole community among whom we dwell may be shaped more and more
to the true forms which religion inspires.

Bless thy Churches that are laboring for thy cause. May they have relig-
ion from on high. Aud through their instrumentality may thy people be
brought more and more unto thee. We pray for the spread of thy Gospel
throughout our land. We pray for its establishment where it has not yet
gained a footing. We pray for its perfect work where it is but imperfectly
developed. We pray for its power to reform laws and magistracies where-
ever they need the touch of the Gospel light.

And we pray that thy kingdom may come, not only in our land, but in
all lands throughout the earth. Pity the conditions of men. Make haste,
thou that hast given thy Son a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and that in
love wilt make that sacrifice effectual— make haste. Let not the years long
delay, but bring to pass the glory of thy perfect state— the latter-day glory.

Aud to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit.— ^men.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thou wilt bring us back again into the Spirit
of our Master, and into the spirit of the Apostles. May we be ashamed of
our childish faiths in things external. May we take them or reject them as
we take or reject garments of colors. May we seek charity out of a pure
heart and a good conscience. May we seek to live in the spirit of true love.
And bring us at last to that haven where we shall see thee, and all shadows
shall depart, and truth shall become to us as the breath of our life. And
to thy name shall be the praise forever more.— Amen.

IIL

JLove-Service.

"We thank thee, O Most High, that thou dwellest -with the humble, and
that we need not ascend into the heaven. Thou art everywhere. Help us
this morning to find thee. May we understand thy call of the soul — the
voice of thy Spirit in our spirit. And in thy sanctuary may we find our
home. May our hearts rest from care, from the disturbance of passion,
from all wayward influences, from doubt, from fear, from the sense of guilt
May we have this morning the confidence of children. May we draw near
to our Father, and there may we find the amenity of love, and all helpful-
ness and pity. And grant that the service of the sanctuary may be Inspired,
of thee. Help us to sing thy praise, and to join one with another in singing.
Help us to pray. Help us to speak and to listen. And everywhere, this day-
may we find thee present, and thy service a great joy. Wtiich we ask for
Christ's sake. Amen.
3.

LOVE-SERYICE.

" For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty ; only use not liberty
for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law
is fulfilled in one word, even in this ; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself."— Gal. v. 13, 14.

There is almost universal approbation given to the doctrine of
benevolence. This is the point in which almost all sects of religion
converge and agree ; and it is at this point that the church and the
world seem more likely to come to an agreement than anywhere
else. For I hear men of every sort speaking about the beauty of
Christ's loving character. I hear men inveighing against clear
philosophical statements as being not the food of the Gospel, which
is love. And when wickedness is rebuked, it is the meek and
lowly Jesus that men say that they want to hear about, and not
the acerb and authoritative commander of virtue. Men boast
themselves that " they have not much religion ; but then, they
have a great deal of kindness." They are very kind at home. They
are very kind in their neighborhood. They will sometimes tell you
that they do not know how to sing as many hymns, perhaps, as
their neighbors ; but that they give away more to the poor. And
so, while one plumes himself upon piety, another offsets that, in his
own case, with charity. And you will hear men talking amono-
themselves as if it were a matter of common consent, and almost
of imiversal acceptance, that religion requires true benevolence.
Yet, whenever true benevolence in the Scriptural and in the best
sense of the term is fairly opened to men, not only is there nothino-
that they are so loth to accept, but they positively deny its exist-
ence, and the possibility of its existence. And there is no other one
test that is so searching, so penetrating, so sin-convicting, so despair-
inspiring, as this simple test — good-will — disinterested benev-
olence.

Now, the passage that we read contains inconspicuously in it the
very criterion, in one single word ;

SuNBAY Morning, Mar. 26,1871. Lesson: Eph. m. Hymns (Plymouth Colleo-
tlon) : Nos. 31, 431, 12i>'J.

56 LOYE-SEBVICE.

" Brethren, use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serv6
one another."

The translated word, is, perhaps, as good as any that we have,
because it is not English to say, " Slave one another ;" but that is
the original. The verb has the same root as the substantive ; and
it signifies, to serve as the slave serves the master. We are, there-
fore, in the service of love, to fulfill to each other the duties of love
as the faithful slave fulfills his duties to the man that owns him.

And what, in the most general aspect, is the peculiarity of the
service of a slave ? It is this : that he takes the forces of his own
nature for another's benefit, and not for his own. That is the ideal.
A true and willing and faithful slave thinks for the master ; works
for the master ; feels for the master ; puts himself in the master's
place ; and uses all the power he has, not for his own individual
good, but for the good of the master. Tlierefore says the apostle,
"We are so to live that we shall slave it for each other." It is the
crucial test, it is the innermost nature, it is the real characteristic
of a true love, to be willing to serve another. Benevolence is
well-wishing, doubtless ; and it often flows from men without re-
quiring sacrifice ; but when there is need, all true love has in it the
capacity and necessity of sufiering for another. And when the time
comes, any love that fails there, shows that it had no root, no
reality ; that it was a superficial quality ; that it was an imitation,
and not a genuine article. For that which makes the difference be-
tween a true love and a merely imitative love, is this : that a true
love always carries m it a power of self-negation, and of self-sacrifice,
and of suffering for another.

Consider whether this is so in life. Look at that form of affec-
tion which passes by the general name of friendship. We may
make a distinction between an acquaintance and a friend. Although
in the most ordinary conversation we speak of friends and acquaint-
ances as almost the same, yet every one knows that there is a differ-
ence— that there are some friends that we clasp to ourselves as
we do not those that are merely our ordinary and j)leasant ac-
quaintances.

NoAV, when you have analyzed it to the root, that which makes
the difference between these and common friends, is, that there is an
element of disinterestedness in a true and in a model friendship. It
is giving to a friend that which the spirit of friendship requires
that we should give, not only without return, but without a thought
of return. It often is the glory of a gift that it is so given that
there can be no return — that there is no commercial element in it.
It is helping one at our own expense, when it is needful, that marks

LOYE-SEBVICE. 57

fricndsliip. It is assuming another's life, as it were, and making it
our own. It is fidelity in the presence of suffering. It is taking the
care, and sorrow, and loss, and trouble, of another as if it were our
own. It is putting our souls under another man's soul, and hearing
him, as it were. It is carrying one another's burdens.

Hence, there are very few friendships. There are many pleasant
acquaintances, and there are many acquaintances that are gilded
with friendship ; but it is only now and then that you find, where
two come together, and love each other, that one stands everywhere
for the other, in good and in ill, in prosperity and in adversity, so
that one goes uj) and goes down with the other. There are few
friendships of that kind. In other words, there are few friendships
which carry in them the root of the matter, which is disinterested-
ness. The power and the willingness to serve and to suffer — that does
not inhere in the ordinary swarms and droves of worldly friendships.
Ordinarily, friendships are mere commercial arrangements. They
are bargains between the easy affections, one saying to another,
" You make me happy, and I will make you happy ; and as long as
you make me happy, you are my friend ; but when you cannot do it
any longer, then we go apart," That is the way of the world. What
is generally called friendship, is an exchange of commodities of
happiness. For the most part, hearts are shopped, friendship is a
bargain, and friends are traffickers. But there are friendships that
are higher ; and there are friends that are so bound together that if
one is sick the other is by his side ; and the sickness of the one is
almost as if it were in the body of the other. The weal or the woe
is common to them. There are men who clasp men. There are
friendships between woman and woman that are as i)ure and as deej}
as it is possible to be ; and they have the peculiar quality of serving
in ,them to such a degree that each is the slave of the other. Each
knows how to give everything for the other.

You cannot have a great many such friendships. They are too
costly. There is not time to cultivate many of them. One or two
are about as many as a man can attend to in this world. You can
have kindly feelings toward multitudes ; but when it comes to the
matter of serving, and when your conscience is another man's con-
science, and when your heart, like a bell, is struck every time he is
in trouble, it is about as much as you can find time to do to take
care of that one man. But, in general, there is an inaptitude to this.
Nature has not learned this higher lesson with much facility.

There is a state, however, beyond this. This friendship of which
I have been speaking, is a friendship in which there is no passion ;
but where friendship ripens into what we call love, it is something

58 LOYE-SEBYICE.

beyond common friendship, excluding from it the ordinary concom-
itants of passion, which in the order of nature attend it, but which
are casual, and relative to a transient state of existence, cleansing it
from these mere terrene elements, and coming to that which is true
love — which is characteristic of it — which is the root of it. In love,
more even than in friendship, is the power to serve another ; or, in
other words, the power to put one's being, all aflame with intensity
of unselfishness, into another's atmosphere. It is the power of one
soul to so identify itself with another that they scarcely, for the
time being, are distinguishable — and that, not from passion, nor from
sentiment, nor from necessity, but simply from a true, deep aiFection.

Men do not think of love so, because there are so very few who
rise to that experience of a true affection. And they give their
heart grudgingly. Most of what is called love in this world has
stolen a precious name to cover a vile surface of the passions. But
when men do truly love, there is an enthusiasm in it ; there is a self-
renunciation in it ; there is an intense desire to make another happy ;
there is almost the forgetting of one's own existence ; there is a
carelessness about one's own happiness ; there is a sense of the
honor of another ; there is a wish for that other's growth ; there
is a power and an energy put forth in developing the life of the loved
one, as if your life lay in it.

Men have a glimpse of this in the earlier stages of that which
terminates in wedded love. Every ingenuous young man and maiden,
when they come together with a sincere and honorable affection,
know some hours in which each is quite forgetful of self Their
thought of life is to honor each other, and to lift each other up,
and to glorify each other. And that is the nearest to the angelic
experience that these persons ever come. Alas ! that such love
should be like the hyacinth. It throws its blossom up early in the
Spring ; and it is quickly gone, sweet as it is. Before ever May is
half passed the blossom is withered, a few brown leaves lie with-
ering on the ground, and all the rest of the summer nothing but
the bulb lies in the dirt. And so unworthy, so poor, so mean, is the
termination of too many, too many, of those attachments which be-
gan in honor, which went on in beauty, and which showed some
touches of genuine love, in that there were hours, or days, in which
true hearts loved with a desire to serve, and not to be served.

But there is no friendship, and there is no love, like that ol the
parent to the child — that is, the typical parent ; for there are all
grades of development in parentage. When there is great strength
of nature, great breadth of understanding, great richness of moral
nature, and great affection ; when all these cohere symmetrically

LOYE-SEEVICE. 59

and wisely, then the love of the parent to the child comes nearer, I
suppose, to divinity, than anything else that we can find in this
world. There is nothing else on earth that conies more near to it.
The parent's love is not one that exercises itself in exigencies
only. The whole drift of thought, in the voluntary and unconscious
love of every parent, surrounds the household and the children.

A boy is born. The parents are poor. On a penurious farm they
are rearing their children — five, six, seven, eight — for God pays
poverty with better coin than gold and silver. There is one boy set
apart for an education. He will be the glory of the house. Not
only do the father and the mother think it, but with almost super-
natural ingenuity they work to accomplish it. Why, that old farm
is vexed, from the top to the bottom of it, by the love of those par-
ents, that they may make it wring out a little more, that there may be
something saved ; for that boy must be sent to college. And early, long
before the birds are stirring, they are up ; and late, when the chil-
dren are far along in their dreams, father and mother are still toiling.
Brown is their skin, like parchment ; but oh ! what lore there is in
such parchment ! What stories such brown faces tell ! They toil
through ten, through fifteen years ; and they are able, at last, to
send their darling boy away. What bone could do, what muscle
could do, what nerve could do, what courage could do, what patience
could do, what perseverence could do, day and night, through years
and yeai'S, they did ; they denied themselves necessary food, they
went scantily clad, mortifying their pride, and carrying themselves
in apparel among their fellow-men more mean than any others ; and
all that they might husband and hoard a little pittance that should
educate their darling boy. And he may be said to light, by the
marrow of father and mother, the candle by which he gains his edu-
cation. And so, for years they are on the treadmill of inexorable
industry. And at last — oh, woesome day — no such eclipse ever
happens in the heaven, when the sun ceases to shine, as come to that
father's and that mother's heart ! — the boy has disgraced himself,
and is expelled ! Oh, sun ! forget to shine. Oh, moon ! let night
cover thee with darkness. What tears ! What anguish ! What
heartaches, that will not groan, and cannot groan! What dead
people they are, that grope at noonday, and know not whither to
go ! Yes, the boy is disgraced, and is cast out ! For him they had
given everything. Where shall he go ? What shall he do ? He
shall go home. There arc father and mother ; and there are not on
earth any others that will take him so knidly, that will listen to
every word that he says so patiently, that will soothe his shame,
that will build him up again, and that will go on another term of

60 LOYE-SEEYICE,

service to put him forward, like father and mother, when they love
with a love that knows how to serve.

Is not that the genuine article ? Is not that the typical idea ? Is
not that the love from which you ought to take your idea of what
benevolent love is in life ? Serving one another — is there no such
thing as that in this world ? I tell you, there is a great deal of
gold that is not generally recognized. And there are a great many
mines of treasure, if people would only search for them.

I have gone through these familiar instances to show you what
I mean by a true love, in distinction from a selfish or commercial
one. It is a love that gives everything, and does not ask nor take.
It is a love that serves. " Serve one another in love," says the
apostle.

Is this that which is meant in the Scripture ? Is this that benev-
olence which the Bible speaks of, and means to inculcate as the law
of a God of love, as the law of the universal realm, as the eternal
law ? Yes, this is it. Of that there can be no doubt.

First, let us see whether our Saviour taught that, when he said
what he did to his disciples, on one of the most memorable occasions
in his life :

" He [Jesus] riseth from supper, [this was just preceding his passion and
crucifixion], and laid aside his garments : and took a towel, and girded him-
self [this was the way that slaves usually did. He laid aside his garments,
and put on service-garments]. After that he poureth water into a basin,
and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel
wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter ; and Peter saith
unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto
him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him,
If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him.
Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to
him. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every
whit ; and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him;
therefore said he. Ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet,
and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, [they
were all full of amazement, unquestionably: they did not know what it
could mean, that he should be seized with such a sudden start, and get up
from the table, and go round and wash their feet, and then put on his gar-
ments, and come back to the table and sit down. They could not make it
out. And so he explains it.] Know ye what I have done to you ? Ye call me
Master and Lord : and ye say well ; for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and
Master, have washed your feet ; ye ought also to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example, [an ordinance — a symbolical act], that
ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you. The ser-
vant is not greater than his lord ; neither he that is sent greater than he that
sent him."

" Here, then," says Christ, " is the law of your life. Wash one
another's feet, as the symbolic image of that service of true love
and benevolence which is the essential element of the divine law."

LOYE-SJSBVICE. 61

Look, now, at the expansions of this idea, as they are given in the'
letters of Paul. Take, for instance, the second of Philippians,
beginning with the fifth verse :

" Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men ; and being found in fashion as a man, he hum-
bled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which
is above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth."

Here, then, we have the meaning of Christ's sacrifice. These
declarations of the Saviour himself, and these expository utter-
ances of the apostles, show what was the sacrifice of Christ. And
this sacrifice is the most magnificent exemplification of that inher-
ent sacrifice which goes with all true love. There is in it, there is
at the bottom of it, there is as its fundamental quality, and its dis-
criminating element, that power of sufiering and serving. How
much you love anything can be easily measured by how much you
will sufl'er for it — by how much you will serve for it. If you will
serve none, then you love none. If you will serve but little,
then you love but little. If you will serve a great deal, then you
love a great deal. And if you will serve utterly, you thoroughly
love. What was the meaning of this sacrifice, what its relations
were on the side of God, only God knows ; but in so far as as we
are concerned, the sufiering of the Lord Jesus Christ was the sub-
lime and universal exhibition of divine love, and of the peculiar
quality of all true love. The power and willingness to sufier and to
serve — that is the core of divinity. It is not thinking power, it is
not creative power, it is love power, that is the essential test of
divinity.

Men want to know whether Christ is divine, and they test him
as a chemist would test the quality of any substance. They, a» it
were, take a pair of scales, and throw one text on this side, and one
in that side ; and then they throw another on this side, and another
in that side ; and then they say, " If I had one more text for
this side, I think divinity would weigh down the other side." And
they hunt for another text. And so they weigh the divinity of
Christ as though it were a ponderable element. But it is not mag-
nitude that is divinity. That which is distinctive, that which crowns
universal sovereignty, is the crown of love. And that which dis-
tinguishes love from every other quality, is, that it is a well-Avishing
or benevolent impulse, that carries itself out, if need be, in infinite
service, and service that carries with it, also, infinite love. K the

Q2 LOYE-SEBYICm

world is struggling upward toward a higher development of true
manhood, God, the Almighty, stands by, helping men's throes
toward universal elevation by that love which thinks, which cares,
which bears, which suffers. That which we see in the Lord Jesus
Christ specialized for the wants of this world, was not that which
made him different from the Father, but was simply a manifestation
of the Father — a section, an hour, as it were, let down, — one
single transaction, as an exposition of what is going on in heaven
from eternity to eternity, by a love which legislates, and works, and
serves.

There is no other Servant like God. There is no other Being
that labors with so much assiduity, and that so humbles himself, and
so bows down under weakness, and so lifts up with his strength, and
so wastes the unwasteable existence of the infinite, as God, in the
plenary service of love.

Not only is this that which constitutes divinity, but it is the life
and the joy of God — doing good, not easily, not pleasingly, not re-
ciprocally, but to the just and to the unjust, to the good and to the
bad alike. And it is the nature of love to serve.

How far this is from the old monarchical view of God ! How
far it is from that view of a jealous, and self-praising, self-glorifying
God, that has been so much preached in the world ! I have read
scores of volumes, and I can take from my shelves a hundred vol-
umes, that represent God as a Being that requires all the universe to
be parasites ; and that surrounds himself, as a weak ruler in a cor-
rupt court surrounds himself, with creatures that only bow the sup-
ple knee, and study phrases of praise, and do everything that is ab-
ject, he himself sitting up and drinking in power, and honor, and
glory, for his own selfish sake ; and, what is more monstrous, still
sweeping the lines of creation further and further out, to augment
the store of flattery that comes in, almost fathomless, toward him.

Now, is selfishness any better for being almighty ? Are self-
praise and self-laudation any better for being infinite ? If they be
mean in the small, and within the bounds of reason, how much
meaner are they extended into infinity ! There is no being in the
universe that, being sovei-eign, and working for others, is so self-
abnegating, and pours the store of his divine thought and feeling
and nature out for those that are in need, as God does. He seeks
others that he may do them good. It is more blessed to give than
to receive, is the definition of the thought of God.

This is the secret, too, of heavenly joy. It indicates the prepa-
ration that we require before we are prepared to go up and enter
upon the future state of bliss.

LOYE-SEBVICE. 63

If this exposition be true, we are prepared for a few points of
personal application.

First, I may remark upon the spuriousness of much of that
friendship existing in the world, which is mere barter and sale —
which is a commeixie between hearts in which they buy and sell each
other's service, and each other's good will. I merely mention that.

I may also say that this is a test of what is called good nature.
There be many persons who suj)pose that good nature is kindness.
It has not one attribute of it, necessarily. Half the time good nature
is good digestion — that is all. Half the time good nature is nerves
well sheathed in adipose matter. Many men do not feel, and are
not irritated ; and why should they not be kind and easy-going ?
AVhy, I can show you hundreds of blessed, sweet-cheeked, sunny-
faced, plump-bodied men, who go through the world kindly. I do not
undervalue them. They lubricate the ways of life ; but they ought
not to call themselves by false names. Good nature is a good thing ;
but, after all, it is a very superficial thing. It is far more physical
than mental. And it is not active ; it does not put forth effort ; it
does not energize anything ; it does not suffer for the sake of doing
good to other i^eople. There are many acerb men ; there are many
hard-faced men ; tliere are many rough, severe men, who, though
they will hew you with their tongue, will put forth ten times as
much true serving love for you as these waxy-cheeked, good-natured,
abdominal men.

While, tliei'cfore, good-nature makes the intercourse of society
pleasanter, by greasing the wheels of life so that they go with less
friction and less squeaking, do not let men suppose that this is the
equivalent for the benevolence of the Gospel. Many men think that
they are benevolent because they are not malign. But if virtue
consisted in nots, how virtuous the world might be ! The less there
was of a man, the more virtuous he would be ! If it is virtue in a
man that he does not steal, and that he does 7iot swear, and that he
does not break the Sabbath, and that he does not knock down every-
body that he meets, and that he does not murder, and that he does
not get drunk, and that he docs 7iot get angry, — then there are many
virtuous men. A man might abstain from all that, and be no more
virtuous than a mullein-stalk ; for a mullein-stalk stands, and grows,
and does not do anything tliat is wrong. Virtue is not a negative
quality. But take a man and give him power, and give him volume,
and put him out in life, and give him something to do, and let him
transact business among his fellow-men, and then see whether he will
maintain the Christian virtues or not. If a man has force, by which
he is able to produce positive effects, and he produces those effects in

64 LOVE-SEBYICK

the direction of well-wishing ; if a man has voluMe, and force of
being, and he makes that greatness and that strength subordinate to
the welfare of others, not forgetting his own welfare and the wel-
fare of those that are dependent upon him, but in love serving
others as well as himself and those that are dear to him, then he is
truly virtuous.

But easy, honest good-nature — what is that? Two-thirds of
people's generosity spills over. A man's cup is full, and it runs
over, and others get the drippings ; and then he says, " I do not
think God will judge me very harshly. I am a generous fellow. I
give away a great deal more than you think." That is, he spills
over a good deal, and the dogs come and lick it up, and he thinks
that he is bountiful. But do you suppose these accidents, do you
suppose these mere alternations mount up to the stature of positive-
ness, and grandeur, and dignity of divinely inspired virtues ?

I may also say that this view of love, as serving, ought to go as
a fire into many and many a heart in the household. It is a test that
very few of us can bear. There are hundreds and thousands, I
think, who under that test would say, "I do believe that I love;
but oh, how imperfectly !" Though we have this ideal, how little
do we carry it out ! If there were such a love as this in the house-
hold, what a revolution it would produce ! The parents seiwe the
children ; and the children serve one another ; and the little child,
when the impulse is on it, will thi-ow its arm about the mother's and
father's neck ; brothers and sisters will kiss each other, and make up
their differences ; and these things are very well — there is no objec-
tion to them ; but how much will parents and children give up for
one another ? And how continually will they give up, each for the
others ? In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is
serving the others, putting the whole force of his being at the service
of those others. Happiness in the family consists in its members
seeking each other's good, and bearing each other's burdens. It is
the presence or absence of this self-sacrificing love that determines
the happiness or unhappiness of the household. And yet, how few
there are who think themselves good brothers and sisters that can
say that they have and exercise that love ? How many young men
there arc that have just turned the age of fifteen or sixteen, and that
are beginning to go out into society, who would be fighting mad, if
you were to say to them, " You have no special love for your sis-
ters !" And when they go out they are generous fellows, full of
friendship and affection. And yet, they will take some maiden out
of the family, and bestow all their attention upon her, and their
poor sisters can go without a beau. There is many a brother

LOVE- 8EEY1GE. G5

unwilling to serve ; and yet he resents the idea tliat he does not love
his sister. You may love your sister, but you do not love her so
well as you do yourself. You will form a friendship -Adhere you get
back as much as you give. You make acquaintances, saying, " You
please me, and I will please you ; you make me happy, and I will
make you happy," and that is what you call forming friendships.
But where there is to be nothing but making another happy, because
love in you longs to serve another, and to promote happiness in that
other, you are found wanting. How many there are in the family
who think they love, but who do not love ; or who, if they do love,
only love with an affection that, compared with a true disinterested
love, is as copper compared with gold.

If this be the true exposition of that love which the Gospel
requires, how superficial are the ordinary and popular notions of
benevolence ! How superficial are the world's ideas of giving ! How
superficial are the current notions in regard to public spirit ! How
superficial are the ideas of men on the subject of being willing to do
for persons whom they never saw, and never will see ! How imper-
fect is the popular conception of the higher manly graces, if this
service of true love, the voluntary slavery of the soul for another's
sake, is the true standard !

One reason why there is so little power in the Church, is the
adulterated nature of Church love. There is very little of the heav-
enly afiection among men. There is very much of the afiection of
the mart. There is interchange, there is traffic, there is sectarian
affection, which is nothing but pride and selfishness interchanged.
There is very little love in Churches. But if there were in Churches
tens, and scores, and hundreds of souls that had been trained to
this higher development, and if they ignited together, and brought
the whole power of their souls to bear upon the community, is there
any community that could stand the light and heat of such churches ?

Men often wonder that they are so little blessed in their labor
among their fellow men. "Why," they say, "I have prayed, and I
have prayed, and I have prayed, and it seems to me that there is no
no such thing as a prayer of faith being answered. I have prayed
long and earnestly for men, and it seems as though God never would
hear my prayer." Did you ever serve anybody in love ?

There is a figure in the fourth chapter of Galatians, that I will
read, with your permission.

"My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be
formed in you."

" That is a bold figure, but a very grand one. Do you believe

that it is in your power to take another person in your soul, and

66 L0VE-8EEYICE.

carry him as a mother carries her unborn child, day and night, not
an hour unconscious, m travail, until Christ be formed in him — do
you believe you can minister to a soul in this way, and have that
soul escape you? I do not. And if you are so little useful, it is
because you have so little disinterestedness. It is because you do
not know how to serve.

Once more, we see why it is that the higher Christian graces are
so seldom developed. We go after Christian graces as the woman
of Samaria went to Christ, when he sat by the well, and discoursed
to her of the quality of that water which he would give her, she all
the time interpreting it as the water of the well that was before
them. She said, " Sir, give me of this water, that I come not here
to draw." The idea with her was that it would be a great satisfac-
tion to have water that welled up perpetually, so that nobody shovild
thirst again. She did not want to take the trouble to go and draw
water to quench daily thirst.

i^We go to God and say, " Lord, give me humility; and we would
be glad if God would drop it right down into us. We ask him for
faith ; we ask him for patience ; we ask him for spiritual insight ;
we ask him for joy; we ask him to live or to die; we ask him for
various higher developments. But, my friends, these are tropical
plants, and they never grow in any climate but a climate as hot as
love. You must have this fundamental quality, and carry it to a
certain degree of development, before it is possible for you to have
these Christian graces. Suppose a person were to plant orange and
lemon trees in Canada, and pray God to give him big crops I People
would say that the climate of Canada was not calculated to produce
oranges and lemons. If a man will go to the southern part of
Florida, he need not pray much to get large crops of oranges and
lemons ; but if he goes to Kamtschatka, he cannot get them by any
amount of praying. And we must have right conditions, or we can-
not have right virtues.

Here are selfish, worldly men, full of the bartering spirit, full of
trafficking afiections; here are men that live in a low and chilly
state, and yet they are praying for these higher graces, thinking
that if they could get them they would rise into a warmer state ;
but they must get into a warmer state where these graces will grow,
before they can have them. Change the climate of the soul, and
they will become spontaneous and fruitful. For, as selfishness is
the bane and the curse of life, so this love that is disinterested, and
that serves, is the bounty and divinity of life.

LO VE-SBB YIOE. 6 7

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Our Father, we bless thee that there is rest in thee ; that the disturbance,
the care, and the burden of life have pauses ; and that in them, above the
noise and above the groans of life, we hear thee speaking peace. Not as the
world giveth dost thou give ; but that perfect peace which dispels doubt,
and fear, and gives rest to every soul. We rejoice that we may trust thee
Heavenly Father, for all daily wants. Thou wilt not forget the sun, that it
shall not know its shining ; thou wilt not forget the conditions which form
the clouds, that they shall not drop down both dew and rain ; and thou wilt
not forget thy creatures, who look to thee for supply, mutely; nor wilt thou
forget us, that are better than the birds or the beasts. And thou knowest
all things we are in need of. Thou art evermore providing for us, yet
saying, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."

O Lord our God ! since the day that thou didst reveal to us the secret of
eternal life ; since we knew where our manhood was ; since we sought to
fill up the measure of strength in our higher life, we have felt more the need
of spiritual bread than of the daily bread which is for the body. These na-
tures can labor, and the measure of reason with which we are endowed can
direct our industry to skill, and we can feed and clothe ourselves ; but, alas
for the poverty of the soul! How to wrestle, how to overcome selfishness
on every side, how to build strong against the passions, how to say to the
restless pulse of the great sea that rolls within. Peace, be still, we know not.
We know as little now as when we first began. How full are we all the
morning of resolutions of good ! Strait shall be our path, we say. And yet,
at night, how crooked has it been ! And we hardly know where we began
to bend, or what carried us— what weight — what easily besetting sin. But
that very night we bury the good purpose of the morning. And then come
days of discouragement, when wegiveupthebattle, asif we were not worthy
of fighting where are so many wounds, so much disaster, such captivity, and
so few victories. But thou callest us again. And we cannot give up the
strife for something better than this life. Do not we see how poor and per-
ishable it is at best ? Do we not see how joys turn to sorrows, almost in the
hour when they are lighted ? Do we not see how fast sorrows take hold upon
joys, and how they are their constant companions ? Where is there stability?
Where can we invest our hearts ? Turn whither we may, we are discontented.
' If we pursue the road to holiness, we are weary in well-doing ; or, if we
drift with selfishness, we still become bent and weary. The world was not
made for our living. Here is no abiding city. We dwell not here. We are
pilgrims and strangers, and are traveling across this earthly sphere. Blessed
be thy name, there is a higher thought than ours, and a better wisdom than
ours, and a better purpose that directs our inward life than ours ; and by the
unrevealed ministration of sorrow and joy, of burden and release, of im-
prisonment and freedom, thou art carrying forward the work in us little by
little. The years serve thee, and time serves thee ; and thou art helping us
eo that as the hours draw near we discern, with more and more clearness,
the better life, and our aspiration rises still higher. And we strive with even
more alacrity, as the days go on, to live above the flesh, above the sight of
the eye, and above our desires and passions, and to live in the communion of
God, and in the hope of salvation, through love and grace.

Oh ! we beseech of thee that thou wilt help all those who are discouraged ;
and all those who see in themselves the spark that is struck, yea, the light
that is kindled, but see it, alas! as the light that quivers on the point of the
wick. Thou wilt not quench tlie smoking flax until thou bring forth judg-
ment unto victory. And thou wilt not break the bruised reed. Those that
aie maimed; those that have often been overblown, and have in themselves

G8 LOVE-SEBVICE.

no strength, — thou hast compassion upon them, and thou Trilt hold them up,
so that the wind shall not overturn them.

Blessed be thy name, O thou Father of the Soul ! for all thy goodness to
us, and for the manifestation of it through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And now, we beseech of thee that we may take courage, not because we
are wise, or strong, or patient, or persevering, or successful, but because God
is faithful, who has promised. May all our hope be in him. And in the
great bounty of thy love, may we have the assurance of our salvation.

We beseech of thee, this morning, in behalf of all that are gathered to-
gether here. How many are the wants, how many are the desires —how
many that are expressed silently to thee, and how very many unrecognized
—heave within the soul, and toss it, for which there are no words ! Wilt
thou look upon the inward life of every one. Help t^ose that are struggling
against their ill-willed passions ; those that would subdue vanity ; those that
would temper pride ; those that strive against avarice ; those that seek to be
less worldly-minded ; those that desire more and more to be quickened into
a disinterestedness of kindness.

Bless, we pray thee, all those that are endeavoring to stand in the place
of God to their little chi Idren ; who know their own weakness ; who perceive
their own daily infirmities ; who desire to do the best things for tlieir chil-
dren, and who oftentimes are in the shadow of doubt, lest they should mis-
lead them, and lest they should pervert them in their tender years. Lord,
hear the cry of parents' hearts for themselves and for their children.

Grant, we pray thee, that all those who, within the household, are seeking
more and more to refine their life, and more and more to let it be a life daily
outflowing with all kindness and all beneficence, may have a realization of
their desire. Hear their prayer this morning, and strengthen them in every
good purpose. And may thy Spirit, Father of all grace and love, dwell in
them, and work mightily.

We pray that thou wilt hear, this morning, those that come with hands
scarcely washed from the soil of the earth; those that have lost themselves in
the week, and have found themselves following the Bright and Morning Star
this day. Grant, we pray thee, that as they look back upon the way in which
the outward man hath striven, and the inward man hath been smothered and
strangled ; grant that as they repine and mourn over the follies of the week,
they may have not only a feeling of repentance before God, but an intimation
of thy Spirit with them. And may they be so strengthened that as their*
days, so their strength shall be. And may they carry into their own indus-
try a higher motive than mere gain, or their own honor or strength. May
they seek to fill the vt-ins of society wita better blood. May they seek to
serve Christ in their daily calling. May they bear Christ's spirit with them,
and preach to men, not so much by the word of their mouth, as by the spirit
that they shall manifest, standing humble amidst the proud, loving amongst
the selfish, and self-sacrificing among those that would cause others to suffer
for their good. We pray that they may be bright examples of true living
in this untoward generation. And we pray, O God! that if they to-day re-
pent of their sins, registering against themselves their own transgression,
they may have an intimation of thy peace, and of thy grace and mercy to
their souls. May they not be afraid to go to God with a confession of their
worldliness and sin.

And if there are those who are in perplexity by reason of their fears, and
know not which way to turn, grant that to-day they may have a hearing con-
sciously with thee. And may they feel that Providence is real, and that thou
thinkest of them. And may they be able to commit themselves and their
fears to thee. And may they evermore seek that guidance and wisdom
from on high which thou hast promised to give liberally, upbraiding not.

LO VE-SEB VICE. G 9

If there are those, desolate and discouraged, who, often beginning, or
seeking again and again the right path, have lost it ; if there are those who
are struggling and striving almost without hope, we pray that thou wilt
hold them steadfast in their divine nature. Say unto them, that a man's
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And
if they have not peace among men, nor in human things, may they have
peace with God, — that peace which passeth all understanding.

And if there be those that this morning look upon their life and them-
selves with great sorrow and horror; if there be those that seek earnestly
better things , if there be those that are half-discouraged in this very seek-
ing; if there be those that are as a sailor, seeking the shore from the ship-
wrecked vessel, but cast back by the refluent wave as oft as he touches the
ground, and well-nigh whelmed — if there be such, we pray, O Lord! that
they may strive for the better land, and not give up till death. May their
souls cry out mightily for help to Him whose ear never slumbers. Hear
their cry.

And, O God ! if there be those who sit in afSiction this morning, ponder-
ing the strange way of God with them, in that they have buried their dead,
we pray thee to give resurrection in their souls to better thoughts, that they
may not think that any are ever buried. May they remember that while
the dust goes to dust, the spirit goes to God who gave it. And may all that
are bereaved seek their beloved ones in the other life, and above their head,
and above the storm, and above the trouble of this world. And if any are
pondering the peculiar trial of their bereavments in those that are gone,
whom they cannot see again, and with whom no last words were exchanged ;
if any are mourning over tidings brought from afar, of death in distant lands;
if any are sitting with their dead before them ; if any are in the maze and
stupor of grief, will the Lord have compassion upon them all, and deliver
them from the thrall of their sorrow, and say to them, gently, For the pres-
ent it is not joyous but grievous ; but afterward it shall work out the peace-
able fruit of righteousness.

And we pray that thou wilt follow the thoughts of those that are here,
and bless all whom the heart yearns to bless. Sanctify their friendships.
Deepen and purify their loves. Grant, we pray thee, that, walking together
in life, with so much to oppose, and so little to help, men may cling more
faithfully to each other, and not seek to crowd one another from the way of
life, and not put stumbling-blocks in the way of one another. And grant
that we may bear one another's burdens, in honor preferring one another;
and in all things seek to follow the example of Him who, though rich, for
our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty might become rich.

We pray that thy blessing may rest upon all churches and all ministers,
everywhere, this day. May the Gospel be preached with purity and power.
Revive thy work in all thy churches. Purify this land. And grant that all
the nations on this earth may at last see the dawn of that better day of peace
and purity and intelligence, when superstition and ignorance shall be driyen
from off the globe, and the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth as the
waters fill the sea.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit^ evermore.
Amen.

70 LOYE-SEEVIGE.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thy blessing may rest upon the word spoken.
Deliver us, we pray thee, from ourselves. Deliver us from the devil that is
horn in us, and that is down-bearing with everlasting gravitation of selfish-
ness, that carries us back again toward the earth from which we sprang.
Touch us with thy nature. Breathe that spirit into us that brought thee,
blessed Saviour, from heaven, that we might understand thy life. Oh ! that
we might see in the meaning of thy great suffering, and thy blessed death,
out of which the world has had life brought to it. And may we learn to
love with requital. May we learn to serve in love. May we more and more
test ourselves by these higher standards. May we repent of the past. May
we rise by vision of the future, and of thy divine love, until we arc fitted for
that higher life, and that more blessed society, of the heavenly land. Then
take us home. And to thy name, Father, Son and Spirit, shall be the praise,
forever. Amen.

IV.

The Social Principle in Religion

O Lord our God, exalted art thou above all touch of want, or thought of
sorrow, except in sympathy with the sorrows of those whom thou dost rear
up by thy life and power. Thou art our Father— the Father of our spirits.
To whom shall we go for refreshment, to whom for all help and guidance,
, but to thee ? Make the way plain and short, this morning. Come toward ua
who cannot lift ourselves up toward thee. With infinite condescension,
dwell in our hearts. May thy thought of love warm us, and bring us into
fellowship with thee. Grant that all our communion with thee, and our joy
in song, and our offerings of devotion, and every service of instruction, may
be divinely guided and blest. These favors we ask for Christ's sake. A-men.
i.

THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE IN RELIGION.

"Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-
citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. And are built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together, grow-
eth unto a holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God through the Spirit.— Ez*h. ii., 1&-23.

There is a very interesting progress of thought in this passage.
The negative is substantially an affirmative.

" Ye are no more strangers."

Considering it in a civil aspe.ct, there was nothing that, to the
Jew, to the Greek, or to the Roman, could seem more unfortunate
than not to have been born a Jew, or a Greek, or a Roman. They
felt to a very considerable extent as we do, who feel that to be born
an American is the best birth that one can have — for the first time.
They had, in other words, an intensity of national thought and
feeling which we can now scarcely recognize.

The Jew accustomed himself to divide the whole world into two
classes. The first class, and the only one worth anything, was com-
posed of Jews ; and all the rest were Gentiles, They were the
great miserable part of mankind, that were not born Jews.

The Greeks felt the same way, except that, being more intellect-
ual and more aesthetic, they had a daintiness in their scorn. They
also divided the world into two classes — the fortunate people who
were Greeks, and the millions and millions of unfortunate people
who were barbarians.

And the Romans, afterwards, regarded Roman citizenship as the
very top of earthly privilege ; and all the rest — the great outside
world — to them, likewise, were barbarians. To be a Roman citizen
was not simply an honor : it was a prerogative ; it was a protection ;
it was a power.

We find a reference to the intensity of this feeling recorded in
the twenty-second chapter of Acts.

" Then the chief captain came, and said unto him [Paul], Tell me, art
thou a Roman ?"

Sunday Morning, AprQ 2, 1871. Lesson : Luke XXI. Hymns (Plymouth Colleo-
tlon) : Nos. 639, tWS, 717. /"luuiu wucv-

74 TEE SOCIAL PEINCIPLE

How did he come to ask that question ? Paul had been seized,
and, without any trial, had been thrown into prison ; and in order
to extort testimony from him, they made ready to scourge him.
And when they had bound him, and were about to lay on the
scourge, he turned to the officer, and said,

"Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncon-
demned?"

" Now, to scourge a man would not have been a great sin — man-
hood went for nothing ; but that they were about to scourge a Mo-
man, withheld the lash instantly.

" When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain>
saying. Take heed what thou doest; for this man is a Roman."

Everybody, in the whole civilized world, then stood in awe of
that name.

*' Then the chief captain came and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a
Roman? He said. Yea. And, the captain answered. With a great sum ob-
tained I this freedom. And Paul said. But I was free born."

No one scene that I know of in Scripture, will show wliat value
and what dignity were put upon citizenship, more than this little
incident. When, therefore, the apostle said,

" Ye are no more foreigners and strangers,"
it carried with it a thrill of meaning — although it was so spiritual-
ized that we can scarcely appreciate it.

" Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens."

They were brought up higher ; they were ennobled ; they were
dignified. And this is the figure by which the apostle represents
the true elevation which takes place when men have entered into
the spirit of religious life in Christ Jesus, and are associated to-
gether. They form a new citizenship. They are formed on a higher
plane. They enter upon a nobler life.

Then the thought progresses :

•' Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-
citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."

After thinking of them as citizens, the next thought naturally
was that citizenship was broken up into families ; and the thought
of the household was even more precious than that of the state.
And then came the thought of a household with God as the Father
— the household of God.

Then, from this thought he naturally progresses to that which
the household represents. And the world over, the household repre-
sents the greatest amount of heart-privilege and of refinement. And
the enjoyment of any age may be gauged by the quality of its home-
life. It has always been so. It will always be so. The family is
the institution which stands next to God — next to the divine pulsa-
tion. Here is love-equality. Here is privilege without supersti-

IN BELIGION, 75

tlon. Here is less of the artificial and more of the natural than
anywhere else. "We come nearer the spontaneous impulse of the
soul without imposing ceremonies, and without conventional institu-
tions, and yet with fullness, and reality, and power, in home-life than
in any other combination. Nowhere else is there so much of every
person's life acting so freely, so strongly, so directly, and so usefully,
as in the family.

Therefore, when the Apostle spoke of Christians gathering to-
gether in church fellowship, and said, " They are redeemed from the
condition of barbarians or Gentiles, as it were, and brought into
citizenship," that meant a great deal. And when he said, " Thev
belong to the household of God ; they have all the amenities and
privileges and preciousness of the intercourse that belongs to the
household," he said still more.

In speaking of the household, he naturally thought of the
house. And instantly the figure changed into an architectural one.

•' And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."

That is, you are built, not on the apostles, and on the prophets,
as if they were the foundation ; but you are built up with them,
BO that you stand on the same foundation that they do. Both you
and they stand on the divine foundation.

* And are built upon the foundation of the apostles, and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly
framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."

Nothing was so sacred in the eyes of antiquity as a temple, be-
cause private houses were so squalid, relati^ ely. When Athens was
the glory of the world, when her marble shone almost like the rays
of the sun to one that approached the city, her streets were narrow,
her dwellings were small, and all their appointments were mean.
And when the apostle would speak of a building that had some cir-
cumstance and dignity, he naturally took as an example that which
was glorious in the eyes of antiquity — the temple in Jerusalem, the
Acropolis in Athens, or the many temples in Rome. The temple was
the embodiment of beauty, and of sanctity as well. And the apostle
said,

" Te are of the household of God." v

And then, in speaking of the building, he cited the temple, be-
cause that gave the conception of a glorious structure.
And next he said,

" In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit."

For the temple then, in his thoughts, was commuted into a
dwelling. It was the habitation of God j it was the house ; it was
the household ; it was citizenship.

76 TEE SOCIAL FEINCIPLE

I do not consider this mixing figures. I consider it a progres-
sion of figures, not by any law of outward similarity or suggestion,
but by the more subtle evolution of interior thought.

All this refers to the associated life of Christian people, that are
become Christ's, that are God's, and that are united together. The
apostle does not here so much declare the purposes for which they
are united. He rather plays upon the thought of the dignity, the
power, and the glory which rested upon men in their religious asso-
ciation. At the earliest period of the history of the Christian church,
and even since. Christians drew together for the purposes of mutual
support. The Gospel had its first disciples among the poor and ig-
norant, as we all know ; and they really needed to cling to each
other. They needed it, not simply for instruction, but preeminently
to keep up each other's courage in the life that they were following.
For certain exigencies, and during brief periods, it was necessary
that there should be a community of goods. It would not have been
needful if the earliest followers of Christ had been in circumstances
of wealth ; but where they were all poor, and where the least change
in their condition was liable to throw whole families out of their
daily bread, there was reason why they should put their joint-
stock at the command of each other. But this never was laid down
broadly as a general order of the church. Kor was it perpetuated.
It was only an occasional experience. They met, first, in part, for
the most economic reasons ^ but they also associated themselves to-
gether because there was no other way of encouraging, helping, and
comforting each other in the religious life, so well as on the social
principle. It was the social element that first obtained in the Chris-
tian church. We have reason to suppose that the Christian church
never separated itself from the old Jewish church until after the de-
struction of Jerusalem. Up to that time the temple was sacred alike
to those that were Jews of the strictest sort, and to those that were
Christian Jews.

We have almost an exact analogy of this in modern history.
When Wesley undertook to reform the Church of England, he did
not separate his disciples from the established church ; and to the
day of his death they did not leave it. They remained in it, and
observed its ordinances and rules, at the same time holding separate
meetings of their own, over and above those of the church. And
the early Christians still adhered to the temple-service, though they
had their social gatherings besides, until the city was destroyed,
and the temple with it, and they were driven from it. Then they
were obliged to frame some other organizations ; and they took
the synagogue for their pattern, or copied largely from it. And the

IN BELIGION. 77

circumstances of tlicse organizations varied almost infinitely. There
was no prescribed outward form for the church. While they still
maintained the established canons and modes of worship of the
Jewish church, they met together as Christians aside from the
temple-service, because in this way they could kindle in tlieraselves
a higher fervor.

It is difficult for single individuals, unless they be very highly
endowed, to create in themselves fervor when alone. Now and then
there is a nature that can generate its own fire ; but ordinarily you
must put stick upon stick, and spark to spark, and flame to flame, in
order to make fervor. And it is the association of feeling, it is feclino-
in the multitude, whose thought kindles in each individual the hio-h-
est forms of emotion. There are very few who have the power of
solitary zeal ; and there are very few who have not the power of
associated zeal. The Christian religion depended at the first, and
has ever since depended, and will to the end depend, very largely
on Avorldly conditions. For a religion whose element is love, and
not awe ; a religion whose very life is sweet and pure emotion, must
thrive by the social principle. It never was meant that Christians
should be solitary. It never was meant that they should feed them-
selves. It was meant that they should thrive in their combined
and associated capacities.

In church association, also, the feeble and ignorant get from the
gifts of all an education which is not possible in any other way. A
church that has a real Christian life in it, is one of the best schools
to which men can go. If, when the disciples had professed the
name of Christ, each one had made his own house the centre, and his
own relatives exclusive companions, there would have been hun-
dreds and thousands in the course of time who would have been
almost without instruction. But by the gathering together of the
humble and lowly with those of culture and refinement in intimate
association, the under classes gained, and the upper classes lost
nothing. As soon as the idea of brotherhood was once introduced ;
as soon as men felt that God Avas their Father, and that Jesus Christ
was. their elder brother, and that they were all brethren, and they
began to come together with that feeling in their hearts, instantly
there took place a pi'ocess of evolution and of education which never
can be measured, and which can scarcely be overestimated.

There is an education of the books, and there is an education of
the higlier forms in schools; but the general education which the
community receive depends largely upon the association of men with
men. It is the unconscious and general action of the higher natures
upon the intermediate or lower, that is perpetually working in

78 THE SOCIAL PEINCIPLE

, society ; therefore, a church that gathers together its memhers, and
has not circulation in it, and has not automatic life in it, and has not
the voluntary principle in it, has but little influence ; while a church
whose members really live, is a powerful moral education to all that
belong to it.

It is this that marks the church of the peculiar organization to
which we belong. It is a brotherhood. And in one sense — in the
sense of rank — all that are in it are equal. There are no priests
with us. There are no privileged orders in our church association.
We are one family, of which God is the head. The church is itself
a household, and all its members are brethren. In that sense they
all stand on an equal footing. And of all organizations, this is the
best if it is wisely used, while it is the poorest if it is unwisely used.

If there be a true life in the church, if there be a true democratic
feeling among the members, if there be a good degree of zeal, if
there be a proper familiarity, if there be a sweet and blessed affec-
tion, flowing through the church, then the best lives in the church
become instructors, and all the poorest lives — the lives of the whole
spiritual household — are pervaded by a common public sentiment :
the gifts of all belong to each ; and the gifts of each belong to all.

For general instruction, then, and for the development of emotive
life, it is wise for those that love the Lord Jesus Christ to gather
themselves together. It is best that they should instruct by more
than their ordinary thought — though that ought to be availed of
more than it is. There are many churches in which the pew is a thou-
sand times stronger than the pulpit ; and it is a very fortunate cir-
cumstance that it is so, provided that it is used. But it seems to
me that often more than half of the real power of the church is
lost because it is not developed and used. Where, as in many of
the churches of the adjacent city, there are scores of men of the
highest culture, and of the widest exj^erience, who are fitted by their
very professional life for speaking and bearing witness to eminent
moral truths, it would seem almost impertinent that the only utter-
ances in the church should be from one man — the pastor. Not that
I would undervalue the stated preaching of the Gospel ; but I would
add to the power of church-life the influence of all those who are fit-
ted to bear testimony and witness in the cause of Christ. I do not
exaggerate when I say that not half the power which there is in the
church is brought to bear as it should be. But where it is brought
to bear to any considerable degree, the effect is wonderful. And it
is often the case that in what are called social meetings, there is a
better proclamation of the Gospel, and spiritual truths are more com-
prehensively set forth, and there is more emotive power manifested,

IN BELIGION. 79

and there is more profound testimony borne, than can possibly be
the case where there is but one man officiating. Witli all its im-
perfections, what an extraordinary wealth there is in the pulpit, the
world over 1 Consider what, since the days of the apostles, has been
the amount of truth thrown out upon the world — and almost in one
direction — by the Christian pulpit. In antiquity there was nothing
like it. When you consider that every Sabbath Day hundreds and
thousands of places are opened, where men, equipped and skilled by
long use for preaching the Gospel, are pouring streams of moral
light and truth upon the community, where is there the parallel of
this great work ? And if besides this immense power, there were
brought to bear all the power which inheres in the laity of the
church — its membership — there would, I think, be a j)entecostal
force added, to exalt the spiritual life of the people.

There is in the association of Christians, also, an opportunity for
the development of those emotions and those enjoyments which
spring from the service of song, such as there could not be if Chris-
tians were scattei-ed, and lived solitarily. The nature of religion must
be a nature of emotion. For, although religion employs the reason,
it bears to it the same relation that a pair of spectacles bears to the
eyes. It is not the eyes. It is merely a help to the eyes. And
religion is the heart, and not the understanding. Technically, it is rev-
erential, filial love. And religion, although it helps, is but a help.
It is not, therefore, theology that is religion. It is the higher form of
heart-emotion that constitutes religion.

Now, this can nowhere else have expression so well as in lyrical
poetry. There is no other creed that is like the hymn-book. There
never can be such a bond of union as the hymn-book. And the songs
of the church, and its regular service, often supplement the church,
and sustain it through periods of emergency. Sometimes where the
pulpit is weak they are strong, and hold the church on in spite of the
weakness of the instruction of the pulpit. They give utterance to
thoughts that otherwise could never be spoken. Many can chant
what they cannot speak. Many and many a one can sing (with tears
dropping, and, as it were, beating time) joys or aspirations which no
language other could frame. I like to think of loA^e as tlie center of
religion, and of song as its best utterance.

' The mother singing over the cradle — is there any other saintli-
ness more beautiful to be tliought of than that? The old bird sits
on the tree, and coaxes the young bird to fly to her. She sings
to it, and teaches it to sing. And the mother sits at the cradle,
as it were, to call the little children up to the Christian life. The
cliildren sing in the family, and in the utterance of song they are

80 THE SOCIAL PBmCIPLE

all one. There is but one sound, but one hymn, and, to a large
extent, so far as there is feeling at all, it is one feeling. And persons
are never brought into such communion as when they are gathered
together, and their feelings express themselves in song. It is the
hymns that persons sing together that unite them. I think I love
those that I have sung with better than any others. And when we
come into heavenly places in Christ Jesus — into the lecture-room and
the church proper — and all join in singing, is there any other min-
istration in the sanctuary that opens the gate of heaven so quickly,
and makes the battlements shine so brightly ? Is there any other
seA'vice that so brings to our thought the radiant inhabitants of the
other side ? Is there any other service that seems to bow and bend
the heavens so near to us, and that awakens thoughts of dear ones
that have gone away from us so quickly, as songs of Zion ? Is there
anything which so makes doctrines seem no longer cant, by clothing
them with life and beauty ; which so makes theology like an orchard,
in which stands the tree of life dropping down Christian fruit ? Since
the church was organized, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
have been among the peculiar experiences of the church ; but I think
that we have not fully entered upon those experiences yet. The mil-
lennial service of song will put all that we have had in the back-
ground. The time will come when whole congregations will chant
the Psalms of David, and when they will thus be touched with the
profoundest and divinest mysteries, almost as spontaneously as birds
warble their Spring songs. The time has not come yet, but the time
will come. At present, song is in bondage — sometimes to singing-
masters, sometimes to classic music, sometimes to pedantic instru-
ments, sometimes to one thing, and sometimes to another. Just
now, it is in danger of going into bondage to taste. We all must
have things exquisite. Everything must be carried to the highest
pitch of refinement. Nothing will do which has not the signet and
sign of the utmost culture. I like culture so long as it is humble,
so long as it regards itself as the servant of the truth. But I love the
heart ; and I would rather hear an old cracked voice, feeble, with
many gaps, singing honestly with tears the songs of Zion, than hear
the finest cantatrice that ever enraptured the most cultivated con-
gregation. And although there is to be taste and beauty in song, if
possible, yet, if anything is to be sacrificed, it is taste and beauty.
The inside, the world over, against the outside ! The soul against the
body ! The external goes down to let the internal out.

I would not be understood as undervaluing taste and beauty in
song, as you know I do not, by the history of this church, Avhere
there has been so much done to promote growth and admirableness

riV EELIGION 81

of song ; but that is always to be subordinate to the soul. The mo-
ment you begin to sing for concert eifocts, and to feel that nothing
will do but the most exquisite style of music, that moment song goes
into Babylon. That moment it is in bondage. For it is the minis-
ter of joy to the heart. It is the minister of peace. It is that which
gives voice to rapture and hope. It is love. It is fellowship. It is
triumph in the Lord Jesus Christ. Song is the wing by which we
rise higher, with easier beats, than by any other ministration of the
sanctuary. And where can you get it as you find it in Christian
households ? Where can you get it as you find it in Christian assem-
blies ? What has given song to the world more than anything else,
is not bacchanalian debauch, is not wild and sparkling gatherings
of men for pleasure : it is the soul that sings of immortality. It is
the soul that sings of love and gratitude. That has given the world
more inspiration of music than all other things put together. And
sacred song is yet to rule — as it ought to. And if song is to rulcj
we must remember that it must be the heart that sings, and not the
voice nor taste alone. Taste, voice, everything ; but the heart first.

So, too, associated Christian life gives opportunity to help those
that need help. If one has the good fortune of education, and of
original balance and endowment, and is able to govern himself, he
may not need any exterior help ; but that is no reason why he should
scorn those that do need it. If one is surrounded, in business, and
at home, by ajl the restraints that he needs, that is no reason why
he should not associate himself with those who do need other re-
straints than those which belong to their private spheres in life. And
one of the functions of the church is to take care of its members. It
does do it to a certain degree ; but it is yet in the wilderness. It is
imperfectly doing its work; and the ideal church puts to shame the
real church. There are a thousand ways in which the church, by
stimulation and restraint, holds back men, and helps them to be more
religious ; and yet it falls short in this respect.

These were some of the reasons that acted to gather the church
together ; and they are reasons that exist still, and will exist to the
end of time. The church is founded, therefore, not upon any exter-
nal command ; and not upon any arbitrary principle of obedience are
we to maintain church life. The reasons for it are inherent in hu-
man nature. The desirableness of the church does not lie in its sanc-
tions, or in its ordinances, or in its historical elements, but in the life
which is developed in it.

Because I resent the oppression of the external church, I would
not be understood as not believing in the reality of a true spiritual
interior church. Because I say that no man shall impose upon me,

82 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE

as by divine authority, ordinances that I know are not imperative ;
because I aver that no man shall presume to say to me, " You are
not in the church," when I do not happen to be in the fold which
he likes best ; because I will not, for one single moment, wink at
the despotism of any ecclesiastical organization ; because I say that
the outside matters pertaining to the church are all of them of
human invention, I should be sorry to have any suppose that I deny
the existence of the church itself. That is not of human invention.
The cominor too-ether of those that are rich in the direction of a
common love, and their acting under the inspiration of a common
spiritual feeling ; the coming together of those that are making fight
for the same life, under the same banner, and with the same hopes
and fears — the coming together of such persons in a real household,
is natural in the highest sense of the word. It springs from neces-
sities that are organic in man ; that are created in him ; that are
natural to him.

It is not because the word went out eighteen hundred years ago,
Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, that I desire to be
united with others in Christian life. It is because my heart calls
out for other hearts that are congenial to it. It is because every one
who has learned to love Christ truly, loves his brother, and longs for
fellowship with his brother. I see in myself, and in you ; I see in
that which is the best part of me, and the best part of you ; I see
in our joy, in our faith, in our holy sympathy one with another ; I
see in our common labors among man — I see in all these things, the
foundations of church-life. And I believe in the church, not because
the apostles started it, but because God made men so that they can-
not live in any other way than in fellowship. That is a foundation
that is deeper than any other ; and it is a foundation on which the
church exerts a more potent influence than it could if it were on
any other foundation.

I do not set myself against ecclesiastical establishments for those
that want them. If a man wants to go into the Episcopal Church,
and wants to observe days, forms and ceremonies, and wants to
adopt its whole ritual, I have no objection. I respect that church. I
have a thousand reasons for doing so. And though I do not need
it myself, I would not say a word, nor make a gesture, to offend any
one to whom it is sacred. It is only when the stately bishop comes
to the door of that church and says, " We are the people, and wis-
dom shall die with us — pass on, outsider," that I have any fault to
find. But then I raise my protest ; and I say to him, " I respect
your liberty to worship Christ in your own way, but you never had
delegated to you the power to cast me out. It was God, and not

IN RELIGION. 83

you, that called me ; and God keeps me ; and I am his disciple just
as much as you are. And where two or three of us are gathered
together, there is Christ in the midst of us — and I do not care if
there is not a bishop, if Christ will come."

I do not undertake to say that you shall not have orders m the
ministry, if you want them. You may have a deacon ; you may
have a priest ; you may have a bishop ; you may have a cardinal ;
you may have a pope. I accord that liberty to all. If they choose
to orgamize themselves so, I have nothing to say. It is not that
men do it for themselves that I complain of, but that they arrogate
superiority over every body else, and over everything else, and that
they profess to have the kingdom of God, and the whole of it in
themselves ; nay, that they claim to have certain golden channels
that run clear back to the river of life, and that there is not a drop
issuinjr out from under the throne of God that does not run throu2:h
their channels. It is when men make these extravagant pretensions,
and set up these preposterous claims, in regard to the external
church — the poorest part of the Church (for much of it is nothing
but bark, and not living bark at that) — it is then that I set myself
against it, and declare the liberty of the spirit as against the bond-
age of forms.

Men sometimes think that I disown baptism. I do not. I put
it on the divine ground. I use it, not because it is commanded, but
because of the value which I see in it. I use it, not because of any
authority which makes it binding, but because I think that it is a
help to men in their religious life.

I say that the Lord's Supper is not obligatory in the same sense
that the High Church people think it is. The principle on which I
use it is deeper and stronger than that which they urge. I use it
because there is a living principle in human nature which demands
it. The crying out of the soul for it is more than the imposition of
it by a stiff and hard law.

Men say, " We must have something fixed." You have some-
thing fixed. God is fixed. The soul is fixed. Its strifes upward
are fixed. These things arc more fixed than any dogmas or ordinances
of the church can be. Men seem to think that we are all at sea and
afloat , but there is no such stability as belongs to life itself. I puf^
the soul-life against the external bodily life. I put the interior
spirit against these externalities. I oppose myself to the bishop
only when he is arrogant and encroaches upon my liberty. I set
myself against the pope only when he attempts to be my pope. I
do not want him. I am pope enough for myself ! I set myself
against neither bishop nor pope, when they are my brethren. I can

84 THE SOCIAL FBINCIFLE

take the bread from that dearly "beloved man, Bishop Huntington,
or from that venerable and excellent nxan, Bishop Potter, with the
utmost delight — nay, with reverence.

Do I see men that have spent themselves for Christ, and do
not you suppose that I know their worth, and love them ? I love to
look up to people. I wish there were more that I could look up to !
I have no repugnance in that direction. It is only when men assume
authority that I draw back from them. There is the point. We
are all Christlike, in my view, if we love each other. If you are my
brother, love me. If you are my brother, we are knit together. I
will follow as long as it is love that leads ; but the moment that
any man begins to be the monarch, giving law with authority, that
moment, with all the allegiance which I bear to Christ, I defy him,
saying, " I am a Christian man, and a man in Chi-ist Jesus is free."

And yet, the imagination of men has been stained through and
through with these claims. I do not wonder at it. But we will
get it out of the world before long. There is the notion, that
to be of any account a thing must have a certain straight, rigid or-
der, a certain succession. Well, is it so ? Is it not true that the
dearest, the most influential, and the most permanent things are
those which have no such fixity and necessity of external order ?

Here is a group gathered together in the family ; but they never
heard father nor mother say, " My son, have you ever considered
that it was your duty to fall in love ? I enjoin you, by all the prin-
ciples of fidelity, to go somewhere and fall in love with somebody."
Does not the spontaneous need of the heart take care of that, without
any parental exhortation ? When two natures are fitted to each
other (though they are not always so well fitted) does not the nature
in them interpret all that is necessary ? Not even language is
needful. The ten thousandth part of a look speaks louder than
trumpets. And when the life of true love kindles, do they need to
say to each other, " Now we ought to go before a magistrate and
tell him it is begun ?" Do we need such external relationships in
matters of this kind ? Does not the heart brood ? Are not silence
and secretiveness a part of the original nature of a delicate and
true beginning of love ? And, at last, the promise and the pledge
are interchanged and fulfilled, and the household is founded, and
the life thrives, and burdens are all winged, moving so easily that
even sorrows begin to have shining plumes about their neck ; then
all the life is singing through the household, though there is pov-
erty, it is blessed poverty, and there are content and joy with it.
And as, little by little, the population of the household increases, and
the father grows proud, and the mother grows justly proud, is there

INEELIGION. 85

any other pride so noble as theirs ? Is there any pride to be com-
pared with that of loving parents, in each other and in their chil"
dren ? Is there any other gratitude so deep as that of parents'
hearts which they give for healthy and virtuous children, and chil-
dren that are brought up, at last, safe ? If there is anything else so
deep as that, I do not know what it is.

Well, life flows on. The hair of the parents is turning gray.
There have been some little imperfections ; there have been here and
there cloudy days of experience ; yet in the main the life has gone
through happily. The children have settled down in spheres of
usefulness. And at last they follow the mother to the grave. And as
they return to their house they arc met at the door by one who draws
a contrast between their condition and his, " I live," he says, " in
a house that has been in our family three hundred years. You have
been living in a house that has no antiquity, nothing to it. I am
the son of Timothy, and he was the son of Jacob, and he was the
son of Peter ; and I can trace my lineage back to the flood. And my
wife is of that other old family ; and you can trace her relationship
all the way wp. And we have lived in the greatest consideration of
all the historic circumstances of our descent. We have had every-
thing in our house fixed and right." Do you not suppose that the
close sympathy and loving heart-life of the humbler family is worth
all the pomp and circumstance of mere antiquity of family ?

Now, far be it from me to say that if a man has love and vir-
tue, and the power of joy, it is not a good thing for him to have,
also, honorable connections, running away back on the father's and
mother's side. And far be it from me to say that where one is cul-
tured, and has the facility for enjoying such things, it is not a good
thing to have a mansion, in a park, with all delightful circumstances.
If you can have them both, it is better than to have either alone ;
but if you are going to separate them, which is regent, which is to
take the precedence, heart-life without external circumstances, or
.external circumstances without heart-life ?

Now, I hold that in church-life men may justly feel proud if they
can trace back their church-forms. I should be very glad to trace
church-forms back to the apostles just as we have them here in Plym-
outh Church ; and I think that by exercising a little ingenuity I could
trace back a great many things a good ways. I think we have al-
most everything the apostles had. In the apostolic church they had
men that were not worthy of the name of Christ, and so have we in
our church. They had men that were stingy, and so have we. They
had many ignorant people, and so have we. They had fault-finders,
and so have we. We have many of the apostolic seals. I see it

86 THE SOCIAL FEIKCIPLJE

as plainly as can be, though I am not, perhaps, as proud of it as I
might be.

The peculiarity of tracing back the'congregational church, is that
it has no form. It is the gathering together, without external form
(or with as little external form as possible) of those that ai-e brought,
by elective affinity, into association with each other, in one place,
where they worship together in one way. And I have no objection
to any Episcopal communion tracing itself back as far as England.
There is no harm in taking an old house to pieces and building a new
house out of the materials of the old. And if our Episcopal Church
is formed from the elements of the Church of England, it is no
worse for that. And it would be a matter of some antiquarian pleas-
ure to trace it back to England, and, similarly, for the Church of
England to find its source in the older Roman hierarchy. I do not
object to persons having a love for such things. All I say is, that
they are incidental and collateral.

I like to see swallows build nests under the roof of my house in
the country — and they do ; but if there were not a swallow on the
premises, my home would be about the same interiorly as it is now.

I like to see the clematis climb about the doors of my house —
and it does. I like to plant vines and bushes about my dwelling.
They make it sweeter and more delightful. I never open my win-
dow in summer, that a hundred flowers do not send in their airy
thanks' to me. But give me my inside life ; give me my companions
in the household, and if there were not a flower on all the lawn, nor
a vine on all the building, it would be home to me still.

I am not iconoclastic. I do not set my face against any sect. I
do not complain of the Quaker for his barrenness, nor of the Epis-
copalian for his floridness, nor of the Presbyterian for his rigidity
and authority. I stand and say : " I accord the utmost liberty to
ou, but you shall not attempt to compress me into your forms. T
will be free ; and I affirm that my freedom is as legitimate as yours."
If there is a way in which you are satisfied that you thrive best,,
thrive in that way ; and as this is the way in which we thrive best,
we will thrive in this way. But you shall not say that I ignore the
church, or destroy the foundations of church life, because I say that
the foundations of the church are in the heart, and not outside, in
buildings, or ordinances, or government, or theological dogmas.

The reasons, then, why I call men into church association, are
reasons that are far more powerful, I think, than those which operate
in the hierarchial churclies, if I may call them so. But to say to a
man, " You shall join the church because it is the command of the
Lord Jesus Christ, is presenting the idea of authority in the most

J2V BELIGION. 87

barren, and to me the most offensive way. The command of Christ
I find in you, and not in history. I can find no explicit command
of this kind in the whole of the four Gospels. I can find in the
apostolic writings an implication of already existing principles of
association ; I can find incidental allusions to gatherings of Chris-
tians as being already established ; but nowhere can I find a specific
command to organize a church ; nor any command as to how it is to
be organized ; nor one single hint that there is an external or legal
obligation on that subject. Where is the obligation ? If anywhere,
inside. If not there, nowhere.

Men and brethren, have we come to such a miserable condition
that we cannot understand that a thing may be obligatory upon us,
though it is not a matter of fixed law ? Is there anything known in
the statute of the land which requires, when I meet a lady, that I
shall take off my hat ? And yet, would I meet a lady, if I Avere in
my senses, without paying some respect to her ? And is there any
law that could make me do it as quick as I would do it Avithout a
law?

If you know that your neighbor is sick, do you need a law to
tell you to go and minister to his wants ? Is there not that in you
which makes you feel that it is your duty to do it ? Do not the in-
stincts of manhood move you quicker than any human enactment ?
LaAvs for those that need laAvs ; but the moment that a man is so
quick and sensitive that he folloAvs spiritual necessity and influence
promptly and truly, that moment he can do without the law what
other people have to do by the law. And when a man does right
Avithout being goaded to it, he does it better than he would if he had
to be goaded to it. When a man is a laAv to himself, he stands on
a higher plane than when he needs to be restrained by humanly
enacted laws. I do not mean that a man is to be a law unto himselt
in the sense of throAving off external law. The apostle says,

" Brethren, ye have beau called unto liberty ; only use not liberty as an
occasion to the flesh."

You are called to liberty ; but it is a liberty to go higher and
not lower. It is a liberty to enjoy the blessings of a higher life,
and not a license to enter upon all sorts of indulgences.

The ground, then, on Avhich I ask persons to join the church, is
primarily this : that they are to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I appeal to the highest form of reason, and to the highest form of
moral sense, and ask. Is there any man that lives who can possibly,
for one single moment, standing out of the bcAvilderment of contro-
A'ersy, deny that he is under obligation to be faithful, if not -to any
other creature in the universe, at least to Him that loved him, and

88 THE SOCIAL FEINCIPLE

gave himself for him ? I say that the dearest name on earth, to you,
ought to be the name that your father loved, the name that your
mother worshipped, and the name that filled your childhood with
wholesome awe and reverence. And because it is unnatural for you
not to be united in faith, and hope, and love, and obedience, to your
God, I call upon every man to enter upon a Christian life — that is,
upon a personal union with Christ. I call upon you to open your soul
so that the divine influence shall find entrance to you, and give you
inspiration, and a spiritual perception of what is seemly, and just, and
of good report. I call upon every man to enter upon a Christian
life from the highest considerations — those of fidelity ; those of
fealty ; those of love and gratitude to God.

And when you have begun to live a Christian life, your soul will
tell you why you ought to come into church association. You will
find Christian life easier then. You will find sympathy. And others
who have had doubts will be helped by your experience. Often-
times the experience of one man clears the path of another man.

I call you into church fellowship, then, not because there is an
external law that says you must go into the church, but because in
church-fellowship you will live happier, more easily, and upon a
higher level ; because the public sentiment that surrounds you will
be a mighty tide that will buoy you up. I call you to church-fel-
lowship for reasons that inhere in your own experience, and in
your own profit. Do you love Christ? Then you should love
Christ's children. Do you love your father and mother ? and do
you hate your brother and sister ?

" Well but," says one, " I do not feel that I am worthy." If you
mean by that that you are conscious that you are living in the com-
mission, secretly or openly, of practices that are disallowed by mor-
ality, and that are abhorrent to religion, then my reply to your
objection is, Forsake evil, and learn to do well, and still press for-
ward in a Christian life, and with the Christian church. But if you
mean that you have not attained to that condition of spiritual ex-
cellence of which you have a conception, my reply is, that you are
like a school-boy who hangs about the school-house door, saying, " I
am afraid to go in. I do not think 1 know enough to go to school."
What is a school for ? Is it for knowing boys, or for ignorant boys ?

The church is a curative institution. It is an educating institu-
tion. Like every household, it has something of everything in it.
And because you are not worthy is one reason why you should be in
the church.

" 0 well," many say, " I fear that I shall not be able to maintain
all the duties and obligations that rest on a Christian." There is not

IN BELIGION, . 89

a duty nor an obligation that rests on a Christian, that does not rest
on you. There is not a single duty that will be incumbent upon
you when you go into the church, that is not incumbent upon you
now. Is there any obligation greater than this : Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy hearty and mind, and soul, and
strength, and thy neighbor as thyself? And does that rest on you
when you go into the church any more than it did before ? From
the day that you were born, almost ; from the time that you were
old enough to discern your right hand from your left, that, obliga-
tion has rested upon you. And that is the great obligation, tran-
scending all others, which will rest upon you when you go into the
church. It rests upon you whether you are in the church or out of it.

It is a shame for you to be a sinning man ; it is a shame for you
to be an un-God-fearing man ; it is a shame for you to fritter away
your time ; it is a shame for you to refuse allegiance to God. You
treat him with dishonor. You treat him as you would not treat
your neighbor. You would be ashamed to do by a fellow-man what
you are not ashamed to do by your God. And I appeal to you, by
all that is honorable and all that is right-minded in you, to begin a
higher life, and to begin it in association with others that are at-
tempting to do the same thing.

If you think you will fail, I think you will fail. I never knew a
man that did not fail. Yet the motto is, " Cast down but not de-
stroyed." If you stumble and fall, get up again. You are like men
journeying, part of the time through a morass, and part of the time
up rugged hills, and part of the time in thickets that tear them. And
it is not for you to insist that you will not walk a Christian life un-
less you can be in the king's highway, and unless you can keep
yourself intact. And I call you into the church that you may be
more profited in it than you can be out of it. I call you to a church
life because you need it.

Do you say, " I have all the restraints that I need " ; or, " I do
not need this inspiration " ? Do you say, " My house is better than
any other place. I can sit at home on Sunday ; I can read sermons ;
I can look out on the bay ; I can wander in the forests ; I can make
a better use of my time than by going to that miserable little vil-
lage church, and hearing a humdrum sermon which does not do
me any good " ? That is the way you have begun to live a life of
love, is it ?

Here is a man who has an income of fifty thousand dollars ; and
he is living in a village where there is not a man who gets more
than a dollar a day. There is trouble and poverty and sickness
all about him ; but he stays at home and says, " I find more comfort

90 THE SOCIAL PBINCIPLE

in my house than in going to these squalid cottages. I have to go
and take supper with these poor people, and mumble their miserable
crusts ; and I do not like it."

What do you think of that for a benevolent man, who stays at
home because it is pleasanter there ? He is so favored and fortunate
that he thinks it his duty to be selfish ! There is many a man who
is so dainty that he says, " I am not going to mix with common
church-people." There is fellowship for you ! You are so well
cultured, you are so far developed in the spiritual life, that you are
able to minister to yourself ; and so you say, " I am not going into
fellowship with those that are below me." There are thousands of
men who need what you can give them — your example and your
sympathy. They need to be made to feel that men who are higher
in life than they, do not feel above them. But if men like you were
obedient to the Scripture injunction. Condescend to men of low estate,
their fellow-men all through the community would be greatly com-
forted, and lifted far up toward heaven. If you know you can get
along yourself, do not forget that there are others who need much
assistance in getting along.

If you were a prince, and were riding in a gilded carriage, and
you saw a peasant's brat suffering by the road-side, it would be be-
coming in you to stop and take the miserable creature in, and let it
ride ; and if the mother were there faint and weary, it would be be-
coming in you to take her in also. It might soil your coach, and it
might disgust your servants ; but was ever a kingly coach put to a
better use than that of carrying God's poor ? If you are as much
better as you think, humility would make you better yet ; and sym-
pathy would make you still better. And you who do not think that
you need the church, remember that there are dying men who need
you.

Besides, there is another thing. I do not think one ought to
sail under false colors. You are a moral man, and a kind man ;
and wherever you are known in all your neighborhood, the im-
pression is that you will not go into the church. And men, com-
paring you with persons in the church who are not as good as you
are, come to think that morality makes better men than the church
does. So you are bearing false witness. They say, '* There is a
man who has not religion," and yet, you secretly have religion.
For you go to the same throne of grace that I do. You read
from the same Bible that I do. You have the same belief and
hope that I have. It is from God that you get the oil which makes
your lamp burn ; and men do not glorify God, but they glorify
you. Pointing to you, and to others, they say, " That man has

IN BELIGION. 91

morality, and these men have spirituality and are church members,
but he lives a more exemplary life than they do." There may be a
hundred reasons for this discrepancy which they do not know, and
which you do not know. The ignorance of those men, their tempta-
tions, and the troubles and trials of their business, may all conspire
to make it difficult for them to be consistent Christians. And it
ought not to be supposed that their imperfections are the fault of
the church or of religion. And I hold that if a man is living by the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, he ought somehow and somewhere
to let it be known. He ought to confess the source of his inspiration.
If you are enabled to resist temptation, and Christ enables you to
do it, you ought to confess it before the world somehow or other.
If you are living a noble and pure life, and it is Christ that enables
you to live such a life, you ought to acknowledge it among men. If
heaven is the source from which you are deriving your life and
strength, oh ! let men know where you get medicine, and where you
dig gold, that they, too, may have the same recourse. Do not bear
false witness. Do not leave men to think that you owe to morality
what you are secretly receiving from God.

I shaped this sermon for two reasons : partly because, having had
occasion, in some sermons lately, to speak of the bondage of exter-
nalities at the expense of the interior life, I do not want to have it
thought that I undervalue church-life and church-fellowship ; and
partly because there are many in this congregation who ought to
make a public profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are many of you who are living lives of prayer ; there are
many of you who are redeemed from death by the power of faith ;
there are many of you who only need to take the step of entering
upon a declared Christian life. And I feel that the time has come
for you to do it. Many of you ought to say to your children, " I
am a Christian man." There are many of you whose children need
to hear you say it. There are many of you that have neighbors who
would be greatly edified and strengthened if you were to array your-
self with God's people. If you were to take that step, you do not
know how many you would draw after you. If a river-boom breaks
away, trunk after trunk, branch after branch, refuse of every
description, that has been collecting for weeks, and months, and
perhaps years — the whole raft goes after it. And there are men
who stand like a boom in the community. One man backs iip
against another, and there they remain until the obstruction is re-
moved. And there are men in this congregation who, if they would
honestly and openly avouch the name of Jesus Christ^and publicly

92 TEE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE

"bear witness to tlieir faith in him, by uniting with the brethren here,
would bring in scores and scores with them.

The first Sabbath in May is coming. It is always a Sabbath cel-
ebrated as memorable among us ; it is a flower-day There is not
another Sunday of the year that is such a Sunday of ingathering as
that. It is very precious to many families. Some of you have saints
in heaven that come into this church on the first Sunday of May ;
the memory is sweet to you ; and you would like to have all your
other children come in on that Sunday, because it brings the living
and the departed so nearly together. It is a beautiful and crystaline
day in this church. It is going, this year, to be a crowded Sabbath ;
and many of you ought to come in. Your objections are not worthy
of longer delay. It seems to me that your impulses, so long sup-
pressed, ought to bear you forward, that your sense of duty ought
to be fulfilled, that you ought to join your strength to the sti'cngth
of your brethren, and in the presence of them all avouch the Lord
Jehovah to be your God, and Jesus Christ to be your Saviour, and
the Holy Spirit to be your Sanctifier.

The time is short. We are admonished by one and another that
are taken. One peg after another, and one cord aftei another, of
the tent, is snapped, or is drawn out of the sand, and very soon this
tabernacle shall be taken down, and we shall all give place to others.
Another generation is crowding us ; and what you do you must do
quickly. If among you there are any who have neglected their
opportunities for many years, let them bear in mind that if they
Berve Christ, they must begin at once for they have but a little
time left.

Fathers, for your children's sake, for your own sake, and for
Christ's sake, I pray you, come into the fellowship of Christ and the
brotherhood. Mothers, of all in the world, ought not to set such an
example to their children as will shipwreck them, I pray you, bring
the sweet offering of a grateful and regenerate heart, and lay it on
the altar of the Lord. Young men, maidens, all that hope for salva-
tion through Jesus Christ, for a victorious death and a triumphant
resurrection, I invoke you to gather yourselves together into the fel-
lowship of love, into the brotherhood of saints, into the household
of God.

TAT BELIGION. 93

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Thou that dost guide our thoughts, and inspire our feelings, grant unto
us now that inward light and inspiration by which we shall pray for the
things which we need, as we ought. We thank thee that we are supplied ;
that from thine open hand our outward life is maintained ; that we are
given suificient strength and skill to maintain from day to day all our out-
ward relations, and to supply our wants. "We thank thee that thou hast
put within the reach of our own powers the fruit of affection, and that we
gather from all the amenities and associations of the household the blessings
of love. We rejoice that there is something better than food for the body,
or even for the ordinary affections, and that we may rise together into a
realm yet higher, to meet thee, to find ourselves the citizens of a better
country, membeis of a nobler household— even the household of God.

Oh! how little do we know of this upper life and realm! How little do
we know of the things that are within our reach ! How little do we know
of the things which are beyond our ordinary grasp ! It is thy Spirit that
maketh intercession through us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We pray for the mediation and the help of the divine Spirit in us, so that
we may not only ask the things which we consciously need, but may learn
to ask the unknown things which we need more than the known. We pray
that thou wilt grant unto us intimacy, fellowship, life, day by day— life
hidden in thine, that all the sources of our life may be in God, in whom we
live and have our being. We pray for the forgiveness of our sins. We pray
for a heart set free from a life of sin. We pray that we may have evidence
in us that by thy blessed help we are from day to day overcoming easily be-
setting sins ; that we are strong against evil ; that we are powerful to resist
temptation, and to subdue it.

And we beseech of thee, O Lord I that thou wilt grant unto us more and
mor© to grow into the image of God; that we may find in ourselves the
likeness of our Father more and more clearly coming out. We pray that
we may be strengthened in all that is good, and that goodness in us may
take on higher and higher forms from day to day. And as the time is draw-
ing near when we must lay aside these mortal bodies; as all things which
minister to them are growing less and less of account to us, grant that we
may have evidence that we have a life with God, and that we are preparing
for the fellowship of the higher life in heaven. More and more may invis-
ible treasure begin to have value with us. More and more may we live by
faith. May we be blessed by hope. May we have a holy fear, looking unto
things which are reserved,— unto that rest which remaineth unto the people
of God, And while we are not to ask that we may be set free from these
mortal bodies, and the duties that are now incumbent upon us, yet may we
have a gladness of heart; may we anticipate with holy joy the time when
we shall be free from the body, and from its temptations, and from its bur-
dens, and from its sorrows, and from its sufferings, and shall rise and be as
the angels of God. We pray that unto this communion, unto these holy
hopes and aspirations, all they may be brought who are dear to us. May all
our households become households of faith. May all those whom we are
associated with in daily business, have in them the beginnings of this higher
life. Grant that everywhere we may be able to carry out the fruit of a true
piety, in all gentleness, in all humility, in all honor and fidelity, so that men,
seeing our good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven.

We pray for all that are in trouble. Whatever it may be, we commend
them to thy succor, and to thy comforting spirit. We pray for all that are

94 THE SOCIAL FBINCIFLE IN RELIGION.

burdened and vexed with worldly things. And we beseech of thee that as
their day is, their strength may be also. And may they not be led by temp-
tation, nor by any pressure, out of the straight and narrow way.

We pray for all those who are endeavoring to build up thy cause and thy
kingdom. May they have grace given them to do it wisely. And not only
grant that they may be able to speak the words of truth, but grant that
they may be able, in their daily life and conversation, to bear out the testi-
mony of Christ more perfectly than by word or by doctrine.

We pray for the poor, for the outcast, for the neglected, for the vicious,
for the criminal, for all that are in jails and in prisons, for all that are in
hospitals, for all that are in asylums, for all that are not gathered, but that
wander in the ways of wickedness and license. We beseech of thee that
thou wilt grant that there may be more and more effort for the ingather-
ing of the wandering sheep. Bring them back to the Shepherd and Bishop
of their souls.

We pray, to-day, that all who are gathered together in thy name may
find thee in the midst of them. Fulfill thy most gracious promises to them
all. Grant that there may be more and more strength given to feeble
Churches. More and more may their wants be supplied by able men, min-
istering in thy name. Spread abroad the light of truth ; spread abroad the
hope of the Gospel ; spread abroad the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, until
all nations shall know thee, and thy name shall be honored in all the earth,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and righteousness shall abide for-
ever. And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Command thy blessing, our heavenly Father, upon the word spoken.
Grant that it may go forth with a sacred leaven from on high, and that it
may work in the thoughts and feelings of every one of thy creatures. Sanc-
tify to us the privileges of our earthly estate. We rejoice in thy Church.
We rejoice in this great spiritual, invisible, glorious communion with thy
saints. We rejoice that from our childhood we knew of it, and felt its
power. We thank thee for the preciousness of its associations, and for the
preciousness of the experience which we have had in connection with it.
Where is there such love as that which we have formed in thy Church?
We rejoice in it, and pray that it may carry with it more divine power.
And may the earth at last feel its influence, and be filled with thy glory.
We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

The Faith of Love.

Thou that dwellest in light, wilt thou grant unto us, this morning, the
light of thy countenance, the joy of thy salvation. Help our thoughts, this
day, to forsake all thiugs familiar and accustomed, and to rise into com-
munion with thee. May we have that blessed vision, and the joy thereof,
which they have who by faith discern thee and the heavenly land. May
cares, and sorrows, and burdens, and doubts, and temptations, all flee away,
and may we dwell in the calm and sweet light, this morning, that comes
from thy countenance, rejoicing in thee, and having fellowship one ^ith
another. In all the service in thy house, to-day, and in the service of the
hours at home, may we have thine inspiration, and thy blessing, and thy
favor. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

THE FAITH OF LOVE.

"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast
believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."—
Jno. XX. <J9.

We shall not immediately comment upon this passage, although
it is the axis upon which the thoughts of the discourse will turn.
We shall come to it in the regular sequence of the history of the
events which took place upon the morning of the resurrection. The
whole scene which followed the resurrection, and which is sketched

in the Gospel, is one not simply of transcendent beauty one which

indicates great dramatic power, without a parallel ; but it is one
which, the more it be studied, the more familiar we become with it
the more admirable it seems. In what one of the Greek dramas
in what one of Shakespeare's dramas, are there such elements ?
Where, in dramatic writings, is there such a whirl of all human
passions and events, as those that shook tumultuous Jerusalem
the day before, and during the trial of the Saviour ? Such a
scene, on such a background as the crucifixion, and such a scene
following, transcend, inconceivably, the boldest thing that ever was
dreamed of. The attempt to represent so tremendous a period as
the three days preceding and including the crucifixion of our
Saviour, and his resurrection, is without an equal. There have been
notions floating in the world of incarnations ; but they were mostly
monstrous and grotesque, and they were without moral aim or pur-
port largely, for the worst of reasons — passional, degrading, corrupt-
ing. But when and where before was there a conception of the
paternity of God ? When and where before was there a conception
of God, out of the fullness of time, at last dawning through the
darkness of this world and coming into it, to be a Brother, and a
Friend, and a Guide, and a Saviour, and God manifest in the flesh,
for the whole race ?

That is the phenomenon, and that is the drama, that is to be
enacted — how such a being should live ; how he should approach
the hour of death ; how he should deport himself in the trial

(Easter) Sunday Morning, April 9, 1871. Lesson : ISA. LX. Hymns (Plymouth
Collection): Nos. 2S4, 255, 058.

98 THE FAITH OF LOYF.

through which he -went ; how he should come forth from the
sepulchre. And in reading this sublime drama of history, one is
struck with the unconscious and exquisite skill with which the
terrible scenes of which it is made up are relieved.

It was a canon of Greek art, never to represent pain and horror
with such prominence as, on the whole, to overcome the sense of
pleasure produced by the drama, picture or sculpture. It is a
sound rule of art. And although the recorders of these scenes
had no ideal of a drama before their mind, and were recording
simply a history, if they had Deen instructed m Athens, they could
not more skillfully have brought in the points of light and relief over
against what otherwise would have been unredeemed horror.

Such little touches as those which were given after the Saviour
had gone forth upon the way — as, for instance, the outburst and
tender greeting of the women — not only threw a light on his feelings,
but also relieved our feelings, which would otherwise have been
wrought to too great a tension. When he is crucified, no details are
given. The most shocking details of the crucifixion have been given
in history, and have been given in sermons ; but the insj)ired pen-
men merely speak of the events, and go into no particulars. There
is no casting of him down. There is no stretching out of the hands.
There is no piercing of the feet with the nails. There is no sound
of hammers. There are none of these circumstances which a spurious
history has doubtless magnified. The record says, " They crucified
liim" — that is all. And it is sublime in its nakedness and simplicity,
as well as beautiful in the exquisiteness of its art.

Connected with his crucfixion, there has always been a relief to
me in the self-possession which was indicated. They put a sponge
upon a reed, with vinegar, mixed with myrrh. That is, wine and
myrrh were mixed, and used for the purpose of an anaesthetic, to
deaden sensibility. It was something that was given as we give
chloroform. He tasted it, but would not take it. He smiled it
away. He preferred to go through his suiFerings in the possession
of his unobstructed faculties. That calm superiority in the hour of
extreme anguish, always diff'used a light and relief over my mind.

And then, there was the scene of that touching conversation be-
tween the Saviour and the thief Who else would have dreamed of
such a scene as that ? Who would have dared to attempt it ? Who
that attempted it could ever have accomplished it ? And yet, as it
stands, it is full of relief, and full of beauty — of beauty where you
least would have expected it, in the anguish of crucifixion.

Then, look at the tender farewell which he addressed to his moth-
er. Most simple, most natural, and most unostentatious, was it j and

THE FAITH OF LOVE. 99

yet, there it stands, an exquisite flower, blossoming at the foot of
the cross.

Look, also, at the self-control, the love and the divinity, with
which he breathed a prayer of sympathy and forgiveness on those
that were murdering him. Nor is there wanting a certain relief to
the tragic nature of the scene, in the groups that surrounded the
cross. On the one side was the group of women, whose courage in
that hour was a courage of love and sympathy, which rose superior
to the zeal and courage of manhood. For the men shrunk away, and
held themselves at a safe distance — with one exception : that of the
feminine disciple, John. He stood faithful. Over against the women
were groups of the Roman soldiers, gambling at the foot of the
cross. They had done their work, and while waiting they were
dividing the Saviour's garments. They threw dice to see who should
have the whole one ; and the others they separated. And it is said
that they sat down and watched him. Here were these contrasting
groups — the women on the one side, and the hoary gamblers on the
other, the one watching with tender eyes of love, and the other with
hard eyes of cruelty.

And so, while the central Figure is never lost, while we never for
one moment waver in our interest in him, all these unconscious and
unintended touches relieve the stress of feeling ; and we read again,
and again, and again, and never are tired of reading, this matchless
scene of the crucifixion of Christ.

I suppose the finer our natures become, and the more delicate
are the rules of criticism which we bring to bear upon this history
of the Jast hours of God manifest in the flesh, the better it will stand
the test of criticism, and the more surely it will come out evidently
inspired.

Where else, in any drama, is there an attempt to depict a God
coming from the grave as a human suggestion ? It is simply auda-
cious. Yet, if you will look at this, you will, I think, be struck with
the skill (not purposed skill), with the rare art, in the best and high-
est use of that term, that is manifested in the conduct of this part of
the history. It is not a slight circumstance, in my judgment, that
the resurrection of Christ is not painted at all; that there is no at-^
tempt made to paint it. The Saviour is presented to us as lying
calm as marble. Nor is there a description of the first stirrings or
ever he came forth at the angel-touch. There is no depicting of these
things. All that we know is that when the morning dawned, and
they went into the sepulchre to find him, he was not there.

And it is a beautiful transition to our conception, that angels are
introduced into the tomb. The management of spirits has always

100 THE FAITH OF LOVE.

y >

"been the test of genius ; but where can you find such management
of spirits as here ? Where can you find angelic appearances so fit ?
Where can you find demeanor so admirable ? Where can you find
words so noble ? For, while angels are represented as singing at
the advent of the Saviour, they are represented as sitting silent in
the sepulchre. Two, there were ; and we may imagine one the angel
of Hope, and the other the angel of Memory ; as if the angel at the
feet were tracing the history of Christ as " a man of sorrow and
acquainted with grief," while the angel at the head was looking for
the joy that was before him, and into which he was about to enter ?
Where can you find so fit an appearance of angels ? There is no
machinery ; there is no ostentation ; there is no undue prominence
given to this feature of the scene. It was just sketched in with a
single stroke.

And then, the appearance of the Saviour is not represented so
much by describing him, as by describing the efiect which was pro-
duced upon the minds of those who were cognizant of his resurrec-
tion.

This is rare art, and it would take the finest skill to carry it out,
were it left to skill. We shall not find, in all this history, a single
mis-stroke. The most stupenduous thing to be done, is done freely,
and strongly, and perfectly ; and yet it is done without a mistake.
Not a line could be obliterated. There is not one misadjustment. It
agrees entirely with all that we know. The more critical we are,
the better. All we know of human nature is met, and we are more
than pleased — we are surprised — at every step.

Take the picture, for instance, of serenity. I do not know where
I get that feeling ; but as I read this connected history, it seems to
me as though the crucifixion was like one of those summer thunder-
storms that we have, in which all the heavens appear to be full of
darkness, and conflict, and turmoil. The terrible thunder-cracks that
roll through the darkness ; the great striving winds that now tug
at the trees which groan under their hands, and that now beat on
the house ; the hissing rain ; all the wild commotion of the elements
— ^these fill the soul full of imaginations and strange terrors. And
yet, we sleep (I used to, as a child), and wake, and sleep; and when
the morning comes, there is not a cloud in the air. It is as if the
heavens were one vast bowl, or goblet, filled with the wine of life.
And the sun seems steeping the very heavens. Not a leaf moves
except when a drop of water falls from it and changes its equipoise.
And all the birds sing, and all voices seem jubilant, and all the
earth seems refreshed and more beautiful. And so it affects me
when I read of the tumult of the crucifixion on Calvary, and the
after quiet.

TEE FAITH OF LOVF. 101

For then, there are the scenes of the garden — the ministration
of angels ; the sweet surprise of the different groups that came to
the sepulchre. It is all tranquil. It is all joyful. Previous to that
event there had been tumult, from the time of Christ's appearance
on the earth ; but when once he has passed the portals of the tomb ;
when once he has come forth from the sepulchre, it is all serene ; it
is all sweet. It is as it should be. Now we can see it. The Saviour
has risen ; and all the signs and tokens of his presence are gladness
and radiance and peace.

There is an utter absence, I have said, of any stage effect. The
impression which Jesus makes is that of one who is hovering between
this life and the life to come. He is of the earth, manifestly ; he
wears a body ; he has the appetites ; he eats, he drinks, and he
walks ; he has flesh and bones, the genuineness of which he ex-
pressly told his disciples to ascertain for themselves ; and yet there
is an air of distance about him. He is not as familiar to us as before
his crucifixion. He seems to touch nothing with that same human
sense of feeling that he once did. There is a sort of sacredness
about him, as though he were on the way up to his spiritual con-
dition. There is a certain ethereality which works strangeness, not
expressed by any formal statement, but coming upon us uncon-
sciously from the artless narrative.

He first meets the group of women who are on their way to
Jerusalem, and says, "All hail!" Then he meets Mary, who is
bewildered in the garden, and brings her to a consciousness of his
presence. Next, he overtakes certain disciples walking to Emmaus,
and discourses to them in a manner that seems to them very strange
— weird, even. Afterward, he makes himself known to them at the
breaking of bread in the house, and then disappears. And they,
hurrying, rush back to Jerusalem, and there gather the disciples to-
gether in a chamber apart, for fear of the Jews, and he is present
with them, and makes himself known to them.

Then, there is that strange scene on the shores of the lake of
Galilee, where he calls in the fishermen that have returned from
their toil, and Speaks with them. There is also the mountain scene,
where some five hundred gather together and believe on him —
" but some doubted."

The account of the ascension is matchless in grandeur and sim-
plicity ; and it would have been hazardous for Shakespeare to at-
tempt to depict such a scene. He would have been left far behind.

Look at the fact of the sudden appearance of Christ to his dis-
ciples after his crucifixion. There was not one of them who doubted
that he had been slain. About that there was no question. In

102 THE FAITH OF LOVE.

general, you will find that there was an intense bewilderment, re-
sulting from alternating emotions. Yet, there was no extravagance
in the conduct of any of them. There was nothing artificial or
strange in their demeanor. If this had been a made-up history, what
efibrts would men have made to depict the efiect produced upon the
diflerent temperaments and the difierent constitutional peculiarities
of these disciples ! And yet, there is no efibrt of this kind. There is
no artificial limning. We see just what we might have expected to
see, and what we ought to have expected to see.

I have alluded to the historic management of the scene in the
tomb. I have alluded to the meeting of the disciples with the angels.
But see how, at the meeting of the disciples with the Saviour, the
difierent avenues of conviction were opened in them severally. That
peculiar experience is described in which there is a violent strife, and
an unbelief, by reason of the alternations of joy and of fear. And
this is graphically set forth in a few words :

" And they departed quickly from the sepulchre [having heard what the
angels said], with fear and great joy; [for they trembled and were amazed.
Neither said they anything to any man. They were unconscious of anybody
around them, so intense was their inward feeling ; for they were afraid,] and
did run to bring his disciples word ; and as they went to tell his disciples,
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail."

And in the instant this wild excitement, this tumult of hope and
of joy and of fear, culminated in conviction. And they fell down on
the ground before him.

" They came and held him by the feet, and worshiped him."
And yet, they were trembling all over, full of awe ; and Jesus
saw it.

" Then said Jesus unto them. Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that
they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me."

Then see what a beautiful touch there is of human nature, and^
one that no man ever would have thought of who was making up
this history. I mean that little characteristic scene between John

, ' Peter. They heard, you know, some tidings about Christ's dis-
i>^ i>earance from the sepulchre, and they started and ran to the gar-
den. They had a race ; and John beat Peter. John could not dis-
guise his joy : he had to put it in his own narrative that he beat
Peter. Now, I do not think anybody making up a history of this
event would have put in that circumstance. And yet, I am glad it is
in this narrative. On the whole, I am glad that John beat Peter.

" Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple [as John always
called himself], and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together [neck
and neck, for awhile] ; and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came
first to the sepulchre. And, he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen
clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following
him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the

lEE FAITH OF LOVE. 103

napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but
wrapped together in a place by itself."

I never could imagine why there should have been all that par-
ticularity of telling where the grave-clothes lay. I never could make
it seem that there was any object in it. It was the habit of men, in
telling a thing which they had seen, to tell it just as they saw it. If
they were making up a history of the event, they would not, per-
haps, stop to put in all these little circumstances ; but if they were
describing the scene as they saw it, they would put them in, and let
folks make out of them what they could.

There is another scene in connection with the first appearing of
Christ after his resurrection, where there is a remarkable manifesta-
tion of grief and of love, which seems to me in many respects the
most exquisite scene in literature. It is that which is narrated of
Mary in the garden. There is the unbelief of sorrow, and there is
the believing of love :

" Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared
first to Mary Magdalen," "Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and
as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two
angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where
the body of Jesus had lain."

Blessed ai'e they who weep, and who in their grief look into the
sepulchre, and who are wise and inspired to see angels, even iu the
tomb.

" And they say unto her. Woman, why weepest thou ? She saith unto
them. Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they
have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and
saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her,
Woman, why weepest thou ? Whom seekest thou ? She, supposing him to
be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me
where thou hast laid him, and 1 will take him away."

Even his death was more precious to her than the life of any
other creature.

'Jesus [throwing all the old-time love into his voice] saith unto her,
Mary. She turned herself, and said unto him, Rabboni ; which is to say,
Master."

She did not see his hand, nor his side ; but ah ! that tone — she
had heard it before, and it struck the old chord of love ; and no
music could compare with that. There was just this one breathing
of her name, and love knew him, and sprang to life and to joy.

There is another scene, where we see the conflict of fear. It is
one that took place after the disciples had walked with the Saviour
to Emmaus, They had seen him ; and they went back to Jerusalem
and revealed their experience to the disciples that were gathered
together there. The doors were shut where the disciples were as-
Bgimbled, for fear of the Jews. So we see them huddled together in

104 TEH FAITH OF LOYE.

a secret place, in the utmost obscurity, doubtless wliispering rather
than talking.

" And as they sat at meat, they [these disciples from Emmaus] told what
things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking
of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them,
and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they
believed not them which had seen him after he was risen ; and he saith unto
them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and sup-
posed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them. Why are ye
troubled ? and why do thoughts arise in yottr hearts ? Behold my hands
and my feet, that it is I myself : handle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

He comforts them, just as a mother comforts an affrighted child,
soothing its fear, and bringing it to the object which it dreads, and
making it look at it and handle it.

" Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord."

Of course they were. What simplicity to put that in ! and yet,
how beautiful it is, being put in !

" And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto
them. Have ye here any meat ?"

First, they would not believe from fear ; and yet they did believe.
They believed, and yet they could not believe, because it was so
joyful.

Have you never had this experience yourself? Have you never
said, " This is too good to be true" ? Have you never been so happy
that you pinched yourself to see whether you were not asleep ? Have
you never wished to test the reality of what you believed ?

How continually has it struck me, and how it strikes me yet,
what simplicity of instruments and means there is in this narrative,
and how little expenditure there is of machinery ! Indeed, there is
no machinery in it. It is desultory, almost. It certainly is un-
studied and unconscious.

There is one more instance which is of interest in connection with
this event — that which relates to Thomas, with a portion of whose
history I opened this discourse. After this scene of the disciples in
the secret room in Jerusalem, where it is said that Thomas was not
present, other disciples said unto him, ** We have seen the Lord." No
man can tell the exultation which must have gone with the utterance
of that simple declaration, " We have seen the Lord."

Now, Thomas was a man of reason ; he was a philosopher. He
had no objection whatever to believing ; but he wanted proof; and
he wanted the proof to be of a particular kind. And when all the
disciples were aglow, he was unmoved. He knew them ; he knew
their nature ; he knew their veracity ; he could not but have known
that their testimony was sufficient, at least, to ci-eate a joyful pre-
sumption. But with a sort of conceit and loftiness, as much as to
Bay, " They may be imposed upon, but I cannot be," he said,

THE FAITH OF LOYE. 105

" Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger
into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not be-
lieve."

It is as if be liad said, " I must be present wben I am convinced ;
and it must be according to my mind and my nature, and not by
sympathy, that the evidence shall come."

" And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with
them : then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and
said. Peace be unto you."

How singularly full of peace Christ was, both in the last hours
preceding his crucifixion, and afterward, every time that he met his
disciples !

" Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands ;
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side ; and be not faithless,
but believing."

" It was too much for poor Thomas. He cried out,
" My Lord and my God !"

Well, Thomas was a good fellow, after all. He did not mean
any harm. He had a heart in him. He only had a touch of vanity.
He was not going to believe because others did. Jesus came to him
with that sweetness, and tenderness, and beautifulness : and the
moment he saw Jesus, he could not resist another instant, and he
cried out,

" My Lord and my God."

Thank Thomas for that.

"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast be-
lieved : blessed are they that have not seen me, and yet have believed."

This is not a rebuke of the desire to have physical evidence of
physical facts, at all ; nor is it a rebuke of Thomas for desiring to
identify the Saviour past all mistake ; but it seems to me that there
was an inward feeling which inspired that rebuke of Christ. It is
as if he had said, " After living so many years with me ; after ex-
periencing the intimacy and the enduring love that you have ; after
knowing all that you have known, was there nothing in your hope,
was there nothing in your love, was there nothing in the probabili-
ties of the history of my bearing toward the other disciples, was there
nothing in you that was touched by their testimony?" It was a
reproach to the love of Thomas. Christ as much as said, " If ye had
loved me, Thomas, as I have loved you, you would have needed no
other evidence. The intuition of love would have made you sure,
when you heard one and another and another bear testimony that
I, your Lord and Master, had risen."

The scene, looked at in this light, is inexpressibly beautiful to
me. I am touched by this appeal of the Saviour for belief to the
deepest part of our nature, and not to the eyes nor the hands.
Though these are proper instruments to be employed in ascertain-

106 THE FAITR OF LOVE.

ing the truth, yet, as between friends, the heart ought to interpret.
As between friends, testimony ought to be received, and cold proofs
of a physical nature ought not to be insisted upon.

Time would fail me to go into all the details of this matchless
part of the history, covering the first few days after the resurrection
of Christ ; but I ask you whether, if you look at it closely, you can
conceive of anything more transcendent ? Can you conceive of the
revelation of a risen Christ to his disciples, under circumstances
more fit, and in ways that would touch more perfectly your sense of
poetry, your sense of afiection, your sense of dignity, or your sense
of fidelity to duty ? Is it not rare in limning, and exquisite in color-
ing; and chiefly, is it not striking for simplicity ? And how much of
effect is brought out with how little efibrt ! For, one might read
over all this history of the few days after the resurrection of Christ,
in certain moods, and be little afliected by it ; one might go through
the whole of it, in an external state, and not have a single point
sti-ike him ; but the moment that a man comes into a state of real
susceptibility, the moment that his higher feelings are developed, it
is full of meaning, and its contents are not less than marvelous to
him.

Well, then, is this a fictitious history ? Is it a myth ? One of
the recent theories by which the authenticity of the Gospels is sought
to be done away with, is that there were certain occurrences, that
these occurrences were magnified in the eyes of the people, that they
were recorded thus magnified, and that they were handed down to a
later period as real facts of history ; whereas, they were only a bun-
dle of myths. But where before was there ever a mythical history
that so far outran the best things which philosophy or art could do ?
Where before was there ever a history born, as it is said, by the
brooding of superstition or ignorance among the common people,
which was able to unfold such a transcendent vision of the Divine
Being, under circumstances so critical, and where, to follow nature,
would so mark the highest efibrts of genius, if it were the work of
genius alone ?

But if this be simply the recital of facts, then what must those
facts have been ? If the narrative, in its almost ragged artlessness,
with the various elements thrown together without any attempt to
produce a scenic or tragic eflfect is so transcendently beautiful, what
must the scenes themselves have been ! And what an unanswerable
argument is here, to those that can appreciate it, of the authenticity
of this part of the history of our Lord and Saviour !

Now, for ourselves, there is, in the first place, the historical ar-
gument for Christ, which is good, and to be studied. It is neither

THE FAITR OF LOVE, 107

to te undervalued nor to be made too much of. It is the appeal of
exterior facts to the interior reason. It is the sam^ argument with
which we ply the documents that remain of the history of Rome, or
of the history of Greece, or of the history of the Oriental Empire.
All the Gospels submit themselves to the same historic tests. Nor
ought Ave to fear. For there is that in these narratives which will
defy destruction. So much that is beautiful, so much that yet trans-
cends our power to conceive by the imagination, so much that is in
the highest degree superhuman, is there, that it is incredible, utterly,
that it should not have happened. Historic tests and processes
brought to bear upon the text of the New Testament may for a time
cloud it, may for a time disturb the regularity of men's belief in it,
but in the end they cannot but confirm this history of a supernatural
event. :

I would not, then, undervalue your reading of historical argu-
ments for proof of the reality of Christ's life, and of the events con-
nected with it, and recorded of it ; but there is to be found here
evidence of the divinity of Christ without this external historical
argument. There is that to which the Saviour himself alludes, in
his appeal to Thomas, to whom he said, as it were, " You believe be-
cause you have seen me. You have had sensuous evidence [the
equivalent of historical evidence] ; you have believed according to
ordinary rules of belief, by which men judge of lower truths —
truths of fact, and truths of science. Blessed are they that believe,
not having seen. Blessed are they that have had such a recognition
of the divine element, that they believed, not simply by physical or
historical proof, but by their own moral intuition and inward per-
ception." The evidence which rises above all others, is that of per-
sonal experience. The highest faculties are concerned in it — and in
their holiest hours. It is the testimony of our very best manhood
in its ripest conditions. Not when we are turmoiled in the world,
not when pride is striving, not when our lower nature is in the
ascendancy, do we ever show sensibility to evidence in respect to
the divinity of Christ. It is impossible, in a war of words, in a con-
flict of arguments, in the jealousies and hatreds which come up be-
tween men, to reach the highest evidence of Christ's divinity. But
when once life has, as it were, not for fear of the Jews, but for fear
of evil, shrunk back into a room by itself ; when we are gathered,
as the disciples were, where Christ is accustomed to meet us — then
it IS that he comes and says personally to us, " Peace be unto
you." It is in those hours when we have the advantage of our
best nature in the best circumstances, that Christ manifests himself
to us. That is the time when the best part of our nature rises up,

108 TEE FAITH OF LOVE.

and pleads that it may be true that Christ is a reality, and that all
the aspirations and yearnings of the soul, and all its joys in antici-
pation, may not be as a baseless vision.

This is a true evidence. Though it is as possible to pervert it as
any other evidence ; though a heated imagination may suppose itself
to know in whom it has trusted, and be mistaken ; yet all things of
this kind do not work any diminution in the force of the reality.
Where one is in the upper moods, in the deepest moods, in the best
moods ; where the soul is most aroused in its noblest parts ; where
Christ appears to us, and says individually to us, " Peace be unto
you ;" or where he speaks other words of love, and all things re-
spond to the divine touch — there is evidence which no man can
gainsay, who wishes to know himself. It may not be evidence to you
that another believes it, but that should be the best evidence to
you which you have in yourself.

The highest evidence of Christ and his divinity can only be
given to one person at a time. It is gathered out of each per-
son's own heart-life and heart-experience. I think I may say fear-
lessly and joyfully that hundreds and thousands — hundreds within
the scope of your knowledge — have lived with this inward testi-
mony of a risen Christ in their own moral experience, and have lived
above the world, you being witnesses. You know that that noble
woman, your mother, lived by the sight of something which you
did not see. There was a vision to her. You remember it. What
strange serenity she manifested in darkness and trouble ! What
wondrous sweetness of patience she exhibited under untold exaspera-
tions ! What singular fidelity was shown by her when all motives
to fidelity seemed gone, and every motive to the reverse conduct
seemed regent ! You remember that mother, that wife, that sister,
who seem hanging in your memory almost like sainted spirits, who
did not touch the earth so much as to soil the foot. You believe
that their life was hid in Christ, and that they lived by a faith that
worked by love. And would you dispossess yourself of that belief
if you could ? Would you take out from yourself the recollection
that those who are dearest to you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ
as their very God, and lived and died in the sti'ength of that faith ?
Would you wipe out that fact if you could ?

Have you not seen persons that were not nearly connected with
you ; persons that were in poverty ; persons that were in sickness ;
persons that were in all manner of misfortunes ; persons that were
in obscurity ; persons that were eminent in suffering ; persons that
walked in the world almost without any of its fruitions and fruits —
have you not seen such persons who yet walked victoriously and

TEE FAITH OF LOYE, 109

songfully ? The wretches and the outcasts are often happier than
the most favored sons of fortune. It is the harp, or the viol, or the
lute, that makes music in mansions of pleasure and saloons of wealth ;
but, after all, there is no such wondrous spiritual joy as you find in
the hut and the hovel ; and the dying pauper in the poorhouse may
have more music in his soul than the richest son of pleasure has ever
known in the resplendent mansions of his wealth.

Such arguments are but poor in statement, I know ; but they are
great in experience. I do not believe a sensitive, yearning moral
nature can stand in the presence of one who knows in whom he has
trusted, and who is full of this unconquered and unconquerable faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not be himself infected with a holy
sympathy with that same faith and that same belief.

Why should men want to cast away this belief ? Do men desire
to cast oif their raiment in winter, when ugly storms howl and rage ?
Do men wish to break down the door of the protecting house and
let all the severity of the weather in ? When hunger gnaws, do
men, on a voyage, desire to hurl into the sea the food that attracts
their appetite ? When men are suffering the pangs of sickness, and
all the throes of fever are upon them, do they desire to press away
the physician's hand that bears the relieving medicine ? Men covet
these things. And what, in the round earth, is there that a man
needs which Jesus has not offered in himself,' who comes to us, not
to condemn but to save, not to judge us but to love us into purity;
who comes to seek and to save the lost ; who speaks with matchless
wisdom to those that will listen to his voice ; who walks with all the
grandeur of a God ; who, with all the tenderness of a mother's love,
goes through the scenes of earthly suffering ; who, more and more
marvelous to the very good, dawns again from the grave, brighter
than a morning star, and sheds the beams of peace around about
him ; who fills all his disciples with overpowering joy ; and who
goes among men blessing those that believe in him though they have
not seen him, relieving sickness, redeeming men from the power of
misfortune, lifting them above temptation, crowning them with a
holy courage, helping them to live lives of faith, and enabling
them in their last hours to rejoice, the heart singing while the body
perishes — the inward man being renewed while the outward man is
decaying ?

Who does not desire such a faith, such a holy strength, such
nourishment of all that is best in him ? Let them seek to hew down
this shadowy truth of life who will ; as for me, I stand under the
branches of that holy hope of the Son of God, my Lord and my
Saviour. If this be idolatry, I will face the universe with my Idol,

110 THE FAITH OF LOVE,

and will perish, if need be, in the proclamation of my confidence in

Jesus Christ, the Joy and Strength of life.

" Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I
desire besides thee."

Do not be afraid, then, to trust utterly ; and if you waver, if
you permit your heart to be discouraged and despondent, if you
fall down low, and lower, to mere physical evidence, if you abandon
this testimony of the Spirit of God striving with your spirit, this
moral sensibility to Jesus Christ, remember that your Master, yet
one day, may say to you as he said to Thomas,

" Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

On this very joyful day — a day that I love because it is joyful —
let us fill our houses full of gladness. Let us to-day speak to our
children of the beauty of Christ and the joyfulness of Christ. Let
us banish every ray of darkness. Let us keep out every alternative
thought. Let us look up. We are the children of light, on this
blessed day. Our Lord is risen ; he has ascended ; he ever liveth to
make intercession for us. Let us keep that bright side, that blos-
soming beauty and glory of Christ, filling our own hearts and our
own habitations, to-day, full of gladness ; may we say one to an-
other, " Our Lord is risen." And may it be in our own hearts that
he shall have risen — risen never again to go down, but to give us
light in life, in death, and in immortality.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Grant unto us, this morning, our heavenly Father, that invitation of the
Spirit, that welcome, by which we shall know that we are remembered. We
cannot bridge the distance between us and thee, ourselves. Nor have we
strength to fly through all the space. We cannot lift ourselves into the con-
ception of thy glory, nor of the estate of the blessed. Condescend unto us,
thou that dost seek and save the lost. Come to us, and bring us the sug-
gestion of thy life, of thy love, of thine holy habitation, and of the rest
which remaineth for the people of God. Illumine our hearts, to-day, that
we may not be discouraged in our pilgrimage ; that wo may not count the
truth, by which we have thus far been sustained, as a cunningly devised
fable- that it may not elude our thought, nor escape the grasp of our nature
day by day. For we need to have a perpetual resurrection in ourselves of
faith and hope and love. And we rejoice to come to thee this morning— the
morning that brings to us, tenderly and afresh, the concourse of thoughts
and prayers and joys of all thy people throughout the earth. We desire to
come to thee this morning, when before our minds rises clearly the thought
of thy triumph, of thy blessed resurrection, of thy supreme and serene joy,
and of the bewildering fear and gladness and struggle of all thy disciples,
who lost thee, and found thee, and knew it not. We desire to come to thee
this morning, O, our ascended Saviour I Thou that hast said that thy Father

TEE FAITR OF LOVE. HI

was Our Father, and that thy God was our God ; thou that hast bound us unto
thee by the ties of love and promise; thou that hast witnessed to us a thous-
and times, in thought and in feeling ; thou that hast twined thyself around
about the experiences, most sacred, of our inward life; thou that hast sus-
tained us in outward conflict and in trouble ; thou that hast helped us to seek
our household, as we do our joy, with the heavenly light ; thou that hast sent
us stars to shine in the hours of our darkness ; thou that hast taught us to
love, and all the meaning of loving, and its everlasting course— we draw near
to thee to rejoice, and offer thanksgiving ; to make known all our gladness,
not in words (for no language can speak that which our hearts can experi-
ence) but by laying our souls open to thy sight. We draw near to thee, this
morning, as our Brotht r, our Exemplar, our Friend above all friends, our-
Leader, our Forerunner, our Mediator, our Saviour, our God. And we
give to thee all that we can give to any. When we have cast before thee
our thought of reverence, and of worship, and of fidelity, and our innermost

affection, there is nothing left— nothing stronger, nor purer, nor higher

that we can offer to any other one. It is to thee, and yet to the Father. It
is to thee, and yet to the Spirit. We do not understand the mystery of the
God-head. We know that when our hearts are lifted up to worship thee,
there is no jealousy between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and that all
the little we can do, is accepted with infinite grace. For as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. And thou dost pity our
ignorance, and our want of scope in understanding. Though we are
entangled in many thoughts, and find the places that are void and that are
dark to be vast in comparison with the points of light in true knowledge,
we know enough to love ; aud there is everlasting ground. We love thee
O Lord Jesus Christ- as thou hast taught us to love. We are as branches of
the vine. We take ffom thee our nutriment. We bring forth fruit by rea-
son of that which thou dost give unto us. We are saved by thee, and yet by
ourselves also. For thou dost work in us to will and to do of thy good
pleasure.

And we beseech of thee, O Lord our God, that thou wilt grant, this morn-
ing, that every one in thy presence may have fresh occasion to bless thee.
We pray that thou wilt grant that every one, this morning, may be able to
consecrate himself afresh in love to Him that loved him even unto death,
and has now risen, and is on high a pleading Saviour. Grant, we pray thee,
that every one this morning may be able to overcome fear and easily beset-
ting sin, and to lay aside every weight, and renounce every form of sin
whatsoever, and to draw near with humble boldness unto thee, to receive
thy blessing, and to rejoice in thee.

And may we again, this morning, begin with fresh zeal, with a new and
holier hope, with more radiant aspiration, and with a purer faith, to serve
thee. We commend ourselves to thee, thou All-seeing Love, by reason of
our weakness. Thou knowest it altogether. Better than we know, thou
knowest all these things, and all other things that relate to our welfare.
And we commend ourselves to thee by reason of our infirmities. Thou
knowest them. And we commend ourselves to thee by reason of our sins.
Thou knowest transgression. Thou dost perfectly understand where weak-
ness ends, and where transgression begins. Thou seest what things have
been treasured up, and what sin upon sin has been committed. We do not
attempt to hide ourselves. It is in the searching of thine eye that we have
help. We cannot live except under thy forgiveness, and in thy great grace.
And we plead, this morning, not what thou hast done, but what thou art.
We plead, not thy history upon earth, but thy heart in heaven. We plead,
not thine atoning work, but the love which led thee to atone, which ever
lives, and which is a living power. We plead God in Christ Jesus, reconcil-
ing the world unto himself.

112 THE FAITE OF LO YE.

And we beseech of thee that it may not be in our own strength, for one!
single moment, that we shall fancy that we stand, but altogether in the love j
and tenderness, in the pity and fidelity, in the great grace, of the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Saviour. And who shall harm us if we stand thus encircled by
thine arm. Who need fear to live, who need fear to die, who need fear to
appear before the judgment seat, that has thy protection? If we are in thee,
what can harm us ? Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus.

And we pray that thou wilt quicken those that love thee, to love more.
Comfort those who are beginning to experience affection. Though it be
little, may it be as the morning star. And we pray that they may have,
day by day, renewed and increasing experience of the goodness of Christ to
them. !

If there are those, this morning, who feel that they have fallen back and
enwrapped themselves with carnal and secular influences, and who desire,
to-day, to cast off all earthly incumbrances, and renew their consecration,
oh ! as they stretch out their hands in desire and prayer, hear thou them,
and bring them in with great grace and lenity, very near to thyself. And
may they hear thee call them by name. And may they honor thee. And
may they rejoice in thee with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

And we pray that thou wilt lead to a knowledge of Christ those who are
without God and without hope in the world. Why, at this blessed time,
irradiated with so much hope and joy, should any be without their portion?

Oh! deliver those that are bound, and those that are ensnared, and those
that are out of the way, and bring them again to the Shepherd and Bishop
of their souls. And unite us together, not outwardly, but in the inward and
spiritual communion which thou dost grant unto thy children. Encouraged
by the same hope, actuated by the same purposes, tried by the same tempta-
tions, falling imder the dominion of the same sins, and redeemed from their
thrall by the same precious love and faithfulness, may we all walk together
in unity, more and more united by charity, as we draw near io the golden
gate. And by and by, when we shall, one by one, step out from this earthly
life, may we hear the sounds of heaven ; and may they be as music to us ;
and may all our darkness disappear ; and may the light that shall know no
dimness, dawn upon us, and extend from horizon to horizon.

And in thy presence, and in the presence of all those whom we have lost,
but shall be found again ; with the general assembly, and with the Church
of the first-born ; with spirits of the just made perfect— in this company of
the redeemed, ourselves redeemed, we will give the praise of our salvation
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

VI,

Special Divine Providence.

Thou that givest life to all, grant unto us that inward life by which we
shall rise up to a knowledge of thee. Break the power of our senses. Sub-
due that which is low in us. Lift us up into communion of spirit with thee.
May hope and love by faith work in us, this day. And may we rejoice in
the outshiuing of that light which mortal eye cannot see, and which belongs
to us as the children of light. Grant, we pray thee, that the services of the
sanctuary, the offerings of our hearts' desire, the confession of our sin, our
pledges of fidelity, the service of instruction, the fellowship of song, and all
our meditation, may be sweet to us and to thee. And may all this day be
blest of the Lord, and be as the opening of the gate of heaven upon earth to
us. And grant, that thus ministered unto, from Sabbath to Sabbath, we
may at last be prepared to enter that rest which remaineth for the people of
God. We ask it through Jesus Christ our Lord. Aincn.

SPECIAL DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

•' But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all
these things shall be added unto you."— Matt, vi., 33.

What things ? They are enumerated in the foregoing context,
and may be briefly summed up by saying that all secular necessities
and wants will be provided for — food, raiment, shelter — in general,
the moans of livelihood. It is declared that the true way to gain a
comfortable livelihood in this world, is not to seek our lowest wants
with our highest feeling, and with our best time, and with greatest
anxiety, but to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first ;
and that all these other things will be drawn on in the train of
that.

In this remarkable passage of our Saviour's teaching there is the
clear annunciation of the doctrine of a divine and special providence.
There is the declaration of God's personal care for us creatures of
the human family — of the whole great family of man.

I. It is not the doctrine, here, that men should imitate birds, or
that they should leave themselves, as flowers do, to the ministration
of natural law. In other words, the indolence of patient waiting is
not inculcated, as it might seem to some, reading hastily, that it was.
The economy of this world is such, under the divine government,
that the very smallest and the least powerful things are sufficiently
cared for and supplied, each in its sphere ; each within the reach of
the appropriate instruments that are stored up in it.

The worm is organized so that it has in its nature the means of
taking care of itself The higher insects are organized so that they,
also, are able to take care of their necessary Avants. And the bird is
organized so that it takes care of itself by the appropriate use of ita
own organs. And the very vegetable kingdom is organized in such
a way that it feeds, and thrives, and develops, and shoots forth all
its beauty.

Now, in that economy by which God has arranged the universe
so that each thing in its own sphere is able to take care of itself,

SiTXBAY MoRNiNO, April 16, 1871. Lesson: Matt. VI. 19-31. Hymns (Plymouth

Collectiou) : Nos. 73, 193, U6b.

116 SFECIAL DIVINE FEOYIDENCE.

and is cared for ; in that economy by wliicli the lowest and the least
are amply provided for, shall God forget to take care of the highest
and the best ? That is the argument. It is an appeal to men's ob-
servation.

It is not an appeal of this kind : " Do not work, and do not
plan ; stand still and wait, and you shall be fed. The birds are
cared for, and the lilies are cared for, and you shall be cared for.'^
How is the bird cared for ? He gets up early in the morning,
and goes a-lninting, and looks after seeds and insects. He is cared
for so that he has in his own sphere, in himself, the preparation for
supplying his wants. How is the lily cared for ? It pushes its roots
down deeper and deeper, and pushes its stem up further and further,
and draws its nourishment from earth and air. In its own blind way
it enterprises. Such is the structure of the world, such is the
divine wisdom manifested in the creation of things, that everything,
from sphere to sphere, down to the lowest, is provided with means for
self-care. And the Master says, " Are ye not much better than they ?
And has God forgotten to^provide for you ? Has he not clothed you
with proper power ? Has he not given you equal opportunity ? Has
he not constructed the laws of the universe in such a way that if you
put forth your power you will succeed as well as all creatures below
you ? Are you not as wise as a worm ? And shall a worm do better
than you ? Are you not equal to a bird ? And shall a bird surpass
you ? Are your reason and your skill therein all for nothing ?" No,
By as much as you are more highly organized, by so much your
chances multiply. By as much as the lowest and least thing in creation
unclier God's administration is able to maintain itself in comfort, by so
much shall the highest organization in his government be amply able
to take care of itself. Therefore do not fret. It does not say, nor is it
intimated, that you shall not work nor plan. " Take no thought " —
that was translated at a time when the word thought signified
anxious thought. Do not therefore be uneasy and disturbed, taking
that kind of hot thought which, rolling round and round, burns
wherever it touches, and by which men brood over their troubles —
over those things that are not troubles, but that they fear will be ;
fbr two-thirds of all our suffering and friction in life lies in the
imagination — in the things which we create for the morrow and the
next day. In the present, everybody is able to stand up and bear
what comes to him. It is the things that we anticipate wliich we
cannot bear. And it is against this dread of things in the future
that the Saviour utters the words, " Take no thought "—no
anxiety, no fret, no worry.

It is a declaration, then, of a providence which has personal su-

SPECIAL DIVINE FBO VIDENCE. 117

pervision, wliich cares for the least things, and much more cares for
the very highest ; and which not only cares for them, but has pro-
vided means, and will maintain the provision, by which everything
in its order and place shall live and be happy.

II. It does preclude two things : First, absorption in the lower
ends of life ; and, second, wear and tear of mind in the performance
of worldly functions. We are forbidden to seek first our food and
raiment, and our bodily comforts — that is, "first" as being transcendent
in importance in our estimation. Secular prosperity ought not to be
considered the chief thing for us. "We are forbidden to turn all the
forces of our natures downward. Inspired of God, continually di-
rected by Providence, we are to seek something better than the per-
ishable. We are not forbidden to seek that : for it must, in one
resjject, precede everything else in the order of time. That is, a man
must eat, or he will not live to be a man. He must be clothed, or
winter will overtake him and destroy him. He must have shelter,
or the storm will bring with it sufiering and disaster and death. So
that in the mere matter of time we must first see to it that we have
bodily life and bodily health. But first in emphasis, in priority of
importance, is not the body or its wants, but that which the body
carries. The soul, the character, the manhood — that is first. In
seeking all our lower wants we are to do it, not with anxiety.

And here is an incidental testimony of the real spirit of the Gos-
pel, which many have supposed to be a pain-bearing message — a
system of religion in which the ascetic principle was wholesome.
But according to the teaching of our Lord, we are to steer away
from it. We are not to fret ourselves with anxieties. We are not
to bear pains if we can legitimately get away from them. The fruit
of the Spirit is joy, peace, long-sufiering. The fruit of the Spirit is
not pain.

III. The declaration of our Saviour here does not seem to imply a
simple indiscriminating divine providence in which, or under which,
the wise and the unwise, the good and the bad, all are treated alike.
It is true that the sun rises on the just and on the unjust ; but it
does not treat them exactly alike. It is true that the rain falls on
the good and on the bad just alike; but it does not do the same
thing to both. The rain falls on sand, and leaves sand ; and the rain I
falls on soil, and leaves a large crop behind it. And God's sun rises
on industrious men to equip them, and on lazy men to shame them.
It sheds its light and warmth upon everything alike ; but what it
does, depends upon Avhat receives it. And there is a special divine
providence which comes to all men ; but it does not affect them alike.
To those that are working in one way, and in a lower way, it still is

118 SPECIAL DIVINE PRO VIBENCE.

a providence ; but they do not make out of it, and it does not make
out of them, what a providence does that comes to men who are wise,
and wise morally.

The declaration is a twofold one. It is a declaration of a super-
intending providence, but of a providence coupled on our part with
obedience to law.

Our Saviour annunciated in various ways, and by various illus-
trations, this law of God's provident care and government. If you
want to be under this providence, and avail yourselves of it, then
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and so, or
then, or thus, all things will be added to you. He does not say to
men, " Stand in your places ti'usting in God, and he will take care
of the lame and the lazy." That is man's maxim. The divine maxim
is : Stand in the proper sphere, and put all your power in the noblest
service, and then, so acting, God's providence will bless you in every-
thing else. It is not an unconditional promise, or an indiscriminat-
ing providence that will release men from all care, and all sorrow,
and all want. It is the declaration, by implication, of the truths of
God's providence, and of the fact that it works with those that aim
toward the best things. It is, in other words, identifying providence
and natural law. Providence is but another name for natural law.
Natural law itself would go out in a minute if it were not for the
divine thought that is behind it. All laws would fall imbecile, and
would perish, if it were not for the energizing will of the divine mind
behind them. Laws are but instruments by which God's purposes
are being worked out in the world.

Now, the implication of our Master is this : that those who
work for the kingdom of God and his righteousness — that is, as I
understand it, those who take their reason and highest moral facul-
ties, and aim with them for the best purposes of life — not only will
be sure to succeed in the thing itself, but will draw after it all that
lies below or behind. The greater includes the less ; so that if a man
desires honor, integrity precedes honor ; if a man desires wealth,
benevolence leads to wealth ; if a man desires physical pleasure,
virtue is the road to physical pleasure. By the highest we find the
gateway to the lowest. " Seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness," and all those things which the body wants, or the
lower nature wants, shall be added — and in innocuous forms ; be-
cause they come under the regulating influences of the moral sense
and the experienced life.

The sum of the teaching, then, is this: Let every one make his
superior moral duties paramount. Then let him not fret concerning
his bodily necessities and wants. God's providence is such that the

SPECIAL DIVINE PRO VIBENCE. 119

greater duty will include, when performed in its fruition, all that is
subordinate. And upon this foundation I proceed to make some
points of application.

1. There is a divine government that regards the Avelfare of in-
dividual men. This is implied in the belief of a God that sustains
the order of nature. I suppose no man willfully rejects the belief
of a special, present providence, taking care of every particular of
our lives. No man, certainly, objects to that on account of its dis-
agreeableness. I apprehend that those who reflectively reject it, do
so with regret. It certainly is something which one should wish to
believe. It is a thing to be desired. No person, in his hours of
conscious weakness, when he realizes the great sphere in which he
is acting, and the mighty forces that are wheeling around about
him ; no man, when he feels his own insignificance, can help yearn-
ing, it seems to me, to have it so. A man is bafiied when he looks
into the future, and sees how poor his perceptions are, and considers
how imperfect his business vaticinations are. And he has the feeling
that it would be transcendently blessed to be under the care of a
God who thinks for us ; who takes the thread of our life and spins
it out to the long length necessary for our welfare ; who takes the
blossoms of our life, and fructifies them, and brings them to fruit.

But men say, " It does not stand to reason, and it is not conso-
nant with observation — with what we actually see in life. For we
perceive that everything comes by law ; and that if a man fulfills
law he is blessed, while if he does not fulfill law he is not blessed.
Therefore, to preach the doctrine that there is a special providence
that interferes with and interrupts law, and makes it somethino- dif-
ferent from what it is, in the stated order of things, destroys the
foundation of men's experience and the results of their observation."
They say, " It is true that God governs the world by laws • and
these laws are constant and immutable ; and if men obey they reap
the fruit of obedience, while if they disobey, they reap that other
fruit. And as to God's substituting in their place a government of
favoritism, or a specialty of direct divine volition, there is no evi-
dence of this. All the presumptions are against it."

We do not say that. We do not say or think that the spe-
cial providence of God is one that supersedes law, or that it im-
pletes it, and makes it what it was not in its plan and economy.
We do not say, either, that there is interjected between laws a
divine fructifying power. We do not undertake to say what the
divine providence is. But we do undertake to say that the Scripture
teaches that the divine providence acts by law, and through law, and
not under it nor over it, nor existing by the destruction of it. It is

120 SPECIAL DIVINE PEOriDUNCK

simply a provisioH by whicli they who obey to the measure of their
strength in their respective spheres, and take the laws, and hold
the closest to them, will find that they are most brought under the
benefits of divine providence. There is a sustaining power that
blesses obedience.

Look, how men reason on this subject. They say, " Natural
laws are all that we know — great natiiral laws." What do you
mean by great natural laws ? " Well, the natural laws by which
the globe coheres ; by which it moves ; by which the seasons come ;
natural laws as they are interpreted through chemistry, as they are
interpreted in physics ; all the laws that are interpreted on the
globe." But is that the only thing that the Lord made — this great
globe, which is his footstool ? Is not man a part of this globe ? Is
there not more of nature inside of man than there is outside of him ?
What is there that is worth anything in this world outside of man ?
Everything else is shucks, husks. Man is the fruit that everything
has at last culminated in. All the process of evolution and develop-
ment, from what theories soever you study it, culminates in man.
And if you want to study nature, study huinan nature. Study man-
kind ; and what you find of the divine economy there, is the economy
of God's natural law. Not brute matter, not the great law of physi-
cal force, is the richest field for investigation ; but human nature, with
endless variations and combinations.

The divine providence is a providence that conforms to the laws of
nature which it has made ; and it conforms to the laws of the human
family which are its children. What is the law then ? Is it that one
cannot help another ? Is that the result of experience and of philoso-
phy in interpreting the laws of nature ? Cannot human nature do any-
thing? Does every person stand still and say — the mother to the babe,
and the father to the child, and the school-teacher to the scholar, and
the master-artist to the artist-pupil — " I am unable to do anything for
you" ? Does the world go upon the theory that everything is fixed?
Do men say to each other, " There are great natural laws : obey them,
and you will be able to take care of yourself. Do not come to me "?
Does the master mechanic, when the apprentice comes to him and
says, " I want to learn this trade," say, " This trade consists of the
application of natural laws : now apply natural laws, and you will
' learn it. Do it yourself" ? Cannot the master help the apprentice ?
Cannot one man teach another how to make a barrel, or a hat, or a
house, or a ship, or a picture, or a statue ? Is it so that you cannot
use natural laws ? Is it so that we are walking powerless in the
midst of these great agencies of matter, and that no man can make
any variation in his life and experience ? Does not the history of

SPECIAL DIVINE FBOYIDENCE. 121

the race show that men have the jiower of using natural laws — some
BO that they die in the poorhouse, and others so that tliey die in a
home — some alone amid the squalor of vice, and others amidst
angels from above and from below, angels of the family and
angels of heaven ? Is there not evidence on every hand that they
who use natural laws in right ways will be blessed thereby?
Is it not demonstrated to us continually, that there is a system of
natural laws which adapts itself to your nature and my nature ; to
your will and my will ; to your reason and my reason ; to your power
of combination and my power of combination ? All the heaven and
all the earth are a part of the one great natural law. And the ex-
perience of human life is this : that it makes all the difference in the
world whether natural laws are used by rational, intelligent beings,
free to choose or to refuse, or whether they are not used at all.

More than that, because I cannot make one hair of my child
white or black, because I cannot, by crying or teaching, add one
cubit to his stature, cannot I make any difference in the fate of that
child ? Does not my example and experience change his circum-
stances ? and cannot I guide him ? Steering amidst natural laws
on every side, does it make no differenee what I do to my children ?
While I do not destroy natural law, I stand by them, and first
train them, and afterwards advise them, and then influence them ;
and it is my vitality that makes natural laws in the case of my chil-
dren minister to their prosperity all the way down. And yet, with
this in every household, with this in every store, with this in every
shop, with this on every ship, with this in every phase of national
life, men are standing up, white-faced, apparently without a drop of
blood in their veins, or a particle of sympathy with actual life in
their souls, saying, " Oh ! first find out natural laws, and obey them.
That is the best way. You can get at nothing else !" With this
l^icture ; with life for a perpetual parable ; with that which you see
in your own experience, and in the experience of others, do not you
see that it makes all the difference in the world whether natural
laAvs have a palpitating heart behind them, and a guiding intelli-
gence over them ? Do not you see that natural laws are barren and
fruitless till they are taken hold of by luiman volition ? And yet,
men still reason that there is no such thing as special jjrovidence.
They say, " It is absurd to teach that the divine will does anything.
Natural law does evei-ything." It is a lie ! Every wise household
pronounces it false. Every organized business pronounces it false.

Well, since man is so strong that he can make all natural laws
servo liim, he saddles them, and rides them. They are his bow, by
which he projects the golden arrow of success. Natural laws aro

122 SPECIAL DIVINE FBOVIDENCE.

means ; tliey are servants ; and what tliey do depends upon liow
they are used. The elements essential to a successful life are natural
law, human volition, and intelligence. You cannot separate them.
A man is made mighty, and is carried through civilization by their
use. And will you come in and tell me that the most helpless being
in the universe — more helpless than the mother or the father ; more
helpless than the statesman ; more helpless than a general ; more
helpless than a bird, even, is God ? Does he say, " I made the world,
and set it in motion, and forgot to keep hold of it, and it has gone
out of my hand, and all I can do is to wind it up and keep it a-going.
I wish I had the power to control it. I see that father down there
using all these wonderful agencies that I put into this world ; and
i the laws which I ordained obey him ; and he, through these instru-
mentalities, is able to bless his family. I wish I could bless my
children on earth, too "? Away with any such idea as that God
stands behind laws, and must not touch them ; as that he is outside
, of his world, and must not meddle with it. There is nothing in this
i world so imbecile as such a God as that, except the fool who made
the conception of it. All this show of science, all this pretentious
modernism, all the wonderful .revelations of natural law, and what
not, which undertake to exclude God from the globe, are 'unphilo-
sophical, are unscientific, and are perpetually answered by the living
experiences of mankind. And we have only this to say : that if God
is commrable to the average of ordinary men and women, he can
meddle with natural laws ; and he does, for your benefit and for
mipe. And it does not destroy the economy of the globe that he
does do it.

Do you suppose, when wool is put on the wheel of the old house-
wife (some of you may remember the days Avhen such a thing was
known), and she spins it out in long threads, that it is a violation of
natural law, because the wool was made to grow on a sheep's back ?
It was made to grow on a sheep's back at first, for him ; but after-
wards it was designed to serve you. And is it a violation of natural
law that the shuttle carries the thread backward and forward to
make cloth for you ? No. Natural law is a weaver. God meant
that it should be. And all through the world natural laws are not
like wax candles, standing up and burning at one end, unable to
stir or do a tlnng. They are subtle. They split into endless appli-
cations. Tiiey may be used in numberless ways. They take on
human thought, and they take in human feeling. They serve those
that know how to persuade them. The most subtle, and the most
used of all agencies are these natural laws, by which men build up
and take down; by which they bring within their reach all that the

SPECIAL DIVINE PROVIDENCE. l23

hand can do, and all that the eye can discover. And what is it but
tiie control of the human spirit over natural law? And is God less
than a man ? Is he not even as big as a philosopher ?

If, then, any of you have been shaken from your confidence in
special providence by the scientific sciolism of the day, I beseech of
you to think again.

2. While there is a divine special providence, it does not set
aside any natural law. It proceeds according to natural laws, and
works by them. It is in fulfillment of our highest duties to moral
law that God's providence meets us. In other words, we are not
to trust to divine providence until after we have exhausted the re-
sources of our own knowledge. And in general, divine providence
Avill work from the law which you accept, and to which you are
most obedient. The best way for a man to be rid of sickness, is
to so observe natural laws as not to get sick. God's special provi-
dence is always on the side of the temperate. If you would have
deliverance in any emergency, study the circumstances and condi-
tions in which you are. Avail yourself to the uttermost of every
resource. The more you exert your own power, the more you study,
and the more nearly you obey all natural laws, the nearer will you
come to God. It is out of those very laws that operate in the spheres
where you are working that God will show his face. It is out of
those laws that he will reach forth his hands ; and he will employj'not
simply the laws that surround you, but the laws that are in you.
And your will is to be operative. God will worJc in you to will and
to do of his good pleasure ; and that will give you deliverance.

So, then, the doctrine of divine special providence does not set
aside natural laws. Neither does it set aside human volitions. It
does not say to men, " Stand and see the will of God performed for
you." If God's special providence succors you, it succors you
through yourself. It awakens the reason. It directs the will. It
inspires industry. And he is helped of God who has learned to help
himself. The doctrine of special providence does not protect indo-
lence. On the contrary, as its conditions imply the use of one's
own faculties, in the belief that God watches, and that God sym-
pathizes, and that God helps those that help themselves, it tends to
enterprise, to fidelity, and to unremitting endeavor. ■

3. The whole experience of the world, even from a scientific
point of view, corroborates and illustrates the declaration of our
Saviour — namely, that law and providence are on the side of the
highest moral qualities. In other words, the man that aims at the
noblest manhood will secure the most of all the things that lie be^
low manhood.

124 SPECIAL DIVINE PBO YIDENGE.

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things shall he added unto you."

If you get tliem, you get them "with a great deal more. And I
say that while there is a vague acceptance of this, there is apt to
be a skepticism about it. Men, just at the point where they are
obliged to choose between integrity and purity of character and
success, are apt to fall from the higher, and seek success first, and
say, " Afterwards we will whip round and get character and integ-
rity." Bnt the experience of the world is that they who seek Jii-st
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, draw the largest train
of common worldly blessings with them.

A contrary idea arises from those epochs of controversy and of
conflict which have originated from irregularities in life. There are
times when men are thrown out of their normal conditions — times
of war, times of revolution, times of persecution — when nothing seems
acting in the sphere of law, uninterruptedly, and all connection
between cause and effect appears at fault. Under such circum-
stances a man may dwell in his highest manhood, and yet dwell in
the wilderness. And even in regard to what are the more excep-
tional cases, if you measure human life by the haj^piness which men
enjoy in it (and that is the popular measui-e), I aver that the out-
casts and those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, not only
obey the command to rejoice and be exceeding glad, but are gladder
than men who are in worldly prosperity. Take a man who is living
for the exaltation of moral princi2:)le ; take a man who is giving him-
self for a noble cause, whatever it may be. One man gives himself
to temperance ; he seeks to deliver his fellows from the thrall of vio-
lent passions ; and he neither amasses wealth nor seeks to exalt him-
self in life. He lives poorly. By and by liis frugality becomes
poverty. Another man has lived prosperously, luxuriously, royally.
He seeks physical pleasure, and he gets it. And if you take the
gauge of those two men's hearts, God knows, and you know, that
the man who has lived for a great moral end, sacrificing every
earthly hope, has had more hours irradiated with happiness than the
man who has lived for the gratification of his lower nature. He may
have been a poor man ; but he has reaped more real enjoyment in the
woi-ld than the self-indulgent man who seemed to have everything
his own way. For the power of being happy does not consist in
what you have.

" A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth."

It depends upon how many chords there are in a man's heart
which vibrate to the touch of joy; and a man who is obese in a
lower prosperous life is all the time covering up those noblest chords

SPECIAL DIVINE FEO VIDENCE. 125

from which the highest happiness resounds ; while a man who lives
for a noble end by noble motives, and keeps his conscience clear and
clean, has touched in him, by airy hands, chords that give forth
music such as is never known to the lower nature.

Take a man who has run through the whole career of influence
and power in politics, and in the better kinds of them — those that
mix a certain sort of integrity and patriotism with the service of
of the State ; take a man who has been advanced, step by step, and
has gone through the Legislature, and has got to Congress, and has
risen from the House to the Senate, and has at last come to the Vice-
presidency (that is usually fatal to any man), and has perhaps
touched the Presidency ; take a man who gives his whole life to am-
bitions which lead him into circumstances where he is continually
stirred up with malign feelings — take such a man, and review his
history. Look at the elements of his experience — all the care, all
the fear, all the collisions, all the weariness, all the disappointments,
all the suspicions, all the envies, all the jealousies, all the bitter ha-
treds, all the fiery turmoils, all the emergencies, which he has gone
through, and in which he is obliged to fortify himself, and fight in-
numerable adversaries, some attacking him from beneath, some
poiiring hot shells on his head from above, some on one side, and
some on another, giving him battle. Trace the life of such a man,
if living in his lower nature, and he is all his life long going
to be happy, going to be happy, and going to be happy, and you
will find that the happiness to which he attains is not to be compared
with the happiness of the humble man who devotes his life to some
benevolent object. I do not believe that of the men who rise to the
hio-hest places in public life, one in a hundred is to be envied, if hap-
piness is to be the test. It seems to me that they are to be pitied,
rather. But Garrison, who was regarded as a poor wretch, who was
pitied by other men, who was accommodated with eggs that nobody
wanted, who was all his life a foot-fall under fools' feet, and who was
hunted up and down — I venture to say that he had more happiness,
more exhilaration (more during his persecution, to say nothing of
the joys of his old age) that made him say, " I would give more for
one such hour as this than for a round year of common enjoyments — "
I venture to say that he had more such happiness than the most success-
ful man in political life. The fact is simple : If you play on the
chords in the top of a man's head, you get music the sweetest and
the longest prolonged ; and if you play on basilar chords, they are
dull, and snap heavily, and the music is poor in quality anyhow. If
you take the exceptional cases of men that are, for the sake of in-
tegrity and principle, persecuted and cast out, there is more joy in a

126 SPECIAL DIVINE PBO VIDENCE.

prison than in the palace that is over it. There was more joy on a
cross than among the barbarous soldiers that had the power to cru-
cify the Holy One. There is often more joy in men that are poor than
among the rich. There is more joy in those that give their life and
their everything than in those that are rich because they give
nothing.

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you [by and by].

I never knew a man yet who had not the means of paying for
his keeping in one hotel — Greenwood. Everybody will reach that.
And until you get there you need not be a bit afraid. You will
always have strength to get to the grave. Men act as though they
feared they would not. They fret, and fuss, and do not know what
will become of them. The worst thing that can happen to you is
not dying. That is the best thing that can happen to you. It is
the end of all care. You need not be troubled. There is a bow
that is shooting you, and that will certainly carry you to that mark.
You will never stumble nor fall so but that you can get to the
grave. The grave is the gate of heaven. It is the dawn of a better
day. It is the beginning of an unobstructed life in which all things
shall be added to you. You will always have enough given to you
of food and clothes to get you to the end of life. And the nearer
it comes, the better for you — often. Many and many a man lives too
long, by half.

But then, while these things are true on that side, there is
another view — namely, the general declaration that spiritual moral-
ity produces temporal benefit. Is not that borne out by the inspec-
tion of society, and life itself ? What have been the facts of civili-
zation ? We all admit that civilization is a term aiFecting the en-
nobling of human life in the individual collectively. It is a term of
prosperity as applied to ages or nations.

Now, has civilization depended upon the predominance of
material force, or has civilization followed the line of moral sense,
and the line of the aesthetic, and the line of the good, the true and
the beautiful ? — for these have been the three angels that have led
men up, step by step, in power, in abundance, and in happiness.

Or, looking at it in another point of view, what classes are they
in the community that are prospering most ? Single men there seem
to be who rush along the road of prosperity, and succeed, not by
moral law, but in spite of moral law. I shall not discuss their cases.
Their end is to be the judge. But, taking classes, what class in the
community is it that is the most prosperous ! Are the men who
saci-ifice everything to their appetites and passions as a general

BFEGIAL BIVINE FEOVIDUNCH. 127

thing the most prosperous men ? The men tliat lie ; the men that
forswear tliemselves ; the men tliat are niggard of benevolence ; the
men that live for themselves ; the men of the coldest hearts and the
least benefactions ; the men that are the most purely selfish — are
these the men that prosper, as classes, best ? Is it not the public
opinion of every village, that the virtuous, the industrious, the
frugal, the trut?, are the ones that thrive ?

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things shall be added uuto you."

It is not the kingdom of this Avorld. Follow the develojiment of
classes, and notice the higher morality in a man. There is not a
man who has a thousand lots on the edge of Brooklyn who would
not build a church and a school-house on them. He says, " I do
not care for religion ; I do not care whether the church is Episco-
palian or Presbyterian or Methodist ; I do not care who runs it ; but
I want the church." Why do you want it ? " Because it will en-
hance the value of my property." Even dirt goes up in value
under such circumstances.

I suppose that there is no class among us that more exemplify a
certain principle of the words of the Gospel than the Quakers. Their
houses and their lands are proverbial ; and they themselves, as a
general rule, have the look of the meek. They look as though thev
had possessed the earth ; and a very fat earth, too. They are
generally persons who thrive, who live at peace, who are univer-
sally resjjected ; and they do extract as much honey from this great
world-flower as any other class of people in the whole community.
And is it not irresistibly evident that their prosperity is the natural
effect of a cause — the moral ideas that they are living on ? And
does not the one flow in the train of the other ?

Take those sects that are most rigid. Take, for instance, tl^
Calvinists of New England, Persons rail at them ; but they were
men that believed in their doctrines. They put God first, the com-
monwealth next, and the citizen next ; and they lived accordingly.
And where do you find prosperity that averages as it does in
Switzerland and Scotland and New England ? Men may rail as much
as they please ; but there are the facts. There is the old New En-
gland territory, so naturally thin and cold and sterile that ordinary
men would have starved on it; and it took the Calvinists to cultivate
it. There was that in them which put steel on the edge of their every
instrument, and made it cut. They brought to bear industry, and
the sternness of the doctrines of God, and the stimulus of the divine
impulse, on all the purposes of their life ; and they redeemed the
wilderness, and built a structure of government such as never was
built anywhere else. Thorough-blooded were they j and the blood

128 SPECIAL DIVINE PBOYIBENGE.

of the Yankee has been the salvation of the continent. You do not
like to believe that. It does not make any difference whether you
do or not, there is the fact. If you go to the extremest borders of
our country, even on the northwest, the west, or southwest,
and find a man that takes the lead in education, he is a
Yankee — or his wife is. If you find a man that manages
a bank, he is a Yankee. If you find a man that is an engi-
neer or a manager on a railroad, he is a Yankee, If you find a
man in a position that requires foresight and calculation, he is a
Yankee. I do not mean to say that there are no others in such
positions ; but the fact is so general that there is a philosophy
deducible from it. You will find that everywhere the calculating,
methodical Yankee brain is developing and systematizing the
resources of the country, and making it strong and rich. You may
damn the Yankee as much as you please, but it has been that
Calvinistically bred Yankee brain that has made the foundations of
this government firm and secure. It was the Yankee conscience that
smote the devil of slavery and destroyed it ; and it is the Yankee
heart that will build school-houses all over the land, and defend the
poor and weak, and make justice the stability of our times. And
righteousness wi'll rain down on future generations in this land, not
because these men were Yankees, but simply because they obeyed
the divine injunction,

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you."

A nation that has faith in that, and that piats moral principle
higher than anything else, will suffer for it, and will have dark times,
and revolutions, it may be ; but, after all, it is a fact which is corrob-
orated by history, that they who seek God's kingdom and righteous-
ness, shall have everything else in over-measure.

There is a lesson in this to every young man. There is a lesson
in it to those who are preparing to launch their bark on the sea of
life. There is a lesson in it to those who look upon the ill-gotten
success and temporary prosperity that will fall rotten to the ground.
If you do not believe in tlie Word of God, then take your interpre-
tation from history, and you will find that on an average, through
midtitudes, and from age to age, he who uses his reason most clearly,
and his moral sense most fruitfully, and his conscience most persist-
ently, will have all lower blessings in the greatest abundance.

Once more, we shall see the compass by which men steer in
trouble. When the pi-osperity of a man is interrupted, then the
devil comes behind him and whispers, " Save yourself. A little ob-
liquity, a little yielding to custom, will save you." When integrity
is beckoning him, and the world on the other side is making fair

SPECIAL BIYINE PBOVIBENCE. 129

promises, then the devil says, "This is the way to prosperity — to go,
down ; to sacrifice to tlie flesh, to the pocket, to hist, and to dishon-
or." " No," says the voice of God, " if there is any time when a man '
must stand for himself and for his manhood, and keep his hands '
clean, and his heart pure, it is when things ai*e going against him. }
They will only go that way a little while. In the end everything |
will serve an honest man." Such is God's decree. All the universe !
is helping a man to be manly who will only help himself. And at
these very times when you are tempted to give up principle for the
sake of worldly things, the voice of God comes to you, saying, " Seek
first my kingdom and its righteousness. Be an honest man, a true
man, a bold and strong man. Stand up, and hold yourself back from
destruction, if you do not your property. Keep yourself floating,
and everything else will come by and by." A man that has lost
himself, and saved his property, has saved nothing ; but a man who
has saved himself, though he has lost his property, has saved every-
thing that is worth saving. It is that which is inside of a man, and
not that which is outside of him, that determines value.

HoAV long shall it be before the world will learn these simple
truths ? How strange it is to hear them announced by the Peasant
of Galilee — by this Mechanic — laboring among the working men of
his time ! Jesus, standing and looking on the toilers of the sea (of
the Lake of Gennesaret), and surrounded by the crowds of working
people, in this matchless discourse, announced principle after princi-
ple, with all the brevity of an axiom, and in parabolic forms, which
for tAvo thousand years the world has been slowly finding out to be
true. Whence came this wisdom that anteceded experience ? Whence
came this regency of mind that overlooked the lives of men and the
courses of time ? To me he was not a peasant, but it was only a
peasant form that he wore. To me he was not a genius of moral
ideas, but the Author of them — the Father of thought, and the Fa-
ther of history, clothed with the flesh, that he might know his own
liouschold, or that they might learn to know him. He stood there —
he that from his glorious estate in heaven had bowed himself down
to dwell among men, that he might save them; and from his lips-
how fitly fall these maxims that have created the world and its pros-
perity, and that Avill yet bring the world to its millennial glory !

Men and brethren, let us take heed to these teachings of God's
providence, to these teachings of God's word, and to our own expe-
rience in them. Whatever else we give up, let us hold steadfastly
to our faith in that providential government which supervises all our
ways ; to our faith that the laws on our side are those that will
lead us highest and nearest to God j to our faith that if we " seek

130 SPBCIAL DIVINE PEOVIBENCE.

first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," we shall be in the
line of that providence which makes up the deficiencies of our mortal
reason, which guides our weak will, which guards us, and which will
finally save us.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We adore thee, thou that art highest and best, our God and our Father.
We adore thee for what thou hast manifested thyself to be— for all the glory
whic-h thou hast shed abroad upon the earth ; for all the mercy which thou
hast vouchsafed to man; for the revelation of thyself in our Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ; for all the truth which has come from him, and by
which the Holy Ghost has been brought home to us. We rejoice in thy gov-
ernment. Thy laws are holy, and just, and good. There is peace in pursu-
ing the paths of righteousness. We rejoice in our experience of thy good-
ness. How much should we rehearse the story of our life ! What argument
of trust and gratitude there is in it ! We rejoice that we were reared under
Christian auspices, and from our earliest life taught the things which per-
tain to salvaticKn. We thank thee that thou hast granted unto us so much
of the joys of life, and that sorrows have been ministered unto us merci-
fully, and that thou hast made them to be a discipline, and not a destruc-
tion. We thank thee that thou hast drawn us together into the fellowship
of the Gospel, and that we have so many hopes in common, so much of the
life that now is, irradiated by the life which is to come.

We rejoice in all the mercies which thou hast vouchsafed to us in the
household— its sweet affections, and all its blessed light. And we beseech
of thee, O Lord our God ! that since thou ha.st sustained us thus far, our cup
running over, our lines falling in pleasant places, our feet in green pastures,
and by the side of still waters, we may learn from all the past, more than
ever to rest in thy word ; to lean wholly upon thy promises, to walk securely
and safely and restfully in the way of duty. Why should we be disturbed
with care, with pain, or with burdens? Why should we, over whose head
spriugs the arch of our Father's house, act as slaves, and look up affriglited,
or bow down drudged? Art thou not our Lover and our Friend ? And \Yhen
thou judgest, is it uot love? And when thou dost smite, is it not still the
Father's hand ? And is not all our life a varied experience of the l^lesseduess
of thy government for our soul's good. Grant that we may more and more
treat thee as children, sijice we are treated by thee as a Father. Aud we
pray more and more that the life that is in us may abound in things right
and true and good. May we seek to please thee above all others.

And grant, we pray thee, that every onein thy presence may be led to a
knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ. May there be awakened in every
one a spiritual insight. May every one that has never before known faith,
have the beginnings of that life which comes by faith and by love.

We pray that thou wilt grant that those who have long walked in Chris-
tian experience, that those who have been soldiers in thine army, may be
true to the end. It is but a few days for many. If in patience they possess
their souls, all their conflicts will be over ere long, aud then there will be
no more storms for them. Brighter and brighter shines the east. Grant,
we pi ay thee; that they may have strength to walk to the end of life in an
affectionate trust in that Redeemer who never has left them nor forsaken
them.

SPECIAL DIVINE FRO VIBENCE. 131

We pray that those who are hearing the burden and the heat of the day-
may be strengthened so as that they shall fulfill all their duties as becomes
the children of God. May they remember their vocation. May they remem-
ber the honor and the dignity which thou hast put upon them. May they
not dishonor their Father which is in heaven.

We pray that thou wilt grant that those that are beginning the Christian
life, inexperienced, full of mistakes, full of alternations of feeling, may know
the love of Christ to their souls, which overcame their selfishness ; which
called them when they were afar off; which has been beforehand with
them.

Grant, we pray thee, that they may never distrust the nourishing love
of God. And may they feel that they are strong, not in themselves, not in
their own will, not in the means with which they surround themselves,
but in tlie Lord that loved them and redeemed them, giving his own pre-
cious life for them. In Him may they be strong.

We pray for those who mourn over their easily besetting sins ; who fall
so often ; who come back so slowly ; to whom the yoke is yet a yoke ; and to
whom the burden is very heavy. Wilt thou deliver them. May they not
parley with the things that are behind. May they not look back, even. May
they press forward, forgetting the things which are behind, toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt be near to those who long and hesitat-
ingly have been looking wistfully toward the better life, and have not en-
tered upon it. Oh ! draw them. Bring them back to the right way— to the
way of holiness; to the way by which they shall walk heavenward, more
and more dispossessing sin and selfishness. Grant that they may enter upon
the royal way, and that they too, may become servants of the Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ.

We pray for those that are thralled in sin. We pray for those that are
bowed down and are slaves of Satan. We pray for those that are in the
darkness of doubt. "W e pray for all that suffer through uncertainty.

We beseech of thee to remember those that do not remember thee. We
pray for the prayerless. We pray for those who have no longer any on
earth to pray for them. We pray for those who have forgotten their lather
and their mother, who are in glory, and their Father who is in heaven, and
who is greater than all.

We pray for the poor; for the outcast; for those that are in vice, and
neglected therein ; for all criminals ; for all that are guilty ; for those that
are in prison. Bless those that carry to them the word of truth, and cast a
better light of consolation upon their iiath. And we beseech of thee that as
they come in the name of Christ, they may bear the Spirit and the love of
Christ. And may many be snatched as brands from the burning.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt bless all those who are seeking to build
up the cause of temperance, and to promote morality in those that are cast
down by their passions. May they be strong in word and in deed.

We pray for the reformation of morals throughout these great cities, and
in all our land. And revive thy work, we pray thee, in all our churches.
May the truth be more and more powerful. And we beseech of thee that
justice and equity may everywhere prevail. Turn and overturn till He
whose right it is shall come and reign. Fulfill those promises which long
have hung unripening. At last, may they begin to drop down their fruit.
We pray for that glorious day when men shall learn war and violence no
more; when they shall torment and beat each other down no more ; when
peace shall be universal ; and wheii purity and truth and justice shall rule
in all the earth. Even so. Lord Jesus, come quickly.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises everlasting.—
Amen.

132 SFECIAL DIVINE FBOVIDENCE,

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our heavenly Father, we thank thee for all the monitions of thy word.
We thank thee for all the examples which it records. We thank thee for all
the truth which has through after ages come forth to corroborate thy divine
annunciations. May we not seek the flesh. May we not seek the things
that perish in the using. May we not seek that specious and glittering pros-
perity -which is as the frost-pictures of winter which perish almost by the
breath of him that looks upon them. May we lay up our treasure in heaven.
May we send holy thoughts there for investment. May our hearts follow
there those whom they have loved. May we twine our aifection around
about them. O, Lord of our salvation, there may we have more expecta-
tion, more hope, more desire, more that waits for our coming, than any-
where else. And as we are growing old, and the years that are before us
are fewer than those which are behind us, grant that we may more earnestly
take hold of these great verities. And may we live so convoyed, protected,
comforted, and blessed of thy Spirit, that when we depart we shall pass
from glory to glory, and be forever with the Lord.

And to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, shall be praise forever-
more. Amen ,

VII.

The Law of Benevolence.

Eternal Father, thou who dost never forget, who sliimberest not, and who
with infinite love dost watch over all that are thine own, through all thy
boundless universe, we come weak, needy, utterly dependent upon thee,
even for the power and the skill with which we help ourselves. And this
morning we draw near, not according to our merit, nor even according to
our knowledge of our own want, but that thou wilt out of the measure of
thy wisdom and thy goodness bestow upon us, this day, the blessings of
thy presence and of thy Spirit. Grant that all that shall make us nobler in
manhood aud more truly like the Master, may be imparted unto t*, and may
we commune together in fellowship and friendship. May we walK together
in the way of instruction. May we have fellowship of joy and praise in
singing to thee. Miy we rejoice in communion. And may all the .services
of the sanctuary be precious to us. M.iy we bear the light aud the warmth
of it home, that our very houses may become temples of God. Which we
ask for Christ's sake. Amen.

THE LA¥ OF BENEVOLENCE.

'* As -we hare therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, es-
pecially unto them who are of the household of faith."— Gal. vi., 10.

This is only a special application of the great law of benevolence
as it was interpreted by the Master, and which he represented to be
the center and substance of religion, its animating spirit, as devel-
oped under the auspices of the old dispensation, and certainly the
inspiring element of religion as to be developed still further under
the auspices of his own spiritual kingdom. Do good to all men —
that is the comprehensive law.

1. This doing good is an exceedingly wide thing. It may be,
and in its highest form it is, conferring spiritual good, — so ad-
dressing yourself to men that they become wiser, purer, more just,
more truly inspired with the whole spirit of Christian love and
kindness. We are to lose no jjroper ojjportunity to inspire men with
religious growth, distinctively so called.

But it includes, also, all other forms of doing good. It includes
all activity in the direction of material assistance. "We are to do
good to all men in their political relations as members of the State.
We are to do good by public spirit, which is only another inflection
of the general feeling of benevolence as applied to the welfare of
the community. We are to seek to do good to all men in these
various ways.

As men are largely dependent for their culture upon that
abundance out of which grows leisure for higher inspirations, so
doing good to men in this general formula includes all benefits con-
fen-ed of a commercial and business-like character. And all ma-
terial assistance, whether it be helpfulness, whether it be advice, '
whetlier it be the actual lending of your strength, your time, or
your means, is likewise included.

But there is even a wider sphere of doing good than this. It is,
in its most compreliensive form, such a carriage of your Avhole life
and disposition and nature as shall make men feel hapj^ier and bet-

SuNDAY MonNiNQ, April 23, 1871. Lesson: Rom. XII. Hymns (Plymouth Col-
lection) : Kos. 19y, 810, 1061.

136 THE LA W OF BBNE VOLENCE.

ter wherever you go. A man is himself a university of influences.
He has his reason, his religious side, his social nature, his economic
element, his whole material and physical organization ; and the com-
mand is to so carry one's whole self throughout, that the influence
of a man's living, and of his whole presence shall be to confer hap-
piness, prosperity and joy upon men — not only to make them better,
but to make i\\QVQ.feel better. As it is specified in another place, we
are to please men to edification — that is, to build them up. We
are to please them in su^ch things as will make them better.

This does not exclude pain-giving. It is not to be that kind of
goodness which deals only with lenity and with gentleness ; because
goodness sometimes requires sternness and justice, and even the in-
fliction of suffering. But it is never vengeful. It is never to be
giving pain for the sake of giving pain. It is to be a ministration
of love, such as a man has at the hand of a surgeon, a physician, a
teacher, a parent. The malign disposition, which is one that loves
pain for the sake of pain, is never to be a part of Christian nurture
or Christian ethics ; but whatever men do, in the whole round of
their life, is to be done for the sake of making men better and hap-
pier around about them.

2. We are to do this, the Apostle says, as we have opportunity —
which would seem to be a caution against partitioning off" a man's
time officially, and giving certain days to doing good, and all tie
rest of the time to doing what you have a mind to. There are men
who feel the obligation of doing good on Sunday ; there are those
who, though they do not think, in their business relations or in their
oflicial relations that they are particularly bound to do good any
further than to keep within the limits of custom and law, yet feel
that when certain days come round — Christmas-days, and Thanks-
giving-days, and various festal days — Lhey are bound to do good.
They feel that on such days as these, when a decent public senti-
ment requires that everybody should be happy and should exchange
tokens of happiness, they must do something. But the apostle
says, as it were, " Not only then, but always ; whenever you
have a chance ; in season and out of season." That is to say,
we are to do good at regular periods and in regular methods,
not only, but in irregular methods and at irregular periods. We
are to do good at unexpected times. Whenever there is an oppor-
tunity— that is the time for a man to do good to his fellow-men.

Sometimes men are to make opportunities ; but if one be pos-
sessed of a right sensibility, and of a true benevolence, opportunities
will be suggested by that sensibility ; and his desire to do good
will break out in such ways as to find a thousand opportunities

THJE LA W OF BUNIJ VOL EN GE. 137

which the mere cold waiter and watcher never finds. Only a full
heart can always be ready to fill up these fugitive opportunities-
For if one be happy himself only when some unexpected stroke of
good luck has come to him, it is but occasionally that he is in a con-
dition to make others happy If, when you are joyous by reason
of some fortunate occurrence connected with yourself, you go forth
into the street, how many more words you feel disposed to say, how
many more kind things you feel disposed to do, how many more
opportunities for doing good present themselves to you, than is or-
dinarily the case ! If a man is at peace with himself, and full of
gladness, how many opportunities he finds for doing good ! whereas,
if there come the cold wind of trouble upon him, and he be shut up
in the chilling consciousness of his own loss or want, how little he
sees of good that he is impelled to do ! How few chances come to
nis notice for the exercise of benevolence ! How few people he
meets that he wants to speak to ! How seldom it is that his desire
to do good is awakened !

Opportunities, in other words, may sometimes be said to be but
the opening of the gates of a man's own benevolence. He always
has opportunities enough who has fullness of sympathy enough ;
who has the spirit of brotherhood large enough ; who has a true
love of making happiness.

As we ham opportunity is not simply, then, the antithesis of
official doing good, or doing good at stated seasons. It indicates
that we are to make doing good the very atmosphere and business
of our whole religious life. There are opportunities which come
but once in a man's life-time. Others come ; they are thick ; but
there are things which a man can do once, and never can do again.
In the Spring the furrow lies open, and the farmer puts in his seed ;
but if that season goes by and he does not put in his seed, the
opportunity is lost. And so, many furrows are opened in which
men may sow seed once in their lifetime, which seed, if it be sown,
shall spring up and be most beautiful in blossom and fruit ; but if
they neglect to put seed in those open furrows, the opportunity
will not come to them again so long as they live. Other furrows
will open, and they will have certain chances for doing good ; but
that chance will never present itself again. And so there must be
an alertness and enterprise and watchfulness, and above all a fullness
of benevolent disposition, that shall always be pressing and pressing
to find opportunities, and to develop itself.

3. We are to do good to all.
" As we have opportunity let ua do good to all men."

The Saviour says :

138 TEE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

" If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye ? do not even
the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye
more than others ? do not even the publicans so V '

All the world has been accustomed to teach that men shovild do
good to their own household. He that neglects his own household is
an infidel. In almost all nations, in nations of almost all shades of
development — even those that are quite low down in the scale,
toward barbarism — there is an impulse to do good to those next to
them. And not only are we to do good to our own selves, but we
are to do good to those that are within our own households. Fre-
quently benevolence does not act in the household at all. Affection
acts there ; and if that be small, or extinguished, there is little or
nothing else that can supply its place. And so, many a household
is without either aflection or benevolence. The love-principle there
is too small for a generic, and is famine-stricken in the specific.
Hence, there are many households which are simply arenas of petty
strife. Oftentimes there is no place more malignant, more bitter,
more provocative of that which is bad. Oftentimes there is no place
so little like the gate of heaven, and so much like the gate of hell.

We are to do good to all men ; and, naturally, doing good
begins in the household. Every right-minded man, every true man,
should exert all his power to make that place where he dwells a
bright, central point, glowing with kindly feeling, with real enjoy-
ment, with inspiration and with happiness. The man that does not
make those who live in his own house with him happy, has great
reason to suspect, I will not say his Christianity, but his manhood.
He may plead that he is an invalid . but that plea, while it extenu-
ates, does not excuse. A man should see to it that where he is,
there always is most enjoyment. Begin at home ; and do not
stop at home.

We are not to confine the doing of good to our own household,
iior to our own neighborhood, nor even to our own nation. We
have a very kindly feeling toward all those that are of our sort. We
are very benevolent toward those that are born with us — that ai'e
of the same state, or of the same nation. We are, however, a nation
that is overrun with persons who were .orn abroad ; and we very
naturally tend to cherish the race prejudices. Foreigners, emi-
grants, the Irish, the Germans, the Africans — we naturally feel that
there is a great distinction between them and us. We acknowledge,
to be sure, that there should be humanity in our treatment of
them : but there is a seam in the garment of our charity ; there
is a strong welt that runs across it ; we feel that we are bound by
bands that run closer, and we respond more generously toward
those that are of own blood and lineage. But if there was any one

TEE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE. 139

thing that characterized the Gospel, it was that it was universal ;
that it made no distinction between Jew and Gentile, between bond
and free, between high and low. Christ died for the world ; and
the spirit of benevolence is to be commensurate with the spirit of the
Master who gave himself for all.

Nor are we to confine the doing of good even so narrowly as
this. We must see to it that we do not have the feeling of brother-
hood merely with regard to nationality. We must not allow race-
stock to come in. It is very hard to get over this, especially in
California, where a man thinks that he is bound to have a brotherly
feeling toward everybody that is not Chinese. We feel bound to have
brotherly feelings toward those that speak the same language that
we do ; toward those that believe in the same religion ; toward those
that are brought up with the same political ideas ; but toward out-
casts, the imported heathen that come from Oriental or tropical
lands, and that are thrown in among us Avithout being grafted on to
us — toward these we have almost any other feeling than that of
brotherhood. It is very hard to feel brotherhood toward a man
that is worshiping an idol, and that wears his hair in a queue, and
that has almond-shaped eyes, and a complexion ranging from copper
to black. It is hard to call ourselves brothers of men that bear dis-
tasteful lineaments and features. Nevertheless that is the mission
and message of true Christianity.

" As we have opportunity let us do good to all men."

It does not mean, necessarily, that I am to choose my com-
panions, or to make my intimates of all classes of men. I am not
bound to form my intimacies on any principle but that of likeness
or agreeable differences. I am at liberty to select for my household
or for my private companionship, those that are congenial to me.
But the great race of mankind, Avitliout distinction, are to be to me
in such a sense brothers as that they shall have the warmest sym-
pathy and the greatest helpfulness that I have the opportunity to
confer ui)on them. Love, not prejudice — it is that which sliould in-
terpret duty to all men, of every nation, and of every race-stock. A
universal brotherhood is to be established. All mankind are to be
regarded as objects of the divine beneficence; and therefore all our
sympathy should go out toward all for whom the cross was raised ;
toward all for whom God thinks ; toward all upon whom he sends
his sun and the seasons. All that lie calls children we are to call
brethren. And we are not to allow our benevolence to be ribbed
with prejudice and to be compressed in narrow channels flowing
only here and there in exiguous streams. We are to have a laro-e
heart, and a large benevolence in it ; and we are to let that flow

140 TEE LAW OF BENEVOLENCE. ,

out toward every human being that has the capacity to enjoy or
to suffer.

4. We are to do good as we have opportunity, especially to
ward those that are of the household of faith. At that time those
that drew themselves out from the religion of their fathers, and were
brought into the communion of Christian brotherhood, either be-
came poor, or came to such a condition that they shut themselves off
from the sympathy of their connections. It is still so in many coun-
tries where, under the influence of Christian missions, churches are
formed ; where the principle of caste exists; where to receive Christ
is to give up everything that is dear. And in the olden time, when
men became Christians it was an argument for stinginess towards
them, and selfishness, and hatred, and persecution; and the open
hand was shut up, and the flowing store ceased. Therefore it was
that those who came into the Christian church had special need of
supporting assistance. That was the reason why the apostle said,
Let us do good, especially unto those who are of the household of
faith.

Every one, entering a church, has a right to feel that he is going
into a higher atmosphere than that in which he has been accustomed
to move. Every one has a right to feel that when he goes into the
church of Christ he goes into an association, a brotherhood, where
the principle of gentleness and kindness is carried to a higher degree
than it is outside of the church. I know that it is not so. I know
that the church is keyed, often, very low in the matter of sympathy.
I know that formality, and separations into classes, and divisions by
a great many worldly distinctions, break up the sense of brother-
hood, I know that too frequently j^ersons who go into the church
are like those who go at night to a hotel. Each lodger has his own
room, and calls for what he himself needs, and does not feel bound
to take care of any of the other lodgers. And a church, frequently,
is nothing but a spiritual boarding-house, where the members are
not acquainted with each other, and where there is but very little
sympathy.

Now, every church should be under the insf)iration of such large
sympathy and benevolence as to make every one of its members the
object of kindly thought and feeling. There should be a public sen-
timent and an atmosphere of brotherhood in every church. There
is no objection in a church to individuality. We do not undertake
to break uj) all these natural and most harmless separations or clas-
sifications which socially exist outside of the church. I hold that
class, if it be heatlien, is devilish, but that it does not need to be
heathen. I hold that a man may belong to a class, in the church, or

THE LA W OF BENE YOLENGE. 141

out of the church, and yet be as full of sympathy, yea, more sym-
pathetic, than he otherwise would be — so much so that he feels an
obligation of beneficence toward those that are less favored. But no
church is a church of the Lord Jesus Christ in which there is such
an introduction of the separations of the world — those which pride
courts, and those which vanity foments ; in which there is such a
spirit of seclusion or separateness that persons coming into it are
chilled, and feel desolate and without companionship. It is impos-
sible, perhaps, in a church, for each member to know every other
member ; but there is siich a thing as a public sentiment, there is such
a thing as an atmosphere, in a church. And it is this atmosphere,
or public sentiment, pervading the whole membership of a church,
that is, or will be, more influential in promoting the work of relig-
ion, than any ability in eloquence, or any art in beauty. I do not
object to architecture. I do not object to music, so that it does not
forsake the true mission of music, which is to express deep religious
feeling. I do not object to any expression of art in feeling; for art
without feeling is a sham; and feeling without art may be vulgar.
The highest mission of art is to express the deepest feeling in the
fittest way. I do not object to art in architecture and in decoration,
so that it is in harmony with right feeling. You may paint your
windows and fresco your walls, or not, as you please. It is not par-
ticularly essential either way. Art does no harm unless it leads
persons to fall more easily into the idolatry of the external. That
is to be watched against. But the thing which, above all others, is
essential, is that there shall be a symj^athy and genuine feeling of
brotherhood in a church. More than windows, more than ceiling,
more than architecture, more than music, more than the pulpit itself,
in attraction, should be the genial atmosphere of the whole society
and of the whole brotherhood. That is what men feel, even when
they cannot tell what it is that afiects them. That is what makes
men, frequently, desire to go to certain congregations, even when
the reason why is beyond the explanation of their reason.

In this congregation, although we are far from being perfect, al-
though there is much room for us to grow yet, I think there is a
hospitable feeling. I think there is here, to a great degree, a genial
feeling. And I think that one of the secrets of the attractiveness of
this church is not so much this or that or the other influence in its
ministrations, as its spirit of brotherhood and sympathy and gener-
osity and kindness, which in the main exists, and which constitutes
a feature of the atmosphere of the whole society.

If the church on earth were full of happiness-makers, there would
te no need of further argument for religion. Keligiou in its love-

142 THB LA W OF BENEVOLENCE.

form is the best argument for itself. No man wishes to deny it.
No man can doubt a fact that exists continually before him. There
would not need to be any argument to prove that an orchard was
beautiful when its trees were full of fruit. There would be no need
of an argument to prove that a vine was fragrant in May, or that it
was fruitful in October. No one with a cluster of grapes in his hands
needs to be persuaded that the fruit is luscious. The thing itself is
its own expounder and interpreter. " By their fruit ye shall know
them " — blossom and fruit and all.

Cold and dead churches, churches that are receptacles only as
sepiilchers are ; churches whose members rattle in them almost as
the dry bones do in the coffins of the charnel-house — those are ar-
guments of infidelity ; and no argument to pi'ove Christianity can
be of much validity where the church is hard, or cold, or dead. And
no matter how philosophical, and skeptical even, a man may be, if
the church clothes all its members with the true spirit of love, and
they are full to overflowing with kindness, and the whole church is
is developed in the majesty and power of omnipotent and omni-
\ . present love, that disarms all criticism, and takes away all possi-
bility of doubt. No man ever yet needed an argument to prove
that light was light, and that it was agreeable. Ye are the light of
the world. No man needs an argument to prove tliat fruit is good.
Ye are vines. Ye bri?ig forth fruit to the glory of the Father.

We are, then, to do good to all men — especially to those that are
of the household of faith. We are to see to it that the spirit of
sympathy and benevolence makes the church the brightest place on
earth, where many diiferent kinds of people are connected together.

But then, this passage has been interpreted for exactly the oppo-
site thing. Not only has it been taught that we ought to take care
of our own members, but it has been extensively taught that we
ought to patronize them. I have no objection to persons patron-
izing those that are in the same church with them, provided all other
things are fittest ; but that a Methodist should trade with nobody
but a Methodist, and vote for nobody but a Methodist ; that a Pres-
byterian should go out of his way to favor those that belong to his
communion, and pass by those that belong to other communions •
that the exhibition of all political and economic sympatliy should
be limited by the lines of sectarianism ; that a Congregational church
should undertake to bestow its sympathy only where there is Con-
gregational orthodoxy — that is abhori-ent to the very spirit of char-
ity. It is a perversion, in express terms almost, of the injunction of
our text:

" Let U3 do good unto all men, especially to them that are of the house-
hold of faith."

THE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE. 143

Who avo the household of faith? All Avho love the Lord
Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth. They may be of the
Baptist, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Episcopalian, the
Roman Catholic, or any other Christian Church. If men love
the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth, whatever sect
they may belong to, they come within the sweep of this command.
Do good to them all. Be genial, sympathetic, confiding, benev-
olent, helpful, in every way. Do not let the outflow of sym^^athy
from your heart be perverted, nor take on the shackles of a
technical orthodoxy. There is no man on earth that you can
afford to treat otherwise than kindly. Kindness is fitted to every-
body. It should be active and diffusive; and yet it should be
so concentrated that everybody shall feel it. Your kindness should
be such that when a person comes into your presence he shall feel
that you have a real interest in his welfare. It should be such that
when you meet persons they shall be made happier, and feel that
they are of more importance in the world than they ever thought
they were before.

With this general exposition, I pass to make some special appli-
cations of it.

First, we see what must be added to the popular notion of relig-
ion. I would not have religion understood as conveying less of the
idea of moral strictness than it now does. It should carry in it the
popular notion of forsaking all sin, and clothing one's self with all
virtue. And all the customs by which the experience of the race
throughout ages has established the distinction between right and
wrong, should be preserved — certainly by those who belong to the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor would I have religion un-
derstood as conveying the idea of less correct beliefs. I would not
have belief despotic. I would not have orthodoxy severe and unre-
lenting. Yet the distinction between truth and error should be
preserved. Carelessness as to what a man believes can never be
wholesome. The desire of knowing, and of knowing accurately and
truly, is a noble desire, alike in the school of philosophy and in the
school of religion. I would have churches, therefore, teach distinctly
what men believe. Every church must have a creed. If it is held
together, it must be held together by something in common. And ^
whatever that is which holds it together in common, is its creed,
whether it be written or unexpressed. And all those great influential
lines of belief by which the church separates itself from the world,
I would have it impress upon all that are under its influence.

I would not have less systematic benevolence carried on. There
are many things in the work of benevolence which can be abbrevi-

1 44 THE LA W OF BENEVOLENCE.

ated, economized, made more searching and more tliorougli by clas-
sification and division of labor ; and therefore there onght to be not
less, but if anything more, systematic benevolence in the church.
But while these things are maintained — morality and systematic
organization — by the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in common,
there ought to be more social sympathy and kindness among its
members.

This is the spirit which, if it be comparatively speaking low down,
is on that very account naturally interpreted in favor of religion. It
is just that which meets the wants of most men.

A man with whom the world has gone wrong ; in whose house
has been death ; in whose business has been bankruptcy ; who has
fallen, it may be, from companionship here and there ; who is strug-
gling with accumulated misfortunes ; who is despondent ; and who
right in the years of mid-life wishes that it were already sundown,
wanders (as one within the sound of my voice very well remembers)
into the street seeking the waves ; he hears singing ; his attention
is arrested by the hymn ; he is lifted up, as it were, by it through
the air. Scarcely knowing what he does, he follows the sound ; and
he is met at the door of the church, — not imperiously, not irritably,
not with a Martinet insistance upon minute particulars, but kindly.
He is not shoved hither and thither ; but a kind hand is laid on his
shoulder, and a gentle voice says to him, " Wait, Do not go away.
As quick as I can I will wait on you. Step in." That familiar kind-
ness is strange to his ear ; and the hymn still goes on ; and he is
drawn within the house. The man that shows him this courtesy
and kindness does not know that he is saving a soul from death. He
takes him to a vacant seat far up toward the pulpit. There is a
warmth of genialness in the congregation. And when the service
has been gone through with, the truth has been poured into an open
heart. One that needed consolation has received it ; and all thought
of suicide has flown away, with the feeling that inspired it. He now
turns about wistfully for sympathy. Is there any one in the house
that will show him kindness ? One greets him, a stranger though
he be, and says, " Come again ; we shall be glad to see. you here."
It was not much to say, but it has saved a heart from despair. It has
opened a new avenue of love, and given birth to the feeling, " There
are those that care for my soul." He goes again at niglit. And
he goes from Sunday to Sunday. He goes month after month. And
by and by, through the grace of God, he stands the object of saving
mercy through fid(;lity and support.

I tell you, while the truth preached does much good, the kind
hearts of the men who are listening to the preaching, the real spirit

. THE LAW OF BENEVOLENCE. 145

of brotherhood that draws them near to you — near to your person ;
near to your tongue ; near to your heart ; those love-greetings by
which men are made to feel that they have come to a place where a
man is thought of without regard td external trappings — these break
down all opposition, and preach the Gospel. And often there is
much more Gospel preached at the door-end of the church than at
the pulpit-end. They that do not look for the gloved hand ; they
that do not judge by the apparel ; they that see in the face of a man
the marks of care and trouble,' and perceive that he needs sympathy
and kindness — they are bearing to him a Gospel which he will under-
stand better than any exposition or any doctrinal discussion. And
that kind of preaching which we need is the preaching of the great
heart of the congregation in brotherly sympathy to all that need
succor.

Men may spread the Gospel, and prepare the way for religion by
carrying to men an active sympathy — a brotherly principle. But
there is discretion to be used in preaching to men on the subject of
religion. When persons first come to the Lord Jesus Christ, they
are often exhorted to work for the salvation of others. It is said to
them, " Now that you have become a Christian you must do good."
Instantly they begin to think, "What shall I do?" And one
person says to them, " Why do you not take a district and distribute
tracts ?" Another person says, " Do you join a Sunday-School and
teach a class."

I am not mentioning these things to ridicule them. Often they
are just the things which persons are benefited by undertakino- •
and often they are just the things by which they can do the most
good. But I ridicule the idea that these few methods by which Ave
reach people are all the resources that we have of doing good. One
says, " Do you mean that I shall ask a man how his soul does ?"
No, I do not. You, little beardless young fellow, have a start in
life ; and the first man you meet is a man of perhaps ten times your
stature every way ; and you go and talk to him, saying, " How is
your soul, sir ?" I do not mean any such thing as that. If the
man were sick, if he were wounded unto death on the battle-field a
child might speak to him without abashment, because time presses •
because his life is oozing away ; because now, if ever, he must hear
the central truth of religion. But in nine cases out of ten you must
be a John Baptist preparing the way of the Lord to men.

Now, when you are converted, if those that are accustomed to
work with you in the shop, or to be with you in the store, are un-
converted, and you instantly go back to them with your catechism
and your confession of faith, they will laugh at you, and say, " Ah I

146 TEE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

a new broom sweeps clean. You have got into the church, and you
think that you must walk straight." And you set them against
you. But if you are kind to them ; if you take upon yourself ser-
vices that otherwise would fall upon them ; if you serve them for
love's sake ; if you are more discreet, and in talking you avoid
topics that are disagreeable to them ; if you are willing to work
later to give them a longer evening ; if you, by a hundred kind-
nesses, cover up their faults, and rest under blame rather than ex-
pose them ; and if in all your relations with them you are generous,
and thoughtful of their welfare, they will soon learn to respect you.
And they will say to each other of you, " Something has come over
him. He is better than he was before." Why do they think that
you are better than you were before ? Because in so many ways
you send out the pointed flame of sympathy and kindness, and are
burning the dross out ot their thoughts, and are making yourself
agreeable to them, not by pandering to their wickednesses, but by
doing good to them. You do not necessarily do good to them by
instruction ; but you do them good through taste ; you do them
good through your power of ainusement ; you do them good in any
way in which you can do good to them.

A person who has been endowed with richness of musical talent
has a wonderful power of doing good. When persons are converted
to the Lord, sometimes they put away all their music ; they put away
the festive dance ; they put away the gay entertainment. Nay, nay ;
keep them ; but when you sing, it is a Christian heart that is merry.
What if it be a carol, or love-song, or world-song ? If your heart
has seen Jesus, and you know the power of the world to come, sing
it. Sin<T, not for yoxir own sake, but for the sake of others. It is a
coin that will pass current ; it will draw men to you ; and they will
And that you are not shut off from them. Participate in amusement,
but not in mere gayety, as if that were all. The moment the heart is
touched by the Spirit of God, the Comforter, tlie Enlightener, it
gives a different character to everything tliat you do.

My second mother (the only one that I knew) was the stateliest,
and the devoutest, and the most crystalline, and the loftiest of
women. She was undemonstrative in affection ; but she was my very
ideal of propriety, and elegance, and perfection, and taste. And
yet I remember that one day Avhen my father was playing on.tLe
violin (it happened to be an old melody that she was familiar with)
in a neighboring room, and we were sitting in the dining-room, she
came out on the floor (for she had been a belle, and had often trip-
ped the light fantastic toe) and lifted her hands gracefully, and com-
menced dancing around the room. I had never seen such a thing in

TEE LA W OF BENEVOLENCE. 147

that house before ! I looked on with astonishment ! The color
came to my cheeks, and the light to my eyes ! And I have thought
that if my mother had danced a little oftener, and said the cate-
chism a little less often, it would have been a thousand times better
for me.

If you have gifts, whatever they are, of beauty, consecrate them.
If you have the gift of art, consecrate it. If you have the gift of
eloquence, consecrate it. If you liave the gift of poetry, consecrate
it. If you have the gift of emotion, consecrate it. If you have
any gift, whatever it is, make sure that you root it in genuine sym-
2)athy, and that you exercise it. With a whole heaven before you,
cliild of God, child of eternity, brother of the whole race,
now sing ; now go forth in your gayety. There is a moral meaning
to it that will redeem it from all possibility of perversion. It has a
meaning that will annihilate the distance which there is between
your heart and the hearts of other people. It will -draw people to
you. You want people baptized in the fountain of your sympathy
and love. That which is wanted above everything else, is to draw
men to your heart.

When Christ went to the miserable, he went to them ; and when
he laid his hand on them, he laid it on them. He did not hold him-
self aloof from them. He touched them with his own person, with
his own body, as much as to say, " You and I are one." And when
we would do good to men, we must give them more of ourselves
than mere formulated words can convey. The heart must somehow
or other take hold of men. And I would say to the person who is
brought into the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, If God has en-
dowed you with gifts, consecrate them to the work of common
benevolence. Do not think of maiming them. Do not disbranch
yourself, but consecrate everything you have. You have much to
work with ; and by the voice, by the eye, by the hand, by the soul,
by everything, make men about you more happy. Make yourself
more necessary to their hapi>iness. And that will give you an op-
portunity to do them good spiritually; for by and by they will ask
you for that which, if you were to intrude it upon them in the first
instance, they would not receive.

So, while there is a great deal of general instruction to be given
in Sabbath-schools, and Bible classes, and religious meetings, let no
man tliink that these are exclusively the ways in which a man is to
do good. He is to do good as he has opportunity^ according to his
faculties. Love men, and love them enough ; seek their happiness
and welfare, and seek it long enough ; make yourself felt by them
personally and beneficially — that is your business.

148 THE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

And here I may say, In carrying out this woi'k beware, while
you do not neglect home, that you do not confine the disclosure of
yourself to your own household. It is right for a bird to make her-
self a nest, and put the finest moss and softest feathers in that nest,
and it is right that she should sit upon it. It is right that she should
"'' have but one chamber — for birds never build for more than them-
selves and their own. But they are only birds, and do not know any
better. It is for us to build a broad nest. To build it so that
nobody can get into it but ourselves, to line it with our own pros-
pei'ity, and to selfishly fill it with everything that is sweet and soft
— that is not right.

I think that a man's house ought to be a magazine of kindness.
Its windows ought to send out light. I like, when I go by a house
at night, to see the window-shutters open so that the light shines
forth from inside. Though I dislike to have my own open, yet I
tliink how many persons would be made haj^pier if in passing
through the streets they saw the light blazing out of the houses.
There are a thousand such little things by which others may be
made happy.

A person says, " I will pvit this clump of flowers under the parlor
window." No, no ; put them by the gate. A thousand will see
them there, where one would see them in that other place. A per-
son says, " I will jDut this plant back where nobody can reach it."
Well, do ; but put two close to the fence, where they can be reached.
I like to see little hands go through the pickets and pluck oif
flowers. And if you say, " That is stealing," then let it be under-
stood through all the neighborhood that it is not stealing. There
are some who seem to have such a sense of property that if they had
a hundred magnolia trees in full blossom on their premises, they
would want the wind to blow from the north and south and east and
west, so that all the fragrance would come into their own house ;
whereas the true spirit would be a desire that a thousand others
should be blessed by these bounties as well as themselves.

I think that it is generally the spirit of horticulture. If a man
has fine fruit, he is crazy to give it away, and he runs all over the
neighborhood to find somebody to enjoy it with him. If a man has
an abundance of choice flowers, he is not stingy with them. He
enjoys them by giving them away. The great trouble in planting
largely is that you have not folks enough to give your flowers to.

You say, " That is a natural feeling." Well, what is a religious
feeling but a natural feeling raised u]? and spiritualized and sancti-
fied ?

I would have your homes made, not less, but more ; but in making

TEE LA W OF BENE VOLENGE. 149

them engines of happiness, see that other people participate in that
hapi)iness as well as you. Make your dwelling beautiful ; but not
for your own eyes alone. Fill it sumptuously, if you have the grace
to rightly use that sumptuosity. Let the feet of the poor step on
your j)lushy carpet. Let their eyes behold the rich furniture of your
apartments. Would it make their home less to them ? Not neces-
sarily. If you take a child by the hand — you, whose name is great
in the toAvn ; you, who tower up in power above all your neighbors ;
if you lay your hand on his head, and call him " Sonny ;" if you
bring him into your house ; if you go to the cupboard and take out
the unfamiliar cake, or what not, that children so much like (for
the senses must be appealed to in childhood before the spirit can
be reached ; and by feeding the mouth of a child you come to his
affections and feelings) ; if you show him your rooms, and give him
something in his pocket to carry home and show his aunt or sister,
do you sui:)pose that child ever thinks you are stuck up, or looks on
you with an unkindly eye ? When he comes into the neighborhood
again, and your house dawns upon him, he remembers, the moment
he sees it, how happy you made him there. And that house of yours
can be made to bless generation after generation.

God be thanked for these great village mansions out of which
comes so much food for the hungry ; out of which comes so much
raiment for the naked ; out of which come so many watchers for
the sick ; out of which come so many genial advisers for those who
are in circumstances of embarrassment ; out of which comes so much
bounty to those around about them that the whole community come
to feel an ownership in them. Do you suppose that wealth can ever
be perverted by ministering to the comfort of the neighborhood
where it exists ?

As you have opportunity, do good to all men. Build your house
large ; furnish it richly ; but it is to be consecrated to making
people happy. Let your doors be wide ; let them turn on their
hinges without squeaking ; let people come in as the air comes ; let
your hospitality be shown freely to one and another. So living, you
cannot be too royal.

Oh ! what an artist God is ! And if he makes his foot-stool as
beautiful as the earth is made, how does he make his throne ? If he
covers his heavens with these evanescent frescoes; if lie paints
these panoramas which we see moving through the summer sky ; if
he creates such statuary as we see everywhere exhibited in winter,
what, think you, is the decoration of his house where his children
come home to dwell with him forever ?

Do not be afraid to build fine houses j and do not be afraid to

150 TEE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

spend large sums of money in their decoration ; but remember that
these houses are not for you alone, but for everybody.

So much for home ; and in going forth from it, I call your atten-
tion to the significant feature of religion as you will find it set forth
in the epistles as well as the life of Christ, if you look them through
— its gentlemayiUness. I know of no other word that will express
the idea. Not only were the apostles themselves — and Paul con-
spicuously— men of the utmost courtesy, in the highest sense of the
word, but there is not a vulgarizing maxim in the New Testament.
There is not one that looks toward viilgarism. There is not one
that the most polished and noble soul does not feel to be the expres-
sion of its highest want. " Mind not high things," said Paul, " but
condescend to men of low estate."

Now, a true Christian man, a real gentleman, while he speaks to
his neighbor's child, and to his natural companions, will never let
any one pass that he has access to, without courtesy — and more, as'
men need more.

Here is a plain man ; and a kindness to him is a kindness as much
as it would be to your heart-neighbor whom afiection leads you to
bestow more care upon than upon others. Courtesy in life should
be such that they shall have most kindness who need most ;
but kindness is so distributed in society that those who need the
most have the least.

What makes class so hateful, is, that men shut themselves up in
superiority ; that when men, having wealth, have leisure, they take
that leisure and separate themselves from other men, thus building
up a wall of partition between themselves and others. There is more
sectarianism outside of the church than in it. There is a Avidespread
sectarianism among men who classify themselves without thought
of others. But when men who are superior hold themselves in the
spirit of the Gospel, which is, that the greatest is he that serves the
most, and that the strong are GocVs natural protectors of the weaJc^
then all opposition and abuse from the community is disai'med.
Therefore, if you see a plain man, speak to him. He is not of your
sort ; he does not follow your congenial avocation ; your hands are
white and his are red ; yours are delicate and his are rude ; but it is
not the hand that you are saluting : it is the heart, for which Christ
died. So speak kindly to him. " But," you say, " do you suppose
I'm going to put myself on a level with a low-bred boy ?" No,
make yourself superior to him. Speak to him more kindly than any
other man can. Be more sympathetic toward him than any other
man can be. That is true aristocracy — the aristocracy of the heart.

The more God has blessed you, the more you need to go down.

TEi: LA T7 OF BENE VOLENCE 151

Whcn'wc are prospered, we tend to drift away from the great heart
of humanity ; we tend to get further and further from the lower
range of sympathy , and we need to touch the ground again. It is
necessary for a man's health that he should feel mother-earth every
day. Dust you are, dust you came from, dust you will return to ;
and there is a lesson in dirt, if men will only choose the right kind,
and use it ifl the right way.

Speak, then, to the man that takes ashes out of your house. Make
him feel that somebody thinks of him, and that that somebody is
you. And do not forget your seamstress, your servants, your
driver. And do not think of them by these names. Do not think
of people by the service-badge that they wear. The man that you call
your driver, is not your driver : he is your brother-man. Driving is
his function ; but he is not a driver. We come to think of men by
outside names, and not by inside substance and inside feeling. But
this ought not to be so. And in proportion as men are pooref and
obscurer than you are, be more particular to sympathize with them,
and to notice them.

I shall never forget a lesson that I received when walking down
Pierrepont street one day. When this church was being built, I
became acquainted with one of the carpenters — a plain man — who
worked upon it ; and I had many chats with him afterward. That
day, being a Christian, (sometimes I am not one), when I met him,
as he came down the street, I stopped and spoke to him, and shook
hands with him. And giving me, as I noticed, a peculiar look, and
keeping hold of my hand, he said, " Now, sir, you do not know how
much good this does me." " What ?" said I. " Well, your speak-
ing to me, and shaking hands with me." Said he, " I shall go home
to-night, and say to my wife, ' I met Mr. Beecher to-day.' ' Ah !'
she will say, ' Wliat did he say ?' and the children will look up, too.
And I will tell them, 'He stopped and shook hands with me, and
asked if I was getting along well.' And they will talk about that
for a week. You folks tliat live up here — " [In Pierrepont street
they are all Christians, but they are not always as Christian as they
might be] — " you folks that live up here [glancing around] have no
idea how much good it does a plain man to be noticed, and to be
made to feel that he is not a nobody."

I owe that man a good many sermons for that sermon which he
preached to me.

Now, when yo>i go over to New York, there is the ticket-man at
the gate. lie is your brother. And there is the engineer down in
the bowels of the hold, if you see him. And there is the pilot.
Nobody speaks to tliose pilots. In storm and in calm, they hold in

152 THE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

t^eir hands the safety and the lives of hundreds of thousands of men,
women and children ; and they do it so skillfully, and so kindly, and
so well, that you do not even think that they do it. And when I
think of the vast amount of carriage of human freight which there is
on our thoroughfares, instead of cursing the pilots and engineers for
the occasional accidents which happen, I thank God that we have
men who, in the main, are so able, so faithful, and st) careful of
this precious treasure which is committed to their trust. Is there a
man in a cooper's-shop, in a tin-shop, or at an anvil, that is working
for you ? and do you think of him as you ought ? Do you say
that he gets his money ? That does not pay him. No man is paid
for service faithfully performed for you until you have coined some-
thing out of your heart to pay him with. Money does not reward
service.

This spirit of real brotherhood should not confine itself to the
household. It should go out from the family on to the street, and
through all the avenues and vocations of life.

And do not forget little children. Of course children are loved
in the families where they belong ; and of course all sweet children
on the street are liked. Who ever saw a doll-dressed child, with one
of those bewitching little red sacques or hoods on, that did not want
to catch it up and kiss it ? But then, there are a great many chil-
dren that are dressed raggedly. There are a great many children
with bad eyes. There are a great many children that do not
keep their faces clean. I do not admire the dirt, but they are chil-
dreyi ; and they need that somebody should make them feel self-
respect ; and if you snub them, if you curse them, who will take care
of them ? Their parents at home evidently do not do it, or are unable
to do it. Be kind to children; and be kind to them in proportion
as they are needy. If you take ragamuffins into your house ; if on
New Year's Day you make extra preparation, and let it be known,
and the street boys all find out that there is a basket of oranges
waiting for them, and they come, and you give them a warm wel-
come, you preach to them such a sermon as you cannot preach to
them in any other way. They are not able to understand anything
else so well as that. They will make you trouble ; they will offend
your taste ; they will soil your carpets ; they will do many things
which your children would not do in your neighbor's house ; but it
is the misfortune of the ignorant that they do not know how to be-
have ; and somebody must teach them. And Avhile you speak to all
a kind word, especially speak to those that need speaking to most.
1 I frequently see an irruption from Furman street on to Columbia
Heights. We, you know, live on Columbia Heights ^ and what

THE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE. 153

business have these rough, stamping boys to invade aristocracy ?
They come up, ten, twelve of them at a time, and sweep the street
of all the puny children that live there. And often they come with
yells, and halloos, and rattling kettles, and all manner of disturbances.
And we look up and down the street, and say, " Where is the police-
man ?" — for it is sometimes necessary to maintain order by appealing
to the officers of the law. And yet, I say to myself, " I wish some
of those boys were mine. What a physique ! That head has sub-
stance in it ! That head ought to go to Congress — I mean, to the
Senate !" And as I look at them, I see a future in them. I see
power in them. I see much to admire, as well as some things to
deprecate, in them. And really, my heart turns toward the boys.

I would that this were the case more. I would that I were not
so much dependent on moods. I would that my feelings did not de-
pend so much upon sunshiny days and gloomy days. I would that
I were not so much subject to introversion. I would that I were not
so much absorbed by my occupation. But we are all infirm in these
things. And yet, if we have this idea of brotherhood, and are seek-
ing to carry it out, it is not a little.

Only one thing more — for I have protracted my remarks far be-
yond what I meant to. I wish that, in being gathered into the
church of Christ here, you would all, old and young, remember that
you are not coming timong us as so many soldiers to be regimented
and drilled into formal propriety. I cannot endure the thought that
Christ's children should be less free, less joyful, less elastic, and less
versatile, than anybody else. I want a Christian to be one that at
heart is truly upright ; but, more than this, I want that he should
be one that shall go on with more amplitude of life, with more gay-
ety, with more cheerfulness, with more happiness-producing power
than anybody else in the community. I want that he should be one
that shall put men to shame by well-doing. But, at the same time,
let the eye blossom ; let the mouth blossom ; let the whole life be
as blossoms and clusters that men shall take from you. I call you
to a Christian life not merely to save your souls — though that is of
transcendent interest, and though that should be regarded by a man
as of most serious consideration, underlying the incontrovertible
object of religion. I call you to a Christian life, not because God
has a right to ' your services — though that is transcendent over all
other motives, and should be more fruitful than any other. I call
you to a Christian life for the sake of your fellow-men ; that you
may bear to them that which life needs so much — more gentleness,
more ease in being entreated, more sweetness in love, more kindness
in benevolence, more generosity, more condescension, more attention

154 THE LA W OF BENE VOLENCE.

to those that have no friends, and are out of the way. I call you to
manifest the Spirit of Christ on tlie right, and on the left, and under
all circumstances, so that men who see you shall say, " I know not
whether that man is a Christian or not, but I know that he not only
makes me better, but makes me happier." Make men so much hap-
pier that they will long to be better, and long to be able to
make others happier.

" Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Eternal God I thou art lifted above all the infirmities of lime. Thou art
not overcome with weariness; and thy strength never fails. Neither art
thou tempted of evil. Thou dwellest far above all imperfections, and all
shadow of turning; and in thine own infinite self thou art complete, and
thou hast no need of counselors, and thou needest none to strengthen thine
hand. Thou abidest forever. We perish before the moth ; we are full of
weakness ; we are most iguorant, and know, often, least when we think i hat
we know the most. What time thou turnest thine hand we perish. In thee
we live, and move, and have our being, though we vaunt our own knowl-
edge, our own skill, and our own preservative care. O Lord! look down
with compassion upon thy creatures, filled with infirmities and with traus-
gression. We have broken forth into sin out of infirmities. And we pray
that thou wilt pardon all the wickedness of our hearts, and all the evil of
our lives, and lift us up by thy strength into purity and knowledge, and
quicken us in all fervor of goodness, that we may, all the days of our lives,
live with open face toward the light of God, unrebuked and unreprovable.
We pray, O Lord ! that thou wilt grant unto every one, according to his
need, that grace which shall be efficacious to succor those that are iu peril,
to comfort those that are in grief, and to rebuke those that are wandering
away selfishly from thee. Remind those that are breaking thqjr covenant
vows with thee. Grant, we pray thee, the visitation of thy comforting Spirit
to all that are sad and east down, by reason of thy dealings with them, on
account of their own selfishness and imperfections and sins. And we pray
O Lord ! that, as a mother comforteth her child, thou wilt comfort those
that sit in dreariness and are disconsolate. For thou knowest the heart.
Thou hast the secret of comfort with thyself. Eternally joyful, and joy-
bearing, thou seest how pain that ministers sharply fulfills thy will and luis-
Bion. And we pray thee that pain may have its speedy work and accom-
plishment, and that out of suffering may come patience, and gentleness, and
resignation, and sympathy, and kindness, and love. And w^e pray that thou
wilt work iu the hearts of all thy people, cleansing them from the defilement
of the flesh, from the selfishness of life, from the strifes and passions that
betide us, and prepare them for that nobler manhood, that better residence
among the saints in heaven. \

We pray that thou wilt draw near to every one in thy presence, and
grant that the blessing of thy heart and thy spirit may be upon all. Hear
the voice of those that would utter promises to thee. Hear those that re-

TEH LA W OF BBNJE VOLENCU. 155

joice before thee, and would give thanks and speak thy praise. Grant thy
blessings to those who are not here, but who are full of gratitude for thy
preserving and restoring mercies. Hear those that desire this morning to
praise thee in the great congregation, long absent and restored at last. Grant
unto them, we beseech of thee, secretly, and in their very heart, a sense of
thy presence, and a consciousness that thou dost receive their offer.

Be near to those that are in discouragement, and may they see the light
of hope, and may they not despond. Though great may be their adversa-
ries, and though great may be their sense of imperfection, may they yet
have ministered to them such a sense of divine grace and providential care
that they shall be able to rise above themselves as into the very presence
and comfort of their Redeemer.

And we pray, O Lord ! that thou wouldst be with those who would be
here, nnd who sit in solitude with sad thoughts, or overburdened with care,
or with suffering in sickness, or homesick and far away. And not only be
with them, but, since to thee there is neither time nor space, since to thee
all things are present and near, grant that the mercies that are descending
upon us may widen, and may fall upon all whom we would have with us.

We pray, O Lord ! that thy blessing may come this day unto thy churches.
Let us not have thy presence, and thy power, and the joy of thy salvation,
and others be unwet with the divine dew. Everywhere strengthen thy ser-
vants to speak thy word. Everywhere kindle in the hearts of thy people
joyful worship.

And we pray not alone for the spread of the knowledge of Christ, but for
the power of Christian love and faith. We beseech of thee that the times
past may be sufBcient. Grant that more and more, as the day approaches,
we may see the tokens of thy coming for the emancipation of the world.
Lift up the darkened nations. Pour twilight upon those that sit in the
region and shadow of death. May those that preach the cross of Christ go
forth in increasing companies, with more and more faith, and more and
more success.

We pray that all the great events which are occurring, that all the dis-
coveries which are being made in science, that all the efforts which are
being put forth for the improvement and the welfare of mankind, may be
sanctified by thy Spirit. And grant that we may not alone grow in outward
estate, and in things material, but that we may become finer, and sweeter,
and truer, and more just, and more noble.

And we pray that thou wilt fulfill all thy promises which respect thy
Church, and which respect this whole world. And grant that the weary
waiting of ages may at last cease, and that we may see the door of fulfillment
standing wide open, and behold the heralds and angels coming forth to their
rejoicing work of consummation.

Now, Lord, we beseech of thee that tjiou wilt grant thy blessing to rest
upon the services of this day. May all those that teach in Sabbath-schools
and Bible-classes be able to teach out of their own hearts. May they have
the spirit of God resting upon them. May all those that go forth to make
known the Gospel to the wanderers, and to those that are the children of
misfortune, and to those that are imprisoned, and to all that are without
God and without hope in the world, go with the double Spirit of the Mas-
ter; and grant that they may see of the fruit of their labor and not be
discouraged.

And we pray for the elevation of morals in our cities. We pray for more
wise laws, and for incorrupt magistrates. We pray that this whole nation,
80 signally blessed of God, may study justice more. Let not equity perish
from our midst. More and more may men rise to nobler motives and to

156 THE LA W OF BENEVOLBNCB.

purer lives. And grant that civilization may spread from this land to all
the lands that sit in darkness. And have pity upon those who are in strug-
gle and in suffering from the mighty waves of adversity that beat over
them. And in due season raise them up, and restore them to prosperity and
to greater wisdom than before. And we pray that thy kingdom may come,
and that thy will may be done on earth as in heaven.

We ask these favors in the name of the Beloved, to whom, with th^
Father and the Holy Spirit, shall be praise evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, wilt thou add thy blessing to the word spoken. Forgive us
all our sins. Heal us of our weaknesses. Strengthen in us things that are
right and just and true. Open in us a fountain of pity. Open in us a per-
rennial fountain of benevolence and sympathy and good-will. And we
pray that we may abound in these things so that the light of our life may
be the joy of the unfortunate. May we be the comforters of the poor and
needy, and so live as benefactors of men, that we shall be, at the last, thought
meet to enter into the sympathy of the just made perfect in heaven. And
unto thy name shall be the praise. Fatiiert Son and Spirit. Amen.

VIIT.

The Ages to Come.

Breathe upon us the breath of life, our Father. Thou didst trace use;
and we need, every day, to come again for life. Iti thee is iufluite fullness ;
and we derive from thee power to be. And we rejoice that all the gifts of
life which malie joy or peace, upspring from thee. Grant that in the service
of thy sanctuary, this morning, we may be conscious of thy surrounding
presence, and feel the penetration of thy Spirit. May we rejoice together.
In fellowship of song may we praise thee. May we find ihe way of com-
munion. Lead us therein. Teach us how to pray as we ought. Bless our
worsbip to-day. Bless our devout meditation. May all this day be filled

with joy and delight. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.
a.

THE AGES TO COME.

" That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his
grace, in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus."— Eph. ii., 7.

The context is this :

" But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ, (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus : that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward
us, through Christ Jesus."

You will observe how passionately anxious the apostle is to show
that all that God did to Jesus Christ he did likewise to us. And as
our elder brother, we are inseparable partners and brothers Avith
him. When we were dead in sins, he quickened us too-ether w^ith
Christ. Dead in body ; but quickened by the power of God. Dead
in sins ; but quickened by the same power. Raised up to^-ether and
made to sit in heavenly jjlaces with Christ Jesus. Partnership, indis-
soluble union, is here indicated.

There is something very impressive and admirable in that lono-
look ahead which distinguished the worthies of old. None ever lived
so sympathetically in the present as they did. None ever lived so
far away from the present, and so far ahead of it, as they did. They
fed their souls upon the visions of ages to come. It was a triumph-
ant forelooking in Moses that seems to have excited the apostle's
admiration : "t^Ao endured as seeinfj hhn loho is invisidle.^^ It was
that feature in the Saviour that attracted the eye of admiration :
" who for the Joy that was set be/ore him endured the cross, desjyising
the shame.''^ It was this forelooking to the sustenance which it
brought, and the rest under disquietude which it gave, and the in-
spiration in the midst of despair which it ministered, that led the
apostle otherwheres to say, " Ye are saved by ho^ye " — not meanino-
that the active and justifying reason of salvation is that we are hope-
ful, but that in our warfare with the world we derive from hope such
important help and inspiration that it may be said that without it we
never could get along.

StiNBAY Morning. April 30, 1871. LESSON: Heb. XII. 1—11; 33—25. Hymns fPlv-
mouth Collection) : Nos. 7;i5. 878, 1359.

16a TEE AGES TO COME.

Tlie apostles seemed to regard their whole experience of the pres-
ent as a mere hint, an earnest, a bond for a deed. Here, in this life,
everything seemed to them but in its initial state, in its seminal
stage. The harvest lay beyond, and a great way beyond, in the
gathering of the church — in the whole future condition of the world,
when nations should be righteous ; when Christ should possess the
whole earth. In looking forward to all those great elements they
saw simply glimpses and hints of them. And they accepted the inti-
mations of the present as so many tokens of something transcend-
ently better, for which they were laboring, and for which they were
waiting, but toward which they were traveling.

The glory of God's work cannot be found out on earth — this was
their feeling. " In the ages to come" it will disclose itself. Now,
rudeness and heartlessness and discord ; but " in the ages to come,"
melody, the sweetest and most continuous. Now, collision, conflict,
and suffering ; but " in the ages to come," peace and joy unspeak-
able and full of glory. Now, all darkness ; at times twilight at the
best ; but " in the ages to come," perfect light, perfect disclosure,
perfect knowledge. Now, the rudiment ; but then, when ages shall
have passed, the full form.

1. We need just such a forelooking. The condition of the human
race as it now exists is not a cheme for pleasurable meditation. To
those who believe in the moral government of God, and in the
active administration oi affairs in this world and in nature by the
divine mind, the actual tondition of the race seems utterly inexpli-
cable. It is full of p&in. The lowness of the average of intelligence
and of social virtue, and the still lower average of spiritual condi-
tions, fills the mind with amazement that God is Father. The greatest
part of the world is but little redeemed from barbarism ; and the
development of the race from barbarism has been, within historic
periods, coming on with extreme slowness. Indeed, what has been
gained on one side, seems to have been lost on the other. It is true
that more races are civilized than at any former period ; but how
many thousands of years have been expended ! and how little of that
time seems to have had addressed to it any active or apparently
divinely-guided instruments of restraint ! How little knowledge of
the origin of men, how little knowledge of their own powers, how
little knowledge of the laws of the globe on which they dwell, and
how little knowledge of tht principles on which their prosperity de-
pends, has there been ! How little has tended toward civilization,
and how much toward animalism and superstition ! How little has
tended toward anything but brutality ! Nations learn but i-ery
little, and that little they forget easily. The intellectual and the?

THE AGES TO COME. 161

moral faculties are certainly stronger to-day than ever tliey were
before ; they are stronger in a greater number ; but the animal pas-
sions of the race do not seem to have lost any force. Nor do they
seem to* be under any greater control than they were a thousand or
two thousand years ago.

Nor is it altogether a relief to us to leave the world to natural
causes. That would be a relief if generations did not die, and if
we did not have to account in some way for those that disappear from
this life and re-appear in some other world. If annihilation met the
iiicomplete manhood ; if death rubbed out being, as the figures on a
boy's slate are rubbed out Avhere the sum is wrong, that it may be
begun again, it would not be so mysterious nor so strange. But to
suppose that through age after age, and age after age, almost with-
out instruments, without schools, without churches, without a Bible,
without missionaries, without ministers, Avithout even the knowledge
of the commonest principles of physical life, the race has been pro-
lific, bubbling up enormously, and dying off, myriads and myriads
and myriads pouring like a mighty tide into the great invisible
world beyond — to contemplate that, and to see how the process is
still going on — if that does not task one's faith, if that does not
wring one's hope, or fear, as the case may be, I know not what can.

And it is to be rememembered, too, that as we ourselves become
imbued with the spirit of the Gospel we supply severer tests to civ-
ilization, and experience more revulsion from barbarism, and the
marvel increases. As a light shines brighter and brighter in one
place, so the darkness grows more and more impenetrable in every
other place.

Therefore it is that we must believe, if we believe at all without
explanation, that somehow " in the ages to come," when there is a
new heaven and a new earth, righteousness will dwell in them. By
what road we are coming to it, by what process the work shall
be done, we cannot say. Ingenious suggestions may be made, and
analogies may be pleaded ; yet after all it is but fancy. All that we
know is, that " in the ages to come " there is to be a new heaven and
a new earth in which will dwell righteousness, and that tliere is
meaning in the the mystic communication that Christ will take his
power and come again to reign. If it be not the literal millennial
glory which men have counted upon, it will be in some form the
substance of which that is a sign and symbol. There is to be a view
that shall cast light and glory on the track of nations and races ;
and the skepticism and animal conditions of the globe are not to
continue for ever.

2. The condition of the church itself — all that which we are

162 THE AGES TO COME.

■wont to esteem as the best part of the church — the most favored,
the most enlightened, the most cultured — leads one to rebound from
the present, and to seek comfort in looking into " the ages to come."
The church of the future — we hear much of it ; and the less it re-
sembles the church of the present, I think, the more we shall like it,
and the more we shall be comforted by it. For the church of the
present evidently is a church of sinful men not yet sanctified. It is
the'assembling together of the sick, although they may be conva-
lescent. We should not seek beauty in hospitals ; and as long as
pride and selfishness are what tuey now are, as long as the spirit
of evil so largely bafiles the work of grace — so long the church,
comprehensively viewed, will be rather a hospital than a mansion
or a household of beauty. Single groups here and there comfort
the eye. We see in villages and towns, and sometimes in large
districts. Christian men living in such a way as to throAV light
upon all the community, and raise the tone of conscience, and pro-
mote civilization. Nevertheless, looking at the church the world
over, it is a great army divided against itself, filled with seams,
filled with imperfections, careless of the highest things, careful of
things almost inconsequential, very slow in progress, given up largely
to externalities, twined about with superstitions without real wor-
ship, standing fiercely and cruelly for things without value, and with
an average of piety that is exceedingly low. " The ages to come," —
we must look into them, if we would comfort ourselves and be kept
from despondency when we look into the time that now is. When
there shall be no Oriental church and no Occidental church ; when
neither Greece nor Rome shall give their name to the collective
people of God ; when the church shall not be divided up into sects
warring with each other, and hating each other, and almost wreak-
ing cruelty upon one another — then, in " the ages to come," the
household of faith will be built beautifully, and God will dwell with
his people, and they shall be like him. We look away from the real
and into the ideal, and build, every one as seemeth to him best, the
vision of the new state of glory when love shall be the public senti-
ment of the churcli, and the wisdom of the church shall be that
which springs from the heart of love.

3. Our knowledge of God in the present state of things, with
all that has been done to winnow the wheat from the chaff, is ex-
ceedingly incomplete and unsatisfying. Our knowledge of the
divine nature is unlike the knowledge of the qualities of matter
which may be discerned by the use of our senses. God cannot be
learned by any process of observation ; nor can his kingdom be
studied by scientific methods. As is declared, " The kingdom of

TBE AGES TO COME. * 163

God Cometh not "with observation." A knowledge of the divine
nature is not a thing to be demonstrated by scientific tests. It de-
pends upon groAVth in us. We cannot understand in God anything
of which we have not something in ourselves that stands for a
suggestion, an analogue, and of which we have not had a parallel
experience. How far can we understand God ? As far as we are
developed in spiritual directions. How is it possible for us to come
to any considerable understanding of God, who is, after all, to us
but a Being somewhat greater than good beings whom we have
known upon earth ? How much can we convey of our nature and
of our modes of government to the intelligent creatures that are
below us ? — for there are creatures below us who understand many
things. How miich could we make the horse, the dog, or the ele-
phant, understand, either of our dispositions, or of the motives from
which we work, or of the structure and nature of our minds, or of
the processes of society, or of the civil government which we are
carrying on ? You could not make them understand these things,
because they have not the development, the faculty, that makes the
meaning plain to them. The beings below us cannot undei-stand us
because they are not sufficiently unfolded.

And is it not so as between us and a superior Intelligence ?
There is not that in us which can understand God. Parts of his
ways, and these the lower parts, we understand ; but the distance
between us and the Eternal Father is greater than the distance
between us and the more intelligent animals below us. And
doubtless, the same reason prevails in both directions. Growth is
the only interpretation of God which will reveal him to its. It
cannot be done by the blazing light. It cannot be done by any
formula of words. It cannot be done by any symbolism of nature.
All these things may help a little ; but none of them are full
interpi'etations, which can come only by the evolution of that which
is in us, and which we are. They must be reserved for "the ages to
come." It will not be here.

Now, our God is as a brilliant star, too far off for measurement ;
but bright, we know, and perfect, we know. The fact of his exist-
ence Ave know ; but little else do we know concerning him. " In
the ages to come" we shall see him as he is. Now Ave see him as we
are. We make up our God very much out of the materials which
Ave have in ourselves. There is not a question that the conception
wliich a person has of God is largely an ideal made up out of his
OAvn experience ; out of his own imagination ; out of his own con-
structive reason. It must be so. We cannot do better. Never-
theless, the very best that we can do is still so imperfect that we do

164 THE A GES TO GOME.

not see Him as he is. Admit that God is perfect wisdom ; hut how
much do we know of perfect wisdom ? Admit that he is infinitely
just ; but how imperfect is our conception of justice ! Admit that
he is perfectly benevolent.; but who understands the realm of benev-
olence ? Admit that he is impartial, and that he is infinite in
capacity in every direction ; what are these but words ? Who
of us has any realizing center to such conceptions ? We have
never seen him. Nor can we see him and live — or while we are
living. It is not given to the body to do it. And if we attempt, as
we must, as the very best thing we can do, out of our own limited
understanding of mercy, and gentleness, and pity, and love, and
self-denial and compassion, to conceive of the character of God,
it may transcend the heathen deities, it may at times, under the
flashing acumination of our imaginations, touched by his Spirit,
kindle to a sacred glow. But, after all, when we shall see him as he
is, not the first rude daubs of the incipient artist will seem so rude,
when the master-artist has found his skill, as our earliest conceptions
of God will seem when, " in the ages to come," we shall see Him as
he is, no longer as through a glass darkly, no longer as the vision
of our own imagination, no longer as the imperfect work of our
reason, but in all the amplitude and fullness of the real Being, and
when we are so developed that we are able to behold and still to live.
We see on every side how many analogies of this there are. We
see how impossible it is for beings to conceive of things that are far
along beyond them in the way of development. Who, for instance,
that was created with mature power, but had never lived to
gather experience, could to-day form the slightest forecast of next
October ? Who could tell the color of the Autumn from the first
growths and germs of the Sjiring ? Imagine an Esqiximaux striving
to form some idea of the tropics from the missionary's description.
What has he to form an idea from but the moss and stinted shrubs
that scarcely grow higher than his feet, and the flowers that blossom
in the midst of northern glaciers ? Would he form a conception of
the brilliant fruits of the tropics ? He must grub the ground
for berries, which are all the fruit that the frigid zone knoAvs. And
from the creeping vine of the wintergreen-berries, from the huckleber-
ries, and such like things, he is to form his ideal of those magnificent
parasitic plants which fill the tropical forests. These little berries
are his oranges and bananas and pine-apples. He attempts, shiver-
ing in the midsummer, imder the iceberg, to form a conception of
the everlasting pomp and glory of the equatorial region. And when
he has formed a conception of, it* he cheers himself, and sighs,, and
wishes he could see it. Oh ! it is so beautiful in his imagination !

THE AGES TO COME. 165

But what does he know of it ? What is an Esquimaux' ideal of
equatorial glory ? The reality transcends unspeakably any concep-
tion wliich he can form.

And that which is to be revealed to you, " in the ages to come,"
when you shall have left these mortal bodies, when you shall have
experienced the sensations of the new life, when you shall have un-
folded and come into the realm where things are no longer symbols
but realities ; when the physical shall have ceased, and the spiritual
shall have been ushered in — that will surpass any ideal that your
highest imagination has ever pictured.

4. " The ages to come " will reveal a personal experience in us
of which now we have but the very faintest trace in analogy. We
cannot at present form a conception of perfection in the elements
which constitute character. You never can tell what the ripe is from
looking at the green. If an unknown seed be brought to you, and you
plant it in the ground, and it sprout, and grow for five years, only
throwing out leaves, and for five years more, still only throwing out
leaves, can you tell how its blossoms are going to look ? You never
saw them. The tree is a new one. You have seen the root, the leaves,
and the bark, and you have cut into the wood ; you know its habits
for the first ten years;, you know when its leaves appear in the
I Spring, and when they fall ofi" in the Autumn; you know everything
about it as far as it has gone during those ten years; but you can-
not guess whether its blossoms are white or yellow. You cannot tell
whether they will hang in racemes, or rise up in circles. You cannot
tell whether they will stand out in spikes, or be pendant. You can-
not tell whether they will be early or late. You cannot, if the shrub
or tree be unknown, find out the prophecy of the blossoms.

But at last the blossom comes out. Now tell me what that blos-
som is going to produce. Look at it. Is it going to put forth a
pod, or is it going to be a fruit ? Is it going to be a seed, or luscious
food ? You cannot tell from a blossom what the fruit is going to
be, except by analogues ; and I am now supposing a new plant of
which there has been no congener within your knowledge, and that
you are attempting, from a lower state, to conceive of the higher.

Now, in regard to human beings, there is nothing in the unripe
state of tlie mind which is a fair interpretation of what ripeness in it
is going to be. You could never have told, except by seeing it,
what the human reason was competent to do. Consider the force
of reason, by wliich the whole })hysical universe is being now u-n-
barred ; by which the most distant orbs are being search^, weighed,
analyzed ; by which we are unwrapping the sun, and taking off coat
after coat ; by which we know more about the sun itself than often-

166 TEE AGES TO COME.

times men do of the province in which they live on earth. "What
an education ! What an outstretch of thought ! What development
of the reasoning, searching power of the mind ! Who could have
suspected it in the days of barbarism ? No man could then have
told that. And who now can foretell what new development the
human reason is capable of ? As from the lower stages you could
not suspect the higher, so from the present stages you cannot antici-
pate those which are yet to come. Now we think ; but in the higher
forms of thinking there is the intuition, the jump, as it were, the
flash of thought, with which our present thinking is not to be com-
pared. We call it ifituition, we call it inspiration, we call it names ;
but names are not things. There is evidently the hint of a wondrous
disclosure of power in the direction of reason " in the ages to come."
We do not see it here. We cannot know it. We can only know
what is the perpetual suggestion of it. Says the apostle St. John :
" We are the sons of God; Taut it doth not yet appear what we shall be."

We are God's sons ; but the fullness of that word sons is not
translated to us. The condition in Avhich we are is such as to make
it impossible for us wisely and fully to forecast the future.

Who, for instance, can tell what the difference will be to him
when he shall drop the body, with all its appetites and passions?
How much of that which is sin in us now is from the excesses of the
driving forces of the appetites ! Many a man is like a very small
boat with a very large engine which racks it all to pieces with its
power; and many a man is like a very large boat with a very small
engine, so that its motion is feeble and sluggish, because the engine
cannot generate enough power to propel it. Some men are over-
bodied, and some are under-bodied. Some are over-excitable, and
some are under-excitable. There is every conceivable variation in
men. It is a matter which seems to follow no law of volition, and
no law of nature, and no law of science. And it is a matter about
which we are never consulted. We find ourselves set afloat in time
with all sorts of craft — some broad and some narrow ; some sharp-
bowed and some blunt-bowed ; some with sails, and some with en-
gines ; and some with little help of any kind. And thus equipped
every man is to solve the problem of life. Every man is to take his
own structure as God has given it to him, and work out true man-
hood. Every man is to make his own special condition the point of
starting and measuring.

Who cg-n conceive what it will be to be set free from all these
things, so that the sluggish temperament is dropped ; so that the
fiery temperament is dropped; so that the intense energy in this
or that passional direction has ceased ; so that there shall be, as

TEE AGES TO COME. 1G7

when a whirlwind has passed, a calm, and there shall be no sway-
ing, as the mighty winds sway the groaning trees; so that there
shall be quiet in every bodily inducement to evil ? Who can
imagine how one will feel under such circumstances? Who can
form any idea of what will become of what is left of him ? Who
can judge of the power to which his reason might have attained, or
of the height to which his moral sentiments and affections might
have mounted up, if it had not been for cumbering animalism ; if it
had not been for the fiery temptations which come from fighting in-
stincts ; from over-eating and over-drinking ; fxom physical impul-
sions ? We cannot arrive at any notion of how we should feel if we
were emancipated from these lower propensities.

Suppose you were to wake up to-morrow morning without being
proud, do you know how it would feel ? Suppose you were to wake up
to-morrow morning not obstinate but easy to be entreated, can you im-
agine what sort of a creature you would be ? Suppose you were to
wake up to-morrow morning with the spirit of avarice taken out of
you, so that you were not over desirous to gain wealth, but were de-
sirous of being just in your dealings with your fellow-men, can you^ im-
agine such a thing ? We are always full of sickness ; and it is hard for
the sick to remember how they felt when they were well, or to re-
alize how they s-hall feel when they are restored to life again. But
" m the ages to come " we shall neither be helped nor hindered by
the cumbrances of these mortal bodies.

Some believe that this mOrtal body rises again. Thank God !

not I. I have had enough of it. And when once the earth takes it,

let it keep it. The tree is welcome to what of me it can get, so far

as the body is concerned. Says the apostle :

" There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. " Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

Good-by, old flesh and blood. I am bound for God's kino-dom
without flesh and blood ; and what it will be to be without them I
cannot tell ; but I know it will be magnificent — never tiring any
more, unwearied and unweariable, with nothing to hinder, and
everything to help. Is it needful that on^ should sleep and wake ?
Is it needful that one should waste half his precious time in sleepino-
and eating ? Is it needful that more than one' half of our beino-
should be dedicated to the animal life ? Is it needful tliat there
should be but half or a third of our time available for the immortal?
However it may be in the present, " in the ages to come," over the
mountains, across the valleys, behind the clouds, beyond all cal-
culable periods, there will be a state in which we shall have dropped
this natural body, and in which we shall be endued with our spirit-

168 THE AGES TO COME.

ual body, whatever that is, and shall be free from the circumscrip-
tion and weariness of this mortal condition. Who can tell how he
will seem, or how he will be, then ? Besides, there will be the pres-
ence of things which are nut known now and here. He shall be sur-
rounded with influences of which we know nothing, but which grow
out of the perfected state. We shall be surrounded by a society
such as the apostle sjDcaks of:

"Ye are come ... to the general assembly and church of the flirst-bom,
which are written in heaven, . . and to the spirits of just men made per-
fect."

What would it be to live for a single year in society where every
thought, and every look, and every word, and every act, and every
suggestion was lifting you higher, and ennobling you ? As we live
among men, we are perpetually weighing them ; we are all the time
parrying with them; we are forever defending ourselves against
them. We are continually running backward and forward in life.
Though we are friends to each other, yet we are more or less hin-
drances one to another. We are throwing oif this and shutting
ourselves up against that influence which our fellow-men exert upon
us. We are incessantly dodging and eluding each other, as well as
helping each other. And who can conceive of that state in which
every eye shall shine on him like a star ; in which every heart shall
impress itself on his heart, and make it better, and give it an im-
pulse in the right direction, so that every being shall imprint on
him some glorious aspect ; so that as every plant in a garden,
though all be united, is beautiful in its own way, so every single
creature of the whole realm, lifted into the highest state, shall bring
balm and sweetness to every other one ? Now, we are hindered, not
only, but we are oppressed by each other — by even the well-mean-
ing. And what shall that condition be in which everybody shall
help, and everything shall help, and all hindrances shall be gone,
and sorrowing and sighing shall have passed away, and singing shall
have taken its place, and God shall wipe the tears from every eye !

What can you conceive of the connections which we shall form
there in this new society, when friendship shall be purified from all
its lower forms and selfishness shall have nothing to do with it,
when there shall be no discrepancy between our reason and our con-
science, and when we shall be perfectly harmonious ?

If fifty men in Bedlam, each having a separate instrument of
music, should play on that instrument — one playing his trumpet,
another screeching his hautboy, another beating his drum, another
playing his fiddle, and others playing their various instruments —
each in his own way, and without any reference to the others, who,

THE AGES TO COME. 169

going by, could form any idea of what would come from those in-
struments if every one of these men, having got back to his reason,
was playing in perfect harmony and in a sweet concord? The
hideous cacophony, the din and the jar, of such a Bedlamite band —
would it not be very much like the play of our affections and feel-
ings— sweet instruments, but played in horrible dissonance ? And
what shall that state be in which God shall make the whole of them
to be united sympathetically, and all of them to be played together
in unison — every power, every emotion, every instinct of love, sweet-
ened, deepened, broadened, inspired, rendered divine by the presence
of God? But this is for "the ages to come."

A hopeful, a joyful imagination of " the ages to come," should
be encouraged, though it may be full of fancy and inaccurate — as it
will be. For we do not pretend that any man can limn this picture.
We do not pretend that any man is entitled to say that his view is
any more correct than the views of others. But after all, the main
defect of fore-looking into " the ages to come," will be deficiency
rather than exaggeration. Our mistake will be, not in making reason
too full, but in its meagreness ; not in making purity too resplendent,
but too tame ; not in making joy too great, but too little ; not in
making things better than they are, but in not knowing how to make
them good enough. We are not in any danger of exaggerating, so
far as our concej^tion of the future state is concerned.
" We are the sons of God."

There are your figures to cipher with.
" It doth not yet appear what we shall be."

No man can cipher out that result. It will transcend any image
that you make of it. Draw from the heavens ; draw from all that there
is on earth ; draw what you can through the channels of inspiration
and of revelation ; collect and cluster together the things which men
have agreed to consider most admirable ; and from these form pic-
torial parables of the City with its golden streets, with its gates of
pearl, with its walls of precious stones, with its beautiful gardens,
with its flowing rivers, and with its trees whose leaves are for the
healing of the nations ; picture as you may the future state from
oriental conditions, or from the household, or the commonwealth as
they now exist ; from any and all of these form your conception of
it ; form your conception of it in any way that you please ; but re-
member that when you have made it just as briglit as your imagina-
tion can sketch it, when your fancy, architecturally, has wrought it
as skillfully as it can, and everything has been carried to the highest
pitch that your eartlily power will allow, your conception will yet

1 70 THE AGES TO COME.

be imperfect. For the sweet apostle, looking upon you as a father
upon his children, says,
" It doth not yet appear."

You have gathered from the cradle purity of idea, and clasp and
cling of faith ; you have gathered from rich companionship what is
the thrill and the joy of the higher life ; you have gathered from
the patriarch and the matron — saints not yet gone home to glory —
dignity and patience, and all that makes generosity and magna-
nimity ; you have gathered your best fruits, and fashioned them
into single characters, and into ranks, and into communities, and
into nations ; and you have combined all these things in your con-
ception of the resplendent throne of the All-Father. And yet, saith
the sweet apostle again,
" It doth not yet appear."

Certainly not, brethren. And if you still add nation after nation,
and age after age, to that conception, it will still fall short of what
the future is to reveal of the goodness of God through the Lord
Jesus Christ.

I will not open the subject further, but will close with one or
two applications.

How much better it is, then, to live by faith, than it is to live by
Bight ! — and you will see that, by faith, I mean a sanctified imagina-
tion, or the imagination applied to spiritual things. I suppose that to
be the generic definition of faith. That which a man sees in this
world is not to be Compared for beauty nor for comfort with the
things which he can imagine. Merely worldly men look upon things
as they are. They must, in bo far as business is concerned. The
nearer men can come to things as they are, the better workmen they
will be, and the better it will be for the transaction of purely secular
afiairs. But our truest manhood is not in the administration of
material things. Our highest nature does not lie merely in the ex-
actitudes of physical elements. We are to have an eye that looks
beyond what the mere natural man has known. The spiritual man
sees all that the natural man sees, and then sees much besides. It
is sad to see how the average of men live in this world. It is sad to
see how little they have, and how little they can do ; how much
there is of desire, and how little there is of satisfaction. It is sad to
see how men yearn for happiness, and how seldom they gain it. Joy
comes mostly in childhood. Then comes the tug. The bright side
of life disappears, pride is humbled, and often grows malignant.
Health breaks down. Expectations are overwhelmed. The malign
passions rise and dominate over the higher faculties. The average
of men live on a very low allowance of enjoyment. They live in

TEE A GES TO COME. 171

the literal present ; and that is very poor. First, they are huoyed
up by hope. Then comes anxious expectation. Then they wrestle
with disappointment and despondency. And at last they are
reduced to the worst straits. And they lose the respect of their
fellowmen ; and are kicked about in society ; and some day it is
said of them, " lie is dead ;" and men say, " Ah !" And that is the
end.

One of the most piteous of things is to see how men live. I do
not mean barbarians. I mean intelligent men. I mean men brought
up by much care and culture. The world is piteous to live in if this
is the only world. If there is nothing but what is here, I do not
wonder that the aspiring mind cries out, " We are of all men most
miserable." But a Christian man, under precisely the same circum-
stances, has aground transcendently higher. For if there be nothing'
for him that suits his ambition, or his yearnings, or his wants, hei-e,
he has the land beyond. He knows that he is but a stranger and
pilgrim ; and he comforts himself, as he goes through the wilderness,
thinking of the home toward which he is traveling. And he weaves
tapestries, and paints pictures, and carves various creations. Living,
as he does, by faith, and not merely by sight, his imagining, his
picture-painting, his idealizing, his holy revery, is filling the great
empty heavens with all conceivable beauty. And what if it be
evanescent ? So is the wondrous frost-picture on the window; but
is it not beautiful, and worth having ? So is the summer dew -upon
the flower ; but is it not renewed night by night ? And faith is given
to man to lift him above the carnal, the dull, the sodden, and
to enable him to conceive of things beyond that to which any
earthly realization has yet ever attained.

So contrast the difference between going through life on the part
of one who has this sense of " the ages to come," and on the part
of one who lives only on the horizon of this world. ]\[en who are
bound up in this world do not like to think of the future. Men do
not like to think of growing old. There comes, almost always, a
shock the first time a man finds that his keel grates ; the first time
he finds that the stream is growing shallower ; when he first dis-
covers that there are white hairs upon his head ; the first time it
fairly comes to him, " Your eyes are giving out ;" the first time
some not irreverent but inconsiderate person says, " Get out of the
Avay, old man," and he looks around and sees that it is he himself
that is being addressed.

I once heard a person say, " I hate to grow old." But he was
shoved along every day, notwithstanding. He had to grow old. The
teeth showed it ; the_ hair showed it j the eye showed it j the ear

172 THE AGES TO COME,

showed it ; 'every sense showed it. The old tabernacle could not
stand the wind and the water that were forever beating upon it and
battering it.

But hear Paul say,

" We know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building of God, a house not njade with hands, eternal in the
heavens."

Hear the Master say,

" In my Father's house are many mansions" [apartments.] " I go to pre-
pare a place for you."

A man who believes and takes in the meaning of these declar-
ations, receives the knocks and ill-fortune of life, and says to every
wind that shakes his earthly house, " Blow ! My real house is not
touched by any earth-storm." To every infelicity, every circumscrip-
tion, and every other token of weakness that comes with growing
old, he says, " You have very nearly run out, and I hunger for ' the
ages to come,' "

The spiritual man is giving up physical things all the time, and
is getting more and more, clear down to the end. But it is just
the other way with the natural man. He is all the time trying to
hold on to things that are material, and is getting less and less, clear
down to the end. The man who lives simply for this world and for
his senses, the literal man, is living out his patrimony. He is spend-
ing all he has. His pockets grow shalloAver and shallower. The
nerve becomes duller and duller. The eye can no longer see such
things as it once did. The ear can no longer hear such pleasant
sounds as it has heard. But it is not so with a man that is living by
faith. He never hears so much as when he begins to hear nothing.
Milton said, in substance, that God shut his eyes that he might shine
upon him with the higher light of his own Spirit. To him blind-
ness was not darkness, but that twilight which came upon him from
a higher realm. For when this outward body decays, the mind
does not decay with it. The apostle puts it in strong antithesis :

" Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day
by day."

And, not only that, it grows more and more vivid and intense.

So, the old miser takes care of his wealth, but he cannot help
thinking who will have his money. It cannot be many months be-
fore he will have to go and leave it ; but he does not like to think
of such a thing. Next to him, right by the side of his abundance,
may be a Christian pauper starving. And in his suffering he says,
" Thank God ! I am almost home, where my treasure is, and Avhere
I shall hunger no more, and have no more care and trouble."

He that is living by the body is living out everything. He is

THE AGES TO COME. 173

like a candle that is burning down in the socket. But he that is
livino- in the spirit, is living toward everything — toward hope, to-
ward joy, toward fullness, toward refinement, toward elevation, to-
ward grandeur.

When that venerable and dear old man, my father, for a year
was without the knowledge of himself, it was to me the most piteous,
the most utterly unbearable of all earthly spectacles, unrelieved but
by this single thought — " Old patriarch, your light has not gone
out. It is merely obscured by some film of the flesh. It shall not
lie quenched. And ere long the blow shall come that shall break
this casket, and let it out. You are grander than you ever were,
and nearer to royalty, always royal."

They that live to the flesh are living crumbling lives, and are
gomg toward dissolution all the time. It is only they who live the
life of faith, by the imagination, in holy things, that have before
them " the ages to come." They are those who live toward hap-
piness, singing more and more, rejoicing more and more, the circles
and the waves of their experience running with wider and wider
sweep.

When we see men that are old and infirm, we sometimes say,
" They look like disbranched trees" ; but if God were to touch our
eyes, and reveal to us the companies of angels that surround such
venerable, waiting saints, we should never think that they were soli-
tary, or impoverished, or to be pitied.

I love to think, also, in this view, that wliat seems to be the
mystery of the silence of death, which envelops so many that we
loved on earth, is not really a mystery. Our friends are separated
from us because they are lifted higher than our faculties can go.
Our child dies. It is the last that we can see of him here. He is
lifted so far above us that we cannot follow him. He was our child ;
he was cradled in our arms ; he clambered upon our knees. But
instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, God took him, and lifted him
up into his own sphere. And we see him not. But it is because we
are not yet developed enough. We cannot see things spiritual with
carnal eyes. But they who have walked with us here, Avho have
gone beyond us, and whom we cannot see, are still ours. They are
more ours than they ever were before. We cannot commune with
them as we once could, because they are infinitely lifted above those
conditions in which we are able to commune. We remain here, and
are subject to the laws of this realm. They have gone where they
Bpeak a higher language and live in a higher sphere. But this si-
lence is not the silence ot vacuity, and this mystery is not the mys-
tery of darkness and death. Theirs is the glory ; ours is the waiting

174 TEE AGES TO COME.

for it. Theirs is the realization ; ours is the hoping for it. Theirs
is the perfection ; ours is the immaturity striving to be ripe. And
when the day comes that we shall disappear from these earthly
ecenes, we shall be joined to them again : not as we were — for we
shall not then be as we were — but as they are, with God. We shall
be like them and him.

And so, even in respect to the things that the heart holds dear-
est, and that we are called to give up, we are not gloomy and sad.
For, as we go on down toward the end of life, and one after another
is taken away from us, these " ages to come" are the breast of con-
solation to us. And we look toward them. We look away from
the trite, and flat, and dreary monotony of the present ; we look
away from its storms ; we look away from the oppressive heat of its
Summer, and the bitter cold of its Winter ; we look away from its
temptations and trials ; we look away from the things as they are, to
that blessed time, ages from now, in which there shall be perfect
thought, perfect feeling, perfect association, and perfect knowledge
of God, knowing as we are known, and in which we shall go on for-
ever and forever, blessed and blessing.

" God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.''

TEE AGES TO COME. 175

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast made thyself familiar
•with us. Not that we understand thee, whose greatness surpasses all
thought, and the richness of whose being transcends any experience that we
know upon earth ; but thou hast been pleased to liken thyself unto things
familiar, and to call thyself Father, and to teach us to say. Our Father which
art in heaven. We are thine, and thou art ours. Thou hast impressed us
with thine all-comprehending love. Thou hast made us to feel what are the
riches of thy being. Not only hast thou communicated to us by the world
which is without, by the things which we behold in life around about
us, but we have the witness of thy Spirit with ours. There is a voice
inaudible to our outward sense — the voice of God in our soul. There is a
divine presence in which is richness, and fullness of joy, and peace. Thou
hast brought it near to us. We are witnesses of thy sustaining power, often,
in circumstances of peril and of great trial. We have known thee when in
solitude and in sorrow. We have felt thee in the midst of griefs and vehe-
ment alllictions. Thou hast come to us in the stirrings of fear. Thou hast
drawn near to us in hours of great trouble, and manifested thyself to us as
8 God of peace and great mercy, forgiving iniquity and sin. And werejoioe
that we have our hsritage of experience in thee, and that with thy name has
been associated much of our very life. And yet, how little of our nature
hath goxe toward thee ! and how little of thine is explored or explorableby
ours! How much in glorious reserve awaits our understanding, when we
shall be born into spiritual things ! Thou art far from us only because we
are so small and so poor, and have known so little that interprets thee.
And we rejoice that we are living toward the knowledge that yet shall be
ours, and that thou hast in the future glorious and blessed things in store
for those that serve thee faithfully unto the end. Grant that we may have
convoying grace, that in all the perils of the way we may be surrounded by
thy care. We commit our souls to thy keeping. To thee we commit all our
woi'ldlv good— our friendships, our hopes, all the things for which our ambi-
tions strive. And we desire that thou and thy righteous will should reign
over all that we have, or hope to be.

And we beseech of the<? that thou wilt keep alive in us, and quicken, con-
science, that we may be more and more desirous of things that are true and
right; of things that are high and divine. May we be delivered from the
power of the world in undue measure. May we be delivered from too great
avarice for its affairs, for its joy, for its pleasure. And we pray that we may
have more and more the eye that beholds the invisible, and the heart that
rests in things to come.

We pray for those in thy presence who offer up their thanksgiving. Wilt
thou be pleased, this morning, to accept their grateful thanks.

Draw near to those that fain would confess to thee their sin, this morning,
the burden of which lies heavy upon them, or hangs as a cloud above them.
Wilt thou give them release from fear. Wilt thou give them that quietness
which they have whose sins are forgiven.

And we pray that thou wilt be with all who come to thee for rescue in
peril, and for deliverance out of temptation, and for patience and strength
under the trials which press upon them. Thou know'est altogether every
heart.

We commend to thee, this morning, those who fain would supplicate thy
presence and thy mercies. We beseech of thee that thou wilt draw near to
all those who are sitting in sorrow, and can scarcely look up, or call to thee,
though their afllictious are great. And although for the present it is gloomy

176 TEE AGES TO COME.

and sorrowful, bring to them, by and by, the pleasant fruits of righteous-
ness. We pray that thou wilt uphold them, that their faith may not fail
them.

Be near to those that are perplexed, whether it be concerning their house"
hold, conceining their worldly affairs, or concerning themselves. We pray
that they may cast their burden on the Lord, and feel sustained by his pres-
ence and grace.

Draw near, we beseech of thee, to all those who are in the midst of life's
battle. May they be girded with strength that is not their own, but thine.
May they be able to turn aside temptation and the tempter. May they be
able to acquit themselves like men.

And we pray, O Lord, our God ! that thou wilt bless those who are labor-
ing in word and in doctrine. May all that go forth to teach be themselves
filled with the Holy Ghost. We pray that those who bear the tidings of
truth to the scattered and the wandering may have the blessing of their
Father evermore going with them. And may their souls be so full of the
true spirit of the Gospel, that everywhere their words may win some. We
thank thee that thy truth is not without power. We thank thee that those
who labor in faith and in patience see of the travail of their souls. We
thank thee that so many are from time to time turning away from evil, and
learning the right path, and seeking to pursue the things that are noble and
pure and right before God, and comely before men. May the truth be in-
creased.

May those who are beginning a life reformed, a life upward and spiritual,
not be discouraged nor overborne. And if they stumble, may they not be
destroyed. Lift thou them up, and carry them unta the end.

And we pray for the rescue of the outcasts; of all that are in thrall; of
all that fain would break away from passions; of all that are ensnared in
tbeir own sins. We pray, O Lord, Redeemer and Deliverer! that thou wilt
send rescue to them.

Rememberany that are backslidden; any that have known thee, and that
are following but afar off, almost out of sight and light and warmth. Bring
them near again to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls ; and restore to
them the joys of thy salvation.

We pray for the young, that they may grow up uncontamlnated; that
they may grow up valiant for the truth, and with a feeling of honor for
things that are pure and right. We pray that they may be delivered from
those that would destroy them. May the generation that is rising serve
God and their country better than the generation which is passing away.

Cleanse the laws of this land, and all its customs. Grant that the magis-
tracy may be everywhere God-fearing. Be pleased to bless the President of
these United States, and those that are associated in counsel with him, and
the members of the General Government, and of the Governments of the
States. We pray, O Lord! that thou wilt grant unto them that guidance of
thy wisdom which shall keep them from mistake and all harm.

Deliver this nation from intestine feuds, and from bitteriiess. And grant
that justice and intelligence and virtue may thrive, and that on these a
glorious perfection may be developed.

We pray for the nations of the earth— for those that are drinking blood.
Let the cup pass speedily. O Lord ! let not the iron heel of war forever
dominate over the weak and the poor. Grant that at last thy banner may
be lifted up, white, spotless, and peace prevail in all the earth. And may
justice strengthen it and preserve it, and all the nations see thy salvation.
We ask it for Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.

IX.

The Two Revelations.

INVOCATION.

Thou that hast drawn us hither by the sweet invitation of thy Spirit,
grant now unto us a welcome. For how do we receire with gladness under
our dwelling those whom we love ! And how much more to us art thou, our
Father! And what is the gladness with which thou dost smile upon those
that are beloved of thee ! Lift us, this morning, out of our selfishness, and
out of the quick-bred doubts of the soul, into the dear understanding of thy
love and mercy and yearning goodness, ttat in thee we may be able to re-
joice, not on account of what we are, but. oij account of what thou art, in all
thy bounty, and in all thy long-suffering kindness and tender mercy to-
ward us.

Bless us in all our endeavors to please thee. Accept tbe offer of our
hearts, and the expression of them. Accept our songs, which in fellowship
one with another, we offer before thee. Inspire us with a desire to commune
with thee; and then lead us the unknown way.

Bless the reading of thy word, and all the services of instruction. Bless
our meditations, this day, and our rejoicings one with another, at home,
and by the wayside. And may this be a day of deUght to us all

We ask it in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. Amen.

THE T¥0 REVELATIONS.

" For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto
themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing
or else excusing one another ; in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel." Rom. H., li-16.

The "law" here spoken of was the Mosaic law, unquestionably.
To the Jews the term law conveyed about the same meaning which
to us the word Bible docs. It was their Book; or, it presented itself
to their mind as the inscribed and recorded sum of their relio-ious
faith and observances, just as the Bible stands before us as the Book
of our faith, and the Guide and Directory of our lives and disiiosi-
tions.

The apostle argues that the law — that is, the Jewish Bible

existed, in regard to its essential elements, outside of itself, if I may
so express it ; that the great truths which it embodied did not exist
for the first time in the Old Testament Scripture, and were not
created for it, but that they were founded in nature — so much so
that when men had no access to the law, they went on (the better
portion, the more intelligent and enlightened, of them), seekino*
after the very same ends, in the path of the very same truths that
the Jew did by his Scripture. And the teaching of the apostle is,
that although the light was paler, and the path more obscure, it
was substantially the same path and the same light, after all.

The Gentiles — that is, the great nations of the world outside of
Jewry — were also seeking for truth ; for honor ; for justice ; for
fidelity ; for reformations from evil ; for higher spiritual develop-
ment ; for more insight. They were men full of noble aspirations.
North of them, east of them, north-east of them, all the way along
the Mediterranean coast, there were men of great mental stature and
high genius, and not deficient in moral sentiments, all seeking,
though blindly, or rather in a twilight, the same great ends.

Now, the apostle says,
" "When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things

Sunday EvENiNa, April 23, 1871. Lesson : Matt. V., 3—16, Hymns (Plymjouth
Collection) : Nos. 687, 849, 78.

180 THE TWO EEVELATI0N8.

contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves :
which show the worlc of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else
excusing one another [their moral consciousness condemning them or
approving them.]"

And thus he identifies the subject-matter of the Old Testament
Scipture with the truths which God has revealed in nature.

In other words, the truths of the Old Testament belong to the
nature of things. They are organic. They are fundamental. If
you go through the Bible you shall find them there ; and if you go
down to the bottom of things you shall find them there. They are
a part of ^e constitution of nature. They are not found in nature
because the Bible put them there ; but they are found in the Bible
because they were in nature first.

This was certainly the method by which our Master taught.
The union of two striking peculiarities was found in the Saviour.
One was a quiet compliance with the whole custom and worship
of his time. He was a thorough Jew in his religious habits. He
kept Jewish days. He observed the Jewish ceremonies. He fi-e-
quented the temple. He was devout. He recognized the festivals.
He worshiped in the synagogue. We find him continually taking
part in the synagogue worship. And we do not find that, by word
or deed, he set aside any part of the national worship. Yet you
shall not find an instance in which he intensified or ratified truth
by reference to custom, or by founding it at all on precedent. On
the other hand, the appeal of Christ was always to reason, and to
that part of reason which we call moral consciousness. He based
his instruction, not upon the venerableness of precedent, nor upon
the claims of antiquity, nor upon the wisdom of observing the cus-
toms which had been prevalent, nor even upon the commands of
Scripture ; but upon this : It is true, and therefore it is right.
He urged men from considerations that went back of external
revelation, and beneath it ; that went to the sources from which
revelation itself sprang. And it may be said that all the great
truths of the Word of God are true whether the Bible is believed in
or not. But more of that further on.

It will be found, therefore, that the foundation principles of
Christianity rest in the nature of things. Christianity is not only
not in antagonism to nature (cursed be he that makes it seem so),
but is coincident with it. It is not in antagonism, in any of its parts,
with nature. It is not, either, a super-addition to nature. Chris-
tianity is nature itself, and the best part of it — that part which re-
lates to man's soul ; that part which takes cognizance of the morality
and the divine clement in man. Christianity does not undertake to

TEE TWO EEYELATIONS. 181

help nature in the organization of the globe, nor in its moral laws,
nor in its political economy, nor in ten thousand elements which
are of transcendent importance. Christianity appropriates to itself
simply the province of the divine and spiritual elements that are
in man; and in respect to them, Christianity is a part of natui-e.
Not only is Christianity not in conflict with nature, not only is it
not an artificial thing which stands above nature, but it is an inter-
pretation of that which is everlastingly true.

The great Bible truths, then, were not made by the Bible. They
were not invented, they were not gotten up, for the sake of making
a Bible. The principles of religion as taught in the Old Testa-
ment and in the New Testament were not framed and put together
for the sake of making the canonical books. The Bible is an expo-
sition of one side of nature : that is to say, the moral side of man's
relation to God, to his fellow-men, and to his own destiny, here and
hereafter. It is constructed out of the experiences of the best men,
in their respective ages of the world. Holy men spake as they were
moved by the Spirit of God ; but they spoke about their experiences
— about their trials, and the results of their trials ; about their
thoughts, and the results of their thinkings. God revealed truth to
the world through the lives of men who formulated in their own
minds great moral problems, and identified themselves therewith.
And the results they were inspired to record and to teach. But
if the Scripture were disowned, or if it were thrown away, it would
not change the truth a whit — though your competency to find it out
micrht be changed.

If a man in the night, by the light of a lamp, is trying to make
out his chart, and there is storm in the heaven, and storm upon the
sea, and some one knocks that lamp out of his hand, what is done ?
The storm is above, and the storm is below ; and the chart lies dark,
so that he cannot find it out — that is all. If it were daylight he
could see the chart well enough ; but there being no light, and the
lamp on which he depended for light being knocked out of his
hand, he cannot avail himself of that which is before him.

And the same is true concerning much of the Bible. It is an
interpreter. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And
those truths which have their exposition in the Bible, and which are
a revelation of the structure of the world, and of the divine nature
and government, do not depend for their truth upon the Bible itself.
They are only interpreted and made plain by it. If the world dis-
believed Scripture, they would simply deprive themselves of moral
eyesight. It would not change the great truths of God any more
than the burninsr of all the scientific books in the world wo;ild

182 TEE TWO BEVELATIONS.

change the great physical laws — which science expounds, but does
not create. Science does not depend on books. It is founded in the
nature of things. Books are the means by which it is brought to
our knowledge.

So, truth does not depend on the Bible. The Bible does not
create it, but merely expounds it, brings it into practical shapes,
and makes it usable to men. And such is the infinite wisdom
and mercy of God, that if you should burn every Bible on the
globe, though much knowledge of truth would be quenched, yet
the world would not lose a single truth. For truths are organic.
They spring from the way in which you and I are made, and
are bred together in life. They belong to the nature of things.
They were as true ages ago as they are now, though they were not
then as available to men as they are now. And the truths con-
tained in this guide, this directory, this exposition of moral truth,
this Bible, can be found outside of it, either in principle or in fact.
One of the best ways of studying the Word of God, is to com-
pare it with the things of which it speaks. If we read in the Word
of God of rivers, of fruitful trees, of mountains, of cedars of Leb-
anon, of the oak, of the lily of the valley, or of other things like
these, we recognize at once the propriety of identifying and studying
them outside of the Bible, and not inside of it. If it speaks of a
lion, or a behemoth, or a serpent, we go to natural history to find out
what these names mean. We study the nature of these animals ;
and then we go back to understand Scripture.

And now, if we go to the Word of God, and it speaks of man,
and of his dispositions, his will, his choices, his tendencies, his char-
acter, the results of certain influences which are brought to bear
upon him, we are then to go. to nature itself, just as we do in these
other cases, and study to ascertain what man is, what is his com-
position, what is the human will, how it is acted on, how it operates,
and what is man's character, disposition and life. Life interprets
the Bible, if one only knows how to study it. The everlasting round
of human nature and human experience throws light upon the words
and the passages of Scripture.

We are not, therefore, to take our interpretation of the Bible,
and go out and refuse to see things as they are, and cramp life, and
attempt to compress it into the space which that interpretation
covers ; but we are to give to truths- in respect to men the same
freedom that we give to truths with i-egard to lower physical things.
And we are to find them out by going to nature, and by approj^riate
and judicious processes of study ascertaining what they are. Life
itself is the best commentary on the Bible.

TEE TWO BEVELATIONS. 183

So, then, whatever you find to be true outside of the Bible, may
measure, may interpret to you, that which is contained in the Bible.
If you do not find that to be true in one which you find to be true
in the other ; if disagreements between the Bible and nature arise,
they come from a wrong interpretation of the one, or of the other, or
of both. And the history of the matter is this : that from the begin-
ning, men, though they have interpreted the Bible according to
their best light, have often interpreted it wrongly, until a better
knowledge of the external world enabled them to take a better view.

When men found out that the earth moved around the sun, when
the whole Copernican system was disclosed, there was a great up-
roar in the Christian world because the new astronomy would
destroy the Bible. But after a while, either these revelations, or
men's constructions of the Bible, gave way ; and I need not tell you
which gave way. When Rome made Galileo recant, she did not
blot out the truth which he had brought to light.

We remember that when geological discoveries came in men were
in alarm, and said, "What is to become of the first chapters of Gen-
esis ? Has the earth been created through such long periods of
time as the depositions of rock and soil indicate ? Why, the Bible
says that on the first day God made so and so, and that on the
second day he made so and so." They had the whole order of cre-
ation arranged like a case of drawers ; and they could pull out one,
and another, and another, with perfect regularity and precision. And
when these disclosures of science began to be made, there was a great
turmoil on the subject. But after a while men concluded that they
would call "days," periods of time. And a day might be a thousand
years, or a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand. And they
said, " Well, the Bible does not undertake to teach the science of
geology at all. In Genesis, we find the order of creation stated ; and
that is in accordance with modern geological teachings ; but as to
. * days,' they were indefinite periods of time." And so biblical con-
struction gave way, and not the revelations of God in science.

More recently, there has come up a school of men who are
alarming proper-minded and sedate people in respect to the origin
of man. We are finding out who oiir forefathers were. Lineage, you
know, has always been a great thing in this world. Men have been
eager to trace their ancestry. But there is a point where I think we
shall all be willing to stop. There is a theory of the origin of man
which it is not very agreeable to contemplate, and from which we
naturally shrink. But if a thing be true outside of the J>iblc, you
may depend upon it that it will show itself in spite of you. What
God writes with the hand that made creation, he writes so that men

184 THE TWO EEV-ELATIOI^S.

cannot rub it out. "When once a seed has unfolded itself, you can-
not throw back the blossom or the fruit to the condition from which
it came. And when rocks and creatures have risen up and testified
as to God's creative method, you cannot put back into its germ-state
the witness which they bear.

You must make your interpretation of Scripture conform to
the revelation of God in nature. I do not believe that they contra-
dict each other. I believe that all the truths which are recog- i
nized in the Scriptures will be found to be susceptible of inter-
pretations that are coincident with the essential facts of nature.
And scientific disclosures, although they are at first disturbing, I be-
lieve to be the best commentators and the best illuminators of
the truths of the Bible which God has ever sent into the world.
Men, using their light in any age, construct, according to the
spirit of that age, and according to their limited powers, fallible
interpretations of the great scheme of truth which is contained
in the Bible. Nature, as she unfolds more and more, makes
commentaries upon those interpretations ; and the commentaries
stand. I think that by and by, when the disclosures that are
being made of what is called the scheme of Evolution have come to
their growth, so that we may know exactly what they are — I think
that then one of the most striking things which ever came to pass,
will be the admirable analogy with the great facts of nature and
science which will be found in the Woi'd of God, For, although
there is much yet to be made known, it seems to me that all think-
ing men who have taken the trouble to inform themselves about
these facts, believe in the theory of evolution, or the theory that the
method by which God created the world and the races, consists in
the development, the unfolding, of everything from some anterior
and less perfect state. He would be a bold man, and, as I must
think, a rash one, who would, at this stage of investigation, dogma-
tize on the subject of the Origin of Man. Although many of the ■
later applications of the theory of Development require ripening, yet
they foreshadow, I think, if not the very truth, yet the direction in
which the truth lies. And we may as well prepare ourselves to ac-
cept it. For one, I am ready.

Let us, in this spirit, look, for one single moment, at the general
drift of the Scripture-teaching by the side of the revelations which
have been made, or are making, by science.

1. As to the condition of mankind. I recollect very well when
the doctrine of total depravity, as founded in the essential animal
condition of the race, excited great repugnance and horror among men
who, as the result of hereditary endowments and long culture, had

THB TWO REVELATIONS. 185

come to a condition in which they felt more the impulse of the in-
tellectual and spiritual than they did of the basilar and the animal.
They felt it to be a very great reproach to say that men were de-
praved and wicked from the root, and always. But the "Word of God
still went on declaring, if it declared anything, that at the bottom
there was an animal nature, fierce, intractable, unspiritual, without
God, and without moral restraint. That has been the testimony of
ages. And what is science now revealing? What if all the theories
of Mr. Darwin, or half of them, shall be found true, will it not
ratify the steadfast testimony of the whole Word of God as respects
the essentially animal, secular, worldly nature of man ? The Word
of God has always borne this witness : that unless something sprouted
out of the lower constitution and nature of man, and unfolded into
a higher spiritual realm, true manhood would not be attained. And
is it not the tenor of the theories and disclosures which are now oc-
cupying so much of the world's attention, that we spring from lower
forms; that we go steadily up and up, higher and higher; that we
are gradually unfolding ; and that our true nature is not to be found
in our far-back nature, but in our far-forward nature ? Does not the
Word of God bear witness, all the way through, to the essential avail-
ability and educability of man ? Does it not teach that you can develop
him out of lower forms into higher ones, and out of the natural state
into the spiritual, saying that they who sow to the flesh shall of the
flesh reap corruption ; that they who sow to the animal shall be ani-
mal ; that they who sow to the passions and aj^petites shall have the
misfortunes and sufferings which these forces of their nature yield, and
that, on the other hand, they who sow to the Spirit shall inherit
those blessings which come from the Spirit ?

2. Consider what is the direction in which perfection lies. Is
not nature bearing witness to the essential power of the reason, and
to the real superiority of the moral constitution of man ? Is there
any difference in schools on that subject ? Is not that the part of
man which characterizes him, and distinguishes him from all the
races below him ? And is it not true that the progress of man has
been made in that direction ? Is there anything more clearly set
forth than that, in the Word of God, from the earliest record to the
latest ? And has not that line of development and growth in Scripture

been pointed out plainly and accurately by the pen of science ?

only Scriptui-e makes many statements that transcend anything which
has yet been found out by science. For science, so far, has not at-
tempted to show, or has not succeeded in showing, any connection
between the thought and soul of man, and the inspiring power of
the divine mind. I believe that by and by it will be demonstrated,

186 TEE TWO BEYBLATI0N8.

not only that there belongs to man a moral character and destiny,
but that there is a divine power which meets him on his way up ;
and that it is by the stimulating and enlightening and renovating
power of the divine mind that man is escaping from his animal con-
dition, and working his way up to the higher state for which he is
destined.

3. The Scriptures go still further, and teach that man will one
day slough off the animal entirely, and leave that seed-form out of
which he sprouted, and take on the blossom-form ; or, that he will
evolve a nature higher ; and that the spirits of just men made per-
fect will live together. Is not this just the progress that we should
expect, in close analogy with the scientific disclosures which have
been made in regard to the development of mankind ?

That is true, then, which I stated in the beginning, that the es-
sential truths of Christianity will be found not merely in Scripture,
but outside of it ; and that they are not true because they are
written there, that they are not true because the Bible says they
are ; but that they are contained in the Bible because they are true,
and were true before they were recorded.

And that is how it comes to pass that this old Book, in which are
gathered through thousands of years the experiences of men who
stated the truth as it was made known to them in the several ages
to which they belonged, — that this old Book, when in these later
days, it is tried by the latest discoveries of scientific research, while
the externals of it — what may be called the husk and shell — may
be here and there peeled off, is in its great truths found to be co-
incident with these latest discoveries.

If this general view be authenticated by a further examination,
I think that we may dismiss all fear, that we may pray for light
and development, and that we may hail those honest and earnest
investigators for the truth who are seeking to make known to men,
from the disclosures of God's creation, what are the footsteps, what
is the handiwork, what are the thoughts, and what are the methods
of God in the history of the world.

I am sorry to have any antagonism between science and religion.
I am sorry that scientific men should think it necessary to antag-
onize religion from their side ; and still more do I grieve that
Christian men should, from church reasons, think it necessary to
antagonize science. I believe that both sides are working toAvard
the same results, and that we ought to seek to keep peace between
them. We can accept the deductions of science, and still maintain
truth in regard to the destiny of mankind, and the regeneration of

lUE TWO BEYELATIOHS. 187 ,

the souls of men, through the influence of the Divine Spirit, with
the co-operation of the human will.

More than that, those persons do not seem to me to be wise who,
from any reason whatever — from the revulsion of disgust, or from
perverse teachings, or from weariness, or from reaction of any
kind — are disposed to throw the Bible aside, saying, " It was good
enough for old times, but it does not answer for our day." We
cannot afford to throw away the word of God. Many people say,
" We have come to new times ; we have come to a ncAv inspiration ; a
new dispensation of truth is ushered in ; and away with the old
Bible !" Well, when we get the new light ; when spiritualism has
got its work all done; when there have been told us things deeper,
things higher, things broader, things more cogent and more satis-
fying than those which are recorded in the simple and sublime
sentences of the word of God, thwi it will be time enough to con-
sider what is to be done with owy fathers' Bible. I do not pi'opose
to throw it away merely on the promise of something better. I do
not propose to throw it away simply on the pretention of something
that claims to be superior to it. I do not expect ever to throw it
away. A thousand years hence the Psalms of David and the words
of Christ will be as fresh and fruitful as now.

I know there is that in the Scriptures which has grit to it. I
know it by this token : not that wise men have written so much, but
that here is a book which has gone through tempestuous ages, as-
sailed, buffeted, cast hither and thither, and yet has retained the
confidence of mankind because it has that in it which masters sor-
row, takes hold of trouble, gives strength where there is weakness,
and supplies an anchor to those who are tempest-tossed. There
is that in the word of God which has held the world through troub-
lous periods, which has kept men steadfast in the midst of trials and
adversities, which supports the poor and the ignorant, taking hold
of the fundamental wants of human nature with a power which no
other literature and no other thing ever did.

Now, so long as it is full of breasts of consolation, let those who
are in trouble nurse at it. If there is any better humanity, if there is
any higher morality, if there is any deeper love, if there is any more
potent disinterestedness, than the Bible reveals, I would like to know
it. If anywhere there be a literature of the two worlds — of the
present, and of the hereafter — that transcends that which is con-
tained in the Bible, show it to me. I want the best and truest thing.
But it seems to me that those who make haste to throw away
their Bible, are throwing away their best good. It seems to me
that those who leave their Bible unsounded, who leave its dejiths

188 TEE TWO BE VELA TIONS.

tmsearched, do not understand where their greatest treasure lies.

And as to those impertinent persons, those little specimens of men,

who wovild kick their Bible overboard, because they have found

out, by reading in the corner of some newspaper, that the Scriptures

are not true — I need not waste words on such bubbles, that break if

you touch them.

" Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ? there is more hope of a fool
than of him."

What sort of a man is that of whom it may be said that a fool is
more advantageous to the world than he is ? And yet, how many
men, how many little whipsters, there are, who never read a book
of Scripture in their life, who never took the Bible according to
its plan, as bread to satisfy hunger, water to quench thirst, using it as
a staff to hold up their weight when they were weak, and using it
as a medicine for their soul when it was sick — how many such per-
sons there are, that in their blindness and presumption reject this
blessed repository of that which the human heart most needs !

The Bible is never so true to me as when I am in trouble ; it is
never so true to me as when I am conscious of my weakness, and of
the unsatisfying nature of everything that there is in this world.
And hundreds of persons learn when brought into trouble to
esteem it and lean upon it, who have despised it and thrown con-
tempt upon it. Many a man who has cursed it has gone home
from the burial of his companion, or the entombing of his child,
disconsolate, and taken up his mother's old Book, and dropped silent
tears as he read then for the first time, with an understanding
heart, its comforting messages. Thei-e is some mysterious emanation
or yjower that finds its way to the soul in reading the Scriptures
under such circumstances ; and how ill can any man afford to reject
that which is such a balm in his sorest need !

Suppose you were to have an insurrection against doctors ? Sup-
pose, one by one, yol^ should throw them out of the community ?
Suppose you should do the work so thoroughly that there should
not be a shred left of these despotic men going round and tell-
ing people that they must take this, that, or the other hateful
drug ? Suppose you should not only send these men away, but
burn their books and their medicine ? When the doctors were
gone, and the apothecary shops with all their contents were des-
troyed, and there was nothing left but neuralgia, and rheumatisms,
and dropsies, and fevers, would you be any better off than you are
now?

Here is God's medicine-book, full of wondrous remedies, full of
blessed compounds, for the cure of the diseases of the human soul,

THE TWO BEVELATI0N8. 189

and you would get rid of it ; you would throw it away ; you would
destroy it. But do you thus take away depravity ? Do you cure
unbelief? Do you remove the animal that is in you — the tiger, the
bear, the monkey, the serpent, whose nature and spots appear here
and there. Do you turn out all this cage full of unclean beaste that
are in the heart, when you cast the Bible from you ? Oil no, you only
turn out their keepers. These that have had the power of restrain-
ing and controlling the fierce animals that ramp and rage within
you, you put out of the way; but the animals themselves remain to
torment you still ? You have given up the Bible ; but the evils
which it was sent to cure — the crying need, the down-sagging trouble,
the yearning asjiiration, the lifting up of the soul when touched by
the divine light and influence — where is your solution and your help
for these ?

In the word of God we have what we need. Ten thousand times
ten thousand trusting souls have followed its directions, and found
them to be true, and rejoiced in them. The drunkard has been led
to give up his cup by the influence which has been brought to bear
upon him through the Bible. Tlie Bible has been instrumental in
reclaiming the thief. Lusts have been cured by it. Strong worldly
ambitions have been overcome by it. Pride has been softened by
it. It has clothed the hard and rugged sides of life with blossoming
vines of beauty. And the world to-day is a witness of the power
of the word of God. We see on every hand evidences of its ability
to comfort and console and bless. Oh, how many are dying and
have died in the faith of the word of God !

And how full of blessed associations this dear Book is !

I walked through the old streets of London, where every other
house has a history such that one might well pause before it, and
ponder for hours. I walked along the fields where many a
grand scene had been enacted. At Winchester I visited the old
cathedral. I went through it. I would live in it a month if I could.
The wide interior was filled with unimagined beauty and glory.
That catliedral was built in successive ages ; so that every part of
the architecture, by the harmony of the varied materials of which it
was composed, fitly represented how all forms of religious thought
may be harmonized in one great community of the true Christian
Church. I saw the tombs of the old kings. Greater than they were
the three great architects wlio had constructed this mighty cathe-
dral. It was a museum of antiquity. It was full of life. I trembled
with sensibility. And the impression will never die out of my mind.

But what is that cathedral compared with this silent cathedral,
the Bible, in whose aisles have sounded the footsteps, not only of

190 THE TWO EEVELATI0N8.

kings and emperors, but, from generation to generation, the foot-
steps of the little child, and the mother and father of the household;
and the footsteps of multitudes upon multitudes of worthies of the
church, all the way back, a hundred yeai's, five hundred years, ten
hundr'ed years, fifteen hundred years ; and the footsteps of un-
counted heroes who have gone up to heaven consoled and enlight-
ened by the pages of the word of God ?

How venerable is this Book ! How full of precious memories is
it ! How does it not only teach us the way of life, but group about
itself the most significant features of modern history I And are we,
with the sciolist's ignorance, with unvenerating contempt, with ill-
omened presumption, to ostracize the Bible, to expunge its truths,
to .drive it out of oxir library, and to live without its light ?

My young friends, do not be over-zealous to catch up the latest
things. Do not abandon the faith of your fathers on the strength
of the popular representations which men make in regard to what
is true and what is false. I read as well as you do. I think I am as
honest as you are. I shall take the truth, wherever it leads me.
This has been my determination thus far. And having been now
for more than forty years an ardent follower of truths as they have
been revealed by science in respect to the human mind, and in
respect to all the great elements of social life, I have changed, in
many regards, my interpretation of the word of God, but not my
faith in the Bible. And I believe it far more firmly now than I ever
did before. To me science is a ratifier of the truths of the Bible.
And I find them substantiated by the latest discoveries of science.
I do not see 'any more than any others ; but I think I foresee, nebu-
lously, that there is going to arise a Christian era when the claims
of the Bible will seem more reasonable ; when its power, when its
great elemental forces, cleansed from much of superstition and much
of ecclesiasticism, will have an authority which they are not per-
mitted to have now.

Hold fast, then, — not to forms and ceremonies (which are mutable
things ; which are optional ; which are to be used if they benefit
you, and which are not to be used if they do not benefit you) ; but
to the great essential truths of human character, and human neces-
sity, and divine interposition ; to the great outlines of destiny and
duty ; to the guide as to the way in which you are to live, as to the
part of your nature which you are to cultivate ; to the directions in
respect to reason, and moral sense, and faith, and hope, and, above
all — luminously above all, as the beginning and the ending, the ful-
fillment of the law — to the blessed commands in respect to love.

Cast not away your faith in these sublime teachings of the word

THE TWO BEVEL ATIONS. 191

of God. I exhort you not only not to cast them away, but to verify
their truth in yourselves. Be wise unto salvation ; for ere long the
mists will gather about your eyes. Ere long will come that day
when you shall hang between the hither and the thither spheres, and
this world will die out of your sight, and its sounds will no lono-er
impress themselves on your ear. And it is of vital importance that
you should have that aim, that inspiration, that attraction, that shall
lead you away from the clod, from the animal, that shall bring you
into the spirit-world, and make you a child of glory forever and for-
ever.

Whatever you lose, do not lose heaven. Whatever you give up,
give not up your God. And then he will never leave you nor for-
Bake you ; and you shall stand in Zion and before Him,

192 THE TWO BE VELA TIONS.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Thou holy and blessed God ! vouchsafe to us a sense of thy presence. And
as we pan not rise to thee, nor help ourselves by our senses, grant unto us
that divine influence by which the knowledge of God is imparted to us.
Awaken in us thp hidden and spiritual life. May we feel in the soul the
pressure of the diviuc lian J — the presence of the divine heart. May joy be
breathed upon us by thy Spirit. May we find peace diffused from thee.
May we be able to dismiss all thoughts that harass; all doubts that cloud;
all sorrows that prieve. May we be able to come into thy presence rejoicing.
And as little cbildren trust their parents, so may we trust thee. May our
hearts lean upon thine. Oh, that we might know thy will more perfectly I
Oh, that we might be delivered from the thrall of error, and from every-
thing which misleads! Oh, that we might know, with the simplicity of
truth itself, what is the law respecting ourselves 1 Oh, that we might have
insight Into thy word ; that we might know how to detect its truths ; that
we might know how to interpret them into our life, so that they shall
become the habits of our soul ! Oh ! that we might have that poverty of
spirit which shall bring a true humility ! Oh, that we might have that
purity of heart through which we shall see God ! Oh, that we might have
that disposition which shall make us the children of God !

We long for all those accomplishments of the soul which shall bring us
into intimate relationship and holy concourse with the justified spirits in
thy heavenly kingdom. We do not deprecate thine earth, though thou
thyself hast laid it aside. It is not to escape pain and punishment that we
strive. We know that between us and utter jeopardy thou dost stand with
infinite mercy. We leave to thee the knowledge of the unknown. We
leave to thee those great influences which man does not discern and cannot
comprehend. We desire to be brought into the knowledge of God, even
though we do not understand him ; and into the knowledge of our life,
though all thy government and thy paths through the universe are not
yet known to us. Give us this believing heart ; this trusting spirit; this
loving nature ; this obedient disposition.

We pray, O Lord! that thou wilt remember all who are seeking to
help themselves. And if any are discouraged, if any feel that the way is
too great, or that the path is too narrow and too steep, grant them hope;
and may they by hope be kept from going back again and betaking them-
selves to unworthy ideals of life. May none be weary in well-doing.

If there be any that are shaken in their faith, from the grounds of their
fathers, and from their own inheritance of belief, and are perplexed and
distressed in mind, and wrestle with questions which will not be settled, and
which they cannot manage, Lord, we pray that thou, who didst come to thy
disciples when they were tossed upon the sea in a great storm, and in the
night, and didst still the waves, and bring calm and peace, wilt appear to
them.' Wilt thou draw near to all that are thus shaken ; to all that are
tempest-tossed and not comforted. If there be those who are seeking to
restrain mighty and powerful inward dispositions, knowing what is right,
and striving for right things, and yet with constant discouragement,
their purposes dashed down by the impetuous strength of their lower nature,
O Lord! art thou not on their side? Wilt thou not be patient with them?
Wilt thou not accept their desire, and help them to desire even more, and to
more utterly strive? And may they be willing, as it were, to pluck off the
right hand, to pluck out the right eye, and to die rather than yield. Help
them ; for great is their need of help.

Oh, how mighty is pride 1 Oh, how strong is avarice 1 Ob, how insatm-

TEll TWO EEVJELAIIONS. 193

ble is the lust of praise 1 Oh, how imperious are the appetites and the pas-
Bions of our nature ! Lord, thou knowest altogether what we are. For such
thou didst come forth. For such thou didst suffer and die. And now, in
the struggle which is begun in men, wilt thou forsake them? Wilt thou
not give tliem thy Spirit to help them in every time of need, and with every
temptation open the door of escape ? Grant that there may be a believing
and faith-bearing life in every one of them.

We pray that thou wilt be with those who have escaped from the snare,
and who are seeking with might and main to flee beyond the reach of the
arrows of temptation. Speed them, and put thy shield above them, and
deliver them from their adversary.

We pray, O Lord ! if there be those who are weak, and who lift not up so
much as their eyes to heaven, but beat upon their breast, and say, God be
merciful to us, sinners, that thou wilt be more than merciful to them. Meet
them, though they are yet afar off. Throw thine arms about them. Call
them thine own, and bring them, wondering and amazed at thy clemency,
back into obedience and into love.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt be with those who have come lato
in life into the way of piety, and who, having long incarnated sin in their
dispositions and lives, are seeking now to throw it out again. O Lord ! we
pray that their faith may not fail them. We pray that they may now serve
thee with all the eagerness and energy and whole-heartedness with which
they have served the world, the flesh, and the devil. Make them happy
illustrations of thy grace ; may evil and abandoned men take courage
by them, and know that there is a way by which they may be restored to
Jesus, and to spiritual life, and to truth, and to honor, and to safety, and to
everlasting glory.

We pray that thou wilt revive thy work in the hearts of those that have
grown cold, and in the hearts of all that have fallen away from their faith.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt excise inquiry and anxiety in the
hearts of those that are without thee, and that are careless, and that are
sporting with things that are of eternal interest.

We implore that thy kingdom may come in this congregation. May all
those that are laboring in word or doctrine be greatly comforted, and
greatly inspired by thy spirit ; and may they spread thy truth everywhere.

Build up thy Churches. May thy cause prevail, and all this land be filled
with the power of thy truth, and the nations of the earth see the light of
thy coming. May the new heaven and the new earth, in which dwells right-
eousness, appear, and may the Lord reign in all the world.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises everlasting.
Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we beseech of thee to bless the word of truth which has been
spoken to-night. We pray that we may be wise, and give heed to the truth
as it is in us, and as it is in the world around about us. We thank thee for
that truth which has forerun and outrun science. We thank thee that now
thou art stirring up so many to search the foundations of the earth, and dis-
cover the secrets of its structure ; and that the light coming thence is light
bearing consolation. We thank thee for all that the truth of thy word has
done, and for what it is doing. We thank thee for what it has been

194 THB TWO BEVELATIONS.

in the family. We thank thee that it has been an inspiration for liberty,
and for all that is right and just among men. We pray that thy truth
may have free course to run and be glorified. And may all that which is
pure, and which has power in the human soul, be extended throughout the
earth.

Wilt thou hear us in these our petitions, and accept of us, for Christ Jesus'
sake. Amen.

GoD's Workmanship in Man.

Thou hast called us, our Father; and behold, here we are awaiting the
message of thy grace ; for we need love and pity and pardon ; and no man,
none on earth, can minister them unto us; and no one in heaven except
thee. But thou canst forgive sin. Thou canst lift from death unto life.
Thou canst make joy abound where sorrow has brooded. Thou caast cleanse
and purify the heart. We thank thee for all the mercies of thy providence ;
for the bounty of the day. But we need other help in the soul. And we
come here this morning to ask these chief est gifts of thy sovereign love— the
cleansing and enlightening influence of thy Spirit. May we have the com-
fort of thy conscious presence and thy benediction. Grant, our heavenly
Father, that the services of the sanctuary may honor and bless thee.
Though our lips be impure, and our hearts be unenlightened, and ovu"
thoughts be unable to reach a conception of thy glory, accept the little
praiso and thanksgiving which through thy grace and mercy we can offei
thee. Bless us, both here and in our homes. We ask it for Ckrist Jesus'
sake. Am&n»

GOD'S ¥ORKMAISHIP IN MAN.

*' For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves >
it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are
his workmanship, created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God hath
before ordaiutd that we should walk in them. — Eph. ii., 8-10.

It seems very much as if the apostle had a conception of a pos-
sible manhood that altogether outran any notions of morality which
prevailed at that time — indeed, that had not even been revealed.
The line of development that seemed to open before him in and
through Jesus Christ was one which was impossible except to a
soul which was drawn by the power of God. It was to be a life
and character wrought, not by human volition, however it might
concur and incidentally coojjerate, in an inefficient way. But that
which he saAV as the true manhood was so large and so far in ad-
vance of anything that existed, that he speaks of it as being the
workmanship of God, through Jesus Christ.

We are to be saved, not by what we are worth ourselves ; not
by that which we have attained. Looking at ourselves in some
sense as a piece of art, a picture, a statue, or an exquisite piece of
machinery, we are not worth saving. In and of ourselves there is
nothing worth preservation. And all the work that we have ever
done on our own character and nature does not amount to any con-
siderable value. If we are saved, it will not be because of that which
we have succeeded in doing ; it will be because of that which has
been done upon us and in us by another and higher Artist-hand. If
we inherit salvation in the life which is to come, if we enter upon a
life of immortality in blessedness, it will be because we are saved by
grace.

n Now, I understand by (/race simply generosity, divine goodness
in the conferring of benefit, in distinction from divine justice. It
answers very much to what Ave should call liberality or generosity.

A man of property in New York is presented every year with
his tax-bill. And he does not pay it out of generosity : he pays it
because he must — because it is right. It is a debt ; he owes it ; and

SuNPAT Moia^iNG, May 14, 1871. Lesson: IIeb. IV. Hymns (Plymouth Ck)lleo-
tion) : Kos. 130, 905, 1185.

198 GOiyS WOEKMANSHIP IN MAN.

he pays it out of a sense of duty. But we hear very soon that he
has endowed an academy, or that he has built up a professorship.
He has given fifty thousand dollars to lay foundations of education
which shall go on instructing future generations. But this was not
paying a debt. lie was not obliged to do it. Nobody had a
right to present any claim to him of that sort. He did not do this
thing from the same feeling that he paid the bill which the tax-
gatherer presented to him. He gave the money out of his generosity.
And we consider that a very high type of character.

Now, when we read that we are to be saved by grace, I take it
that God does not look on our workmanship in ourselves, and say,
" Well, all things considered, that soul deserves to be saved, and I
will be equitable, and save it." No ; I understand that, looking
upon men, God finds nothing in them that in and of itself is worth
saving — that there is no debt, no justice, that requires that anything
in them should be saved. But, nevertheless, I understand that God,
looking on universal being, says, " I will save men." Why ? Just
because He feels like it. His goodness impels him to it. He does
it because his heart is the seat of royalty in benevolence. It is a grace
of God, it is a gift of God, out and out.

If you consider that this is the ground on which every human
being is saved, if saved at all, it reflexly puts a very dark coloring,
a very low estimate, upon the value of human nature, and human
character, and human conduct. It certainly, by implication, makes
man seem very sinful, and very crude and imperfect — as he is. Ex-
cept through the generosity of God there would be very little
hope, and there should be very little expectation, that any would be

S9,ved.

The workmanship that is here spoken of is conduct, and its rela-
tion to character-building. The vast majority of men have no ideal
of character, whatever. Taking the race throughout, the greater
portion, I suppose, scarcely have a conception of what we mean by
the word character. They have a very few — and these the very

lowest rules for external action. That is the height to which they

attain.

If you go within the circle of light where the Christian idea has
raised up a conception of character, and where it has been advanced
throuo-h some stages, implying the moral condition of all the pri-
mary faculties of a man's soul, their habits and their tendencies ; if
you take different persons that have this educated idea of character,
and then measure human nature, you will find it to be very low. If
you examine it by any true standard or ideal of measurement which
the Gospel itself affords, you will find it tobe so low that, as you go

GOB'S WOBKMANSniP IN MAN. 199

on from step to step in the investigation, I think you will bear -wit-
ness that there is nothing in it that is worth saving.

I do not mean that there is nothing there which may not be
pitiable, or that may not address itself as a motive to divine compas-
sion. I simply mean that, as'considered in and of itself, the more
you look at human nature — and that, too, in its best estate — the less
reason have you to feel that a man deserves salvation on account
of his own goodness and righteousness. I mean not only that men
are sinful once, but that from end to end of their life they are so
sinful, the style of their character is so low, the habit of their devel-
opment is so poor, the nature of their individual action is so limited,
or so mixed, or so imperfect, or so mean, or so sullied, that whether
looked at in detail, or comprehensively, every one of them must
needs say of himself, " If I am saved, it will not be on account of any
good that is in me, but on account of God's mercy to my poorness,
to my poverty, and to my wickedness."

Let us, then, look a little at what may be fairly expected of man
— at what the ideal man applied to the real man will develop.

In the first place, it is very clear that among the primary duties
is that of bringing out into strength and fullness and energy every
part of that nature which God has given us in the talents that are
committed to our trust, to trade ujDon — if you employ a commercial
figure, or in the seed that he has given us, to plant and develop —
if you take the figure of husbandry. No superfluous part is given
to the mind. It is large. It is various. The faculties which are
comprised in what we call the human mind, or the human soul, not
only are many, but are related to each other in such a multitude
of ways as to constitute a complex organism, every part of which is
to have given to it its full value and force, and its proper educa-
tion.

Now, in point of fact, not one fifth part of the average of the
mind of man is developed at all. If the human body were to be
developed as the human mind is, we should have monstrous feet, and
monstrous legs, and monstrous hands, and a monstrous stomach, and
a little button of a head surmounting them. We have all the basilar
instincts in power among men. Whatever implies appetite, or pas-
sion, or force, or executiveness — all cunning, all deceitful ness, all
those tendencies by which the lower animal nature either conserves
or defends itself — these elements arc strong in men without school-
ing.

The social instincts are next strong, but irregular. They are
without any systematic development. The intellect is comparatively
feeble here. Only parts are developed ; and those are parts that

200 GOiyS WOBKMANSEIP IN MAN.

-'^
have some relation to physical and profitable uses. The moral nature
of most men is almost terra incognita. That part of the human soul
which lies the most nearly in communion with God is desolate.

As you go from the high estate of man to the animal below him,
you find that strength increases, usually, in that ratio. This is
true of men generically. The best part of the human soul is un-
cultivated. If it acts at all, it acts irregularly — it acts without sys-
tem and without plan, under special -provocation, or inducement, or
motive.

So that, if you look at the average condition of men, even in
civilized countries ; if you take an inventory of men in the pro-
fessions and trades, through towns and villages — men that are very
honest and very excellent, as it is said, and as the world goes — if you
take an inventory of such men, and estimate how much there is of
them, what are they ? They are living in their lower nature. They
are populous there. There, there is no lack X)i furniture. But as you
rise up from their lower stories toward their higher, at every step
there is less and less furniture, and more and more desolation ; and
the top story is the worst of all for emptiness.

This view is not itself so piteous as the next consideration.
Not only is every single faculty in the human mind to be developed,
and educated, and made bright, but there is to be a harmonization
of the faculties of the mind. There is to be a harmonious organ-
ization of all the mental powers. And it is here, perhaps, more
than anywhere else, that we see how low man's civilization is, and
how exceedingly low is his religious development. If you look at
that part of man's nature that is more closely allied to the animal
economy, and which I have been accustomed to call his basilar na-
ture ; and if then, above this, you consider that development of a
man's faculties which may be called his social or afectional nature,
by which he is allied to his fellows ; and if, then, above this, you
consider what may be called his moral or ethical nature, which in-
cludes reason, and all the spiritual intuitions, as well as the ordinary
moral sentiments — if you take into consideration that each one of
these departments is itself complex, that it is made up of many
separate faculties, the question of organization becomes one of ex-
treme importance.

There must be some direction given to the mind. There must be
something like unity between the difiierent faculties, or the mind
will be at discord with itself, pulling in various directions. It will
be full of alternations. There will be that in it Avhich resembles the
action of the waves of the sea, where one wave follows another, rub-
bing out the sand-marks that it makes. And life will be full of dis-
turbances.

GOD'S WOBKMANSHIP IN MAN. 201

Now, men do harmonize their nature. One class of men will be
found to give all the power of their being to their basilar instincts
— to their passions and appetites. Every other part is subdued
by these instincts. The whole force that is in them — whatever
there is that is good in their higher nature — in their reason and
their moral sentiments — lends itself to give impetus to their lower
nature. They are strong and mighty, and, relatively, well-nigh
omnipotent in their physical tendencies. And so they have very
little quarrel with themselves. They have a line or direction ; they
have organization and discipline ; and there is hardly anything in
them that ever rebels. It is their passional nature that directs the
economy ; that lays out the campaign ; and all the rest of their na-
ture adds its force to this lower part.

So you shall find men with art, with music, with beauty, with
every kind of noble instrument, carrying out the most infernal pur-
poses. You shall find them making hideous resorts and dens, and
garnishing them with all manner of attractive elements, merely for
the sake of better serving the animal nature of men. And there is
harmony ; there is unity ; there is subordination ; only the highest
is serving the lowest. All that is divinest, all that is nearest angelic
in its possibilities, has been brought down and put under livery to
that which is carnal and animal. And the manhood is prisoner to
the animalhood in man.

Then, here and there, just the reverse takes place. There are
many individual instances of persons who have given the dominance
to their reason and to their true moral sentiments. That which is
beautiful, that which is true, that which is just, that which is pure
and imaginative — all these things are to them the chief ends of life
For these ends they live : and they have so subordinated the whole
of their minds that all their social affections work toward these
ends, and all their lower nature is auxiliary to them. Every j^art
of the man, the whole force of his being, works through reason into
moral sentiment, and, through that, by faith, into the invisible. And
he is harmonized. His highest sentiments are put in a i^osition of
dominance, and everything below them works potently up toward it.

Now, intermediate between these two classes stand the great
mass of mankmd. They have no harmonization whatever, as a class
of men. They are good to-day, and bad to-morrow. Circumstances —
not any inward habit, nor any volition in themselves — determine
their course. They are swept as the tide sweeps the straw and
leaves that float upon it. They are without any definite moral pur-
pose. They are without any distinct social object. They are with-
out any decided animal tendencies. If they are under circumstances

202 GOD'S WOBKMANSEIF IN MAN,

where the inducements are strongest toward the flesh, they yield in
that direction. If at other times the social affections are in the
ascendancy, and circumstances are favorable to the development of
these, they act accordingly. If, as is now and then the case, influ-
ences work with great emphasis on their moral nature, they respond
to that. But their action is alternative. It is inconsistent. There
is nothing fixed about it. Their mind is not organized around any
one center. Sometimes the power is in one place, and sometimes in
another. Now one part leads, and now another.

Tliis is descriptive of the great mass of mankind. If you look at
men with the idea of drill, and of the harmonization of every part
of the mind, you will find that their workmanship is very poor ; that
they have made very little out of themselves yet; and that that
which has been made of them, as I described in the second instance,
has been wrought out by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. No man
lives in this world who has wi'ought out supreme harmony in his
nature around about his moral sense, except by the inspiration of
God. I shall believe that there are blossoms on the ground and
blossoms in the air when the sun is blotted out, quicker than I shall
believe that there are any high developments of character except by
the direct influence of the soul of God. All really good and high in
fluences drop down from the bosom of God into the heart of man.
We have enough in the physical world to teach the human body ;
we have enough in society to teach man's social aflections ; but the
moral nature of man must have its pabulum directly from God him-
self. And whatever is good in man is not his own workmanship.
It is wrought in him through Christ Jesus. It is God's Spirit that
is working in us.

The great mass of men have not submitted themselves to the Lord
Jesus Christ ; and if you look on human nature as it averages in so-
ciety, you will find not only that there is not the development of
every faculty, but that there is not the carrying uj) to their full
power of any of the faculties.

Nor, secondly, is there any harmonization of all these powers.
They are out of joint, irregular, discordant, and for the most part
unproductive. We are not to confound the success of men in doing
certain things outside of them with their success in building up their
ownselves. A man may build a city, and yet not build himself A
man may excel in an art, or in a science, or in some department of
mechanics, or in any of the humble relations of labor ; a man may
achieve success in certain directions, and these elements may indi-
rectly be to him educators ; but, after all, when you come to look
back at his manhood, at what he actually is, the more you look at

GOD'S WORKMANSHIP IN MAN. 203

him, the more you see that his success lias not been very consider-
able, and that he has not much to boast of. j

If you look one stej^ further than this, you see not only that the
individual elements of the mind are left undeveloped and untrained;
not only that the whole mind is left without any organization, or
with a wrong one, which tends constantly downward ; but that every
part of the mind is in what may be called a disheveled state. It will
be found upon examination that every part of the mind is working
in a low mood, upon a low plane, and without much advantage ex-
cept from what is inherent in all minds. There is very little moral
force such as comes from habit ; and there is still less moral force
which comes from the high automatic poAver of the mind.

I have said that even the highest forms of development are ex-
ceedingly imperfect — and it is true ; but it is inherent in every fac-
ulty, by habit to develop force which it had not before. And in that
direction lies intuition. I do not say that it is possible for a man,
by sedulous eifort, and by carrying culture in certain lines, and by
certain methods, up to a given point, to come to that which in us
corresponds to Avhat is omniscience in God ; but I do say that we
can, by partial experience in ourselves, frame some conception of the
direction in which omniscience lies. Men at first measure by the eye.
From the power of seeing they pass to the lowest reason — the per-
ceptive faculty. And out of that gradually comes the reflective
reason. Facts first, and then the relations of facts. But the rela-
tions cannot be seen. They are abstract. Thus they develop a
higher reason. And higher than this comes that kind of reasoning
which consists in framing larger complex ideas out of the memory
of what you have seen and what you have thought about. And
Avhen you have attained to this, you begin to be a reasoner and
philosopher.

But there is a state higher than that, by which men who have
trained themselves to it are able to see without looking. There is
a power by which the mind seems to flash light out of itself into the
obscure and void ; by which, without the process of observation,
men's minds jump to the truths far beyond them.

How many times, and in how many ways, do men show this !
Ko man knows anything well, till he knows it without being con-
scious that he knows it. Everything has to be learned first by pain-
ful volition — by a consciousness of trying and getting. But when
you have thoroughly learned it, you have learned it so that when
you do a thing you do not know that you do it.

When you take a slep, do you stop and go into a calculation

204 GOD'S WOBKMANSHIP m MiN.

about it? Do you say to the muscles, "Now lift; pull"? But let
a mau be sick three or four months, so that he is unable to leave his
couch; and when the joyful morning comes that the doctor says to
him, " It will do you good to get up and walk to yonder chair," see
that old baby get up ! He never before thought about how he should
set his foot down ; but now, see how he puts it out of the bed ; and
how he sets it down here, because there the floor is level ; and how
he avoids that crack ; and how, because that board is a little raised,
he carefully puts his foot over it, in order that he may not totter !
Every single step he takes, he thinks of and measures just as an
engineer that was laying out a railroad would measure and think.
He is so weak that he is obliged to learn to walk over again. He
has to learn once more that which he learned as a child, and which
he has forgotten all about. But after a month's practice, he will
resume his old way, and go out of doors, and into the fields again.
And soon he will chase the flying ball, and wrestle, and perform all
those old joyful feats of the athlete to which he has been accustomed.
And then, will he think of the stubble, or of this stone, or of that
depression ? No ; his eye will sweep across the field ; he will go
over brake and through morass, sweeping with his eye from point to
point, and he will act without thinking. His hand will see for him,
and his foot will see for him, A man's whole body, under such cir-
cumstances, is a piece of brain, apparently.

And as it is with one part, so is it with every other part. Do
you suppose that a musician says to his fingers, "Now touch A,"
or, " Now touch B " ? Is there anything of that kind in the playing
of musical instruments ? Does not the finger itself find the keys ?
Does the flute-player think when and how the fingers shall move ?
It is the notes that blow up the fingers, evidently ! He does not
think about them. Do you suppose the type-setter spells out the
words that he sets up ? Why, a man will set up a whole column of
news, and when it is struck ofl", and he sits down and reads it, it will
be as new to him as to anybody else. He does not know one single
word of it ; and yet he has picked up the ten thousand types, and
put them together to make the sentences and the paragraphs, with
scarcely a mistake. All these processes are the lower forms of what
I mean by intuition. The body has the power of training almost
every muscle and part to do things without thinking.

And so it is with the mind. Men cease to calculate any more in
small numbers. They see what two and two make. They are
not obliged to add and subtract, unless they are unfamiliar with fig-
ures. For me, it would be a good half-day's work to run up a page

GOB'S WOBKMANSHIP IN MAN. 205

of figures, and result them ; but my friend Charles Marvin would
run up those columns, three or four figures broad, all at once, in almost
no time, and set down the amount, and every figure would be right
Now, where does this power come from ? It is that inward pos-
sibility of going by intuition which does not stop to think of proc-
esses, but flashes out the result, and afterwards goes groping back
to see how it came to be flashed out.

So far as these great powers Avhich lie in the human mind are
concerned, it is our business to develop them. Is it not the business
of a grape-vine to bring out, every year, all the grapes that are in
it? And is not that a poor vine Avhich will not bear what is in it ?
And is there anything more reasonable than that we should find out
ourselves by unwinding that which is wound up in us ? A great
many persons are developed here and there ; now and then a faculty
in them is trained ; but is it so of every part of their reason, and of
their moral sentiments ? Even in the best men, are the highest and
supremest elements of the mind, the supernal tendencies of the soul,
all those ecstatic feelings which go to constitute the interior life of
Christians — are these so trained that they flash light spontaneously
on every side ? Is that the condition in which men are ?

Our own workmanship on ourselves is very poor workmanship.
If we are to be saved, it is because there has been Another working
on us and in us, who has done better by us than we have ever done
by ourselves.

That last remark leads me to say that there is an esthetic element in
the development of moral character which is to the ethical just what
art is to mere physical development. I mean that in the develop-
ment of the higher forms of human character there is the beauty of
fineness, of harmony, of symmetry, of proportion, of that which we
call, in manufacturing, ^ViesA. You Avill find in the writings of the
Apostle Paul, particularly, constant allusions, not simply to moral
qualities, but to moral qualities in their highest forms of beauty.

" Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report."

Give without grudging. It is not enough that you simply give.
You must do it beautifully. Your generosity must not be clownish.
It must be fine. It must be noble. We are to be easy to be entreat-
ed. And if you are going to be lenient, if your obstinacy is to be
persuaded, it is not to be done in an awkward or ugly manner. We
are not to spit out our acquiescence. We are to learn so to be obe-
dient to the highest nature that is within us, and so to train it, that
when it develops itself into action, it shall be finished action.

When the cutler brings his goods to market, he may have the

206 GOD'S WOBKMANSEIF IN MAN.

best of steel in the blade, and the best of horn in the handle, and
every part may be riveted strongly ; but if the blade has not been
polished ; and if there be no finishing work on the handle, he can-
not sell his stock. It is just as good for practical purposes as
though it were finished ; but people do not want it. They want
their blades polished, and their handles finished ; and they are
so used to having goods sand-papered and burnished, that they will
not take them unless they are so. There must be art in them. And
this is carried so far that when articles are good for nothing, art is
put on the outside to make them seem good for something. And
men buy things for the sake of their looks.

The idea of perfection lies in the direction of the aesthetic — and
as much so in social and moral elements as in physical things. Men
are not now in any respect finished in their higher relations — I mean
even good men. There are hundreds of men that are in the
main laying out their life and character in right directions and on
right foundations ; but how few men know how to be good va-
riously, systematically, gracefully, genially, sweetly, beautifully.

What is the average impression of the community in regard to
religion — that it is beautiful, or that it is gawky ? What do chil-
dren think about ministers, and deacons, and class-leaders, and church-
members ? I am speaking of the best men in churches. What is
the average impression with regard to them in communities ? Are
the substantial traits of religion so unfolded that they are like
flowers in the garden of the Lord, full of fragrance and beauty ?
On the contrary, do not men think of religion as something stifij
something hard, something that consists mostly in reserves, with-
holding people from tilings which they want to do ? Is it not re-
garded largely as a gaunt and barren cross — or, for the most part,
a cross without the revered associations of Him who hung upon it ?
The more closely you look into the way in which the human mind
develops, the more I think you will be dissatisfied with it when you
come to compare it with any high ideal of development or accom-
plishment. The universal life in the faculties is low. The harmon-
ization of the faculties to singleness of dii-ection and unity of action
and discipline is extremely imperfect, if not unknown. The develop-
ment of habits into automatic action is of very limited extent. The
fineness, the beauty, the finish, the loveliness of everything in the
character of man, is far from any ideal standard. And the conse-
quence is, that there is seldom an act which can bear the measure-
ment of any high standard of human life.

I do not mean that there are not acts which are right as meas-
ured by our lower standard of right and wrong ; but if you con-

GOB'S WORKMANSHIP IN MAN.' 207

sider how a man was made, what he was meant to he, and what he
has in him the capacity of becoming, there is scarcely one single
action that he puts forth which is worthy of a large manhood.
There is very little beauty in him. Character is very low, even in
the highest. Men are developed very strongly and very largely on
certain sides of their nature ; but looking at them completely, meas-
uring them by the full conception of God in their creation — by any
ideal of their possibilities — how very ragged and how very feeble
is their character ! The great elements of soul-building are in a con-
dition of the utmost disorder and insufficiency. There is nothing in
the soul itself which should tempt one to preserve it. There is
nothing in that which we have sown and wrought out in the field of
experience that would naturally tempt a perfect being to harvest it.
There is scarcely anything in the regular rounds of human ex-
perience that one would desire to perpetuate. If you look at men as
60 many workers in the great shop-world, there are found few things
that they have fashioned which the great artist God could look
down upon with any considerable satisfaction. The things which
we take the most pains in doing, when you measure them by that
higher standard, the law of God, are so insignificant, are so imper-
fect, are so full of flaws, that you can hardly conceive that one would
wish to preserve them.

If this be a just view of man's condition (I have purposely
avoided theological technics, and attempted to develop my idea re-
specting the condition of man's nature from the more familiar side
of modern thought) then, I think it fairly right to infer that at
death one of two things must needs take place. When we come
to look at the actual condition even of the best persons, in all
the respects which I have mentioned, it seems impossible that a
moral change of relative position should endue one with perfect-
ness and with morality. If, therefore, persons pass out of this life
with such a low average of development, with so little that is drilled
to high moral excellence, they pass out, and enter into the kingdom
of God on the other side still in the condition of scholars, we will
suppose, as the children of a primary school go into an academy,
where there are higher teachers, and higher branches, and where
they themselves are better prepared to go on in their develoi3ment,
than when they were struggling with the prime elements or the
lower stages of thought. It does not seem to me, as I look at men
in tlie Avhole round of their condition and stage of development, that
on dying they can be expected to enter upon a perfected state. There
is in them so much that is not developed at all, so much that is deaf
and dumb, so much that is comparatively paralyzed, so much that

208 GOD'S WORKMANSHIP IN MAN.

is shrunk ; there is in them so low an average of development on
every side, that it seems to me impossible that anything short of a
miraculous touch of re-creation can bring them, in a moment, though
they are set free from the body, to the attitude of perfect beings.

We enter the kingdom of heaven, in more senses than one, as
little children. I take it that we leave this world to go on with
our stages of discipline — not the same which we have here, but
what will, in our changed conditions and circumstances, be equiva-
lent to what discipline is in our earthly relations. But it does not
seem to me rational that we shall be trudging, trudging, trudging,
clear up to the moment of death, and that then we shall start up
absolutely different. There will be another climate, another soil,
and a nobler growth ; but there will be growth. That which you
have not learned here, you must learn there. That which you have
left undone in this world, you must do in the world to come.

In Labrador, the missionary, at the beginning of a short sum-
mer, sows the seed of the vine. It comes up, and gets a little start,
and is taken out of the soil and husbanded during the winter, to be
put out again when the next brief summer sets in. But in the course
of the ten years of this missionary's life in that cold region, the vine
does not get more than three or four feet high, and never shows
any symptom of bud, or blossom, or cluster. The soil is too cold,
and the summer is too short. At length, the missionary is recalled
to his native land, and he takes this vine, the pet of his leisure, and
brings it down into our southern latitudes, and plants it. It is now
the same vine ; it has the same root ; but it is not the same sky that
is over it. Look long, O Summer ! Look warm, O Sun ! Search
and find where the hidden things in the vine are. Behold, how it
begins to shoot up ! See what a stately growth it is having ! Look
at the branch upon branch which it is throwing out ! Observe the
smell in the air ! See the blossoms, and after the blossoms, the
clusters which the autumn shall see hanging impurpled and ripened !
But it took another soil and another sun to produce it. It never
would have reached that state in Labrador.

I remark, secondly, that if this general view of human nature be
correct — if man is as undeveloped, as irregular, as imperfect, as in-
consistent as the tenor of this discourse has indicated — then there is
no more noble experience known among men than that which strong
men ai'e accustomed to look upon with the most suspicion. The
fact that a man is under profound suffering from a sense of his own
sinfulness — or, in common phraseology, that he is under a powerful
co?ivlctlon of sin — is regarded by multitudes of men as an evidence
of want of strength of judgment. It is thought that men who are

GOB'S WOEEMANSHIP IN MAN. 209

thus affected are laboring under a hallucination of mind, and that
they are subjecting themselves to requirements which are too severe,
which are not natural, and which do not belong to the truest con-
ception of manhood.

There are a great many mild-mannered men, men of meekness
because men of weakness, who seem to sail through life without ever
being agitated. Did you ever see a brook only an inch deep that
could have waves twenty feet high ? If a man is shallow enough,
he will not be deeply moved. And multitudes of men are serene, and
go through life quite satisfied with themselves — and I thank God
that there is anything in the universe that can be satisfied with
them.

But I speak of men who have some sense of the depth and the
power which there is in the soul. There are men who have some
sense of the reach which there is in eternity. There are some men
whose conception of character and whose self-esteem take hold upon
immortality. These men cannot afford to be lost, nor to run any
peril of loss. And to such men there is nothing more wise, nor
more profoundly philosophical, than this very sense of sinfulness,
which so many regard with contemj^t.

When you take a large conception of what the possibility of
manhood is, as sketched in the word of God, there is not one part of
a man's nature which is not stained. There is not a single faculty in
which he does not sin every day. There is not a feeling in him.
which is not flawed and enfeebled ; which is not irregular and in-
constant ; and which is not used for selfishness more than for benev-
olence ; for lust more than for purity ; for the animal more than for
the spiritual.

This is not confined to one part of the mind. It extends all
through it. And if a man thinks of himself as lying under the eye
of God, the Supreme, I do not marvel that his soul heaves with a
sense of its own worthlessness and unworthiness before God. There
is no more manly experience in this world than the laying of the
hand upon the mouth, and the mouth in the dust, and tlie crying out,
" Unclean ! unclean ! God be merciful !"

I remark, thirdly, that the church, and all its members, stand
before God just as every other man stands before him, in so far as
absolute character is concerned. When men have been converted,
they are simply begun upon by a higher power. They are not per-
fected. And no man is saved because he has been baptized. No
man is saved because he is a member of the church. The fact that
a man is a member of the church is no evidence that he is good in
any important and proper sense of that term. A man is not less a

210 GOB'S wo BKMAIi SHIP IN MAN.

sinner in the church than he is out of it, in this more generic use of
the word sinfulness. Every man that is in the church is dependent
simply on the generosity of God. If you are saved, and if I am
saved, it will be because, having been brought into the church, we
made such good use of our time that, with the help of God, we re-
paired the damage ol sin, so that every side of our character was
being built up, and gave promise of being a fit temple for the New
Jerusalem, whose walls are built of precious stones, and whose gates
are of pearl. By nature, we are full of pride and selfishness ; we
are of the earth, earthy. All through us is imperfection, and stain,
and rottenness ; we ai-e altogether sinful ; and the best that can be
said of us is that we are attempting what others are not attempt-
ing ; that we have a noble purpose, and that we are striving up-
ward to the absolute condition of perfect men. Every man before
God is a creature of such sinfulness that he is obliged to say of him-
self, " By the grace of God : not by my own virtue and goodness,
but by God's generosity, dying for me, and bearing my burden, I
shall be saved, if I am saved at all. It will be, not anything that is
beautiful or good in me — oh, no ! but the unsj^eakable pity, the
profound sorrow, the mercy that is in Christ Jesus."

Therefore the reality of sin, the existence of deadly evil, should
be no reason why one should not repair to God for sympathy and
for succor. There are many who, being conscious of wickedness,
and, not being Christians, do not see why they should ask divine
succor. There are many who are conscious of being bound by evil;
and they fain would break away from it. If only they were Chris-
tians, and in the church, God would help them ; but they are sinners,
and out of the church, and they dare not go to God. Many a man
would fain break away from the cup, but he knows that his own
strength is insufficient ; and as he is not a Christian, as he has made
his investments in evil, he does not feel that he has a right to draw
upon the bank of divine mercy. He keeps no account there, and he
has no reason to think that his check will be honored there if he
presents it.

Now, there is not a human being in or out of the Church who is
not an object of divine compassion and divine love. God may have
the love of complacency when his Spirit shall have drawn you more
and more into the lines and lineaments of his own blessed beauty ;
but God is Love, and he will not wait for your turning before he
loves you. God so loved the world that he gave his son to die for
it, and to die for it while yet it was in sin — yea, and at enmity to him.
God's love precedes all reformation. And there is no man — not a
drunkard, not a gambler, not a thief, not a person that is filled full

GOB'S WORKMAN 8EIP m MAN. 211

of passions and appetites — who has not a right, to-day, now, here-
in liis heart, to look up and say, " God help me !" Your sinfulness
is not a reason why you should keep away from God. It is the very
reason why you should go to him. He is to your soul what the
physician is to your body. When your body is racked with pains,
or is swollen with disease, you go to the physician, that he may
heal you. And so, the consciousness of your sin, and of the hateful-
ness of it, is the very reason why you should go to God.

But may a sinner pray ? Who may pray, if not a sinner ? If a
sinner may not pray, then who on earth may ? — for there is not
a man on earth that is not a sinner. Every human soul is so
far from the goal of perfection that if sinners could not pray there
would be no utterance of prayer. Yes, each sinning soul may pray
when it has a consciousness of its wickedness and uncleanness. That
is the time that God invites you to call upon him. Will God hear
the prayers of wicked men ? Yes, he will. He has heard them
since the world began. No man ever desired to be better that that
desire was not the witness that God was present, influencing and
persuading him.

Do not wait, then, till you are members of the Church, and do
not wait till you are changed, before you begin to pray. Oh selfish
man, who does not want to be selfish ! that aspiration for something
better is of God. Oh proud man, who sees a better way ! that see-
ing is the light of God. Oh worldly man, who is conscious of spiritual
things ! that consciousness is of God. These are things that the
Father sends to you as imperfect children. Poor you are, sinful you
are, low and wretched and wicked you are ; but there is might in
God. Call upon him, venture upon him, and he will transform you
into his own glorious image, and make you meet for the inheritance
of eternal life.

There is nothing that makes discords in churches, and discords
between separate churches, so hateful as the consciousness of the im-
perfection of all churches and all church-members. To see a general
breaking out among well, strong men, is bad enough ; but to see men
who are gathered together in a plague-hospital fall out with each
other, and to sec bed rail at bed, and fevers send gibes over to
fevers, and dropsies swell with tumid importance and great superi-
ority over emaciations, and emaciations point and chatter at the
hideousness of dropsies — that is worse still. What would you think
of a conflict where cripples were fighting cripples ? What would
you think if you saw dying men using their waning breath to rail
at dying men ?

But are not all cliurches hospitals ? As God looks upon his chil-

212 GOB'S WOBKMANSHIF IN MAN.

dren of different names, does he not see tliat tliey all are dependent
upon his generosity and grace ? What man, measured by the
divine standard, is good enough to set himself above his neighbor ?
What man has not, as God sees him, so much of the canker and rust
of pride as to take away from him the right of arrogance ? To that
very point Christ spoke the parable, where he that had been for-
given went out and laid his hand upon his fellow servant's throat,
and said, " Pay me what thou owest me !" and would not be lenient.
God teaches us that we are debtors to him, living on amnesty and
forgiveness. We are fed by divine mercy. And surely, God's
goodness to us ought to teach us to be forbearing and lenient toward
others. No man is so good that he can afford to become a censor.
Certainly, no man can afford to speak censoriously of the faults of
others who are in churches around about him. For the one great
household on earth, the one great family of man, the race, live in
the very first stages of development ; and imperfection and rude-
ness and ungi'owth characterize them all ; and at every step of un-
folding we see some irregularity, some perversion, some sinfulness ;
and all through, from top to bottom, the whole earth groans and
travails in pain by reason of unfulfilled concej^tions and aspirations,
of mistakes, and of sins. It is only the grace and mercy of God that
keeps the whole woi*ld from dismal collapse, that raises it higher and
higher in the moral scale from generation to generation, and that
shall yet bring out of it, not our workmanship, but God's — his work-
manship in the human soul through Jesus Christ our Lord.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.*

O Lord our Saviour, we remember thine earthly love. We remember
the tenderness of thine heart for little children. We remark how they ran
toward thee, such was thy winning way. Nor wouldst thou permit any to
separate them from thee. Thy heart was warm toward them. Thou didst
put thine arms about them, and thine hands upon them ; and thou didst
bless them. And it would seem, ever since, that children have taught us
our best lessons of thee. We still hear thee saying, Except ye be converted
and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Lord, how far have we wandered from our early purity, and simplicity, and
trustfulness, and clinging love! How much do we need to be brought
back again, and to become lowly, gentle and pure of heart— unsullied and
unstained.

Grant, we beseech of thee, thy blessing to rest upon these dear parents ;
and while they are, with all fidelity, instructing these children, may they
also learn from them lessons which shall be of comfort and of great profit
to them, all their lives long. Every day, as they bear aud forbear, for love's
sake, may they understand thy patience and forbearance toward them.
Every day, as they deny themselves, and find greater delight in doing for
• Immediately f oUowing the baptism of cLildren.

GOD'S W0BEMAN8HIP IN MAN. 213

others than in doing for themselves, may they understand the royalty of
thy nature and of thy government. Every day, as they see what labor love
■will endure, how long it will suffer, how unwearied it will be, through good
report and through evil report, and how fruitful it will be unto the end,
may they understand the everlasting glory and summer of thy love to them.
O Lord ! how slowly have we learned, in whose houses so many teachers
have been sent! How many times have the gates been opened, and thou
sent through thy little ones to be our instructors I How slow are we to
believe ! How dull to understand \ But at last, we beseech of thee, that we
may be caught up into that most blessed of all knowledge, the knowledge
of thy pity, thy tenderness, and thy love, which forgives, and heals, and
lifts, with wondrous strength, those that are fallen down, and puts them
again upon their feet, and establishes their going.

We beseech of thee, O Lord our God ! that thou wilt grant unto every
one of us more and more trust in thee. As we have less and less occasion
to trust ourselves, may we see that our help is of thee; that all our love
comes from thee; that we stand in thy thought; and that it is because
thou dost not forget us that we live in this royal way. May we remember
to be to others, according to the measure of our strength, as thou art to us.
And may we seek to know more of thee by seeking to fulfill to those around
about us the same glorious offices of gentleness, and patience, and forgive-
ness, and sympathy, and helpfulness which thou art evermore practicing
toward us.

We ask that the lives and the health of these dear children may be pre-
cious in thy sight. And as thy servants have come into thy presence, this
morning, bearing the tokens of thy thought and love and blessing, foibid
that they should be satisfied with external rites ; but prepare them to keep or
to give to thee the gifts which now make their hearts so glad. And if these
dear children shall grow up in this world, may it be in truth, in purity, in
virtue and in piety. And we pray that thou wilt grant that a blessing may
go with them out of the sanctuary. May the spirit of the house of God be
borne .with them into their own homes, to lighten them, and to sanctify
them, and to enrich them. We pray for all the children that are in the
church, and all the children that are in this society. May they not be for-
gotten in the hour of prayer, or in the secret places of consciousness and
experiense. And we pray that they may be brought up with all faithful-
ness, and that they may grow, fruitful in all goodness.

Thou hast blessed the prayers of thy servants. How many there are that
come this morning remembering the goodness of God to them in their child-
ren ! How many there are that can look over their flock and see not one
gonel How many there are who have not yet had the fountain of grief
opened in the loss of children! How many have seen their children grow
up to man's estate and walk in the way of safety, and of truth, and of honor!

And we beseech of thee, O Lord our God ! if there be any in thy presence
who mourn over their children, and who think thou hast hidden thyself,
and forgotten to be gracious, that thou wilt comfort and strengthen them,
and let them not doubt thy faithfulness. And may they wait. Though
seed long sown seems dead, yet by and by, even after the winter, it shall
come forth, and not perish utterly May they have confidence in God, and
persevere unto the end.

And, we beseech of thee, that thou wilt bless all the young that are gath-
ered from Sabbath to Sabbath in our midst. Remember our Sabbath-schools
and our Bible classes— all the teachers, and all that are taught. We thank
thee that there are so many who have it in their heart to give their time and
their strength in this labor of love. And while they are blessing others,
may they be themselves more blest.

214 GOB'S WOBKMANSHIP IN MAN.

We pray that thou wilt spread abroad intelligence among theagnorant;
and may there be many hearts tenderly alive to the goodness of Christ to
them, that shall go forth to bear tidings of this precious salvation, on every
hand. Let no place be unvisited. On every household may the Sun of right-
eousness arise and shine. And may this great city be won to morality and
piety. And, we beseech of thee, that all causes of evil may be overruled
and destroyed ; and that all influences for good may thrive' and grow
strong. May love prevail against selfishness, and truth against falseness;
and may all things in the community tend more and more to the honor
of God and the welfare of man.

We pray, O Lord! that thou wilt bless thy churches of every name
throughout the land. We thank thee for so many tokens of kindness among
them. We thank thee for the growing confidence which they exhibit. We
thank thee that thou art overcoming all divisive influences, and that thou
art inspiring men with a spirit of unity. And we pray that thou wilt still
unite thy people by heart; by sympathy; by common faith in thee; by a
personal experience of thy mercy ; by their labors for others. May they be
united in self-denial, in pain-bearing, and in cross-bearing. And we pray
that thou wilt thus give to us the confidence and conviction and zeal and
faith of thy people in all the world.

And grant that thy Church may hold together nations, so that they shall
not be rent asunder by intestine wars. Grant that nations may be so sancti-
fied by the Spirit of Christ in their citizens, that nation shall not go out against
nation any more to war. Oh, for that day of enlightenment when men shall
live by reason, and by kindness ; when forbearance shall be a virtue ; when
men shall not think it an honor to strike quick, and to strike often. Grant,
we pray thee, that men may suifer rather than inflict suffering.. May they
be like thee, and bear each other's burdens. We pray that the long delayed
predictions which respect this world, may begin to be fulfilled. Let not our
faith utterly fail. Let us not doubt that bright time that is coming, when
men shall be perfected on earth. Let thy kingdom, in which dwelleth right-
eousness come, and the glory of the Lord fill the earth, as the waters fill the
sea.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises, evermore,
Aracn.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Heavenly Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt take away from
us all pride and conceit. Give us to see, as thou dost see it, how barren our
nature is— or that it is fruitful only in things evil. How imperfect are the
best things 1 and how wicked are they who have the most goodness ! How
little have we learned ! How little facility have we in the management of
the great estate committed to our charge! How crude and imperfect yet
are all the fruits that are in us. Lord, we thank thee that thou dost not
choose us for our beauty, nor for our goodness. We thank thee that thou
takest us from reasons that are in thyself. Oh, the depth of thy heart of
love ! Oh, the wonder of thy patience I Thou nourishing Father, thou ever-
living and everlasting Saviour, it is out of thee that our life must come for-
evermore. And when ages have gone by, and we have had long experience
of the ripening air of heaven, then, more than now, we shall ascribe all the
praise, and all the glory of our salvation, to the Father, to the Son, and to the
Holy Spirit. Amen.

XI.

The Name of Jesus,

Look upon us, thou that dost behold with love and light in thine eye,
and bring us forth into life, and lift us into that serene sphere of love where
thou dwell est, and in which we can only behold thee. Purge from us the
dullness of our senses. Cleanse us from doubt and unbelief. Set us free
from the entanglements of the flesh, and from the memory of it. We be-
seech of thee that thou wilt fill us with a blessed sympathy, that we may
come into communion with the Father of Spirits. May the truth of thy
word be transfigured, and interpreted to us to-day. May all the services of
song be as the flight of our souls toward heaven, and may our gladness
mingle with the gladness of the heavenly land to-day. And we pray that
all the instruction and fellowship and social joy this day may be consecrated
by thy loving Spirit. And may we rejoice, and find it to be a day of rest
indeed. In the name of our Lord and Saviour we ask it. Amen.

THE MME OF JESUS.

' Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name : that, at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the
earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father."— Phil, ii., 9-11.

This is a prophecy, not formal and official. It is an outburst of
the expression of feeling — one of those royal insights which were so
peculiar to the Apostle Paul. The long track of history passed
over, the whole race's development and consummation ended, he
saw things as they would appear beyond, in the final sphere and
full disclosure above. And then there should be one Name that
was mightier, more magical, more marvelous, more blessed than
every other name in the universe. That should be the name of
Jesus. Then, in the praise of that Name, every joy and ecstasy
would break forth spontaneously and irresistibly. Then, in that
universal admiration and adoration of praise ofiered to Christ would
be a glory attributed to the Eternal Father himself.

So much for the substance of the declaration. Now let us begin
and follow this thought up.

In its lowest use, a name is a sign affixed to a thing for the pur-
pose of separating it in our regard or representation from every
other thing. After a while, in the progress of time, by use, a name
not simply signifies the thing which it represents, but comes also to
have in it, and to convey to those that hear it, a notion of that which
inheres in the thing. It rises from a mere physical appellation, and
begins to liave an interior sense. And then, naturally, it is applied
to qualities themselves. Or rather, the name of a tiling, when pro-
nounced, conveys the idea, not so much of the thing itself, as of its
quality.

Both of these are combined when names are applied to persons.
In regard to persons, they are at first the simple means of identify-
ing diiferent ones. They separate one man from another, and are
Bigns of separateness and individuality. Thus, a list of names in a

SuTTDAT MoRNTNa, May 21, 1871. Lesson : Phil. n. 1-13. Hymns (Pljmiouth Col-

leotion) : Nos. 208, 293, 551.

218 TRE NAME OF JESUS.

directory conveys very little impression except of so many separate
persons. It gives very little notion of character. It suggests very
little idea of association. A list of letters in a post-office, if we knew
the persons, would, when the names were pronounced, stir up in our
minds a thousand thoughts of their dispositions, and of their his-
tories, and of their relations, and of the incidents connected with
them ; but as we read them without that knowledge, we merely
think of numbers as applied to persons. So a roll of names of sol-
diers, a series of names set down in any way, merely conveys to us
an idea of the individuality and separateness of the person men-
tioned from the mass.

Our own name means more to us than any other, of course ; and
it comes to mean more and more in proportion as we actually grow,
whether within or without ; whether our development is in the
sense of relation to external things, or whether it is in manhood, and
has relation to invisible qualities.

We are not conscious of how full of nerves our separate names
are. We are not conscious of how much of pride, and hope, and
joy, and fear, and love, is subtly connected with the sentence in
which our own personal name is pronounced.

If you touch the name, you touch the soul itself, often, and send
it forth in flight, sometimes in one, and sometimes in another direc-
tion, according to circumstances.

Perhaps some of you saw on exhibition not many years ago, in
New York, a singularly efiective though realistic picture of a prison
such as might have been seen in France during the French Revolu-
tion, in which all the half-lighted, vaulted space was filled full of per-
sons— men, women, and children — very noble many of them — many
of them historic. On the back side of the picture the door stood
open ; and there were the grim and savage officers ; and there was a
French functionary or official standing with a list of names, and call-
ing them off They were the names of the prisoners who were to go
out to be guillotined that morning. And as the sounds fell upon
the ears of the hundreds that were huddled together there, what do
you suppose was the eSect of the pronunciation of them ? What
were their names to those prisoners then ? How much did they sug-
gest to them, not only of their own selves, but of all their hopes,
and of all their future, and of all their relations to one and another,
to life, and to time, and to eternity itself ? And all these feelings
were started because the names, pronounced in connection with a
certain time and purpose, touched every single chord in their souls
— some with horror, and some with gladness (for such were men's
Bufferings then that they were glad to die).

THE NAME OF JES U8. 219

I recollect one clay Avhen I had been traveling alone in the Alps
(for the sake of that additional luxury we had j)arted), that, after I
had been for some hours without company in that strange land,
where I was surrounded by very unfamiliar and novel scenes, and
where only a foreign language was spoken about me, I heard, fall
down as it were out of the air, my own name, spoken so cheerily,
so buoyantly, that I was utterly bewildered. Of course I did not
suppose that angels were troubling themselves with me ; but I knew
that it must have come from somewhere above me, I was climbing
up ; and, turning in the road, very soon I saw revealed to me the
welcome face and familiar form of a friend from New England, Avhom
I did not know Avas absent from home. He was coming from the
other direction, and, looking down, he had seen me. I never knew
what I should feel like when I was reduced to an absolute abstrac-
tion until that hour, when my name was pronounced under such
circumstances. It produced in me a bewilderment and whirl of feel-
ing. I knew not whether it boded good or bad, joy or sorrow.
Whether it came from friend or foe I could not tell. It caused a
total inward awakening or agitation such as I had never experienced
before. A man's name takes hold of a thousand inward chords, and
may be so pronounced that almost every nerve and sensibility of his
being shall be thrilled with it.

One of the most matchless scenes in the New Testament history
is connected with this, where after he came forth on that blessed
morning, Jesus walked in the garden, and Maj'y, the most devoted
of all the women, could not see him because of her tears (for peo-
ple's griefs are very apt to hide from them the presence of the Com-
forter), and she said to him, supposing he was the gardener, " Sir,
if thou hast taken him away, tell me where thou hast laid him," and
he who had spoken with her, and had not been recognized by her,
simply pronounced her name, " Mary !" and with that she cried out,
in an ecstasy of remembrance and of love and of gladness, " Rab-
boni !" and would have clasped his feet. The whole scene is too
dramatic to be interpreted. Read it, and if you do not feel it, no-
body can interpret it to you. The whole force of this scene was in
the line of the history of her heart or past associations, and of all
her hopes, and all her longings, and all the visions and aspirations
which his company and teaching had inspired in her. These had
been buried with him. And she stood before him, and he talked
with her, and not a single chord vibrated until he struck her name ;
then her whole life burst out like the morning.

Our names, then, stand intimately connected, not simply with
our persons and our qualities, but, as we have seen, with our owu

220 THB NAME OF JUS US.

personal experience with character, with dispositions, with all man-
ner of mental traits. But in the progress of time, names come not
simply to stand for things and the qualities of things, for character
and the qualities of character, but rise from the specific and the indi-
vidual, and take on generic forms. Or rather, personality may be-
come so large as to seem a genus, and not a species — still less an
individual.

Thus, the names of men of action in the world remain, and they
interpret, to those who use them, whole periods of history, or whole
departments of human development. Where men have had to do
with human affairs in such ways as to prove themselves to be pre-
eminently masters in any direction, their name not only identifies
them as particular individuals in history, but identifies them with
whole complex developments of alFairs in history. It signifies what
a man has fashioned. Thus the word Ccesar remains to-day to mark
a quality. Ccesarism indicates certain ideas, or a certain depart-
ment, or a certain genus, Alexander is another sucli name. Bona-
parte is another. Bismarck, with his extraordinary mind, is another,
and will be so in times to come, even to a greater extent than now.
And many other distinguished persons miglit be singled out to show
that a man's name does not stop with his personality, nor with the
qualities of his disposition, but that it goes on to signify large de-
partments of history which have been particularly associated with
him. A man's name, then, does not so much stand for him individu-
ally, as for the great departments of affairs in which he has acted.
Numberless examples of this will suggest themselves to you. The
great philosophers and giants of intellect have left their names as his-
toric landmarks. Art and beauty are also represented by names. In
other words, there have been names so associated with these things
that when we think of them, we do not so much think of the persons,
as the scenes in which they acted, or the realms which they created.
To those who are familiar with art in antiquity, such great names as
Phidias, and Raphael, and Titian, and Albert Diirer, and many oth-
ers like them, who might be named, do not stop either with the
individuals, or with the narration of their history, but with tlieir
suggestion of certain great departments of civilization and refinement
and philosophy.

The same is true in respect to the reverse qualities. There ; n
names in which we have stored up almost all that we ever thought
of which is hateful and hideous. Judas is a receptacle of whatever
is base to our thought ; Nero of whatever is brutal in cruelty ; Mac-
chiavelli of whatever is malignant and selfish and cunning in crafti-
ness ; Arnold of whatever is wicked and base in an unpatriotic soul ;

THE NAME OF JES US. 221

and Jeffreys of whatever is false and corrupt and oppressive in ju-
dicial stations. So names signify moral qualities, and departments
of them.

Now, out of this thought we begin to come near to some con-'
ception of what our text has declared. That by reason of his own
personal character and history, God should give to Jesus a name,
is a large idea, A day shall come when Christ's name shall stand
in the Universe as the suggestion of all that is most beautiful, most
lovely, most admirable, strong, intelligent, and effective in execu-
tiveness ; of whatever thought, and whatever quality, and whatever
sentiment we have kindled in us which is connected with any special
name in its lower forms. We shall come to a day when we shall
find that in that one Name Ave rise above all others, and that it com-
prehends in itself that which on earth has been distributed through
ten thousand minor names, each carrying some separate quality,
some single affection or disposition, or some department of qualities
or affections. There shall be a Name so large, so full, that it shall
include in it the sum of all development during the whole period of
time.

It is indeed a Name above every name. In the evolution of time
the experiences of mankind are growing more and more into associ-
ation with that Name. The best things which for the last two thou-
sand years have taken place, have gathered themselves around about
that Name. Bad as has been the handling of religion ; base as has
been much of the history of the Church that undertook to minister
religion ; corrupt as have been many of the hierarchs ; recreant as
have been many of the men who have enlisted under the banner of
Christ ; dark, cruel, bloody, hideous, infernal, as have been many of
the suggestions and the associations and the experiences of the
Christian Chui'ch, such was the power of Christ, the beauty of
Christ, that his name has risen above them all. And the best,
the sweetest, the purest, the noblest things, the things best worth
living for or dying for, are still associated with the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. In spite of his ministers, in spite of his churches,
in spite of all the malignity that has been manifested under the
cloak of that Name, its innate quality and power and its fruits
have been such that it has come down to us, after all, full of the
sweetest suggestions of the most transcendently beautiful things.
And yet, we are ourselves dim-eyed, and short-sighted, and we see
through vapors, and have never seen him clearly. We have seen
him as through a glass darkly. And in the small tract over which
the race has passed since his coming, in the little evolution that has
' taken place among the race since then, it has not been Christ in the

222 THE NAME OF JESUS.

body that exhibited Christ, but Christ in the great mass of the hu-
man race, uplifting them in their multiplex and multiform relations
in life. His name has steadily gained power. Even they who theo-
logically disown it, morally receive it, and call it transcendent. They
believe in it who do not believe the Book, nor the supernatural ele-
ments in it. They who deny divinity, and claim that Jesus was but
an extraordinary man, a moral genius, readily and willingly advance
him to the forefront. And if that be the ascription of those who do
not enter into sympathy with him, or with his name, as advanced or
advancing, what shall be the ascription of those who are in sympa-
thy with him, and with the best conceptions of things moral and
spiritual ?

But more in detail. In the last great vision — the final and en-
during one — of Christ, the intellectual treasures with which the uni-
verse will then be acquainted will center toward him, so that his
name will stand in connection with all that we on earth call philoso-
phy ; with all the treasures of knowing, among men ; with all the
bounties of combination in the human intellect. Whatever there is
to be that is resplendent, answering to our earthly conception of in-
tellectual force and achievement, will stand connected with his name
above every other.

The truth, the beauty, the refinement of the moral sentiments, car-
ried through every phase, through every combination, through every
conceivable adaptation, with all the force that inspiration can give to
them, and in heroic forms, shall stand connected with Jesus Clirist. And
what is this but saying that when we shall see him as he is, and he shall
be revealed to us in all his thought, and feeling, and life, then we shall
perceive that he is connected by his history with all forms of moral
heroism? As Raphael's history connects him with the most ex-
quisite things in art ; as Caesar's name connects him with the most
efficient things in military life ; as Michael Angelo's skill with the
chisel connects him with the noblest conceptions which man has
formed of statuary ; as many a thinker is connected, by reason of his
relations and investigations in the sphere of philosophy and thought
with the brightest achievements of human genius, so, when we be-
hold at last the full personality of the Lord Jesus Clirist, he will be
One of such moral relations, and his history will be found to have so
associated itself with everything that is most resjjlendent in intel-
lectual thought, and research, and execution, and combination,
and creative force, that that which is the noblest, and most trans-
cendent in truth, in honor, in sublime faith, in self-denial, in meek-
ness, in humility, will be embraced therein, and that his name will
be verily a Name above every name.

THE NAME OF JESUS. 223

If wc say meekness, we think of that person who is the meek-
est ; if we say mo^'al courage^ it suggests to our minds one who
is characterized by that quality ; if we say disinterested love, we
are reminded of another who has boundless philanthrophy ; and if
we say philosophy^ it is still another that we think of. There is no
one person on earth who is big enough to carry all these guns. Most
men are like gun-boats, carrying one heavy gun which swings round
and round, and with which they do most of their fighting, the rest
being done with small arms. Often great men are great in single or
but few directions. None are completely rounded out in their man-
hood. But when we come to see the one Man who is above every
other man — the great typical Man, who repi'esents the race — he will
be shown to have so touched human life and human experience on
every conceivable side, that his name will suggest that which we
look for now distributively among all men.

So all the qualities which are suggested to us here by the affec-
tions— as tenderness, and gentleness, and patience, and sweetness, and
the beauty and rapture of love — will be found so centered in Jesns,
that in the last revelation of himself, when we go where he is,
and see him as he is, they will stand in his name. His name will
shake down associations of these things upon our heads with the
sweetest perfume. When Ave shall see him as he is, tlien, whatever
Ave have thought of distributively on earth as noble, as pure, as true,
as sweet, as grand, as inconceivable in perfection, but dimly fore-
shadowed ; whatever we have thought of as courage, as skill, as jus-
tice ; Avhatever we have thought of as grand in poetry, in art,
and in eloquence ; whatever in sovereignty ; whatever in taste or
in beauty ; whatever Ave have thought of as admirable in rulers or
in subjects ; whatever has called forth our admiration in men or in
women, in groAvn persons or in children ; whatever Ave have thought
of as beautiful in picture or statue ; whatever avc have thought of
as heroic on the field or on the road ; whatever we have thought of
as glorious in aspiration and acliievement — Avhen Ave shall see Him
as he is, then these things, distributed through the race, and seen
but as sprouting germs, we shall trace back to Him, the Fountain
and Sum of them all.

'' So that if you, a great artist, die, and rise and come into his pres-
ence Avith your best conceptions of art, and commune Avith him,
youAvill find that you have conversed Avith the supremest Artist, and
you Avill be filled Avith rapture of admiration.

Or, are you a just judge, sitting as high upon the sphere of
honor as one well may sit in this life ; and are all your thoughts
disciplined and drilled in such directions ? When you rise to be-

224 THE NAME OF JESUS.

hold, througli those avenues Iby which you may best understand,
your wonder and amazement will be, to find in him the royalty of
those qualities which on earth you never dreamed to exist in such
perfection — not even in the ideal days of prophecy.

Ye who think of death as the end of love — as the quenching of
the torch of afl'ection ; ye who think of tenderness as belonging to
these mortal scenes ; ye who mourn the growing of your children,
because as they grow to man's estate their ten thousand sweet and
witching little ways of love will perish out of the household — O
wife-heart ! O mother-heart ! O lover-heart ! rising in the last day,
in that Name shall be more treasure, and more exquisite beauty, and
more inflections of love, than it ever entered into your heart to con-
ceive. And all the witching graces and developments of life, looked
back upon by memory in its fondest mood, shall seem to you but as
a tangled wilderness of weeds, compared with the garden of the
Lord.

Is it discourse by philosopher ? None shall have such sweet
discourse as He. Or is it the power of him that speaks ? No orator
shall have such poAver as He. From him came all things. " With-
out him was not anything made that was made." Or, is it the
refinement of the imagination, or the suggestions of a chastened
and exalted fancy ? Do not, because, owing to your early training,
religion has seemed so acerb and so rigid ; do not, because religion,
as you have been accustomed to think of it, has been full of thou shalt
nots, and because shall not is written upon every sweet and shining
temptation ; do not, because you have been shut up to days and
ceremonials — do not, for these reasons, ti-ansfer your false notions of
religion to the higher life.

How hideous, I might almost say, was heaven as it used to be
interpreted to my childish imagination ! It was a prison. It was
built, to be sure, of beautiful things ; but a prison is a prison though
it be built of alabaster, or silver, or gold. It was a place devoid
of the freedom and the enjoyments of home. It was wanting in
those elements which make life joyous and happy. And if lieaven
be a place of propriety ; if it be a place in which everybody is reg-
imented ; if it be a place where, at stated times, we shall turn and
bow one way, and then turn and bow the other way, and say our
prayers, and repeat our hymns — if that be heaven, it is a mechanical
heaven ; it is an automaton's heaven ; it is a machine-heaven ; it is a
mechanician's heaven, and a poor one at that. But to me heaven is
not such a place. I gather, to represent my heaven, whatever there
is that is most resplendent on earth. When I paint my picture
of heaven, I borrow from the clouds ; I borrow from the morning

THE NAME OF JESUS. 225

and the evening ; 1 borrow from the severe grandeur of the Avin-
ter, and the luscious luxuriance of summer. When I portray my
heaven, and its population, I take whatever on earth is most lithe,
most bewitching, most genial, and sweetest in nature and society. I
select for my sitters those that are the noblest-browed ; those that
I would go farthest to see ; those that excite in me the most won-
der and rapture, I get together all these treasures, and with them
I depict my heaven.

But these are only the accessories. There is a Name in which
reside all the qualities that inspired these thingi..

And my Saviour is One with whom I long to be most intimate, and
in whose presence I shall be most rapturously happy, and ineifably
blessed. And whatever direction I take — if I go to the east or to
the west, to the north or to the south, upward or downward — there
is my Christ with me. Whither shall I flee from thy presence, O
Chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely ?

I have not far to go to satisfy you that if there be such a thing
as a name that covers the whole round of human faculties, that fills
itself full of the best associations of our best hours, it will go in-
finitely beyond the most instructed human experience. And I need
not say what the effect of such a Name would be.

I never saw a triumphant scene that had not a minor chord
in it. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, the time when
Kossuth made his magnificent passage from Castle Garden up
through Broadway. I remember the surging of the people. I re-
member the wealth of enthusiasm that was manifested. I remember
the helplessness of that roar which rolled like a storm-w^ave upon
the shore of the ocean, and which seemed feeble and imimpressive
as compared with what the people wanted to do. And I could not
help feeling how the human heart longs for something to worship.
I could not but think how, when you bring before men, embodied,
that which answers to their conception of heroism, their whole soul
goes out yearning for it. Men who are not good, long to see people
who are good. Men wlio are inexpert, love to gaze upon expert
men. Cowards like to see heroes. And all humanity, by its very
consciousness of weakness, by its very infirmities, by the dim light
of its aspirations, longs to find something that is divine. There are
things in every man that are reaching out after the God.

And so, when these qualities and tendencies of our nature have
been gathered up, as it were ; when they have been trained ; when
they drop from the stem on which they were carried during their
first stages ; when we are brought into the other life under other
conditions, where that which is best in us shall have the first chance,

226 TEE NAME OF JESUS.

and that which is worst in us is left behind, and we stand in the
presence of this royal Person whose name is connected with every-
thing that is transcendent and noble in our conceptions, need I say
what will be the result ? Need I say that there will be a fulfilling
of the declaration :

" God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above
every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should how, of things in
heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth "? —
a Name which, being pronounced, as it were makes the very universe
quiver with spontaneous and irresistible enthusiasm.

It will touch every chord of sensibility. The very memory of
sorrow and of joy combining the rapture of the ennobled in the
heavenly land ; the fulfilling of all dim thoughts and hopes ; the
reappearing of everything that was lost and seemingly annihilated
to us ; all which the heart has felt of ecstasy — these shall be so con-
nected with the Lord Jesus Christ that he will seem to be the em-
bodiment of all those things which we have most dimly thought of
as possibilities, and longed for. There our Brother, our typical
Head, the man Christ Jesus will stand bodying forth to us the whole
of the existence of that which is possible in such a being as ours.
And the pai'ticipation of it, the associations of it, will bring every
knee to bow, and every tongue to confess that he is Lord. And it
will be a spontaneous homage. It will be a. homage rendered, not
because you must render it, but because you cannot help it.

It is also affirmed that in that day and hour the rapture of the
universe in the presence of that name, or that person Jesus, will be
the greatest honor that can be conferred upon God the Father.

" God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above
every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of thin^ja
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father."

I have seen in the thicket little birds, that had caught and fast-
ened themselves, and that, while their companions were out among
the leaves, or above them singing in the clear blue, fluttered and
strove, but could not free themselves ; and I have seen many sweet
and tender hearts that longed to pray to Christ Jesus, but that were
so bewildered with the questions that had thralled them, that they
did not dare to pay divine honors to that sacred name. It is to you
I come, bringing to-day this glorious emancipation. I do not ask
you to accept one view or another ; but I do ask you to hear me
while I declare this : God has exalted Jesus to the forefront of the
universe ; and he has given him a name which is above every other
name to you and to your thought ; that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, of things

THU NAME OF JESUS. 227

tinder the earth, of thmgs throughout the universe ; and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord^ to the glory of God
the Father. Go as far as that, and I will not trouble you any farther.
You need not reason ; you need not undertake to settle a 'thousand
questions of theology ; but if, looking upon Jesus, your heart longs
to ascribe glory and honor and praise to him, and if you Avant to
worship hira, there is your charter — there is your liberty. For, can
one be condemned in the great hour of disclosure who rises and
says, " I bowed the knee, and I confessed that Jesus was Lord : it
was in obedience to that command, that I might honor the Father"?

How does it honor him ? I do not know. You do not know.
You will see by and by how it honors hira. But if there is one
truth sweetly patent in the Bible, it is this : that if any ransomed
soul wants to ascribe to Christ everj'-thing that one soul can ascribe
to another, there is an open door to do it. Here is permission for it.
It is no idolatry.

Do you suppose that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
sit in snch niggling jealousy that they grudge to each other the
affections of men on earth ? Do you suppose that there is any such
feeling of loftiness or superiority among the Persons of the God-
Head that if any soul wants to give a rapturous expression of its
love to the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, he is tripped up
by some jealousy between them ? To suppose any such thing as
this is to ascribe the meanest feelings to the highest divine ex-
istences.

Then love, worship, bow down, until there is no thought or feel-
ing in you that will bow any lower than it bows to the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot make that name more blessed than
God is making it ; nor can you ascribe any divine attribute to it that
has not already been ascribed to it. So come out of your bondao-e,
out of your dialectical state, out of your thrall, and be delivered
forever and forever from the power of sin and Satan. Go with your
tribute to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be accepted. If you
do not know how to manage it, God knows to manage it for you.

We shall, perhaps, derive further instruction, if, leaving these
higher thoughts, we begin again at the lower point. I have en-
deavored, by some few faint words and images, to give you an idea
of what this name of Christ is, and is to be. And the question re-
curs. What is the name of Christ now ? What is it to you ? To
many persons the name of Christ is a mere mnemotechnic symbol
for historical purposes — simply a word for a date.

With others, the name of Jesus Christ is a word of superstitioa
Their Christ is that which narrows them. To them the name of

228 THE NAME OF JES US.

Christ is only another name clothing the poorest ideas of moral-
ity and of authority. There is very little in it that is exhilarating
to them. There is very little to it that touches in them the chords
of gratitude, of enthusiasm, or any form of heroism. I

To others it is a Name of controversy. As they regard it, it is
full of suspicions and bitternesses and divisions. And so, again His
heart is pierced. Again His raiment is divided. There are many
whose only thought of the New Testament is as of a magazine of
artillery. There is no sweetness in texts, to their taste. They value
them merely as clubs to be hewn for the conflict which they are
waging. The wondrous beauty of the love of Christ, of his words
themselves, are but so much metal with which they forge swords
and armor and breastplates as they go out against each other in
theological controversy. The garden of the Lord, the exquisite
beauty of the New Testament, is as if the wild boar of the forest
had desolated it. On the very tree of life he whets his tusks, that
he may go into belluine and savage warfare.

I know of nothing which seems more offensive to me than the
associations which I have but just got over, connected with texts of
the New Testament which should rise up as so many fair pictures
to us — as so many flowers in the peaceful meadows. And over these
very scenes in which the life of Christ is opened, that it might come
to our heart or imagination and inspire and guide us in the best
feelings of our life — over all these tranquil scenes fierce war has
raged ; and every part of the battle-field in the four Gospels, almost,
is redolent, not so much of Christ as of the controversies about
Christ which have prevailed in the Christian church. Happy will
be those ages in which the associations of the New Testament are
not controversial.

Far higher than these are those associations which I trust many
of you are not unfamiliar with in your own personality and experi-
ence and history, by which your childhood is connected with Christ.
Blessed is that household which has an interpreting father or mother
whose heart prophesies to the children the best things of the God-
head on the side of love and lovingness ; and unhappy is that house-
hold who have no heaven, though they hope one day to earn one —
those children whose calling and election has not yet been made
sure ; those children who are bowed down with weakness and heart-
sickness and disconsolateness from immaturity and unripeness, and
yet have no Mediator, no brooding God, and no mother-heart in God.

Many children have no God. Many children have a God that is
metamorphosed and made into a demon. The God of many chil-
dren seems to be without the element of love to them. He seems

TEE NAME OF JES US. 229

to be a God of severity, of sternness, of wrath. They hope one
day to be able to placate him, to get on the sunny side of hina. And
then they think they will be happy. But now it is Winter to them,
and they are on the north side of him. Blessed are they who have
outgrown any such experience as this, having found the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit.

How many of you have associations connected with Christ which
make hun to you what he is said to be in the Scriptures ; so that
you can say, as the people of Samaria said to the woman, " Now we
believe, not because of the things which thou didst tell us, but be-
cause we have seen Him ourselves" ?

How many have had a revelation of Christ in sorrow, in yearn-
ings, in suspense, in anguish, in raptures of joy, in attainment, in
strife, in defeat, and in victory ! How many persons are there
whose lives have been lives that seemed to be explorations in that
direction, and whose thought of Christ is intimately connected with
their whole warfare, brought to their own personality !

But by and by all these other names will fail. By and by the
name of superstition will cease, and the name of controversy will
cease, and the name of philosophy will cease, and the name of pri
vate and personal experience will cease, and we shall i-ise into a
common inheritance of that Name which is above every name —
fuller, nobler, grander, more powerful ; of that Name which is full of
fiery inspiration to every part of our nature ; which gives unity to
our whole scattered life ; and which shall gather us into our own
individuality, and make us kings and priests unto God ; of that Name
which shall have molded and perfected a true manhood in us.
And then we shall stand before the sovereign King of all that we are
and hope to be.

The day cannot be far away when that Name shall come to you,
filling the heaven, filling every avenue of joy and wonder and sur-
prise. What has life here to be compared with that ? Why are we
so anxious to live ? Why do we take the broken fragments, the
scattered elements, and think them such treasure that we do not de-
sire to go up to the mountain from which they came ? Why should
we be so delighted with a little spark of beauty, that we should not
desire to see the flame of beauty from which it sprang ? Why should
we cling to the imperfect forms of goodness about us, and not de-
sire to see the only perfect form ?

Speed, then, O days I Hasten, O night of life ! Let the Winter
pass. Come, O Spring ! — that better spring, when the Sun of

230 THE NAME OF JESUS.

Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and we shall
know as we are known, and be forever with the Lord.

PRATER BEFORE THE SERMOK

We ask thy help, our heavenly Father, that we may gain release from
our own ignorance, and that, under the inspiration of thy Spirit, we may
rise to some such thought of thee as shall fill our hearts with gladness, and
inspire us with hope and with love. We thank thee that thou art bringing
us, by a thousand influences, through grace, through providence, and
through the ministration of strength in us, toward that estate of blessedness
which they have who are in thy presence, and who see thee as thou art, and
forever dwell with thee. On this tumultuous earth is yet sighing. Groans
and pains are yet here. Here, is change. Here, hope rushes to disappoint-
ment, and conceptions come untimely to blight. And we are glad that just
before us is a land where all expectation is more than fulfilled ; where all
things are perfect, or growing toward perfection; where harmony has sup-
pressed all difference, and sorrow and sighing have fled away ; where there
are no more tears, and where there is no more pain nor sickness, forever.
We rejoice that there is a light above our darkness ; that there is eternal
day burning unconsumed forever; and that all the tendencies of life are
thitherward. In spite of what we see, in spite of what we hear, in spite of
all that is evil, and all the causes that are working to destroy, and all that
maketh pain and suffering, we rejoice that we may believe in a Redeemer.
Thou, O Saviour ! art not for the few. Thou art the One of ages. The circuit
of thy being is infinite, and thy word is not less, and thou art going accord-
ing to thine own way, yet undisclosed to us, step by step, through the periods
of time, and art working out gloriously, beyond all comprehension of men,
thy plans, and their eternal good. The wilderness shall bud and blossom as
the rose. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with
songs and everlasting joy upon their head.

We are as those that are lost in the wilderness. We long to behold the
garden-time. We listen to hear the voice that shall call us from our win.
We wait for the end which we cannot see, but which we feel pressing i
and leading us in the right way. We rejoice that our faith is so much moj
jomfortiug than our sight. We ask to be delivered from the thrall of our
senses, and from those lower reasonings which belong to these mortal bodies
in contact with this material world. We ask for that power of faith by
which we shall be able to realize the invisible and the ineffable. We ask
that we may be lifted by inspiration into that realm where we shall reason
according to higher things. We pray for that rest, we pray for that confi-
dence, we pray for that hope, which endures through the night. We pray
for God in us; forlmmanuel; for the divine consolation; for thy forgive-
ness; for the cleansing of thy Spirit; for that food which thou art to every
hungry soul ; for that water of life by which thou dost quench evil desire,
and satisfy holy yearning.

We beseech of thee, O Lord ! that thou wilt grant unto every one of us
this realization of thee, this sense of sonship, and this glorious certitude
that nothing shall separate from God those that love him through the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we beseech of thee that thou wilt, according to the
infinite mercy of thine own heart, and not according to the wisdom of our
understanding, nor according to the wisdom of our supplication, grant unto

THE NAME OF JESUS. 231

us all the thinp;s which we need. Wilt thou guide us by thy providence-
Wilt thou ordain the events that surround us at home and abroad. Wilt
thou grant that from day to day, all the multiform affairs that come, we
know not whence, and rush, we know not whither, may work for good to
us. And we beseech of thee that thou wilt ripen us, and that we may see
in ourselves the growing savor of the early summer.

We pray for all that are distressed in mind ; for all that look backward
upon the waste of life, upon its innumerable mistakes, and bemoan them-
selves. And we pray that their sense of inferiority and sinfulness may not
bring discouragement. May they look to their Physician, and for their
trouble find remedy in biui.

We pray for all that aw troubled and bereaved, and that are mourning
over sorrows fresh made. We pray that thou wilt appear to every one of
them, and that thou wilt minister to their souls that consolation which men
cannot give, and which, when thou hast imparted it, men cannot take
away.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt be very near to those who feel sensible,
to-day, that they are not under God's guidance. If there are any who
stand upon perilous places where they may in a moment be overwhelmed
and destroyed, and who know it, and who hardly know where to look, we
beseech of thee that they may feel that thou art near to them, cooling their
temper of passion ; that thou art near to them giving stability to their bet-
ter purposes, and inspiring them with a higher and holier life.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt draw near to those who are tempted,
and who have been snared by temptation, and who, yet, are not corrupted
nor carried away utterly. Oh, may they be restored to thee. May they be
delivered from the devourer, and be brought back to the Shepherd and
Bishop of their souls.

We beseech of thee, O Lord! that thou wilt be near to those on whom
rest heavy burdens. Grant that as their day is, so their strength may be.
And grant that they who are perplexed, and seem wearing out with care,
may learn the divine art of casting their burden on the Lord. Wilt thou
sustain them, and give them clearness of judgment. Grant them wisdom
of purpose, and patience in execution; and more and more may they learn
how to use the world as not abusing it ; and how to reap advantage among
their fellow-men without destroying ; and how to live and labor by their
higher and nobler nature, and not by the ministration of their lower feel-
ings.

And we beseech of thee, O Lord, our God ! that thou wilt grant thatmore
and more we may learn to be bound to one another in a truer sympathy.
May we interpret, not from the side of hatred, but from the side of charity.
May we not be armed against men with impulses combative and destructive;
but may we be more and more meek and sympathizing and all-healing in
our desires. We pray for the prevalence of the spirit of Christ. We pray
that we may feel his presence, though not in any tangible and visible form,
yet diffused, according to his gracious promise, in the household and in the
hearts of his people. And we beseech of thee that we may discern the begin-
nings of heaven even upon earth.

We pray for all those that are not with us to-day, but that think of us
— some from beds of sickness ; some from watching-places, where they are
waiting patiently upon those that are sick ; some from upon the sea and its
tossing waves ; and some from sanctuaries of the wilderness, from forests,
afar off.

Grant, to-day, heavenly food, heavenly light, and heavenly Are, to all
those who are of this household of faith. And may the mercy of God, which
already we feel, and which yet more we supplicate, go everywhere, among

232 'I'HE NAME OF JUS US.

all those hearts which are united to ours by the sympathy of love. And we
pray that thou wilt bless those in our midst who are laboring for the young,
for the ignorant, for the outcast, for the wanderer. We pray that thou
wilt never let their zeal fail. May they not be weary in well-doing. And
may they that water be themselves watered of God. And we pray that thus
they may find that it is more blessed to giv^e than to receive.

We pray for the children. Will the Lord grant that they may grow up
in strength, in manliness, and in virtue. May they grow up to love their
country, and to love their fellow-men of every land, with a larger Christian
patriotism, and with a larger charity for mankind than we have had. We
pray that they may be saved from vice ; from all the evils of inexperience ;
from the waste and wear of all passions ; and may they grow up confirmed
in virtue and in piety, to do nobler work, in a nobler way. We long for the
time when the earth shall be crowned with a better generation of men, and
when living and life shall be purer and grander. We beseech of thee, O
Lord! that thou wilt not let the years delay, but make haste and come ; for
the whole earth is weary with waiting. How much is yet dark ! How much
is but in twilight ! How much of that which is in twilight promises but a
cloudy day ! Come, Lord Jesus, to complete thy work ; to advance the con-
ditions of men ; to perfect the glorious things which thou hast spoken by the
mouth of the prophets. Bring in the latter-day glory, when there shall be
no war, and no misunderstandings, and no animosities, and no separations*
and no envyings, and no jealousies, and no malign feelings ; but when joy,
and peace, and purity, and truth, and meekness, and gentleness, shall have
possession of the whole earth.
And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen,

XII.

The Lesson from Paris.

THE LESSON EROM PAEIS.

" How rauch she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much
torment and sorrow give her ; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and
am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come
in one day, d^ath, and mourning, and famine ; and she shall be utterly
burned with fire ; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."— Rev.
xviii., 7, 8.

I do not apply these words to the condition of the fashionable
capital of Europe, as if I supposed they were a prochecy ; although,
if they were, we scarcely can imagine how the lines could have
been framed more exactly to fit the condition of affairs. It is rather
because of this singular adaptation, and rather as an illustration,
that I have taken them, thau as a part of i^rophecy.

The outburst of war, which last summer took place in Europe
was one of the most sudden and terrific which ever visited that war-
worn continent ; and the results were without a parallel in history.
It seemed as though wars had been so numerous that they scarcely
could make for themselves a new path and a new issue ; but we were
mistaken. In one campaign, the proudest and most warlike nation
went to pieces like clay before iron. And the world felt that it had
been living in an illusion ; that this empire had not been strono- but
had only pretended to be, so easily was it destroyed, and so utterly
futile Avas every exertion of its strength.

The whole world was moved, not to wonder alone, but to pro-
found compassion. And then, Avhen the severity of battle remitted
so that access might be had, the hand of charity was reached out
from every civilized people on the globe, somewhat to alleviate the
distressing wounds and calamities which war had made in France.
And none of us expected, then, that there would speedily sprino- out
of that war another war more cruel and more terrible than anything
that had gone before.

Scarcely had the most elegant capital of Europe escaped from
the misery of famine, before it fell into the clutches of misrule ; and
the scenes which have transpired in Paris during the last month

Sunday Evening, May 28, 1871. Lesson: Rev. XVIII., 1-8. Hymns (Plymouth
CoUcction) : Nos. 1020, 1011, 983.

236 THE LESSON FROM PARIS,

increasing in horror every week and every day, have filled the world
with amazement, and shocked every sensibility.

In no other city could the contrast of "former gayety with pres-
ent wretchedness be so striking. There are hundreds that sit before
me who have made their pilgrimages thither, who have dwelt in
its palaces, who have strolled through its galleries with delight, who
have admired its cleanliness, and who have marveled at the abun-
dance of its resources for satisfying the rarest appetite and the most
exquisite taste. Here was gayety almost without a cloud. Here was
festivity that beat with dancing foot the hours almost around the
year. Was there ever any place on earth so fashioned to make men
gay, and genial, and happy, as Paris ? Its government, its order,
its safety, its cleanliness, its economies, its rarities, its luxuries, its
art, its science, its beauty — the imagination teems with these ele-
ments which belonged to it; and now it is soaked with blood.
Many of its fairest structures are smoldering in ashes. Thousands
and tens of thousands of festering corpses lie along the streets.
Multitudes of its people are in exile. More of them are dead ; and
many others wish they were dead. The scenes of the hideous
French Revolution are enacted again. Evidently there is the same
people there. Their nature is not changed. Beneath all this gayety,
beneath all this kindliness, there is the terrible ferocity of the tiger.
! It will not, however, do for us to look upon this with mere ex-
clamatory feeling. Still less should we congratulate ourselves upon
our own safety and superiority. We may not always be secure. It
is true that we are of a different race-stock ; it is true that we have
had a different political education ; it is true that our industrial re-
lations are very different ; but, after all, there is a certain general
likeness in human nature ; and no nation (in the contiguity of na-
tions, by reason of the annihilation of space through magnetism) can
now afford to see the experiments which are going on in any other
nation without taking heed of its own possibilities. At any rate, if
we mean to live, it must be by wisdom derived from others' misfor-
tunes ; it must be by taking heed of their mistakes, and avoiding
them.

The universal horror of the cruelty of the murderous wretches
that have had possession of Paris is well founded. Greater cruelties,
I apprehend, have been ; and yet, the wantonness of the deeds that
have taken place there admit of no extenuation, and no apology.
They may, however, admit of some explanation.

There was no end in view to be promoted by the sacrifice of
life. There were ends that they were seeking, but they were ends
which were thwarted by cruelty. Blood cements nothing.

THE LESSON FROM FA BIS. 237

We must not, however, roll up this murdering mass of men as
simply monsters, aeting without an idea, and only inspired by the
insanity of fanaticism, and a fanaticism of cruelty. They were seek-
ing, really, the reconstruction of the State. They were philosophers.
Tliey were organized for far-reaching political ends.

Who were they? What was their philosophy? What were
their aims ? We hear much of the Communist and of the Com-
mune ; and yet, one would scarcely choose to employ his own judg-
ment in describing them. But it may be fair to take the descrip-
tion and judgment of one who, if not of them, is closely allied to
them, or next in gradation from them, and who in many points holds
their sentiments.

I select from the New York World newspaper a letter Avritten
by Robinct, the Positivist, of Paris, and sent to Professor Beesley in
London, and communicated to this New York paper by its London
correspondent. Robinet says of the Communists, from whom he
separates himself distinctly, but with whom he also has strong affini-
ties in many single points :

" Their philosophy is atheism, materialism, the negation of all religion.
Their political programme is absolute individual liberty, by means of the
suppression of governments, and the division of nationalities into Com-
munes more or less federated. Their political economy consists essentially
in the dispossession, with compensation, of the present holders of capital,
and in assigning the coin, instruments of labor, and land, to associations of
workmen. And their historical theory is, that the nobility and the bourgeois
have each had their reign, and that the turn of the proletariat has now
come. They exclude all that is outside of the working class from society,
considering it as socially and even physiologically effete."

Such is the doctrine of the Central Committee of the National
Guard and of the Communal Council, sitting at the Hotel de Ville,
which, since the 18th of last March have been absolute masters of
Paris.

He goes on to state :

"Neither the Committee nor the Council has put forward this pro-
gramme in an official way, and they defer the execution of it by govern-
ment or forcible means, till after the victory which they reckon on gaining
over the Versaillist party."

The extraordinary part of this is, that it is not merely the up-
burst of a rabble which we have seen in Paris, that it is not merely
the fury of men suifering physical wretchedness, as lias been sup-
posed. Such brutal civil wars all ages have seen. With paroxysms
of cruelty from men that wreak their vengence without discrimina-
tion or intelligence the world is not unacquainted. But this is a
crusade in favor of certain distinct, moral, political and social ideas.
The working men of Paris have been studying government. They

238 THE LESSON FBOM PAEIS.

have read, talked, lectured, and listened. Doubtless they have had
educated leaders. Men of ability, and of science, and bf philosophy,
have indoctrinated them. And these are their pupils. The vast
mass of the working population of Paris have been studiously, si-
lently, consecutively educated in a distinct scheme of government,
a distinct scheme of morality ; and the bottom has broken up ; and
this mighty revolution has taken place — this terrible war in Paris
for the purpose of gaining certain great definite ends.

This throws new light upon the movement, and gives it far more
importance. It is not a squabble of wild beasts for food. They
attributed all their unhappiness not simply to government, as we
learn, but to society. And they assume that men have not found
out the best relations by which man shall be laced to man. And
they are undertaking, now, to reconstruct society, increasing the
amount of individual liberty. They seem to hold that there may
be absolute individual liberty. Nor are they altogether alone in
this dream. Other nations have sought the same thing.

It is an insurrection, then, not more against political government
th§in against social organization ; and it is proposed to make an ex-
periment on a magnificent scale of the reconstruction of men's re-
lations to each other, and of those ideas which have been slowly
accreted through the experience of ages. And all the maxims and
social laws that have gradually accumulated by the trials of men in
every possible conjunction and circumstance, through thousands oi
years, are to be overturned. A new theory is to be set in motion
by these men.

It is only just to say that in seeking these ends this under-class
of Paris have evinced an energy, a patience, an indifference to per-
sonal suffering, a perfect willingness to die for what they believe,
yea, and an eager refusal to live, which, if they had developed them
in a truly just cause, would have been pre-eminently heroic. We
look upon these terrific scenes in Paris, and see that if they were
enacted for a righteous purpose, the men who are engaged in them
mio-ht be added to the calendar of men who have not counted their
lives dear unto them, so that they might achieve a higher develop-
ment and a nobler liberty.

I do not mean in the slightest degree to extenuate the reckless
cruelty which has taken place. I deem it to be atrocious, and with-
out excuse. But if these men inflicted suffering on others, they took
it themselves. If they hurled death upon hundreds and thousands,
they opened their own breasts to the same death. They acted in a
bad cause as good men would fain act in a good cause. And it is

TEE LESSON FROM FAEIS. 239

this that makes it all the more dangerous — for I think we have not
seen the end of this uprising.

It is to be observed, in this programme which one who knows
them well has published, that the nobility and the great middle class,
according to this new theory, have had their time of government.
That is, society has been molded upon the monarchic plan, upon the
aristocratic idea, upon the autocratic notion, upon the oligarchic
foundation; and it has been molded to suit capitalists — the great
prosperous middle class. And now, there is to be a government
which shall be shaped to suit the bottom of society — the great work-j
ing-class. And they declare (it is declared for them, at any rate)
that only those who belong to this class are to be considered worthy]
of political status and power. Instead of the whole of society or-
ganizing by class-interests, and making one government of the whole
people, there is now to be a new experiment. As the top of society
has organized and failed, and the middle of society has organized and
failed, the bottom of society is going to organize — and it will fail,
too.

The contrast between the gayety of Paris and this sullen under-
class that has been educating itself and watching from beneath,
forces itself upon every imaginative mind. While the upper-class
sung and danced, and wearied the hours burdened with pleasure,
right beneath them, and mingled, it may be, with them, Avere these
sullen-eyed men that had their purposes, and only waited for the
time of their execution.

I have seen, in the thicket, birds flitting from branch to branch,
while crouched beneath, waiting for an opportunity to pounce upon
them, lay the cat. As they drew near, he gathered himself up for a
spring ; and as they flew further away, he sank back into a state of
repose ; but he still waited for a chance to secure his prey. And
underneath all this gayety lay these men, like a tiger watching and
crouching for his victim, waiting to spring upon the pleasure-seekers
of Paris.

What a contrast is there, too, in the imagination of those who
have gone for business ends to Paris, and have seen the product, but
not the producers ! The merchant has seen their wares that filled
the world with admiration ; and he has brought home their silks,
their ribbons, their pictures, their silver and gold ornaments, their
varied machines, their ten thousand instruments of luxury, Pom-
peiian in splendor ; and yet he has not gone back into the shop to
feel the pulse that had lava in it. He has seen the wealth and the
beauty of mechanic art, but of the thoughtsand purposes of the
mechanician how little has he known 1

240 THE LESSON FBOM FABIS.

A man may walk througla a great city, and take its length and
breadth, and gauge it in various ways, and go away from it knowing
nothing of the real power and strength of the most important ele-
ments in it. /

Now, in every considerable city in France, it is to be believed,
these views to a greater or less extent prevail. The working people
of the manufacturing cities in France are substantially in sympathy
with the Communists of Paris. This is not, therefore, a boil break-
ing out in one place. It is a puff from a volcano ; but all around
the mountain there are crevices through which the same sulphurous
odor is emitted, showing that the whole mountain stands upon liquid
fire. Without a doubt, there is a leaven among the working men
of Europe of the same kind. Difference of race-stock, and differ-
ence of education, will make material modifications ; and I apj^rehend
that there never can be Communism in Germany as it exists in
France. I do not believe that the Germanic stock can be run away
with as the old Romanic stock can. Where the old Romanic blood is
predominant, there are paroxysms, and spasms, and revolutions, and
absolute fealty to leaders, whether they be cruel or humane. The
Germanic stock is naturally self-restraining. Individual liberty
knows, with it, how to cohere, and how to act with moderation and
prudence. And I do not greatly dread the spread of Communism.
But it is proper to say that there is a leaven of this theory, and
that unless kindly influences are brought to bear upon it, all Europe
will, sooner or later, be in alliance with such ideas and tendencies.

If you look at the purpose of the working men of France, you
will find that they are almost universally without religious faith. It
is not to me so very important that men should belong in this church
or that church, in this creed or that creed (although I have a pro-
found conviction that it makes a great deal of difference what creed
a man believes in) ; but that men should be without religious inspi-
rations of any kind is simply shocking. It remits them again to the
catalogue of animals. It takes from them that which has been pro-
ductive of almost every single element of progress in human life. If
you annihilate the faith of the future ; if you destroy the belief of a
superintending Providence ; if you destroy all faith in a personal
God ; if you sweep the horizon with your compass, and say, " That
is the only eternity which men have ;" if within this narrow circle,
men are to live for the greatest amount of physical enjoyment, spir-
ituality being disowned, then you have but a cage of unclean beasts.
And I do not believe it is possible to rear up a system of industry —
certainly not a nation of households — still less the fair fabric of a
powerful and organized people — where there is no radically religious

THE LESSON FEOM PAEIS. 241

control; where there is no inspiration of humanity; wliere there is
no sense of brotherhood, except that which is begotten of pure in-
terest.

It is materialistic ; that is to say, it casts out of its faith and be-
lief all spiritual things, and all the great invisible world beyond,
where men are to be held accountable for the deeds done in the
body,

Tliat Communistic faith which has made this contest, and which
is to be heard from again and again in the history of Europe, is rev-
olutionary in its nature — radically revolutionary. It proposes not
to make anything better, not to modify anything, not to stimulate
new growths and new developments — nothing of the kind. It does
not mean progress. It means revolution. It means absolute recon-
struction from the foundation. And as soon as it can be done, force
will be applied to carry out these philosojihical notions. It is or-
ganized, and organizing. It is no longer a nameless rush. It has
patience in it. It has learned to wait. It has also learned to act. It
has learned to act by combination. And it is imparting its ideas to
other cities and other nations.

The organization which is going on at the base of society among
men who substantially sympathize, whether through ignorance or
through narrowness of their circumstances, or their oppression as
laborers, has in it many elements of education ; but unfortunately it
is an education on the malign side, and is preparing them to despise
law and custom, and to upturn society from the bottom. And Ave
ouglit not to be ignorant of this, nor to be ignorant of its great
danger. It is uniting the laboring classes of the world in sympathv.

Already, in a community which is the freest, and where expan-
sion is indispensable, and where labor has its highest remunerations,
and its most perfect freedom, the laboring classes are united, and are
studiously organizing and preparing themselves to march with the
great baud that is filling the world. There is trouble in the future
for Europe. This is a single outbreak ; but it is a kind of hideous
John Baptist which is going before an infernal Messiah. It is show-
ing what is coming, to those that have an ear to hear. It may be
avoided if timely heed be taken ; if political power be distributed ; if
better ideas are inculcated with the same zeal and assiduity with
which evil ideas have been ; and if religion shall no longer be repre-
sented as a gorging institution of power in alliance with the State
and no longer as a part of the instruments by which the poor are
made poorer, and beaten down. If religion shall come as a benign
spirit, and distill like dew upon the grass and the flowers, this mis-
chief may be anticipated and prevented ; but unless there be some

242 TEE LESSON FBOM PARIS.

timely apprehension of it, Europe is destined to a series of shocks of
which this is but the avant courier.

The question now naturally comes home, To what extent are we,
on this side, In danger of similar insurrections ? If one should take
the account that is given of New York (and perhaps it is not much
exaggerated) ; if one consider what a receptacle it is of nationali-
ties ; if one considers how vast is the number of those who do not
speak our language, and cannot therefore be in affinity with Ameri-
can ideas ; if one considers what iise has been made of this great
underlying population ; if one consider what corruption is attrib-
uted to it, or to those that manage it ; if one call to mind the vio-
lations of public safety which have taken place, and the various cor-
ruptions which have been proclaimed, he will be apt to suppose that
we are in imminent danger, and that we, too, may have a Paris, if
not from our own population, from that which has been grafted upon
us, but has not had time to grow to the parent stock.

I apprehend, however, in the first place, that our dangers in this
country lie not in the direction of the lower classes, primarily. We
must work a change before they will be organized in America in
such a way as to be dangeroiis to the State. But there is danger of
a wide and rapid separation of the classes in society. Since we have
no classes established by law, and demarked by fixed lines on one
side or the other, and since there can be no classes except those
which voluntarily are formed in the struggles of men for strength
and wealth, it may be supposed that there is no special danger here ;
but there is danger. It is always dangerous to have difierent parts
of the population antagonistic to each other. It is dangerous that
there should be a large upper class full of riches, full of pleasure, and
full of leisure, and a large under class who believe themselves to be
as good and as deserving, but who are empty of leisure, empty of
wealth, and empty, for the most part, of all but physical pleasure.
And if this country stratifies itself, and those influences prevail which
separate the rich from the poor, the upper from the lower sections,
in society, we shall come into very imminent perils, and very deadly
ones. The extraordinary organization which is going on in capital,
by which it controls, or tends to control, the legislation of the coun-
try, and the whole commerce of the country, directly or indirectly,
as they are related to the political and other interests of the nation —
this organization by which a new power is springing up, and de-
veloping itself in the hands of a plutocracy, of an aristocracy of
wealth — this is an element of danger, and of imminent danger. It
is going on in our sight, and we see the beginnings of it, though
we do not see the ends. It is tending to produce divisions and

IHE LESSON FROM PABIS. 243

separations in our society which the strength and elasticity of our
political system will scarcely be able to endure. Unless we are
aroused, and timely aroused, to a consideration of this great increase
of accreted power, and unless we put barriers in its way, either of
legislation or of public sentiment, and stop its progress before it be
swollen to despotic proportions, we shall prepare for our children
and our children's children mischiefs which the imagination does not
like to foresee, nor to measure.

On the other hand (not to draw the picture altogether on the
dark side), we have a religion in this country which is free from the
State, which belongs to the people themselves, and which is not
represented by vast and powerful corruptions like that of Rome.
We have a religion which springs up by the side of the cradle, and
finds its sweetest sanctuaiy in homes where hymns and chants are
sung by mothers and little children. We have in this land no proud
hierarchy, with historic embellishments, knitted together — a class
made sacred, and standing apart from their felloAvs in society. Our
preachers are not priests, but ministers. They are brethren among
brethren. Although there be interlaced, here and there, another
order ; although, here and there, there be progress made by hier-
archical religions, in the main, the power of religion in America
proceeds from those who believe in the democratic element of relig-
ious life.

So we have much to be thankful for ; and much danger is warded
off from us, in that our people are everywhere kindly disposed to
religion. The working men in Europe have felt so many burdens,
so much has been wrung out of them, they have been so shut up,
and they have been so battered and beaten by what is called rellffion
by the churches, that I scarcely wonder that they cherish malign
feelings, feelings of animosity, against it.

It is a sad thing that the palaces are burned ; but it does not
transcend the imagination, how men should have such spite as they
manifested in the burning of them. The boy prefigures the man.
Who ever, driving the cows a-field, barefooted, and making haste,
and striking his foot against a stone, has not, while suffering from
the stinging pain caused by the blow, beaten the stone, that was not
at fault, because it hurt him ? And when men, running against
the stone bulwarks of churches and cathedrals, out of which have
come sharp pangs and pains, and against palaces, which, to them,
have no poetic associations, and out of which have come their op-
pressors, and that are looked upon as horrid and hideous places
which have been the dens of those oppressors — as unclean places
where devouring broods of despots have swallowed up their liberties

244 THE LESSON FBOM FAEIS.

— I do not wonder that there should be the feeling, " Put the torch
to everything that tends toward the old tyrany !" It was not justi-
fied; but it may thus be explained. I do not marvel that these fan-
atical men should have believed that all government was oppresive
and wrong. And if the working men of Paris firmly believed that
they held in their hand a pattern by which happiness could be given
to the world, I do not marvel that they should have said, " Better
wipe out Paris as a city, and build as in a wilderness, than that it
should stand fortified, and continue to oppress men, and work mis-
chief on them." It does not justify them, but it explains how their
fanaticism has turned them against their own fair city.

There is not a historic precedent, there is not a form of law, there
is not a process of manhood, that could live an hour in this country,
if men here had the associations which they have in France, or in
Europe, in connection with the Church, or with many parts of the
State. The fa-ir fabric of this government was built in the wildei'-
ness. We bemoan our fathers' trials. We sympathize with them
because they had plain food, and lived almost shelterless in the
dreary winter. But ah ! we rejoice that they were in the wilder-
ness where no man chose to follow them, and where they could rear
the pillars of government on foundations of natural justice — as they
did. It was their blessing. It was the great blessing that God gave
to them. The ocean was the barrier of their protection, and their
insignificance was the reason why men let them alone till they had
so builded that future ages might not take down what they had
built. And all our laws and institutions are so founded upon right
principles, that they savor of benevolence and justice and kindliness.

The religious sentiment in this country is the sentiment, not of
the upper or the middle classes alone, but as much of the lower.
The spirit, the inspiration, of faith, belongs to our people, down to
the very bottom. Woe to that nation whose lower class, stripped
of every thing on earth by men, have stripped themselves of every
thing in heaven, and have no God, and no protector, and no warm
bosom of faith, but sit in the chill of unbelief, shivering in their own
unconscious poverty.

Then our population is not compressed as is the population in
Europe. Whatever be our dangers, we shall not feel them for some
time to come. The troubles that overtake men there cannot be
escaped from. Men cannot run away. And so they stand still, and
are ground, and irked, and irritated. Here a certain degree of
inconvenience merely drives people away from one place to another.
They go out of one city into another. They go out of the city into
the town, and out of the town into the country.

TEE LESSON FEOM PARIS. 245

Cheap laiitl, that will not fail for generations to come, is the
natural remedy for many of those faults which come by compression ;
so that we need not look for any immediate irritation and outbreak
such as visits Europe.

The education, too, that our people undergo in the matter of po-
litical equality, has in it a surviving power, and is doing a work of
preservation. But, after all, if we are to maintain our country in
safety, we must still keep open all the channels of intelligence in
this land. We are growing ; and it is not a matter merely for pride,
it certainly is a matter of congratulation and boasting, that we are
becoming so strong in riches, and so vast in territory, and so mighty
in population. But there are dangers which come with these incre-
ments. We must keep open, therefoi-e, every channel of intelligence.
An ignorant man is a dangerous man. It is in the dark, or unswept,
or unwashed places that vermin breed. Where the broom and the
sun come, there come not vermin. Where knowledge shines, there
fanaticism is not apt to go. There growth is moderated, and be-
comes gradual. There experiments are few and cautious and wise.

For us, the newspaper is a greater treasure than uncounted mil-
lions of gold. If a man be worth his millions, he is all the more
dangerous if he be ignorant. No nation can bear wealth that is not
intelligent first. The newspaper is every year increasing in circu-
lation ; and as it increases in circulation, it increases in imjjortance,
not only as a moral power, but as a political power allied to moral-
ity, to a degree that those who conduct it do not suspect. News-
papers are to the body politic what arteries are to the human
body, their function being to carry blood and sustenance and repair
to every part of the body. Multiply them, and give them wider
circulation. Would to God that those who conduct them might
realize the full measure of their responsibility. Would to God that
they had a true sense of patriotism, and a genuine love of intelligence
and morality.

Then, next, the common school must be studiously employed to
build up, not simply light and knowledge, but that sympathy be-
tween men which comes from their mingling together in the same
sphere of life. I look upon this indirect effect of the common
school as one of its blessings — particularly in this land, where so
many classes are to be comminuted and mixed. The common
school brings together the children of the rich and the poor, and
lays the foundation for kindly interest and sympathy between them
which they will never outgrow as long as they live.

I remember that the year I came to Brooklyn, I found in one of
the churches a man who had been a boy alongside of me in old

246 THE LESSON FROM PARIS.

Litchfield. We had gone to the unpainted brown school-house to-
gether. We had secretly whittled the benches together. We had
together caught flies instead of ideas. We had played together.
We had scuffled together. We had whijjped each other — taking
turns from day to day. And so we had grown up, he the child of
an almost outcast shoemaker, and I the child of — Dr. Beecher ! I
had not met him for thirty years ; but no sooner did he mention his
name than my blood tingled, and we grasped hands as if we had
had the same mother. It was because we had sat on the same bench
in the common school, and had played together, when boys, although
our parentage and '^ur conditions in society were far apart — things
which boys know but little about. And I think we cannot' over-esti-
mate that sympathy which comes from the mingling of the high
and the low, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak. The
common school lays the foundation among boys for a knowledge of
each other, a confidence in each other, and a sympathy with each
other, which .will not wear out during their whole life.

I believe in colleges, and academies, and select and high schools ;
but I would rather see all of them perish than to see the common
school perish. I would fain have the common school made so
strong and so good, so large and so luminous, so full of the marrow
of good things, that they who dwell in the neighborhood of it, no
matter how rich they may be, cannot afford to send their children
anywhere else. Make that which you do for the common people
better than that which can be done by select classes in the com-
munity for themselves. They are doing this in Massachusetts, and
especially in Boston, Make such provision for the education of the
commonest common people, that the richest uncommon people will
come suppliantly and ask for their children the privilege of partici-
■oating in the advantages of the common school. Do not destroy the
common school. And keep it common. Bring everybody to it, and
let them there learn each other's brotherhood. And thus, society,
beginning and passing through the common school, will form sym-
pathetic associations which will go on unfolding themselves after-
ward, and which will no more be forgotten by men than the wide-
spreading branches of a tree forget the roots from which all their
magnificence draws sustenance.

We must also renew and increase in our land respect for law ;
and therefore law-making must be made respectable. We must
teach our children to have more regard for civil administration ;
and therefore we must see to it that civil administration is worthy
of the regard of honest children and youth. We must bring a
noble spirit of heroism to bear upon the administration of public

THE LESSON FROM PABIS. 217

affairs, and see to it that the commonwealth sliall not come to shame
by reason of the infidelity of its various members.

We must give force to every religious influence, also. We must
have a religion which hispires self-restraint ; which widens the
horizon by adding to the spiritual and the beautiful of the present ;
which inspires a feeling of responsibility to God, and of true
brotherhood among men. It is quite an insignificant question,
.whether this or that creed be right. It is quite insignificant, whether
men are descended in an authorized line, or whether they have
liberty to develop themselves without historic lineage. These things
have some interest ; but that which concerns every man in the
religion of the country, is, that it shall inspire self-restraint, Avhat-
ever be its creed. It should be a religion that makes men spiritual,
and inculcates in them a wholesome belief in the life to come, and
controls the life that noAV is. It should be a religion that inspires a
feeling of responsibility to God. Nothing holds a man to such care
of himself, nothing holds a man to such probity, and notliing, there-
fore, is such a guarantee of his safety, as the feeling, " I must give
account of myself before God." And whatever may be your partic-
ular faith, whatever be your method and polity, see to it that the
relio"ion which breathes from your church shall inspire self-restraint,
belief in immortality, responsibility to God, and brotherhood among
men.

Beware of religious faiths that separate men. Beware of re-
ligious faiths that put forth a hand bearing a flail, and go into life
beating down, beating down, and beating down each other. Look
for those religious administrations that di'aw men together ; that
inspire good will ; that teach patience and gentleness and forbear-
ance. Look for sweetness, and not for bitterness. Look for a for-
giving spirit, and not for unrelentingness. Demand and secure, in
the religion of the coming day, in the church that is to be, all that
there is of mercifulness without impugning the strictness of justice;
all that there is of gentleness without taking from the strength of
the bones of responsibility.

So, if we give liberty to the whole people ; if we educate them,
and inspire them with a true intelligence ; and if, above all, we
croAvn their material acquisitions, and all that education gives them,
with a sincere love for God and love for man, we shall liave a
people that is competent to grow, making wood such that the tree
will be able to bear the beating upon it of the elements, and that
the winter and summer storms which rock it shall make it elastic,
but shall not break it.

Meanwhile, let us not forget those who are in bonds as bound

,248 THE LESSON FBOM FABI8.

with them. Let us not read with eager and credulous eyes, and
with morbid enjoyment, of the horrors that are taking place in
other lands. What mothers' hearts are sacked ! The burning of
the Tuileries is sad ; but the suffering of one desolated heart is
sadder. The murder of multitudes of misguided men is horrible ;
but not the dead should command our pity. Those that live de-
mand our compassion. Mourn for them. Think of the little children
that are made orphans. Think of the girls that have no protectors.
Think of the poverty of those who are left to suffer without work
and without hope. Pity the Government. Pity the poor persons.
And pity, too, the ignorant, the misguided, the mistaken, who have
been inflamed to cruelty, following an ignis fatuus. Still they are
our brothers, and their mistakes, and all the hideous cruelties to
which their mistakes have led them, should not alienate our thoughts
of them. Pray for them.

Pray for all men, and learn to feel that wherever a human heart
suffers, even in the uttermost parts of the round world, there vou
have an ei-rand, and there your heart should bear you in prayer to
God, saying,

" Thy kingdom come. Tby will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

THE LESSON FROM PARIS. 249

PIIAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We humble ourselves before thpe, our Father, for all thy greatness and
all thy goodness, which make us feel how unworthy we are of such parent-
age. It is not our fault that we are smaller than thou, nor that we are not
greater than the design of thy creation hath made us ; but it is in the use of
the powers which thou hast given us that we perceive how far short we
have come of knowledge. We have not that which we might have had, nor
have we walked in the light of it, nor restrained ourselves according to the
law that is in our inner parts. We have not known the way of peace, to
pursue it. AVe have gone aside to do evil. Again and again, and often,
when we knew it to be evil by the sharp-piercing penalties which it brought,
we have still been drawu to it, and have had occasion to mourn over our
own folly and our own guilt, our blindness and our infatuation. But
we rejoice, whili; we make mention of our own estate, that we are speakin"-
to One who is full of condescension, full of compassion, abhorring evil, but
not the evil-doer; seeking to rescue, but not to condemn; seeking to brino-
near and to reform,but not to cast off and to refuse. We rejoice in thy
graciousness. Our hope is in thee. For we are not ourselves strong to do
good. And though we have aspirations many, how much do they mock
and rebuke us, rather than draw us upward ! How much better caii we see
the right than perform it! How much do we behold the ideal life! and yet
how little do we enter into it! By the grace of God we must be forgiven
for the past, strengthened in the present, and helped in the future. And
to thy strength we bow ourselves, acknowledging thy goodness and thy
sparing mercy. And we commend ourselves still to that same tender care
and that same divine love, piaying that thou wilt do exct tding abundantly
more for us than we can ask or think. We pray that thou wilt grant us
the blessing of those hopes which bring us near to thee, and wed us to thy
government.

And grant that these same hopes may spring up intelligently in the
hearts of all this great people. We pray that this nation may be a God-
fearing nation ; that thy laws may not be burst asunder, and thy cords cast
away from us. May we rather give heed to thy laws, and walk in them,
that we may have the favor of God, and that prosperity which that favor
always brings. Pity those that are weak, and that have been despoiled.
Pity those (hat are ignorant. Having eyes, they see not; and ears, they
hear not; and a heart, they do not understand. And yet, minister unto
them. Stir up thy people, we beseech of thee. Become their Instructor
and their Saviour. And we pray that all those who are scattered wide
abroad throughout this great land, and are gradually growing compactly
into national life, may be pervaded by a true religious feeling of love to
each other, by a generous regard for the welfare of the whole, and by an
intelligent judgment of duty.

And we pray that the prosperity of this nation may not ungird it, and
lead it to dissoluteness of life. We pray that thou wilt grant that it may
be established in righteousness. And while we look abroad upon nations
that are drinking blood and passing away, we pray that we may not forget
our own suffering, or the dark days and trying hours which we have known
and that we may not arrogate to ourselves such superiority over others,
because for this hour we are secure and they are tempest-tossed and not
comforted.

We pray for all the nations of the earth. Pity and spare those which
thou art chastising, and bind up where thou hast bruised, and establish
again the goings of those who have been cast down.

250 TEE LESSON FllOM PABI8.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that religion may break forth
from all the forms that have encased It, and from all that has tarnished it
or sullied its loveliness, and that it may become the portion of all men, that
from the bosom of God they may leain justice, and temperance, and forbear-
ance with each other, and kindness, and all things that make for peace.

We pray, O Lord ! that thou wilt grant, if it be thy righteous will, that
progress may go forward, not by revolution, but by reformation. May
statesmen be endowed with wisdom from on high, and may the people have
patience to wait for the growth of better things, and not rudely snatch at
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and bring down upon themselves
condign punishment.

We pray, O Lord ! that thou wilt turn the hearts of men everywhere
toward each other. We pray that rapine, and hatred, and all forms of mis-
chief which men inflict upon each other may pass away. Come, O bright
day of promise ! when the glory of the Lord shall fill the earth as the waters
fill the sea.

May we pray from day to day, and more fervently than ever, Tliy Mng-
dom come. Thy rcUl be done upon earth as it is in heaven.

Wilt thou prepare us for the services of the evening; for the lessons of
instruction to which we may be drawn.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that the spirit of the Sabbath
may go with us through all the week. Be with us while we live. And grant,
at last, that when we are called to the solemn hour of death, we may ex-
change worlds joyfully, and go singing to our home. And to the Father,
the Sod, and the Spirit, shall be praise evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt add thy blessing to the
word spoken. Grant that we may from thy providence draw lessons of
knowledge and wisdom to guide our steps. Grant, we beseech of thee, to
this great people, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. As thou didst give thy
presence to our fathers; as thou didst lead them to wise results ; as in all
times of peril thou hast guided our necessities, so we commend to thee this
land again, God of our fathers, praying that thou wilt be the God of their
children. And while we hail, and accept gladly, with sincere hospitality,
the multitudes, almost countless, that are rushing hither from the narrow
circumstances and the oppressions of foreign lands. Lord, save us, we
beseech of thee. Grant that they may bring to us, not vices, to inoculate us
with. May we, rather, have virtues that shall be able to sustain them.
Grant, we'pray thee, that we may mingle kindly, doing each other good.
And may their children and our children, interlaced, go on in later days,
building on the same foundations, gathering fruit from the same tree of
liberty, worshiping with the same faith, and believing in the same God.

We pray that thou wilt overrule all tendencies to excess, to luxury, to
self-indulgence. And wilt thou overrule all tendencies toward the develop-
ment of unjust power, and toward the oppression of men. Purge our land.
Purify our administrations. And grant that this may be a God-fearing
land, and that thy blessing may rest upon it, and that all the nations of the
earth, beholding, may worship thee, and draw near to thee, and find thee
the Friend of the poor, the Deliverer of the captive, and the Builder-up of
those who are laid waste.

And to thy name shall be all the praise, Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.

. XIII.

Suspended Moral Convictions,

Hear our cry, Heavenly Father ; and out of the multitude of thy tender
mercies both listen to us and bless us. Revive in us faith and hope ; and give
us the courage, or love, this day, to draw near to thee out from all our In-
firmities, and from our sins, and from all doubt and unbelief a nd fear, that
we may come as children rejoicing to the Father of joy, and that we may be
blessed of thee. Grant, we pray thee, that our meditation,^ our fellowship,
our devotion, and the offices of instruction, may all be divinely inspired and
guided to the honor and glory of thy name, and to our soul's welfare. We
ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

13.

SUSPENDED MORAL CONVICTIONS.

" Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on him ; but
because of the Pharisees they did not confess him. lest they should be put
out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God."— John xii., 42, 43.

The scene which these words develop took place amono- the
very last days of our Master upon earth before his crucifixion. He
had finished his Galilean ministry. In Galilee he spent by far the
largest part of the time that he spent upon earth. He had come
down, now, to Judsea, and to Jerusalem, to fill up the immortal days
of passion ; and he stood on the very eve of this great manifestation
of divine love and divine power. No one, who has made it his busi-
ness to look closely into it, will fail to be struck with the deepening
and widening of the teachings of the Saviour as time went on.
Whether it was simply that, like men, he was growing deeper and
wider by practice and years, or whether it was designed that he
should emit light in proportion as men were able to receive it, the
fact is, unquestionably, that his declarations were higher, broader
and more extraordinary, every week of the last six months of his
life. They began, if I may so say, in the hills of Galilee. The
river Amazon begins in the mountains, by slender streams, many
but confluent ; and the river grows until the breadth of it at its
mouth is such that from the channel one cannot see the shore on
either side ; and in the last days of Christ his inspirations outran
moral experience, rising higher than any man could follow them,
and sinking deeper than that any plummet of human thought could
sound them. The very mysticism of John's Gospel consists in this :
that it is attempting to orb to us thoughts that are of infinite experi-
ence, and that so transcend men's higher experiences that they are
impossible to us.

Now, there were many among the Jews — the common people

who heard Jesus gladly, we know. They heard him because they
had nothing to risk. They heard him because he accompanied his in-
structions with works of mercy that won upon their sympathies and

Sunday Morning, May 28, 1871. Lesson : John XII., 30-50. Hymns (Plymouth

Collection) : Kos. 24, 514, 898.

254 SUSPENDED MOEAL CONVICTIONS,

hearts. He was their physician. He also provided largely for their
wants. He carried, from first to last, the great mass of the sym-
pathetic common people with him. And there was no period in
Christ's teaching and life in which there were not a select part of the
Pharisees who believed in him. Some few were willing to own it,
Imt the greater part were not. Toward the close of his life, as he
came more and more in contact with the higher orders of the Phari-
sees that same experience attended him. The great body of them,
from party earnestness as well as personal antipathies, rejected
Christ's teachings and assumptions. There were some who regarded
them ; but they were such men as Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arima-
thea, and others like them — just men; deep-hearted men; men wont
to ponder moral questions ; men that had soul-hunger ; men of gen-
uine religious aspiration ; men that could not if they would, and
that would not if they could, free themselves from the solemn over-
shadowing of eternal truths.

While the great multitude of the Pharisees rejected Christ ut-
terly, they vehemently contested him, and sought his destruction.
There were here and there many men that believed. And the ques-
tion is, Why did they not openly espouse his cause and give strength
to it ? We have been accustomed to take sides with Christ. His
cause has been adopted by us, and we are almost partisans for Chris-
tianity. We take sides against everybody who took sides against
Christ in the old times.

In one sense this is right. In another sense we shall not touch
the bottom of things unless we can by sympathy and dramatic in-
terpretation put ourselves among those that stood outside of the
charmed circle, and look at Christ as they did, and reason on their
conduct from what we know of the great motives that actuate the
average of human conduct. It certainly was a great moral weakness,
to use the mildest term, on the part of those of the Pharisaic body
who believed in Christ, not openly to avow their faith in him. But
we must not suppose that thoy were so very bad, measured accord-
ing to our estimate of good or bad amoHg men. They were rulers
of the synagogue ; and they were the " chief rulers," it is said.
That is, they were men that stood among the very highest of the
officers of the synagogue. The Temple could exist only in one
place — namely, in Jerusalem ; and the Temple never provided in-
struction for the people, but simply sacrificial worship. That was
its solitary function. The synagogue provided instruction, but
never sacrifice. Synagogues existed in every considerable neighbor-
hood ; and there were a great many of them in old Jerusalem, I
suppose the synagogue was substantially the model upon which the

SUSPENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS. 255

apostles early framed the Christian church ; and I suppose that the
early officers of the Christian church occupied substantially the
same positions and performed substantially the same functions which
the ajiostles had been accustomed to in their synagogical experi-
ences.

Our Master availed himself of the synagogues every Sabbath
day. He, as we now say, attended church at the synagogue. He
became a teacher. Frequently intelligent men were called out of
the audience to read the Scriptures and to expound them ; and he
often performed this service ; and thus he became not only familiar
with the usages of the synagogue, but with the principal characters
of the synagogues throughout the country. These rulers were
among the most honored men of that time. To be an elder or
a ruler in the synagogue, and a chief one at that, was to go nearly
as high as an ordinary Jew could aspire to go in the ranks of his
own countrymen.

Now, we must not jud.;e of the conduct of the men who
occupied that official relation to the synagogue, by our views of
Christ. We have never had any doubt in respect to his divinity, for
the most part. From our childhood we have seen him, not as a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but as glorified. A halo
hangs in our imagination round about his head when we think
of him ; and he is the openly-declared, and by ages honored, Christ.
But he came among his countrymen born in the most inconspicuous
circumstances, trained among the poorest of the people, and without
the advantages- of education which belonged to the higher classes.
He came in ways that tended to shock many of the prejudices of his
own people. He was an extremist, judging purely by external
measui'ements. He came as a reformer, uttering disagreeable truths
that jarred against the conceit and the vanity and much of the
patriotic feeling of the Jews. And he stirred up their vindictive
and malign passions — for they were strong in that direction. He
came apparently disowned by the leaders of his people. Yet he
represented historic Judaism. He was in accord with Moses and
the Mosaic institutes. Nevertheless, he was a disturber. And when
men in official relations looked at him, he seemed to them an extra-
ordinary man. But they did not know how he would turn out, or
which way he would go. And it was very natural that, being
guided by their lower nature, they should hold themselves in
reserve — particularly as Jesus had formed no external church as
separate from the Jewish church. It is a striking fact that he never
gathered about him, and never organized, any band of men. Even
the disciples were not organized. There was no order, no rank, no

256 S USP ENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS.

precedence, among them. They were simply twelve companions united
in a common cause, as twelve men gathered casually together by elect-
ive affinity would go on a journey of days and days, not organized,
but loosely co-hering by their sympathies. There was no organized
church, nor any church, in Christ's time. There was no preparation
for a future external, visible kingdom. There was no plan of
organization laid down. There was no mode of worship prescribed.
Christ was a pure spiritualist. He taught men the innermost truths.
He almost may be said to have neglected the external forms which
truths must put on. He left the externalities of religion to take care
of themselves. Where any inward thought tended to give itself an
outward form, he let it do so r.?cording to its own nature. He dealt
with principles, with truths, with great spiritual elements. And it
is not strange that men should not like to commit themselves to a
man who represented nothing but an intangible and ill-apprehended
spiritual tendency — especially as he was in such disrej^ute. The
state of feeling was such in regard to Christ, that it would have
brought them into collision, and perhaps mto quarrel, with those
of their own class who had esprit de corps, if they had identified
themselves with him. The spirit of their class was such that these
men were slow to break away from them for the sake of adhering
to Christ. It would have put in jeopardy their peace, their har-
mony, their property and theii' reputation.

There was another thing. Probably they were men who were
tired of disquiet. All their days there had been revolutions break-
ing out incessantly in one shape or another. Wild hopes that the
Messiah had come would start the people now and then, in this di-
rection or in that direction ; and they had been stirred up so much
that doubtless then, as now, there were many thoughtful and cau-
tious men who were tired of these perpetual disturbances, and these
pretentious reformations, that ended in nothing.

To this must also be added that disposition which many men
have, not to be in any doubtful or uncompleted development. There
are some men who love the front line, who love novelty, and who
run after things that are different from what has been known be-
fore. There are other men who are the reverse in their tendencies.
They love the rear line because it is safest. There are men who
naturally run to action. There are other men who are naturally
spectators of action. There are men who tend to do ; and there are
other men who tend to thi7iJc. Without doubt many of these men
were of a reflective cast of mind, who did not love to commit them-
selves.

So, then, when you look at it from the standpoint of human ex-

SUSPENDED MOEAL CONVICTIONS. 257)

perlence, they did not act in any extraordinary manner — not dif-
ferently from what men are acting every day. And I think before
I am through you will detect in yourselves the same lines of reason-
ing ; the same conservative tendencies ; the same gulf between moral
intuitions and the development of them into overt life, and into
declarations before men.

Theirs was a case of suspended moral consciousness. They saw
Christ perform his works of mercy, and believed in them. They
heard his discourses, and felt the truth and the power of them. In
the main, they thought it most probable, almost certain, that he was
a man sent from God. And if they could have been disconnected
from all the circumstances around about them, and could have felt
at liberty, as men say, to act according to their own private feelino-s
without regard to their social connections, I have no doubt that they
would have ranged themselves on the side of Jesus, and rejoiced
to have been his disciples. They saw, they sympathized, they be-
lieved ; but they stood still. They did not allow their moral con-
victions to issue, either in personal conduct, or in declai-ations of
belief; so that the effect which was wrought by the truth upon their
minds never came to fruit — at any rate, never during his life-time.
It was held in suspense. It was not permitted to go throuo-h its
natural and proper evolutions.

The same causes are producing the same effects still. There are
multitudes of men who do not allow their best feelings and their
best nature to develop to the full. They keep their heart in sus-
pense. Their moral consciousness is far more clearly developed on
the right side than their life is. Multitudes of men are worse than
their seeming ; multitudes also are far better than their seemino- •
that is is to say, their interior consciousness is more orthodox, their
interior desires are more nearly spiritual, their secret aspirations
and ambitions point far higher, than you would suspect from any-
thing that you see outwardly.

There are men who are more or less a-preaching of the Gospel ;
who look upon society not with a careless eye ; who have deep na-
tures ; whose outward characters are an index of the work that is
going on in them; though after all they hold back from form-
ing definite convictions, they hide themselves from the truth.
There are men also who, though they do not hide themselves from
the truth, hide themselves from the results to which the truth ought
to lead them. Both of these classes we shall consider briefly.

Some men have a sensitive and interpreting conscience; and
this has, as all moral sentiments have, a kind of prophecy in it.

258 SUSPENDED MOEAL CONVICTIONS.

All strong moral feelings have a sort of moral prescience. They
foresee, in a dim, nebulous way. Therefore it Avas said by our
Saviour, " Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds
are evil." Men have a kind of consciousness that if they were
to accept certain truths, those truths would compel them to for-
sake certain pleasures ; but they think that there would be such
an inconsistency between their practical course and their inward
feelings that they could not endure it ; and they are not prepared to
change their course. They are under full sail ; they think that their
outward success lies in the direction in which they ai'e going ; they
are in the tide of power ; and they have a consciousness that if they
were to yield to what they see to be right they would lose the aims
and ambitions of their life ; and they are not prepared to take that
step. They know that if they were to open their minds to the full
illumination of the truth, it would bring them into such controversy
with themselves that they could not endure it. Such men will not
let the truth come to them. There are hundreds of men who say
within themselves, " If I ever should become a Christian, I know
I should live very differently from what I do now." Oftentimes
their humility leads them to say, " I should live much better than
other Christians around about me are living." There is no telling
how men would live if they were Christians. You can only tell how
they have lived after they have become Christians. Living a Chris-
tian life is no easy task — especially for those who have been long
in the indulgence of wrong courses.

So it is that thousands of men who do not reject the teachings of
Christians ; who are not opposed to the church ; who are in favor of
morality ; who revere the memory of their parents because they were
pious people ; and who believe in much that they hear, and feel much
that belongs to the truth — so it is that thousands of such men are
perpetually holding themselves in suspense. They will not permit
themselves to come to any clear and definite apprehension of truth
as it is related to their character. Nothing is more common than
to see men who are utterly godless shed tears at hymns. Men who
are living very wicked lives will read the prophecies, will read the
sublime passages of Scripture in respect to God's moral sublimity,
and it will be like music to them. Frequently men will hear preach-
ing, who do not expect it will bring them to a practical decision.
What they want is, that it shall play on those deeper chords which
vibrate in them. And they have so much of moral nature held in
abeyance, in suspense, that it is grateful to them to have that moral
nature played upon by poetry and eloquence, only so that it does

SUSPENDIJD MOBAL CONVICTIONS. 259

not "bring them to a decision, to a clear, decided conviction as to the
way of duty, and prepare them for revohition in the way of conduct.
Up to that point they believe in truth, and love to think about it ;
and sometimes they say to themselves, " I wonder if I am as bad a
man as I have supposed that I was, and as I am told that I am ? I
like hymns ; I like to read the Bible ; I do read it more than folks
tliink I do ; and it may be, after all, that when I die I shall wake up
and see how good I was on earth." Many men have times of this
misty soliloquy with themselves.

It is one thing to have an ethical sensibility, and it is another
thing to have practical moral piety. It is one thing to have a nature
that rejoices in the excitement of moral appeals. It is another thing
to bring those moral appeals to bear upon your dispositions, upon
your ruling purposes in life, and upon your conduct. It is moral sen-
timent applied that makes a Christian man ; and the mere suscepti-
bility to moral subjects does not indicate that you are good, nor that
you are not bad, A man may love to have hymns poured over him,
as if they were sweet perfume ; a man may love sermons ; a man
may love all things in the church that are sober and temperate ; a
a man may love to indulge in deep thoughts and feelings, so that
they do not come to the point of decision ; so that they do not break
him off from courses that he does not mean to break off from — a man
may do all this, and there may be no operative and practical results
in his case, I do not say that this is worse than nothing, I say
that it is not sufficient, I say that it is a crude and undeveloped
state of moral sensibility, I say that it is not enough to save a man.
It will not ripen him. It is not bad. It is good. It is much better
than nothing. It should be cherished. You ought to be glad for
so much. The time will come, it may be, when all these impressions
and sensibilities will result in decisions that will bring you to a con-
sistent, practical development of Christian life ; but at present they
are inchoate. Tliey are not developed and brought into action.
They come short of what is necessary to make you a Christian.
Yours is a case of suspended animation, or semi-consciousness. You
are in a half sensitive state of conscience, or moral feeling. You
purposely hold your convictions in subjection. You will not let
them come to light. You know what the truth is, and what it re-
quires ; but you will not decide to act in accordance with it, because
you know, as well as though it had been told you, that if you were
to come to such a decision, you would have to change your life ; and
you do not want to change it.

For example : I am shaving notes for a living; and I am making a
good thing of it. I am convinced that it is not right. I know that

260 SUSPENDED MORAL CONVICTIONS.

it is hardening my heart. I know that it is searing my conscience. I
know that I am coming to look on men very much as vultures look
on birds, only with the thought to eat them. I know that I am not
cultivating toward them a spirit of kind sympathy, and sweet pity,
and loving helpfulness, and cheerful willingness to suffer in their be-
half I know, on the contrary, that I am growing rich on other
men's misfortunes. Nobody comes to my shambles who is not in
trouble ; and when a man comes to me in trouble, I gauge the amount
which I will exact of him by the degree of his trouble. The first
time he conies he will allow twenty-five per cent. ; the next time
thirty-three per cent. ; and, perhaps, as a last resort, he will go as
high as fifty per cent. ; and I try him there. Every time he comes
back he makes up his mind to go a figure higher. He does it to-day,
he does it to-morrow, he keeps doing it ; and I watch him, and take
advantage of his misfortunes as they come on him.

This is legal ; it is perfectly right so far as the law is concerned :
the only mischief in it is, that it kills at both ends — at the breech
and at the muzzle. A man under such circumstances is not only tak-
ing the life-blood out of his victim, but is at the same time taking
the blood of humanity out of his own spirit and soul. He is being
killed dead. And yet he will not change his course. He is conscious
that he has feelings which would rise up and lead him in a different
direction ; but he is not willing to be guided by them, and so he
suppresses them. There is a great deal of buried manhood in him ;
and frequently the old bitter spirit comes up ; the conviction of his
wrong conduct forces itself upon him ; a chance visit to the sanctu-
ary brings him to himself; and he says, "I cannot go to this church
and keep on in the way that I am traveling. I must either leave
this church or leave my business. I cannot take both. So I will
not go to church." Thus he reasons. He foresees that if he gives
liimself up to what he believes to be true, that if he permits himself
to be influenced by those thoughts and feelings which tend to liber-
alize a man, to sweeten his disposition, and to jjlant love where self-
ishness grows, he will be obliged to forego this most profitable
occupation. And he says, " What should I do then ?" Men stand
over against their moral convictions, and say, " I know that this
business is wrong ; but if I should give it uj3, what would become
of my wife and children ?" A man ought to think that the very
poorest benefit that he can confer upon his wife and children is to
make them outwardly rich and inwardly disgraced by a course which
he would not like to talk about, or have them talk about.

Then the next natural step in a mind that is not utterly per-
verted, is where conviction has been allowed to take hold, and has

SVSFENDFI) MORAL CONVICTIONS. 2GI

become active, and where there has been a process of euspendinr^
moral consciousness between a conviction of the truth and the ap-
propriate development of that conviction into outward action.
Hei-e is a very large class of persons — and a great many of them
are parishioners of mine — who are cleai-ly settled in their judg-
ments in respect to the truth, but who hang back and hesitate, and
do not make themselves known as Christians. And I wish to ad-
dress a few words to them. I am not preaching a sermon purely
of criticism. I am preaching a sermon of sympathy just as well. I
would be glad to enter into your feelings, and show you how your
mind is working, and why it is that you are not out and out, open,
declared Christian men. Very many of you are ripe in belie vino-.
You only need to let your belief begin to take hold on action. Then
you will be in the right way.

There are men who go for months and for years with a moral
sense far in advance of anything which they allow to appear in their
active life. There are men who have thoughts which they never
speak, but which roll as deep as the tides of the sea. There are men
who pray to God, and whose prayers I believe are acceptable, but
who do not tell the dearest friend they have on earth that there is
a channel of supply open between the Throne and their needy souls.
There are men who are conscious of their delinquencies, who are
conscious of their weaknesses and their wickednesses, who are hum-
bled within themselves, who confess their faults before God, who
ponder these things, who live in the shadow of the life to come, and
who inwardly experience something of spirituality, but who never
say, "I know that I am unworthy ; I know that I am sinful ; I know
that it is the grace of God that is helping me." There are men who
really do believe that their souls are pardoned, who really believe
that at the foot of the cross they have felt the cleansing blood of
atonement, Avho really believe that Jesus Christ is related intimately
to them, but who do not avow his name, and are not anywhere
known as his children. They wear the crown immortal ; but it casts
out no light ; and no one knows that they wear it.

Now, why should there be men who come to a conviction of the
truth, and of its moral bearings, and stand still ? Why should men
be like many of the chief rulers of the synagogue, who believed in
Christ, but would not confess him ? Why should there be so many
who believe in the divinity and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
who will not acknowledge liim ?

There are many who I suppose are kept back from an open
avowal of the Lord Jesus Christ by motives which are mistaken,
but which are not so unworthy or so disgraceful. There are many

262 SUSF ENDED MORAL CONVICTIONS.

vrho are kept back, I verily believe, by an exceedingly sensitive con-
science, acting in directions of false doctrine or false information.
There are, for instance, persons who think that a Christian life is a
thing so different from what it really is, that it would be a falsity
for them to say, " I am a Christian." Their education has led them
to believe that no man is a Christian who has not been brought
into the kingdom of God with an ouibreaking, impetuous experience.

There are certain kinds of goods that men will not buy unless
they have a given trade-mark. They look for that, and if they find
it they will buy the goods ; and if they cannot find it they will not
buy them. And many persons think that Christian experience has
a trade-mark, which consists in first being plunged down into dark-
ness, and then bolted up into the light, and with such vivid impress-
iveness that one can almost remember, by the clock, the minute and
the second when the event took place.

A man says, " Such a person, when he was converted, was
at first swept like a meteor into a gulf of despair, and then shot
like a comet into the realm of hope and peace and comfort ; but I
never had any experience like that ; and why should I say that I
am a Christian?" And so men's consciences stand in their way. They
cannot profess to be Christians because they have not gone through
the process which they suppose to be indispensable to a genuine con-
version.

Yet, if you look at the history of those who followed the Lord
Jesus Christ ; if you look at the history of the apostles and others
who became Christ's disciples, you shall find that for the most part
they had no such out-breaking and up-breaking experiences as those
to which I have alluded. They came under the influence of the
Saviour, and into personal affiliation with him and with his work, in
an even quiet way, without any exact recognition of the time when
the change was wrought.

Where one is brought into the Christian life tumultuously,
and there are precise marks which may be thus noted, I do not
undervalue them. I do not say that persons who are converted in
an uproarious way are not truly converted. But I do say that per-
sons who have a sense of truth, who have an aspiration for that which
is right, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, however gentle their ex-
perience may be, have a right to call themselves Christ's disciples,
and have a right to live openly the life which they are endeavoring
to live secretly.

Nothing is more illusive, and nothing is more difficult to man-
ago, than a conscience illuminated by ideality, or imagination, as
some would call it — that faculty or power in us by wiiich we dis'

SUSPDNBUD MOEAL CONVICTIOJSS. 263

cern invisible things, and by which our conceptions are raised, lifted,
carried up, beautified, glorified. An idealized conscience is al-
ways raising the conception of duty. It is always raising the
standard of right. It is always magnifying things so that when
men look upon the best of their thoughts and feelings, and measure
them by an idealized standard, the difference is so wide between
what they are and what they ought to be, that they say in them-
. selves, " It would be jjresumption in me to pretend that I am a
Christian."

A painter who had lived in the provinces, and who had acquired
some little reputation in his OAvn neighborhood, and had never seen
a master's picture, went to Rome, and stood before the works of
Titian and Raphael. He gazed at them long and silently, and at
last he said, " I, too, am a painter." There is a whole history in
that. He had been painting where he could not compare himself
with anybody else ; and now his feeling of aspiration led him to say
this, as he looked upon the works of acknowledged artists. It
was not inconsistent with humility. He felt that the artist talent
was in him, too, and that if he could not equal those pictures, he
could approach toward them. And he said, " If those men are artists,
then I am an artist. It may be that I am at the bottom of the scale ;
but I have some of the same thing in me which there is in them,"

And so there are men who have in them impulses that are
powerfully drawing them upward ; they have an honorable ambi-
tion ; they have spiritual etherealizations ; their sense of duty is
transcendently high ; and oh ! that they might at last look upon
Christ Jesus in such a way that they should see in themselves some-
thing of him, here and there, and be able to say, " Well, I am
Christ's man — a very poor one, a very imperfect one, but never-
theless his."

There are many persons kept back from an open Christian life
for months and years, and sometimes during their whole lives, who
say, " How can I go into the Church, and profess my faith in that
long and intricate scheme of doctrines ? I cannot." " Oh ! but,"
people say to them, " it is not understood that you profess these
things. They are for the ministers." " Yet, they say, it is gen-
erally understood that the members assent to them, and people will
think that I believe them when I do not ; and I cannot give my as-
sent to such doctrines. I am profoundly conscious of the sinfulness
of my nature ; I am profoundly conscious of my need of grace and
love and salvation in Jesus Christ ; and I am willing to live accord-
ing to his wish ; I would be willing to say that much, but I
cannot go beyond that."

264 SUSPENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS.

Brethren, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to be so
largely made, it ought to be organized in such a way, that any soul
that wants to follow Christ can, without violating its letter or its
spirit, come in and say, " I am Christ's for life and death," The
church ouffht not to be burdened with such doctrines and dogmas
and complicated governments that men should be compelled to stand
outside of it all their life long, saying, " I desire to follow Christ,
but I dare not take upon myself the avowal of such a ritual of be-
liefs as the church prescribes." Following Christ is a life-work, and
not at first a philosophical work — though that may come afterward.

There are many who wish to live Christianly, but who do not
wish to be held responsible according to the Christian standard.
There are a great many who look at the way in which church-mem-
bers live, and criticise them severely (a thing which is not very
amiable), saying, " I endeavor in every ]^art of my life to conform to
Christian morals ; I try to govern my tongue ; I try to control my
temper ; I try to conduct my business according to the best light
that I can get ; I try to regulate my life as I think a Christian man
ought to ; and I try to bring my children up after the highest model."
I say to them, Why not add to that, " Christ is my model, and I
live by faith of the Son of God," for the comfort of those around
about you ? They say, " I do not feel that I could take on myself
the open responsibility." These are men that make secret marriages
with Christ.

There have been princes who, for reasons of State, did not dare
to openly follow their real aifection, but secretly married them-
selves to the women whom their hearts loved. They entered into the
marriage relation, but never avowed it. They wanted the comfort
of heart which came from that relation, but they kept it secret, be-
cause tliey did not want to stand before the State and be condemned
as having formed a mesalliance.

There are many who want to have a secret alliance with the
Lord Jesus Christ; who want to have all the sympathy and succor-
ing benedictions which come from faith in him ; but who do not
want to avow it openly, because they do not choose to stand before
men committed to all that Christianity is popularly supposed to im-
ply. Sometimes men give this a better name than I do ; but where
men are living, or trying to live, a Christian life, I think they ought
honestly to say, " I am living this life, so far as I am living it at all,"
by the faith and help of the Son of God."

Then there are many who are kept back from following their
convictions of duty, and living an open life of Christian faith, by
alFection — not aflfection to God, but afiection to their friends. There

SUSPENDED MOIiAL CONVICTIONS. 265

is many a loving woman who is secretly living a Christian life, but
who is waiting before she makes an avowal of her faith, until she
can brino- her husband with her. There is many a woman who is
full of prayer, and full of faith, and full of the purest Christian
virtues, but all of whose household — her father, her mother, her
brothers and sisters — all with whom she stands connected — are op-
posed to her. And her heart is rent. She cannot endure to sep-
arate herself from them as she feels that she will be obliged to if
she publicly joins herself to the people of God. It would require a
great deal of heroism for one thus situated to do it. I can conceive
of one who has been brought up shrinkingly, exquisitely sensitive,
who has formed unfortunate alliances, and who has twined her heart
about those who do not sympathize with her in her religious aspira-
tions, and finds it hard to rise up and break away from them
all, and make known to the world that she is Christ's, engaging
actively and earnestly in duties which separate between them and
her. This is indeed taking up the cross. There are many that
could die with fewer pangs than they could live and let it be known
that they were Christians. And yet Christ says, " He that will not
confess me before men I will not confess before God."

" If you do not love me enough to have it known," a suitor
might well say, " then you do not love me enough to have me."
And Christ says in substance, " If you do not love me enough to
take me first, and in preference to all other things, then your love is
not a fit mate for mine." And yet, many persons are held back
from an open and devout Christian life by the sweetest afi:*ections,
but affections that are drawing the wrong way.

There are many sympathetic natures that take their shape and
direction in life very much from those who are around them — men
that are not only to be blamed, but also much to be pitied.

If you stand a bar of iron in heat like that of yesterday or to-
day, it expands, but not to a degree that will be appreciable to the
senses. If, however, you put alongside of it a thermometer, how
the expanding mercury goes driving up the tube ! How marked
and apparent are the changes which take place in the mercury !
During the night, the iron bar contracts again ; but the contraction
is so gradual and so small that no one can see it. The mercury in
the thermometer, on the other hand, goes down, and goes down in
such a way that everybody who looks on can see that it moves.

Now, all persons who are converted are affected. Some are as
sensitive to influences that are brought to bear upon them as the
thermometer is to heat and cold ; and they rise and fall all the time.
They are constantly warped and biased. As the musical instrument

266 SUSPENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS.

is played upon by the hand of the musician, so they are played upon
and hindered by sympathetic influences. They would, if, fortun-
ately for them there was any current setting toward the conftssion
of their faith, be swept on by it ; but if it were necessary for them
to go forth alone, as often as they stepped out they would be drawn
back again. If their purpose is fresh in the morning, it dies before
evening. If on the Sabbath day they are persuaded, before the
week is passed they are unpersuaded. Their heart is like a bay of
the sea, into which the tide runs, and out of which it runs again,
alternately, forever vacillating, forever changing.

To these must be added those who are affected by the love of
praise, the instinct of self-interest, and those ten thousand social
influences which interfere with the clarity of a man's judgment, the
wisdom of his purposes, and the simplicity of his self-devotion. All
these elements are working on men, and holding them back, so that
there are hundreds and thousands who stand for years without
having that royal Name associated with them — men who are not far
from the kingdom of God, and who are secretly attempting to live a
Christian life.

There are in this congregation a great many men of that kind —
men whose convictions need nothing ; men whose judgments are
sufticiently clear ; men whose hearts are on the side of the truth and
of the Christian church, but who have not openly espoused the
cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many times in which
they accept the Saviour ; there ai-e many times when they commune
with Jesus ; there are many times when they are conscious of hav-
ing Christian experiences ; but they do not rise up, and come out
boldly, and put their names on the roll of Christ's followers, and
range themselves under his banner, and own him as the Captain of
their salvation.

In view of this exposition, I remark, first, that there are many
persons who have a large treasure, a vast mine of wealth, within
them, of which they are themselves scarcely conscious, and which
they certainly never improve to any such extent as it might be im-
])roved. I think that now there are many persons out of the church
who are as good or better than many that ai'e in it. I think there
are many persons who do not believe themselves Chi-istians, who are
better than many who do believe themselves Christians. And I think
they are culpable for their indiscreet conservatism. The character
of their inward experience indicates that they are living a life of
faith ; and frequently they stand much higher in their Christian at-
tainments than many who are ostentatiously Christians. Now it is
their business to let the source of those attainments be known.

SUSPENDED MORAL CONVICTIONS. 267

There are many men in whose souls is a spark of the divine nature;
but they never bring it out and let it shine. It lies hidden away in
them, and nobody except themselves knows that it is there. There
are many men deep down in whose natures, under all their manifold
imperfections, is a point and center of palpitating love and faith ;
and oh, that they would uncover it and let the light of God's coun-
tenance illumine it ! There are many persons who are living Chris-
tian lives under difficult circumstances, who ought to come out and
say, "I am a Christian, and I wish to join the company of those
who are going to heaven."

One of the most favorite pears in the market is the Duchesse
d ^ AngouUme, which was a wilding and grew in a hedge, and was a
hedge plant, until one day the proprietor, going to visit his pro-
vincial farm, saAV the fruit, and tasted it, and was delighted with
it. So he determined to transplant it ; and he cleared away tlie
hedge, took it up, carried it into his garden, and cultivated it. The
result was that it became almost the pear of the world. And it was
fitting that, instead of being allowed to bloom and bear its luscious
fruit in obscurity, it should have been brought into the garden
where it could be seen, and where its fruit could be enjoyed.

I think there are magnificent fruit-trees growing in hedges yet,
which might Avell be taken out and put where there is a better soil
and a better exposure, so that they might spread their branches un-
checked by surrounding growths. There are many persons in so-
ciety who have gone under the influence of secondary and lower
feelings so long, that there has a kind of crust formed over their real
character, which hides it. There are people of all degrees and classes
of goodness and badness, but nobody is perfect. And among these
there is a very large class whose outside is bad, and whose inside is
good. Like chestnuts, they are hard to deal with, but are excellent
when they' are out of the burr. There are many persons whose ex-
ternal life, wliose practical life, whose life in the school in which they
have been brought up, and in the career which they have followed, is
justly danmable, but in Avhom, after all, there are sweet dispositions,
and who really are actuated by an internal sense of honor and man-
liness. These better traits have not been discovered, and brought
out and developed ; but they are in them. And if there could be
some influence brought to bear upon them which should lead them
to break through the outer crust which envelops them ; if that
could be brought out which lies slumbering in them ; if their
moral consciousness, where their true manhood resides, could be
brought into vigorous exercise, they would be transformed almost
in the twinkling of an eye.

268 SUSPENDED MORAL CONVICTIONS.

I believe that among bad men (and there are a great many bad
men) there are not a few that have the capacity of being very good,
if somebody would take them by the hand, and say to them, " You
are carrying immortal treasures in you, but a little below the sur-
face ; and if God's grace could but set on fire your better nature
which lies hidden beneath an unlovely exterior, it would give forth
a light which would guide you to the very land of immortality."

Are there not some here who swear, and are careless about the
Sabbath, and are not altogether particular about their companions,
but who find themselves bound by rigorous conceptions of personal
honor and personal duty, of truth and fidelity, and who, in the hour
of trial, when sickness comes into the neighborhood, are ready to
lay down their life for the sake of others, and who cannot endure to
Bee persons persecuted, and will stand between the victim and his
oppressor, and will go out of their way to help a disciple of Christ ?
/ I believe there are many men who seem externally bad, but who are
/ internally good. I believe that in many men whom we call bad,
there is an intrinsic nature which, if it could be touched by the fire
of heavenly love, would consume all this outwardness which stands
in the way of their higher development, so that they would come
out into the blessedness of a Christian life.

Are there not some in this congregation who are wearing the

steel armor of the world, but who carry inside a great heart, a tender

t conscience, a real contempt for shams, and intense longings for

i righteousness ? Are there not men before me who wish they were

Christians, and who long for the kingdom of God, although they

know that they are in the kingdom of Satan ?

To such I speak to-day. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Carry your belief into action. Profess his name. Range yourselves
with his followers.

Finally, I think there are many persons who, for want of open-
ness and publicity, for want of declaration, for want of freedom and
active exercise in a Christian life, are losing not only the best
developments of Christian feeling in themselves, but their best op-
portunities to pay honor to Him whose name is above every name.
\ " It is more blessed to give than to receive." It is very pleasant,

I when a man has done well, to have some one whom he honors tell
\ him so ; and yet there is something which is sweeter than that.
When you have been beholden to a man ; when a man has written
things that it has done you good to read ; when you are consciously
lifted into a life of greater purity and manliness and usefulness by
some teacher or friend, to be able to express your obligation to your
benefactor is, I think, one of the most grateful of all experiences.

SUSPENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS. 269

I never see Dr. Lieber of New York that I do not want to go
and take him by the hand, and say, " I thank you." I read his books
when I was a boy, and they laid the foundation for half that I know
in respect to political economy — though unfortunately that is not
much. I never see him that I do not have a grateful sense of what
I owe him. I would go to Europe to express ray thanks to some
men. I would go, a pilgrim, to Europe, if I might help some men
who are in the rigor of poverty, but who deserve better things in
the world than others who are rolling in wealth.

And how should we feel toward the Lord Jesus Christ who has
created summer about us ? Jesus, the name above every name, has
cheered us, inspired our hope, and been our guide through this
stormy life ; and how ought we to feel in respect to him ? Is it
right to receive everything from Christ, and then to hide your
honor and your praise of him ? Is it right to have every part of
your life blessed by the love of Christ, and never say one word of
that love to men ? Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, is it right for
you to feel that there is a golden cord of hope that runs from your
heart up to the throne of God, and yet be unwilling to be known as
the lovers and the trusters of the blessed Saviour ?

I beseech of you, if there be those who love Christ, who believe
in him, do not linger any longer. Rise up, overleap the barriers,
come forth, and say, " I am the Lord's, and he is mine." Be glad
that men look upon you and say, " He is a Christian" ; and then
live so that men shall honor Him whose life in you is being devel-
oped day by day.

270 SUSPENBBB MOBAL CONVICTIONS.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON

"We are glad to be brought home again. We are glad for this day of rest
that separates between cares and troubles, and gives us hours of sweet re-
lease in which we can look upward and look backward and look forward and
behold thy providence, and thine own self, and ourselves, in the light of the
better world. We thank thee for all the hope that we have of immortality.
We thank thee that the care of life, and its rudest experiences, are softened
by the thought of that life which is to come. If we triumph here, how glo-
rious shall be our rest there I If now we are pressed by the battle, and s eem
approaching to defeat, we know that they that are for us are more and
mightier than they that are against us, and that by faith we shall overcome
even the last enemy. Death. Yea; when in the hour that heart and flesh
shall fail, we are despoiled, and carried away captive, and hidden from the
sight of men, and corruption seems to have triumphed — then, in the hour of
earthly defeat, we still shall be conquerors, and more than conquerors,
through Him that loved us. In that hope of the future lies the joy of our
present. All that is sweet and pleasant in life, and belongs to it, and in no
wise takes hold of thee and of the life to come, is perishable. All earthly
fountains which give us drink leave thirst with each drinking ; and all
earthly food only prepares the way for another and a higher kind of food.
From thine hand comes the water of life that quenches thirst ; and from
thee comes that bread which satisfies hunger forevermore. And in the hope
of that glorious life, and its banquet; in the hope of that blessed meeting
where all infirmity is gone, and all possibility of evil is ended, and all are
united again that are separated on earth, and all inequalities are rounded
up into a glorious perfectness of divine nature — in the hope of the life to
come, how easy it is tobear the drudgeries of this life, and all its chafes, and
its fevers, and its cares, and its burdens ! It is thou that by these hopes dost
quicken us, to endure our present ill, in the certainty that out of it shall
come blessings innumerable — joys from tears; and songs from sighs ; and
vietory from defeat; and rest from labor; and everlasting life from death
itself. To thee, O Lord Jesus ! we owe these precious promises and hopes.
And to thee, this morning, we give ascriptions of praise. Every knee doth
bow, and every tongue doth confess that thou art Lord to the glory of God
the Father.

And now we beseech of thee that thou wilt work in every heart, this
morning. According to thine own sovereign pleasure, out of thy goodness
and mercy, and according to thy wisdom and thine insight, do for us that
which we need. We pray for strength, and we pray for all those graces of
the Spirit by which we are to live. And we pray that we may have minis-
tered to us, to-day, such views of truth as shall quicken us in the duties of
life.

And draw near to those that need thee this morning. By the exercise of
thy providence thou art training thy people, and art not explaining the
reason of what thou art doing. Thou art saying to them, "Ye know not
now what I do, but ye shall know hereafter." We would remit to the dis-
closure of the hereafter the mystery of the present life, rather thtui spend
our time in seeking to find out God, who cannot be found out to perfection.

We pray, O God, that thou wilt draw near to those on whom thou hast
laid thy hand. Let them feel that it is God, and that his touch is full of
kindness and of mercy even when it brinps pain.

Be near to those that are in great sorrows and afilictions, and comfort
them. Be near to any that feel themselves left alone. Be near to those
whose burdens seem greater than they can bear, and whose hearts from day
to day are full of poignant suffering. Lord, we pray that thou wilt guide

SUSPENDED MOBAL CONVICTIONS. 271

them, and that thou wilt give them so grateful a sense of thy presence, and
of thy sure providence in them and upon them, that they may rest. Oh 1
may there be many hearts that to-day shall do as children do who flee from
the face of those that hurt them, and with wild outcry of alarm rush to
their pareuts, and hide themselves in their bosom, and forget their troubles
and fears and tears. Open thine arms for the oppressed ones. Let thy heart
be a refuge for thy people to-day ; and out of cares, out of fear, out of an-
guish, out oi bereavements, and out of the oppressions of this world, may
they be able to flee and find rest in the arms and in the bosom of their God.

And Wi- beseech of thee that thou wilt awaken in hearts so rescued and
released a more gracious faith in thee; a more abiding confidence in thy
presence, and in thine helpfulness. Grant, we pray thee, that it may be
easier, from the things which they have suffered, and from the things which
they have experienced in release from suffering, to trust God in days to
come. How often shall we tread the same road, fearing, and rescued, only
to fear again ! When, at last, shall we run to cast our care on thee, and not
take it back again ? When shall we know the peace that passeth all under-
standing, which God gives, and which the world cannot lake away? Bring
into this secret experience of thine own life the lives of thy dear people to-
day. And bless to them the memories of the past. Sanctify to them the
manifold experiences of their lives. And may they be able to-day, in the
fullness of their trust in God, to look upon all that is dearest to them, and
say. Thy will, O Lord, be done.

Grant, we pray thee, that all who have come this morning with hearts full
of love and gratitude for unexpected favors, for gracious deliverances, for
mercies in over measure, of which they are tenderly conscious, may have
access to thee, that they may pour out their thanksgiving and praise, and
that they may feel that God is in them and over them, and that he rejoices
in the joy of his people.

And we pray for any that are to-day strangers among us. We beseech of
thee that by the Holy Ghost iheir hearts may grow into such communion
with God and his people that they shall have found here a home for the soul.
May the house of God be to them a very place of rest.

We pray that thou wilt go with the thoughts of those who wander after
their beloved ; who are separated from those that are dearest to them on
earth. Some search for their beloved upon the seas. Grant that a blessing
may come upon all those that are on the great waters. Some search for
their loved ones afar off in other lands. Grant that ihy blessing oiay be
swifter than their thoughts. Some seek for their own in distant parts of
our own land. And some mourn wheu they think of those who are separa-
ted from them in evil ways, and with wicked companions. And we pray
that thy mercies may go forth in answer to their supplication to-day. Oh^
that the cries of i)arents for their children might be heard; and that the
tears and prayers of children for their parents might bring them together
in blessed union in Christ Jesus! Oh, that those who are separated from
each other might see eye to eye again, and hands clasp hands in inseparable
friendships! Oh, that those who are burdened, and who are walking in a
trying way, might to-day put shoulder to shoulder, and heart to heart, and
stand in the fuUness of the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ !

And so we pray that this may be a house of deliverance ; a house of bless-
ing; a house of joy, to-day. And be thou in the midst of thy people, to
make this day a jubilee to them. And we pray that those who are stand-
ing apart, and looking on wistfully, and marveling what these experiences
mean, may bear the voice of God calling to them. Are they not also chil-
dren of th« Lord ? Are not they, too, to be sanctified by the precious blood
of Jesus Christ ? Oh, that all to-day might realize their portion in Christ;

272 S USFENBBD MOBAL CON VIGTIONS

that all might rise up and go home. Though they be sinful; though they
are not able yet to break off from their sins by their own strength, may they
cry out to thee. As suppliants by the wayside, desiring to be healed of
their blindness, called, and called again to thee, and would not be stopped
by those that rebuked them, so may thy afflicted ones cry out unto thee.
And so do thou stand and command them to come. And wilt thou touch
their eyes that they may see. And seeing, may they behold thee.

We pray for all those who are in our midst laboring for the young, and
for the wandering, and for the neglected. We pray for all classes and con-
ditions of men. May they work with more love and more patience and
more and more wisdom, and with the fullness of the blessing of the Spirit
of God.

We pray for all our land. We pray for all the churches that are estab-
lished therein. We pray for all schools and academies and colleges. We
pray that they may send forth a light that shall drive away darkness and
superstition. We pray for the neglected, for the ignorant, for those that
are struggling toward newly created manhood. May they be found, and
helped, and raised to the estate and the blessedness of Christian manhood.

Lookupon the nations of the earth. Behold their sufferings. Behold how
men rise up against men, and nation against nation, and are dashed together
as the waves of the sea. When shall the storms of human passion cease ? Oh,
when shall come those days of promised deliverance, those days of justice
and of truth and of love, which have been so long predicted in thy word, but
which hang like the stars afar off, shining, but giving no warmth. Lord Jesus,
bless the nations. Pity them, and let blood cease to flow. Draw back thine
hand in which the cup of mixture is. Oh ! let the day of thy wrath cease.
Put up thy sword, most merciful One, and ride forth in peace upon all the
earth. And let the kingdoms of this world become, at last, the kingdoms of
our Lord Jesus Christ.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises evermore.
Amen,

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thou wilt make us more courageous of things
that are right, and more fearful of things that are wrong. Help us to live
more for the things invisible, and less for the noisy world that obtrudes
itself every day upon our senses. Help us to be faithful in this world. And
since we are in the body, and upon this solid earth, and must know the
experiences that belong to human nature, which thou thyself didst meet,
grant that we may be faithful in all our duties one toward another; in all
our duties toward the State; in all our duties toward our business and
toward things that shall perish in the using. Oh ! suffer us not to be led
into captivity by this outward life. May there be powers within and upon
every one that shall hold him in restraint. May there be a divine influence
that shall keep bright our hope, our faith, our love, and our aspirations.
May we live inwardly for God and for Christ. And so may we live that, at
last, when the body shall unclasp, that when at last those things which bind
us and confine us shall fall away, we may blossom, and all heaven rejoice
in the fragrance of that love which Christ hath brought to the soul. And
to thy name shall be the praise forever and forever. Amen.

XIV.

Truthfulness.

TEUTHFULNESS.

*• lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with
his deeds ; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him." — Coiu III., 9, 10.

You will observe that the apostle speaks of falsehood, or lying,
as a trait belonging to " the old man," or animal nature ; and that in
the new character, the true manhood, which it was the purpose of
Christ to produce in the world, it is not to be found.

I propose to speak familiarly to you, to-night, on the subject of
IJies and Fcdsetioods.

There are a thousand casuistical questions which have come up
for discussion, as to what is true and what is false, and as to what
one should do in this and that direction, or in such and such exigences
— questions that are not without interest, and that it would be
profitable to discuss ; but I propose, to-night, not to speak upon
them, but to speak upon the whole subject of the eflect of falseness
or untruth on a man's character.

The origin of falsehood, I suppose, in the first Instance, is weak-
ness. I apprehend that there is not a case in which, at first there is
a natural love of untruth. I believe that all mankind prefer truth.
I believe that even those who do not employ it prefer it. I believe
that there is an element of truth-loving among even bad men. That
people like lies is no evidence that they do not like the truth •

because it is quite possible for one person to like moral opposites

that is, to approve them ; to be pleased with the exhibition of them.
In the animal kingdom we find that to weakness is joined, for self-
protection, a power of concealment ; a certain slyness, or cunning.
Many persons are able to preserve life in the presence of superior
strength only by the exertion of some false appearance.

When we rise out of the animal kingdom into the lower forms of
human life, among savages, we still find this trait. We find that
men habitually seek to defend themselves from aggression by the
use of concealment and falsehoods. By false representations they
undertake to gain advantages which they are not able to compass

Sunday Evening, June 11, 187L Lkssoh : PsA. XXXIII., Htuns (Plymouth
CoUecUon) : Nos. 693, 619, 657.

276 TRUTHFULNESS.

by the direct exertion of their faculties in a normal way. This
is particularly the case where, among savage people, oppression
reigns. Men attempt to conceal their property by falsifying. Where
the hand of rapine and violence threaten to destroy men and their
households, they think it perfectly proper to set their pursuer upon
a wrong scent by an untruth, in order to save themselves and those
that are dear to them. This they inherit from their animal origin;
or, lather, it is that j avt of them which is animal. It is, as it were,
a part brought ahnj; aiwl iiitroc^uced into the lower foi'ms of human
life fi'oni the aiilnial fciiiottiy,

Isliall ot mid itakt' to discuss the ethics of falsehood. I merely
say that wliile its purpose, oftentimes, is humane, and while there are
many cases arising undrr circumstances which it would be difficult
to argue, it is a trait which is developed only in the lower forms and
the lower conditions of life. That manhood is very low which
attempts to compass its beneficent ends by the use of lies.

We hear much reproach heaped upon the slaves, or those that
recently were slaves, on account of their dishonesty, and their ad-
diction to falsehood ; but how could you expect anything else ? Can
you disrobe a man of all the attributes of manhood, and he stand
and smile, and take it contentedly ? Can you strip a man of every
right of property, and every right of citizensrhip, and he not attempt
. in the slightest degree to make compensation to himself ? Can you
violate in a man, organically, every single moral right of action, and
he be a saint all the time in your presence, and never make use of
the lower attributes of his nature in i-eprisal ? Why, the system of
doing wrong is such that it tends to dishonesty. It touches the
very motive, the very spring of the lower elements of human
nature. Men, by their animal instincts attempt to compensate
for that which power wrests from them. And although there may
be single slaves under the influence of Christian truth, who will be
faithful, honest, and true, yet it is utterly impossible to have a mul-
titude of men that are oppressed yet remain truth-speaking and
honest. It is not in the nature of things. And I do not marvel
that there is so much falsifying ; I only marvel that there is so little
of it.

When you look at childhood, you see that right over again
which we perceive among nations. Children are but the beginnings
again of the human race. And in children deceit is not a natural
trait. Although some have, constitutionally, a tendency to use that
instrument more than others, yet, in the main, it is an instrument
of weakness and fear. And to a large extent children copy it from
the example of those who are above them. The parents have learned

TEUIHFULNESS. 277

to employ falsehood skillfully and dexterously ; but the children,
not liaviug learned so to use it, go about it awkwardly, Luiigliiio-lv ;
and the parents whip their children, not for violating truth and con-
science, but for doing the same things that they do with less skill
than they do them. Children attempt to cover up their wrong-
doing because they have not the courage to face the punishment
to which an exposure of it would subject them. Their sense of
justice is acute ; and yet they seek to shield themselves from jus-
tice by evading the truth. They run into falsehood, not because
they love it, but because they are not strong enough to bear the
reproof to which misconduct or mishaps will bring them, if they
are found out. They are not yet enough develoj^ed to understand
what is right or wrong, or what is best for them in the larger cir-
cuits of life. They want many things, they have great desires, and
they are unable to realize their wishes by right means ; and then
they attempt to compass by craft and indirection and falsehood that
which they cannot obtain legitimately. And why should they not?
They see, or might see, all society doing the same thing. They
merely do in the small what men do in the large.

In these cases the origin of falsehood is weakness. It is the at-
tempt to make up by the use of the lower animal instincts what
should be attained, if possessed at all, by the reason and the moral
sentiments. It is a bad compensation for supposed deficiencies or
for supposed disqualifying circumstances.

At length men organize this trait of falsehood which they have
learned to employ incidentally, as an instrument by which to sup-
plement weakness, or as a kind of indirect self-defense. Educa-
tion at length develops it into a more positive form. And then
men employ it, deliberately and actively and regularly, to seek
things that are evil, or else to seek right things which they have
not the strength, or, more likely, the patience, to gain by legitimate
means.

I believe that all the great ends of life are better gained by the
use of the reasoning faculties than in any other way. These faculties
are larger, and they require more room to turn abound in ; they are
more far-reaching, and they require more time in which to brino-
forth their fruit; and men have not patience to wait for them.
All the great ends of life, whether individual or collective, are bet-
ter sought, and more surely compassed, and longer held, and more
really enjoyed, by the use of a clear, truthful reason, by the open
and direct exertion of our better feelings, than in any other manner.
But people cannot w^ait ; or they are not instructed to believe this.
And so, men in business, in professions, in all the pursuits of life, are

278 TE UTHFULNESS.

constantly endeavoring to achieve great ends in this world by the
use of specious appearances, by indirection, by cunning, by fraud,
by falsehood.

Now, it is not a question of mere right and wrong that I wish
to argue to-night ; it is not a question of whether this falsifying is
a sin against God or not. We all know that it is. I propose to
discuss the question of the results which it works upon charac-
ter. What sort of men does lying make ? What is the effect of it
upon a man's moral constitution, and upon his manhood ? And, on
the other hand, what is the effect of holding one's self responsible
for the truth, all the time, and always ? What influence has it in
producing a manly character ?

If a man takes powder in his hand, and touches it off, there is
the question whether he has a right to do it, or whether it is wrong
for him to do it. And then there is another question — namely,
What, without any moral consideration, will that powder do to the
man's skin, and to his muscles ? It will burn them. It will shrink
them. It will incapacitate them, and so will cripple his hand. It
is this constitutional result that I wish to look into to-night. Not
the question, which, before God goes with our general accountabil-
ity, but this larger question : What does insincerity, or falseness do
to the man who uses it ? What do truth, frankness, candor, sim-
plicity, directness, do to a man ? What is the effect on character,
respectively, of the one element or the other ? These elements are
character-making. Truth and falsehood are like food in digestion.
Good food makes good blood, good muscle, good bone, good bodily
strength. Bad food, on the other hand, vitiates the secretions, and
makes all parts of the animal economy weak. I hold that truth is
the bread of a noble manhood ; that lies are the bad food that car-
ries disease with it everywhere through the whole economy ; and
that no man who is building character in this world can afford to
build with any other material than that of truthfulness, cost
what it may. It is not a question, either, as to whether you can
stand it ; whether you can endure the test ; whether it is beyond
your exertion. My declaration is not, that you cannot have Chris-
tian manhood on any other basis than that of transparent truthful-
ness, and that if you take a course of falseness, whether it be little
or much, you cannot help reaping as you sow. What I assert is,
that falsehood vitiates manly character.

In the first place, the habit of falseness tends to strengthen " the
old man," as our text has it ; to incline men to use and to rely upon
their lowest powers — their animal forces. It is weakness in moral
and intellectual directions, and strength in animal directions, as I

TB UTEFUL Is' ESS. 279

have already said, from which the habit of untruth springs ; and the
use of it is cultivating that side of man whicli needs the least culti-
vation ; which comes itself to ripeness ; which begins early and is
strong. It is not " the old man" which we need to develop. It is
*' the new man " created in righteousness in Christ Jesus that needs
education and development. The habit of using falseness is an
abandonment of the larger and nobler instincts of our nature. We
will not employ the best instruments which we have to accomplish
the ends of life. The instruments which we do emj^loy for that
purpose are the very worst elements of our being. |

This habit tends, next, to dim, and to destroy, finally, the very
sense and instinct of truth. Men at first deceive, knowing it ; but
by the constant use of deception they cease to even know that they
are doing it. Gradually it blinds the moral sense. And it is in this
direction that great lies are less harmful than little ones. Men think
that a great black lie is very culpable. I suppose it is. But when
an armorer wishes, by scouring, to cut the very surface of metal
down, what does he do ? Take a bar of iron and rub it ? No ; he
takes emery. Its particles are as small as a pin's point ; and these
he puts on ; and by scouring he cuts down the surface — takes off the
enamel. You think that a great lie is a great sin, and a great shame
to a man ; but after all, these little lies are more dangerous, because
there are so many of them ; and because each one of them is dia-
mond-pointed. And these little petty untruths which are so small
that you do not notice them, and so numerous that you cannot esti-
mate them, are the ones that take off" the very enamel of the moral
sense — cut away its surface. And men become so accustomed to it,
that they do not recognize that they are putting things in false
lights, when, by word, by deed, by indirections, by exaggerations,
by shifting the emphasis, by various dynamical means, they pi-esent
things, not as they see them, but as they want to see them. This
phantasmagoric process by which men are throwing false lights upon
action and motive ; upon what is happening and going to happen ;
the ten thousand little modes by which men are seeking to pervert
things, and make them seem different from what they really are; the
petty falsenesses to which men resort in order that they may realize
their vain ambitions in life — these are pernicious and demoralizing
in the extreme. And the habit of employing them wears the char-
acter more than a great rousing lie told six times a year would do.
Yet there are men who, if they were convicted of falsehood in a great
transaction, would lose their character forever. Their neighbors
would say of them, *' We can not trust such men as they are," And
those very persons who say they would not trust them, do not hesi-

280 TBriBFULNESS.

tate to indulge themselves in five million petty falsehoods, little
midges of lies, in the course cf the year. A lion is to be dreaded, to
be sure; but deliver me from those blood-sucking insects which
make me smart and suffer 1 A single mosquito is not much ; but a
multitude of them, myriads of them, amount to a great deal. And
it is this falseness in little things that tends to dim, to obscure, to
almost obliterate, a sense of truth. There are men who have almost
entirely lost their sense of proportion, their appreciation of magni-
tude, and their understanding of the connection between cause and
effect. They look at everything in the light of what they want, so
much that they think that is true which they desire to have true.

So that not only does the use of falsehood strengthen and culti-
vate the lower nature, but it tends, from the beginning, and all
through life, to obscure and obliterate the moral sense, which is one
of the great characteristic elements of manhood, as distinguished
from animaWiood.

There are three points in which we are different from animals.
No animal has imagination : man has. No animal has a sense of
right and wrong : man has. No animal laughs, or has the sense of
humor: man does and has. But moral sense marks the difference
between man and the animal more than anything else. This is that
which, being destroyed, takes the foundation out from under man-
hood.

Then the habit of using falseness lowers the standard of honor,
and of those sensibilities thaL make character noble and large. In
all literatures — in modern literature certainly — honor, manlinesp
very much esteemed. I know that in early days falsehoods fo.
patriotic purpose, falsehoods in war, where warriors deceived eac*
other for the sake of victory, were rather praised. I know that there
are some nations of Europe in which falsehood has been very much
admired. In one of Macaulay's most original essays, he analyzes
Othello, and says that if that play had been written in Italy, the
people would have gone off in sympathy, not with Othello, but with
the scoundrel lago. Othello would, in Italy, have been thought to
be a great, honest blunderhead, straightforward because he did
not know any better than to be straightforward. " But, ah !"
Macaulay tells us the Italians would have said, " lago is a shrewd
man, a good manager, a cunning, dexterous rival, a splendid fellow !"
lie was shrewd, cunning and dexterous ; but he was not a model of
manhood. The character of the people there had become so vitiated
that they had learned to love untruth, and had learned to rank it among
manly qualities. But I think this was exceptional ; for I do not be-
i:^.-^ tJiat this can be said of that noble people now. T t>oi;- -

TBUTHFULNHSS. 281

there has a process of renovation and growth beeen going on among
them, and that the age of falsehood in that country has largely-
passed away. That was the old Italian character, rather than the
present one. The Spanish character, too, has had certain periods of
being vitiated by a tendency to falsehood. But in all the Germanic
races the sense of truth has been regarded as one of the indispensa-
ble elements of true manhood. At no time among them could a man
be su^jposed to be noble where honor did not carry in it a necessity
for truth-speaking. The ideal man, according to their standard, was
one who would die rather than falsify his word, or speak an untruth.
A knight of honor was a man who held his word to be above every-
thing. There is nothing like that ; and all the world have admired it.

Now, the habit of using petty falsehoods, minor untruths, little
lies of all sorts, in conversation, in business, and in the various ways
of life, lowers the standard of honor, or takes honor away from men.
That is the reason why there is so little honor in the world. There
is very little of it. When men speak about honor they mean a kind of
worldly conscience. That is not a substitute for morjil sense, but it
is good as far as it goes, and I wish there was more of it.

This habit also weakens the faith of men in men. One of the
great preservatives of society, one of the things which preserves the
individual, the household, and communities, and makes them useful,
and renders them helpful one to another, is that men have faith
in men. But just so soon as it comes to be understood that men in-
dulge in untruth, people instantly flee away from them.

It is very interesting to observe, as a matter of fact, how these
things come about. There are many men whose word in business we
do not think of believing unless we have collateral evidence, but whose
word in the household we believe without hesitation. They pacify
their conscience in the family. There they adhere strictly to the truth.
They govern themselves by diiferent rules in different places. There
are many men who believe it would be most disgraceful as gentlemen
not to speak the truth, but who think it is not disgraceful to indulge
in falsehood as business men. They say that business has its sap-
pointed customs, and they act accordingly. In the strife of business
with some men we are obliged to put ourselves on our guard. If they
make a statement, we feel it necessary to sift it before we can place
any reliance upon it. And it is only when we have gone to one and
another and found out that it is correct, that we accept it. On the
other hand, there are some men whose statement in business we take
as law, without verifying it. Tliere they are scrupulously honest.
Their pride lies in the direction of truthfulness in business. There
they hold themselves to a high standard of truth-speaking. But out

282 TE UTffFULNESS.

of business, and among their companions, they are more lax. There
they do not hold themselves subject to the same rigid rules. And
so we learn to judge them according to their standard.

Now, when, in a community, men are not to be taken at their
word ; when men's words and deeds are deceptive ; when, if a man
presents a piece of work, his presenting it is no guarantee that it is
good ; when the brand does not carry conviction of honesty and of
truth — under such circumstances, not only is there mischief done to
the persons deceived and the authors of the deception, but there is a
temdeucy to lessen the hold of man on man, and the confidence be-
tween man and man, throughout that community. It is a disin-
tegrating tendency ; it separates men, and they come to be like
grains of sand which, though they may lie in close proximity to
each other, are not joined together. Whereas, society requires that
men should be united like the links of a chain, which are welded
one around another. Faith being lost in men generally, society is
wounded fatally, and cannot stand.

Lack of faith is disastrous to the life of a community or a nation.
I do not believe that there can be anything like a successful govern-
ment for the people by the people in a country where persons are
accustomed universally to be indifferent to the truth. I do not mean
by this that a republican government cannot stand in a nation whei*e
people tell lies. Such a government has Stood many years in just
such a nation. But in a nation where the people are so morally
deteriorated that truth is generally disregarded, I do not believe
that self-government can be maintained.

I have great faith that wherever the Germanic races are, there
will be a great training of men to love and to speak the truth.
But not so with the Romanic races. France cannot be republic.
Why ? Because the very feeling of truth down at the bottom of
its people is wanting. There are a thousand excellent traits in
the French people, both of stock and of education ; but they have
not the element of simple manly truth. Let a man go among the
peasantry of France, and he sees a thousand things which make
him admire them much more than he can admire the rude and
rugged German, or the boorish, lower-class Englishman ; but there
is among the Germans and the Englishmen a kind of robust honor
about truth which you do not find in France. You will not find
it in Spain. The people there are lousy with lying ! In Italy, in
S'pain, and in France, republican governments will wait long. They
will be held up by adventitious influences until they can be edu-
cated into truth, into faith of each other, and into reliableness, or
else they will go down. What is necessary to their maintenance is

TRUTHFULNESS. 283

that the people shall he taught to speak the truth. If you ask me
what is necessary to a permanent government in France, I reply,
Education of the people in honesty.

Why has the English government maintained itself with so loose
a system of laws, without a written constitution, and apparently
with the elements of perpetual change in it? Because, with all her
faults (and being her descendants we know that she has many of
them), there is a certain reliableness in the English character. There
is a truth-element in it. They love truth. And why are the Ger-
manic races, which have been separated one from another, coming
more and more to be one ? Why, when they have been ground
by dissensions and conflicts almost to dust, have they been able to
recuperate, and lay stronger foundations, until they have come to a
majesty of power? It is because there was an inherent truth-ele-
ment among them. Not that they, too, have not many faults ; but,
after all, they are relatively higher in the moral scale than any of
the surrounding nations.

Where there is a sense of honesty and of truth you find quali-
ties on which you can build self-govei-nment ; but without a sense
of truth and honesty you cannot build any government except that
which comes from the iron rod of power. Wherever men make up
their minds to lie and cheat, they are food for tyrants ; and if they
want to be self-governing they must have that manhood which car-
ries truth and honesty for its basis. The habit of looseness and
carelessness and untruth imposes burdens on society that no nation
can well bear. I suppose that if you were to see an old warrior
ao-ain in our times, cumbered with his vast defensive armor — his
breast-plate, his greaves, his back-piece, his ponderous shield, his
solid spear, his weighty sword — you would laugh him to scorn, and
say, "Why, he spends more than half his strength in carrying his
armor !" That is just the condition in which society is walking to-
day. The cunning, the lies, the cheatings, the dishonesties iu busi-
ness and society, are such that every store has to be built with
thicker walls, stronger locks, and bolts, and bars, and chains, than
would otherwise be necessary ; and there is need of more watchmen
and policemen ; and all the .apparatus of government is doubled and
trebled and quadrupled. A multitude of extra appliances are re-
quired to fight against the simple tendency to dishonesty and' un-
truth. Teach men to speak the truth and to deal honestly with
each other, and society may dispossess itsel-f of more than half the
weights and burdens that are sinking it like a water-logged ship.
Men that are set to watch other men ; shackles ; balances ; the

284 TBUTEFULNES8.

elaborateness of business ; the minute arrangements that have every-
where to be made, and that imply depravity, if not actual dishonesty
— these are the things, after all, which make business heavy. Busi-
ness would be comparatively easy and light if it were divested of
these hindrances. Men in society go mailed, and all parts of busi-
ness are made cumbrous, like vast wagons on rough roads, half as
heavy as the loads which they carry, because men are not honest.

How simple it would be if a man's word were as good as his
bond ; if we never had to weigh it, and sift it, and see one man, and
another man, and another, and inquire about it, and find out by the
hardest whether it was true or not ! If men's statements could be
relied upon, and men could trust each other, what an impetus would
be given to the world's progress ! We talk of the immense pi'ogress
which the world is making by railroads skillfully constructed, by
ships navigated by steam-power, and by lightning, which, being
harnessed, carries knowledge throughout all the earth. Undoubt-
edly these things are doing very much toward carrying the race up
in civilization ; but if you could invent a process by which the hu-
man race could be made truthful and honest, it would make the
world move ten thousand times faster than it now does under the
influence of these forces. The great want of society to-day, is the
habit of adhering to absolute truth and reliable honesty. Those
are the qualities which we need above all others. It is in them that
society and the individual are weakest.

If these general views are correct, no other battle is harder for a
young man and a young woman who are beginning in life, and who
mean to build a truly noble character, than that which they will be
called upon to wage against falsehood. One of the first, one of the
most constant, and one of the most diflicult things that they will
have to do, is to maintain transparent simplicity and truthfulness.
I do not say that it is very difficult to avoid glaring, malicious false-
hoods ; I do not say that it is very difficult to abstain from using
falsehood as an instrument by which to accomplish your ends ; but
I do say that to pass through the customs of society, its complai-
sance^ its flatteries, its white lies, and its thousand little permis-
sions, and come out unscathed, is not easy. I do say that to pass
through business in the way in which it is conducted, and keep
your garments white, and maintain a pure character, requires
the utmost endeavor. There must be an education in this regard.
No matter how patriotic a man is who becomes a soldier, he is
awkward at first ; and if he would perform his duty gracefully and
well, he must learn to do it by assiduous drill. And so it is with

TllUTEPTJLNESS. 285

men who aspire after a true Christian manhood. For the most part,
every ncigh)»orhood is but a mere drill-ground. And I advertise
you that when a man sets out to build his character on a higher
pattern than the animal man — according to that higher and nobler
model, the new man in Christ Jesus — one of the most difficult things
that he will meet with will be the duty of being truthful and honest
in all that he says and does. There are very few men who have the
moral courage to speak the truth right straight along ; there are very
few men who are able to adhere to the truth in act, and word, and
thought, and feeling.

We talk about great moral attainments. One of the gi-eatest
moral attainments that one could make would be to become uniform
in transparent truthfulness and real guilelessness of soul. There-
fore we know what is meant when it is declared that if a man bridle
his own tongue he is a perfect man. That is to say, after a man has
arrived at that degree of self-control that he can bridle his tongue,
not making it an instrument of falsehood, but an instrument of truth,
there will be nothing else that will not be easy to him.

This element of truth, absolute, uniform, habitual, characteristic,
will also introduce an element of reconstruction into the character in
other directions. In other words, speaking the truth is not simply
that you avoid, falsifying. If you' made up your mind that you
would always speak the truth, you would find, sooner or later, that
there were other things besides mere truth-speaking involved in that
determination. There are a thousand things which a man permits
himself to think and feel and do, of which he says, " I can cover
them up ; " but the moment a man feels, " I am bound to tell the
truth at all hazards, and to be transparent as crystal," that moment
he says, " I cannot afford to be otherwise than right and true and
noble." In addition to the element of truth, it introduces a higher
standard of character and virtue, that before one has scarcely
thought of cultivating. States of mind which, though admirable,
men are liable to think of as moral accomplishments rather than in-
dispensable duties, come to be estimated at their true value. There
is introduced the element of reconstruction, and power and beauty
are developed throughout the whole character.

The Quakers (not alone, but significantly) have made simplicity
and truth-speaking a point in their economy. In any large body of
men, some will come near to the standard which is set up, and some
will fall away from it ; and undoubtedly it is the case with this per-
Buasion that many fall far below their prescribed rules of conduct
and life ; but my impression is that as a body of men there prevails
amon<^ them, on an average, more truth-speaking than is to be found

286 TB UTEFULNESS.

among other religious bodies. They have made a point of that.
And look at the result. What quietness is there among them !
What reliableness ! What manliness ! What an element of noble-
ness 1 What depth of character ! How many of their cares in
life are alleviated ! How many of the ruggednesses and bolts and
jolts are removed from their path ! I think this habit, as they have
practiced it, has yielded such fruit as to encourage men to make
truth-speaking a prime element in their character.

A man that is a Christian is not necessarily a man that is rap-
turous in devotion. He may be that, he ought to be, and it is un-
fortunate if he is not ; but rapture is ndt the characteristic feature of
Christianity. A man that prays well, and sings well, and goes
booming up like a rocket every once in a while — that is not what we
mean by a Christian. We mean a man who is a new creature in
Christ Jesus. We mean a man who has constructed his character
out of moral elements, and not out of animal. That man in whom
simplicity and truth and honesty are found, is like the New Jerusa-
lem, built of precious stones through every single layer of his char-
acter.

I have already spoken of business, and of the organic deceits
that are wrought into it. I feel more and more that the necessity
for truth-speaking in individual men must address itself sooner or
later to the world. Look at the deceits which are practiced in busi-
ness life. I do not mean by this a vague and general aspersion on
all men that are engaged in business — for there are men in business
who are honest ; but if you take any single department of business,
and observe how it is carried on, you will see that the temptations
of society tend to introduce into it the element of falseness. Things
are not as they seem. The carpet is not what it looks to be. It is
■uot what it was designed that people should think it was. The
colors are bright, and the surface is good, that people may believe
that the article itself is good ; but it comes far short of being as
good as it has the appearance of being. And the effect of such de-
ception is to lower the quality of textile fabrics. All articles
wrought in wood and leather and metal are deteriorated in quality
from the same cause. The same is true of houses, and the furniture
which is put into them. And adulterations may be traced to the
same source. Every particle of food that a man buys, almost, is
adulterated. So is the medicine that he takes. The food sickens us ;
and then the medicine lies to us, and cheats the blood. There is an
element of fraud that goes through whatever is offered for sale in
the market. The anvil has learned to lie ; the loom has learned to
lie J silk has learned to liej cotton has learned to liej flax has

TRUTHFULNESS. 287

learned to lie ; hemp has learned to lie. Every element in society-
pretends to be one thing, and on the surface seems to be that thing,
while at the bottom it is another thing.

"Well," you say, " it is universally understood." No, it is not.
If it was there would not be so much profit in it. It is the attempt
of the more shrewd to take advantage of the less shrewd. It is the
attempt of the strong to oppress the weak. It is the old robber
^ baron in his castle descending, after men have planted their crops,
and stealing them. It is the pirate on the sea pouncing upon the
merchantman that is laden with treasures from abroad, and taking
possession of them. It is the grasping king that appropriates the
earnings of his subjects. Organic dishonesty, structural lies in
goods, are modes of robbing the poor — for there is where the evil
comes at last. The tendency of wrong things is to work out at thj
bottom. The dregs of dishonesty naturally settle down. And the
poor are fleeced by those who are cunninger than they. The weak
are oppressed by the strong. Those that are lower in life are rob-
bed by those that are higher. And there must in this direction be a
reformation. There must be a public conscience.

I do not undertake to say that men have not a right to make
different grades of goods. I do not undertake to say that coffee
shall be all coffee and not part chiccory. I do not undertake to say
that chiccory shall be all chiccory, and not part burned biscuits that
have been sent four times across the sea. I do not undertake to say
that there shall not be adulterations in commerce. But if a thin<«-
passes for a first-class article, it ought to be first-class ; if it passes
for second-class, it ought to be second-class ; and if it passes for
third-class it ought to be third-class. It is proper enough that there
should be various qualities of things ; but everything ought to be
what it seems, and ought to seem what it is.

Honesty in the man, and honesty in the work — tliat is what must
be secured in society, or society will never be Christianized. You
may send the Gospel to the heathen. A man that gives time and
thought and means for that which is below the horizon where he
never sees, is actuated by a true benevolence, and manifests a real
faith. A church or a community that works for what it does not
see, is a nobler and broader church or community than one that only
works for the things which appeal to the senses. I believe in send-
ing the Gospel abroad ; but I have little faith in the efficacy of a
Gospel that is only superficially extended. The Gospel, to be of
much service in regenerating the world, must be so administered
that it shall come out in business, in all forms of industry, every-
where in life.

288 TBUTHFULNE^S.

No man need ever expect the millennium, the perfect day, to
come, until truth, in the man, and in all that comes forth from the
man, is characteristic of the race.

This is a matter which I feel ought to be much more insisted
upon by the pulpit. I feel it more because I have my ministry
largely among those who are beginning life. On Sunday nights
especially, there come hither many such. But not too many.
I thank God for the privilege of speaking to so many that are young.
And I feel that I cannot do my duty to them unless I insist more
upon these fundamental qualities. What are called " minor " morals
axQ foundation morals. " Truth in the inward parts" is requisite to
all true Christianity. If you think that you are Christians while
your life is honey-combed by little deceptions and falsehoods and
dishonesties, then your spiritual experiences are a delusion and a
snare. There is no virtue nor safety in substitutes or plasters that
cover up and hide from you the essential qualities of your character.
When you have truth at the bottom of your nature, and it permeates
your whole life, then your conscience mounts up, and your hope and
faith flame forth, and you have the basis for the highest experiences.
Then you have that which is worth having, and for which you may
bless God. But nothing can take the place of truth-speaking and
honesty. If you rely upon anything else in their stead, it will mis-
lead you and destroy you. And while the pulpit ought not less,
perhaps, to preach doctrine, it ought to raise its voice more in
respect to the old-fashioned, much-needed virtues of honesty, truth,
honor, industry and fidelity. These are what we need. Men need
more rights, without any doubt, and they will get them when they
perform more duties. What men want just now is duties, duties^

DUTIES !

This is a work, I remark finally, that most especially appeals to
households and to mothers. For mothers are God's chief educators
in this world. It seems to me that we must go back again to the
old-fashioned times. We have advantages in the household now, that
were not enjoyed then, in many ways ; but it seems to me that in
the old-fashioned times there was more faithful instruction that
passed from the mother's heart to the child's ear than there is at
present. We are too apt to shift our duties, in this respect, upon the
Sabbath-school. Many responsibilites are thrown upon persons and
organizations outside of the family which ought to rest upon the
shoulders of parents. Parents should remember that it is their duty
now, as it ever has been, to educate their children, not only in
regard to secular things, but in regard to things moral and spiritual,
as well. And the duty will never be removed from parents of in-

TBUTEFULNE88. 289

stilling into the minds of their children the ideas of that which is
right and pure and true, and of arming them to go out into that life
whose course is largely a conflict of dishonesty and truth-speakino-. I
do not say that the habit of being truthful and honest is piety ; but
I venture to say that any young man or young woman who is edu-
cated at home so thoroughly that the habit of honesty and truth-
speaking are formed, there, will, when he or she goesiout into life,
stand nearer the kingdom of God than those persons Avho have not
been thus educated. Truth is a foundation on which the divine
Spirit is more apt to work than any other. This is the need of the
household, the need of the community, and the need of our times —
that manliness which is indicative of the new man in Christ Jesus,
out of which is cast all illusion of the outside, and whatever is bor-
rowed from the animal ; and into which is gathered all that is pure
and true and lovely and of good report.

TRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We do not draw near to thee, our Father, as if thou wert ignorant of our
want. We are drawn by that of thee wliich is in us. Thou kuowest what
things we have need of before we ask. Neither art thou one that is reluc-
tant to give, and that needs persuasion. Thou dost exceeding abundantly-
more than we ask or think. The riches of thy grace transcend our thought.
We draw near to thee because thou hast made it pleasant for children to
speak to their parents. We have learned that the things whicj we receive
are a double blessing if we ask them of those who love us. Not only have
they a value of their own, but they come perfumea with the thoughts of
those who give them. Thou hast joined thyself to thy gifts, and in taking
them we take thee. And how much more art ^hou than bread, or raiment!
How much more glorious art tliou han the sun, or than all things which
the sun brings forth— its children of beauty ! All things are made nobler and
better when the light of thy countenance falls upon them, and when we
take them as from the outstretched hand of Love I

How blessed is the thought that thou thinkes. of us not only when we
think of thee, but always! We rest in the consciousness that no harm <jau
befall us if thou art with us and thinking of us. If God be for us, who can
be against us ?

We pray that thou wilt lift us up into the region of these thoughts—
where they abide and dwell ; and there may we have rest and peace with
God— that peace which passeth all understanding.

And we beseech of thee that we may not be disturbed, and that the cur-
rents of desire which have agitated us may cease to have domination. May
we have a trustful and restful feeling in thy providence. May we belie7e
that we are more to thee than we can be one to another. May we realize
that there is no mother nor father that can love their children as God loves
us. Thy life given for us, and thy suffering borne for us, are pledges of thy
faithfulness in loving; and why should we bear burdens since there is infi-
nite, everlasting strength to bear them for us ? Why should we be weighed

290 TRUTHFULNESS.

down with care when we are commanded to cast all our care upon God.
Oh ! help us to bear our burdens and cares. May we have joy, rather than
sadness. May we have songs in the night. May we be cheered in darkness.
May we be comforted in affliction. May we be strengthened in weakness.
May we ever more feel the hand of God around about us ; so that when our
own strength and wisdom fail we may lean evermore upon thee. We com-
mit ourselves to thy guidance. We say, Thy will be done. Though it cost
much suffering, nevertheless it is better. And we desire, O God, that thou
shouldst mark our path by thy judgment, and not by ours ; by thy infinite
wisdom, and not by our mutable longings. We pray that thou wilt do that
which is best for us for time and for eternity.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant thy blessing to-night to
every one in thy presence as he severally needs. Thou knowest the way ;
thou knowest the secret life; thou knowest where the pain-giving thorn
resides; thou knowest who bear heavy and grievous burdens. There is
perfect freedom with thee. Naked and open are we before Him with whom
we have to do.

Grant, to-night, that every one in thy presence may have release for the
hour. Before thee may they stand disembarrassed. Before thee may all
stand rejoicing. Meet every want. Whisper consolation and acceptance to
every heart.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt bless those who are gathered together ;
all that are in the midst of life; all that are experiencing its trials, its temp-
tations, its duties, its various imperfections. Strengthen thou them, that
they may be able to live in the fear of God, and in the love of men. Raise
up m aur midst a generation to serve thee with more valor, and with
more power, and with more success than have been given to us.

We thank thee for all the mercies wbich thou hast granted to our several
households. We thank thee for so much consolation as we have had in afflic-
tion. We thank thee that thou hast mixed chastisements with so much that
is sweet and comforting.

We commend the rising generation to thee. Be near to the young. Grant
that they may grow up, from the beginning, to a life of rectitude. Be with
those who are just embarking upon life. May they not mistake the true
path. There are ways which seem right unto men, the ends whereof are
death. Grant that every one may discern the right way, unseduced, and
un terrified.

May every one in thy presence be able to walk in comeliness; infidelity;
in honesty; in truth ; in hope and love of God; and in the faith and e> pecta-
tion of immortality through Jesus Christ.

And we pray that thou wilt multiply in our midst the offices of kindness,
and of forl)eai'ance, and of gentleness. We beseech of thee that thou wilt
render more and more fruitful those that labor in word and doctrine, and
rear up around about them the evidences of their fidelity. We pray for all
thy churches, and for all the ministers of the Gospel of Christ, throughout
our land, and for all that teach their fellow-men throughout the world.
And we pray that thou wilt hasten that appointed day, so long in coming,
when all men shall know thee, from the areatest unto the least.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit, evermore.
Amen.

XV.

Heart Conviction.

Gracious Father, smile upon us this morning, notwithstanding the cloud
and the storm. Thou art the God of mercy and of love, and behind these
frowns is brightness and warmth. Even when thou art abroad in the earth
doing terrible things, in thy right hand is hidden mercy; and those dost ex-
ecute thy judgments in the earth that righteousness may prevail. We
rejoice that thou beholdest goodness, and that thou art working for
eternal purity, and that thou wilt unto the end, as from everlasting to
everlasting thou art on the side of purity and of joy, and will cause them to
flourish in all thy kingdom. Let thy kingdom come, and let thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. And grant unto us, this day, such mani-
festations of thyself, such icfluences from thine heart, that we shall know
that we are children brought home; that we have come to our Father's
house. And so may we, from Sabbath to Sabbath, have rest, not only, but
have a foretaste of the hope and the joy that await us in the other life. We
ask it in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

HEART-CONVICTION.

'• For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness."— Rom. x., 10.

I DO not say that the design of the Apostle was to discriminate
between the convictions of the feelings and the convictions of the
intellect ; and yet, this is involved in the declaration. The heart
stands, in the Bible, for feeling — particularly for affections and
moral emotions ; and the declaration here, which is literally true —
man believeth with the heart — I shall employ for the purpose of
showing that it is not intellectual apprehension, that it is not con-
viction by the mere force of fact and reasoning, that determines
men's faiths and beliefs.

It is a prevalent error that believing is purely an intellectual
phenomenon, and that only facts and arguments are required to pro-
duce conviction. It is supposed that when facts are clearly stated,
and when upon them, or upon other suitable grounds, arguments are
honestly and wisely constructed, the understanding ought to yield,
like a beleaguered city — that it has been fairly taken when it has
been breached with argument and with facts. And yet, nothing is
more certain, and nothing is more a subject of remark, that if you

adopt the old phrase.

" A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still."

Men hear satisfying arguments all their lives long, and cannot
get away from them ; and in words they assent to the truth ; and
yet they do not believe one word of the" truth. Nor can they tell
why. Sometimes it is said to be because they are perverse and
willful. They frequently think that it is not so — that they desire to
feel as others feel, and to see as others see. But a conviction of
the truth does not come to them from preaching.

Many suppose that the whole duty of a teacher is fulfilled in
delivering his messages ; that when he has put them into an intel-
lectual form, when his propositions are marshaled and placed in
regular and logical sequence, they are the best assailants of men.
And yet, it is certainly true that many men are more fruitful as

Sunday Morning, June 18, 1871. Lesson : Col. I., Hymns (Plymouth Col-
lection) : Nos. 104, 112, 21.

294 HEAET-CONVICTION.

preacliers who have the least reasoning and the least logic in their
preaching. It is true that some men, all their lives long, labor with
a barren field, whereas, other men with not half their equipage nor
half their munitions, and in more unfavorable fields, bring forth
abundant fruit of convictions and of conversions.

There seems, therefore, to be something wrong in the theory of
conviction — as to what it is, and what produces it. It is genferally
held that feeling has no proper place in the prodiiction of a con-
viction of the truth, but that it should be excluded ; that the mind
should be kej)t colorless and cold as the glass through which the
scientist examines phenomena. And there are many who feel that
every single appeal to the emotions, whether by illustration or
otherwise, is the introduction of just so much of a disturbing force
in the sacred process of ratiocination.

Now, in the lowest category of truth — that of material facts
and events — it is true that the senses and the perceptive intellect
do perceive truth without emotion. In regard to the examination
of mere material facts, and the measuring of those facts according
to any principle of measurement or classification which may be
adopted, it is true that the less emotion there is, and the more pure
perception there is, the more likely men will be to come at the
truth.

But this is true only in regard to the lowest forms oi facts
of matter. The relation of facts of matter to each other develops
or discloses a higher kind of truth. The relation of things to
things, as of color to color, or of number to number, or of mag-
nitude to magnitude — these are real ; but they never can be per-
ceived. They are thought of. They exist in the reflective intellect.
They are therefore called truths of an abstract character, or phil-
osophic truths.

In regard to these truths, also, it is certain that the less emotion
there is, the more undistui-bed will be that process by which, facts
having been observed and coordinated, the relations of those facts,
or the deductions of them, will be secured.

In the lower category of truth, then — that of facts of matter
and their relations to each other — the emotions are a disturbing
force in reasoning.

Thus far we have only considered the not nnimportant, and yet
the least important kinds of truths.

Rising above all other forms of organization, comes man him-
self ; and while he stands upon the material globe, and is composite
of material facts, he is also an originating center, organized with
immense complexity. He has a force within him that not simply

HEABT-CONVICTION. 295

grows, but thinks, wills, believes, loves, hates, rejoices, sorrows.
There are desires, and contests, and beliefs in man, originating in
himself, that matter never knows.

See a phenomenon ! When the phosphorescent light shines out,
is that a })henomenon ? And is it not also a phenomenon when a
man's miud thinks ? When a branch divides, and then divides again,
and again divides, joint from joint, and part from part, is that a
scientific fact ? And is it not also a scientific fact when the mind of a
man now thinks, and now wills, and now feels, and in feeling expe-
riences, first one kind of emotion, and then another kind ? Are the
things that are going on outside of a man, nature ? and are not the
things which are going on inside of a man just as much nature ?
If the lily that opens its silver cup on the tranquil lake is a phenom-
enon in nature, and is to be classified in botany ; if the fruit that
hangs pendant on the bough is worthy of a place in science, are
not these inspirations and emotions, which grow upon a nobler stalk,
and have a sweeter blossom, and a richer fruit, also worthy of a
place in science ? Are they not parts of nature, though they are
evanescent, and changing, and rej)etitious ? Are they not just as
actually facts ? If the lightning flashes out from the East and
across the horizon, that is a fact ; and if thought flashes out from
the mind, is not that a fact just as important ? N'ay, higher in
rank, and greater in importance are those truths which are evolved
from man's nature according to the appropriate laws of evolution.

In man truth rises to a higher level than it attains in matter out-
side of man. It is no longer the mere relation of matter to matter.
It becomes moral, afiectional, aesthetic. That is, it is the truth of
duty, it is the truth of feeling, it is the truth of beauty. Right
or wrong, good or bad, true or false, homely or beautiful, lovable or
repulsive, refined or vulgar — these are words, not for shadows, but
for things. An emotion which takes on a distinct form ; an intel-
lectual experience which comes to a real shape — these are things^
though they wear no body — though they have no continuing form.
They are not only things really, but they are superior things, stand-
ing higher than lower organized matter which can be traced with the
senses, and which therefore can be more conveniently handled by
our lower reason. These truths, and hundreds of others, are just
as real entities as weight, as dimension, as number, as distance, as
color, or as any other quality in matter.

Such truth is of transcendent importance to the individual ; be-
cause what we call character is shaped more by these interior ex-
periences and facts than by exterior influences, in many respects. It

296 HEABT-CONVICTION.

is important to the family. It is the very law of development and
of conservation in the household and in society. Moral truths, and
social truths, and civil truths — these are higher organized ; and on
these it is that society is built ; and on these society conducts all its
processes.

It is then, on this higher form of truth — moral, social, af-
fectional, aesthetic truth — that conviction depends, far more than
on the presentation of reasons or dynamic qualities.

If you attempt to convince men that their course is right
or wrong, you cannot do it as you would convince a grocer that his
pound was under weight or over weight in the scales. There is no
such measurable power. You are to address the feeling of right or
wrong in men. It is generally complex. It is an emotion of com-
placency or displacency, as the old writers would have said, in one,
two or more feelings in the soul. And no man is convinced in
regard to any moral truth, until both the intellect and a certain
number of the feelings are put at rest, in respect to it. It may ad-
dress itself, first, perhaps to the intellect; but it must go deeper, — to
the experience of moral feeling which is behind it. What is just, is
not apprehended by reason of an intellectual statement of what it is,
but from a peculiar experience of conscience. A thing is beautiful,
not according to rules and statements, but according to an aesthetic
experience in the man himself. And in regard to the higher truths,
an emotion is evidence — feeling is reason. You cannot make a man
laugh because he ought to laugh. You may analyze a jest, or a flash
of wit, and present it to a man, saying, " Here are the elements of
mirth ; and these being presented to you as I now present them,
if you are a rational being you will accept the statement of them,
and laugh ;" but nobody laughs so. People laugh first, and after-
wards think why they laughed. The feeling of mirth is first ex-
cited ; and afterwards the intellect analyzes that which produced the
laughter. It converts into an idea that which was first an emotion
or an experience. •

And so in regard to every element of beauty or art, a man is
not convinced of it by ratiocination. He is convinced of it by his
feeling first ; and then he brings in the understanding to corroborate
the emotion, to heighten it, and to enlarge it.

And that which is true of art, is true of music, of eloquence, not
only, but in the still higher range of moral conduct. True reason-
ing is that which makes a man/ee^ that what you say to him is true.
I do not care what the reasoning is, emotion is the means of the ac-
ceptance of the statement. A feeling of truth is an argument, though

RE ART CON VIOTION 297

it may be a lame one. If a man says in himself. " I feel, I know, that
such and such a thing is true," that feeling is legitimate evidence to
that man that the thing is true.

People say, " You ought to require men to present evidence of a
good rational conviction, and then they will stand more permanently
on the gi-ound of belief. To address the feelings is to create a
sudden transient conviction which may not have any permanence."
There is some truth in that ; but, nevertheless, a man may attempt
to produce a conviction by an intellectual process, and yet not
produce that which amounts to a settled belief. Many men have
been bombarded all their life, and have not been taken, because it
was attempted to convince them purely by the intellect, the aesthetic
and emotive elements being left out of the question. Hundreds of
men have all their life long fought against the doctrine of divine
sovereignty, as presented in a purely intellectual proj^osition, have
heai'd it stated over and over again, and have tried to believe it,
but never did believe it until at length there came a presentation of
it emotively, and imaginatively, when by some illustration there was
kindled in their mind a sense of the sweetness and beauty of Father-
hood in God. And then, when once a conviction of that Fatherhood
had entered into their soul, there came a desire that One possessed
of such an attribute should be siapreme, and have liberty to do as he
pleased. And instantly there was a conviction produced which all
the reasoning in the world would not have made. And were not
these men soundly convinced because they were convinced through
their taste and aftection ? Were they not convinced, because it was
an illustration rather than an argument that appealed to them?
That which makes a man feel that truth is truth, that right is right,
is to him evidence. That which makes a man feel inside, " This is
true," is evidence for him. And though such evidence is more or
less imperfect, it is evidence.

Therefore evidence is sometimes intellectual, as respects the lower
forms of truth ; but as you go up in the importance of truth, the ev-
idence of it becomes less and less purely intellectual and factual. It
becomes more and more emotional. It is taste, it is fear, it is hope,
it is conscience, it is esthetic inspiration, that determine whether
men will take this, that or the other view of truth. So that the mag-
azine of evidence is to be found, not in the lower forms of reasoning,
but in appeals to the moral consciousness, to the conscience, to the
emotions. And then, when men are alive or sensitive, and there is
the presentation of a proposition or a quality of truth to the feelings,
there will be found in them a response that convinces them, and
settles the conviction.

298 EEAllT-CONYICTION.

This is to be followed up afterward by intellectual instruction,
and by a process of investigation, to see whether the conviction is
founded on good reasons, or on reasons not loosely stated. And then
they will not only be convinced, but will be permanently convinced,
and convicted, and converted, in so far as belief is concerned.

It is not, therefore, a small nor an accidental truth that is de-
clared when it is said that with the heart man helieveth unto right-
eousness ; or, in other words, that the convictions which go to pro-
duce what are considered a moral and religious life, are convictions
which spring mainly from the emotions, from the moral sentiments,
from the taste, from the inspirations of feeling, and are not purely
intellectual, dogmatic convictions — though these are not, in their
place, to be despised. It is not dogma that anybody should object
to : it is despotic dogma. It is not dogma that men should repu-
diate : it is dogma making believe that it is the only form which
truth can assume. The hateful thing about it is that dogmas, which
are a reduction of truth to intellectual statements of facts, or ab-
stract truths, have usually assumed that they were the highest forms
of evidence, and of the most authority ; whereas universal experience
shows, that while they are beneficial, they are practically of second-
ary importance in producing living belief in regard to the highest
truth.

From the ideas enumerated in these views it is, that we see how
men who are substantially of the same feelings, run generically to-
ward the same general convictions. In any age the feelings and the
affections of the age have much to do with the adoption of the phi-
losophies and the politics of that age. If men are living by their
lower nature, they will tend toward wantonness of intellectual phi-
losophies; they will incline to the things that relax restraint, that
break down responsibility, and untone the conscience.'^ And, on
the other hand, good men, pure men, men under the influence of
a high degree of moral culture, in any age, will always tend to unity,
on the ground of virtue and self-restraint, and responsibility, and
refinement. And in any age the feeling that belongs to men in
masses, largely determines the direction which they take in intel-
lectual, religious and political philosophy.

Men may differ very largely in regard to moral and religious
truth, and yet be honest ; and to a degree both sides that differ may
be true. One man may be an Arminian — honestly and thoroughly
an Arminian ; another man may be a Calvinist — honestly and thor-
oughly a Calvinist ; they may stand apparently at antipodes ; and
yet they may both be right.

EEAET-CONVICTION. 299

What ! is it possible for men to stand on two sides of a common
truth, ajid yet be riglit ? No, not if cither of them is wholly rio-ht ;
not if either of them has in himself the perfection of tfuth • but no
man ever sees the whole truth. Nobody ever sees truths except in
fragments. A truth is so much and so large that one man may be on
one side, and see his share of it, and another may be on the other
side, and see his share of it ; and both of them may be right, thouo-h
both of them are imperfect. They may be partialists, each of them
is a partialist ; but their views of that truth may not be false.

Where, for instance, a man has a sense of government ; where,
as a certain school would say, self-esteem and the feeling of authority
are largely developed in a man, he will sympathize with the ruling
force, and will be a Calvinist. Where, on the other hand, a man
has benevolence very large, and his social feelings are in the ascend-
ency, he will sympathize with the governed, and not with the gov-
erning power ; and he will be an Arminian. And both of them will
be right ; because there is an element of truth in both vicAvs. There
are few who are large enough to take the whole of one side and the
whole of the other side of the truth. One takes one element, and
runs away with it, and organizes around it ; and another takes an-
other element, and runs away with that, and organizes around it.
And both of them have something of the truth, though neither of
them has the whole of it. The largeness of the truth is lost in the
case of each ; but each is sincere in his. system of theology. Each
has a philosophy of religion wiiich is different from that of the other
and each is true to himself and his convictions, and each does o-ood
in one way or another. Each is part right and part wrong. They
are both partialists.

We each take a mouthful of truth out of the whole ; but none of
us takes the whole of it. So that men may be generically united
but specifically different in their judgments of truth.

Take a familiar instance. In a given neighborhood are twenty
husbandmen. They may all be good husbandmen. They may all
carry on farming profitably. Tliey may all be said to have a wise
method of treating the soil and of treating crops. And yet, every
one of them will treat his soil differently from every other, and every
one of them will handle his crops diflx'rently from every other. But
generically they agree, though specifically they vary. They are
united in the general results which they are aiming to work out ; but
they are not united in the special methods by which they are to be
brought about. And yet nobody thinks of putting them by the ears
because specifically they disagree, Avhen generically they agree.

It is not probable that in any street or neighborhood any two

300 EJEAET-CONVIGTION.

householders keep house alike. They may all be respectable people,
they may all be good housekeepers, they may all be bringing up their
families Avell ; and yet, they all differ in their modes of doing these
things. They rise at different hours, and have their meals at different
hours, and spread their tables differently, and cook their food differ-
ently, and bring up their children differently, and manage their ser-
vants differently, as you would learn, if you could hear them talk
about each other. Nothing would be more instructive than to hear
the housekeepers in a neighborhood discuss each other's economy.
Each is careful in some direction, and profuse in another ; and each
criticizes the others' profuseness. But economy is a question of final
results, and not of special methods. All through different house-
holds you find disagreement in specifics and agreement in generics. T

Now, throughout the woi'ld, churches are artificial households.
And many of them are good households. There are sects, scores of
them, as there ought to be ; and though they specifically differ, they
are generically promoting good morals, inspiring spiritual appetites,
and lifting men up from the plane of the passions to the plane of the
moral sentiments. They are teaching men to live, not by sight, but
by faith. And one does it in one way, and another does it another
way. One does it by ordinances and symbols, another by silence
and by the teaching of the Spirit, and another by intellectual dis-
quisitions. And so there is some general unity between them, though
th-ey are running in their own ruts and channels.

A man's feeling has much to do with what he believes ; and it is
from what is inside of a man, and not from what is outside of him,
that we are to determine what the truth is. There is belonging to
every man a personal element, which to a very great degree has been
overlooked, but which is of vital importance — certainly to the cliai*-
itable judgments Avhich we foi-m of men.

We know that in scientific processes — that is, in dealing with
the lower forms of truth — different men are equipped not only with
different powers of eye, and different sensibilities of ear, and dif-
ferent aptitudes of nature, but that a distinct judgment is taken of
these things. In measuring transits, in attempting to perform the
more delicate operations of making observations in astronomy, it is
found that one eye is more sensitive than another; that one eye
acts quicker and sees quicker than another when a planet touches
the limb of another planet. And these individual peculiarities are
reduced to mathematical expression. Astronomical observers have
what are called their " personal equations " ; and in every observa-
tory in Europe you will find that allowance is made for the pecu-
liarities of persons in the matter of seeing, and that their personal

EEABT- CO N VICTION. 30 1

equations are used to correct and regulate the results of their ob-
servations.

Now, moral astronomy has some need of personal equations —
though they have never been applied, and though it would be very
difficult to apply thera ; for what raen believe depends very much
on how they are made. And it is absurd to talk about people be-
lieving alike. I believe as you do ? No. Nobody believes as I
do, because nobody is made as I am. The elements which enter
into the composition of the human mind are not mixed in precisely
the same proportions in any two persons. No two men have
the same sensibility or the same training. No two men are pre-
cisely alike. All have the same faculties ; the alphabet goes into
everybody ; but the letters — the A B C's — are put together differ-
ently, and the words are spelled with infinite variations in different
persons. And not only are they in different proportions, and in dif-
ferent degrees of strength, but sometimes one predominates and
sometimes another, in the same person. Sometimes the moral feel-
ings are first, and sometimes the social affections, and sometimes
the intellectual powers. These qualities exist in different persons
with infinite variations and combinations. What a man sees when
the truth is presented to him depends entirely on the strength of
the qualities that are in him, on the proportions in which they exist,
and on the relative degrees of sensibility which they have at the
time.

The impressions which come to the consciousness of different
persons are not the same. The impressions which come to your
consciousness and mine, if you could see and measure them, would
materially differ. The character of men's moral structure has much
to do with determining their convictions. And the attempt to make
all men see and feel the same things is just as preposterous as it
would be to make the mark of one man's foot in the sand, and at-
tempt to compel everybody else's foot to fit that mark exactly.
Stakes have been driven, flames have been kindled, racks Jiave been
turned, and blood has flowed out by Amazons, in that which nature
abhors, and the race abhors, and God abhors — the attempt to make
all men believe the same things in the same way. It has been
sought to run men in molds, as it were, so that they should come
out as dollars from a die. But men are made on the principle of
infinite and eternally increasing variations. And beliefs, though
they agree generically, vary specifically — and must and will do so.
Truth will be truth, right will be right, goodness will be goodness,
of course. In general directions they are the same, though they
differ in minor points.

302 SEAET-CONVICTIOK

In traveling on the prairies of the "West, when we came to a
Blough, or morass, we would find fifty roads branching out; and one
preferred to go in and out on one side ; another preferred to pass
through, a few yards from a certain point ; another preferred to cross
at some other point ; but I noticed that the main idea was, for
everybody to get through the slough, though they did it by almost
as many roads as there were travelers across the prairie, during cer-
tain weeks and months of the year. Of course, all roads were not
equally easy and equally good ; there was a choice of ways ; but
every man took the liberty of going the way he thought the best.

And so it is in respect to variations of belief. Men follow their
subjectivity. They follow that particular form of belief which
springs from conviction of feeling in them. If human influence and
power could have made men alike, and kept them alike, in belief, it
would have been done ; but that was not in accordance with the
divine decree. It seems to have been designed that every man
should have a personal experience of his own ; and that while all
should maintain right directions, and cultivate a true moral charac-
ter, and be united generically, they should specifically not lose their
individuality or separateness.

This is the fundamental difference between Protestantism and
Catholicism. Catholicism does not mean Pope, rtor Cardinal, nor this
ceremony, nor that creed. The question involved is simply this :
Is the individual at liberty to follow the charter which he finds in
himself, or must he follow a charter which is prescribed by human
authority? Catholicism says that every man's conscience must
agree with the Church's conscience. It says that there is a great
unitary conscience, and that every man must be guided by that.
But Protestantism says that every man has a right to his individual
conscience. It holds that he ought to instruct it so that it shall be
a fit and reliable guide. And it makes every man responsible for
that to which his conscience leads him. According to Protest-
antism, when it comes to the issue, no man has a right to follow any
other conscience than his own. And when a man says, " I must fol-
low my conscience," he is a Protestant. .

I had the pleasure of seeing Father Hyacinthe when he waa
here, and telling him that he was a Protestant. He had just been
saying, " I cannot be unfaithful to the truth as it has been delivered
to me." " Stop ! " said I, " you are a Protestant, and out of the
Church." He had said that he could not bear to go out of the
Church ; that he dreaded schism, or heresy ; that it was like poison
to him. Nevertheless he was a Protestant. When a man says, " I
must follow my God according to the light which I have," that

EEAET-CONVICTION, 303

moment he is a Protestant. And I think Chrisjt's own ideal of a
man was a man : not merely a member of the human family, but
an organized man.

This will lead to many collisions, many mistakes, many imper-
fections. But tell me of anything that is not full of imperfections.
This world is not a perfect sphere, and it does not turn out perfect
work. It is a world in which we are taking preliminary steps.

" When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be
done away."

So says the apostle. He understood, as well as anybody else, that
men are all jjartialists. Paul, the great theologian, after many years
of thought, and visions, and rapturous associations, and after, to his
own seeming, having been lifted up to the seventh heaven, declared
that he saw things fragmentarily.

"When that which is perfect is come [the whole of truth], then that
which is in part [the partial view] shall be done away."

And not till then will it be done away.

We are certain, then, that truth is in many special, minor re-
spects different to different men. Love, mercy, justice, authority,
responsibility, freedom — these, on the palette of a man's conscious-
ness are not simple uncompounded colors. They are made up of
many colors. They have a great variety of tints. They differ end-
lessly in their shadings.

There will be objections raised to these views. " Why pay any
heed," men say, " to facts and arguments, if belief is subjective, if it
belongs to the subject himself, and arises from the way in which he
is constituted ?" Because, in many respects we are constituted
alike — or proximately alike. Though we vary in specials, we agree
in generals. And facts, to multitudes of men, are in many respects
substantially the same. At any rate, the general exterior is the
same. And although we may attach shades of difference to them,
and they may work themselves out in the final result, there are
enough points of agreement to make men cohere ; to unitize them.

But, " May not this view," it is asked, " imply that truth is vari-
able ; that it is to every man just what he sees it to be ? Is there
nothing permanent ? Is everything shifting according to the imao--
inations of men ? Is there no solid ground ? Are there no firm
foundations ? Is there no exact truth ? Is there no order which a
man having, has^ and can stand on, and be at rest ?" I do not know
of any. The whole creation has been groaning and travailing in
pain until now, and never has found it. You can come to a degree
of exactitude in respect to material mensuration — in respect to
gravity, or heights, or depths, or lengths, or breadths ; but in regard
to moral things the world has never more than approximated com-

'604: EEABT-CONVICTION,

mon beliefs. And the peculiar traits of nations and races and in-
dividuals remain ; in spite of every argument to the contrary, in spite
of prayers, in spite of all the influences vi^hich have been brought to
bear against it, the world is just as it always was — only moi'e so.
That is, as intelligence and knowledge increase, men grow toward
diversity as fast as they grow toward unity.

It is with truth as it is with trees. The part that stands in the
ground is a solid unit — the trunk ; but the part which deals with
the sun, and therefore has in it the principle of life, is forever
branching, and branching, and branching. And if a tree hates any-
thing, it is a straight stalk. It wants to bend and turn here and
there. And so it goes on splitting and dividing. But does it injure
the tree ? Does the fruit gi-ow on the twigs, or on the solid part ?
You know that it is found not on the unit, but on the diverging
twigs. The power of truth lies in diversity, and not in unity. In
great basilar developments, unity ; in the higher elements, ramifi-
cation.

But it does not follow that truth is a thing of mere individual
segregation, as persons have it nowadays. It is not simply my
personal experience. My personal experience reproduces a certain
amount of that great truth which lies outside of me, and of the
race, and of angels — and that is God. I am not able to reproduce
the whole of the truth in nature, nor of God in human kind. The
truth is complex, and it transcends the bounds of the ordinary con-
sciousness.

Therefore truth is stable and firm, though my share of it may be
but little, and though as compared with another man's share it is
mutable and variable. Truth is a great substantial entity which
lies outside of us all. Our consciousness takes in but a part of it,
and a changing, mutable part, at that, but this does not void the
stability of the unity of the truth of the universe.

Is a man responsible for his beliefs ; were they not created in
him and for him ? I do not think a man is responsible for his be-
liefs; but I think a man is responsible for his conduct. You can
get at it just as you please. The heart it is that believes unto
righteousness. You are responsible for being good, and true, and
manly, and believing, and loving, and noble in every way. You
are responsible for results. Every man is responsible for being
honest with himself. A man is responsible to this extent — that he
must keep his mind clear. If when I look at a color it is blue to
me, I am not responsible for seeing that color blue, though another
man may see it green. But if, the color being blue to me, I look
at it and say that it is green, I am responsible for a violation of

EUAET-CONriCTTON. 305

honesty. Men are responsible for using truly, and uncler the best
conditions, every faculty they have ; and Avhen I am true to my or-
ganization, when I am true to that which is within me, I am not re-
sponsible for the products of that which ray mind sees. Conduct
and character are results. Believing is merely a preliminary stage.
It is a means to an end. And experience shows that men do by
different beliefs come to the same general results. That is to say,
are there not men in the other churches who are as good Christians
as thouo-h they were Congregationalists ? There are. I am beholden
to many Christians of past generations in the Roman Church for
their learning and piety and nobility. I see in the Episcopal Church,
saints with bishops' caps upon their heads. And are there not just as
good men in the Methodist Episcopal Church as there are in the old
Episcopal Church ? Certainly. And have there not been Chris-
tians of the right stamp from the days of John Calvin to the pres-
ent time in the old Presbyterian Church ? Unquestionably. Are
there not true and good men in every denomination where Chris-
tianity has been developed ? Yes. Every man who is really God-
fearing and man-loving has that for which alone belief has any
value. The object of believing is to produce goodness.

Now, if from every diverse point, if from convictions which vary
in each man, one can reach forth with his heart, though it be small
at the bottom, and big at the sides, and flat at the ends, and believe
unto righteousness, that is enough. The thing is righteousness.
That is the fruit, according to the declaration of the Master.

When John sent to Christ, being discouraged in his prison life,
saying, " Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?"
in that same hour Christ performed many wonderful works ; and
he said to the disciples who had come from John, " Go" — what ? tell
John that this is my doctrine ? tell John that I am the Messiah ?
tell John that I have fulfilled all the prophets ? tell John that I am
co-equal with the Father ? Not a word of it — " Go and show John
ao-ain those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive
their sic^ht, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached
to them,"

It is as if he had said, " Go tell him that the fruit is the thing,
and that is enough,"

A man who lives in a spirit of love to God, and of unfeigned
charity toward his fellow men, is, under God, a Christian ; and that
is right-believing, or valuable believing, which makes right-living.

But does not this undervalue truth ?^ Oh, no. If you ask me
what is the likelihood of certain beliefs generating holy lives ; if

306 EJEAET- CONVICTION.

you aslc if there are not some modes of presenting the truth, certain
proportions, and certain systematic forms, which experience deter-
mines to be more effectual in producing right characters than
others, I reply. Yes, I think there are. Therefore I think it more im-
portant that a man should believe right, and not simply believe.
And that makes it important that a man should be educated to be-
lieve in certain views. I hold that some forms of belief are better
than others, because some forms of belief tend to produce better re-
sults than others. But, at the same time, where I see that right re-
sults have been produced, I recognize them as being right, no
matter what produced them. The object of truth is the production
of goodness ; and if goodness is evolved, that is the main thing, no
matter how it was produced.

When the master gives to a class a proposition in Euclid, it may
be that Euclid's solution is the best that can be given ; nevertheless,
if a scholar does not take to that solution, and gets at the result by
some original development of thought, the master accepts it, although
he may have taken a long road, and an imperfect one, to come to it.
If he solves the problem, he has accomplished the thing which was
to be done. There is a difference between a long and a short road ;
but if the long one carries a man home at last, that is the main
thing.

Now, of theologies, some seem to run on a level plain, and the
shortest distances ; and some take circuits through the wilderness or
the morass ; and a man has much more weariness, and a great deal
longer journey if he takes the latter than if he takes the former;
but any theology that takes a man home to Heaven is sufficiently
good.

We see from these views, if they are correct, why it is that men
find in the Bible such different teachings. It is because in going to
the Bible each man carries with him his peculiar disposition and
taste, and takes those truths which are most in harmony with his
strongest part.

Did you ever see iron separated from sand by a magnet ? You
go and pick out the iron with your hands, guided by your eyes. You
are proud of what you are pleased to call your grand organization.
I hear much of the dignity of human nature. With your superior
faculties pick out those particles of iron if you can. It is a long and
wearisome task, and is but imperfectly done at best. Now take that
magnet — that crooked piece of iron without an eye in its head by
which to see — and draw it through and through the sand, and it will
gather up every single particle of the iron.

Every man's predominant faculty is a magnet. One man's

EEAET-CONVICTION. 307

magnet is love ; and when he draws it through the Bible, every ele-
ment that attaches to the question of love sticks to it. When he
reads the Bible, he is no logician and no philosopher, and he does
not care about reasoning ; but he says, " Ah ! how anybody can
read the Bible and not see that it is all love, I cannot understand."

His neighbor has been reading the same Bible, but he has
gone through it with the magnet of conscience, and there is nothing
but justice that sticks to it. He says, "You need not tell me about
the kingdom of God being a kingdom of love ; it is a kingdom of
justice, justice, justice." And he holds every man responsible for
exact right and wrong, " Why, it is just as plain as it can be," he
says. " Nothing but willful depravity, nothing but total depravity,
could keep a man from seeing that the Bible teaches that God is a
God of justice."

Another man has a magnet, and he draws it through the Bible,
and says, " How any man dare talk so familiarly of the Creator is a
mystery to me ! God is an awful, awful, awfui. being !" It is all
veneration with him. All through the Bible he has found the ele-
ment of veneration.

Another man has a magnet, and, smiling and rejoicing, he draws
it through the Bible ; and out comes a rainbow ; out come beautiful
bunches of flowers ; out come dripping clouds ; out comes delightful
music ; out comes all that is bright and glorious ; and he says,
" Why, God is a God of beauty ! All through the Bible "is beauty."

And so every person takes the strongest faculty in himself, and
makes a magnet of it, and goes through the Bible, and takes out that
element which is in affinity with it.

Well, is there any harm in this ? No, not if you understand
that one takes one element of truth, and another another, and
another another ; not if you understand that one really does find in
the Bible love, and another justice, and another beauty, and an-
other veneration. Every one of these things can be found in the
Bible ; but nobody takes them all. Each man who goes tliere is a
partialist, and takes his own predominant faculty, and draws out
what naturally adheres to that.

The reason why there are so many sects, is that men see different
sides of the truth, according to the faculties by w^hich they are con-
trolled. There would not be so many sects if men would let each
other alone, and not insist upon that part of the truth which they
have discovered being the only truth; but man takes a single ele-
ment of truth, and attempts to compel others to accept that as the
Bum total of truth. The man of conscience says, " You shall come
to my school" ; and tlie man of love says, " I won't." " You shall P

308 EEAET-CONVICTION^

" I wont /" " You SHALL !" " I won't !" And so there is contention
between the adherents of justice and benevolence ; and each one
feels that it is of infinite importance that men should believe right,
and says, " If they will not believe right, I will make them." That
has been the motto of the Church — " If a man will not believe
right, make him." Men have been straw, and priests have been hus-
bandmen, who have taken them on the floor of the church, and
attempted to flail them to orthodoxy and true believing. It has
been taught that men should be held to discipline and correct be-
lieving, and not be allowed to wander ofi" from the true faith ; and
they have been dogmatized and desj^otized over, and it has been
attempted to comjDcl them to believe with the strongest.

Now, I hold to liberty. If your God seems to be pre-eminently
a God of justice, I will not quarrel with you. Neither shall you
quarrel with me because God seems to me more a Father than
a King. Nor will I quarrel with another man to whom God is a
God of beauty. I stand in the brotherhood of all those men each
of whom has taken his strongest faculty and used it as a lens
through which to look at and magnify a certain part of truth, which
he is best fitted to see. I put my arms about them, and say, " My
brothers, I need you all. I need to have more of justice, and more
of love, and more of beauty. You build me up in the elements
which you interpret, and I will build you up in the elements which
I interpret."

Some astronomers are studying the nebulffi, some Jupiter, some
Saturn, some the sun, and so on ; and they bring together all the
results of their investigations, and unite them; and the sum total
makes the one astronomy. ,

Tlie true Church is that which takes the gifts of all its members,
and instead of quarreling with and persecuting and treading under
foot each the peculiar views of any other, unites them as faj- as
possible. The members of a church should say to each other, " You
contribute your gifts to me, and I will contribute mine to you in re-
turn. And such a church, and such church-members, are the best
interpretation of the ultimate condition of the one universal church.

God grant that we may have such honesty and simplicity and
truthfulness that all that is right in us shall interpret God to us.
And may we have humility. May we not suppose that we have
found God out to perfection. May we have charity toward all men.
And may we have such fellowship as to bind in confidence all,
everywhere, who honestly call upon the name of the Lord.

EEAUT-CONVICTION, 309

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We draw near to thee, our Father, by thy Spirit, taught to call thee
Father. This is that in thee which most we need. For though we need
thine hand to sustain our body, and though we need to be filled with inspi-
ration of thought from thee, most we need mercy and kindness and gentle-
ness. All through our life we are for knowledge but as children. "We
need to be dealt with as a nurse dealeth with the babe. And, looking to
thee, we rejoice that thy heart is paternal, and full of infinite mercy and
goodness, and that we need not turn as from the darkness of the cloud and
the storm, but that we may find in thee all cheer and all comfort and all
gladness, and that so our life may be established in thine as from within it
draws all its fullness.

We pray that thou wilt not, O Lord our God ! look upon us as upon those
around about thee who stand in primal innocence. Look not upon us
according to the measure of thine own purity. Remember that we are but
frail dust; and like as a father pitieth his children, so. Lord, pity us. And
in thy great compassion strengthen us in our weakness. Humble us where
we are over-swollen with pride, and comfort us if we be in affliction. Give
us strength and patience that we may hold out through the longest day of
darkness. And may we be saved by hope as well as by faith, discerning
things unseen, and beholding things that are not, that we maybe able to
stand in the true world invisible and spiritual, though the outward world,
material and fleshly, do fail us.

We pray, O Lord, our God ! that thou wilt grant to every one in thy
presence this morning the manifestation of thy Spirit, according to his need.
Give understanding to those in darkness of mind. Give, we pray thee,
apprehension of the truth to those that are in error. Grant to those that
are burdened and bowed down, patience; and may they behold how the
very trees themselves do symbolize their duty, that are bent with the
weight of that water which, plunging to their root, gives them life again,
and strength to lift up the bough, by and by, when the storm-clouds shall
have gone, and the sun shall shine.

We pray, O Lord ! that thou wilt be near to all those who are in aflBlc-
tion. Speak to them words which they cannot imagine themselves. May
they hear the voice of songs around about them, as if thy good spirits had
descended to cheer and comfort them.

Grant thy blessing to rest upon all those who are perplexed as to duty;
and to all that are in darkness and trouble in respect to their affairs ; and
to all that are in trouble and perplexity in regard to their relations among
themselves. Enter into the secret experience; go in behind the veil; and
grant that thy Spirit may so cleanse, and purify, and sweeten, and inspire,
that every one may feel that it has been good to be with the Lord in his
sanctuary this day.

Grant consolation to those that are in the presence of their dead. Sup-
port those that in fear and grief are with their sick, waiting for the time
when they shall die. Be with all who with anguish remember past histo-
ries. Let not their sorrow be in over-measure. Grant that, though for a
time it is grievous, it may work out in them, and that speedily, the peace-
able fruit of righteousness.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all those that
would fain be with us to-day, but are not gathered with us. Be with them
in their houses, and homes, and closets, and hearts. May it be a day of rest
to their souls. May it be to them a day of rejoicing in the Lord.

We pray for all that are this day ecattered through our land, and in for-

310 EEAET-C0I>1 rJCTJON

eign lands, and upon the great deep. May the Spirit of the Lord be with
them. And may their memories of the past he sanctified. And may the
sympathies which come hack from them to us bring the blessing of the Lord.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing upon all that this day are la-
boring in word or doctrine. Be with those that go forth to malie known the
Gospel to the scattered and ungathered. Grant that those who are laboring
with painstaking and self-denial may not be weary in well-doing.

Bless those, we pray thee, who are striving for a better life, and have
parted from sin, and have come away from immorality. May they find the
ground under thtir feet firm, and may they gain strength from day to day.
Mi)y they be valiant and faithful in the cause of their new Master.

Let thy blessing go all abroad upon all those who are teaching— upon
the school-masters and upon the school -mistresses in this land; and espe-
cially upon those who are in desolate places — upon those who have exiled
themselves, and gone away from the sympathy of friends, that they may
teach the poor and needy.

Raise tbou up more and more a kindly spirit among men towards those
that are now in our midst, who must maintain their rights by intelligence
and purity. Wilt thou incline the hearts of others toward them. And
wilt thou draw them out of darkness and into light.

We pray for the schools and colleges and academies in our land. We
pray for all those institutions which are for the discovery and for the diffu-
sion of useful knowledge.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless the nations of the earth. May
they no longer, like the beasts of the forest, use their strength to rend and
to tear. May the time come when nations shall help nations ; when they
shall stand aaound about each other, even as brothers and sisters are united
in the household, in one body, that they may all help where each is defi-
cient, and lejoico where each is strong. Make daste, we beseech of thee, and
bring in that latter-day so long promised, and so long delayed. And may
the glory of the Lord at last shine through all the earth.

We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, wilt thou bless the word spoken, and may it be for our edifi-
cation. May we be delivered from error, and purified in heart that we may
believe more perfectly. May we trust in such truth as we have; and may
we look forward to that more blessed day when imperfections and limita-
tions shall have passed away, and when we shall be developed more, so that
all the nobler and higher truths which now are beyond our vision or our
imagination shall be made known to us. And then may we meet together
to rejoice with one another with supreme love, and power, and truth, and
justice, and goodness. And to thy name shall be the praise, forever and
ever. A men.

XVI.

The Glory of Jehovah.

We pray for thy grace, our Heavenly Father, this morning. We pray
for that smile of welcome whioh our hearts know full well. Give us the
tokens of thy presence, and the rising up within us of desires and aspirations.
Grant unto us a sense of thy hounty, and let all painful doubts and fears
and all things carnal, flee away. And as we know the morning, because all
the earth is bright, and everything shines and sings, so may we know that
daylight hath come from on high unto us by the gladness that la in our souls.
Help us to sing thy praise, and to be joyful therein, worshiping God in love
Help us to speak thy truth, and to profit by the word of instruction. Guide
us in our thoughts and meditations. Bless our homes, and all the hours of
the day. May all the earth be the temple of God to us this day, and every
sound be music and rejoicing. Prepare us thus by our earthly experience
for our association and our blessedness in the life which is to come. We ask
it for Christ's sake. Amen.

16.

THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH.

*'Andhe said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will
make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy." — Ex. xxxiii. 18, 19.

"And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and
proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and
proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iui(iuity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the
children's children unto the third, and to the fourth generation."— Ex.
xxxiv., 5-7.

Moses was the one great man of antiquity. Although there is
an element of venerableness in the patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob — they stand in our imagination rather as great frescoes.
They are types of certain natures ; but they said and did little
which was worth recording. Though they were great men in their
times, judged by the standards of those times, they have left as a
legacy very little. But Moses, as a thinker, a legislator, a poet and
an admhiistrator, was great, not only as measured by his own ao-e,
but as measured by any age. His institutes are not worn out.
Aside from that wonderful people who have based their whole econ-
omy upon the Mosaic Institutes, the spirit of the Mosaic economy
has been breathed into universal civilization.

While it was given to other nations to develop the intellectual
'side of human nature, and the side of beauty, it was given to the
Jew jto develop the moral side. And from that economy which
Moses himself founded, and for a long time administered, sprano- in-
fluences which have changed and developed the civilization of the
whole globe. /

Moses began his public career at a time when most men are ready
to die, or are very old ; for he was eighty years of age when he un-
dertook to lead the people forth from Egypt. For forty years,
beginning at eighty, he administered national affiiirs, leading that
people through the desert, and to the borders of the promised land.

Sunday Morning, June 11, 18TL Lebson . Job XXXVIU. Hthns (Plymouth
CollecUon) : Nos. 199, 128, 888.

314 THE QLOBY OF JEHOVAE.

And it is said that when he died his eye wa"s not dimmed nor his
natural force abated. In recounting the great worthies of the then
antiquity, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews mentions, of
course, Moses, and speaks of him in a manner which implies that he
was one who had lived under a tremendous burden, and declares
that " he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." In other words,
he declares that the inspiration and support of his wonderful life
was the conscious presence, and his knowledge, of God.

It becomes, therefore, a matter of more thancurifisity, a matter
of profound Jntefest^to us, to know^Jia^^thatTview of God was,
what^hose fundamentaPideas^ of^thgTSiyine natureL^were, which
Moses received^jwhich^ustained hjm,jivhich insj)ired_hilQ>^nd which
unquegtiona]3]yilai<l.tbejoundation ofjthose gnstitutes and that ad-
ministration which have made Iiis name and nation so famous. This
view is_contjjnedjn^^)urjtext.

The people had been carried out of Egypt. They had gathered
themselves around the base of Sinai. And Moses was seized, as well
he might have been, with a profound feeling of discouragement and
dread. He had these millions on his hands. There was nowhere on
earth that he could look for succor. So he turned himself to God.
And we may well believe that in the anguish of his soul he besought
God to help him.

" Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this
people : and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet
thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my
sight. Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show
me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight ;
and consider that this nation is thy people."
To this God replied,

" My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest."
And Moses said,

♦' If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known here that I and thy people hare found grace in thy sight?
Is it not in that thou goest with us ? So shall we be separated, I and thy
people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth."
The Lord again responded, saying unto Moses,

" I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken ; for thou hast found
grace in my sight, and I know thee by name."
And Moses said,

" I beseech thee, show me thy glory ?'*
And the Lord said,

" I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy."

And so, after some preliminary observations and prescriptions,
" The Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and pro-
claimed the name of the Lord."

TEE GLOB Y OF JERO YAH, 315

In other words, as Moses had asked that he might see God's
glory, God replied that he should see his goodness^ as if that was
the equivalent of his glory. ^"^^^

Moses was about to lead this great people up from comparative
barbarism to civilization ; but he wanted some view of God upon
which he could stand, and from which he could legislate. He wanted
to frame laws and institutions that should go down to remote o-ene-
fations, and he desired, therefore, to have the starting-point of all
this work founded in the highest and truest knowledge of God. He
desired to see God from that stand-point which would make him a
wise legislator, a wise judge, and a wdse leader. And he said,
" What are those views, O my God, by which I shall shape my
w^hole course and administration, and upon which I shall educate
this great people ? Show them to me now.'* He asked the charter,
as it were, of divine character. He asked that God would reveal
himself in those elementary principles of constitution and law which
should be the right foundation on which to build the whole super-
structure of the economy that was to stand for ages. And it was
in answer to this practical demand that this view was given by God
of his own nature,

" Afld the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, the Lord, [Jehovah]
the Lord God [Jehovah], merciful and gracious, long-suflfering, and abun-
dant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving in-
iquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the
children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

You will observe that in this declaration made for the specific
purpose of practical use in the highest offices of the highest life, the
very center and substance of the representation is, that God is a
God of goodness, though goodness is not to be understood as im-
plying the absence of punitive administration. It is not an ad-
ministration which excludes pain and severity, if they be needful.

Consider, in reading this description of the divine nature given
by God himself to his servant of old, that, in the first place, there is
an omission of what are called the natural attributes of God. There
is nothing said of his creative power. There is nothing said of his
sustaining power. There is nothing said of his power at any rate.
There is nothing said of his wisdom. There is nothing said of what
we are accustomed to call God's omnipotence, his omniscience, or his
omnipresence. Not that they are not traits or attributes of God ,
but they are not the characteristic elements of the divine disposition.
These ai-e to the divine nature what the body, wuth its health, its
strength, its skill and its beauty, is to man. They are not unim-
portant. Every man appreciates what it is to have a good personal

316 THE GLOB Y OF JEEO YAH

presence, and to have bodily power and vigor. But as civilization
develops mankind, without disesteeming physical qualities we learn
to put emphasis upon character and disposition. In savage life, he
is the greatest man who can lift the most, or hurl the weight farthest,
or contend most successfully in battle. In other words, physical
strength is the ideal of manhood.

But as civilization goes on, we transfer skill from mere muscular
development to mental capacity or power, whether it be in com-
merce or politics, or any other sphere of the intellect.

And as civilization still develops, we rise higher, and then man's
"worth resides, not in his bodily conditions nor in his physical
skill, nor in his intellectual power, but in his inward character and
disposition.

We have, then, in ourselves, an analogy or intimation of that
which appears in this declaration of Jehovah to his servant Moses,
where, passing by, as it were, all the incidentals — the elements of
mere power or intellect, or wisdom — he asserts that his divinity
resides in the central element of goodness. When asked to make
his glory manifest, he says, " I will show you my goodness," as
much as to say that his goodness was his glory.

If you analyze this disposition upon which God places emphasis
as most eminent and characteristic, you will see how it still hangs
around about that one center ; how it lingers and repeats itself in
every various form. As a sweet phrase in music, under Beethoveii*o
hand, forever changed, and yet forever came back again to the
theme, so you will find here that this one central notioii of divine
goodness, changing and altering, never is lost, but continually, from
beginning to end, is made to reappear.

"The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth [what we mean by fidelity], keeping mercy for thou-
sands, forjziviug iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty."

This undertone is just as necessary to our conception of divine
goodness as is the idea that all responsibility and all penalty are not
malign, either by accident or by intent, but are the applications of
goodness itself.

God's long suffering, his patience, his fidelity to men, his leniency,
his forgiving disposition, which goes on and on and on, must not be
interpreted into moral laxity and indifference. It is the goodness of
One who prefers, with infinite preference, that which is holy, and
just, and pure, and good. It is the goodness of One tliat will not
leave untried all appropriate influences to maintain, to increase, and
finally to make victorious that which is resplendent in purity and

THE QLOBT OF JEEO VAB. 317

ineffable in goodness, though he "will by no means clear tho
guilty."

God is not good in any such sense as tliat he is weakly indul-
gent. He desires happiness in men ; but he desires to promote
happiness in them by making them susceptible to happiness — by
developing them so that they sliall be able to be happy.

This conception of God, as a vindicator of Law, is what expe-
rience toadies, and what Providence has taught. If there be one
thing which nature teaches more clearly than another, it is the doc-
trine of penalty ; that is to say, the doctrine that disobedience
of law brings suffering. And at the same time nature also teaches that
obedience of law brings healing and forgiveness. It has been believed
that nature taught nothing except that the znan who sins shall die ;
but nature does give a hint of something more than this. He Avho,
disregarding the laws of gravity, by springing over a precipice
breaks his leg, certainly learns penalty ; but if he goes home and
has his leg set and put in splints, and the bones knit together and
acquire new strength, he learns remedy and forgiveness. When a
man is sick he is taught that there is penalty for transgression ; and
when he gets well he is taught that there is mercy for transgressors.
Resiliency and recuperation are indications of mercy, as much as
Buffering and pain are indications of justice, on the part of God.
Nature teaches penalty ; and in an obscure way it also teaches
remedy. Providence likewise teaches penalty and remedy. And
the great experiences of mankind have shaped themselves into the
universal feeling that to do right is in the main to court happiness,
and that to do wrong is in the main to court unhappiness.

Men feel, also, that penalty, as well as remedy, is an instrument
of benevolence. And there are those who blame their neighbors for
making too little use of penalty. There are those who pride them-
selves upon not being too lenient. " I love my children too well to
indulge them in things that are not for their good," says many a
parent. "We look upon the children of others that have been spoiled
by indulgence, and say, " Weak mother, to let her children do
as they please, because she is fond of them ! Foolish parents,
to give their children pleasure to-day, which will deprive them
of pleasure to-morrow !" We say of stern parents, " They are very
severe ; but see how their children are turning out." The reoult
determines the wisdom of the course pursued ; and if under an
administration of sternness children turn out well, we cannot but
praise that sternness, because it proves itself in the end to be kind-
ness. Nothing can be more really kind than the infliction of 6u2er-
ing for the sake of making joy more abundant in the future.

318 THIS GLOBY OF JHEO TAB,

Therefore, this declaration, which was conpled with the descrip-
tion of the divine nature at this very early period, is one which
runs with human experience and observation, and belongs to our
sense of that which is right and true — the declaration of goodness
seeking goodness, and doing it, too, wherever necessary, at the
expense of suffering, or by the use of pain.

But the central point is this : is there a Divinity that uses pain
for the sake of pain ? Is there a government over this universe in
which there is suffering without any other end than suffering ? Can
there be any better definition given of malignity than that it is
a voluntary administration of suffering merely for the sake of
suffering ? The question which every man wants solved for him-
self, just as much as Moses did, is. What is the center from which
penalty springs ? Does it come from passion, does it come from
wrath, does it come from wounded self-esteem, in any super-eminent
power ? What is the origin of the pain and the penalty which we
see in the lower forms of life where men are in contact with material
things ? What is the origin of the pain and the penalty which we
see when men have risen into their social relationships ? What is
the origin of the pain and the penalty which we see at large in
society, and which develop themselves on every hand ? What is the
controlling mfluence in which this strange quality of pain-bearmg
inheres ?

There have been those who said that it belonged to a separate
divinity — to a cruel and hating One that loved blood and suffering.
But men could not accept that view, it seemed so contrary even to
their low and crude ideas of love.

There have been others who joined pleasure and pain in one ad-
ministration, and taught that the divine character was one which,
when we were reconciled to it, was full of goodness and mercy, but
which, when we were unreconciled to it, was full of wrath and hatred
and pain-loving. Yea, it has been taught that " for the sake of his
own glory" God created pain, and stamped it with immortality. It
is stated in that ancient formula of faith, the Westminster Confes-
sion, that " not with foresight of good or evil, not on account of any
supposed misconduct, but for purposes of his own free-will and
glory," God did create a race, lax-ge portions of which, not being
elected, would go on to eternal punishment, suffering forever and
forever remedilessly — and all " for his own glory" I

Now, when Moses asked of God that he would show him his
glory, he said, " I will make my goo.dness pass before you," thus de-
claring that his goodness was his glory. And when all things were
arranged, and Moses went up into the mountain as he had been com-

TEE GLORT OF JEEOVAH. 319

manded to do, the Lord descended au-^ proclaimed the name of the
Lord; and then he went onto declare what the divine elements
were, saying,

"Merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for tliousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty."

This one little qualifying phrase, and will by no means clear the
guilty, was all that he said on that side. But look at the amplitude,
the repetition, the richness of description, the fullness, the tropical
luxuriance, which were emj^loyed in evolving the idea that the cen-
tral nature of the administration of God is one of mercy — and that,
too, against men that transgress, imperfect men, undeveloped men,
sinning men, wicked men, had men. It would seem as if it were
meant to imply that there was depth after depth of mercy in the
divine administration, that there was forgiveness for sins of every
kind and degree, and that through long eras he manifested his
patience toward the transgressor. He made the declaration full and
laz-ge. But lest men should say, " There is no danger in sinning ; if
I transgress I shall be forgiven," he, as it were, says, " Ah ! do not
think that you can escape. I will not forgive finally the unrcgen-
erate. I will administer goodness for the sake of reclaiming the
wicked, and I will exercise patience toward them ; but rather than
give them over, I will apply pain and penalty to them."

And here we see the declaration of that great law of inheritance
of which so much is made in our day, and which was disclosed
under the Mosaic dispensation ages and ages before it was disclosed
by what we see in modern philosophy. That the iniquity of parents
is visited upon their children from generation to generation, we
know. We know that the drunkard's child is apt to be a drunkard.
We know that the child of an insane person is apt to be insane. We.
know that the constitutional peculiarities of father and mother are
apt to show themselves in their offspring. We know that the per-
versities of a man's heart are likely to go down to his children. We
know that the sins of one generation sometimes entail their evil
consequences upon the four or five generations which follow them.
We know that these things are a part of the economy of the whole
universe, so far as we have been able to observe it.

But you will observe that the emphasis of the divine character
lies in the direction of goodness, and that the qualifying phrase, the
alternative, limiting notion is that of penal justice, which is inter-
preted and directed by this great central element. It is a justice
which seeks to make men just. It is pain-bearing for the sake of
taking away pain. It is remedial infliction. It is penalty tempered
with love. We have the declaration of God that all the wide sweep

320 TEE GLOB Y OF JE HOY AH.

of pain and penalty which we see in society is simply a part of the
economy of divine goodness. It springs from that center. It origi-
nates in a goodness which produces pain only where the production
of pain tends to produce happiness by and by. The divine charac-
ter is ref)resented as being an orb of bright, glowing, glorious good-
ness in all its forms and developments ; and yet it is capable of pro-
ducing pain wherever pain may be necessary to the well-being of
those under its administration. And this was the interior view
which mankind needed.

Let us recur to the fact that Moses asked for a view of God on
which he should found his administration. " Give me," said he,
" that view of thyself and thy nature and thine administration that
shall enable me to.govern these people aright. I am to make laws ;
I am to frame institutions ; I am to administer justice between man
and man ; I am to give men the word of instruction in respect to
their households ; and let me come back to the Foiintain of truth and
knowledge. What art thou, oh my God? Teach me thyself, and
then I shall be able to teach this people."

Thus solicited, God gave this representation of his character :
that it was chiefly a character of love and mercy. But to this rep-
resentation was added the fact that this love and this mercy would
arm themselves with penalties sufticient to exterminate evil and to
promote good.

It was this that Moses took as the basis of his administration.
And it would be a matter of great interest to show, what might be
shown — that Moses' administration, founded on that central notion
which he derived from God's nature and character, branched out
into statutes of humanity which marked it from all contemporaneous
governments.

There is one other part of this passage which I have not em-
phasized. When Moses besought God that he would show him his
glory, God said,

"I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee."

And then he added,

" I win be gracious on whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on
whom I will show mercy."

There is, to me, great significance in that declaration of personal
liberty on the part of God. Not only is this fact very significant,
but it is very needful in our time. For there are but few men who
have a God that has any liberty. If you ask natural science to-day
I what God's functions are, it will tell you that he has, as an Artificer,
invented and set a-going a vast machine, and that his particular
business now is to oil the wheels of that machine, and watch the

THE GLOB Y OF JEUO VAE. 3 2 1

j
operation of it. When I ask a man to pray, men sneer anrl laugh,
and say, " Do you suppose that God is going to stop turning the
wheels of the universe, and is going to change the action of his laws,
to accommodate any man, or any number of men ? Not a bit of it.
If you want anything, you must do exactly what other people
have to do. God is grinding all the time, and those tliat help
themselves will have such elements as are being supplied at his mill ;
but that great machine is not going to be stopped to put in any
little elements different from these, which this or that man may
want or ask for. God is a great mill-grinder, and he stands grind-
ing out by natural laws those things which it is designed that men
shall have, and no one can have anything except that which comes
to everybody." When I plead for the inspiration of God's wisdom,
men say, " Do you suppose God is going to hear you, and give you
a gift of special inspiration ? It cannot be done. Nature is im-
mutable." Nowadays philosophers are "talking about the immuta-
bility of great natural laws, and laughing to scorn our theologies
and teachings in regard to the power of God to answer the prayers
of his people. They say, " God has arranged everything, and he
governs by laws, and he cannot change those laws, and therefore he
cannot grant special favors." i

Well, what is God ? These philosophers cannot tell. " He is
something in the nature of laws," they say. All that philosophy
knows about him is law, law, law ! There are some who have come
BO near to the true definition of God that they are now willing to
admit that these laws are the result of force ; and they talk about
the great Force of the universe. They are fashioning a new name
for God, on the same principle that our name was formed. For God
is a contraction of the word good; and our God is Goodness — a
name derived from the great central characteristics of the divine
character. Modern philosophy is dispossessing us of that name, and
is putting Power in the place of it. And God is going to be Power —
that is to say, a PoAver which, having made this great machine origi-
nally, keeps it running, and tinkers it occasionally when it gets out
of repair, but which cannot do anything further than that. It is not
once thought by these philosophers that the Power which created
laws can stand outside of them, or above them, and give new func-
tions to them, or produce unexpected results by them. They ridi-
cule men who have faith that they can procure special blessings by
asking God for them. They say, " If you want anything of God,
ask Avhat natural laws are, and use them ; and if you are strong
enough to get what you want, you will get it, and if you are not
strong enough, you will not get it"

322 THE GLOBT OF JEEOYAE.

Practically the personality of God is taken away, and he is left
a pigmy of the iiniverse, once powerful to create, but now powerless
to control anything that he has created. It is a peculiarity of the
insect species, that when once the fly has made provision for its off-
spring, it dies; and according to the representations of these mod-
ern philosophers, God is a sort of exiguous fly, and having provided
the seed for events, and having set the forces of nature in motion,
has nothing more to do. The substance of their teaching is, that
being omnipotent and all-wise, God marked out the course of events,
and that, having by his creating power established the foundation
of things, having, as it were, prepared the great universe, there is
nothing more that he can do, except to keep on rolling and roll-
ing and rolling the wheels of the vast apparatus which he has
brought into existence, with power to keep it a-going, but without
power to stop it, or to use it, or to change it, or to modify it in any
way.

Therefore there is great significance in that declaration which
God makes of himself, where, having proclaimed himself to be a God
of goodness, he instantly proceeds to declare his personal independ-
ence, his individual freedom, the untrammeled power of his will,
saying,

" I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on
whom I will show mercy."

This is a declaration that God had a right to be gracious to the
Egyptians as well as to the Israelites ; or to the nations of the Orient,
as well as to the nations of the Occident. It is an announcement
of God's right to show mercy in the divine administration to na-
tions of difierent tongues ; it is a declaration of personal liberty.
This liberty of God to act according to his will inheres in the cen-
tral element of the divine nature. And to-day, undiminished in
juice and freshness, is this declaration of God, " I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy."

In other words, he says, " I am not chained. I am not absorbed
in the machinery of the universe. I have liberty to think as I please.
I have liberty to use the laws which I have created, or to set them
aside. I have liberty to administer outside of them, or through
them, or over them, or under them." God is greater than his laws.
He is not tied up by them. He can act independent of them.

Men say, " A miracle cannot be." Ah, but why can it not be ?
If there was a power which made fire to burn, and water to quench
fire, cannot that same power, still existing, change these elements
BO that water shall burn, and fire shall quench water? Is not the
power that is competent to create a quality, also competent to change

THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH. 323

that quality ? The question is not whether it prefers to change it,
but whether the power is not there.

Men say, " God administers only according to great natural laws."
How do you know ?

The trouble with science is, that it teaches of God simply what
it perceives of the administration of God in material things, or in
what it calls nature. It assumes that nature consists of matter.
But I hold that the very capital of nature is the human soul, and
that the administration of the divine economy in respect to rocks,
soils, light, water, electricity, heat, or what not, is mere nest-building.
And as a bird is better than the nest in which it is hatched, so man
is better than the world in which he was created, and which was
created for him.

Now, if you take the human soul as a part of nature ; if you take
the facts which human experience develops as belonging to the
realm of nature ; if you take human character as the result of the
action of the forces in nature, nothing is more taught than personal
liberty, and the power of varying natural laws. I can vary the
fruitfulness of natural laws. I can make an acre of land barren as a
desert, or I can make it bring me in a hundred bushels of corn. And
how can I do it ? By using natural laws. Men declare that natural
laws are infrangible, invincible, and beyond the control of God him-
self; and yet they are subject to changeable use by even the human
will. I can make the world a wilderness, or I can transform it into a
garden ; I can pile up machinery, or I can tear it down ; I can build
cities, or I can destroy them ; I can create, or I can annihilate ; I can
find out electricity, and make it do my bidding ; by means of the
electric wire I can make the world bustle with activity ; I can im-
pregnate natural laws with vitality from my own brain ; I can, by
my personal energy, produce high civilization — this is but another
form of telling what human nature has done — I can do all these
things, acting through natural laws; and yet men will sturdily say
that God, infinite and transcendent, cannot do anything with these
laws. They teach us that God is pent up by natural laws which he
has organized, that he is harnessed to them, and that he is forever
pulling in one direction, unable to change his course — in other
words, that he is a mere locomotive on an iron track, and can neither
turn to the right nor to the left.

This is a base conception ; and it is falsified by your experience
and by mine. You and I are a part of nature, and the best part of
it. Man is the cream, and the rest is milk.

Consider the understanding and the social afiections ; consider
what a man is in relation to the material world and to his fellow-

324 THE GLOBY OF JEHOVAR.

men ; consider what we can do ; and then consider how much more
transcendent God is than we are in goodness, and in power, and in
wisdom, and in all those qualities which raise us above the condition
of the brute, and you will see that all such limitations of the divine
nature are preposterous and absurd.

This liberty of God to use the world as I use it ; his liberty to
change the world as he pleases, according to the good of all his
creatures — this great liberty, asserted far back in the time of Moses,
needs to be emphasized again and again and again, and particularly
in these days when there are so many superficial teachings and
thinkings which lead one to suppose that there is no God except
science, and that there is nothing in science but fixed natural laws,
— a belief which amounts to absolute atheism, the dreariest and most
death-like.

But this idea of the liberty of God has another application b&
side that which is made to science. It has an application to the-
ology. I am oftentimes asked, " Why do not you preach the atone-
ment of Christ more ?" I preach the nature of Christ. I preach
his life and his teachings. I declare my faith that he was God man-
ifest in the flesh. Although the fullness of the divine nature was
circumscribed, was not made manifest, was held back by the ob-
struction of the flesh ; yet so much as we see of it I claim to be the
real representation of the action of the divine thought and feel-
ing. I preach Christ, personal. I preach his love, his patience, his
forgiveness, his power upon the human soul. I preach him as the
Author and the Finisher of the faith of every soul that is to be
saved. I set him forth in every conceivable way. I preach Christ
to the understanding, to the conscience, to the social sympathies, to
every side of uuman nature. I preach him so that he shall comfort,
and inspire, and guide, and instruct, and be a power on and in the
soul. And after all, men say, " You preach a good deal about the
Lord Jesus Christ, but why do you not preach about his atonement?"

What is the atonement of Christ ? Is there a Christ, and then
an atonement outside of him which is a kind of fourth God ? The
atonement of Christ is Christ himself. I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy — that is the atonement. It is the in-
herent and everlasting mercy of God, " Forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin," as declared in this Old Testament Scripture '
It i? the tendency of the divine, loving Soul to recuperate men who
are sick — to draw back men who are sinning. Historically regarded,
this power of the heart of God, this healing nature of the divnie
soul, was developed- and maintained in the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 do
not say that there are not passages in regard to the life and death

TEE GLOEY OF JEEOYAH. 325

of Christ which hint at relations which he sustained to other parts
of the great moral economy of the universe ; but as they are simply
hints, and are not explained, and are inexplicable, I let them alone
merely saying that there are such hints. But the only thino- in re-
gard to Christ that the New Testament does explain, is, that he
loves all men, and that he will save all that will let him save them.
And the atonement of Christ — of the Lamb who was slain from the
foundation of the world for mankind — is Love. The manifestation
of it, the disclosure of it, was by his earthly life and death ; but the
thing itself is infinite and eternal, and is in the heart of Christ.

This does aAvay, in a moment, with the old reasoning that God
the Father could not forgive until some plan of atonement was ar-
ranged, and that he gave his Son to come and die in order that he
might forgive. It takes away all that machinery of false philoso-
phy, and presents the truth in its clarity and grandeur and reason-
ableness. It makes known the better doctrine that God the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is Goodness — a Goodness that M'ill not
suffer men to go wrong if it can by pain and penalty stop them — a
Goodness that will forgive them if they find out their mistake and
turn back. The " plan " of Atonement eternally existed in God's
own original nature. The central reason why God forgives, is, that
he loves to do it.

Why did Howard make the circumnavigation of the globe, visit-
ing the poor in prisons ? Did he do it because he saw that so he
might achieve for himself praise or glory ? No ; he did it because
that ever-springing sentiment of love in his soul which was but an
emanation from God made it necessary to himself that he should do
it. It was a feeling in him of undying pity and sorrow that led
him to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and the needy. And
every man on earth who is never weary of well-doing — of instruct-
ing the ignorant ; of pardoning those that com€ short of duty ; of
letting his sympathy and help brace up those who are in the battle
of life — every such man is in himself the spark, the analogue of that
nature which is central in the Lord Jesus Christ. Benevolence, love
which administers for the good of men — that is God all over, from
center to circumference, and from circumference back to center
again. Goodness — a Goodness that will make men pure, and true,
and happy — by smiles if it can, but if it cannot by smiles, then by-
frowns ; and if not by frowns, then by pains — that is the nature of
God. He works by pain as well as by pleasure ; for pain is but the
right hand of love, working for the recuperation of the sick. And so ho
fills the heaven with goodness, and is filling, little by little, the earth
with goodness. He is putting down the wrong, and establishing

326 THE GLOBY OF JEHOVAH.

the right. He is lifting the race upward, and carrying them onward,
by joy and by pain, by pleasure and by sorrow, by reason and by
aflection. By every means, he is striving to unfold the race, and
bring them into the summer of divine life, where they, too, shall
become free and powerful, because good.

It is this same freedom which God claims for himself when he
says, " I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will
shoAV mercy on whom I will show mercy" — it is this same freedom
which we call mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Love, goodness, com-
passion, shown even at the price of pain — that is God's nature.

As these were the best views for Moses in his time, so they are
the best views for men yet. The lower men are in the development
of their faculties, the more you will be obliged to use motives ad-
dressed to their senses — the more you will be obliged to use motives
that are of a coercive, force-bearing character. On the other hand,
the higher men are, the more you can bring to bear i;pon them
subtler, finer inducements to right and dissuasions from wrong. And
the latter influences are the more effectual. Mere force is not suf-
ficient to reclaim men. A malign God will never make a virtuous
world. A stern and vengeful God will never make men afraid to
sin, to any great extent. It certainly will not draw them back when
they have fallen into sin.

The child has gone wrong, and the father's brow is clothed with
wrath ; his pride is wounded ; his sense of right is outraged ; and
he comes down on the trembling child as the thunder-storm comes
down on the tender herb : and the child braces himself up, and en-
■ dures as best he can ; but he is not reformed. On the contrary, he
is driven off" further and further. But when the father is gone, and
the child lingers in the distance, and the mother hovers near him, she
gently puts her arm about the child, and draws him tenderly aside,
and with sweet voice speaks to him ; — he breaks down, and in a
torrent of sorrow pours out his confession into her bosom. Ah ! it
is the mother's heart that subdues him. The father's sternness
could not do it. Justice could not do it. Hardness only drove him
further away.

I do not deny that there is a place where there must be pain,
and where there must be an administration of suffering ; but I
say that all administrations of suffering are void unless they are
preceded and superseded by the recuperative and reformatory
influences of goodness and love. You cannot make a household
good unless you can love it into goodness. You cannot make
a community good unless you can love it into goodness. You can-
not make bad men good unless you can love them into goodness. I

THi: GLOB I OF JEUOVAH. 327

do not think that it is in tlie power of penitentiaries to save men, as
long as they are under the management of selfish, grasping office-
holders. I do not think that one poor starveling chaplain can save
from five to eight hundred men as long as the money which should
be applied for their reformation and evangelization goes to reward
politicians for their party service. I have no doubt that much of the
mismanagement of our penitentiaries is the result of inexperience
and weakness — that weakness which is meant when it is said that the
law was weak through the flesh / but when I look at the way
in which we deal with criminals, I feel that there is no other such
humiliating and pity-inspiring spectacle of the meagerness of the
Boul of man in the great recuperative element of love, as is mani-
fested in our attempts to restore to the way of virtue, men who have
wandered into the path of vice.

There is only one place that the gate of heaven is but a hand's-
breadth from ; and that is the family. It is there that the father
and mother make sufi:ering for the sake of saving sufiering. It is
there that the parent bears the sins and sorrows of the child. It is
there that the stripes are laid upon the parent's back by which the
child's trangressions are healed. But outside of the household how
wretched is the attempt of men to save their fellow-men ! When a
man has once done wrong, he is kicked down the street, and whis-
pered about and hooted at, and can no more get back to honor and re-
spectability than a gull can fly against a tornado. The wrong-doer
is everywhere met with a spirit of revenge. On every side are the
symbols of destruction. There is the flail, and there is the sword.
There is also the cross — but it is the victim that hangs on the cross,
and not the Substitute. And what we need more than anything
else, in our laws, in our institutions, and in our public sentiment, for
our cities, and towns, and villages, is this view of the character of
God which ascribes to it goodness, mercy, gentleness, kindness. "We
have tried cruelty, and it has done little good ; we have tried acepb
and unflinching justice, and it has not been adequate to the emer-
gency. We have tried views of God which put no intensity upon
purity and goodness, and they have done good in some directions,
and have done harm in other directions. What we want is a view
of God which makes him, not one that does not cai-e for sin, but one
that does care for it, that hates it, that strives against it, and that
sets his heart and all the enginery of the universe against it, not for
the sake of tormenting men, but for the sake of saving them. We
want a view of God which makes him one who uses pain as a rem-
edy for evil, and who punishes men for their good. Looking through
all the endless ages of eternity, there is no point where God can be

328 THB GLOB ¥ OF JEHO YAH,

happy while he sits brooding upon immedicable pain. Somewhere
let us hope the Universe will reach the glorious limit of suffering.
" There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed
away."

Every year, the sun, that strives all Summer with reluctant fruit,
at length conquers and turns the acid to sugar.

But, like all other things it comes latest. The apples which keep
through the AVinter are those that do not ripen until November.
Those that ripen in June perish by Autumn. The apples that are
the longest lived and the most profitable, are the slowest in coming
to ripeness. And let us hope that the long Summer in which such
abundant fruits have been produced, and this Autumn in which such
glorious hues have been evolved, shall not be sacrificed to mere be-
nevolence. But may there be justice, fidelity, love, kindness, recu-
peration, long-suffering, patience, to the end, that men may at last
be rounded up out of their mistakes and imperfections into the glo-
rious light and liberty of the sons •£ God.

And now, if you do not understand anything else about this ser-
mon, I beg you to understand one thing — namely, as you go back
to your homes to-day, and as you go to your business to-morrow, he
will be most like God who knows how to exercise the most of benev-
olence with discretion. That is the practical application — more dis-
creet benevolence; more long-suffering kindness; more fruitful
gentleness ; more patience for others, and less patience with your-
self. You will be near to God, not by the frequency of the times
that you pray in your closet, but by the amount of love that your
heart is capable of generating, and by the amount of happiness which
shall spring from your conception of the fidelity and the majesty of
divine mercy.

te:e globf of jeuoyae. 329

prayer before the sermon.

We thank thee, our Father, since we cannot find our way to thee, that
thou art pleased to condescend unto us. Though we cannot understand
thee, nor compass thy being, we do feel thy presence, and know something
of thy power. And we rejoice to believe that we are beloved of thee ; and
that, though we are yet children afar off, we are under way toward that
perfect knowledge and that perfected being whereby we shall see God, and
know him even as we are known of him.

And now, as we grope in darkness, how much do we need the cheering
revelation of thy presence to us ! We need to feel thine hand, though we
may not be able to trace it nor grasp it It is a joy and a comfort to believe
that thine hand is our best shield ; that we are protected on every side; that
therein are the resources of might which are for the support of our weak-
ness; that there is vigilance ia protection, and fidelity in love. All that we
need as we move along the lines of our circumscribed being we find in thee.
We live and move and have our being in thee. And though we cannot
understand it ; though our thoughts soon reach the bound and barrier, and
all beyond is cold and darkness, we believe that justice and judgment are
the habitations of thy throne, and that when we see thee as thou art, not
only shall we be satisfied, but every power of our being will be stimulated,
and we shall be lifted up to praise and to glorify thy name, and to rejoice in
thee with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt grant some gleams of this knowledge to
us even here. Grant that there may be hours in which the transfiguration
shall take place again before our sight. Grant that we may have some dis-
cernment of the reality of the great spiritual realm where.that true life is of
which this is but the symbol. And we pray that we may hear the voice that
speaks to us, although it may be inaudible to our outward ear, and that we
may feel the influence that comes forth from thee. As to them that are
afar off the garden sends out invitation in all its sweetness and fragrance,
60 may there come wafted to us that are journeying off the shore of the
heavenly land those sweet odors which shall tell us of that which we can-
not see, that we may know that it is true, and that we may have firm con-
viction and joy of things that are invisible but real.

We pray for the forgiveness of our sins. Have compassion upon us, not
according to our desert, nor accoiding to our asking, nor according to our
reforming power. Take the measure of thy bounty and goodness from
thyself; and according to the multitude of thine own tender mercies have
compassion upon us, and forgive us our trangressions, and heal our back-
slidings, and draw us more and more with the cords of love to thyself, and
make us more and more susceptible of thine administration. May we not
dwell where force must needs reach us. May we rise more and more into
that higher realm where thou canst, by hope, and by love, and by all the
inspiration of faith, guide us. Yea, by the beck of thine own eye, guide us.
We beseech of thee, O Lord, that we may live as children in the presence of
their parents, where to do their will is joy.

We pray that thou wilt grant unto us this day thy special presence, and
administer to all according to their need, and according to thy greatness
and goodness. We pray that thou wilt help those who are, under much dis-
couragement, maintaining the battle of life against adverse circumstances,
against evil dispositions, and against trials multiform and long continued
We pray that they may endure to the end. And though often discomfited,
may they never be defeated. Though cast down, may they never be des-
troyed, nor think themselves destroyed. Whatever may be the trouble,
O let none call out as thou didst, My Ood! my QodI why heist thou forsaken

330 th:e globt of jehovae.

me f May every one yet feel that there is an all-helping, all-loving, all-
forgi-^ing, never- forgetting Heart.

We beseech of thee, O Lord ! that thou wilt grant that every one may
feel that God is his strength, and will never leave him nor forsake him.
And if there are any who are afar off, and are slowly and toilsomely ascend-
ing the steep way down which they have gone, amidst broken resolutions,
amidst discouragements, amidst shame and mortified pride, amidst all
environments and hindrances, may God be their strength and their exceed-
ing great reward.

We pray that thou wilt be near to those who are oppressed by adverse
circumstances; who are shut in on tho right hand and on the left. We pray
that thou wilt grant to them such rest fcnat they may bi> content in the
midst of thy providences. Whatever they are, may they not be discour-
aged from exertion. And yet, we pray that the rebound may not be per-
pertually jarring and dissatisfying them.

Oh! that men might learn to cast their care upon the Lord, who careth
lor them. Let us not be scared away from this trust by the consciousness of
our unworthiness. If only they might put their burdens on thee who are
worthy to do it, who oould do it ? Grant that ws- may have such faith in
God's largeness and goodness that though we know that we are unworthy
and sinful we may venture to put our care upon him, because he loves us
and cares for us. And in respect to our children and our friends who are
absent and scattered, whatever may be our anxiety and solicitude, grant
that we may be able to ease ourselves in thy presence, and to know that the
smile of God dissipates trou ble even as the coming sun scatters the dark-
ness of the night.

And we pray, O Lord ! that we may never be weary in well-doing. May
none that have girded themselves for thy service think it a vain thing that
they have served the Lord. May none that have sown seed and waited
long, yield to despondency, and withhold their hand. May none that have
looked with eager hope and expectation for the fruit of their labor, and
seen it not, be tempted to intermit, and go away, selOshly seeking after their
own comfort. May thy servants go forth laboring in thy cause, workers
together with God to the end of life, leaving with thee the issue. May they
be faithful, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, forasmuch as they know that their labor shall not be in vain.

And grant, we beseech of thee, that thy blessing may rest upon all those
that are in thy presence this morning, children of sorrow. Wilt thou pour
balm upon all wounded hearts.

May all those who reproach themselves with duties unfulfilled, and witlt-
kindnesses unrequited toward God and toward men, receive comfort. May
those who are conscious of wrongs done to dear ones that have gone from
them, and who are now beyond their reach, be consoled of thee. Be with
those who mourn from wounds that will not be healed. Be a very present
help in time of trouble to those who are in anguish of spirit by reason of
their own short-comings. May they know that in thy presence is great joy
and delight. Spread abroad thy wings over them ; and m thee may they
find that rest which they cannot find in themselves. Oh I that men would
turn away from these broken cisterns — their own hearts — and find rest in
God, the Refuge that never fails.

And we pray that thou wilt be near to those who in the midst of life's
duties are bearing its burdens. Fulfill to them thy promise. May they
come and learn of thee in meekness and humility that all burdens shall be
light, and that all yokes shall be easy.

We pray for those who are growing infirm, and upon whose heads rest
the snows of years. Will the Lord comfort them, and prepare them for that

TEE GLOB T OF JEEO YAH. 331

change which ia very near, and which, when it comes, shall be but passing
from glory to glory.

We pray for all those who worship with us to-day, strangers in a strange
place. May they still hear the familiar accents of the loving voice of God.
May they in this sanctuary f tel that they are in their Father's house, and at
home. And during this hour give them rest, and joy in believing. And we
pray that thou wilt remember all those who are worshiping everywhere
to-day, of every name. Wilt thou deliver from their bondage any that are
in error. And give more perfect light to those who know but little of the
truth. And grant, we pray thee, that wherever the name of Jesus shall be
preached to-day, it may be efficacious in the salvation of souls. May the
hearts of men be melted under the influence of the Gospel. Grant that
men may be sanctified by the truth. Grant that thy people may be more
and more strengthened in those ways which shall fit them to promote the
interests of thy cause and kingdom.

We pray that this nation may be purified. May our laws, and our civil
institutions, and our seminaries of learning, and all the organizations in
our land, be pervaded with the spirit of justice and purity and truth and
mercy.

And we pray that thou wilt fulfill the promises which thou hast made to
the nations of the earth. We pray that thou wilt exalt the valleys, and
bring down the high hills ; that thou wilt make the rough places smooth,
and the crooked places straight. Even so. Lord Jesus, come quickly. The
earth suffers and groans yet. War is abroad, and cruelty hath despotic
sway, and the nations sigh, and look everywhere for their deliverer. Art
not thou, O God of ages! yet the deliverer of mankind? Come forth, we
beseech of thee, and let light come with thee, that all ignorance and super-
stition may flee away, and that all men may know their birth-right, and
that they may rise up and find themselves so strong in God that no power
shall be able to oppress them.

And so may all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And may he reign King of kings and Lord
of lords.

And to thy name shall be the praise. Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, wilt thou bless the word spoken this morning. Wilt thou
grant that it may take hold of our heart, of our understanding, and of our
life. Thou art still the unwearied Governor. Thou art still administering
for the universal good. All pains and all penalties are but so many reme-
dies in thy hand. Even so, thou Physician, behold the world as sick, need-
ing both the knife and the draught. Nevertheless, cut short the day; and
grant that the bright millennial time may come, when former things shall
have passed away, when sorrow and sighing shall be done, and when the
new heaven and the new earth in which dwell righteousness shall have
come. And to thy name, Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be the praise for-
evermore. Amen,

XVII.

Soul-Building.

SOUL-BUILDING.

•' But let every man take beed how he buildeth thereupon. For other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesua Christ." -1 Cob,

in. la Ji.

I have read this passage as a part of the opening service. It is
highly figurative, and the figure is Grecian. The apostle was writing
to the Christianized Jews at Corinth — one of the most magnificent
cities of Greece — second only to Athens in its manifold exhibitions
of art. Both of them were conspicuous and preeminent for their
admirable structures, for their carved statues, and for their altars.
Whatever art could do had been done to beautify these cities, and
to express in the language of beauty their reverence for their gods.

But, at the very same time that so much was lavished upon
temples, very little was given to domestic structures. Nothino-^
probably, would more disappoint us than a visit to Athens in its
palmy days. To have gone there on one of those resplendent days
in Spring, when all the air was balm, when peace seemed declared
between the heaven and the earth, when the storm had gone and
concord reigned, standing afar off, seeing the Acropolis and its
treasures, and glinting in the distance the various temples, hearing
the shouts of the procession as it moved to and fro, and beholding
the pale smoke of the sacrifices as it ascended in the air, one would
have thought that he was drawing near to a heavenly city, so beau-
tiful would it seem. But let the skies lower, and the rains descend •
let his errands require that he should thread the city on foot, and
the vision of glory would soon disappear. The streets were without
sidewalks, without pavements, and without sewerage, except that
which nature provided. Offal, filth, mud when it was wet, and
choking dust when it was dry, squalor, huts seldom more than a
single story high, and built of wood, scarcely ever of stone, thatched
often, inconvenient, not ventilated, stenchful — these were the things
that he would have met with on every hand. Hovels the citizens
of Athens lived in. Only their gods lived in marble palaces. And

Pttn-dat Evening, July 2, 1871. Lesson : 1 Cob. HI. 1-17. Hymns (Plymouth
Ck)Uection) : Nos. 270, 007, LiG2.

336 SOUL-BUILDING,

so, all around about the city he would have found, in the midst of
the most magnificent architecture, structures the most worthless.

Not long before the apostle wrote this epistle, the great fire
which took place in Athens under the consulate, I think of Mum-
mius, had destroyed the residences and the other common buildings ;
and it is possible that the ajiostle had this fact in his mind when he
spoke thus in the context which I have read to you :

" If any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, hay, stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try
every man's work, of what sort it is."

Here is the foundation, Jesus Christ. See that you have, at least,
a solid foundation. And then take care how you build on this
foundation. If you build on it as multitudes build all about here —
some with mud and straw ; some with straw for thatching merely
and some with wood — you will take the consequences in the day of
trial. If on this foundation you jDut buildings of precious stones —
not gems, but porphyry, or precious marble — the consequences will
overtake you in the day of trial. If you build on this foundation,
you are right so far ; but it is necessary that you should build
a right superstructure as well as have a right foundation. It is nee-
cessary that you should build solidly. Then, when the conflagration
comes your house will stand. But if built of these inferior materials,
when the conflagration comes your foundation may not be burned
up, but your superstructure will be.

" Every man's work shall be made manifest.'^

It shall be brought to proof It shall be seen what it is made of.
" Because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's
work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built
thereupon [that is, upon the foundation], he shall receive a reward. If
any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall
be saved ; yet so as by fire."

That is to say, when a man has reared a structure that cannot
stand the flame, he seeing it coming, may rush out of his house and
into the street ; but the house will be burnt, though he may be
saved. So the apostle enjoins care and prudence upon those to
whom he writes, saying,

" Let every man take heed how he bulldeth thereupon. For other founda-
tion can no man lay than that ia laid, which is Jesus Christ."

What, then, is meant by Jesus Christ as a foundation ? A good
deal more than we shall be able to make plain, of course. It does
not mean literally that he is any man's foundation, any more than
otherwhere it means that he is eaten in the bread that is broken,
or drunken in the wine that is poured forth. Nor are we to sup-
pose that any special doctrine which has been wrought out by men's
thought is indispensable as a foundation to a Christian character and

SOUL-BUILDING. 337

to Christian hope. The truth as it is in Christ Jesus is indispens-
able ; but truth may assume many forms. As it passed through one
kind of understanding or another, it will take on different shapes, and
will be in different projoortions. And although a man may not
stand exactly on the orthodox formula, or in the orthodox church of
one or another sect, doctrinally considered, of Jesus Christ, he still
may be building on Christ as a foundation. For I apprehend that
Christ's name is, at one and the same time, not only the name of a
historic personage, who had his individual peculiarities, but a name
that groups around about it whatever there is that is excellent in
morals, in piety and in spirituality, and whatever is possible in
humanity. We are instructed that these elements exist in a higher
form in him than in any other ; and we are to build on Jesus Christ,
regarded as the sum and perfection of all admirable qualities : not
upon any particular scheme nor upon any particular method which
theology has been fond of attempting to interpret, but upon a
distinct character, or the conception of a distinct character such as
was set forth in Jesus Christ. i

What, then, are we to lay down for a foimdation ? Is it to be
the Lord Jesus Christ as very God ? I believe that to be true.
And yet I can conceive that one may build on Christ in such a way
as to be saved, without having the same clarity of view and the
same firmness of vision that I have on that subject. That is to say,
the question of how much, whether of quality or of quantity, is requir-
ed to reach the measure of divinity, neither you nor I can settle ; and
merely saying that Christ is God goes but a very little way. When
you analyze it and look at it closely, you come into a region that
is nebulous. If Christ is to you so much divine that he becomes to
you an object of imitation, of absolute trust, of faith, and of all the
affection that your heart is susceptible of feeling; if he is in such a
sense your model and your leader that you are willing to commit to
him all that you have to commit to any one, you cannot rise higher
than that. And while you may not theologically and technically
accept the Lord Jesus Christ, emotively and practically you do
accept him so far as you could if you crowned him with the name
of the Divine. It is with the heart that a man believes unto salva-
tion.

Jesus Christ is presented to us, I apprehend, as the foundation on
which we are to build effectually, not merely because he descended
from above and represented, as far as it could be done through the
economy of the flesh and the world, certain definite ideas of charac-
ter, and of the relations of men to God, and of the directions in
which duty lies, and of the pattern of true living, but because he

338 SOUL-BUILDING.

was the perfect epitome and embodiment of that which man should
aspire to be in order that he may dwell with God. He is the
foundation on which we are to build, because he represents human
nature on every side. He was the most perfect model of what man
should be. He was the best example, I suppose, that was ever
known in regard to habits of labor and of rest, in regard to virtuous
health and temperance in all things, and in regard to that elasticity and
joyousness which come from normal and regulated activity. I doubt
not that Jesus presented himself to those around about him as a
noble specimen, physically and socially, of what true manhood should
be. In so far as we can understand the character and the relations
of Christ, no one can be conceived of as superior to him, or as sur-
passing him in' all his associations with men. He was the highest
exemplification conceivable in all those relations which a noble na-
ture can sustain to his fellows. The imagination cannot surpass in
its conceptions that which was in him. Nor, indeed, can any one
mind compass the whole of it. The effect of studying the life of
Christ is, that after you have devoted weeks and weeks and weeks
to one pliase of his character, and you are called to write it out,
when it is finished, the impression on your mind is that you are
just ready to begin on that point ; and you throw away your
manuscript, and try again. And you gather from the Gospels all
the materials that you can, and turn them in every way to make a
more massive and a more perfect representation ; and at last it
flashes upon your mind that you are attempting to exhaust that
which in its nature is inexhaustible and infinite.

Who can take an opal and paint it ? It is only so much as you
can at one point see that you can paint. You cannot paint the flash,
nor the luster, nor the varying colors. And you can only conceive
of actual life. You cannot take in such a nature as Christ's, with
all its relations to heaven above and to the earth beneath, and all its
social and esthetic qualities, and all its divine elements, not simply
because they elude your grasp, running out beyond analysis and re-
search, but because they are so combined, so changeable, so con-
stantly coming and going, with various phases and in various ways,
that no man can give the whole of it. There is always more ; and
Avhcn that is expressed there is still more. There is no end to it.

Whatever, then, one would seek for in morality, or in virtue, or
in affection, or in refinements of art, or in spirituality, or in devo-
tion, or in submission to God, or in the most noble passions, or in
endurance to the end, or in the grandeur ot faith, or in inspiration,
you shall find in Jesus Christ. It is not enough to adopt him as a
pattern to follow, or to make him a foundation on which to build,

SOUL-BUILDING. 339

simply in the lower forms of morality. We are to take the whole
character so far as it is possible for us to comprehend it. That is the
model on which we are to proceed. It is the foundation on which
we are to build. But that does not exhaust the duty which is im-
posed upon us. Although building on this foundation will go far
and do much, to my mind the distinctive peculiarity of buildino- on
Christ is to take a mind just like God's and put it upon God's mind
as its foundation.

"Mystic," you will say. Yes, mystic, undoubtedly. All attempts
to interpret into philosophical language that which in its very na-
ture is spiritual, effluent, and therefore inexpressible, involve an
element of mysticism. And so the attempt to build yourself con-
sciously on an invisible but living God, so that your understanding
shall be underlaid by conscience, the moral sense, all the elements
of spiritual life, and the realization of the divine presence — the at-
tempt to build on Christ personally in this way, and to be fitted to
him on every side of your nature, is the highest conception, it seems
to me, of character-building. In that way one certainly has Christ
for a foundation, just as I have explained. When all the qualities
of the Lord Jesus Christ are attained, and assumed to be models, in
the very form in which he developed them, and you attempt to build
on his conceived character as your foundation, you do well ; but
certainly, in a much higher sense, there is revealed to you the living
Saviour as Immanuel — God with us. You may attain to a state in
which Christ shall be with you consciously, so that day by day you
shall be sensible of an absolute and living presence, and that which
aforetime you looked at speculatively, you shall now look at as
present, as living in you, thus placing your life upon his, so that in
a more transcendent sense than in any other Jesus Christ shall be
your foundation.

Now says the Apostle, " Let every man take heed, though he
have this foundation, how he builds on it." There be many who
say, " We, too, build on the Lord Jesus Christ. We say that as
he has represented certain great historical elements, and as he has
represented certain universal human elements, we build on those el-
ements. You call them Christ. We call them aestheticism, or phil-
osophy, or science, or what not. These amount to the same thing
which you mean by the name Christ. A man," they go on to say,
"may be built on a right foundation, even though he may not be built
on Christ, technically so called, by building on those things which
you say, when concentrated, went to form the historical, or supposed
historical, Christ." But the Apostle says, "Let every man take
heed fww he builds on this foundation." I apprehend that a man may

340 SOUL-BUILDING.

Lold extreme views, leading almost to the verge of skepticism, and
yet have something of Christ Jesus. A man may be saved so as by
fire. But take care how you build on this glorious foundation — this
living Christ, or Christ as he has been historically . developed and
philosophically conceived. Be careful that you do not waste that
which you have of Christ by speculation. If you take the element
of divinity away from him ; if you diminish him ; if you enfeeble his
glory and grandeur ; if you make him other than the Saviour of the
world ; if you substitute philosophy for the reality of personal ex-
perience ; if instead of faith and love and hope you rest upon the
lower forms of morality — good conduct and the like — then take heed
how you build. You may be, as you suppose, building on the founda-
tion of the Lord Jesus Christ ; but you are building with materi-
als that will not stand the test. Men are building on the foundation
of the Lord Jesus Christ wood, hay and stubble ; they are building
wooden structures, structures thatched with straw, or it may be
structures of straw mixed with plaster, adobe as it were, and struct-
ures of fanciful styles ; they are building structures with imperfect
philosophies, and with morality not altogether unvulgar, yet having
a certain element of truth at the bottom of it ; but these are not suf-
ficient. There must be enough of the divine element for a man to
hold on to in the day of trial.

The time is coming when everything which a man builds on the
foundation of Jesus Christ will be brought to a test. Or, as the fig-
ure has it, a conflagration may come down on the city, and then the
temples which are built of stones, solidly, on good foundationSj
will endure. Let flames dash against them — they stand. And when
all the city lies in smouldering ashes, all that was grand and beau-
tiful about them before stands up the more magnificent by contrast.
Atid so, he that has built a fair and noble life, full of beneficence,
full of morality, upon the Lord Jesus Christ, has a structure on a
good foundation, which, in the midst of bankruptcies, and persecu-
tions, and sickness, and death itself, is untouched and untarnished ;
and it rises up fair, magnificent, and abides forever.

On the other hand, they who have built on the Lord Jesus Christ
with lower and more transient materials, when brought to sickness,
and under great temptations, and into severe trials, find that which
they have built unable to endure. And it is swept away by the whirl-
wind, or burned up by fire.

Our Master used the same figure when he said,

" Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,
ehall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand."

They who are familiar with the country to which reference is here

so UL-B UlLBINQ. 34 1

made, tell us that in camping down there, if you pitch your tent in
what seems to be a fair valley, but what is really a wide ravine sud-
denly, in the night, the rains descending, the waters gather in this
ravine, and come rushing upon you in floods before you are awai'e of
their approach, your tent and all your goods are swept away, and
all that you can do is to escape with your life ; but that if you en-
camp on the rocks by the side of the ravine, when the rains come
they do you no harm, when the floods come you are not disturbed
by them, because they are far down below you.

They who have good foundations, and build solidly on them, en-
dure ; but they who have good foundations and build poorly upon
them are destroyed.

Now, how much error may a man have, and be saved ? A great
deal of speculative error. I believe that a man may go wrong a
great way in his intellectual views of the Saviour, I believe that he
may err much in reasoning upon Christ, I believe that he may fall into
innumerable mistakes in fashioning a system of religioiis truth, and
yet be saved. That is to say, the heart-element may save him. If one
is built upon the Lord Jesus Christ in the love of truth, pure and
unfeigned, in meekness, in sincerity, in genuine disinterestedness,
in real gentleness, and he seeks by all the force that is in him to do
good to others around about him, and not to promote his own good ;
if he is living in his measure the same life of purity and beauty and
love and devotedness that Christ did in his glorious career on earth
then, although his intellect has gone wrong about doctrine, and his
reason has gone wrong, he is built on foundations that will survive
the day of trial. But, on the other hand, a man may build correctly
at every step so far as the intellect is concerned ; and yet, if he has
not built by the heart on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he will not stand in the day of triah

There is great room for intellectual mistakes if the heart keeps
right ; but if the heart does not keep right, all the intellectual ac-
curacy in the world will not save any man.

It behooves us, then, by all means to build on the Saviour as a
foundation. There is no name given under heaven whereby men
can be saved but his. I do not mean by this that you will be held
to a rigorous and exact view of all that pertains to his nature and
character ; but tell me of another name that carries in it so much
that belongs to the necessity of human nature as Christ's. Tell me
of another name of antiquity whose unfolding was such that it car-
ried salvation to men, so that it was safe to take it and to trust it.
Tell me of another name that has had such a vital transforming in-
fluence upon men. Here is a name that has stood up in history, and

34 2 SO VL-B UILBING.

has been perpetuated to our time, and touches the soul to the -very
quick. There is no part of a regenerated man's nature that does not
feel the influence which there is in the Lord Jesus. There is no
other historic name that has shown and is showing such a power.
There is no name given under heaven that is to be compared with
this. All other names are dwarfed and feeble and contemptible by
the side of this tower of strength, this magnificent refuge — the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is on this that I invite you to
build.

You that are beginning life are laying the foundations of your
character. You are selecting the materials of which it is to be
built. You are in some way or other marking it out. You may not
be aware of it. The greatest part of your most eflfectual life is un-
conscious. Not the things which men mean to do are the most
efiicient. The things which they do not know that they are doing
are oftentimes the most efficient in shaping their dispositions and
lives. You are marking out a plan of lile. You never sit down to
mark out one ; nevertheless it is traced for you. How much of it is
animal, how much of it is selfish, how much of it is full of pas-
sion and pride, how much of it is sordid and avaricious, how
much of it is given to beneficence, how much of it is pure and spirit-
ual, I do not know, and you do not know. But you are building
foundations either for Christ or for the world. And beware how
you build. Beware what foundation you are laying on which to
build the whole superstructure of your life. One builds on health ;
on the vigor of his body ; on his physical power ; on the skill of his
hands. It is on these that he bases his expectation of success in life.
Another builds on his personal accomplishments ; another on his
large equipments ; another on his taste ; another on his genius ;
another on graceful and witching ways. One builds on one thing
and another on another. But after all, the true foundation of life
is dispositional. And such a foundation being laid in you, have
you estimated what you have done or are doing upon it ? What
sort of a character do you propose to build on that foundation ?
Are you attempting to build such an ideal character as that which
is represented by the Lord Jesus Christ ? Or, have you never
thought of it ? Have you never had a conception of what you
would build, one way or the other ? Have you taken life as it came,
and molded it according to the pattern which has been furnished by
the life of Christ ? or, have you allowed yourself to be swept
down the stream of time hap-hazard ? Has there been any conscious
unfolding of yourself? Have you attempted to probe and find ex-
actly the foundation on which you are standing ? Do you know

BOUL-BUILBWQ, 343

what that silent work is which is going on in you ? O builder ! do
you ever think of all the structures that are going up in these great
cities ? There are none that ai-e building so fast and with so many
hands as that structure of which you are the subject.

We read in fairy tales of how great chasms have been bridged
over in a night by benevolent spii-its, dwarfs, ouphes, and what not;
how they hustled together vast rocks, and piled one upon another,
and built piers, and spanned them with arches, so that the brave
knight could pass over them, and reach the castle, and get his lady-
love. We read in fairy talcs of how cities have been built in a single
night; and we imagine to ourselves how, while we sleep, ten million
constructing fingers might carry up the walls, and sui-mount them
with golden domes, and how whole cities might stand in the mornino-
where the night before there was only a wilderness. But there is
something more strange than that would be, actually going on in you.
There is not a thought that is not striking a blow ; there is not an
impulse that is not doing mason-work ; there is not a passion thrust
this way or that way that is not a workman's thrust. The imao-ina-
tion in all directions is building. You think that you are throwino-
out the net for game ; you think that you are laying plans for accom-
plishment; but back of all the conscious work that is goino- on in
you, back of your visible attainments, there is another work goino- on.
There are as many master-workmen in you as there are separate fac-
ulties ; and there are as many blows being struck as there are sepa-
rate acts of emotion or of volition. And this work is going on per-
petually. Every single day these myriad forces are building,
building, building. Here is a great structure going up point by
point, story by story, although you are not conscious of it. It is a
building of character. It is a building that is to stand. And
the word of inspiration warns you to take heed how you build it ;
to see to it that you have a foundation that shall endure ; to make
sure that you are building on it, not for the hour in Avhich you live,
but for that hour of revelation, that hour of testing, when that which
hath been done shall be brought out, and you shall be seen just as
you are. Men are but partially known in this life. You do not
know what a man is as long as he is prosperous. You do not know
what he is as long as he is untempted. You do not know what he is
until he is brought into emergencies. But when the day of trial
comes, a man's true character is disclosed. Thousands of men pre-
sent a fair exterior as long as it is fair weather ; but when the storm
comes you know the difference between a man of capacity and a
man devoid of capacity.

344 SOUL BUILDING.

So men are building continually. And they know not the day
nor the hour when ti'ials will test them. Take heed, therefore, how
you build. Have you that which when men's praises cease will
satisfy you ? Are you so building that you can stand firm when
wealth is taken away ^ Standing on the right foundation, are you
building pigmy dwellings with squalid apartments, or are you build-
ing strong and high, after the pattern of Christ's character, with
commodious apartments, and as many of them as there are faculties ?
Are all the walls of this structure being carried up harmoniously ?
And are you furnishing these apartments amply and wisely ? Are
you filling your dwelling with the things which are for time,
or with the things which are for eternity ? Are you gathering into
the house of the soul those companions that befit it ? Are its
guests noble and royal ? Are you building your soul-house so that
it is sound from bottom to top, and from top to bottom ? Are you
building it so that it shall endure in sickness, in adversity, yea, in
death itself ? Are you building it so that it shall stand when you
pass through the flood and through the fire ?

You think that one hour buries another ; but it is not so. You
think that you have parted forever from the things which have
passed by you. No, you have not. There is much in your life that
you think has gone which you never shall part from. It has stepped
behind you ; and there it waits. That which you have done is
with you to-day ; and that which you are doing will be with you
to-morrow. When the mason carries up the wall, the course of
brick which he laid yesterday is the foundation on which he is lay-
ing another course to-day. And all that you do to-day on the struct-
ure which you are building will remain as a basis for that which
you do to-morrow. The work proceeds without intermission ; and
all that has been done is the under-structure for that which is to be
done.

Young man and maiden, take heed how you build. That
which you are doing, the work which you are performing, you do
not leave behind you because you forget it. It passes away from
you a])parently, but it does not pass away from you in reality.
Every stroke, every single element, abides. And there is nothing
that grows so fast as character. There is nothing that is so endur-
ing as character. There is nothing that men think so little of as char-
acter, although there is nothing that so belongs to their immortality,
and that is so incomparable in importance, as character.

Now, if you are building upon Christ, if you are placing upon
the broad foundation of Christ's character the right superstructure.

SOUL-BUILDING. 345

if you are in vital and sympathetic union with Christ, as your Head,
your Brother, your Savio\xr, your God, and your final Judge, if
you are day by day laying every thought, every purpose, every
emotion, every element of life, upon Jesus Christ, then, no matter
what the contingencies may be, no matter what the events of the
future may be, you are safe, and that which you have built will en-
dure.

Go on, oh man, yonder ! Add house to house : you are no bigger
for your houses. Go on, buy up corner lots, and lot after lot : you
are no bigger for having so many lots in your name. Go on; get
stocks and bonds and mortgages, buy roads, buy mountains of
gold and mines of iron, fill the whole continent with the memorials
of your property : you are but a pigmy, after all. Your money
swells, and you shrink. You are working and working ; but ah !
the you, the personnel^ the man — what is he? Not what his prop-
erty is, and not what his reputation is, but just what his character
is. And his character is just what the moral elements in him make
it. His physical elements are huge as the trunk of a tree : but hia
moral elements are like one lingering green leaf or two on an old
dying tree which you see in the moss-gi'own orchard. By and by
he will die as to the flesh : and then whose will be these houses .
then whose will be these mortgages and bonds and lots ? They are
no part of him. That which makes him a figure in history and a
power in the street, is simply what he has, and not what he is. It
is that which is to him what a swallow's nest under the eaves is to
a barn. + It is that which is merely in juxtaposition to him. And so,
no matter how much property he buys, when that is gone, what is
left is just so much as there is of manhood in him. He was good
at figures, he ciphered well ; but how was he for benevolence, for
spirituality, for faith, for reverence, for true manliness, for that
which builds up the soul ? He was a dwarf in these things. He
was a giant only in his legs. He was a pigmy in his head. The man
in him was minimum, and the animal was maximum.

When a prosperous man comes to be tried at death, how much
of his life is swept away ! That which he has thought of night and
day, that which he has labored for all his life long, that which has
filled him with envies and jealousies and angers and strifes, that
which he has given his soul to buy, stops in the sick room or at the
grave. Only his soul goes fortli to meet its Judge. Envy him not.
Imitate him not.

Oh builders of the soul ! remember that the soul's best friend is
Jesus Christ. Seek him. Drink in his spirit. Live by faith of him,
the beneficent, and the only truly divine One that we can comprehend

346 SOUL-BUILDING.

with our human understandings — God manifest in the flesh — the very
conception and great ideal of all that is pure and transcendent, and
noble and divine. Make him your Friend, Build upon him with
holy thoughts and holy purposes. And then wait patiently to the
end. And the hour of death shall harm nothing, shall take nothing
from you, that is worth keeping, but shall translate you into that
land where no harm shall come, and where that which was in bud
shall break forth into blossom, and where that which was in bloom
shall become fruit to the honor and glory of God.

I part with you for some months; and my last "word is, Jesus
Christ, the Author and Finisher of your faith ; Jesus Christ,
God revealed to forgive and to save ; Jesus Christ, your Lover and
your Friend; Jesus Christ, your Guide and your Judge; Jesus
Christ, your eternal Meward.

L SOUL-BUILDING, 347

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMOK

Our heavenly Father, we thank thee for the great mercies with which thou
hast blest us all the days of our liyes. We thank thee that we have not been
left to seek our good in the flesh, nor only in this world. We thank thee that
we have been enlightened by the truth from above, and have been taught of
that higher and better life, and of that nobler character, by which we shall
be set free from the entanglements of the flesh, and which shall make us aa
the spirits of God, although we have not seen them. We rejoice that thou
hast taught us of thyself ; that we have felt thy power; that we have had
communion with thee ; that we know that thou art, and that thou art a
hearer of prayer. We thank thee for the manifestations which thou hast
made to us, and that thou hast spoken to the soul, so that we have recognized
our Father; so that our hearts have sprung forth to greet thee; so that we
know that we are children of God.

And now, O Lord, we beseech of thee that thou wilt not be discouraged
with us, though thy work is slow, and lingers long unaccomplished. Thou art
the Author of our faith, and thou must be the Finisher thereof. By the grace
of God only can we attain to any goodness. And we beseech of thee that
thou wilt continue, though we be backward, and, though we be fractious and
disobedient, to inspire us with noble thoughts, and to work in us to will and
to do of thy good pleasure.

We pray, O Lord our God, that thou wilt grant that the truth may not be
as a dead letter in the midst of this congregation. May it, rather, be as a liv-
ing force among them. We pray for thy people, that they may not have a
name only that lives. May they not be dead as Christians. May their lives
flame forth so that their light shall shine before men. And may God be glori-
fied in the fruit which they bring forth.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that all the young in our midst
may take heed wisely in the beginning of their days ; and that they may go
on from strength to strength building on integrity and piety.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt teach men how to do good to others,
and not to themselves alone. May those that are instructed of God repeat in
love to others the wisdom which is imparted to them.

And bless those that teach. Bless those that go forth to minister to the
poor and the needy. Bless those everywhere who are bearing thy Word
among their fellows, that it may be as salt to them.

We pray for the reformation of morals among our people. We pray that
thou wilt hold back the tides of intemperance in om- midst. We pray that
vice and corruption may cease throughout the community, and that men
may fear God and love one another. We pray that industry may prevail,
and that everywhere men may be patient with others and severe with
themselves.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt spread abroad the tidings of salvation
through Jesus Christ into the dark places of this land, and over the whole
earth. Make haste to send the power of the Gospel to every part of the globe.
Lord Jesus, we beseech of thee that thou wilt have compassion upon the
nations of the world. May those that are suffering the afflictions of war be
speedily healed. May those that are in the midst of revolution, and are
turned up thereby, and are in confusion, be as the furrow which the plow
makes before the seed is cast in from which springs the rich harvest. And
we beseech of thee that nations may learn war no more; and that they may
need it no more as a chastisement for their sins. May all men live together
in peace, and rejoice together in the knowledge of the salvation which is in
Jesus Christ.

348 SOUL-BUILDING.

And now, Lord, we commit ourselves to thy fatherly care, praying that
thou wilt do for us, not what we ask, nor according to the measure of our
wisdom, but according to the amplitude of thy goodness, and according to
the measure of thy wisdom. Give, or withhold. Lay upon us, or take away
from us. Do as seemeth best in thy sight. But may we evermore bear about
with us the consciousness that it is the Lord who is dealing with us. And
grant that we may feel that all things shall work together, under thine admin-
istration, for the best.

And when we shall have passed through our life here ; when we shall have
finished the hours, not many of which can remain, grant that then we may
be borne above death, through it, and victorious over it, into the land of the
blessed. And there, we will praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thou wilt bless the word imperfectly spoken.
Grant, we pray thee, that by thy Spirit it may be profitable to those who
have heard it. We pray for the young, that they may look up to thee. Be
thou their God as thou hast been their fathers' God. Teach them, we pray thee,
to give their hearts to thee early. May they have no ignoble conception of a
religious life. May they understand the largeness of spirit and the liberty of
soul that come only by Jesus Christ. May they take him for their pattern.
May they build upon him. Grant that they may build worthily, and of such
materials as shall stand the trials and tribulations of this life, and the tests of
death, and the searching tests of the life that is to come. Let light, and lh3
glory of God, shine upon every one.

We pray that thou wilt help all those that would come back from dark-
ness and from wandering; all those that are maimed by vices and sins; and
all those that look wistfully at the point at which they parted from purity,
and would begin again. Lord Jesus, we pray that thou wilt renew them.
Comfort and encourage them. Draw them back to the Shepherd and Bishop
of their souls. Go out to the lost; find them ; and bring them back to thyself.

Keep this people. Keep all their households. Grant that death may not
come near them ; and if that which men call death draws near to any one of
them, may it prove to be life— life eternal. And prepare all in the things
which are lawful.

Grant that we may all of us still be united in the one common yearning
and desire for godliness and for heaven. And so, by and by, may we all
clasp inseparable hands in that blessed land where parting shall be known
no more, and where all imperfections shall be dropped, and where we shall
see each other just as we are, and rejoice in that which we shall see of love
and purity and beauty.

And to thy name', O Father, to, thy name blessed Saviour, to thy name
sanctifying, comfortmg Spuit, we will give the praise of our salvation forever
and ever. Amen.

xvin.
Eeligious Fervor.

Smile upon us, our Father. Grant unto us the sensible presence of thy
Spirit, that we may find all of our better nature aroused out of sorrow, and
doubt, and care, and fear, and suffering, and that there may go forth joy
and peace in believing. We pray that the night may depart with all its
images of terror and watchfulness, and that the morning may come, and
that everything in us may shine, glittering in the light of the rising sun.
Rejoice us in thy presence ; and may we hear thee calling us by those names
of love and confidence which shall assure our souls that we are sons of God.
We pray for thy blessing upon the services of the sanctuary. May we re-
joice before each other as well as before God. May it be a day of remem-
brance in our midst. Bless our songs of praise, our prayers, our meditations,
our search after truth, bless everything which we attempt to do, to thine
honor, and to our profit; for Christ's sake. Amen.

18.

EELIGIOUS FEEVOE.

•'Not slothful in business [1. e. not slothful in zeal, in earnestness, refer-
ring not so much to secular "business"]; fervent in Spirit; serving tlie
Lord."— Rom. XII., IL

The aim of the New Testament is to inspire and to create a man-
hood of a nobler sort than that which falls out in the way of na-
ture— nobler than any known before, in this respect : that it em-
braces the preparation for two worlds ; that it develops spiritual
elements unknown to the heroism of the past. It is a manhood
which, while it transcends all others, is designed to be accessible to
all. It is not a manhood which requires genius, but is one to which
the poor, the ignorant, all, may alike attain — although in various
degrees.

In this manhood, the soul is based upon God. There is to be
fullness of parts, there is to be completeness, there is to be the right
foundation, the right superstructure, the right materials ; and they
are to be of the right quality ; and they are to be in a condition of
the highest activity. To this point flow together all the testimonies
of Scripture. Everywhere* power, fervency — in other words, fullness
or efliciency of life — is to be made a part of the Christian character,
an aim for the attainment of which men are to strive.'

It is not enough that men should be free from every evil ; that
they should not sin: they should clothe themselves with posi-
tive goodness. It is not enough that men should avoid excess.
They must seek to attain high states, and to attain them in blessed
equilibrium. Languid goodness is not enough. We must be good ;
but our goodness must be a goodness that sparkles — that is full of
both light and heat.

■ The term ferve?it, in the original, means huryiing^ and has
its inner meaning as a derivative from the Latin ; but in its Greek
original it signifies rather the act of heat in boiling. Substantially
it there means the same thing that we mean by it, when we speak
of that which has been raised to such a degree of light and heat

BuTfDAY MoRNTNO, July 2, 1871 Lesson : Eom. XII. Hyuns (Plymouth Col-
lection) : No8. 40, 247.

352 BELIGIO US FEB VOB.

that it radiates l)otli of them — sends them out from itself. And this
idea runs through the Scrij^ture. We are children of light. We are
cleansed hy light. When the forerunner of the Saviour came, it was
declared, " He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."
And the Saviour himself says, " 1 am come to send fire on the earth ;
and what will I, if it be already kindled ?" And men, in conse-
quence, are called to be fervent — that is, like fire — that is, really
burning, in an active state of combustion. As all fire that is burn-
ing sends out light, so they are to let their light shine. They are
to be children of light.

Heat and light are not simply physical qualities. They have
been so transformed in our imagination that now they belong to
moral and intellectual qualities. Therefore, not simply are we to be
avoiders of that which is wrong, not simply are we to be practicers
of that which is right, but our life is to be so cast, there is to be
such an elevation and intensity in our experience, that we shall be
fervid; that we shall glow with light and glow with heat. That is
unquestionably the Scriptural idea of Christian character. Not
perfect, not prophetic character ; not that of men set apart for
special ofiices and great occasions; but a character which is at-
tainable by all — that is the inherent idea of life. And one of the
evidences of the divinity of the sacred writings is, that such concep-
tions as these, after long experience and observation and insight,
have come to be a part of the regimen of Christian life.

Our mental faculties may exist in a state of passivity ; or, just a
Uttle above that, in a state of receptivity. They may be in a con-
dition of rest, or partial rest. And then they are sheathed, as it
were. But they may be ai-oused by the presentation of objects or
motives of various kinds to what is called a condition of attention —
a condition in which they stand attent, ready to act or to be
acted upon. Higher than that, come what may be called the early
stages of excitement^ in which our faculties begin to work, and work
outwardly ; in which they begin to glow. Then, higher than this,
is a condition in which our faculties reach an intense action ; and
then they begin to be luminous. They produce a sensation of light,
and certainly a sensation of heat. They are then in their highest
condition. Every man knows this who has been accustomed to j^er-
form the duties of life in any routine order. When he first ad-
dresses himself to his work, how slow, how hard, how heavy it is.
As he goes on, he begins to arouse, and things become more easy,
more facile, more natural to him. And, as his enthusiasm grows, the
clouds seem to clear away from about his head, and his eyes see
better, clearer, sharper, more distinctly. His hands are more dex-

BELIGIO US FEB YOB, 353

terous when he is in a fit of enthusiasm. This is called a state of in-
spiration. In other words, when a man passes on to the higher
forms of excitement to which our faculties are subject, then he is
conscious that he is able to do more in an hour than at other times
he is able to do in days or in weeks, and to do it better. The lower
down excitement is, the more clumsy are the results of mental activ-
ity ; but the higher up it is, the finer is the quality of the things
accomplished, the more complex they are, and they are more cer-
tain as well as briefer.

We can see why, in this higher form of mental activity, light and
fire are chosen as symbols. Are there not persons in my presence
who have risen to an excitement in which they seemed to see
sparks, as it were, emitted from their own eyes ? High excitement
produces a sense of objective light, though it is subjective. We
ourselves say of ourselves that we kindle^ that we glow, that we
have a conscience and experience of being w^armed. Our hearts
burn within us. And this is not simply borrowed language. It
is a language which is suggested by our actual sensation of these
higher moods of activity. No man really lives except when he is in
these higher moods ; that is, he does not compass the real manhood
that is in him, he is not conscious of that which is his personal iden-
tity, until he rises from the lower forms of passivity, or of excited
attention, or of working excitement, into the real higher forms of
experience — I might almost say inspirational moods.

This state of high excitement or fervor in a faculty is full of
strength. We work when we are indolent with the thumb and fin-
ger ; but when a man is thoroughly aroused it is the whole hand,
and all the power of the arm behind it, and all the power of the
body behind that, that works. A man's strength is doubled and
quadrupled by simply bringing all the energies of the body to bear
upon his work. And as it is in the hand, so it is in the mind. There
we work slowly and imperfectly when we work with single facul-
ties ; but when all the faculties that are neighbors to each other co-
operate, we work with more intensity and efficiency. It is only
when a m?,n brings directly or indirectly all the forces of his mind
to his work that he has great strength and power. The higher,
fervent forms of experience tend to wake up all the faculties. One
or more of the faculties of the mind cannot become active without
rousing up all the others. If some of them work in earnest, all the
others have got to get up and work too.

T^hese higher forms, these intensities of mental life, are favor-
able to the forming of right conclusions. Men's judgments are

354 BELIGIO US FEB YOB.

quicker and more accurate when their mind is active in its upper
faculties. Many a man fii.ds that the first judgments that he forms
after waking in the morning, are his best judgments. The first ju<-g-
ment is not always the best one if it be inspired by the basilar
faculties ; but if our moral sentiments are awake and active, our first,
judgments are the best. It is not always so when you go lower
down. If a man's pride, or selfishness, or temper, or lust inspire
bim, his first judgments may be the best for the purposes of these
lower passions, but not for any larger scope of reason or right.
Then what are called sober second thoughts may be better. But
when the higher moral faculties are aroused and active, a man's first
judgments are surely the best. They are the most generous, the
most pure, the most magnanimous ; and the effect on them of sober
second thoughts is to whittle them down, and fit them to our sordid
circumstances in life, because they are too kind and too benevolent
for such circumstances. Therefore, where the moral elements are
engaged, take the first judgments ; but where it is the passional ele-
ments, take the second ones. In the latter case they always need to
be corrected.

There are various kinds of experiences of truth — physical, intel-
lectual, emotional, sentimental, esthetic, and moral, and there are
experiences of truth which are impossible to any lowei stage of ex-
citement. They are never known, and never can be known, except
by a mind that is aroused to its intensest action. When a man's
mind is so aroused, it touches them. Then they are disclosed to it.
There are experiences in a fine nature which occupy but a few mo-
ments, but which stand out in the memory as if they had extended
through the best part of a whole life. As there are some plants
that require the whole summer to blossom in, and some that blos-
som in one or two weeks' time ; so there are some experiences that
require a great while in which to blossom, and there are single hours
and single moments that are worth more to us than all the rest of
our life put together.

Besides, it is only in these high conditions of the mind that the
noblest flowers break forth into bloom, and that the richest fruits
grow. This is peculiarly characteristic of the higher forms of spirit-
ual truth. What are called moral intuitio7is cannot come except in
these most rapturous moods,

" Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see God."

This is true in two ways. It is true that we cannot see any
more of God than we carry a specimen of, or have experienced, in
ourselves. It is also true that the purity of heart spoken of here is
that which results from the most exalted condition of mind under

EELIGIO US FEB VOE. 355

excitement, and that when we are in that condition wt do see what
we could not see at other times. Then we have an intuition of the
divine presence and of the royalty of the nature of God. ^

By this enthusiasm, in an eminent degree, men propagate them-
selves upon others in matters of taste, of affection, of religion, and
of things in general.

Iron cannot be welded at a low temperature. There must be
heat, and then you can weld iron to iron. And so you cannot
weld natures to each other when they are at a low temperature.
Mind cannot take hold of mind, nor faculty hold of faculty, when
they are not in a glow ; but when they are, they can. When your
mind is aroused with enthusiasm, then it is influential upon my
mind. And it is scarcely any more a matter of my will whether I
shall feel or not. I may not follow your purposes ; but I cannot
but sympathize. If your feelings are strong, I cannot help sym-
pathizing with you, though I cannot go to the ends that you do.
There is no other time when men have such power over their fellow-
men as when they are in these higher moods. They are the moods
in which one mind dominates another. Love and faith at white
heat are irresistible. One reason why the apostles had such power
wherever they went, was that, having no fastidious taste or thought
about the form or proportion of anything, they had this lunging
power, and they were hot all over, all the time ; and everywhere
men caught fire at their sacred touch.

We see this exemplified in society. Hundreds and hundreds
of men, who are rich in learning, ponderous in mental equipment,
ample in philosophical power, admirable in proportion, who are at a
low degree of temperature, and who labor all their life, achieve but
little. And you shall see right by the side of them men who have
no comparison with them in native power — certainly not in culture
— but who have simplicity, straightforwardness, and above all in-
tensity/, and who are eminent for their success in accomplishing re-
sults. It comes from the fervidness of their spirit. They know in
whom they have believed, and in what they have believed ; and
with one or two simple truths, and with light and fire in the soul,
they have gone forward and achieved more, a hundred times, than
men who were better equipped.

Out of this fact, which is patent to any one who is observant,
much false reasoning has grown. Men say, "What is the use of
learning ? There is a man who is as learned as an encyclopedia,
but who has spent all his life for nothing." It was not his learning
that prevented his doing anything, but the fact that his learning
was not hot. Again they say, " What is the use of learning ? Here

356 BJELIGIOUS FEEVOB,

is a poor, ignorant person — so ignorant that he cannot speak his
mother-tongue correctly ; and he has made his life count at every
turn." It was not his ignorance that led to his success. He took
his nature, and put it in God's furnace, and raised it to a white heat ;
and it was the heat that did the work, not his ignorance.

Another man has both amplitude of learning and refinement oi
culture, and his whole mind is intensely active, and with this equip-
ment he goes forward, and is mighty for achievement. He is a
Luther. He is peculiarly and eminently a man. He stands, as
Paul stood and stands, powerful in his influence over men. White
heat in the brain gives powei*. And if a man wants to make truth
efficacious, let him be fervid. Enthusiasts always get disciples.
Even if they be scatter-brained, they win their way. So great is
the infectious power of feeling that if it is earnest and continuous,
it glows and shines until all about it are permeated by it.

Moreover, these high states of mind throw off a great deal
which otherwise oppresses men. Most of us work with what mil-
lers call " back-water on the wheel" ; as when the wheel is so sub-
merged that the motive power has to overcome the resistance of that
which hinders its movement. We do not use half of ourselves, be-
cause we are so sodden with care all the time. A great deal of our
electricity is used in combating fear. We are full of morbid or
malign passions which interrupt our progress. There is that which
is worse than back-water on the wheel. It is turbid water, it is
mud, often, on the wheel. And we have to use half the force of
our life in combating hindrances, so that only half of it remains
with which to do the active work.

Now, these higher moods paralyze the basilar faculties, or rather
make them auxiliary to the higher faculties. And when men are
in these exalted states, it is impossible for them to have care, for
the same reason that it is impossible for an eagle to have dust on
his wings when he is half way up to the sun. Dust does not go so
high. If you be low, if you move along on a level, you become
spattered with mud ; but if you rise high in the air, the mud can-
not touch you. Men that live in higher moods have no such beset-
ments as men who live in their lower moods. If men are only fer-
vent, their very fervency carries them into an atmosphere where
there are few hindrances to an ordinary Christian life. Temptation
shoots with a strong bow, but with a short arrow ; and if you fly
on a level the archer will hit you every time, while if you fly high
he cannot hit you. Fervency has this to commend it : that while
it gives to a man his whole self and power, it also carries him where
hindrances and backsets are fewer, if they are not altogether left

BELIGIO US FEB VOB. 357

l)eliind. A state of exaltation, therefore, is a state of grace. I
tell you that those denominations and churches and ministers
who believe m revivals, in intensity in religion, go to the root of
the matter. There are some objectionable things in religious ex-
citement ; but there is also much that is good. And if men say
that passion is not religion, ray reply is that there is no religion
without passion. For, though passion is not religion, religion in its
nature is intensive. But the higher feelings are not necessarily
boisterous. The most intense feelings are often the stillest. It is
when the fire is first kindled that there is the most smoke and crack-
ling, while the bark and softer external parts are being consumed.
As the fire comes nearer and nearer to flame, the less there is of
smoke. And by and by the coal surpasses the flame. And the heat
is greatest when there is the least sparkling and snapping and
roaring.

If you must vocalize, vocalize ; but there is not a man that
shouts "Hallelujah" who feels more than the man that cannot shout
because he feels so much. Some manifest what they feel, and some
hide what they feel, I do not say which way it should go. It may
be that a double action is the right thing. It may be that some
feelings should be exhibited, and that some should be concealed.
But this I say : that though intense feeling is not religion, yet true
religion tends to excite feelinff. It does not exhibit itself in a bois-
terous way, always. It does not necessarily throw out the limbs
and give itself bodily expression-^though I cannot deny that
I have much sympathy for that, in the strong and impulsive natures
And if you are to choose between the propriety of a dull, smolder-
ing, unburning experience, and the sparkle, the flame, and the smoke,
even, of a glowing one, give me the one that has life in it. Give
me the snapping and the sparks, rather than the ashes that never
set anything on fire, nor do anything else. Why, if not doing any
harm is the only thing to be thought of, as many persons seem to
think, if being safe and having no reactions is the chief idea of re-
ligion, then the safest thing in the world is a horse that is spavined,
and knock-kneed, and broken down, and spare-ribbed, and so feeble
that he cannot think of running away, and could not run away if
he did think of it. Why, such a horse is just as safe as a post, and
no better. Many men are determined to be so safe ! Ah, conserv-
atism is such an important thing ! Prudence, moderation — these
are all-important in their estimation. " Let your moderation be
known," say they. Moderation ? Why there is no such modera-
tion anywhere on earth as in an ice-house. Things are never dis-
turbed there. All is proper there. There are many persons who

358 BELIGIOUS FEB VOB.

■would conserve by congelation. But not so is it in the tropics,
where fruits abound, and grow luscious from every bough. Not so
does experience dictate. Men who have made their mark in this
world have been men that had fire in their souls.

But it is said that the dignity and the sacredness of religion re-
quire sobriety and moderation and propriety. Yes, I think that,
too. The dignity and sacredness of religion are real. But there is a
dignity of Summer as well as a dignity of Winter. There is a dignity
of bounty as well as of frugality. There is a dignity of heat as well
as of low temperature. Intensity knows how to bs dignified while
there is fire kindled in every faculty. It is itself sublimely glorious.
There is no other dignity like that of life. For dignity does not
mean simply something put up in a state of exhibition. It is not
an exhibitory quality. Dignity inheres in the thing itself.

Men in worldly matters s^liow what their opinion is in regard to
the fervency. If a man is engaged in his own affairs, he calls
himself a gentleman, and a man of propriety, although he enters
into his work with an intense enthusiasm. He does in secular con-
cerns, without dreaming that there is any harm in it, the same things
which he censures in religion. So you shall see men who through
the day walk with their face radiant, their eye full of life, their
gestures quick ; who address themselves in a versatile way to their
business-, who are successful in their affairs; who are lively and
genial in their social intercourse, so that everybody likes them ;
and who, when they go to their religious meetings in the evenings,
are dull of eye, stupid of tongue, and proper of body, everything
having gone to sleep in them, because religion is such an awful
thing. And that is what they call an offering to God. Their secu-
lar life is earnest and real, and in tliat they glow, and are on fire,
and they take the fruit of it ; but when it comes to their religious
life, they talk about dignity, and moderation, and propriety. It is
a sham ! It is false in philosophy, false in grace, and false in ex-
perience.

Irregular, imperfect, one-sided excitement is to be criticised in
religion ; but it is no argument against religion to say that there is
excitement in it.

But it is said, " Is it not bad taste ? Does it not lead to a thou-
sand grotesque experiences ?"

If one will only walk once or twice through the geometric gar-
dens of Europe, he will see what men understood by fine taste.
There he will see one tree shaped like a dove, another like a pyramid,
and others like gate-posts. He will see long rows of trees shaped
just alike, and forming arches as far as the eye can reach. And he

BELIGIOrs FEBVOB, 359

will see canals, with appropriate -Fatcr-falls, where every drop goes
over marble just so, and every stone is polished and decorous.
Gentlemanly waterfalls they are. Everything is very fine ; every-
thing is after a given pattern ; and the pattern is for the most part
geometric. And that is what is called taste and dignity. And
a person who has been trained in that idea of taste, on going into
our native forests, would be shocked to see those brown leaves in
yonder heap that my feet delight to tread upon, and that are full ot
suggestions and music. There are bugs on the trees, as sure as I
live ! And there are birds singing in the branches. In Paris, birds
are kept in aviaries, and in wire cages, and are taught to sing
properly. But these birds of the forest are uncultured, and fly
hither and thither at will. And here is a tree that lops over a brook
and looks as though it wei-e going to fall. And this foreign-bred
gentleman, seeing it, would say, " If I had that tree I would make it
stand up. Trees were never made to be crooked." Here is a stream
that I'uns and winds as it pleases, observing no rules of exactitude
or regularity, and his sense of propriety is offended. Here are all
these objects of interest, following the directions which are natural
to them, full of instruction and inspiration, and this man despises
them, and says, " They are not in good taste."

There are many who do not like that great Park in New York,
because it is attempted to reproduce nature. They want those long
French lines of level walks, and those glittering tinsel arrangements
which are for show, for show, for show. It is the glory of our
grounds, that we have introduced into them what is called " natural
landscape gardening ;" that we are attempting to follow nature,
and not to conform to the absurdities of an artificial and corrupted
taste.

Now, there is nothing in this world that is so truly the magister or
legislator of taste, nothing that' is so a position to give canons of criti-
cism and to receive none, in matters of taste, as the noblest feelings
in the highest form of their excitement.

When a mother has been long separated from her child, and,
given it up for dead, and it is brought back in an unexpected hour,
and with wild outcry she throws out her arms, and rushes to the
child, as the wind rushes, is her attitude, and are her tones and ges-
tures, to be subjected to the rules of a French dancing-master ? Is
he to stand and say, " You must think of your posture, madam" ? I
tell you, a mother in the paroxysm of love looks splendidly, I do not
care how she looks. The grandeur of feeling overrules all criticism ;
and critics are to take their lessons and their measures from feelinf ,
and not attempt to criticise according to their own laws.

360 BELIGIO US FEE VOB.

Let a man's soul be weighed down by a sense of his infirmity
and sinfulness, and he cannot express himself in bad taste, however
he expresses himself. It is not the expression that I am thinking of ;
it is the feeling that I see ; and that is always grand. Let a man,
like the martyr of old, be pelted with stones, and let his speech be
interrupted and rendered grotesque by the blows which he receives ;
let his soul have a vision of God, and let him say, " I see Jesus
at the right hand of the Father," and there is no longer any gro-
tesqueness about his speech. You cannot have gi'otesqueness in a
thing that is itself superior to any possible law of criticism. And
so, although the lower forms of emotion may be criticised ; yet,
there is nothing so far above cavil as the expression of genuine
moral emotion in its highest form of excitement. Excitement is
indispensable to the highest Christian experiences ; and the expres-
sion of these is perfectly reconcilable to the utmost refinement.

There has been much criticism of the forms of words employed
for the expression of religious thought. Look at the objections
which are made to our hymn-writers. Nearly half of our best
hymns were thrown out because they were so amorous. The hymns
of Wesley and Watts, in which they speak of clasping God, or of
being clasped in his bosom, were condemned as too full of love
emotion. And they were set aside for a long time. But we are now
getting back to them. And it is coming to be understood that the
full and glorious expression of real feeling in its highest state is the
best expression, and that those are the best hymns which follow
such expression. And a noble and generous nature cannot but
despise such criticism as would lead us to reject such hymns.

We ought not to despise taste and order and regularity ; but
you cannot have the free expression of high feeling within the
bounds of order and regularity. If you must give up either order
and regularity or high feeling, I say, Give up the order and
regularity.

Go to the plantation, and see those poor children of darkness
(dark both ways, outside and in) gathered togetlier, and singing
hymns which are a mixture of heathen mythology and Scripture ;
see them spring into the air with wild outcry and fantastic gestures.
There are a thousand things to be pruned and corrected in their
mode of worshiping ; but I think there is something worse than
their rude manifestations.

Go, now, with me into that stately room where there are thirty
or forty or fifty people. Each one picks out a whole seat, and sita
down on it. And each one is perfectly proper. Nobody speaks to
anybody. And when the choir sing, three or four of the congrega-

BELIGIO US FEB YOB. 3 6 1

tion manage to get up and join in the singing. And one gets up to
speak, and saya just what he said thirty or forty years ago, and
what he has repeated about once a week ever since. And when he
takes his seat another gets up and goes through a stereotyped
speech. And when he is done another gets up, and perhaps reproves
them both. And when he sits down one or two prayers are uttered
— prayers that have been committed to memory, and that are
repeated for the five hundred thousandth time ! And that is called
a meeting. There has been no indecorum, no impropriety, not a
single exceptional thing, except this, that they were a set of corpses
making believe that they were alive. They were dead, every one of
them. Every one was really insincere and hypocritical. It was
a fantastic and grotesque scene. And I say that the wildest dance
of ex-slaves in the woods is better than such a meeting conducted
by beings that call themselves men, but that in reality are a set of
galvanized corpses. Life is the first element of everything that
is proper or in good taste.

But it is said, " Does it not lead to fanaticism and rashness ?"
Yes, but I do not think that these are so bad as some other things.
Fanaticism is not the vice of all temperaments. It is peculiar to
those who are over-cerebrated — who have too much brain. Some
of you may have to watch against the evils arising fi-om too much
brain, but not all ! It is true that feeling may be carried to excess,
and that it may lead men wrong ; but the Avant of feeling is carried
to excess a thousand times where too much feeling is once.

As all good soils naturally run to weeds, so all rich natures
naturally run to faults. It has sometimes been said that we cannot
help loving men because they are full of faults ; and there is more
in that than we may at first suppose. Activity with mistakes
is better than inactivity without mistakes. Life with the steam
hissing all the time is better than death under any circumstances.
Life carries with it the liability to error; and so men that are alive
are continually at fault. If the water in a bucket is shallow enough,
it will never spill over, but if it is full to the brim it will spill over
many times — for an even bucket of water never spilled over one side
that it did not spill over the other side also.

It is true that intense excitement in religion sometimes leads to
rashness and fanaticism, as very rich soil, besides producing the
crop, tends to produce an immense harvest of weeds ; but would you
say to the farmer, " Barrenness is the best cure for weeds ; do not
raise anything, and then you will never have any weeds ?" I would
say, " Run your cultivator between the rows, and cut down the
weeds, and let your crops grow. The fact that the weeds want to

362 BELIGIOVS FEEVOB.

grow is a hint of what a soil there is. And the farmer rejoices
in it.

And so, faults of over-expression and intensity are more fre-
quently the results of mis-direction and adverse influences, than of
too much feeling. There are a thousand things in life that are mis-
chievous which would not be if they had room to expand. There are
men who make trouble in churches because they are not allowed to
express themselves freely. Let a man spread himself, and relieve his
mind, and he will settle down and become a manageable and
efficient worker ; whereas, if you hedge him vip, and attempt to re-
press the manifestation of his feeling, by and by, in spite of the
deacon on this side, and the deacon on that side, and the minister in
front, he will gather force, and burst out somewhere. Let a man
give loose to his expression. You can bear it, and he will be
relieved.

It is said that in the politics of our country, the everlasting
speech-making and writing with Avhich we are afflicted, are a vice.
They may be a vice ; but they are a protection against revolution.
They are our safety-valves. We let off our steam in regard to the
constitution and the laws, and th n there is no danger. When
a man has said and written all he wants to, he feels better. He is
more comfortable when he finds that his liberty is not restrained.

And so, in the conduct of churches and social gatherings, the lib-
erty of speaking where there is deep and strong feeling, is indispen-
sable to the health of feeling.

But it is said, " Will it not exhaust men to be in such an exalted
state all the time. Do you pretend to say that it is possible for us
to live in these conditions of intense excitement at all times ? No.
I do intend to say, however, that nerve-force is medicinal and nour-
ishing. I think that nerve means doctor, in the best and highest
sense of the term ; and that what doctors have the credit of doing
is generally done by nerve-force. Nerve-force is, as far as we can
see it, life-force, among men. There is nothing safer than for men
to have an abundance of sweet nerve-force acting in them and
through them. And it is not dangerous even when it is in con-
tinuous activity. Excitement, if it spring from our higher na-
ture, is joy-inspiring and health-giving. Excitement that springs
from the malign passions is corrosive, and cannot be long endured ;
but that which comes from joy in the Holy Ghost, from faith,
from hope, and from love, not only is not exhausting, but is the
only thing that can be endured for any considerable length of
time. Men can go on that forty days, whether in the wilderness or
in the city. A man can live longer on that than on anything else.

BELIGIO US FEB VOB. 363

Indolence rusts ; but high excitement keeps health and strength, and
renews them when they are diminished, A man rusts out more by
inactivity in a year than he wears out by wholesome excitement in
a whole life-time. There are far more chances that a truly active
man Avill live a large number of years, than that a laggard, dull man
will. Excitement, Avhere it is on the right side of the mind — where
it is toward God — is to be encouraged and sought for.

These things being so, there are special reasons why we should
live in these higher conditions of emotion. The importance of the
things which we are seeking as Christians — the importance of our
characters, of our manhood, and of our destiny — impresses itself in
such a way upon one, that he cannot but magnify that which will
the most certainly lead to these results. And intensity of feeling is
one of the most efficacious means to these ends.

I do not blame men who seek money, knowing how powerful it
is as a means for the accomplishment of a multitude of worthy ob-
jects. I do not blame a man for seeking money when he thinks
how many ways there are in which, by its use, he can minister to
the comfort and happiness of his wife and children. I do not blame a
man for seeking money when he sees hoAv many interests it may be
made to control, and how it may be made an instrument for grati-
fying taste and promoting culture. I do not blame men who by
industry and enterprise seek influence and power. These have their
relative importance. I do not blame men who go to the ISToi-th Pole
seeking their fortune, or who go to the tropics for the sake of laying
a foundation for their old age. But oh ! if a man is justified in seek-
ing these lower things with such intensity, with an industry and zeal
almost supreme, how much more should a man seek Avith burning
enthusiasm and indomitable earnestness that which, after all, is more
important to him than silver, or gold, or reputation, or place, or
anything else ! A man's sum of enjoyment depends upon what he
has in himself.

" A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he pos-
sesseth."

If a man's heart is not right, he may be as rich as Croesus and
not be happy. It requires something besides money, desirable as it
is, valuable as it is, and profitable as is the honorable pursuit of it,
to make a man happy. And if we justify a man's zeal and enterprise
and industry, and do not blame him for compassing sea and land,
netting the one and harrying the other, for the sake of gaining
earthly treasures, ought we not at least to manifest as much industry
and enterprise and zeal in seeking after the imperishable treasures
of God's kingdom — a higher honor, a purer conscience, a serener

364 MELIGIOUS FEEYOB.

faith, and a hope that penetrates into the invisible world ? Ought
we not to feel as much enthusiastic emotion about these as about the
baser things which noui'ish the body ?

Consider, too, tbe sense which they who earnestly seek these bet-
ter riches have of the providence of God, and of the all-surrounding
love of God, and of the ministration of God's angels around about
us. We do not wonder when we see happy families bound together.
There are households which seem like an organ, every member of
which seems like a separate stop, and all the members of which, to-
gether, are choral, playing to each other, and with each other, and
into each other ; and if we look with approval upon the nameless
intimacies, the thousand attachments, the many happy unions which
we see formed in life ; if we are not shocked at the connec-
tions and inter-connections of hearts that are on fire with afibction
toward each other — those of husband and wife, parents and chil-
dren, brothers and sisters, or friends ; if when these things come to
our notice our souls are filled with joy, shall we not rejoice when we
behold higher fruits of manhood than these ? Shall a man love his
imperfect fellow-man, his equal, or one that is less than his equal ;
and shall we not experience a fervor of love when surrounded with
the affluence and exceeding riches of the divine love, that fills the
heaven, and overpours and fills the earth — a love that with its sacred
touch inflames the heart, and fills the household, and spreads itself
in many glinting forms through life ? When we have bestowed upon
us the fountain and glory of the divine love, shall we be content
with torpid feeling? Shall we not glow? Shall our emotions not
be permitted to mount up into serene heights — into that love of God
in Christ Jesus which passes knowledge ? Shall we delight to see
men rejoice in each other's love, and say, "I do not blame them for
the wildest exhibitions of joy;" and shall we not rejoice in the love
of God with a joy that knows no bounds?

A distant relative of a man who has been poor all his life has
died and left him all his property, so that he now has an income of
fifty thousand dollars. And all men congratulate him on his good
fortune. And when he says, in an ecstasy of gladness, " I will send
for my old father and mother, and make them comfortable, and my
sisters shall have the education which they have so long coveted,
and I will help my brother who is struggling for a livelihood," we
do not blame him for expressing the happiness which he feels.

But we have an eternal inheritance that is untaxed ; we have a
wealth that never can be diminished ; and shall Ave not mount up in
ecstasy, in contemplation of it ? Is a man at liberty to be enthu-
siastic when he greets his friends with manifestations of love, and to

BELIGIOUS FEBVOL. 365

rejoice \vucu he sees the demonstrations of love in the household,
and between man and man ; and shall he be conscious that there is
a brooding divine love, and be criticised because he has enthusiastic
and upmounting feelings ? No. If any persons in this world have
a right to enthusiasm and intensity of emotion, it is Christians. If
any persons are to serve with unexampled zeal and overflowing joy,
it is those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and who
by the love of God have been made heirs of salvation.

Bring your best faculties, in their best state, in their highest con-
dition, in their fullest equipment ; for God is worthy of them all,
and heaven and immortality are worthy of them all.

Christian brethren, do not be afraid of feeling. Be afraid of bad
feelings ; but let right feelings flame and spread. Let your light so
shine, and your warmth so radiate, that men seeing and feeling them
may glorify your Father which is in heaven.

And now, my brethren, we will for the last time this Summer
stop together and give expression to our feelings, and rejoice in the
fellowship and sympathy which we have with our blessed Saviour,
as we partake of the symbols of his body which was broken for us,
and of his blood which was shed for us. All you who belong to this
church are, of course, without invitation, at liberty to remain. All
who belong to any Christian church on God's earth are affectionate-
ly invited to stay. All those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin-
cerity and in truth, whether they belong to any church or not, are
invited to tarry. Everybody who has that in his heart which calls
out for Jesus ; everybody who in his own judgment says, " I need
help, and I accept Christ, and I desire to make an offering of love to
him, — " I invite to partake with us of the Lord's Supper. If there is
a struggling soul here who thinks it will help him in the way of
duty, and make his burden lighter, to take these emblems, let him
take them; and if he has not joined the church, and he thinks he
ought to join it, let him join it afterwards. Christ first, and then
the church. If you are a child of Christ, and if you lift the feeblest
hands toward him, or have the least aspiration in that direction, for
his sake sit down, dear brother, dear sister, and strengthen your-
selves by these memorials, which were meant to be food for your
body and life for your souL

366 BELIGIO US FEB YOB.

PKAYER BEFORE THE SERMON*

Accept our thanks, O heavenly Father, that that which leason oould
not do, nor experience find out, thou hast done for us with infinite conde-
scension, opening a way by which we should know that there is a God, and
that his name is Love. Thou art the Father in heaven, and on earth, and in
all the universe. Thou dost love those whom thou hast created, and all that
thou art governing. Thy very severities are the strength by which thou dost
divide between the good and the evil. The stripes and the punishments
which thou dost inflict, are not sprung from hatred. Thou dost not love suf-
fering. It is love that corrects. Like as a father pitieth his children, so thou
dost pity us. Thou knowest our frame, that we are dust. Whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. We
rejoice that punishment is not demoniac but divine, that thou art ruling
everywhere with force where things need force, and with reason where things
need reason, and with affection where things need affection,and are suscepti-
ble of it. But everywhere, by force and by reason and by affection, thou
art governing for infinite good ; and thou rejoicest in it, and wilt rejoice to
the very end. And we rejoice that we may come into sympathy with thee
by becoming like unto thee. May we understand that we cannot know
our God except as we are like him. Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they
shall see God. May we have such purity in every faculty that we may be
able to discern our Head — ours in infinite and glorified form — and rejoice in
God, and be swallowed up in him.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt grant unto us, now, in thy presence, such
gracious manifestations of thyself that we may not seem to ourselves
strangers nor foreigners. May this be to us our Father's house. May this day
be a day of blessing to us. Be thou here to administer thine own gifts. And
grant that every one may feel that he is searched out and known. For thou
dost know every one of us by name, and by occupation, and by place ; and
all our history. We rejoice, O Lord, that thou hast made this manifest.

And we pray that we may have, to-day, a sense of thy i^ersonal interest in
each one of us. Bless those that need the consoling influences of thy Spirit.
May the Comforter be their companion ; and may the joy of thy salvation
chase away their griefs ; or may they be able to bear them.

We pray that thou wilt teach those that mourn how to mingle gladness
with mourning. Teach those in trouble how out of trouble there may come
the purifying flame as well as the smoke.

We pray, O Lord our God, that thou wilt grant that those who are weak,
and who are discoui-aged, and who are ready to perish, may straighten up,
and feel that God is their strength — God in the heaven, and God on the earth
— the God that watches the sparrow, and that counts the very hairs of their
head. May they feel that they have a right to come to him in every time
of trouble. May they gird up their loins, and cast away the cowardice of
fear and despondency, and walk vaUantly to the end of life — till thou shalt
call them home.

Let any who are perplexed as to the way of duty find the light shining
upon then* path. May they see plainly the course which they ought to pur-
sue. And help them by discipline to discern things right or wrong. Help
them more and more perfectly to be able to interpret for themselvts what is
right and what is duty day by day.

Grant thou that all the memories of the past may be sanctified to every
one. How many there are whose thoughts are withdrawn from the future,
and borne back into the captivity of the past ! How many there are who

• Immediately following the reception of members into the Church.

BELIGIO US FEB YOB. 367

seem to themselves as though they had been carried away by the flood 1
How mauy there are whose hopes are disheveled ! How many there are
who are without motive, and almost without a wish to live ! How many
there are who mourn in the secret places of the past 1 How many there are
who see their hopes and expectations blighted! Look out upon them, O
Lord, we beseech of thee, and rebuke them and bring them out of the wilder-
ness of their own imagination. Make them feel that they are, in life, not to
take care of themselves, and not to move round and round a centre of their
own experience, as if the end of living was to please themselves. May they
look forth as thou dost, and see the world that groans and travails in pain
until now. How many there are that need instruction ! How many that
need comforting ! How many little ones need rearing ! How much there is
to be done ! and how hard it is to do it ! And oh, that we might be filled
with a better enten^rise. Oh, that we might be borne away from our selfish
longings and desires, and from mourning over unrealized hopes, into a more
glorious sphere of activity.

And we pray, O Lord our God, that thou wilt make us patient. If we are
to be pillars in the house of our God, may we know how to bear burdens. If
we are to be soldiers of our Master, may we know how to take hardness.

"We pray that we may have all tenderness shown us in things pure and
sacred, but that all tenderness may be taken away from us which leads to
self-indulgence and to cowardice. And we beseech of thee that thou wilt
help us more and more to preach Christ, not only with the lip, but with the
eye, with the hand, with the things which we help others to do, and with the
things which we do ourselves. May we be as lights to those that are around
about us. May they look to us for gentleness and tenderness. And in prac-
ticing them toward those in our midst, may we enlarge our conception, and
see that it is the pattern in small measure of that glorified whole which thou
art in heaven. Lord Jesus, giving thyself as a perpetual offering, forever,
living for others and finding therein thine own joy and satisfaction.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that tliy servants who, this
morning, have been joined to this household of faith, may not only be joined
outwardly and historically to us, but may have a life in Christ, with the same
hopes, and joys, and sorrows, and activities and sympathies which all his
true disciples have.

We pray for any that have wandered into strange faitlis. We beseech of
thee that thou wilt restrain them and bring them back to the way of recti-
tude. And may those that have gone wrong, not be discoui-aged. Although
they have stumbled, may they rise up and go forward again.

And wilt thou strengthen the weak knees and the feeble hands. May
those Avho have not the power to sustain themselves, be sustained by thy
strength. May none attempt to rely wholly upon their own might. May
they take tiiee as their staff, and in the mountainous way may they lean upon
thee ; and in the dark valley may they still find strength and support in thee.
We beseech of thee that thou Avilt bless the young. The little children —
will the Lord love them, and teach us to love them more and more. And in
the various spheres of life in which tliey move, may we deal gently and ten-
derly with them. And may we sow in them the seeds of honor, and truth,
and purity and duty.

Bless, O Lord, those who are going out of childhood, and are taking hold
of the world with all its strange fascinations and delusions. We beseech of
thee, grant that they may live for that wliich is true, and right and just
among men ; for that which is lovely ; for that which is divine. And may
they join to their thoughts, ^ven thus early, a wide expanse of the future,
that they may not seem to themselves simply creatures between the cradle

3 G 8 BELIGIO US FEB YOB.

and the grave, but may think of immortality, even now, when they are
beginning their life ; and rejoice in their infinite, outstretched life.

And we pray, O Lord our God, that thou wilt bless those on whom rest the
burden and heat of the day. May they never be weary in well-doing. May
they not be tempted to say, " I have done my part." May they not take their
measure of what they are to do from the measure of what they have done.
May they take their measure from their own strength and power, not think-
ing nor feeling that they have done enough, so long as there is more that they
can accomplish.

And, O Lord, bless the aged who are among us. As they are prepared
to lay aside the leaves of summer, and in autumn stand waiting for winter,
may they glow with autumnal colors. May the glory of the Lord rest upon
them. May their most joyful and serene and beautiful days be the days in
which they are waiting for the coming of the Son of man.

We pray that thou wilt bless all wanderers from us— all that are upon
the sea ; all that are in distant lands ; all that are far away separated from
us by distance and occupation ; and all that are still further separated by
dissipations and vices and crimes. O Lord our God, remember the absent,
and bless them.

And grant, we pray thee, that in our varied lives, all roads may lead to
the heavenly gate, and that the households of the Church may be gathered
as a great household of faith at last, where former things shall have past
away, and where pain and crying shall be known no more forever.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.

XIX.

A Safe Guide for Young Men.

A SAFE GUIDE FOR YOUNG MEN.

•' And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me
in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
Bo that I come again to my father's house in peace ; then shall the Lord be
my God. And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house :
and of all that thou shall give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee."—
Genesis XXVIII., 2(>-:i2.

You are familiar with this history. It is the history of a very
early day; and yet, by many important threads it is connected
intimately with the history of modern times. It is the same human
nature as ours, though under different circumstances.

Jacob was not permitted to form a marriage connection with the
daughters of the land in which he was sojourning. He would brino-
into his household idolatrous tendencies. So he was sent back to
the pai'ent' stock. Journeys then wei"e very diiferent from journeys
now, even in that land. From the extreme south of Palestine, he
had to thread his way amidst multiplied difficulties. Alone, unat-
tended, on foot, with such provision as he could gather, he wandered
to the extreme north, and far beyond, and to the east, the land of
his fathers, the precise location of which is much in dispute. And it
was on his way there that, lying down to sleep, and propjnng him-
self up with nothing softer than a heap of stones, he had a vision
and a promise of God made to him. Then it was that, on awakino-
he was profoundly impressed with a sense of the divine presence
and all his life was opened up to him. Then he made this vow and
covenant with his God : If God would go with him, and prosper
him ; if he would preserve him from danger, and minister to him
the necessary substance of life, then on his part he would take the
Lord for his God. And he also made a vow of benevolence : that he
would be unselfish, and would devote a tenth part of his substance
to the works of goodness — that is, to God.

There is something especial, to my mind, in a part of this
promise :

" If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will
give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my
father's house in peace ; then shall the Lord be my God."

Sunday Evening, March 13, 1871. Lesson : Psa. LXXIII. 1-36. Hymns (Plymouth
Collectiou; : Kos. 8'ja, bTiJ, 353.

372^ A SAFE GUIDE FOB TOUNQ MEN.

Some have thought that it was one of the many gods that then
were moving round the world, and trying to get worshipers ; and
that Jacob promised, if he would bestow his patronage on him, he
would make him his God, and become one of his votaries.

I look upon it very differently ? What had he to offer ? What
was there that could be an offering to God ? There was but one
thing, and that was his own affections. It was a filial offering. " In
requital of this goodness to me, thou shalt be my God. I will love
thee. I will obey thee. I will serve thee." A man has no higher
offer to God than that of his affections. And there is none that is
more esteemed.

Now, every young man who leaves his father's house, and comes
down to great cities like these, may be said to be in many respects
making such a journey as the patriarch made ; not, to be sure, going
to seek a wife among the father's former kinspeople, but going to
seek, substantially, the establishment of his household and his for-
tune. He leaves his father's house, and goes out into the great wil-
derness of the world, and encounters a thousand more dangers than
ever the patriarch did, more insidious, more powerful, more easily
seducing ; and there is no young man that can afford to go out and
begin a life in these great cities, where beat upon him every one of
the passions of the human heart, and the fiercest temptations. No
man can afford to go out into life and begin for himself without
making a covenant with God. And I do not know of any covenant
that could be more simple, more rational, or more proper in every
way, than this one that the old patriarch Jacob made.

"If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and
will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to
my father's house in peace ; then shall the Lord be my God."

Among the visions that the young indulge in, I think there is
none more beautiful, none that springs from a nobler impulse, than
this, that if it please God to give them prosperity there shall come
a time when they will go back to their father's house, and, instead
of the rude farm-house in which he dwelt, build him a far more
convenient one ; and that say of the dear old mother whose face is
covered with toil-marks, having given herself night and day, and
stinted herself, that she might have the means of putting forward
her childi'en, " She shall not work forever so." Many a man has the
reputation of being avaricious and addicted to business ; of working
night and day to hoard ; but there is at the bottom a I'oot of filial
love ; and he says, " The day shall come in which the old people
shall not be slaves. I will redeem them from this bondage, and will
make them happy." And it is a very generous feeling, and a very
noble one.

A SAFE GUIDE FOB TOUNG MEN. 373

There are a great many who, perhaps, feel that they shall return
yet, one day, to the place from which they started. If our youth
is happy I thmk we never forget our early associations, and no
place afterward seems so congenial to us as that where we spent
our boyhood days. How beautiful the plainest scenery, how be-
witching the most common-place things, which are woven into the
memory of one's childhood liome ! How do men that traverse their
own land, ord circumnavigate the globe, come back to describe some
little plain place, some small village, almost without attractions, as
the most charming place they have ever seen ! Ah ! they carry in
their eyes and hearts the things that make it beautiful. Thus the
memories of childhood are sweet, precious, beautiful, and generous.

The impulse with many young men whose parents ai'e already
prosperous, so that the necessity does not exist of lifting them out
of poverty, is, perhaps, that they will go back and settle down at
the old home after they have made themselves a substantial fortune
by their own fidelity and enterprise.

But between the purpose and the performing is a region far
longer, morally speaking, than that between Beer-sheba and Paden
Aram. And between the stai'ting from one's father's house, and the
coming back to it again, there are more dangers crowded, often,
than were ever ci'owded into the journey and experience of Jacob.

Now, although I have preached a great many sermons to the
young, I do not think I have preached one too many. Because
temptations are like tides that come in continuous periods, alterna-
tions; and sermons ought to come as often, if not oftener, than
these alternations. They ought to keep filling up, filling up, filling
up the intervals that otherwise would be liable to be filled with evil
influences.

Many of you have no father in New York or Brooklyn. There
is no .one here that thinks for you, or cares particularly about you,
80 far as your better nature is concerned. There are many that
would tamper with you, and lower the tone of your conscience.
There are many that would make the way of wrong easier for you.
Some of you are so fortunate as to have friends that hold you up.
Perhaps many of you have the felicity of being surrounded by
wholesome household influences. But many hundreds come to
this church, either regularly or from time to time, who have no
person in the Avorld near them that thinks for them, prays for them,
and talks plainly to them. Therefore I feel in some sense as though,
now, my years and my relations to you justify my taking the place
to you of father, and giving you repeated counsels, bearing upon
the ordinary procedure of your life. And this is what I propose to
do to-night.

374 A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN. .

I desire that every one who has come down to this great^mart,
where so much is won and so much is lost, this vast workshop,
where so much is made of good and of evil, these terrible shambles,
where so many souls and bodies are slaughtered, should remember
how much their success here depends upon a few simple, common-
place moralities. I desire to reiterate, as I have often and often
asseverated, how much your prosperity depends upon your industry,
your frugality, your self-restraint in all things, your truthfulness,
your honesty, your fidelity. And I the more emphasize this now
because the contrary impression is always prevalent, for very sim-
ple reasons which I will mention in a moment.

You are particularly liable to be misled, just now, by the idea
that there are many brilliant chances of fortune in coming down to
a city like this. Setting aside the ordinary courses, the ordinary
motives, and the ordinary instruments of productive industry, young
men come to New York thinking of it as a great gold mine. As
one who has read in the Arabian Nights of the man that fell down
a precipice and found himself in a field covered with diamonds
which he could have for the picking up ; so young men come to
New York almost thinking it is a place where they will have only
to fill their pockets and be rich. They come with the most ex-
aggerated ideas of the wealth-producing power of these great cities.

Now, they are greatly mistaken. You take as large a popula-
tion as that of New York, averaging it through the country, and
you will find the law of productive industry to be the same in both
city and country. You are concentrated here. Here you are pecu-
liarly situated. But according to the law of political economy the
chances of success are the same. Luck, or chance, which is the basis
of the fool's philosophy, has no more to do with permanent pros-
perity in these cities than anywhere else. There are sudden uplift-
ings of prosperity, and there are just as sudden collaj^ses. There
are brilliant adventurers here, who have for a time an apparent and
specious prosperity ; but so it is everywhere. And success in life
here, or where you were born and brought up, depends substantially
upon morality, industry, frugality, foresight, sagacity, perseverance
in well-doing — that is, in working upon fidelity and honor. Truth
and honesty are the great staple elements which, if a man has them
and employs them, will certainly give him prosperity, thougli they
may not give him wealth, nor lift him to places of honor or trust.
Those are things which are to be determined much by a man's
natural forces. Now and then incidental forces may come in, but
in the main, judging by great averages, men find about the places
which they are fitted for, and reap and gain about that which they

A SAFE GUIDE FOB TOUKG MEN. 375

are qualified to reap and gain. And productive forces are employed
best by those who have the simple, sterling, substantial moralities of
life. Lying and cheating and swindlmg are no more prosperous in
New York than in Canandaigua, or in Mount Vernon, or in the
smallest village in the land. They are prosperous nowhere. They
are the devil's delusions that mislead men. For there can be no
permanent prosperity except that which is built upon the broadest
grounds of common moi'ality.

' Wealth is to be gained by paying for it, in thought, in indus-
try, or in some other way, so that you shall have given a fair equiv-
alent for it. The wealth which you collect, you must earn. This is
a principle which men cannot long evade. The sphere in which you
work here is larger than that in which you worked in the country ;
but it is a sphere which is governed by precisely the same laws. The
climate in cities is not essentially different from that in the country.
There are the same seasons here. There are the same Summer
and Winter. There are the same light and heat. There is the
same electricity. Nature is the same, and so are the great elements
of morality, and the great elements of political economy ; the vague
notion that wealth comes by some lucky stroTce, some brilliant essay,
some fortunate alliance, or some short cut which other men have not
discovered, is quite as lalse here as there. Men will fly much sooner
than they will become prosperous by any such scheme as this.

Hundreds and thousands have come down here despising the sim-
ple moralities on which they have been brought up ; despising the
productive forces patiently and continuously applied ; despising small
profits honestly made and surely held ; despising simplicity and un-
ostentatious gain. To make a shoAV is one of the insanities of ap-
probativeness. It is one of the disclosures of vanity, of the over-
weening sense of a man's own capacity, of a sort of delirious joy and
expectation of success, and of the exhibitory eftects of success in after
life.

I therefore beseech you not to set aside all those great laws which
have been proved generation after generation, age after age, and
which are still exemplified in our midst. Especially do not be led
astray by any appearance. If wicked men prosper, do not give up
your belief that morality is safer than wickedness. If men who are
absolutely rotten shine by the phosphorescence of decay, and dazzle
your eyes, remember that in doctrine their feet shall slide. I am just
as sure that ill-gotten gains will destroy the getter, and that immo-
rality inflated into prosperity will by and by collapse like an over-
blown bladder, as I am of my existence. You had better road the
seventh Psalm once a week nowadays, when glittering, corrupt and

376 A SAFE GUIDE FOE YOUNG MEN.

corrupting men seem to be carrying off the honors and emoluments of
life — those of you, especially, who are asking yourselves whether it
is worth your while to wash your hands in innocency and self-denial.
In God's due time, when his great wheel comes round, multitudes
of men who have disregarded his laws will be destroyed.

Surely, the universe is conducted upon principles of God which
make truth, and honor, and industry, and integrity more profitable
than fraud and deceit and malignity can be. The manhood that is
in man is safer to be trusted than the animalhood that is in man.
And if, here and there, there are some glorified SAvine that root for
jewels and gold, and wear them in their snouts, do not you become a
hog that you may be prospered like them. Manhood yet, against
swinehood. For, remember that however a man may seem to pros-
per by violating the laws of morality and purity, he forfeits confi-
dence, respect, sympathy, all that which holds a man up and rewards
him when he stands in the esteem and love of his fellow-men in the
community. Although for a time he may sustain himself, the
time comes for him to fall and be dashed to pieces. Sooner
could you gather up the fragments of a glass goblet that had
fallen from a high point upon a stone pavement, than you could
put a corrupt man on his feet again when he had once gone
down. And you that now envy him, and for the sake of favor would
servilely follow him, will be among the men that will hiss at him,
and say, " I knew it would be so. I always despised him."

Let me beg of you who have left your home, and come down to
this great city to make your fortune, not to forget the plain living
of your father's house. You were brought up frugally. You did
not use to wear very fine clothes. You were accustomed to dress
very substantially; but farmers' boys do not generally wear broad-
cloth when they are working on the farm. And there are young
men here who would not have to reach their hand out far to get
hold of the old coarse suits — their brown tow clothes for Summer,
and their substantial homespun woolen clothes for Winter.

When such young men come down to New York, people seem to
them, I suppose, as butterflies do when they come out of the chrys-
alis, and open up their fine wings, and begin their Summer's cruise.
Young men, when they come here, feel that they must be re-born in-
to respectability and gentility ; and their idea of gentility is to have
fine clothes, and a little money in the pocket, and to play gentleman.
Under such circumstances men go down very soon. They lose the
simplicity of their tongue. They eat strange viands, which have
strange ways with them ; and they drink strange drinks which they
have not learned to mix at their father's board. Honest, simple-

A SAFE GUIDE FOE YOUNG MEN. 377

minded, plain, excellent people were your parents ; and you lived
temperately and moderately at home; but you want to shine out
here; and you become dishonest in order to do it. Some can afford
to dress as people in the city dress; but are you of them?

You came down here almost with nothing. Your father was un-
able to do more than pay your traveling expenses. And you have
only slender earnings. You receive only a boy's or young man's
salary. It is only just enough to keep you from year's end to year's
end, provided you are extremely frugal and economical.

Now, there are two courses, either of which you can take. One
is to say, '* I am not living nor dressing so well as my companions,
and I must have fine clothes and better fare." The other is to say,
with stern manliness, "I have come down here to make my way;
and honesty and simplicity require that I should not live any higher
than I myself can earn the means of living. I will be no man's
pauper or beneficiary. I will make what I take; and what I make
and take shall support me." The discipline which you get from this
latter course of self-denial is better than going to college. Many
a man cradled in learning gets no discipline ; but a young man
who, having been reared and trained in self-indulgence, leaves
his father's house, and comes to the city, and says, " I will be be-
holden to no man ; I can afford to live as^plain as any man, both in
regard to diet and clothes, if it is necessary to my manhood, and I
will not have anything which I cannot fairly earn ; I will be inde-
pendent and establish myself," — such a young man gets a discipline
which is worth a university education. By forming that purpose
and adhering to it he is educating himself in the very elements of
manhood. He is making a man of himself.

Do you suppose men think less of you because you dress plainly ?
Fools may, but men do not. Do you think your chances in life are
less because you feel ashamed to show a man where your room is,
and where you sleep ? Why, many a man has slept in a barn who
was better than many another who slept in mansions and palaces.
A man ought not to be ashamed to say, "I am poor, and I cannot
do so and so." It is the curse of America; since there are no orders
of nobility here, men are ashamed to admit that they are poor. The
young man defends himself, and says, " I am not so poor as you take
me to be." Even sensible people yield to the temptation of the devil,
and are ashamed to acknowledge that they work.

I suppose there are persons in this congregation who keep but a
single servant, and do half their work themselves, and who, if you
go to see them, will talk as if they did not need to work, but did it
because they chose to. They are willing to have you think that they

378 A SAFE GUIDE FOB TOUNQ MEN

work from choice ; but they would not for anything have you under-
stand that they have to work ; that they cannot get along without
it. It takes a great deal of common sense to enable a person who
moves in genteel society to say, without blushing, " I have to do my
own work."

People are a great deal more sensible in Europe than in America
in such matters. A man of moderate means there says, " I must
travel frugally. I cannot order expensive things. I am not able to
do it." There is an honor in living within one's means; and a man
who is truly bred will do it.

Young men are ashamed to have it understood that they wear a
silver watch because they cannot afford to wear a gold one. It is
thought a young man who cannot have a gold watch in this country
cannot be much. And when they have got a gold watch, they must
have a gold chain. And when they have got a gold chain, they must
have something dangling at the end of it. And these things become
necessities. The young man wants them, he thinks about them, he
dreams of them. Other young men have them, and why should not
he ? There is a man, his rival, who is no better looking than he,
and who has no better education than he; but oh, that vest and
that jewelry ! They nearly kill him with envy. He cannot afford
to go without these these things because his young comjjanions have
excited his vanity, and corrupted his simplicity, and gone far toward
undermining his manhood. He is unwilling to live plainly, and more
than plainly, as his circumstances dictate that he should at the begin-
ning of life.

There are men that stand high in wealth and prosperity, and
will to the end of life, who know well that when they came to New
York they lived in a way that it would pain them to see one of
their sons live. And yet, it was the making of them.

If young men live plainly and simply, it is but for a time. And
if they can afford it one year, they can afford it two years, if neces-
sary. And if they can afford it two years, they can afford it four.
A man can afford to live plainly until he is able, by his own in-
dustry, to live better. Do not walk before you creep. Do not run
before you walk. Be willing to live low, and if necessary lower
than the working-man. Your manhood should be more to you than
your clothes or your food.

Let me beseech of you not to throw off hastily your old house-
hold affections. Keep home bright in your heart and in your mem-
ory. You have had better opportunities than your sister, or than
your younger brother. They toil on, one in the kitchen or the dairy,
and the other on the farm or in the shop. You have blossomed out

A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN. 379

into a young merchant. . And if you have a manly spirit in you,
you will never, for one single moment, forget that they are your kin,
and dear to you. You will glory in them and over them. You will
also remember the sun-browned father and the wrinkled mother.
They will be everything to you. No pictorial beauty, and no fan-
ciful belle will be to you what father and mother, and brother and
sister are.

When I was in college a young man came there who was in a
state of abject and utter poverty. lie was determined to have an
education. He sawed wood for a livelihood. For more than a year
he slept on the floor in his room, wrapping himself up in a blanket.
He boarded himself; and his food consisted mostly of Indian meal
pudding and molasses. He worked in vacation and term-time to
earn a scanty pittance by which to educate himself. When
he had finished his course in college, the first thing he did
was to put his brother next younger than he through an academy.
Then the two together took hold of hands and brought up a sister.
She was educated, and has moved very high in influence, though not
in fashion, since that time. And the three have had as much brain-
power on the age in which we live as any three persons that you
could select. And as for me, I could forgive ten thousand infelic-
ities in consideration of such hearty home-love and genuine feeling
of brotherhood.

And now that you have broken off" from your homes, do not
feel that you are better than those that you have left behind. Let
your heart never forget your homestead, nor the old people, nor the
young people.

About the most despicable thing that I can recollect was this :
A young lawyer in a former parish of mine had risen to a conspicu-
ous position. One day I heard that his father and mother had come
to town. On making inquiry respecting them, I was told that he
had taken them out to the edge of the town to an obscure boarding-
place, and was unwilling to have any of his friends know that they
were there. He Avas ashamed to have anybody see the old folks. I
learned that they were very reputable, only they were coarse, blunt,
Hoosier country people. He had risen to some little eminence, and
he felt above them, and was ashamed of them. I had been a warm
friend of that young man, but from that time' coolness toward him
sprang up in my heart. That a son, largely dependent upon the
toil Avhich had kept his father and mother in their low condition,
they, as it were, plucking out of their own bosom the feathers that
made his nest soft, they giving their life that he might live better
than they — that he should be ashamed of them seemed as ig-
nominious as anything could possibly be.

380 A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN.

Do not, then, let your new associations and new-fangled notions
of gentility make you ashamed of the plain old home, nor of the
plain old people that are there. Be hearty ; be manly ; be faithful.

And if before you came from home you pledged your troth to
any maiden heart, do not let the devil's temptation of a more favor-
able connection that shall carry you up in life make you unfaithful
to your old covenants and vows to her. Be faithful.

Do not make haste to change your religion. There is an im-
pression that when a man comes down to the city he must of course
be liberalized ; that there are many things at home which are nar-
row ; many notions which are prejudices, and many which are super-
stitions ; much that a man ought to leave behind him. And that is
all true. But it does not follow that you are in a situation to judge
of what things had best be left behind, or what things had best be
changed. Do not, therefore, suddenly change anything. If at home
you have been accustomed to observe the Lord's day, I beseech of
you, do not let the looseness or laxity of the city take away from
you this most precious habit. Some may observe it more strictly
than others, some may observe it by a different form of observ-
ance ; but in some way let that day be marked which has always
been marked.

If it were but for one single thing which my childhood Sunday
did for me, it would be worth all the pains I liad to take to keep it ;
and that is the spiritualizing influence which it produced upon the
whole natural world by its, I had almost said, preternatural silence.
I remember that when on Litchfield hill the Sunday sun came up
and spread abroad its light, no rattling wagons and no shouting
voices were heard. All things were still. And my imagination
made them stiller. It seemed to me that the heavens had a depth
which they never had on other days, and that nature had a serenity
which it never wore on other days. It was a day of rest. The un-
quivering leaves seemed to rest. The birds seemed more domestic
and at rest. All labor was suspended. The cattle on a thousand
hills rested. The old worn horses, with harness thrown off, rested
in the pasture. And even the team that came to carry the old
people to church had a Sunday jog far different from that which
it had on other days. Everything seemed to speak to me of pro-
found rest. And nature was stamped with a moral character, so
that from that day to this I have had a thought of nature which I
should not have had except through the influence of this day of
rest. And whatever may be the ecclesiastical arguments and re-
ligious considci-ations in respect to this day of rest, it seems to me
that no young man ought to leave out of his memory the Lord's
day.

A SAFE GUIDE FOE TOUKG MEN. 381

You will have peculiar temptations to break up your religious
habits. There will be nobody to look after your religious interests.
Your associations with your jiarticular church and neighbors will be
gone. You are a stranger in a strange place. You are situated so
that it is hard for you to settle down and form Sabbath connections.
Nevertheless, keep your Sundays in some way. I admit that it is
difficult ; but all the more benefit it will be to you if you succeed in
doing it.

You are in a boarding-house. There is no Sunday there ; there
are no books there ; there is no company for you there. Where
shall you go ? What shall you do with yourself Sunday morning ?
What shall you do with yourself Sunday afternoon ? What shall
you do with yourself Sunday night ? There is a great deal of home-
sickness and there is a great deal of heart-sickness on Sundays.
There are a. great many young men who would give everything in
the world if on Sunday there was somebody that cared for them,
and would put the arm about them and say, " My dear old fellow,
how do you get on ?" somebody whose heart should strike on their
hearts. I know how it is. I am sorry it is so. I would to God
there were some way in which the young man severed from all moral
relations, in the city, could have more Sunday, and more chance to
keep Sunday than he now has. There will be more provisions in
this direction one of these days. Young Men's Christian Associa-
tions will yet have Sunday homes where young men shall find com-
pany, and some place in which to renew, in part at least, the associ-
ations of their childhood-Sunday.

Do not forget your Bible — and this must come very strong
against many of you. Where is your Bible ? I wish I could take
the statistics. That was one of the things which, when you went
away from home, your mother put down at the bottom of your
trunk — for she packed your trunk. And when a mother packs the
trunk of her boy that is going away from home, many are the tears
that she sheds over it. And when your mother packed your trunk
she wept, and murmured prayers in your behalf, while you were
frisking about, buoyant, hopeful, full of exhilaration at the prospect
of going down to New York. And she puts the Bible carefully
down at the bottom. She had been saving what she could for a
whole month to get money enough to buy the nicest Bible in the
village store. And in it is her crooked but beautiful writing — for
what mother's handwriting is not beautiful when she writes a child's
name in a Bible ? And besides your name, it may be that she wrote
some little text there. And after wrapping some of your things
about the Book she filled up the trunk. And when it was slung on
to the coa<^h^ and you disappeared, she went back to the place where

382 A SAFE GUIDE FOB TOUNO MEN.

she packed it, and prayed for you. And after you came to New
York you perhaps took this Bible out of the trunk a few times on
Sunday, and felt so badly that you could read but little. And it may
be that the young fellows where you boarded, who never thought
of reading the Bible, laughed at you. After that perhaps you tried
to read it secretly. But finally you forgot to do even that. And
not wishing to lose the Bible entirely, you put it back in your trunk.
And it has been there five years, and you have not once taken it
out. Where is your Bible ? There is a whole history in the an-
swer to that question. Where is your Bible f Take care of your
Bible, and your Bible will take care of you.

I do not propose to discuss with you the question raised in
modern times as to the authenticity of this Book. I know that it
is as good a pilot as ever was. No man can go wrong if he follows
the ethics of the Bible. And there is no place whe. e men need its
guidance so much as in these very cities. When you go home to-
night some of you may not be able to give the heads of this dis-
course ; but I beseech of you to remember one thing — to hunt up
your Bible, and read it again, and make it the man of your counsel,
and your guide. It is your mother's Bible. It is your father's
Bible.

And then do not abandon your church. I do not mean by that,
that a man may not go from the Presbyterian Church into the
Episcopal, or from the Episcopal into the Methodist ; but this
I mean : that it is not wise for a man hastily to change his faith or
denomination. It is not wise for this reason ; that although there
is a great deal of religion that is blessed of God and made efficacious
outside of the ordinary doctrinal features, yet, after all, it is often-
times the case that experience and associations make our own church
and religion best to us. I should always advise a person not to
change unless he had a clear conviction that it was best for him to
change. I never try to change anybody. There is not a person in
this church of two thousand members who can say that I ever said
a word to bring him here away from the church in which he was
bred. I have the most profound respect for early associations. I
think they are full^of nutriment, of rest, and of restraint. I should
say, therefore, generally. If you have been accustomed to worship in
the Episcopal Church, continue there, unless there is some strong
and clear reason why you should leave it. If you have been accus-
tomed to go to the Presbyterian Church, continue to go to that. Go
where the associations of your childhood will still be played upon,
and will still tend to hold you in the right way. If, however, after
due consideration, you find a way that makes you happier, holier,
more prayerful, more self-denying, then never refuse to change. Do

A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN. 383

not do it from novelty, and do not do it from a mere transient
preference ; but if you find the spirit of godliness quickened in
you, and a deeper Christian life incited in you, under one ad-
ministration rather than under another, go to the one that affects
you most favorably. For the effect of a church upon your heart
is the best test of that church's desirableness.

Do you ask me whether I would recommend one to do it, no
matter what the denomination might be ? Yes, without any excep-
tion. No child of mine should ever come to me and give me evi-
dence that his life was really becoming sweeter and deeper and
holier, and ask my permission to go into any other fold of Christ on
earth, that I would Avithhold such permission. I would go with that
child, and put his hand in the pastor's hand, and give him up cheer-
fully. It is the hidden soul-life that is more important than any of
the schools by which that soul-life is to be ministered unto.

But as far as possible it is desirable that a man's later life should
run in the line of his earlier life. There is something beautiful to
me in the thought of worshiping with the same view of God v/hich
we did in our childhood. There is something very sad to me
in every change which I make from my childhood views. I do not
like novelties ; I would to God I could believe just as I did Avhen I
was a boy ; but changes ai-e going on in different directions. It is
not pleasant to me. It is very painful. It is like tearing a brancli
out of a tree. I would like to worship ray father's God, as my father
worshiped him. I would like to die with the same symbols in my
hand with which I began my childhood life. But I cannot. And
when you cannot do it, see that the changes which you make are
made in the way of greater godliness, and not in the way of fashion
or of worldly influence.

Beware, in such great cities as this, of the influence of the external
world upon your ideas of human life and duty. In such cities as
this there are many things that have an effect upon our education.
There is much that goes in at the ear, and much that impresses us
through the eye. Our senses are perpetually stimulated by the
things which are around about us. Life tends to become practical
rather than spiritual. The value oi things tends to gain at the expense
of the value of qualities. In the city you need to 4ive by faith more
than anywhere else. You need to realize invisible things, which are
more importantly true than any visible things can be. In cities we
are dazzled by the glitter, deafened by the din, and worried by the
excessive excitement. Men are very easily led into worldly routine.
They cease to become reflective. They live by sight ; by the things
that they hear ; by newspaper lore. They live upon the surface.

38 A A saf:£j quibe fob young men.

They neither study nor read carefully. They seldom think upon or
review what they read, for the purpose of being built up inwardly
and solidly of the best qualities of manhood. Therefore beware
of importunate influences coming on your senses. See to it that you
are carrying on a digestion within, and building up a true knowl-
edge, and educating yourself aright both for this life and the life
which is to come.

Though you are young and strong and healthy, there is no cer-
tainty that your life will be long continued in this world. I do not
say this to alarm you. You have often been to Greenwood. Is it
not a beautiful place to go to ? There is no place that is more beau-
ful to me than that. I would as lief drive through those grounds
as through the Park — and I do not know but I would rather. In
the Park I see people that are dead though living ; and in Green-
wood I see people that are dead, and stay dead. But there is noth-
ing that aiFects me so much in Greenwood as to see how few old
people are buried there. Really, one would suppose, from seeing
the inscriptions on the grave-stones, that there had not been any old
people in New York. I have sometimes gone along with my pencil
and made memoranda of the number of persons that died in
youth, or in the bright and radiant mid-day of life ; and the pro-
portion of such would surprise you. If you think not, please go
down, sometime, and see for yourselves. I think it would do you all
good. And then, to see the places where poor people are buried,
and where strangers are buried — I think nothing in the whole city
of New York ought to do a man so much good as that. When
I see them I have a great many thoughts. I imagine where the
strangers came from, how they died, and how they felt, when dying.
I imagine a thousand things. And especially to see where the
children of the poor are buried touches me more than anything
else. I am not sorry to see people who are able, put carved monu-
ments or grave-stones with inscriptions on them over the graves of
their children ; but to see people go and bury their own little chil-
dren there with nothing but a head-stone, and a little box, with a glass
cover, containing the child's play-things — little dolls, little wagons,
shells, pebbles, and such things — to show that they love the dar-
lings, this always affects me more than anything else. These graves
of poor children are sacred. And the playthings that cover them
are sacred. I do not believe that even the vagrant boys of the Five
Points would steal them. It seems as though God's angels took
care of the children of the poor. To go through those grounds
and reflect upon these things, has done me a great deal of good,
and it will do you a great deal of good if you will try it.

A SAF^ GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN: 385

I say this to come to the thought, that, while I would not have
you go away gloomy and sad, I desire that every one of you should
think that you may be spending your last years on earth, and that
what you are to do here below you are to do quickly. I would
like to have you from day to day, and from month to month, and
from year to year, lay out your pleasures and ambition3,and all that
is to compose your life, with a consciousness that you shall ere long
give account at the judgment seat of Christ. You are not far from
it. Many of you shall be called before many days to attend the
funerals of some that are here. Some of you will die soon, and
some of you will live to be forty or fifty years old ; but you do
not know which will go nor which will remain ; and it is good for
us all, once in a while, to stop and listen to the beat of the surf on
the shores of eternity. It is well once in a while to cleanse our-
selves of the fascinations and allurements of this world by bathing
in the still and solemn waters of imagined death. Oh, Avhat cool
ness it will give to the fever of men ! Oh, what a check and re-
straint it will be to heated passions ! Oh, what moderation it will
impart to over-excited imaginations and desires !

I beseech of you (more especially I speak to those who have no
other adviser, and who are willing to listen to my words as to an
older brother's or a father's words) to pause. Think whether in
your career any other thing is so good for you, or will make you
so prosperous, as to follow in the footsteps of the old patriarch, and
say, as he said,

*' If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and
will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to
my father's house in peace ; then shall the Lord be my God."

386 A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUHG MEN,

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We bless thee, our Heavenly Father, for all thy great mercies to us in the
days that are past, and for that hope which has been inspired by our experi-
ence for the days to come. Thou hast watched over us tenderly. Thou hast
granted to us to know thee, whom to know aright is life eternal. Thou hast,
by thy Spirit, breathed a new light into our souls ; and by this hght thou hast
brought us to a higher life, and to a better judgment of things below.

And now we stand by thee, instructed of thee, and beloved of thee, child-
ren unabashed, bold with the boldness of affection, and with thy command to
come boldly to the Throne of grace to obtain mercy and help in time of
need. Grant, we beseech of thee this evening, that we may have the token
of thy presence. For, is there ever a time that is not a time of need ? Do we
not need thee for the body's sake ? Do we not need thee more for the sake of
the soul that is within the body ? Do we not need thee rising up and sitting
down, in counsel, in action, at home and abroad ? Wherever we are, do we
not need thee ? Do we not need thee in our joy and in our sorrow, in our sin
and in our repentance, in our backshding and in our return to God ? Thou
art everywhere, and we continually find thee present, and always need thy
presence, for refreshment, for confirmation in good, for dissuasion from evil,
for all helpfulness. And we are glad to think that thou art He who art sit-
ting in the center of all power, and from whom all things do proceed ; that
thy heart toward us is the heart of a Father, and that thy feelings are the
feelings of long-suffering and tender mercy.

And we rejoice that thou wilt not so love us as to suffer us to come to evil
and to harm. Thou wilt not pass by transgression. Thou wilt not suffer
guilt to go unpunished. Thou dost love us so that thou wilt be faithful to us
as we are faithful to our children. We chastise them with stripes which
wound our own hearts. So wilt thou be faithful to us, and wilt not suffer us
to go wrong unchastised and unrebuked.

And we rejoice that it is in thine heart to bring us toward true manhood.
It is not in nature to do it ; it is not in our own will ; it is not in the will of
those arovmd about us. Of thee we must be born. We must find our way to
ourselves through thy guidance. We rejoice, therefore, in the manifestation
of thyself in Jesus Christ, and in the shedding abroad of the Holy Spirit, by
which we are enhghtened and inspired, and by which we shall be sanctified.

And now, we pray that we may submit ourselves to thy benevolent kind-
ness, to thy care and education, more implicitly. May we as httle children
be led by the hand of thy providence. May we, as children that have grown
to know their parents, be led by the love of thy heart. And we beseech of
thee that we may from day to day grow in grace, and in the knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

If there be hindrances in the way of any, wilt thou help them to remove
them. If there be easily besetting sins, help them to overcome them. U
there be temptations that he in ambush, mightier than their power of resist-
ance, open a way of escape for them. If there be those that are discouraged
from their repeated weaknesses and failures to be what Christians should be,
grant, O Lord, that they may still pluck up their courage. May they gird
themselves for new enterprises, and to the end of life strive for that bright
and shining and better way.

We pray that thou wilt have under thy guardianship those that are begin-
ning life, before whom are all its experiences. We who have thrust so much
of life behind us, who have made our sign, our stamp, our seal, upon so many
years — what have we in the future but to hope for the consummation of the

A SAFE GUIDE FOB YOUNG MEN. 387

tew remaining years which are allotted us here, and then our entrance upon
the heavenly rest?

How many there are who, after their life in the world was closed, lived
on, and still live, in the world beyond ! And the many who stand in strength
and good cheer, the many who stand ignorant of right and wrong, the many
whose passions are ready to draw them aside, the many for whom snares are
laid, the many who are watched for that they may be destroyed — O thou that
wast their fathers' God, may the prayers that have been offered for them be
heard.

And we pray that thou wilt by thy grace and providence snatch those
from the hands of the destroyer who vdthout help will be destroyed. Return
any that are already going into forbidden ways. And we pray that thou wilt
confirm and estabUsh in the right way those who are doubting. And we
beseech of thee that the young may grow up more virtuous, more honorable,
more wise, and more just, than those have been who have preceded them.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt cleanse this great city, and the great city
upon our border. Grant that purity and morality and the fear of God and
the love of man may prevail, and injustice and wickedness and corruption in
every form be rebuked and hide themselves.

We pray for our whole land. We beseech of thee that we may have peace
in our midst, and that men may be bound to their fellow-men by benevc lence,
and that there may be no more hating and hurting and destroying.

Oh, for the day of righteousness ! Oh, for the time when the heart of God
shall be felt in the hearts of men ! May there be more pity and less contempt.
May there be more helpfulness and less hindering. May there be more
knowledge and less prejudice. May there be more that shall bind together,
and less that shall divide and separate.

Let thy kingdom come everywhere. May nations learn war no more. May
peace come and settle down upon the earth, its final possetsion. And to thy
name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit, evermore. A.me7u

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless the word spoken
to-night. Grant that the beginnings of thoughts of good may not be extin-
guished. Thou that wilt not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking
flax until thou dost bring forth judgment unto victory, oh, be tender and
gentle with the rising thoughts of a better life in those who have been
beguiled ! Oh, help those to break away from sin who have been ensnared
by it Have compassion on those who are destroying themselves. Hold back
the children of pious parents. Hold back those who have been much prayed
for. Oh, remember their mothers. Remember their fathers. Remember
self-sacrificing sisters that toil and labor to sustain brothers far away.
Remember those who, having been brought up in homes of purity, are now
without home, exiled, struggling for life, amid the bewilderments and tempta-
tions of this great city. God, take care of the young, and help them. O Lord
Jesus, inspire them to look unto their fathers' God, the God of their youth,
the God of all love and all helpfulness. And so may they live that this life
shall be a victory. And by it may they achieve an entrance into that life
which is to come— into the heavenly land. And to the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit, shall be praises evermore. Amen.

XX.

The Heaet-Power of the Gospel.

THE HEAET-POWER OF THE GOSPEL

" For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ : for it is the power of
God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also
to the Greek.— Rom. 1. 16.

That also is extremely bold. It required no small measure of
courage at that time, and under those circumstances, and in the
speaker, to have dared to say that, simple as it is now. There was a
time when to have said, before a Hebrew audience, that the Gentiles
were to have the same privileges as the Jews, would have brought
down on one's head a shower of stones. The near approach which
the apostle makes to this thought in many of his epistles indicates
the state of feeling which existed in the olden time. "VVe make
nothing, now, of the fact that the Gospel is meant for the whole
world ; but there was a time when the religion of the Old Testament
and of Jehovah was supposed to be in such a sense Jewish, that, if
any other nation had a share of it, it Avas stolen. The Jews regarded
it as their property. Jehovah was a national God, in their estima-
tion. And to affirm that any other nation had privileges equal to
theirs was an assault upon their pride, and upon their whole national
feeling. Thus in writing to the Ephesians, the apostle says,

*' For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles
[on your account], if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God
which is given me to you-ward : how that by revelation he made known
unto me the mystery [the hidden thing, the secret], which in other ages
was not made known iinto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto hia
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit."

Wliat, then, is that prodigious " mystery" that has been hidden
so long, and that now, with such wonderful disclosure, is about to be
revealed ? " That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the
same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel."
"We almost laugh at the thought that that should be the issue, the
climax, to it. We are surprised that it should be only that. But
^ah ! at that time it meant a great deal more than it does now. And
when he said, " The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to
the Greek," he spoke a very bold thing.

Sunday Evening, June 25, ISTl. Lesson : Matt. XIII. 1-17. Hymns (Plymouth
Collection) : Nos. 725, 696, "Shiuiug Shore."

392 TEE EEABT-POWEE OF THE GOSPEL.

What, however, seems to our minds the most surprising is the
declaration that he was not ashamed of this Gospel, and of Christ.
Why should he be ? What is there that one should be ashamed of
in the knowledge of the truth of God, and especially in that dispen-
sation of mercy by which God is revealed in Jesus ? Is not Chris-
tianity respectable, the world over ? Is it not the supreme religion ?
Does not even skeptical philosophy admit that it approaches more
nearly to the universal religion than any other ? Is it not esteemed
of all men ? Why should any man be ashamed of it ? Sure
enough, after eighteen hundred yeai'S of growth and fruit, why
should any one be ashamed of it ? But it was very different then-
It was an unknown thing. There are a great many reasons why the
apostle may be supposed not to have been ashamed of his ministry
and his mission, although they to whom he spoke might have
thought that he ought to have been ashamed of them. But put your-
self in his position, and see how the whole world must have seemed
to him. Plant yourself in the midst of those to whom he came
preaching ; perceive their prejudices ; accept their opinions ; stand
in the atmosphere which enveloped him ; be surrounded by the
same public sentiment which was around about him, and see if there
was not some courage and some loftiness in his declaring that
he was not ashamed of the part that he was playing, nor of the
ministry that he was serving.

He was a Jew himself; and I know of nothing that so aptly ex-
presses what the feeling in regard to the J'ew was, as the statement
that he sustained very neai'ly the same relation to the foremost
people of that time that the negro has sustained to the white people
in this country — a relation which nearly excluded him from
all influence, from all standing, and from a decent hearing. The Jew
was detested then, as in mediaeval times he was detested. It is only
within a comparatively brief period that the Jew had any respect-
ability or liberty among the nations of the earth. But at that time
he was particularly odious among all the civilized nations of the
earth, almost without exception.

It would seem an unfortunate thing that a new religion should
be pioneered by a man who was a detested Jew, than whom one
could scarcely have been selected in all the world less likely to suc-
ceed.

Then, add to this the fact that Paul, by his own account, had
no graces of person ; that he had not oratory ; that he had none of
the skill of philosophy and casuistry and persuasiveness. He was a
Jew; and besides that he was not personally impressive. This
would seem to render him an object, if of notice at all, of contempt-
Tious notice.

TEE HEABT-FOWEB OF TEE GOSFEL. 393

And then, whom did this Jew come to make known ? Not him-
self, surely. Nothing so vile and so unacceptable as liimself. Some-
thing precious and desirable, evidently. No : he brought tidings of a
malefactor ! He bore knowledge of one who was regarded as too vile
to be tolerated. It might be declared that he was not a malefactor ;
but the fact was admitted, by his own countrymen, tliat he had been
crucified — and crucifixion was the penalty reserved for the most
odious criminals — as disgraceful as the gallows-death in our day.

Paul was going out into all the world, and this was what he
was carrying to the people : " You must believe on this crucified
convict." It was a strange message, and you see how significant it
was, when Paul pitched the battle on that point, and said,

" I determined not to know anything among you, save Je.^us Christ [not
Christ as he appeared in his glory ; not Christ as he was to appear when he
should come the second time, in the kingdom of his Father's glory] and him
CTUoified.''

On tliat Jew, that convict, that odious, crucified man, Paul
planted himself, a'ld determined to make the strength of his ministry
rest there. He presented Christ in those aspects in whicli he would
be most likely to be rejected of men. It was a bold presentation.

It is to be remembered, too, that the apostle went forth to the
Greeks and to the Romans, both of whom were very proud nations,
and both of whom, in turn, had been conquerors of the province ; and
that therefore he brought this odious message, himself odious, to
haughty and supercilious listeners. The Greek had had his turn
and overrun the land, and beaten down all opposition, and governed
the Jews, first with a rod of iron, and afterwards with philosophy,
despising them because they had no philosophy. They were without
art. Painting and statuary were unknown among them ; and archi-
tecture was but very little known among them. With the exception
of the single instance of the Temple, almost all the remains of
architecture in their cities are Greek, and sprang from the hands of
their conquerors. Rome succeeded the Greeks in holding power in
the province, and had her turn of triumph ; and she looked upon
this nation as she did upon others that she had subdued. Not only
that, she looked upon them as a nation of stiff-necked and hot-headed
fanatics. And they were remorselessly dealt with.

Therefore, when Paul went forth to preach the Gospel, he had
to preach it to those lofty, proud, conquering nations ; and there
Bjemed very little likelihood that he would have a hearing in their
presence. The theme was one which had in it no fascinating ele-
ments, so far as the carnal sense of man is- concerned. It was not
even Judaism, which had a temple, and an altar, and a ritual, and
glorious chants, and grand popular festivals. In Judaism there

394 THE EEABT-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL.

were more or less of exhibitory services. There was something in
it for the eyes to rest on. It was largely made up of symbolism, and
was not altogether without fascination. But Paul did not go to
preach Judaism. He dispossessed himself of it as fast as he could.
He disregarded it, saying, " Circumcision is nothing." And yet
that was the foundation of the whole Levitical economy. He had
nothing to present to the love of beauty. There is no sesthetical
element in Christianity ; but there is a moral element in it. I do
not remember any stroke of what might be called art, or any re-
lation to it, in the teaching of our Saviour. While he used nature,
he never used it from a sense of beauty, but always for a moral
purpose. The old Hebrew prophets made use of natui-e. They
felt that it was grand and sublime. No figures will surpass those
which come from nature. But our Saviour's teachings were more
like the Proverbs than like the writings of the Prophets. There
was then no sense of beauty in the Jewish mind, to which an appeal
could be made, and nothing to satisfy that side of the mind. When
the apostle came to the Gentile world, he came to call upon men to
believe in an obscure person raised to conspicu.ity for some reason
or other, and put to a shameful death. And what was there in that,
which was calculated to contribute to their comfort or joy ? He
preached of &ne who said, " Come unto me, and I will give you
rest ; but it will be by taking my yoke upon you, and bearing my
burdens. Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and be
baptized with the baptism that I shall be baptized withal ?" When
the apostle went out to preach Christ, no shining way was presented
to men. On the contrary, there were in store for them reproach,
separation from brethren and households, and even expatriation, and
persecution, and bondage, and sorrow, and distress, if they accepted
this obscure personage as their Lord and Saviour.

Now, standing among such a people, to deliver such a message,
I do not wonder that the apostle felt that he must take issue with
them. They would be likely to suppose that the cause which he
advocated was very weak. The seeming was that it was an imag-
inary thing, and that he was fanatical. Such would be the impres-
sion jjroduced by his proclamation of the Gospel to the great Gen-
tile world. He therefore took issue with that very point, and said,
" I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ;" as if somebody had
been trying to shame him. " I am not ashamed of it, on that very
ground on which you think I should be ashamed. I am not ashamed
of it on account of its power over the mind, the heart, the soul of
men. To every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the
Greek, it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the righieous-

THE HEAET-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL. 395

ness of God revealed from faith to faith. And this inherent spirit-
ual power has redemption in it."

What, then, are some of those elements which we may suppose
the apostle found in the Gospel which he preached, and which
gave him joy rather than shame in proclaiming it ? In all the
instructions of the Saviour, in the whole Gospel, which includes
his life and teachings, there is to me a predominant sense of tho
great world beyond. Nowhere else is there such an atmosphere of
the infinite spirit-realm that lies just outside of the border of
this world, as in the teaching of the Saviour. And the apostle ac-
cepted it as a thing to be believed. He pointed forward to it as a
fact relating to the great after-life. And the Greek was drawn to-
ward it by hope, by faith, by love, by arguments, by motives, by
persuasions. Immortality was no longer a plant that grew a few
years on earth, and then returned no one knew whither. Under the
teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, man at once had an outgrowth and
an immortality which raised him incalculably in the scale of being.
The conception of man as a creature of this world, is, and must be,
entirely different from a conception of him as a creature of eternity.
If man is born to live threescore years and ten, and then die, in
what respect is he better than the leaves of a tree, that flourish
through their summer, and then drop and return to the earth ? If man
has his whole life here, and there is no hereafter, what are the rights of
the weak and of the poor ? The almost inevitable and irresistible effect
of believing that men's life begins and ends in this world, and that
they have no life hereafter, is to give power to those that are strong,
and to make the strong unmerciful toward the weak. If it were
believed that human life was limited to this world, men would say,
" What is the difference between an intelligent being and the horse
that we do not believe has any life beyond this world, and that we
task and kill, getting the most we can out of him, because we believe
his existence ends here ?" If it is supposed that men have no more
life than the beast, then the poor and needy will be trodden down
as trash, and nobody will care for them, and death will be the save-
all and the cover-all, so far as they are concerned.

When, therefore, Christ came to teach that the poor were im-
mortal ; that the poorest and meanest had a chance for life beyond
this world, he raised men to a dignity and importance which had
not before been regarded as belonging to them.

What seeds do in this world, depends upon what their summer
is, and whether they have power to go through the winter, and grow
again. Some things — deciduous plants — can grow but for one sum-
mer. Other things — such as the hollyhock — grow for two summers,

396 THE HEABT-POWEB OF THE OOSFEL.

and become larger uiid more stately. But those things which have
a permanent value — trees, such as the century-defying oak, out of
which we construct our dwellings, out of which our men-of-war are
built, and which have enduring strength — grow on, season after sea-
son, and through successive cycles.

Now, if man perishes, he is as the grass indeed ; but if he lives
hereafter, beyond this world, who shall measure what he shall be?
If here you take a poor, obscure man, ignorant, and full of prej-
udices and superstition — a barbarian, a miserable slave — and meas-
ure him, what is he to society ? Almost a wart, and nothing else.
What is he worth to civilization ? He is scarcely a filling-up in life.
What is he worth ? Just about as much as his hoe is. His value
is measured by his power to create ; by the skill that is in his hand.
What sign is there of an ideal of beauty in his soul ? What in-
signia are there which mark him as superior to the lower animals ?
What can he do, poor, ignorant, untaught, and undeveloped as he is ?

But ah ! if that soul is going to have a chance to unfold ; if,
being temporarily planted here, it is to be transferred to a region
where it will have a chance to develop the immortal that is in it ;
if by and by it shall be transplanted to a better clime and a fairer
soil, where it shall have a nobler opportunity for growth, who can
tell into what magnificent proportions that earth-neglected but
heaven-protected spirit shall spring ? Who can estimate the value
of that nature which is to go on unfolding forever and forever ? It
is out of the infinite possibilities of this future immortality which
promises all things and projects all things for the least and the poor-
est, that men draw installments of honor and dignity here.

See the mother sitting by the cradle, and singing to the child.
He is her hero. Forelooking, she sees him as a boy ten or twelve
years of age, sprightly and comely and beautiful. She sees him as
a youth, gay and fair, blossoming and breaking out into life. She
sees him issuing into young manhood. She foresees the time when
his stalwart form shall support her in the feebleness of age, and as
she approaches the grave. She sees him, also, in mature manhood,
and in his declining years. He is her hope and pride.

In the midst of her reveries the child wakes up ; and it cries, as
an animal would cry. It is helplessness itself. It does not even
know its mother. It cannot lift its hands intelligently to its face.
There is nothing of it. It is a little mass of jelly and bone. Is
there anything so insignificant as a new-born babe ? And yet, does
not the mother see all its manhood? Is there not over that cradle
a glory that ia borrowed 'ram the possibiliUe- ' f coming ye^vrs 2

THE HEABT-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL. 397

And is not the mother right ? He is a hero. She has the faith to
discern the future of his life.

And oh, what grandeur there is in men, to one who has faith to
believe that they shall never die ! A man may be poor for society,
poor for the household, and poorest of all for himself in this life — for
if in this life only we have hope, toe are of all men most miserable.
But oh, to have light and immortality brought to light as a measure
by which to judge of men ; to have diffused a knowledge of the
world beyond ; to have opened the crystal door of. the future ; to
have let in a light which should change all the aspects of tbings,
and reveal the glories of the world to come — this is not a small
thing. And you shall find that where there is most intelligent and
righteous and permanent liberty, it is the result of the inspiration
of those views of immortality which came from Christ Jesus, which
have blest mankind through ages, and which will go on blessing
them to the end of time.

The intensity of the divine desire for the emergence of men
from the lower states in which they are born in this world into
higher spiritual conditions, is prominently developed in the Gospel
of Christ. All through the teaching of the Saviour I discern sym-
pathy for men, not exactly because they are sinful, but because
they are crude, undeveloped, ignorant, untaught ; because they
are sufferers, and are destined to greater suffering if they could not
be rescued. I perceive in the teaching and character and earthly
life of Christ, that his soul was attempting to draw men up from the
beggarl}'^ bondage of their fleshly condition into the freedom and to
the glory of a truly spiritual life. It was as if they were animals in
whom manhood had begun to be developed. It was as if the heart
of God was pouring down light and warmth upon them. As the
sun shines on homely roots, so God shone on men. And then came
the development of the Spirit, to the divine nature that was in them.

This was not altogether new. There had been schemes of some-
thing like this in other faiths and religions — for there are some ele-
ments of truth in all forms of belief; but nowhere else had there
been such an emphasis given to this. Nowhere else was there ever
a heart that beat so intelligently and so effectually as the heart of
Christ standing in the place of God to men, and bearing witness to
the divine desire that men should be inspired, lifted up, redeemed,
enfranchised, ennobled, and made sons of God. What a view of
God does this render to us ! What a view must it have rendered
to those >vho wen* accustomed to look at him with the eyes of an-
tiquity I Listen to the description of God which is given in the next
chapter •

398 THE REAllT-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL.

"Dtspiseth thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-
BuflPering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent-
ance ?"

How sublime a view was this of the moral development of the
Avorld, and of a God that nurses the world with love ! The magis-
terial and despotic view of God is one side. But there is another
side. There had been a presentation of God as wise and just, ad-
dressed to the forceful nature of men ; but the view of a God of in-
finite love, guided by his wisdom, opening for the whole race a door of
escape from the physical reality into the region of spirituality — this
certainly was a new presentation of the great central force of the uni-
verse, not as a blind fate, not as a crushing destroyer, not as a
subtle Machiavelian God, issuing his decrees, but as a Mother-God,
a Father-God, a Brother-God, a nourishing God, that brings up his
creatures in love.

This was the presentation of God which the Gospel contained ;
and the test of his love to men was, not that he never caused them
pain. Suffering is often a test of love. Our love to others is not
measured by how glad it makes them feel. It is not bursts, im-
petuosities of feeling, but its continuity, the length of time that it
Avill continue to exist when once it is set in operation, that tests its
value. Earthly feelings are like rockets that go blazing into the sky,
but very soon fall, drawn by fatal attraction, to the earth ; and how
long before it is extinguished, how long it will bear pressure, how
long it will endure suffering, how disinterested it is, how much it
will give — that is the test of human love ; and human love is iound
to be very imperfect when measured by that test.

But was there ever love like that of God in Christ Jesus ? Was
there ever anything which so filled the measure of disinterested love
as that of Christ Jesus for his enemies ? Was there ever a more
sublime exhibition of love than that which he manifested when,
banging upon the cross, he prayed for his crucifiers, saying, " Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do" ?

The personality of God ; the sympathy of God for mankind ; the
reduction of God to those conditions of humanity in which we can
interpret the divine nature, and understand that divinity consists,
not in magnitude, not in power, not in force, but in disposition, and
that love is the center of that disposition — this is transcendent. It
is the secret of the power of the Gospel in Christ Jesus.

The universe is now revealed to be a household. We know what
a household is ; but when we say the universe is a household, we do
not mean that it is such a one as ours is. Yet to us there is no
place BO sweet as home. There is nothing that touches so many
hearts, and touches them so sweetly, as the thought of home — a

TUB HEABT-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL. 399

thought that is selected as the symbol or sign of the divine purpose
in regard to the race. And the universe being a household, we are
tauglit to draw near to Jesus in all the universe, and say, " Our
Father." When I do this, I am knocking at the door of ray Father's
house. And when I have found Christ I have found him who is
my Father.

How different is this view from the ancient conception, or from
that modern conception which men are so desperately disposed to
rush into ! What can be more comforting than the thouglit that all
mankind are a family, and that God is large enough and wise enough
to govern by his personality ? Men are not, and therefore they have
a clumsy machinery of laws. No magistrate can govern by his per-
sonality. No man can be trusted to do it. Men's nobler impulses
are so blended with their lower passions that their judgment is not
a safe guide ; and so, not because it is the best thing, but because it
is the best thing that we in our imperfect condition can attain to
we resort to constitutions and laws. Constitutions and laws are
means which are employed for bolstering the weakness of the men
that stand behind them to administer them. But God stands above
all these things. He governs, not by laws nor by constitutions, but
by his mind and heart, saying, " I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. I am not tied. I stand in my own jjersonality. I am
free to feel sympathy and affection whenever and wherever I Avill."
God is perfectly wise and just, and true and unerring, and therefore
he can act without restraint. The conception revealed in Christ, of
the Eternal Father, of the governing God, is that he is one who
stands in the plenitude of his being, administering in heaven and
earth by the power of his own regnant heart, and not from the blind
impulse of law ; from the liberty that inheres in his own nature, and
not from any coercion outside of himself. How grand is the con-
ception of such a God, with such a power and such a purpose, ad-
ministering throughout the universe!

But there is no attribute of God so wonderful as his patience.
There is nothing so marvelous in the divine nature as God's long-
suffering. We cannot bear to contemplate the atrocious wickedness
which we see around about us. We are repelled in a moment from
things which seem to us so flagitious. Oh, what a smoke has gone
up from the corruptions of this world! What hideous cruelties
there have been ! What wrestlings of animal with animal ! What
rage and fury ! What lust and crime ! But God has patiently
borne it all. And he has waited, and still waits, for the develop-
ment and purification of the race. The ages have rolled by, and

400 TEU EEAET-POWEB OF TEE GOSPEL.

thus far the earth has borne little fruit ; but it is like an orchard
filled with trees that shall bear abundant and glorious fruit in the
ages that are to come ; and God has waited, and is waiting, and will
wait to the end. God is glorious as a God of love and mercy ; but
he is more glorious as a God of infinite long-suflfering and patience.

When we come to have these thoughts of the divine nature
brought out, we see that there was good reason why the apostle
should say, " I am not ashamed of such a God nor of such a Gospel.
That is the message which I dare to stand before any heathen temple
and proclaim."

To be sure, heathenism had a great advantage over the Gospel.
All that art could do had been done to redeem heathenism from
vulgarity, and cover up its deformities, and make it beautiful to the
eye ; and Paul had only this sj^iritual or ideal conception of God to
present. But where it found a lodgment it led to most astonishing
results. Where it was preached to the poor and needy, it inspired
them with great hope and confidence. Where it was brought home
to the guilty, it awakened in them such a sense of their guilt and
of God's grace in their forgiveness, that they were inspired with
purposes to live holy lives, and began to live such lives. And in
the midst of those lives more and more of the light of truth dawned
upon them.

There is no description that can fitly represent the sensations of
the men to whom the Gospel came. All they could say was, " I
was dead, but am alive ; I was lost, but am found ; I was in prison,
but am released. By the grace of God I am what I am. He is my
Friend, my Lover, my Saviour, my Father." Their souls were so
awakened, their manhood was developed to such pro^iortions, they
manifested such hidden power, they had such faith and courage, and
their experience was such, that they were transformed.

Under the influence of this blessed truth, the household was rev-
olutionized, and Christianity gradually established itself in the earth.
It never established itself by symbols and rituals of worship. These
came after its decadence began. The beginnings of Christianity
had for their foundation the power of Christ brought into the
individual soul. When once men had been convicted of their sins,
and Christ had been presented to them as their Saviour, and they
apprehended him, and his Spirit had entered into them, they became
so sweet, there was such nobleness in their disposition and purpose,
that they were capable both of forbearance and achievement. They
had those qualities of manhood which were exceedingly rare, and
which were never inspired by the cunning philosophy of the stoics.

TEE EEAET-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL. 401

Men of no learning, no culture, were found springing up into moral
sublimity. There grew up in every city bodies of men on whom the
Spirit of God had descended, and who exhibited all those traits
which it is the nature and design of Christianity to develop. There
is abundant testimony of the triumph of noble qualities in the lives
of the early Christians. No man can read the Epistles of the Apos-
tle Paul and not see that the power which he exerted was that of
regenerated character, a spiritualized disposition, and a new manhood
in Christ Jesus. It is that power which comes when God's influence
is felt in the human soul. Then manhood takes unexpected devel-
opment. Then come, with grand disclosure, those things which men
vainly seek for in other ways. They blossom profusely, and reap-
pear as fast as plucked. And so it was this spectacle of what the
Gospel does to the heart of man that filled the Apostle with joy and
confidence.

No man has ever preached the Gospel who has not felt that so
long as he looked at it as a mere speculation it was full of loop-holes ;
that there were many things in it which seemed contradictory and
inexplicable. If I had reliance only upon pure intellection, I should
be as a reed shaken in the wind. But I never try to put myself in
the attitude of God toward a human being, I never have my heart
alive Avith glowing sympathy toward a fellow-creature, I never feel
my soul moved with an earnest desire to benefit another, that I have
not an intuition, a certainty, of the existence of God and of his
Fatherhood, which cannot come through any process of the intellect.
God discloses himself, not through the intellect, but throuo-h the
heart ; he is revealed to us through our own likeness to him. And it
is by this revelation that we are able to make known the lost con-
dition of men, and the undeveloped power in them of recuperation •
that we are all able to stand before men and say, " The law is that
he that sinneth shall suffer in proportion to the sin, or shall die • that
if the sin passes a given line, or goes beyond a certain magnitude
there is no drawing back, and no medicine or surgeon that can keep
the sinner from suffering the penalty." But I stand and look that
economy in the face, and say, in respect to all mental and moral
transgression, that while it is true that the soul that persistently sins
shall die, while there is a law that rolls men on and down to destruc-
tion if they do not turn back, yet the soul that sins mai/ live. Tho
Lord God hath declared it. And while material nature stands say-
ing, " Y< -1 sliall siiffer the consequences of your trans'^-ression " the
heart of God stands and says, " I would not have you die. Why
will you die? In me is your help and your life." The liiglier nature
the truest part of nature, tlie subtle, ineffable blossom of uaturc, is

402 THE HEABT-POWEB OF TEE GOSPEL,

that which the soul knows about, and the body does not. Away,
chemistry ! What do you know about nature ? You take the shuck,
and analyze that ; but you know nothing of what the shuck contains.
You have examined the dirt out of which the plant grows ; but you
are ignorant of the blossom in the topmost bough. This is made
known only through a knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. It is a
truth of the Gospel that there is remedy for sin, and salvation for
the sinner ; that as soon as we are touched by the Divine Spirit, we
have power to rise superior to transgression ; that then all the j^ast
is changed, and all the future is guaranteed. And when I make
known this Gospel, if I am ever ashamed, it is of the intellectual
propositions in which men try to clothe these high sjjiritual
truths. If I am ever shaken in my faith, it is on the side of meta-
physics and philosophy. I am never ashamed nor faithless when
I make a practical use of the truth as it is revealed in Christ. I
never undertook to comfort one that was in distress ; I never at-
tempted to encourage one that wanted to do well, and did not know
how ; I never tried to act toward men as God acts toward them,
that I had a doubt, and that I did not feel and know that I had
touched the marrow of the Gospel. I know in whom I have believed
and trusted. I know that the truth of God is a truth of love, of
mercy, of recuperation, of a new life, of a life kindled in the soul.
The marriage of the soul to Christ- -that is the disclosure of the Gos-
pel. And this blessed Gospel Paul was not ashamed of. Certainly,
we ought not to be ashamed of it if he was not. On the contrary,
every one of us ought to be grateful for it.

It was winter. My honeysuckle had lost all its leaves. It was
barren and odorless. But there came from the far south the warm
and reviving sun, and called and called to the honeysuckle, and
awaked its life. And it began to hold out its hands to the sup. And
no sooner did the renewed sap begin to flow through its vines, than
they began to exhale fragrance and thanksgiving to the sun that
brought out their blossoms.

And shall you, planted in the garden of the Lord, have the blessed
hope and sweet conviction that you are disenthralled from a thou-
sand dangers, and hear your Heavenly Father's voice calling you by
precious names of love and honor, without expressing as much grat-
itude as the vines that never forget to blossom in beauty and give
thanks in fragrance ? Shall God do for you what he has been doing,
and have no requital ? Shall you enjoy the bounty and experience,
the benefit of God's love, and then hide your light under a bushel
and not let brother or sister know that you are in Christ ? That
name should be to you as the sound of music. Sing it. Speak it.

TEE EEABT-FOWEB OF THE GOSPEL, 403

Proclaim it. Lift up your voice as a trumpet, and let men know in
whom you hope, and why you believe you shall triumph over death,
and fly above the world, and never touch its smoke, until you land
in the realm of glory.

Many of you can testify that this power is not wanting yet. You
are yourselves witnesses of the living power of God in Christ. And
60 long as the preaching of the Gospel of Christ shall make men over
again, and reform society, and heal its wounds, and cleanse its sores ;
so long as it shall be able to set men free from temptations and en-
able them to cultivate sweet affections and glorious sentiments — so
long none of us need be ashamed of it.

Therefore teach the Gospel. Make it known to your children.
Let it be the lullaby from which the child learns tidings of God and
of Christ. Let it be your theme in the household. Blend the love
of the Father in heaven with the love of the father upon earth. As
the child learns early to love his earthly parents, let there be an ex-
tension of his love, so that it shall love the Lord who gave himself
for even the least of the little ones, to redeem him from sin, and to
make him glorious as a king in the presence of God.

By this grace and by this glorious love shed abroad in our
hearts, transforming us, may we all, from day to day, and from year
to year, be grandly proud and triumphant, and not ashamed of this
Gospel, until we stand among the shouting heavenly throng, mora
enthusiastic than ever in our rejoicings, in view of the salvation
wrought by Jesus Christ. And in our joy, let us cast our crowns at
his feet, saying, " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, be
the praise forever and forever."

404 THIi EEABT'FOWEB OF TEE GOSFEL

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We thank thee, our Father, for the revelation of thyself through Je8U3
Christ our Lord. We bless thee that the knowledge of salvation through his
grace has been brought to us, and that so many of us have been inclined to
accept mercy at his hand. We thank thee that thou hast kindled in us hope,
and joy, and peace in beheving. We thank thee that although we have not
plucked the fruits that grow by the side of the river of life, yet we have had
great joy and great delight even in anticipation, more than springs from the
realization of earthly joy. We thank thee that all the light and air of the
future falls upon our path, and that, though for a time it may be hid, the
light comes again, and the darkness no longer rests upon us as it did, because
thou hast spoken peace to our souls. Thou hast taught us that we are thine.
Thou hast entered in to dwell with us. Thou hast been our blessed guest.
Thou hast brought, universally, blessings upon us, and we are rich, since thou
hast been with us. Thou hast called us by name. Thou hast known us utter-
ly. We are reconciled to thee. Between thee and us there is no more fear.
Would that there were no more disobedience and no more unbelief or doubt.
Would that we could always abide as upon the top of the mountain, and be-
hold thee in thy glory, and rejoice in the testimonies of thy divinity. And
yet, even when our mind is clouded, and doubts come, though for the time it
is not joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it workethin us the peaceable fruit
of righteousness. We rejoice that thou dost try us, and that our faith is put
to proof, and that we must needs endure by patience, and by the sense of the
invisible, and by faith in God, and not by what we can understand of God's
providence. We desire to commit ourselves to thy guidance. What is there
that we would withhold from thee ? What treasure, what favorite plan, what
friendship, what hope or joy in life, is not better for the shining of thy face
upon it ? We rejoice, O Lord, that we may commit all we have to thy power
and wisdom, and that thou wilt overrule everything so that it shall work for
good to us. Even so, blessed Saviour. Take what thou wilt away. Put what
thou wilt upon us. Grant thyself, grant peace with thee, grant thy cleansing
hope and thine enlightening faith, and it matters not what else our experi-
ence is below.

And now we beseech of thee that thou wilt teach us to win others, and
that we may be able to give unto all whom we love, and all who are yet in the
darkness of unbeUef, that power by which we were made willing.

We pray that thy work may be revived in the hearts of thy people, and
that it may be planted in many hearts where now is a wilderness.

O Lord, we pray that thou wilt glorify thyself in thy triumphs over ihine
adversaries. Redeem souls from selfishness. Redeem those who are now re-
sisting thee and thy laws. Grant that they may be made of a better mind.
May they return with repentance, and find in sorrow joys unspeakable and
full of glory. We pray for thy churches, and for those that minister thy
truth. In thee may their strength be from day to day. Augment their skill
and power in the proclamation of the truth. May they see that their labor is
not in vain. May the seed they sow spring up and bring forth a hundred
fold.

We pray for thy cause in every form. We pray that wars may cease ; that
all the contentions of selfishness and ambition may cease ; that men may no
longer live by their worst side. Teach men to live, we beseech of thee, by
that which alhes them to God and to immortality. May ignorance be done
away, and justice, and moderation of desire, and purity, and love prevail
among this people, and among the nations of the earth. And make haste, we
beseech of thee, to grant the fulfillment of those promises which respect the

THE EEABT-POWEB OF THE GOSPEL. 405

glory of the good in the last days of the earth. Let thy kingdom come, and
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen,

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Grant, our Father, thy blessing to rest upon the word of truth which has
been spoken. Draw us by the sweetness of love into more intimate relations
to thee. Give us not only the knowledge of outward things, but the better
knowledge of things that come by the inward sense. Teach not only our un-
derstanding, but our moral sense. Interpret to us, by our daily experience,
more and more of the mystery of God. Enter in, according to thy promise,
not simply to sup with us, but to dwell and abide with us. And may we be
so transformed that all our life shall be as the life of Christ, so that we may
be said to be one with him. And grant that we may never be unwilling to
speak for Christ. May we never shrink from his cross and shame. May we
interest ourselves in every cause that is of God, and that represents the love
of God, and the purity of God, and the justice of God, and the truth of God.
So may we be thy faithful children indeed. And then bring us home. And
may we be glad to find that we are already known in heaven, our names writ-
ten in the Lamb's Book of Life. And from golden gates may there stream a
multitude which shall lift up a song of gladness and rejoicing, and give us an
exceeding and abundant entrance into the kingdom of thy glory. And to the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit shall be praises evermore. Amei^

XXI.

The Lord's Prayer.

THE LORD'S PRAYEE.

I propose this evening to make some remarks on the Lord's
Prayer. You will find it recorded in the sixth chapter of Matthew,
and the ninth verse, and onward ; and in the eleventh chapter of
Luke, beginning with the first verse. They only, of the four Evan-
gelists, make mention of this prayer. And there is some difference
between the account given of it by Luke, and that given of it by
Matthew.

"We find it embodied in the Gospel of Matthew with the Sermon
on the Mount, having its organic relations to that memorable dis-
course, and seeming to spring necessarily out of the circumstances
under which the Sermon took place. Any one who reads the Sermon
on the Mount will find that the Lord's Prayer occupies just the place
that was needed for the completion of the whole discourse. And
yet, Luke speaks of it as if it were delivered on another occasion.
This has given rise to the impression that, perhaps, it was delivered
twice. And yet, if it was delivered twice, it is very singular that
Mark, the most accurate, perhaps, of the four Evangelists, and John,
the most devout, should both of them have omitted it. The words
of Luke are,

" And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he
ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John
also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say. Our
Father which art in heaven. Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily
bread. And forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every one that is
indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Li Matthew's version, you Avill find that there is the Doxology
appended. It is the familiar Jewish Doxology :

" For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever."

This is unquestionably a later edition. The familiar and ordinary
Jewish Doxology was added to the text, and the earliest editions
omitted it. The best scholars now agree, therefore, that the form in
Matthew is purer than the form in Luke. That is to say, that it is
fuller, since it contains this addition, which the form in Luke
does not.

You will perceive that Luke's account of this prayer is not incon-
sistent with its being a part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was

SuTTDAY Evening, Feb. 25, 1871. Lesson : 1 Pet. n. 9-25. Hymns (Plymouth
CoUectlon) : Nos. 1335, 816, 715.

410 TEE LOBD^S PEA TEE.

returning from one of those Galilean circuits of which he made so
many ; and coming in sight of the sea of Galilee he stopped to feed
the vast multitude which had followed him, or come forth to meet
liim. It is recorded that he withdrew from them, and went up into
the mountains, and spent the night in prayer. He came down from
the mountain in the morning, apparently, and met his disciples — his
nearest, chosen disciples — had some converse with them, and then
went down to the multitude. It is probable that he began his dis-
course there. But such was the throng, that he retired still further
up ; and there he delivered the discourse.

This reconciles the two statements — one of which says that he
delivered this sermon on a plain (apparently an immense level
plain) ; and the other of which declares that he delivered it upon a
mountain (for that term mountain was used to signify an upland,
and not what we mean when we use it.)

It seems that our Master, after spending the whole night in
prayer, ascended, and began his Sermon on the Mount. And when
you read that Jesus taught men to pray in the midst of this sermon,
you must not allow yourself to be misled by the term sermon. You
must not think of a church, of a minister, of a text, and of a regular
discourse such as you are accustomed to associate with this word.
The Sermon on the Mount was no such thing. There can be no
question that it was delivered in the most familiar way, and that he
was sometimes standing and sometimes sitting — for both terms are
employed to designate the method. And there is no doubt that it
was interlocutory — that he discussed a certain point, and then re-
ceived questions upon it which he answered. Although none of
these questions are reported, the discourse itself bears marks, if I
may so say, which indicate them. Topics are introduced and ter-
minated in a way which shows that there were some sort of intervals.
Though they are not locked one into another, there wei-e stops, evi-
dently ; and it is not improbable that he was interrogated in the
midst of his discourses, and that after he had replied he went on. It
is not unreasonable to suppose that thus he went from point to
point. It is recorded that one said to him,

" Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught bis disciples,*'
and we may believe that this took place during the progress of the
Sermon on the Mount.

We are not, then, necessarily driven to the supposition that this
prayer was twice delivered — once during the Sermon on the Mount,
and once when he was asked to teach his disciples how to pray,
as John taught his. This latter account is perfectly consistent
with the former j and it is probable that the circumstance recorded

TEE LOBUS PBA YEB. 411

by Luke took place when lie was delivering the Sermon on the
Mount.

Another question of some interest arises — namely, "Was this
Lord's Prayer original with our Master, or was it but a collection
of the best Rabbinic prayers, or the best prayers of the Jewish
people aforetime ? This question is important only because the most
modern spirit puts undue emphasis upon originality. It is the things
which are original that call forth our highest approbation. Ah,
what an original sermon ! What an original letter I What an
original book 1 Where one has been wearied by repetition, an
original thing is very refreshing. But we are in danger of over-
estimating originality, and making mere freshness or first delivery
more important than the intrinsic quality of the thing delivered.

This leads us to state that probably almost every petition in the
Lord's Prayer, although not to be found in precise terms, might
have been found in sentiment among the best Jewish writings during
or preceding, his day. I do not affirm that they were found ; I
merely say that so far as the value of the Prayer is concerned, and
so far as the honor of the Saviour is concerned, I would just as lief
as not that you would find every one of them in the Old Testa-
ment.

It is not in the originality of the Sermon on the Mount that its
beauty, or power, or importanc ?, or value consists. Nearly every
single sentence of the Beatitudes I can show you, in almost the
same words, in the Prophets and the Psalms ; and the sentiments
are contained there over and over again. " Blessed are the poor" ;
" Blessed are they that mourn" ; " Blessed are the peacemakers" ;
" Blessed are the meek" — these declarations were made before Christ
uttered them, if not in precise phraseology, yet in sentiment. And
why should we hesitate to believe that among such a people, edu-
cated specially by the divine Providence, under the guidance of the
Lord Jehovah, where so many prayers had been made, where prayers
were so universal, and where they were so necessary to the right
condition of men — why should we hesitate to believe that among
such a people, and under such circumstances, these petitions of the
Lord's Prayer were offered ten thousand times ? Why should we
suppose that they were first uttered when Christ delivered the Ser-
mon on the Mount ? I have no question that the substance of that
Prayer, although it had not existed in the same form, or in the same
phraseology in which Christ presented it, had been known and em-
ployed by thousands of souls.

It is therefore no reproach, and it takes nothing from the value
of the Lord's Prayer, nor from this whole discourse, to say that they

412 TEi: LOBD'S PBA TUB.

were not original with Christ ; that they were not then first invented
when he gave them to his disciples. We know it was so in respect
to the discourse at large.

Most excellent men have called the Sermon on the Mount a
charter of Christianity. There could be nothing more unfortunate
than that term. It was not prospective ; or, it was so only to a
secondary extent. It was retrospective. It was a distinct summing
up of the vast knowledge that had accrued to God's people up to
that time, and a giving them the highest spiritual instruction. It
was expressly designed to bring together what men had already
learned, that from that, as a starting-point, the new dispensation
and the new life might go on developing. And the key-note was
given in these two sentences :

" Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : I am
not come to destroy, but to fulfill." " Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case
enter into the kingdom of heaven."

We find, therefore, that the Sermon on the Mount, of which so
much is said, as being a sufficient foundation of Christianity, was
not original, so far as the matter of which it was composed is con-
cerned. It simjjly grouped and gathered together all those ele-
ments of truth which had already been disclosed. The Sermon on
the Mount had not one single sentence about faith : is there no faith
in Christianity ? It had not a single word about Christ, or a Re-
deemer : is there no Redeemer in Christianity ? It had not a syl-
lable on the subject of death or immortality : is there no death nor
immortality in Christiany ? It had nothing of future punishment
or reward : is there nothing of these in Christianity ? Can that be
all of Christianity which has no teaching of an eternal world, nor of
an atoning Saviour ? The Sermon on the Mount was in some respects
a true exposition of Christianity, or of a part of it — that part which
had been derived from the Jewish church. Gathering together in
that matchless discourse the best things which had been brought to
light, he said, as it were, " Take these, now, into the spiritual life.
Let them contribute to your highest development. Adopt this
Prayer as yours. When it is claimed as Jewish, I give it to the
Jews ; it was not original with your Jesus ; but it was inspired by
Jehovah, although it came through the old dispensation ; and it is
just as good for your purpose as though it had been first uttered
by me."

Nothing is taken from it, to prove that it was in existence before
Christ's time. The beauty and power of it do not depend upon its
being shown to have been first thought of when the Saviour an-
ngunced it to his disciples. It is the combination of the elements of

TEE LOED'S PBA TUB. 413

which it is composed, and their incorporation into a higher spiritual
life, that makes them beautiful and powerful.

Another question arises, namely, Was this Prayer of our Saviour
a model and suggestion of prayer, or was it a form to be used li-
turgically ? I hold it to have been a suggestion. There is no ob-
jection to using it as a form liturgically ; but there is no evidence
(and much to the contrary) that our Saviour designed that the dis-
ciples should take this Prayer, and repeat it Avord for word, liturgi-
cally. If he had so designed, the variations of phraseology in
Luke and Matthew would be unaccountable and inexplicable.
More than this, if it was to be a set form, and obligatory, how does
it happen that there is no further allusion to it in the New Testa-
ment ? The Saviour never referred to it except on this one occasion.
There was no reference made to it by the apostles in their instruc-
tion to the churches. Christian churches existed for more than fifty
years without a written Gospel ; and there is no hint that, by tra-
dition or otherwise, it was made imperative on Christians to repeat
the Lord's Prayer in the form in which it stands. It was three
hundred years before it began to take on that form, which after-
ward became a superstition until the Pater Noster degenerated al-
most into contempt. The repetition of it, once, twice, thrice, a hun-
dred times, was supposed to have some virtue. The counting the
beads, and saying the Lord's Prayer at every one of them, thus
multiplying the mere " vain repetitions " by scores and hundreds,
was prescribed, and was supposed to have some inherent benefit in
it. This shows how degenerate the Christian heart and imagination
had become.

That we are permitted to repeat the Lord's Prayer as a part of
a liturgy, I need not argue ; but the question as to the wisdom of
formulated prayer, as to whether it is better that a prayer should
be prescribed, and followed in sequence, and in the same terms al-
ways, is involved ; and about that I have only to say, that they who
find that they can pray better out of the Book have God's dear
leave to pray out of the Book. That road in which your feet as-
cend easiest and fastest toward the heavenly gate is your road ; and
you need no priest, no minister, no authority, to tell you to walk in
it. If you can pray more to edification by the formulated prayers
of the church than by extemporaneous prayers, so pray. It is not
for me to cast any aspersion upon them. Nor is it for you to turn
upon me and say that extemporaneous prayers are indecent and un-
edifying. You have a right to say that they do not edify you, but
not to say that they do not edify me and other people.

It seems unnecessary that there should be a perpetual jar and

4 1 4 TME LOBD'8 PEA YEB.

collision between the two schools, one of whom write their prayers
and then read them, and the other of whom speak out of their soul
extemporaneously.

In regard to public service, there is this to be said : that where
men have the gift of prayer, it would seem far more edifying that
one should pray out of his heart and experience and judgment, and
out of his knowledge of the want of the community to which he
ministers. On the other hand, where men have not the gift of
prayer, where their extemporaneous prayers are dry and useless, one
naturally longs for the stately grandeur of the prayers of the Book,
— for, if we speak of written prayers, of course we think of those
in the dear old Episcopal Prayer-book — the book of our fathers.
Although I was not brought up in the Episcopal Church, that
church to me is full of venerableness. And indeed, I am filled with
gratitude to it for the great service which it has done to Christian-
ity through so many ages. Therefore it seems to me that there is a
common ground. Let those use the Book who find the most edifi-
cation in it ; and let those who find their gifts leading them outside
of the Book have their liberty. Bear with each other, and rejoice
each in the other's gifts and liberties.

In private prayer, however, it seems to me preeminently desira-
ble that men should not lean on the crutches of the book ; that
every one in his own household, and especially in his closet, should
learn, if he has not learned already, to commune with God as one
speaks to another, face to face. I am far more clear and decided on
this point than I am upon the other.

With these preliminaries, let us analyze a little the contents of
the Lord's Prayer. We will take it as it is recorded in Matthew :

"After this manner,' therefore, pray ye: Our Father, which art in
heaven."

Here you have the standpoint. We are to come to God, not as
the subjects of a monarch. Still less are we to come before God as
abject servants. And certainly we are not to come into the presence
of God as slaves come trembling into the presence of their despot.
The very opening of the prayer places us in a filial relation to God.
One might say that no man prays well the Prayer of the Lord whose
heart does not first cry out, " My Father !" It is the call of the soul
to its dearest and best heavenly Friend ; and no man who is merely
reverential can pray this Prayer. Bow down the head till it touches
the ground. Let the heart be weighed down with awe and venera-
tion that does not enable the lip to speak a word aright. It is not
what breaks us down before God that fits us to go into his pres-
ence. It is that which lifts us up toward him. It is our yearning

TEE LOBB'8 PEA YER. 4 1 5

for him, our realization of his true paternity, and our corresponding
filial atiection toward him, which give us liberty to say the first
sentence of the Lord's Prayer. It is a sentence that casts its light
far back into the old dispensation, and also far forward into the
new dispensation. For, whatever you may find in the Old Testa-
ment, you will not find much there that would lead men to approach
Jehovah as a father. There is a recognition of fatherhood there ;
but it was not the manner and habit of the people of Israel so to
approach their God. It is distinctively Christian in this respect,
that it is made to be the genius of Christianity. We are not to go
to a crowned monarch. We are not to take our conception of God's
code from the codes of civil rulers. We are to lift up, in our imag-
ination and in our alFection, the dearest and purest and most loving
household. That is the divine ideal of government, as prefigured in
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we draw near to God, there-
fore, we draw near saying, in the very first sentence, " Our Father."
And with that word, what may we not petition for ? What may
not the child say in the ear of his parent ? What confidence is more
utter than that which exists between the parent and the child that
loves and is loved at home? What is there that the child may not ask
of the father ; or, what confidence is there that he may not repose
in the father ? If the child has gone wrong, how easy it is for him
to ask forgiveness of the father ? Or if the child desires to take on
privilege, what is there that he is ashamed or unwilling to ask of his
father ? For all that the father has is for the children. And al-
though in the household there is a distinction of rights and proper-
ties, yet, in proportion as love prevails this distinction is hidden,
and other relationships appear ; and all who are in the house feel
that each is a member of the other, and that they have all things in
common. So, whatever there is of beauty, and of good, and of privi-
lege, and of permission, the child freely asks of the father in the
household.

This same thing is implied in the very first sentence with which,
in the Christian life, we address our God. We are permitted to dis-
arm him of all the terrors which hover around the fate-gods of an-
tiquity ; to drop off the magisterial relations which have been as-
sociated with him ; to no longer see him sitting enthroned with
severity on his brow, with justice in his eye, with the implements
of power in his hand, and with the circumstance of administration
around about him ; but to see him sitting as One to wlioni we may
draw near with associations of loving tenderness. And we say, " Our
Father." And with that word fear flies, and doubts disappear, and
the heart rests.

4 1 6 THE LOED'S PEA lEE,

" Our Father, which art in heaven."

He is not weak or impoverished, as earthly parents are. He is
not down on the level of our ignorance. He is not, like us, rolled
over the banks of obscure mist and fog. He is lifted above the weak-
ness of life into the immortality and strength and purity and beauty
of the heavenly land. He is the glorious Father of an eternal
sphere.

" Our Father, which art in heaven."

The little child lisps it. These precious words are among the earliest
that we learn to utter. The child hears the parents devoutly utter
them, and his thought passes from the lower parentage, taking the
hint and suggestion of the father and mother to lift before itself the
higher fatherhood. . This is the most blessed conception the child
can take of God, and the greater love of heaven, and the better
household.

" Hallowed be thy name."

Once brought into the divine presence, the soul's first outburst is
such as an absent child speaks. Do you know what it is to be home-
sick ? Were you ever sent away from home when small, as I was?
Do you remember what it was to remain and count the weeks and
days and hours ? Do you recollect how you could not sleep the night
before you were to start for home ; and how you could not eat your
breakfast ; how when the stage was waiting for you the excitement
took away all your appetite ; and how as you rolled over the jour-
ney you thought you would surprise the family when you got home;
how, when at last you got there, you thought of some little device
by which you would take them by surprise, but how, when you
rushed into the house, all you could do was to throw your arms about
your mother's neck, and cry, and say, " Oh ! dear mother !"

That is the generous way in which the child's heart pours itself
out. This is an illustration of the current, the gush, the enthusiasm,
of that love which children feel. The child's love goes out to meet
the parent's love, as the most beautiful, the dearest, the most sacred,
the most holy thing ; and for the moment love worships love.

This I suppose to be the interpretation of Ilallo'wed he thy name.
As it were, the soul opens its arms, and throws them around the Fa-
ther in heaven, and says, " O Lord and Father ! sacred and holy be
thy name." It is the impulse of one who wants the Father to be
most beloved, glorious, beautiful, and sacred, not only to himself,
but to all.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."
These petitions are one. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of
love, of joy, of peace. The law of God is that which produces order,
truth, equity, and so love, peace, good- will j and these petitions come

TEE LOBB'S FBAYEB, 417

from the aspirations of the heart for that more perfect state, in it-
self and throughout the universe, in which God himself dwells. It
is as if the child saw how beautiful was the palace of his Father God,
and longed that the same beautiful and blessed estate should be
universal, and that it should be to others, as to him, that kingdom m
which dwelleth righteousness,

" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That is the law of joy in all the universal realm.

Thus far the Prayer respects things beyond our own personal
interest. Now we are permitted, as it were, to make mention of our
private want.

" Give us this day our daily bread."

This is a recognition of divine providence. It is a recognition
of that care for our sustenance which in the fatherly government of
God is continually going on.

" Give us this day our daily bread.**

You will never know what that means, probably. Where it was
first uttered, in a majority of the instances of those that heard it, it
was a question, every day, where they were to get the sustenance of
that day. They lived within ahandbreadth of starvation. They had
no stores. They had laid up nothing in advance. They had no
wealth. Their food, at best, was but a handful of grain. It was
very slender compared with our table bounties. They lived all the
time in intimacy with famine. And when Christ taught them to say
to God,

" Give us this day our daily bread,"
he touched a chord that was always vibrating in their hearts. By
faith, it brought them, in respect to the want which nature presses
most closely upon men, into direct connection with the sovereign
providence of God in the aifairs of this world. It reminds one of
that other passage, where our Saviour said,

"Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you."

This is not inconsistent with the petition,
" Give us this day our daily bread."

It is not a prayer of anxiety. It is a prayer of confidence in the
divine providence of God and recognition of it.

*' And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

Here the heart recognizes its own inferiority and imperfection
and sinfulness. It also recognizes, when it asks forgiveness, that it
is itself in a forgiving mood.

"And lead us not into temptation."

Suffer us not to be led into temptation, is the meaning of that
passage. No man knows what he will do when he is tempted, nor
what he will undo.

4 1 8 THE LORD'S PEA TEE,

•* But deliver us from evil.'

Now, although this prayer is so simple, yet when we come to
look into these various petitions, I think we shall see that scarcely
anything can be asked in this world that may not be appropriately
gathered under one or other of these various heads. There is no extent
of experience, and no want, that may not properly be considered as
but an enlargement of one or other of these petitions. This is more
nearly, therefore, a universal prayer, than any other prayer that was
ever framed. It is among the shortest, and yet among the most
comprehensive and suggestive.

There is infinite latitude allowed under it. We are not to shut
ourselves up simply to the repetition of these phrases.

Our view of the communion of the soul with God ; that fellow-
ship which we have with God ; the interchange of thought and sym-
pathy which the refined Christian heart loves to take with God — all
these come appropriately under that head. All the desires of a man
for worldly good may appropriately be brought under the head,
Give us this day our daily bread. All the fears men have, come in
under the head, Lead us not into temi^tation. Deliver us from evil.
All the things that you need for yourself, or for your children, traced
back, are found, in their initial forms, in this Lord's Prayer. This
is a birthright prayer, belonging to every man. A gate, it is,
through which every living soul may pass. Each petition is a sepa-
rate gate. And beyond is an infinite variety of blessed things.
These gates open, as it were, into a garden where are growing fruits
and flowers in wonderful profusion. Endless diversities of things
are there ; and all of them are appropriate to the utterance of this
prayer.

Are we to repeat it in the form in which it was given, and in that
form only ? The Saviour says that we are to pray after this man-
ner. His words were, not, This prayer pray ye, but, After this
ma)i7ier pray ye.

Who may pray it ? Every one. May the pirate pray it, on his
bloody deck ? If he can, he may. May the murderer pray it, while
the noose is yet swinging and waiting for his neck ? If he desires
to, he may. May the reeling debauchee, returning from his night's
excess, and wearied and jaded and depressed, pray it ? If he has a
heart to, he may. May the man who has been overcome again and
again and again by the temptation of the woi'ld, who still is stand-
ing in the presence of his conqueror (the sin that doth so easily
beset him), and who is ashamed that he is so often carried away —
may he, with a full consciousness of his wickedness and insincerity,
and broken promises, and worthless life, and sinful heart, pray? If

THE LOBD'S PBAYEE. 419

he desires to, he may. May a man before he is converted call God
F'ather? There is only one condition that stands between you and
your calling God Father, and that is, that, being a sinner, you have
not a real desire to be released from your sins. If you love sin,
if you love wickedness, and you use the Lord's prayer to parry judg-
ments with, then I forewarn you. Let it alone. Touch it not. But
the mere circumstance of being a sinner does not disqualify one from
praying to God. Is not the sacrifice of the wicked an abomination
to God ? Yes. If a man tries to garnish his wickedness by sacri-
fice, and he thinks sacrifice is an atonement for that wickedness, and
that after sacrifice he may go on with plenary indulgence again,
then it is an abomination to God. But to interpret it so that a man
may not pray until he is converted, is to shut out the universe. If
God made provision for wicked men, who are they that may not
find succor and help by praying to him ? May not my son, who,
little by little, has been weakened, and has gone down, step by step,
and has fallen into the nets of gamblers and drinkers, and has come
to poverty, and through years and years of degradation has sep-
arated himself from me, until sickness overtakes him — when then,
in his wretchedness, he has fevered dreams of his home, and of me,
may he not call out, " O, my father" ? May he not invoke his
mother until he has been restored to health, and to his right mind,
and until he comes back to his father's house as good as he went
away? May he not, in his low and suffering condition, ask help
and pity of his father and mother ? When does your heart most
need the healing of another heart, but when it is wickedest and
worst ? In that infirmity which sin brings ; in that prostration of
moral power which tends to wrong-doing — there is Avhcre a man
most needs God's pity and God's mercy. Is that the time that a
man's mouth shall be shut, and he shall not say, " O God, my Father,
help me" ? Is prayer the privilege of Christians, and not the privi-
lege of men who are not Christians ? Is it the privilege of those
who have been brought into the light of faith, and not the privilege
of those who have not made proof of faith, and are afar ofl" from it ?

Wherever there is a man who feels the sting of sin, and would
have release, he has a right to say, " O, Father, help me 1" Wherc-
iver there is a man who is conscious that he has done wrong again
and again and again, and that in his own strength he never can
stand, and that he needs help, he has a right to ask for it. " I am
lost in sin ; I have no strength to rescue myself ; thou art God ;
save me !" — that is an argument which knocks louder at the bosom
of God than any battle-ax at the gate of any castle on earth.

If any man feels that he is so weak that he cannot sustain him-

420 TEU LOED'S PBAYEB.

self, there is strength for him if he will ask it ; and he has a right
to ask it, though his name is on no church book. And though men
condemn you, God forgives you. If your father and mother forget
you, the Lord will take you up. If your friends and neighbors cast
you off, God will not forsake you. So long as you have life, so long
as you know enough to want to be better than you are, no matter
what your antecedents have been, you have a right to go to God,
and say, " Our Father."

This prayer, with its hope and cheer, and with its associations,
must at times come most bitterly to many and many a wanderer.
Ye that have been across the deep ; ye that in foreign lands have
left behind you, not only the form of your parents, but almost every
memory of them ; ye that have forsaken the paths of belief, and
have grown worldly, and become hoary in worldliness, and have for-
gotten the God of your father and mother, are there not times
when, as you behold little children kneeling before their mother,
with innocent face and upturned eyes, and learning to repeat, with
broken language, and sweet simplicity, this Prayer — are there not
such times when a chord of memory is struck in your hearts ? How
different were you when you knelt at your mother's knee and re-
peated that Prayer ! Do you not remember it ? And in the old,
brown house, over which the elms used to swing their branches,
storm-tossed, do you not remember how you repeated unwittingly
these strange sentences, looking askance here and there in an
unconscious, half roguery ? Do you not remember the even-
ing song ! Do you not remember the parting kiss as you retired to
rest ? And in the night, when some fear seized you, do you not re-
member the hasty presence of your watching mother ? She is
dead. She died in the faith of the Saviour. She has gone home.
It may be that she has been your guardian angel. You have gone
far from her precepts. You have forsaken the guide of your youth.
You have become hard-hearted and worldly-minded. Oh, sadly
wandering man ! does not the thought of your childhood sometimes
come back to you with overpowering freshness ? At times you used
to recite with unwonted fervor this matchless prayer of the Saviour,
given for all mankind, and for you. It once was familiar to you.
And does it not draw you back with powerful memories and asso-
ciations to the blessed and innocent days of your youth ? When
you think of what you were, and what you meant to be, and what
you are, does it never give a pang to your heart, and do you not
wish that you could now be of the same faith and the same hope
that your parents were ? Do you not wish that you were joined
with them, in simplicity, in purity, and in fervent piety, to God ?

THE L ORB'S PEA TEB, 4 2 I

Jln^ are there not some prayerless souls here to-night who will
be tempted to come back ? Are there not some of you who, though
you have not taken the name of God upon your lips for years, except
for profane purposes, will go down on your knees before you sleep,
and repeat once more, solemnly, tenderly, yearningly, the Lord's
Prayer ? And then, when the morrow comes, I beg you to pray,
" Lead me not into temptation. Deliver me this day from evil."
And gently, even by so small a thing as this, you may be led,
step by step, until the whole way of prayer shall become familiar to
your feet. And then, when life departs, no longer afar off, not know-
ing what to pray for as you ought, you shall stand and see your God
face to face, and find that his fatherhood is sweeter, and larger, and
more real and rich than it has entered into the heart of man to con-
ceive.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the
earth/ from everlastmg to everlasting thou art God. Thou tumest man to de-
struction, and say est, Return ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy
sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch ui the night. O thou
that changest not, that art the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, under
thy wings we would put ourselves and be secure. How feeble is our strength !
How are we crushed as before the moth ! How is our wisdom but as the t-vvi-
light ! How often are our desires, at their best estate, leading us to destruc-
tion ! How are our plans brought to desolation as in a moment. We look
out upon life and see how generations come and thrive, and pass, and perish^
that others may make the long and repeated experiment of ignorance, and
weakness, and temptation, and sin, and sorrow, and sighing, and death. And
still creation travails, burdened, groaning in pain until now. O thou Deliv-
erer! when wilt thou appear? When shall come the new heaven and the
new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness ? When shall men be lifted up
from their degradation ? It is not enough that we are bom into happiness
and secure. Are not all races our fellows, and our brethren ? How can we
be content that the decrees of God's mercy are fulfilled toward us, when we
look out upon the uncounted millions of men that have no God but idols, no
knowledge but of things degrading, and no hope but in things base and low ?
O thou that art the Father of man, what hast thou done for thine household
upon earth ? How are thy children scattered to the uttermost portions there-
of ! Thou liast promised to redeem the world ; hast thou forgotten to be gra-
cious? Thou hast promised that yet the whole earth shall see thy salvation ;
where is the blessed age in which there shall be this fulfillment ? We beseech
of thee that thou wilt strengthen our faith. Our hope is in thee. Heaven is
the strength and the wisdom of the human ; and little do we derive of com-
fort, or courage, or hope from the sight of our eyes. Thou, in thine infinite
resources of power, art strong ; but stronger art thou hi thy love and sympa-
thy. Thou art stronger than the ages, or than all the races of men. And we
believe in thee, though we cannot beUeve in the things which we look upon,

422 THJE LORD'S FBA TUB

nor solve the natures that are in them, nor reconcile the thousand doubts
that come to afflict us. We believe in thee, in thy wisdom, in thy govern-
ment, in thy power to subdue all things to thyself, and in the final glory
of thine administration, when thou shalt acquit thyself before all creatures,
and rise triumphant over the conflicts of ages, and morality shall prevail, and
joy and happiness fill up the measure that now sorrow and sighing fill.

O Lord, our God, come quickly. The whole earth doth wait for thee. "We
are glad for so many as have escaped from off the face of the earth. Their
faces are seen here no more ; but their voices are heard in heaven, and their
blessed hearts are there, and there their joys abound. In that great house-
hold where none are lost, we have our little children. They are angel-attend,
ed. They walk forth radiant in thy realm of light and beauty. Those that
once bore sin, and sorrow, and temptation with us are now gone to heaVen.
The hands that taught our hands are there. The hearts from whom our
hearts learned to love are with thee. A great company, a growing church,
every day increasing, there is on high, of those who have been our compan-
ions on the earth. Grant that we may have patience to wait until our time
comes ; until we are permitted to come out of the winter into the daylight,
the noon-day glory, of the sunless land.

O Lord our God, we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that we may take
courage from the victories of those who have gone before, and hold on a little
longer in the midst of trials, and under temptations. When our faith fails»
may we still have the light of thy countenance, and the joy of thy salvation.

And now, wilt thou grant, we beseech of thee, thy blessing to-night upon
all waiting souls in thy presence. Listen to the heart's aspirations of prayer.
Hear all those who make their complaints before thee. Hear all that moum-
Be near to all that pray. Regard the petitions which they most need to have
answered, rather than those which they most vehemently urge. By thy wis-
dom overrule their wisdom. We pray that thy will may be done, and not
our own. Guide us so long as we shall live. And when, at last, we come to
the valley, of the shadow of death, may they that look down into it, when
their sight fails to follow us, hear our voices rejoicing as we go forward, vic-
torious, up on the other side. And then we will give the praise of our salva
tion to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, evermore. Amen,

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMOISr.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt bless the word spoken ; and grant that
it may rest on many hearts as the dew rests upon the flower, or as the ruin
falls upon the ground. We beseech of thee that thou wilt fructify thy word.
Make it bring forth a hundred-fold. Deliver us, we pray thee, from lives that
have in them no prayer. Deliver us from hearts that do not desire God. May
our weak and spent hearts be strengthened, and refilled from the bounty and
grandeur of thine. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver its from evil. And
so, O Lord, we pray that in our hearts thy kingdom may come, and that in
our lives thy will may be done. Our Father, take care of us in this life, and
bring us to the other. And to thy name shall be the praise and the glory.
Amen.

XXII.

Remnants.

EEMNANTS.

" A remnant shall be saved."— Rom. IX., 27.

The whole passage is this :

" Esaias also erieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the chil-
dren of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved."

This reference to Esaias interprets the use of this peculiar phrase,
a remnant. There is something very pathetic in its use in the Old
Testament. There never was a great people who had stronger na-
tional attachments, or a stronger love for home and their native
country, than the Jews. It was a part of that economy under
which they were brought up, to beget this intense local attachment,
and this fidelity to the ideas which belonged to the old Hebrew
commonwealth. And yet they lay between the great neighborino-
nations very much as wheat lies between the upper and lower mill-
stones, and spent most of their historic life in being ground. They
were bruised on the one side and on the other. Sometimes it was
Damascus ; sometimes it was Babylon ; sometimes it was Egypt ;
sometimes the Romans, and sometimes the Greeks. Somebody was
at them pretty much all the time. Nor was it enough that they
were made very wretched at home ; it was the custom to take them
up and carry them away. By successive depredations the land was
completely emptied. For instance, the central region of Palestine,
which afterward was called Samaria, was so totally emptied of its
original population, and another heathen population had so filled it
that for generations, probably, there was not a drop of Jewish blood
in the veins of the settlei'S there. Afterward there was a scatter-
ing of the Jews among them ; these intermarried with them ; and
so the races became mixed.

In these circumstances, it frequently happened that those who
remained in the land at the south were but a handful, compared
with the whole nation before the ten tribes were broken off" and dis-
persed. When all the tribes Avere there in their might, they were
a great and valiant people. There was not then, and I think there
is not now, such a stock on the face of the earth as the Jewish for

StTNDAY EvENTNG, Dec. 4, 1870. Lesson : Psa. XC. Hymns (Plymouth Co'-
lection) : Nos. 868, 816, 1330.

426 BEMNANTS.

power, continuity, and various genius. It is in them yet. And it
is a testimony to the force of moral training — for it was that which
made them a great people. But when by the fate of war all but
Judaea was swept away captive, it seemed to them that a mere rem-
nant or fragment was left. Then they went, too ; and a great
many of their people perished on the way. Of those that went
to Babylon, a great many were morally weak, and fell into the
heathen habits, and lost the integrity of their fathers.

Yet there was always, even there, not a large number but a
band of men who would not give up their faith, and who clung to
each other. They were a remnant, though they were in captivity.
And by and by, when the royal heart happened to be benignant
and they got permission to return to their land, they went baclc, a
miserable company of pilgrims, a few hundreds or thousands of
people, to build again their cities and villages — especially to re-
build Jerusalem, the dearest, the most precious place to them on
earth. They were but a remnant, yet they were full of courage,
full of hope, full of energy ; though so many exigencies bad met
them ; though they had gone through so many sharp places ; though
so many times it seemed as if they were about to have their nation-
al life absolutely crushed out. And this remnant which was left
became a seed planted again ; and the nation throve afterward.
And so that term remnant became a very striking term. It was
full of associations connected with their affections and their national
experiences. And when you turn to the Old Testament, you will
find, all the way through, reference to these remnants.

" O Lord! save thy people, the remnant of Israel." " Pray for us to the
Lord, even for all this remnant of the people," " Lord, wilt thou make an
end of the remnant?" " Wilt thou make a full eud of the rcm,nant of Is-
rael ?" " It may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the
remnant of Joseph." " Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left."
•' A remnant shall be saved."

I could quote a score of passages not dissimilar to these.

What is a remnant ? It is what is left over after all uses have
been fulfilled. In manufacturing, it is after you have taken every-
thing that is good and useful, and left just as little as you can. It
is the clippings and the parings ; the core and the skin ; the edges,
the fringes of things ; the scraps ; the odds and ends. With a
great many things, the renmants, as in working gold and silver,
are just as precious as any other part, because they can be rc-
smelted. But with a great many things it is not so. It is not
so with cloth. It is not so w ith wood. It is not so with a variety
of metallic substances. There are many things the remnants of
which are comparatively useless. They certainly cannot answer the

BJEMNANTS. 427

purpose which was served by the great body to which they bc'
longed, although they may be turned aside to some inferior use, or
dropped down to some inferior place.

But there is another way in which the word remnant is used in
ordinary life. It may be applied to the result, the final condition to
which things come by long usage. It sometimes has reference to
the state of being worn out. Thus there are ships that are mere
hulks, remnants, because they have gone through their allotted
period. They are good to be broken up for firewood ; or, it may
be that they are good to be anchored at home as receiving-ships, to
make miserable men more miserable in. They are simply remnants
of what they were. There are machines that are worn out, and are
scarcely fit to be melted over again, and are not fit for the purposes
for which they were builded, and are thrown into a corner, or under
an old shed. And there they lie, remnants of what they were. So
there are remnants of flocks, and remnants of herds — the poor, the
scabby, the sick, the maimed, the good-for-nothing, comparatively.
There are also remnants of harvests, remnants of farming utensils,
and remnants of wagons. There are remnants of all manner of things
that men have had the use of, but that have passed their day, and
are, comparatively speaking, of no value.

Men almost alv/ays think the time will come when they will use
these things ; but it never comes. They accumulate on our hands.
Our garrets and attics are full of good-for-somethings which have
had their day. Old chairs and sofas are stowed away which we
think we shall have fixed and bring down ; but we never do. There
are bedsteads laid aside, antique and queer. There are all sorts of
utensils and various scraps of things that have been useful, but that
are no longer so. They are too good to throw away, and they are
too poor to keep. They hover in a miserable existence half way
between something and nothing.

Is there no parallel, no analogy, between remmants in goods,
remnants in machines, and remnants as applying to man's life in
society ? Oh yes, a great deal. We may speak, for instance, of the
remnant of an army after a great defeat. We speak of the rem-
nants of tribes ; as, for instance, the tribe of Benjamin, when for
their guilty wickedness they had been well-nigh exterminated. We
may see remnants of tribes among our American Indians. There
may be a remnant of nations ; Poland is such a remnant.

So remnant conveys, in all cases, an idea of comparative useful-
ness in human life and human organizations ; or else an idea of weak-
ness and danger ; or an idea of liability to be swept away as rub-
bish J or an idea of being too much reduced, or circumscribed, or cut

428 EEMNANTS.

into, to be of any consequence. In this sense the term is used with
reference to human beings as well as with reference to property.

Let us now apply this phrase to secular life. The remnafit, in
general, means those who are cast aside in the great conflict of
human life. And how great a treasury there is of remnants — that
is, those who seem to have got through their function long before
they have finished their life ! How many young there are who are
good for nothing ! How many grown people there are who seem to
have got through their period of usefulness, though they are not
midway in life. There are many who are remnants by reason of
their breaking down in health. There is for them no more vigor ; no
more elasticity of spirit ; no more enterprise ; no more power to drive
through projected plans. They are not able to go out of the har-
bor. Tiiey are not sea-worthy.

Everybody that is sick is not a remnant necessarily, in any pain-
ful sense of the term. A man may be, on the other hand, a greater
blessing when he is sick than when he is well. God's angels do not
always appear when we are in the full flush of physical health.

Where sickness is not our own fault ; where it does not come as
a testimony to our crimes ; where it is the sickness of one like
Florence Nightingale, who lingers through months and through
years, with hardly vitality enough to hold soul and body together,
having worn out her noble life in the service of humanity, we should
never apply the term remnant in the unfavorable sense. Where
in the household the child is passing quietly and steadily away, how
often is the sick room the joy and the peace of the whole house !
How often are the venerable and the enfeebled the richest, although
their life is over, and they are waiting for the last summons ! A
person may be broken down in health, and yet his counsel and ex-
ample may be unspeakably beneficial. It is possible for men to do
their life-work by their activity ; but there are some men who, hav-
ino- done their life-work, seem to be ordained of God to stand still
and shine. They are at peace with God. Their nature is harmonized.
They are full of benignity toward their fellow-men. And oftentimes
the two leaves of the gate of heaven in the household, are the old
arm-chair and the cradle. Both the child and the aged person are
helpless ; but, though neither of them can do anything, and they
have to be helped every day, and every hour of every day, yet they
may be blessings of joy and peace in the household. Heaven's
richest gifts may descend upon the other members of the family
through their example or mediation.

There may be remnants from otlier causes : as where men have
spent their forces as a fool spends his patrimony ; as where men

SUMNAI^TS. 429

have hastily run throiigh, foi their selfish gratification, the capital
of life ; as where one has gained nothing worth gaining, and lost all
that was worth keeping, and is disgraced in body and mind, and
thrown out for others' sustenance. These are remnants with a
vengeance. How many there are of them ! Society is full of them.
They are here and there and everywhere.

Many are remnants in life from the loss of their property. There
are men who begin well, and have a certain force up to mid-life, but
who then in a convulsion, owing to some mistake, or by a process
of slow decline, become bankrupt ; and the remainder of whose life
is as naught. They are not unvirtuous, frequently, but are mild
and excellent people ; yet the rest of their life is spent in feeble and
inefiectual endeavors to reinstate themselves. And from year to
year they have less and less power ; from year to year there is less
and less substance to them ; from year to year they are less and less
able to lean on themselves, and they lean heavier and heavier on
others. And before they are sixty years of age they are absolutely
dependent, requiring perpetually to be upheld. There are good
people, kind people, people not bad in any sense of the term, who
are utterly helpless. How full the world is of them 1

It is an old proverb, that " it is hard to make an empty bag stand
straight" ; and there is nothing so feeble as people who have lost all
poAver to take care of themselves. They are often spoken of as if
their feebleness was not itself a misfortune ; as if the loss, by the
processes of life, of the vim on which largely depends their physical
organization, was not a part of their troubles. Did you never see
a great, strong, burly man, full of health, full of blood, with a big
heart, and good digestion, making bones like flint and muscles like
steel wire ; did you never -see a man full of fire and indomitable
energy, made, as it were, out of leather and iron — did you never see
Buch a man look with pity and contempt on these miserable, shift-
less, ne'er-do-wells, and say, " Why do not they do as I do ? Why
did not the Lord keep them as he made them ?" Men with superior
prerogatives and gifts are apt to domineer over others that are un-
fortunate. And it is those who have the power to plan and execute
that we admire. We meet these healthy robust menon the street, we
do business with them, and we come to respect them because of
their energy and executivencss. It is the tool which cuts that we pre-
fer and wish to keep ; and the tool that loses its edge the quickest
we throw away first. And we come to use men as tools. It is the
man that cuts and has the enduring edge, on whom we bestow the
highest commendation. 'SVe praise the strong and prosjierous, and
pity the weak and feeble.

430 SEMI^ANTS.

When a man is, by misfortunes of business, brought to & stand-
still, and thrown out of the whirl of creative industry it is possible
that he will become merely a fragment, a remnant ; but if he be
largely endowed, if there be something to his manhood, he will
not.

There is a fish called a sculpin. Nine-tenths of it are mouth, and
one-tenth body, as I recollect it when a boy. Its chief business, ap-
parently, consists in eating everything. And after it has eaten,
nothing comes of it. It has a big tail, to propel itself with, a big
head, a big mouth, and a very active stomach with which to do the
work of digestion quickly. It is a do-nothing, gormandizing fish.

There are many men who are said to have the power of making
wealth. They have. And they are sculpin men. They have an
enormous maw, which they open and shut quick and often, devour-
ing all that comes in their way. Nobody can surpass them in
acquiring property. But what purpose does this wealth serve ? Do
they use it as a means for benefiting society ? Is it employed as a
sword with which to defend the weak ? Is it an architect that
builds ? Is it a seed-sower that distributes ? Or, is this quality
merely the capacity to take in — to ingurgitate, ingurgitate, ingurgi-
tate ? If so, then when misfortune comes, and a man loses all his
wealth, what is left of him ? Nothing — literally nothing. And you
shall find that while some men, being bankrupt, lose almost nothing,
other men, going into bankruptcy, come out with nothing. There is
very little manhood in them aside from this peculiar genius or talent
to amass property. They are not fertile in ideas. They are not
richly endowed with sentiment. They are not distributors of happi-
ness. They are not even reflectors of happiness. They certainly
are not creators of it. They have very little power among men. As
organizers of wealth they have some power, but not as organizers
of thoughts and purposes. And when they are stripped of their
property they become, most emphatically, remnants.

When one of a great nature is clothed in wealth, he is certainly
more powerful ; but if the raiment of wealth be taken from him, he
is not less. He still has a great nature.

There can be no doubt (though there have been disputes among
archaeologists on the subject) that the Greeks colored and gilded the
statues which adorned their temples. And undoubtedly those stat-
ues were more magnificent for being colored and gilded. But now
that time has rubbed off" the paint, and they are without a particle
of embellishment, and are simple marble statues, they are exquis-
ite still.

That is the case with a man whose force lies in his essential good-

EEMNANTS. 431

ness and real manliness. Wealth may make him more beautiful ; but
strip him of wealth, and he does not lose anything. Tne man is there
yet. No man can he called a remnant, though he be thrown out of
life, if he retain in him the essential power of true manhood. But,
oh ! how many there have been who, when they lost their wealth,
lost everything; and now chatter and talk, mostly repining. It was
not always so, they say. They have seen better days. They re-
member the time when they had as much as the greatest; but they
have lost it all. And since that was all they bad, there is notliino-
left. Therefore they are remnants.

How many men are there who are thrown out of life from dis-
couragements ! They discover mistakes in their habits when it is
too late to change them. I am always sorry to see anybody give
up. I do not know that when a man fails at fifty or sixty years of
age he can succeed again in the same path in which he formerly suc-
ceeded ; but it seems to me that no man, in any circumstances, should
say, in the spirit of discouragement, " It is no use for me to put
forth exertion any longer." Just so long as a man has life and
power to move he ought to keep laboring in some proper vocation,
with some suitable ambition, and trust in divhie providence. Yet
how many persons there are in life who have reasonably good char-
acter and morals, but who are without any particular force, and who,
after fighting battles here and there, at last give up in despair !

I sat in the window of my cottage in November, after the leaves
had began to fall to the ground, and saw the wind deal with
them. In the summer when the wind blew the leaves sang. But
the time came when they had lost their hold on the tree and dropped.
And now, when the wind blew, the leaves no longer made melody
in their motion. Before, when the wind came, they hung sweet and
succulent and green on the tree, but now they whirled in wreaths
past the house, some falling into a little depression; some nestling
by the side of the fence ; some falling under a bank ; some along the
hedge. Brown, sapless, withered leaves, they were, good for noth-
ing except to make soil for another year.

I have seen a great many men in life that were wind-blown ; and
they held on to the stalk and the branch ; and all the wind could do
was to make them sing ; but now I see that they are broken off from
the tree. It is November with them ; and the wind catches them
and whirls them away, and some land in poor-houses, and some in
hospitals, and some in private dwellings, where they pick uj) chips,
or do some other inferior service. They are remnants of life. And it
is a very great sadness.

There is one thing that will not bear looking into, unless a man
has a heart of philosophy, (which is a heart of stone ;) and that is

432 BEMNANTS.

human life. You can look at the condition of men ; at the question of
joy or unjoyfulness ; at the subject of prosperity, or want of prosper-
ity ; you can look from house to house, in your own circle, perhaps,
and among your own set, where everything is bright and cheerful,
Avithout having your feelings shocked or hurt. But go down among
those that are poor and unfortunate and cast out ; see how full life
is of broken-down men, and discouraged men, and unprosperous
men ; go down, and down, and down, and still down to the bottom,
and tell me if it is not sad. When a man's heart is moved with love
for his fellows ; when he counts every man his brother ; when he
looks at everything in the light of Christian charity, the saddest
thing to look into is the structure of the lower half of human society;
not that part where men are all like germs that point upward, and
break through, and find the sun, and blossom ; but that other part,
where men are going down from the top toward the bottom, where
the remnants are. Some portions of society are more than knee-deep,
are wec^-deep, with mere shattered remnants of men.

What vast multitudes of men there are who add nothing either
to the moral, the social, or the material forces of society ! They
consume continually, but contribute nothing. What numbers of
men there are in regard to whom society would feel itself benefitted
if they were dead, and it was rid of them !

It is not all the no-workers that society can afibrd to lose. Nei-
ther is it all the weak that society can afford to lose. The weakest
things in the world are the most precious — the children. The joy
of the house, the comfort of the heart, the music of life, the very
prophet to us, is the child.

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter the kingdom of heaven."

Children are God's messengers to us. They are the blossoms of
human life. We could not spare them, babes though they be. They
do not earn anything. They do not know how to sing or frolic. We
could not spare even the new-born babe — the babe of a week. It is
in every way crude. It is utterly unreciprocating. It is a mere
germ-point, waiting for food, in our arms. And yet, how rich we
are ! How rich are our homes ! And how it stirs, with its magnet-
ism, every thought and feeling of the sensitive soul, and brings near
the other life, and lifts us up, every day, in hymns and prayers and
thankso^iving to God! How much we have to thank God for in the
child ! and yet how little, so far as the present value of the child
is concerned !

It is not the weak that cumber society ; and yet society is like a
ship that is overloaded with trash. It is weighed down with men
who are good for nothing — men who, instead of adding to the hap-

BEMNAKTS. 433

piness of other people, more or less absorb tbe happiness of others.
It is a sorrowful thing to think of, that when some fellow-creatures
die, other people breathe freer.

For their salces, I have been glad that some persons died. When
one must go, I have prayed, " Let the struggle be cut short, O God
of mercy ! and let them fly away." But there are many others Avhom
society would fain have taken away for its own sake. They are
useless to themselves and to others. They are in the way. Nobody
wants them. They are trash. They are a nuisance. When they
die, people feel a gladness that they are gone which decency will
not allow them to express.

It is a sad thing that anybody should live in this world whom
nobody wants to follow to the grave. It is a sad thing for me to go
to Greenwood and walk through the strangers' burying-ground. It
is a sad thing for one to die and have nobody think about him after-
ward, except to thank God that he is out of the way. It is sad to
witness the burying of such a one, and see no mourning and sympa-
thizing group standing by, and seeing the workmen unfeelingly
pitch the clods upon the coffin, and hurriedly fill up the grave, ap-
parently with no more thought or feeling than if it had not been a
human being.

But if it be a child of respectable or wealthy parents, the grave
is surrounded by a large company of relatives and friends, assembled
to pay their last respects to the dead. And how gently is the coffin
lowered to its place ! How do the men regard the feelings of the
bereaved ones ! How careful are they to prevent the falling of
stones harshly upon the lid ! Everything is done in a decorous and
sympathetic manner, so that nothing shall wound the afflicted ears
or eyes.

It is an awful thing for a man to go out of life uncared for, or
followed by the rejoicings of those who have long wished to be rid
of him. It is an awful thing for a man to have lived so that he
goes out of life unhonored and unregretted. There is an inhumanity
in it. There is something in it which touches my soul to the very
quick.

And yet, I cannot deny that there are hundreds, yes, thousands
of persons, in this very city of Brooklyn (and I suppose many of
them have walked by this house, and looked in at this door) who, if
they were to die and be buried to-morrow, would not have a tear
shed for them, and would leave the community better off" for their
going. What kind of a life is that, brethren, lived by a person
who can better be spared from society than retained in it ? What
kind of a result is it of all the ministrations which are instituted

434 EEMNANTS.

for his benefit, and all the advantages for growth and improvement
Avhich are showered upon him from every direction ? Is there any-
thing more sad than to see a man enjoy the plenitude of God's
mercy in this world, and then die worse than the lower animals
which have no such mental and moral endowments as he possesses ?

Now, in regard to these remnants that go away from among us,
there is this cheering thought, that though they have made a total
wreck of their life here, it may, at least, have proved a seed.

I am not sorry when my corn is cut down in autumn. It is one
of the most beautiful of crops. There is no more pleasing sight in
the world, I think, than a field of Indian maize. Yet, when it be-
gins to wither, to shrink up, and the wind makes harsh whistlings
through it, I do not feel badly. Why ? Because the ear is there,
and it is ripe, and I have my gi-ain. And if I want to, I can plant
it again the next spring, and have another harvest the next autumn.

And when a man is all withered and shrunk, and dies out of the
refuse heap of life, if I am sure that the corn is in him, and that in
the other life it will be planted again, and will spring up, and grow
and ripen, then there is no occasion for me to feel badly. And I fain
would hope that it is so with a great many.

I cannot bear to think that the poor, miserable, unenlightened
slaves, that groped in darkness on the plantation, knew almost
nothing and were not permitted to learn anything, lived a life of
toil like beasts and crept to their hovel at night scarcely able to get
there, and were dragged out again early in the morning, until at last
they died — I cannot bear to think that they never have another
chance. I believe they do have a better chance than they had here,
cursed, as they were, with a human master. If here men are chil-
dren of ignorance, and if they have had no opportunity for growth
in manhood on earth, I fain would believe that God will have some
remedial plan of mercy for them ; but when a man has lived in the
full blaze of Gospel light, and has thrown away every opportunity
for the development of his moral and spiritual nature, I do not be-
lieve there is any new chance for him He has had his chance, and
has not improved it.

It matters not that a man has had any amount of misfortune
here, if, once escaping from this life, he lands bravely and safely
and strongly on the shore of immortality, and is a man there in
Christ Jesus. What do you suppose a ransomed soul in the spirit-
world cares for all the winds that once blew upon him on earth?
Blessed is it to become a wreck, if angels are the wreckers, and you
are gathered up into life and immortality !

Those of you who are familiar with Western scenery, know that

EUMNANTS. 435

you can ride tlirougli a long forest, and then come to a clearing.
And while there will he an orchard here, there will be a belt of
forest around the little square opening ; and there will stard in the
midst of it gaunt, branchless, girdled trees. The settler takes his ax,
at the right period of the year, and goes rOund and chops, just above
the swell of the roots, a ring which stops the flow of the sap. The
tree does not fall down immediately. During the first year it holds
its branches and leaves. But there is no return of the leaf to it.
Then the weather beats upon it. And every successive year it stands
with fewer and fewer branches. And at last some morning, after a
great storm, it lies its whole length upon the ground.

Brethren, I see many men standing like trees, branchless and
gaunt in a clearing, girdled apparently. They are waiting for their
overthrow. And it grieves ray heart to see great natures, vast
trunks, towering up, spreading abroad their branches, fit to have
been pillars in the Temple of God, but girdled, and dead in tres-
passes and in sins.

Oh, that from among such there might be a remnant that yet
should be saved ! Oh, that there might be among those who have
lived through twenty years under my ministry here, and who have
been good friends and neighbors, and whose lives have been rich,
often, with special oftices of kindness, would treat my Saviour as
well as they treat me !

How piteous it is to see the remnants of a family ! The father
and the mother lived Christian lives, and have gone to heaven. One
by one the brothers and sisters were gathered into the fold of
Christ. But for some reason one single one stood out. Perhaps he
became wedded to the world. Perhaps he got into bad company
Perhaps he maintained outward morality. At any rate, he seems,
from one or another cause, to have resisted every religious in-
. fluence.

Is there not in my hearing some person who is saying, " That is
I. Every member of my father's family except me is a Chris-
tian" ? Is there not some one present who says, " My brothers and.
sisters Jiave died and gone to heaven ; but I am not on the same road
which they traveled" ? Are there not persons here who are the last
remnants of glorious households, and who are not saved ? Oh ! shall
not even these remnants be gathered in ?

Go back and think of the boyhood circle that used to play base-
ball with you on the village green 1 One became a drunkard ;
another went to prison ; another made shipwreck of himself in busi-
ness ; another went to the city and prospered. They are all gone, but
you and two or three others who are left, and are remnants. Where

436 BIJMNANTS.

are the boys that used to sit in the same class with you ? I count up
my school-fellows every year ; and every year it takes less figures.
The numbers are running thin.

One of the most extraordinary scenes that I recollect took place
right here. An old man, during my father's lifetime, came trembling
up to the platform, and said to me, " Your father and I were class-
mates, and beside him and me there is but one of our class left, and
he is dying. When your father dies, let me know, will you ? for I
shall be the only one remaining." He took it for granted that he
would outlive my father. He did ; but now he is gone, too. There
is not even a remnant of that class. They have all passed away.
And how many circles your mind forms when you come to think of
them, of which but a remnant — one or two, are left !

Now, the question which it seems to me every man should put to
himself, is this : " Is the circle to which I belong a divided circle ?
Are a part here, and a part there ?" Have you the same hope
that sustained the others in dying. Have you the same triumphant
faith which they had ? They have all gone, you are the last, and
you must soon follow them ; and you have no comfort, and no joy,
and no hope. They all trod a triumphant way which you never put
your foot into. They have gone before, and you are not following.

It is a terrible thing to be a remnant — to be the last child in a
family — and not go to heaven where the rest have gone ; or to be
the last member of a circle of Christians, and not to be a Christian.
It is a terrible thing to be the only one left of a company, and
be lingering and waiting, soon to go, they saved, and you lost.

There are many in every congregation, who, looking upon them
from the point of congregational association, are but remnants. In
every prominent congregation, there are those who live through a
vast amount of influence, seeming to be unchanged.

I remember very well that toward the close of my pastorate in
Indiana, I sat one Sabbath day and looked over the congregation.
It was a small one. Before I came here, I never preached to a con-
gregation that averaged more than two hundred, or two hundred
and fifty. I could count all the men in the congregation who were
not hopefully Christian. There were about fifteen. To my certain
knowledge, they had gone through four or five revivals of religion
during my day, there ; and I had labored with them as a brother
would with a brother. I had plied them, and preached at them, and
prayed for them, and approached them on every side, and made use
of every means at my command, and studied them, and at times
they seemed about to come into the kingdom ; yet they remain-
ed as they were, unregenerated. I knew the after history of about

BEMNANTS. 437

one half of them, and I think that none of them ever became Chris-
tians. A considerable proportion of them died in a way which precludes
the hope of any spiritual change. And those that were left were
the remnant of that congregation. Everything, apparently, had
been used. The material had been wrought up close. Here were,
so to speak, the clippings, the remains that were unusable.

In every congregation that has been sitting under the ministra-
tion of the sanctuary for any considerable time, there are many that
must be called remnants. There are men in this congregation — men
to whom I have no further message ; men whose understanding I
know I have reached over and over again, but whose susceptibilities
have not been awakened, and who have been able to resist moral
influence, to maintain their life of this world, and keep away from
the love of God, and live for time, and not for eternity. All that
conversation could do, and all that preaching could do, and all that
divine influence in the outpouring of God's spirit could do, seems to
have been in vain as far as they are concerned, and there they stand.

This leads me to the single other view that I shall take of this sub-
ject; and that is of the remnant of life, looked at from a religious
standpoint. It may well be applied with very great seriousness and
very great profitableness in this direction. We are responsible to
God for our talents, for our character, and for our conduct, here be-
low; and there are a great many persons who have run through
their career of evil on earth, until their end is near, and there is but
a renmant left. There are men who have run through their career
of drinking until they are at the very last period of their life. There
are a great many who have run through their career of sensual in-
dulgence until their strength is gone, and their stamina is taken out
of them, and they have come to their last period of earthly exist-
ence. There are a great many who have by various infractions of
known laws, by pushing animal excess to the uttermost extreme,
wasted their life, and come to the last part of their career. In all
probability they cannot live five years more. Many of them will
not live one year. With some it is a question of months.

Is there any use of preaching the Gospel to such men ? Yes.
A man may have sinned against every organ of his body ; he may
have sinned against the laws of nature (and no man can break the
laws of nature and not break the moral laws of the universe) ; he
may have sinned against his light and knowledge ; and he may have
come to his very last hours ; and yet there is hope for him. There
are many fearful presumptions against him ; but, after all, there is
hope enough to justify prayer for him, and efforts to save him. If
there is a person in this congregation who thinks he is such a one,

438 ; BEMNANTS.

his condition justifies prayer, and labor, and the most vehement
urgency, tliat the remnant of his career may be saved, that his
last hours may yet be redeemed, and that a faint light from the very
closing period may be cast back upon the darkness of all that has
gone before.

There are a great many who have gone through prosperity in
this world, and have come very near to the end of their career.
Their life has not been marked by vice ; but they have lived for the
ordinary aims ; for the pride of life ; for the events of time. They
have had their will in wealth and influence and position ; they have
had in various ways all that heart could wish ; and they have gone
through early life, and through middle life, and through the first
years of age, and have gone clear down to old age, without God
and without hope in the world- They have had all that the world
could give them ; or, at any rate, all that it will give them ; and
everything is expended. Their years are all that remain to them ;
and these are few. They have come to the very end of life. You
cannot say that they have ever committed a crime, or that they
have ever been guilty of a vice. You can say that they have com-
mitted many mistakes and foibles ; but externally they have been
very good members of society. Yet to that great spiritual brother-
hood, to that great realm of life whose morality is higher than the
functions of human society, they have not been faithful. And they
are, with all the mercies of God which they have had showered
upon them, going out of life without God, without gratitude, with-
out love, without hope, almost without character ; and there is but
a remnant of their years left them.

Sliall that remnant be thrown away ? Having thrown their first
twenty years on the world ; having thrown on the world twenty
years more, and five or ten years more, they have, perhaps, a year
or two left. And shall that perish ? Shall that be thrown away ?
Or, shall they seize this last lingering period, that the remnant of
their time may be saved ?

My heart is turned toward the remnants to-night. I would that
by the spirit of God I might reach to awaken unusual thoughts and
unusual purposes in the minds of many who are left over from
former efibrts ; who have resisted all prior appeals ; who have stood
out against God's great mercy ; who have been going wrong, under
the dominion of pride, and selfishness, and vanity, and lust, and those
appetites and passions which corrode like canker.

I pray God, by his good Spirit, to send, to-night, an arrow home
to many of these lingerers. What do ye here now, waiting after all
are gone, unclothed and unprepared to meet the wrath of God's laws

EEMKAKTS. 439

•which you have hrolcen in their core and nature ? Death is near, it
may be, with uplifted hand, to smite you; and you are thouglitless
aad careless !

Oh, remnant of the household ! oh, remnant of the congregation !
oh, remnant of men ! in the last moment, even at the eleventh hour,
for the remnant of your wasted life, there is an opportunity for es-
cape. Embrace it. Turn to God and live— here, it may be for a
moment, but there forever and forever.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We are gathered, this evening, O Lord our Father, drawn hither by con-
scious want, and by a great many sweet remembrances. How many years
have we come hither bearing trouble, bearing a sense of weakness, and
bearing in us the signs of death ! How many times liave we come dark, to
find It light; and weakened, to find that strength was waiting for us ! We
have seemed shut out of the great realm of prosperous men, and our way
has seemed at times forlorn; and yet we have been restored again to sym-
pathy and to joyfulness. How often have we come up here sodden iu self-
ishness, sordid in avarice, and with the world all resting upon us! And
here we have beheld in the light of thy count eiance better things than the
abundance of this world. Hope and faith and joy have shone in our faces ;
and we have felt ourselves rebuked, and have gone home again detirmiued
that while we were diligent in business, we would also be fervent in spirit,
serving the Lord. Thou hast broken our staff; that on which we leaned is
gone from us; we have been cast down to the ground, seemingly over-
thrown; and yet here we have been again restored to strength, and have
found that God was more to us than father or mother, than brother or
sister, or than companion. And with the mystery of thy secret love, with
the strange work which thou dost perform, hidden in the soul, thou hn^t
brought us again to comfort and joy. And if we were to rehearse all the
moods of sorrow, and all the experiences of relief, which have clustered
about this place, how many burdens have been rolled off! how many hopes
have been inspired! how many tears of joy have taken tVe place of sorrow-
ing tears! how our life has been enlarged, reaching forward into the other!
how our expectations have been guided I The night would not suffice us
for the rehearsal of all the blessings which thou hast bestowed upon us.

We thank thee, O Lord, that we stand alilie in the midst of thy mercies.
We are in a wilderness of thy goodness. And yet, there are days in which
the earth seems barren and lifeless. Thy paths drop fatness, and that we
know right well; and yet some days there are in which it seems to us as
thougri there were nothing left in the world of God.

And now, we beseech of thee, O Lord, that thou wilt yet again hear the
voice of suppliiation; or, better than that, pray for us. Grant that the
Spirit may strive in us, and that God may answer the yearning Spiiit lather
than our petition. For we know not what to pray for as we ought. And
the Spirit doth mall e intercession for us with groauings ttiat cannot be
uttertid. And wilt thou look within us and see what we need, and deal

440 BEMN-ANTS.

with us according to our necessities. Take away what we need to have
taken away ; multiply what we need to have multiplied; strengthen in us
what we need to have strengthened ; augment in us what needs to be aug-
mented. Do for us according to thine insight and thine infinite love and
mercy, and not according to our foolish and imperfect petitions. How
many things we have asked, dear Father, the giving of which would have
been our ruin ! How many times thy No hath been our salvation ! How
many times we have besought thee to ward off things which must needs
come; and in them we have found our life afterward. And even those
great troubles that bruised us, yea, cast us down, and left us for dead upon
the ground, though for the present they were not joyous, but grievous,
afterward wrought out the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

And now we have come to know so little about ourselves, we have come
to have such a sense of our own helplessness, that we long for thy wisdom
rather than our own. Do thou for us the things that are necessary. Give
what thou wilt. Take away what thou wilt. Infinite love cannot err. Thy
tenderness surpasses that of any heart but thine. According to thy loving
kindness and thy tender mercies dwell with us.

And we pray that every heart in this house maybe won to God, and that
every sinner may be brought back to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul,
and that every one who knows the light may make it known to those who
sit in darkness, and that every soul that is fed mny carry food to those that
are hungry, and that every one that is healed may succor those that are
ready to perish in sickness. And may our hearts be turned one toward
another. Grant that there may be the spirit and the presence of God
mightily in the midst of this congregation. And may there come life where
there is death, and restoration where there is captivity, and liberty where
there is bondage. Grant that thy work may prevail against sin and
the kingdom of Satan and darkness.

And we pray that thy power may be felt in all this city, and the great
city adjoining. Bless those faithful men who labor for the promotion of
temperance, and those who labor for the reformation of morals in every
form. Be with those that search out the sick, and go among the poor, and
visit hospitals and jails ; and those that go into waste places and highways
and byways. May they themselves be filled with the light and sweetness of
the love of Jesus Christ, so that they shall be as men who go forth from the gar-
den, their very garments bearing the perfume of its flowers. And grant, we
pray thee, that heaven, though it seem to be so withdrawn from sight, may
much of it shine upon man, that he may bring forth fruit. Bless the earth.
Hast thou forgotten to be gracious, O God, that the isles wait in darkness
go long, and that continents are brooded with night, and that nations are
destroying nations, and that wrath and unmercifulness and hatred do can
ker the human soul? Oh! when wilt thou bring to pass the promises that
have hung on the horizon so long, as the Morning Star that rose not, and that
yet, blessed be God ! sunk not away ? We look to their light. We pray for
the coining of the Sun of righteousness. We pray for the final glory of this
earth; for the augmentation of man; for the development of society; for
the purity, and peace, and prosperity, and gladness that shall conae when
intelligence shall have driven ignorance away, and true faith shall have
purged the earth from superstition, and when love shall drive selfishness
and cruelty forth never to come back again. Even so, come, Lord Jesus,
come quickly. And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be prau*
evermore. Ani^n.

XXIII.

The New Birth.

THE NEW BIRTH.

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be bom
of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." — John
III., 5-7.

The thing meant in this passage was a great truth — a fact of the
utmost importance, transcending any other that was ever made known
to the race. It was the annunciation of a point of development
which is to the last degree essestial. But the form of utterance
was figurative. Our Saviour was speaking to one of the rulers
of the Jews — one of the members of the Sanhedrim — a man of
great moral worth, of great excellence of character, apparently;
but he hJid been brought up, as Paul was, with a conscientious and
rigorous adhesion to all the service and ceremony and ritual of the
Jewish Church.

Baptism was a part of the Jewish services. Much was made of
it. When Nicodemus presented himself to our Saviour, it was all
important to him, as Paul declares that it was to him. It was the
what-lack-I-yet spirit. He came as a man who had made great at-
tainments, but who was willing, if there was anything else, to find
it out, and add it to his stock.

He unquestionably thought he was an eminent man in goodness;
but if there was in Christ a polish for this eminent goodness, he would
like to possess that. And it was this spirit of reliance on external
ceremonies that was rebuked by these words, which have been much
misinterpreted :

" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God." j

Men have joined together baptism and the spiritual change
wrought by God. It amounted substantially to the authentication
of this ordinance of baptism on the part of our Saviour, with no less
a helpmeet than the divine influence. There was baptism on the one
side, and the Holy Spirit on the other; and these two were brouo-ht
together.

Sunday Evening, Jan. 29, 1871. Lesson : Eph. m., 13-21. HmNS (Plymouth
Collection) : Nos. 813, 784, 854.

444 THE NE W BIBTH.

At first sight, it looks as though it was so ; but it was net. Here
was a man who came to the Saviour full of Sabbaths, and holy clays,
and washings of hands, and baptisms ; and when Christ told him he
must be born of water, he readily assented to it. That was just
what he had himself believed. But when Christ went on to say tha<i
the baptism of the Spirit must be added, a new truth was opened to
him.

The allusion to baptism was an allusion to the ground on which
Nicodemus already stood, and was not an authentication. It was
but a historic fact. And to that was added the declaration that,
except a man, over and above that, has the Holy Spirit, baptism is
useless. To those who are without this regenerating power, baptism
is of no comfort, and has no authority.

We are not to take this passage in its narrow and local interpre-
tation. We are to get the full flavor of it by considering it as a
part of the whole grand scheme of our Saviour in his earthly minis-
trations. As a teaching of Christ, it was not so much a thing new,
as it was a thing that authenticated and gave authority to many
things which existed before. It imparted gi-eat clearness to things
which were already obscurely seen. It brought together in groups
things which had been previously taught in a scattered way. But
the substance of the moral truths which were taught by the Lord
Jesus Christ had before been taught and used in the Jewish Church.
And his ministry, so far as mere truth-telling was concerned, was
based on the truths which had already been revealed by the old dis-
pensation. The originality of Christianity, as it is called, you may
search for in vain. The truths of it were in the things that were
taught long before it was known. Experience revealed the notion
to man.

But there was something distinctive in it. There was something
which made it different from the old dispensation. And what was
that ? It was the distinct annunciation of Christ, made more and
more emphatic toward the close of his life, that he himself stood per-
sonally to the race in the place of God. He declared that men must
believe in him, in order to be saved. That never was known before.
It was the revelation of God — that isjimraanuel. It was the dawn
of God manifest in the flesh. He assumed that he was himself that
very divine Spirit, which was an original fact, and a characteristic
one. But the other fact, and the one which, so far as we are con-
cerned, is the most characteristic in the new dispensation, was that
the human race, through him, are to move on the highest spiritual
level, where their souls shall be under the direct control of the Di-
vine Spirit. Such I believe to be preeminently the genius of Chris-

TEE NEW BIBTH. 445

'
tianity. The annunciation was, that while, before, the race of man
had been living in the flesh and to the flesh, the time had come
when there should be the lifting up of men's spiritual nature, the
opening of the whole sphere of moral faculty in man, and the direct
contact of it with the Divine Mind, so that God should, as it were,
interpenetrate man, and with his thoughts and feelings intersphere
man's thoughts and feelings, in the new life to be develoi:)ed on the
old one. That is to say, there was to be a new potency, a greater
fruitfulness, a higher education, a more resplendent development, of
the higher spiritual nature of man. That whole territory which be-
fore had been but occasionally broken into, now and then developing,
in some single instances, a prophet here, and a holy man there, was
to be enlightened and warmed by the Holy Ghost ; so that men in
ranks, in masses, in continuously increasing numbers, and by and by
in nations, and finally as the whole race, should be brought up into
the glorious light and liberty and power of the sons of God.

It was the lifting up of the mind of man from its lower social
and animal conditions to its higher spiritual and divinely-commun-
ing condition, that characterized the teaching of Christ, who came
with authority as God in the flesh, to announce that the spiritual
kingdom had come, in which was to dwell righteousness ; that the
time had come when men were to enter into all the inspiration of
the spirit of God; that the time had come when men were to be
united as they never were before ; that the time had come when men,
by the power of the Holy Ghost, should have a power, a faith, a
hope, and a love such as they had never before experienced.

These being the teachings of Christ, and the characteristic fea-
tures of his dispensation, we come to this declaration that he made
to Nicodemus, which was not a local and special teaching, but an
annunciation of that truth which characterized the whole movement
of Christianity as developed by the Lord Jesus Christ :

" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

Here is reference to the body, and all that part of the mind which
was ordained to take care of the body — its appetites, its passions, its
pride, its selfishness, its faculties in their perverted forms — all that
lower range of mental powers, which work from the flesh, and back
to the flesh again, and remain in the lower realm.

" That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit."

There is to be a resurrection, above these lower appetites and
passions. There is to be a higher and nobler condition than that
which belongs to the world. And the time for that has come. And
Christ declares that unless a man lifts himself up into this higher

446 THE NEW BIRTH.

realm, lie cannot be in the kingdom of God. In order to be qualified
to enter that kingdom, a man's heart must be in a superior state of
activity, and must be filled with high and divinely-inspired senti-
ments.

That was the teaching of Christ to Nicodemus, Of course Nio-
odemus did not understand it. He lost the meaning of it by literal-
izing it. lie marveled and stumbled ; and it is not surprising that
he did marvel and stumble. Men cease to marvel and stumble at
the doctrine of the enfranchisement of the human soul as they are
developed into the higher spiritual condition ; but men who continue
to live under the full influence of their bodily conditions, character-
istically do it.

The faculties which serve the body are the most active and the
most productive yet, take the world through. Man is mightier as
an animal than as a spiritual being. The affections are developed
more in their lower range than in their higher sphere. The law of
life, to ordinary men, even in Christian communities, is still the law
of animal life, or of the very lowest forms of social life. The race is
still a race low down. Although I believe there are more persons
enfranchised into spiritvial life now than at any former period of the
world, yet, when you look at the race comprehensively, and form
any just estimate of it, it may be said, almost without any excep-
tion, that mankind to-day are living in the sphere of the animal, and
but a very little way up toward the possible in manhood.

So that if there ever was need of saying that man must be born
again into the enlargement and exaltation of a higher sphere ; if
there ever was a time when men needed to have their eyes opened
in respect to the necessity of such a birth, it is just now. With the
wars that are still sounding in our ears ; with the misrule that Still
prevails, the world over ; and with the tendencies of public senti-
ment in the best nations of the earth, who shall say that this dis-
closure is not needed now ? Seeing what civilization does, who shall
say it is not needed ? If such things are done in the green tree,
what shall be done in the dry ? If the average conditions of life
in the best nations on earth are what they are, what must be the
average conditions of life in savagism and the uncivilized portions ?
The myriads of the race, emerging, have scarcely freed themselvea
from the earth out of which they came, and are living in the very
lowest possible conditions. No man, surely, can say that the race
needs no change, no elevation, no divine and spiritual inspiration.

The noblest faculties of the human soul are those which are used
the least, and, in wide ranges of being, apparently not at all. They
are dormant. I suppose we scarcely ever know what a moral senti-

TEE NEW BIBTH. 447

ment means, except in the most vague and oIdscui-c manner. We
who have, from childhood, from the very cradle, been taught not to
live by the senses, and have been inspired, by precept and example,
with the thoughts and feelings which belong to a higher life, can
scarcely understand the difference of co-related tribes and nations,
where, from year to year, and from generation to generation, there is
not, in the best of them, one single throb of lofty sentiment. And yet,
this is the actual condition of myriads and myriads of the race to-day.
Generosity, magnanimity, purity, absolute truth-loving, the faith
and sense of the invisible, benevolence, disinterestedness, trust — all
these supreme elements or sentiments are absolutely unknown ; and
men rise, and grow, and flourish, and fade, and die, and are suc-
ceeded by other generations, that go in the same circle; and the
curriculum is repeated from age to age.

Thus, generation after generation, the noblest part of human na-
ture has failed. Comparatively, the lower passions and desires, in
mankind at large, are stronger than the reason ; the reason is stronger
than the conscience ; and the conscience is stronger than the spiritual
instincts. There is in human life very little spiritual inspiration ;
very little that men can get from each other ; very little that they
can get from society ; very little that they can get from laws and
institutions. The prevalent influences and tendencies in the world
at large are carnal. They belong to the lower part of human nature.
There is, consequently, very little fruit of the Spirit, in the world.
If, therefore, there ever was any divine influence to give a new life
and an upward tendency to human nature, it is no doubt in exist-
ence still.

I have already said that upon this state of facts Christ declared
that the new kingdom was to be the development of the higher
forces. Now the reason was to have manifestation ; now conscience
was to predominate; now love was to effulge; now the natural
forces in man were to be developed. But there was to be an in-
spiration by direct contact of the human soul with the divine soul.
There had come a period of time when, in the unfolding scheme of
God's plans, human life and human nature were to be developed as
they had not been before. They were to become higher, and broader,
and stronger, and sweeter, and more fruitful.

The era of a more direct and a more universal influence of the
higher sphere over the lower had come. The time of the action of
the divine mind on the human mind by natural laws would be con-
tinued. And, in addition, there would be the giving forth of the
H 'ly Ghost, and the shedding abroad on the human soul of divine
love-bearing influences.

When it is declared, that unless a man is born again he shall not

448 TEE NEW BIBTU.

see this new kingdom, it is simply the declaration that a man, in his
animal being, or in his lower, passional nature, never will come into
the experience which belongs to the purity of these higher feelings ;
that he never will know what is the joy, the strength, the sympathy,
the beauty, or the power of this higher life ; that he never will know
what is in himself, nor what he can do. God has amplitude in him ;
but he does not know what that amplitude is until by the Holy
Ghost the nobler elements of his being are developed, and brought
into supx'emacy. Until we are born of the Spirit, until that part of
ns which is in sympathy with God is touched by the divine Heart,
and we are brought into communion with God, we shall not see nor
know the substance of that kingdom in which God and men dwell
together.

This I understand to be the general enunciation of the doctrine
of Christ, specially and personally. It is true in respect to every
one, as it is true in respect to races and generations of men, that he
cannot, except by the divine contact, rise into this higher sphere of
life. No man can come to himself except the Father draw him. No
man can come to God, except God lead him. No man can come to
his own highest nature except under the influence of the divine
Spirit. We do not even know how to find our way up to our vulgar
selves except by the teacher's instruction and example. No man
knows how to use his own tongue until the mother has taught him.
Every man, in the lower forms of life, has to take things from other
sources, in order to develop that which rudimentally is in him. And
if this is so of the lower processes of mind, how much more is it
so of the higher ones, and of the highest ! Where shall we take
counsel in respect to the things of God, if not of the divine Spirit ?
And Christ says that a man shall not enter the kingdom of God
without being born of the Spirit. And that is true of every in-
dividual one among us.

" But," says one, " I do not believe in this instantaneous change
of character. I have no doubt that men can be improved. I believe
that men, by attending to themselves, to their thoughts and feelings,
and to a proper use of help, may become better ; but the doctrine
of an instantaneous change of character I never believed before,
and I do not believe now." Well, who ever said there was any such
doctrine ? The Bible never said it, and I do not say it. I do not
say that character can change instantaneously except by a miracle.
But a man's will can. All that precedes change of will may be grad-
ual, and all that succeeds a change of will may be gradual ; but the
will itself changes, when it does change, instantaneously, at once. If
a man is born again of the Spirit, it does not follow that he is born
as quick as a flash of lightning. It does not follow that the whole

TEE NE W BIR TH. 449

divine work is done with instantaneity. That is not the declaration
at all.

Whenever a man comes to that point at which he decisively
yields himself to the divine authority, and says to God, " Thy will
be done," I hold that man to be converted. It is the coming over
of his will from self-control to the divine control. Yielding one's
allegiance to God is conversion. But the circumstances which led
to this result may have worked through long periods of time. Some
trouble or some prosperity, some new thought, urged under such
and such circumstances ; more truth presented ; truth presented
more clearly — these things may work little by little, and bring a
man nearer and nearer to a point where he is willing to submit
himself to the sovereign controlling will of God, and to enter the
higher spiritual life. And the hour and the moment come in which
the soul says, substantially, " Thy will, not mine, be done." And
the transition is made. s^

Now begins another course of gradual influences. When a man
has begun to live as a denizen of the new kingdom, a child of light,
a son of God, he cannot live perfectly at once. He has entered upon
a life in which he is like a little child. And he has everything to
learn over again. He is introduced into a new sphere, and is acted
upon by new influences. He addresses himself to whatever he does
entirely in the light of duty. All his former impulses are changed.
All his ideas are exalted. Many things are put down that were
predominant before. Many things are lifted up that were low and
ignoble before. There is a new realm opened to him, with many
new things added, and many old things changed so that they seem
new. And now it will require his whole life to rebuild in this new
sphere the elements of character. So that the character is changed
not suddenly, but gradually, little by little, by accretion, fulfilling
his purpose, at first feebly, but more from day to day, and more
from year to year, the work of regeneration going on and on, until
he becomes perfect in the higher life.

If, then, you object to a change of heart because it is instan-
taneous : No, it is not. Nor is it taught that it is. If you object to
it because you think character is gradually formed, or undergoes a
gradual change : So do I think, and so does the Bible teach; and
your objection is no objection. I do not believe that men are ever
struck, as with lightning, and instantly changed in character, being
debased sinners one minute, and the next minute rapturous saints.
I believe that men are subject to very powerful influences which
change them very much ; but I do not think the change is such as
immediately to take away the old disposition and replace it by a

450 THE NE W BIB TE.

new one, or suddenly to transform the habits. These changes re-
quire long-continued exertion and labor. And if your objection to
the doctrine of a change of heart lies in its instantaneity, you can
withdraw it ; for nature and revelation and experience all teach us
that the change is a gradual progression from a lower to a higher
state ; such as that, when it is completed, we shall stand complete
in Zion and before God.

" But," says another, " I object to the doctrine of this change
by which a man becomes religious, as produced by the Divine Spirit.
I see the law of causation as clearly in that which is termed con-
version, as in any other mental process. It is an effect produced by
definite, prescribed and perceived causes."

Who ever denied that ? Not I, surely. When the divine mind
acts upon my mind, it acts according to the law of my mind, as
much as when I act on your minds I act according to the laws of
your minds. If you are laboring under a mistake, and I correct the
mistake, do I not change your intellectual state ? but do I not do it
through your intellectual faculties ? If your mind is keyed low,
and I change the key of your mind, and lift your soul into a higher
condition, do I not do it according to the law of your mind ? I
think that the action of the divine mind is in concurrence with the
law of the human mind ; and when the Spirit of God enters a man,
and enlightens and inspires and strengthens him, it is not done by
any other process than that by which the mind is affected. God
is infinitely wise ; and shall he not know how best to manage the
faculties which he has created ?

" He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye,
shall he not see ?"

And he that created the human mind, shall he not understand
how to direct it ? The engineer of a machine, does he not know how
to run it ? He that made a watch, does he not know how to set it
a-going ? And he that made myriads of minds, and has adminis-
tered over men through ages, does he not know how to touch the
springs of thought and moral sentiment, and all the powers of man's
nature ? Why do we need to fly to the supposition that if it is
taught that God changes a man's nature, it is implied that it is done
contrary to law, or even against law ? Nay, there is no fulfillment
of law more signal, more noble, than that by which the Father-
heart of God inflames the hearts of men by natural laws divinely
inspired, and leads them to a higher state and a nobler condition.

" But," says another, " I do not believe in those scenes where
conversion is supposed to take j^lace. I do not believe in revivals.
I do not believe in meetings where men are excited, and carried
away, and where they shout and pray till they scarcely know what

THJE NE W BIETH, 451

they arc doing, and where some change takes place, they do not
know what, and they are said to be converted. I do not believe in
what men call conversion^ when I see how it is performed."

Now, that there are a great many persons who are in such ways
as these brought into states of mind that are transitory ; that there
are many persons who are inspired with impressions respecting
themselves which are not valid in fact, no person can deny. It is
not my purpose to say that all men are really converted who are
called converted. Nobody could suppose this to be the doctrine
taught in the Scripture.

But think of the objection that men are religiously influenced
and brought into the church in consequence of the efiect of meet-
ings. Suppose you should hear a person laughing at schools, and
saying, " I do not believe in education. Just see what they do ?
They take boys and girls, and put them into a house, and shut out
all influences that attract their attention, and set them on benches,
and give them books, and make them study, and read, and spell,
and write, and cipher ; and when they have dealt with them in this
way for a given time, and filled their heads with this, that and the
other thmg, they send them home, and think that they are edu-
cated. But it is all an illusion, they are not educated." If you
mean that they are not perfected in education, that is so ; but is it
not an honorable thing, and a rational thing, for one to wish to brino-
up his children with an education, and to lay the foundation of
that education in this way ?

A person wishes to perfect his manners. He goes to a dancing-
school where all boorishness and improprieties are kept out. And
he, among others, is put into various postures, and taught to place
the right foot forward, and make graceful motions and proper bows
and courtesies. And a man says, " Talk about grace ! Being shut
up in a room, and running about on the floor, and bowing and
scraping, and moving backward and forward, and putting the body
in a great variety of attitudes — is that what you call grace ? I
should think there was very little grace about that." But, after all,
is not that the way to acquire grace ? Is not a school where ease
and elegance of motion and carriage ai-e taught a school of grace ?
And if a person is shut up to the thing which you wish to educate
him in, is it not normal and natural ? When we organize a school,
our object is to instruct those who enter it in those things in which
they are deficient. If we want to educate men for their duties as
citizens, we have campaign clubs, and meetings, and speaking and
writing. If we wish to make a person a musician or an artist, we
shut him up to music or art. If we wish to fit persons for social

452 IHE NE W BIBTE.

life, we keep that special purpose in view in tlieir training. And if
we wish to inspire men with moral impulses, why not shut them up
to moral influences, or put them where moral influences for the time
being predominate over all others ? If a man lives selfishly, and
vainly, and proudly ; if he lives carnally, is it not wise to hold up
before him the claims of a noble, spiritual life ? Is it not wise to
expound to him the doctrines of Christ ? Is it not wise to bring to
bear upon him those influences which belong to the higher range
of truth ? Is it not in consonance with experience, and analogy,
and philosophy, to do by men in religion as we do in music, or art,
or any other department of human life ?

When, therefore, men find fault with revivals and religious meet-
ings, saying that they are artificial, I reply that every other means of
education is artificial, just as much. A revival is nothing but a
school for the education of the moral feelings' and is exactly adapted
to the necessities of many men.

If you say that many of those who make a profession of religion
do not live in accordance with that profes»sion, my reply is that it is
with this as with other things. You never saw an apple tree that
did not have fifty blossoms where there was one that set and came
to fruit. And it may be true that in a community where fifty men
are impressed with religion only one will become a ripe Christian,
while all the rest will more or less lose their impressions, and relapse
into difierent degrees of inferiority all the way down. The imper-
fections of the processes of religion are no argument against their
reality. They are as real as the processes of education, and busi-
ness, and the mechanic arts. The same law governs them. And I
claim for revivals of religion all that can be claimed for the means
which are employed for the development of men in the different
realms of secular life. They are normal and philosophical. And
if a man says, " I do not believe in the fruits of such meetings ; I
have no faith in the pretensions of men who claim to be converted
there," ray reply is. You may not believe in them ; but you ought
not to disbelieve in them on account of the inconsistencies which
accompany them. There are inconsistencies everywhere, and no
more in revivals of religion than in many other directions. That
there are many lasting fruits from this source, no one who is ac-
quainted with the facts will deny.

Another objection is that men who profess to have been convert-
ed are no better than hundreds who make no such profession. Very
likely they are not any better. What then ? Very likely many
men who are gathered into the church at places of conversion are
hypocritical j very likely many of them are counterfeits ; very likely

THE NE W BIBTH. 458

many of them are mistaken. But then, was it not better for them
to have tried to do something, even if they did make a mistake and
fall short, than to hav» sat still and done nothing ? Supposing that
there is such a thing as a higher life, is not he nobler who makes a
strife for it, even if he cannot fly high enough to reach it, and falls
back, than the man that does not strive for it ?

Here sit a parcel of doleful critics, that say, " There is no such
thing as scaling that wall." One and another make the effort (for
they must scale it, or perish) ; but none of them goes quite high
enough, and, exhausted, one after another falls back. And after five
or six have failed, these critics say, " I told you so, I told you so."
But those brave men who, having failed in their endeavors, fall
back, are superior to those vulgar creatures who feel no aspiration,
and do not lift a wing.

But you cannot tell whether a man has power or not until you
see the inside of him. There are multitudes of men converted
whose condition you cannot determine by what you see of them.
There is a hidden life in them. The kingdom of God does not come
with observation. Many a man has the kingdom of God in him
when you do not know it, because you are not omniscient, and are
not a discerner of spirits.

But, more than that, you have no right to compare one man with
another. There is nothing in this world more false in principle than
to measure men in that way, and say that one is not a Christian be-
cause he does not live so and so, and that another is a Christian be-
cause he does live so and so. It is not right to measure a man
who is far down in the scale of endowment and privilege by one who
is far up in these regards. Every man must be measured by what
he himself is.

In the spring, I take a rose that seems to have lost almost all its
vitality, and to be struggling for shoots ; and I carry it to Mr.
Turner, and say, " Give it a fair chance to grow." And he opens
the ground, and gives it a generous quantity of rich earth, and it
begins to throw out shoots, and it grows through the summer, and
reaches a height of six inches, and by autumn it is really blossom-
ing. But suppose I should look down at this stunted rose, and then
up at the large one, and say, " This is no rose at all, compared with
that one which has grown nearly six feet, instead of six inches" ?
You must measure those roses by what they were when they started,
and by the chances which they had for growth, and not by what
they are now.

And in measuring men, it is not fair to say, " That man is a
lovelier specimen than that man." You are not to go into the out-

454 TEE NEW BIBTH.

ward history of one and another, and draw a parallel, and say,
" This man was an old curmudgeon ; he was insatiate in his desire
for wealth ; and he had acquired a vast property : but there was a
little revolution in his affairs ; and he went to a Methodist meeting ;
and there he became excited, and hallooed and yelled, and after-
ward came out a Christian ! but that man has always been generous,
and kind, and upright, in his dealings, and he makes no pretensions
to Christianity." There is no justice in such a comparison. It is
probable that this man who was hard and grinding and avaricious,
but who now calls himself a Christian, has made a greater struggle
and a better fight for spiritual life than that other man ever dreamed
of. He was low down ; but he received a spiritual shock, that set
his mind at work. And he undertook to make a better man of him-
self. And gradually he emerged from his sordid, selfish condition,
into a state where he was under the continual inspiration of God's
love. And at last he became a man second to no other in the whole
region. It took many years to do it, but it was done. And you
must measure him by what he was at the beginning. You must take
into account that at the outset he was low down in the scale. Ah !
he never had a mother that wept and prayed over him as your
mother wept and prayed over you, critic ! He never had brothers
and sisters who were a living interpretation of beneficence, as you
had, critic ! He never had companions that inspired him with gen-
erosity. Everybody plucked at him ; and, with eagle's claws, as it
were, he plucked at everybody. You, on the other hand, were
brought up under the influence of the sweet interchange of kind-
ness. You had advantages for growth and culture sixch as he knew
nothing of. And in your estimate of him these facts must not be
overlooked. There is many a man that you despise, and that you
Bay is not a Christian, who, in the day of God's judgment will
stand higher than you do, because, having received little, he grew
much, while you, having received much, grew little.

But why should a man wish to find fault with such a truth as
this of the Spirit's help? Why should a man seek objections
against this blessed doctrine, that a wicked man may change his
heart ? Do you want to believe that a man who has begun must
continue to go wrong, and become worse and worse all his life long?
Ought not every generous man's heart to be made glad by the faith
that though a man's sins be as scarlet they may be washed away,
and he become white as snow ? Should not the spirit of gratitude
be inspired in us by the doctrine of the possibility of a change from
a lower course to a higher ; by the doctrine that a man may
be emancipated from the flesh, and need not live in these animal con-

TEE NEW BIETH. 455

ditions ; by the doctrine that God will meet us more than half way ;
that he Avill go as far to find us as to find the flowers ? When
rightly interpreted, it is the most glorious doctrine that was ever
presented to man. It was this doctrine that was revealed by God,
and made manifest through his Son in the flesh.

The time has come, then, when men no longer need to live in the
flesh. There has come a new development. A divine spirit is o-iven
to every man who will accept it. And accepting it, he shall rise into
a higher life. He will be born again, and will find himself drawn
toward a better and more comforting state.

Is there any man here, to-night, who has been going down, down
down ? I do not say to you that unless you are born again you
shall not see the kingdom of God. You know that as well as I do.
But ah ! discouraged man, so often sliding when you thought your
foot was safe, so often trying and failing, I come to you and say
You may he born again. There is hope for you. It is not necessary
that you should go on from bad to worse. There is a power in God
by which you may be quickened, emancipated, raised from the dead
born into a new life. There is hope for every man, no matter how
bad he is, or how far he has gone in wrong courses. There may not
be hope for you in your neighbor; you may turn to him in vain for
counsel ; so long as you look to men for help you may be shut up
m darkness and despair ; but there is a God that will succor you.
And you do not need to even speak to him. Open your heart and
let it lie open before him, and he will see it, and minister to it. Your
mother does not think so tenderly of you as he does. Uncover your
Boul, and God will shine upon it. There is power in him to do for
you that which, by your own unaided will, you cannot do for your-
self. He will work i7i you to will and to do of his own good
pleasure.

And I say to every man whom God has saved. Do not give up
the lost. Do not cast the wanderers out of your watch and care.
Hold on to your children, no matter what they have done. Hold on
to your friends. Do not cast them ofi". Hope for men that have
gone astray, and strive to rescue them. Work courageously for the
release of those who are in the bondage of death. Do not despair
of saving the youth.

And to all I say, as long as there is life there is hope. Till the
last day, till your sun goes down, in the very last hour, remember
that the dear Spirit of God hovers near you, and that by the power
of his Spirit you may be enfranchised, and illumined, and made meet
to inherit eternal life.

45 6 THE NE W BIBTE.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We draw near to thee, our Heavenly Father, encouraged by the memory
of days gone by. How many times, weary and faint, have we found refresh-
ment in the tabernacles of our God! How many times, despondent and
heavy of heart, have we been cheered and lifted up by thy power ! How
many times have we smitten on our breast, daring not to lift our eyes, and
thou hast sent us away testifying of thy mercy and goodness, and of our sins
forgiven ! How often hast thou made the place of our meeting sweet ! Our
most sacred religious life thou hast granted to us in communion with thee,
and in fellowship one with another !

And now, O Lord our God, we beseech of thee that thou wilt draw us
again. Open thy nature to our thought. And if we cannot reach to compass
the circuit of thy being, still thou canst grant unto us some knowledge of
thyself. Thou canst shine, though we cannot take in all thy beams, nor by
searching find thee out unto perfection. Grant unto every one of us so much
of the knowledge of God as shall lift his heart above things carnal. Cheer
us in the weary way of Ufe. Encourage us to faith and perseverance unto
the end. How many there are that fain would fly toward thee, but cannot !
Condescend to such. And grant, O Lord, that thy Spirit may inspire in them
the petitions which they know not how to utter ! How many are there that
know their great need, but know not wherein it consists. But thou, O God,
canst call us forth. Thou canst lift the heavy weight. Thou canst dispel the
gloomy cloud. Thou canst reach in to the hidden springs that give life.
Thou canst make life where is death ; and light, where is darkness. How
many there are that pray for things that are not best ! We beseech of thee
that thou wilt answer them better than they ask of thee, and do for them,
not what they wish, but those things which shall please thee.

We beseech of thee, O God, that thou wilt listen to those whom thou hast
taught to pray. Grant unto them things right. And may they have hope,
and tmst, and royal confidence in God. Oh, may we not distrust thee.
Every other one most dear to us may we distrust rather than thee, thou that
canst not deceive ; thou that wilt never go aside from thy work. May we
abide in a steadfast confidence in the faithfulness of our God. Thou art our
souls' help. All our help doth spring from thee. Thou wilt succor us, and
that to the end.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt inspire us to pray, not alone for our-
selves and those immediately under our care, but for others. May our hearts
be enlarged. May we look out upon the multitudes that have none to care
for them. May we search out those that need special divine grace ; and may
our prayers flow to thee, and be blessed to their conversion and to their edifi-
cation in the Christian life. We pray that the spirit of prayer may be dif-
fused among all our families. We pray that this whole Church may be
brought up in a praying spirit, and that those especially who are laboring
with the poor and ignorant may be moved of God to great power. And may
we see the answers of their prayer.

And we pray for this city in which we dwell. Wilt thou cleanse it in every
part of it. Bless those that labor for the reformation of morals. Bless those
who labor for the establishment of wise laws, and a wise and incorrupt
administration of them. Bless those who teach, and those who preach the
Gospel. May thy churches be multiplied and strengthened. May their influ-
ence be salutary in this great community.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt remember our land, and raise up
all those institutions and instruments which are necessary for its evangeliza-
tion. We thank thee that thou hast given us such a country and released us

TEE NJS W BIRTH. 457

from the hurdens and cruelties of oppression ; and that whilst others are
suffering and ai'c trodden down as the dust in the street, we are abiding in
plenty and prosperity.

May we not forget those that suffer as once we suffered. We pray for the
despoiled, the outcast, the homeless, and helpless. And we pray that others
may be speedily raised up on every hand to succor those who are most in
need.

And we pray for the time to come when garments rolled in blood shall
pass away ; when the sword shall be sheathed ; when the voice of desolation
shall be no more heard in the land. Oh, for the times of education ! Oh, for
the times of true piety ! Oh, for justice and love and fellowship among men !
O Lord God, when shall the day come that men shall cease to be beasts and
rend each other ? When shall come those days of plenty and peace and glad-
ness that are predicted ? O Lord, hasten that day in thine own good time.
Let the Gospel come forth, and unloose the powers of heaven above. May
all the earth follow the voice of thy decrees. May the hving power that is in
thee be for the restoration of the image of God in man, for the lifting up of
the race, and for its enfranchisement and establishment in all righteousness.
Even so. Lord Jesus, come quickly. And to the Father, the Son and the
Spirit shaU be endless praises. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless the truth spoken.
Grant that it may touch the heart. Grant that it may encourage the despond-
ing, enlighten those that are ignorant, and win those that are reluctant.
May there be many that shall attempt this new life, not in their own
strength, but leaning upon thine ; not in their own wisdom, but inflamed by
thine. Oh, that we might learn more and more how poor in fruit of enjoy-
ment is the life of the flesh, and how full of the fruit of righteousness is the
life of the spirit ! Lift us into that sphere, and give us its deep tranquillity,
its communion with God, its hope, its faith, and its victory. And to the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises everlasting. Amen.

XXIV.

Working out our own Salvation.

WORKIIG OUT OUR OWN SALVATION.

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed , not as in my presence
only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling: for it is God which worketh in you both to will
and to do of his good pleasure."— Phil. II., 12, 13.

The first question which would naturally suggest itself among
men upon this passage, is whether religion is a completed work, im-
parted by divine power to the human soul, whether it is something
finished and made over to men, or whether it is a work which un-
folds gradually, an education, difiering from others, not so much by
its processes and philosophy, as by the higher sphere in which it is
taking place.

There have been a great many things taught by stress of contro-
versy in this world, which fell to the ground afterward, by their own
weight. There has been a doctrine of imputed character, or, as it
is more familiarly called, imputed righteous7iess, by a very gross
misuse of certain apostolic forms ; and men held and taught, in past
times (not so much, I think, now), that Christ wrought out a right-
eousness, and that he conferred it upon those who believed in him ;
so that it was as something transferred — a substance, a spiritual
quality, or a spiritual condition, in its perfection, existing first in
him, and then conferred upon others. The illustrative figures fre-
quently employed were those of garments. As our bodies are
clothed with dress, so our souls are clothed with the righteousness
of Christ.

Such was the figure — for it was but a figure ; and on this figure ,
has been founded the substance of a discriminating doctrine dividing
between one school of theology and another.

It has been held that some men had sin imputed to them, while
other men had moral character imputed to them. By this is meant
that one man, being righteous, his righteousness was passed over
upon others ; and it was said that when they sinned, they were ac-
counted as if they were righteous ; that righteousness was imputed

StTNPAY EvKNTNO, Jan. 22, 187L Lesson : PsA. XXm. Hymns (Plymouth Collec-
tion) : Nos. 847, 865, 1351.

462 WORKING OUTOUB 0 WN SAL VA TION.

to them, in the sense that, though they were sinful and imperfect,
they were accounted as if they were sinless and righteous before
God.

The characters of men in this world, have, on that account, been
supposed to be things of divine manufacture ; and men's notions
were so crude that they supposed these qualities were wrought out
in the divine mind, and then transfused in their perfect condition,
to the human mind.

When the apostle says,
" Work out your own salvation,"
does he countenance such a notion as this ? Does he not, on the
contrary, refute it, and show tnac, whatever may be wrought in man
by the divine power, it is sometning that man has an agency in pro-
ducing ; that it is wrought out of a particular state in his own soul ;
that it is conferred upon him as a responsible agent ?

The reasons which formerly made theologians afraid of human
interference, in the work of their own salvation, were twofold. In
the first place, it was supposed that it would detract from the glory
of God to teach that moral results flow from the indirect effect of
the divine will, instead of from the direct effect. And yet, all na-
ture had been teaching the world, if they could but have under-
stood it, that this was the method of the divine action, and that
God, who certainly should know what his own glory is, and what
will glorify him throughout all nature, is setting causes in operation
which shall produce the effects that he desires, he ministering to
those causes, and they being made to produce results, and the
world being made vital, that it may, according to its own law, and
in its own place, bring forth its results in all excellence.

So God does work ; and doubtless he counts himself to be glori-
fied by the work which he produces.

A better knowledge of that which science in our day is revealing
so clearly, would have saved them from supposing that God would
be less honored by producing indirect and instrumental results, than
by producing direct and personal and voluntary ones.

But there was another reason why men were afraid of human
interference in the work of salvation. It was this : that the old
Roman church had been teaching the doctrine that men could lay
up for themselves, by good deeds, not only righteousness, but a cer-
tain superfluous quantity of it, to be drawn from, as money is drawn
from a bank, against the time of need.

The reformers undertook to meet this doctrine of good works,
as held in the Roman church ; and not discriminating nicely enough,
they set their faces emphatically against man's works, and taught

WORKING OUT OUR OWN 8ALVA110N. 463

(many of them, at any rate) that men could do nothing in the di-
rection of righteousness, or that the things which they did do in
that direction were without virtue ; that they had no moral quality
in them ; and that nothing was of any account except that which
God himself taught. They were driven by stress of controversy
over upon this extreme ground ; and they taught that no man could
repent of nimself. He must wait for the Spirit of God to bring re-
pentance to him. According to their teaching, no man could change
his own heart, or disposition, or life. It must be changed in him by
the irresistible power of the divine will. In order to set themselves
against the Roman corrupt doctrine of good works, they came near
cutting up by the roots the motives of personal endeavor, and indi-
vidual effort.

This gave rise to a style of preaching which shut men off from
activity, and almost produced a state of torpidity. I very well re-
member the time (and it may be that many of the older members
of this congregation remember the same time) when preachers, in
urging men to a godly life, cautioned them, at every step, that they
should not go too fast nor too far, lest they should, as it were, undo
the work of the Spirit. In every exhortation, men were bidden to
beware, and wait for the divine influence.

So it came to pass that men waited for God — waited as if in
order to have the divine nature put into the human soul, there was
nothing to be done by man except to receive it. He was the mighty
recipient, and God was the Author absolute. And, as the case of a
clock may be imagined to stand waiting for the clock-maker to
bring the completed machinery and put into it, and wind it up, the
case saying, " What am I ? I cannot keep time ; I cannot make
anything in myself that will keep time ; and here I stand ; and
whenever my owner pleases to put a clock in me I will perform •
but I must wait till then" ; so men stand and say, " If it is God
that works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure, what
can we do ? We want to be pardoned, but we cannot pardon our-
selves ; and we wait for God to pardon us. We want to be built
up in a holy character ; but if God himself does this work in us
what can we do but wait ?" And so men have from year to year
stood indolent, waiting for God.

But experience teaches, what is everywhere implied in Scrip-
ture, that religion is not a substance separate from the action of
man ; that it is only another word for character ; and that it is
developed in men — not imputed to them. Influences are brought to
bear ; but the product of those influences is grown out of man.

464 WOEKIIiG OUT OUE OWN SALVATION.

Character must be developed from pre-existing materials in the
human soul.

It is a false mental philosophy which takes any other view than
this. And so far from our being commanded to wait for some new
quality, or some new attitude, to be infixed in us, we are com-
manded to work out our own salvable character — that is, that state,
that condition, which makes salvation possible in any man; that
righteousness, that love, that faith which makes it possible for the
human soul to adhere to God.
" Work out your own salvation."

In other words, the whole moral and religious life is put upon
the same platform that all the rest of man's life is put upon. Here
are the laws ; here are the agencies ; here are the instrumentalities ;
and men acknowledge that they are competent to their use in all
other directions but those of morality and spirituality ; and the
word of God teaches that they are just as competent to their use in
moral and spiritual directions.

" Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

There is nothing in man's physical or intellectual organization ;
there is nothing in his personal endowments of power for achieving
material results, to which there is not a corresponding adaptation
in man's spiritual faculties. There is that in his spiritual nature
which answers in analogy to the other departments of his being.
There is no sphere of human existence which man's natural gifts
will not qualify him for if he makes a wise use of them. The divine
nature takes for granted, implies, or directly teaches, that there is
an adaptation, a preparation, a potency, a will power, an executing
force, in a man, by which he can become spiritually, as well as men-
tally and physically, what God designed he should be in his creation.
And to teach anything else is untrue in mental philosophy and in
experience.

Like any other education, religious education is gradual. It is
the result of time ; it is the result of thought ; it is the result of
successive efforts. It is a growth ; and to all growths belongs the
element of time. No man ever becomes a perfect Christian sud-
denly.

You must not misunderstand me, as if I would set aside the
doctrine of the divine influence. Nor must you suppose that I
would teach you that there is no such thing as a great and sudden
change in men's dispositions and tendencies. There is. But it is a
change which consummates. It is a change which, affecting a man's
purposes, affecting a man's determinations or will, leads step by step
to those changes which go to make up character ; but no man was
ever by conversion brought into a perfect Christian state. In the

WORKING OUT QUE 0 WN SAL VATION. 4G 5

case of Paul himself, though he was ordained to be a great and
mighty instrument in the hand of God, tlie work hy which he was
brought into the kingdom was a work which required years and
years and years. And the experiences which he has recorded in his
eloquent letters, are experiences wrought out just as years are, little
by little, and through long periods.

We are encouraged to work out our salvable state, or our
religious character, by the declaration that if we work, we shall have
divine help.

We may not state affirmatively, that the great elements of
Christian life are wrought out in men little by little. They are
never suddenly produced. No man ever, in the spring, saw the
orchard, within the space of one hour, clothed with leaves and blos-
soms and fruit. First comes the swelling bud and the immature
leaf; then comes the cluster of leaves ; then comes the pink prophecy
of a floAver ; then comes the beautiful cluster of flowers ; and then,
after the air has been perfumed for some days by the flowers, comes
the tiny sign of fruit. And this, fed for weeks and months, and
nourished through the whole summer, swells itself out, but still is
green, and sour, and unfit for us ; and it is only when, at last, the
autumn comes with its kindly ripening influences, developing the
final flavoring qualities, that it is rich fruit agreeable to the taste.
At the beginning it was a germ that had in it all that was developed
afterward ; but it had none of its substance and reality. That had
to be unfolded.

Now, in every single special Christian life, we go through the
same process or processes of a far away beginning, and of a constant
development or unfolding or ripening toward the final form. For
instance, one of the earliest traits that belong to the regenerate char-
acter, is an aspiration for righteousness, a desire to be better in
thought and in feeling. No man has aspiration in its perfect form in
the beginning. At first we desire to correct certain faults. It is
not the whole character that we conceive of. Aspiration is occa-
sional. In our better moments, we mourn over transgression. We
are ashamed of sin. We make good resolutions. We long, with
uplifted hands and uplifted hearts for divine help to overcome easily
besetting sins.

These periods are at the beginning comparatively feeble, and at
long intervals, that touch but single points in the character. But as
we grow from year to year, the aspiration begins to be more sym-
metrical. It goes through the various stages of the aflEbctions and
the moral sensibilities, and finally arrives at a complete Christian
character. Under the influence of aspiration we long for noble

466 WOBKINO OUT OUR OWN SALVATION.

traits, for higher researches in them, for a larger spliere, and for a
more perfect conformity to the divine will ; but this is the ultimate,
not the beginning, form. We begin a Christian life of aspiration at
a low point ; and the command is. Work this out.

So it is with the trait of obedience. When we first attempt to
obey the better law, or the law of love as it is in Christ Jesus, not
only are we far from potency, but we are far from understanding.
We know very little of what that law is. We have to go through
a varied experience to acquaint ourselves with it. This experience
is attended with more or less mistakes and errors. Every man
studies his lesson-book of obedience as the child at school studies
his lesson-book. There are in the way many sufferings, many tears,
many poor lessons, many shortcomings, many besetments ; but little
by little he grows in knowledge and attainment ; and each attain-
ment leads subsequently to a stronger desire to make an earnest
forthputting for salvation. And this element of growth, or pro-
gression by degrees, is invariable. No man is ever born into Chris-
tian character so but that obedience to the law of God is a gradual
attainment. It is a thing learned.

Did you ever see a musician that was born with the ability to
play the organ or any other instrument ? You have seen many
persons in whom there was an innate musical faculty ; but not on i
that could do anything in music without education and without
training.

And so, although we have our spiritual natures, our innate ten-
dencies to things virtuous and good, they are all obliged to conform
to this law of education, training, drill. And God says. Work out
your obedience. As this is the law of our nature, it is the law of
God's grace. And he is patient with us. He is long-suffering. He
knows, when he undertakes to save a soul, that that soul will not
obey from the beginning. When he receives a soul to save it, he
receives it as an imperfect souL He takes every man that he saves
knowing that he is weak, and will do wrong. Every soul that he
saves, he saves with all these contingencies.

As it is with aspiration and obedience, so it is with love to God —
the best of all developments, and the slowest to mature in the soul.
A benevolent disposition, a strong spirit of love, which shall temper,
modify, and control our nature, which shall spread itself out as a
summer of the soul toward those who are around about us, and
which shall lift itself up as a sacred atmosphere toward God — this
great attainment is never transferred completed from the soul of
God to the soul of man. It is that which we work for, and which,
working for it, we miss often and often and often. But little by

WOBKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION. 467

little we gain it. Little by little the horizon grows large. Little
by little the sun shines brighter to our eye. No man ever yet learned
to love God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself, in a
day — nay, nor in a life-time ; for that is a lesson which is forever
being learned, and is never completed on these mortal shores.

So it is with sympathy toward men ; so it is with humility ; so it
is with meekness ; so it is with gentleness ; so it is with patience ; so
it is with every single one of those Christian traits which are so fre-
quently registered in the Word of God. No man, because he is just
awakened, and converted, and rejoices in God's forgiving love, and
is brought into the church, should suppose that he has all these
things set in him, and ready for perfect action.

The apostle says that ice are GocTs husbandry. Our souls are
his farms. And when God begins his work in your soul, and seeks
for humility, and meekness, and love, he says to you, " Work out
these traits. Plow for them. Sow seed for them. And when they
come up, cultivate them. And when they are ripe, garner and har-
vest them," Every one of these traits is to be made subject mat-
ter of careful thought, much prayer, much endeavor, much skillful
education. And that is the interpretation, to a large extent, of the
divine providences which are cooperating with grace, and are giving
men opportunity to develop these traits.

How shall men learn to be patient, if everything is just as they
want it ? How shall men learn perseverance, if they have everything
without endeavor ? When men are crossed, Avhen their plans are
subverted, when they find the world bearing heavily upon their
shoulders, God is saying to them, " Work out patience ; work out
perseverance ; work out courage." When men find that pride domi-
nates in them, and that by pride they are led into trifling, and into
fault-finding, and perhaps into interrogating God, saying, " Why am
I thus dealt with, O my Father ?" God is saying, " Work out hu-
mility ; work out gentleness." Are circumstances depressed ? Is
home scowling and cloudy ? Is life obstructed ? Do you from day
to day find yourself kicking against the pricks ? The providence of
God is saying, " Work out, by these helps, your own salvation."
Educate yourself in those moral traits which, if you bear up man-
fully, and act the part of a Christian, under such circumstances,
cannot fail to be developed and established in you.

But we are commanded in working out our own salvation, to
develop in ourselves those traits of character which shall make us
like Christ, and make it possible for Christ to be companionable
with us, and to save us throughout all eternity. We are commanded
to do this loith fear and trembling.

Is it, then, that our God is capricious? Is it that we are like.

468 WOBKING OUT OUB OWN SALVATION.

courtiers in an Eastern despotism, who are liable to be supplanted,
and are suspicious of each other all the time ? Is our God one that
inspires fear ? No. What is meant by /ear and trembling is the
antithesis of conceit. It is the antithesis of that contentment which
springs from overweening confidence or indifference. If men think
they are so nearly good that they do not need to be anxious, the
word of the Lord to them is, " Seest thou a man wise in his own
conceit ? there is more hope of a fool than of him ;" but if a man, on
the other hand, has such a sense of his real deficiency, that he feels
the need of education in divine things ; if he says, " The work is so
great that it can only be accomplished by the putting forth of every
endeavor, then there will be that /ear and trembling of which the
text speaks — that natural insight, that alertness, that earnest cir-
cumspection, which every man has who addresses himself to a thing
which is valued, and Avhich stands in distinction from that atone-
ment which a man has who thinks he is well enough off.

At any rate, bring to this work that earnestness which men bring
to things which they desire and mean to have in secular life. There
is nothing in this world which requires more spirit, more purpose,
more watching, than this work. There is no more various culture
than that which is derived from seeking those great ends which are
set before every one in a Christian life. We cannot afford to be in-
different Christians. We cannot make progress in Christian life, if
we live in a state of supine indifference. We are to work out our
own salvation as earnest men work, thinking before, thinking after,
full of resources, full of desires, as men are when they are searching
for things which their whole heart is set iipon.

It is not, then, servile fear and trembling, but generous, manly,
courageous, wholesome fear and trembling, which come fi-om the best
feelings, acting in the best directions, and inspired by the best in-
fluences, that we are called upon to be actuated by in working out
our salvation. And surely the apostle teaches us that every man
needs to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling — that
is to say, with unceasing vigilance, with untiring watchfulness. So
many are the things which obscure the mind ; so many are the things
which tone down a man's purpose ; so many are the diversions which
load the soul with care, and obstruct a man's purpose ; so many are
the diversions which lead a man from the goal toward which he is
aiming, that no man can succeed in maintaining a religious life ex-
cept at the price of continual thought, and continual faith, and con-
tinual determination, and continual dependence upon the grace of
God.

This brings us to the last thought ; namely, that all our work to
secure our own salvation would be most hopeless, if we should work

WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION. 469

unaided. There must be this spring, this courage, this perseverance,
this motive-power on our part ; and yet, these high and noble am-
bitions will be in vain unless God works with us. P'or it is God that
inspires us to this life. It is God that works in us to will and to do
of his good pleasure.

It is not to supersede, but to incite and to guide, every human
faculty, that the spirit of God is given. It is quite a vain question
whether a man might, by himself, by the natural force of his facul-
ties, gain everything that he desires. That which is most to the
point is, that there is in the universe a provision by which men are
helped. Grace reveals it. But it is not a provision which helps men
who do not desire to rise above the ordinary physical conditions of
life, above the vulgar conditions of society, above the natural and
selfish state in which man finds himself.

I Men sometimes think that the way of grace is a hard way, and
that the whole economy of this life is in favor of the ungracious and
unrcgenerate state. Men Chink that the whole retinue of influences
in society fight against grace in the soul. And to a certain extent
they do. But forever running through nature, through providence,
through human life, there is the mind and thought and heart of God
brooding upon all human hearts, and working in them " to will and
to do of his good pleasure," There is not a soul that does not feel
drawn by the divine brooding soul, though it may not know from
whence the power comes which draws it. Men have inspirations
from God which they cannot account for. Strong influences, draw-
ing even bad men, and leading them to do good things while they
are in a state of nature, are from the Spirit of God, that spreads it-
self abroad through the earth, even as the sun ; that strives with
those who know, and those who do not know what it is ; that strives
I believe, with those who do not know the Gospel ; that works with
the heathen; that ministers to the Gentiles; that sheds the lio-ht of
truth upon those who shall never see more than the twilight in this
world. This great Father-Spirit, this great loving Spirit, this life-
giving Spirit, is universal. The earth, from horizon to horizon is
filled with it. And there is no place where a soul can be that to it
is not conjoined the influences of the Divine Spirit. Attempt any-
thing, overcome anything, attain anything, you are not alone. You
are not simply left to your -endeavors. God works in you. And
there is the promise of success.

It has been said, " If it is God that works, how shall it be man
also ? " Suppose we should have a reasoning organ ; and suppose that
organ should say to Beethoven, who was sitting down before the
keyboards, " Now, either you will play, or I will ; but how can you

470 WORKING OUT OUB OWN SALVATION.

and I play together?" "How can we do anything else ?" Beethoven
says. The organ perforins according to his touches on the keys ; but
if there were no organ, his thoughts would lack exjjression. The
thinking mind of the artist expresses itself through the help of the
instrument. And so those noble symphonies flow out which entrance
the world. The apostle says :

" Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; for it is God
which worketh in you."

And philosophy says, "If it is God that works in man, how does
man work ?" Is there no such thing as cooperation ? Is there no
such thing as inspiration ?

When the child is working, and the mother stands at the door
and says, " Bravely done, my child !" is there no new light in the
eye ? is there no alacrity added to the hand ? is there no ambition
excited to do yet better ? Does not the mother work in the child to
will and to do the things which the child cannot do of itself ?

In the midst of battle, men who have unflinchingly borne until
they are well-nigh cut off", are thinking of retreat ; and they hear
the voice of their captain crying out to them, and sending a thrill
through the air. The result is that they nerve themselves up once
more, and victory comes with this last effort. There is success when
another mighty soul is working in them, inspiring them to will and
to do.

A wandering, weary, spent, hungry traveler sits down, benumbed,
to give up in despair. He is met by a hunter. But is his weari-
ness cured? Is the cold dissipated ? Is his hunger satisfied? No.
But the hunter says to him, " Be a man. Rouse up what is in you.
Follow me. And now you shall not wander in a circle, and in vain.
I know the way ; and if you will make a few more eff^orts you will be
safe." The hunter works in the man to will and to do for his own
salvation. He brings him out of danger.

Men are in a thousand ways thrown into circumstances in which
another man can develop force in them. And blessed be God, there
is a Spirit which works within us, and develops a power in us which
teaches us how to accomplish what we will, and guides us by its in-
spiration to successful results. This is the whole hope of Christian
life which is left to us. They who fall back into somnolency and
pride and selfishness are without its comfort ; but we who wake up
to a sense of our privileges, and avail ourselves of this proffered
help, are under the administration of a Father who loves us better
than we love ourselves, and who is working intelligence and inspira-
tion and purposes in us, and leading us on step by step ; and it will
by and by complete in us this glorious work of emancipation from
sin, this grand establishment df a righteous character, and bring us

WOBEINO OUT OUB 0 WN SAL VA TION. 471

into the fullness of his power and love, and into the joy and victory
of the upper kingdom.

And now I say, Christian brethren, in the language of the apostle,
"Workout your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God
which workoth in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure."

God will help you. Try higher flights — God will help you.
Try more difticult things — God will help you. Do not be afraid to
venture into any path of Christian life. Count yourselves unworthy
of nothing. Aim at the best and highest things — it is God that is
helping you.

And to those who have stood wistfully looking at the Christian
life, wandering hither and thither, not knowing M'here to go, and
fearing to join the people of God lest they should bring reproach
upon the church of Christ, I say, Venture, O timid souls ! enter
upon a Christian life. Commit your souls to God. Cling to Him
to whom you are dearer than any babe to its mother. The heart
of God knows how to love as the heart of no human being knows
how to love. Men are dear to God ; and he says to those who come
to him, *' I will in no wise cast you out, but will give you eternal
life.

Venture upon God. Enter upon the Christian life. Enlarge
your conceptions, your ambitions, your aspirations. Seek to enter
into the kingdom of God. And remember that it is God who leads
you to that living Spirit which shall help you in working out your
own salvation with fear and trembling ; for it is God that worketh
in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.

472 WOUEING OUT OUB OWN SAL VA TION.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We draw near to thee, this evening, not as to one strange, or reluctant to
grant mercy ; for thou art more willing to gi-ant good gifts to us, our Father,
than we ai-e willing to grant good gifts to our children. Thou art more
solicitous to bless us than we are to be blessed of thee ; and thy love toward
us is greater and wiser and more full of mercy than our own love of our-
selves. And we draw near to thee as our Shelter, our Refuge, our Hope, our
Life. All that we have is of thee. In thee we live, and move, and have our
being. Thou art filling with thy presence all things. "Wherever is life, is
God. Wherever is law, thy will is known. Wherever things are accomplish-
ing beneficent ends, there is thy wisdom. Thou art felt throughout all thy
boimdless domain ; and things praise thee in heaven and upon the earth.
Oh, that our hearts were attuned to this universal rejoicing, and that we
might be delivered from sin, and so brought into sympathy with thee, that
our hearts should evermore praise thee, and rejoice in thy work !

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant unto us, to-night, such access as
children have. May we come here, bringing the confession of our sins. Open
our hearts freely before God. Look thou upon us, and see altogether what
is in us. Heal that which is sick ; forgive that which is amiss ; strengthen
that which is weak ; guide that which is erring ; and inspire us, in all parts
of our souls, with an earnest desire to live so as to please thee here, and to
inherit and enjoy thee hereafter.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant the enlivening influence of thy
Spirit upon the word of truth. May it be spoken with sincerity and sim-
pUcity ; and may it have in it nourishment for those who shall hear.

We pray that thy Churches may abound with thy Spirit. May those who
make known the unsearchable riches of Christ to-night be blessed of God.
May their words not fall to the ground useless. As seed that falls upon good
ground, may they bring forth an hundred fold.

We pray that thy blessing may rest upon all the efforts made by thy peo-
ple everywhere for the reformation of morals, and for the establishment of
righteousness.

We pray for the purification of our laws, and our magistracy. We pray
for the vindication of justice throughout this great land. Thou hast indeed
made this country eminent by thy benefactions. Thou art causing it to
grow in strength and in riches. Deliver us from selfishness, and from avarice,
and from covetousness, and from infidelity. Deliver us from all cruelty, and
all desire to despoil the weak. May we long to have this land consecrated to
truth and justice and humanity.

And be thou, O God, with the counselors of the nation. Guide our rulers.
Grant that they may be God-following men, and that they may walk in the
fulfillment of thy will.

And we pray that thou wilt spread the knowledge of truth over all the
sea, and through all the continents. Everywhere may there be a turning
unto the Lord. Oh, that the long lingering days of darkness might flee away !
Oh, that the bright days of prediction which shall bring peace and songs
might come ! Oh, for the day when the earth shall not groan and travail in
pain ! Oh, for the universal diffusion of holiness, when peace and prosperity
shall settle down in all our borders, and no man shall have occasion to say to
his neighbor, Know ye the Lord? for they shall all know him, from the least
unto the greatest! May we in our place, and according to the measure of
our strength, labor for this blessed consummation, evermore saying. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And now, Lord, we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant us thy blessing.

WOBEING OUT OUB OWN SALVATION. 473

not according to our feeble petition, not according to the wisdom with which
we make our request, but according to the greatness of thy mercy. In thee
we desire evermore to find the measure of benefaction. We desire that thou
wilt take counsel with thine own heart. Bless us not as we deserve, but as
thine infinite love and kindness prompt thee. Manifest thy tender mercy
and long-suffering goodness toward us in days to come, as thou hast in days
that are past.

And when, at last, we shall have passed through light, and through dark-
ness, and through trouble and sorrow, and through sin and repentance, and
through all the phases of life, bring us, with all thy people, to that rest which
remaineth for the people of God. And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,
shall be praise evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, accept our thanks for the cheer and comfort of thy Word.
How art thou to us like a Father when we hear that Word ! When we listen
to the philosophies of men, thou seemest to go away, and art afar off, and art
hid behind thy glory. And we call, and no one answers; and we stretch out
our hand, and no one takes it. But when we come unto thy word, or hear it
spoken, how gentle art thou I how near thou art ! how full of sympathy art
thou ! how art thou unto men as a father is to his children.

We thank thee for all these revelations of our God to us. We rejoice that
heaven is full of this sympathizing God. We rejoice that the earth and all
the courses of nature are filled full of the might and power of this God of
love. Thou that didst suffer that men might not suffer ; thou that didst give
thy life that life might be brought to all thy creatures ; thou that art long-
suffering, and art working with natm-e, with all the forces of heaven and
earth for our good, remember evermore the weak and the needy.

Oh, grant that to a conception of thy glory men's eyes may be opened,
and men's hearts enlarged, and that men may be led to take hold of thee,
and to feel thy power taking hold of them !

And now, we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless the word of truth spoken
this night. May it sink down into the heart, and do good, bringing forth an
hundred fold. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

XXV.

The Preacher's Commission.

THE PEEACHER'S COMMISSIOI.

" Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to ob-
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world."— Matt. XXVIII., 19, 20.

This represents the end of our Lord's ministry upon earth ; and
it is familiarly called the commission which he gave to his apostles,
by which they were thrice enjoined to become preachers of the
Gospel. I have no doubt that in the beginning it was addressed to
them exclusively, and for the very obvious reason that there was
nobody else with him. They were his companions. This was spoken
to them at Jerusalem, over beyond the summit of the Mount of
Olives, near Bethany. This was his familiar band that surrounded
him. And he commanded them — all that were with him — to go
forth and become teachers of the new life, according to the doctrine
of the new kingdom.

The right to teach, to administer ordinances, to govern churches,
has been supposed to be limited to a very few. It has been sup-
posed that it was a right which inhered in, as it were, a spiritual
corporation, and that it was transmissible, and that it was trans-
mitted by definitely authorized parties with the divine sanction ;
and that no man not specially appointed to it had a right to intrude
into the office of the sacred ministry. It has been supposed that
men must first be called to preach ; and that secondly they must be
authorized by God's church, through its appropriate officers, to take
up the vocation of preaching, having been called to it.

I suppose it is best that an order of men should exist, wlio shall
give themselves exclusively to the work of teaching and preaching
religious truths. It is best, however, not on any ground of historic
authority ; not on the ground on which the church has put it ; it is
best for the same reason that it is best that there should be an or-
der of men who shall attend to the sick ; that there shall be an or-
der of men who shall attend to the admmistration of law. In other
words, division of labor has been found to be wise. The adaptation

Sunday Evening, Feb. 12, 1R71. Lesson : 2 Thess. IT.. 16, 17 : III.. 1-16. Hrjiya
(Plymouth Collection) : Nos. 1008, 981, 1163.

478 TEE PBEACHEB'8 COMMISSION.

of a man's whole energy to certain special ends makes the accom-
plishment of those ends more certain, and certain to a better pur-
pose than where they are left to the lower training of all men.
Therefore there should be an order of men whose business it is to
make known moral religious truth, for that single practical reason —
just as schools will be better if there are professional teachers ; just
as each particular kind of industry will be better if there are men
exclusively educated to that kind of industry ; just as moral affairs
will flourish better if there is an order of men who adapt themselves
exclusively to the propagation of moral ideas and moral influences.

There were two reasons why the apostles had this commission
given to them. The first I have stated — that they were the only
ones who were present. The other reason, which expired with the
apostles, and which will never come again, was that they went forth
in the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel to be witnesses of
the life and deeds of Jesus Christ himself They were personal
witnesses. And that which gave them authority, in part, as apos-
tles, was that they spoke that which they Joiew, and testified that
which they had seen. And so, when Judas fell out of the band, and
they were to select another disciple in his place, they selected from
among those that had companied with the Lord from the beginning,
that being an indispensable condition. And when Paul was select-
ed, he came in by reason of the revelation which was made to him
miraculously. And he declared again and again, that he also, as
one born out of due time, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, with the primitive church this part of the apostolic work
ceased. No man can now be a witness of the facts Avhich occurred
two thousand years ago. No man can put any emphasis at all on
that which was one of the most emphatic points in the beginning of
the Christian ministry.

It is held by some, that only those have a right to preach who
have received permission from that apostolic body which has per-
petuated itself historically by the transmission of virtue from per-
son to person clear down to our time. It is held that there inheres
in the church both authority and virtue by which men may be set
apart to preach the Gospel ; and that they who are thus set apart
may minister in sacred affairs.

But we believe the Christian ministry to be as open to all men
as any other profession in civil society. And there is no more vir-
tue required of a man who becomes a life-long pi'cacher of the Gos-
pel than of a man who becomes a lawyer, a physician, a teacher, or
an engineer. No other conditions should be imposed on one than on
the others. That is to say, adaptation to the calling is the only es-

TEE PBEACnEE'8 COMMISi^ION. 479

sential thing. No man is called to any profession unless he has
a capacity for it ; and any man is called to whatever profession he
is qualified, by his talent and training, to successfully carry on.
This is the general law of liberty in society ; and the ministry is
not an exception to it. The church is not a close corporation. The
claim that it is, is invalid, and ought to be spurned. It belongs to all.
And every man lias a right to come personally to God, without the
help of priest, or any help, if he can. And it is his own inherent
right, it is a right which he derives, not through the church, but by
the Holy Ghost, to make known any truth which his heart believes,
to go forth and preach it, if he pleases, without ordination.

It is precisely in religious matters as it was in civil matters.
There was a time when it was supposed that common men had no
civil rights. They were all supposed to be stored in the king. And
by mutation it came to be supposed that the rights of men were
stored in society, and that society conferred them. But we have
now come to a better time ; and we hold that there is an inherent
right in every man, by virtue of his sonship to God, to all the privi-
leges which any other man enjoys. We hold that the individual
receives no rights from government, but that government derives
its rights from the individual. And as it is with government, so it
is Avith society. And there is to come a democratic view of the
Christian ministry by which it shall be understood that it is not a
gift conferred by those who are in authority, upon the common peo-
ple, but that it is a right which inheres in the piety and relationship
of every child of God.

Whoever can preach and wants to preach, may preach, all the
world to the contrary notwithstanding. The power to do the work,
adaptation to it, and the wish to do it, is enough. Let me see a
man's work, and I will tell you whether he is called to the ministry
or not.

If I go into a man's studio, and find execrable pictures there, I
may be polite enough not to say anything ; but if I am compelled
by the man's arrogance or vanity to speak, I shall say, "My friend,
you have mistaken your profession." " Not at all," he may perhaps
say ; " you are mistaken in your criticism. I have been to school to
all the appropriate artistic authorities ; I have been in Rome, and
painted there ; I have painted in Paris and London, and here in New
York ; I have credentials from men and institutions all the world
over ; and do not these things make me a painter ? " My reply
would be, " The power to make good pictures can make you a good
painter, and nothing else can." All the parchments in creation can-
not make a man a good painter. And, on the other hand, if a man

480 TEE PBEACEEE'S COMMISSION.

paints well he does not need parchments. He has his credentials in
his training and drill. And there is no difference between the min-
istry and any other profession in this respect. He who wants to
devote himself to the work of the Christian ministry exclusively,
does not need to ask permission of any authority except God's good
o-race. It is a permission which neither the church nor the hierarchy
has the power to grant. To his own master a man standeth or
falleth, in the pulpit as much as anywhere else.

Whoever, then, is called, may preach. But what is a call ? There
are many who suppose it to be a strong impression borne in upon a
man from without. There are many who suppose that it is some
mighty impi'ession which comes to a man, it may be through
a dream ; or that it is some down-brooding influence which feels at
some meeting, or while he is laboring in the field, and which seems
to come right from the clouds upon him.

Far be it from me to say that there are no such impressions or
influences, and that they are not of divine origin. They may or may
not be, according to the facts. But what I should like to emphasize
is, that while these may be included in a call to the ministry, they
are not descriptive of it. They are not required in a call to the
Christian ministry. Such a call is based on the ground of wise
judgments, and not on any mysterious or imaginative impression.
That may be an auxiliary, but it is not the characteristic thing. A
right judgment it is that calls a man to the ministry.

On what ground, then, is this judgment to be formed ? Is there
anything more mysterious in forming one's judgment in regard to
entering upon the Christian ministry than in regard to enter-
ing upon any other vocation ? Religion has been supposed to
be a mystery. It is no more a mystery than anything else. Ililig'o:i
stands in God's original nature of things, and not in the nature of
corrupt schools, or schools of perversion. Religion is pi-ovided for
in the original constitution of the world, as much as any science, or
other element of progress. There are some mysteries; but these are
in realms beyond where the human mind reaches. They exist outside
of the line where man's knowledge ceases. What we mean by
mystery is ignorance. And so there is mystery in religion, just as
there is mystery in every other direction. But in forming one's
judgment as to whether he shall be a preacher of the Gospel or not,
the mind is to proceed by precisely the same steps, and by the use
of precisely the same kind of materials as in forming one's judgment
on any other subject,

A man asks himself, " Shall I go into the army ?" He instantly
raises the question of fitness, of taste, of desire. And as he deter-

THE FEEACEEE'S COMMISSION, 481

mines the facts in regard to these elements, he chooses. A man asks
himself, " Shall I devote myself to art ?" Immediately the question
presents itself, " Have you a taste for it ? Are you trained toward
it ? Do you feel that you have mental qualities which adapt you to
it ? Do you find that you have the suggestive mind and pliant
hand which it requires? Have you the interest and zeal in it which
will be likely to give you success?" On those facts you pass judg-
ment, and form a decision. A man asks himself, " Shall I become a
sea-faring man ?" He thinks of all his chances in life, and selects
that pursuit, if at all, for good reasons. " Shall I be a civil engi-
neer ? What shall I be ?" Men look at themselves, at their oppor-
tunities, tastes and adaptations, and then come to their judg-
ments.

Precisely the same thing takes place in regard to the preaching
of the Gospel. Personal fitness is the great test.

What, then, are the requisites ? First, and far above any other,
is a nature adapted to generate moral truths ; and a nature which,
if educated and stimulated, is qualified to produce impressions of
morality upon others. Although men may be comparatively barren
in this direction, and although, notwithstanding this, they may have
a reasonably successful ministry, because they are wise administra-
tors and managers, yet the ministry is a body of men distinctly
called of God to promote moral truth. And there is as much genius
for moral thought as for artistic thought, or mathematical thought,
or engineering thought. Men inherit or receive certain tendencies
in their birth. The prophet Jeremiah declared that he was called
to be a prophet from his mothers womb. That was the way of ex-
pressing it in his day. We should say that he had a constitutional
tendency to the profession into which he went. There are men who
have a constitutional predisposition to, or inspiration for, equity,
veneration, spiritual love, things high and beautiful. There are men
whose natures tend toward sympathy and affection and beneficence.
And they become God's natural interj^reters of moral and spiritual
ideas. They are men who have power when they come to impress
l^'hose ideas upon others. I do not say that every man can be
a genius in these things. Each one must look into himself and see

[if

he is a lover of moral ideas. If there is a reasonable probability
that a man is adapted to the reception of moral feelings, there is an
equally reasonable probability that he will be a fountain out of
which these feelings will naturally flow.

Another element is that of having the power to communicate. To
be a successful preacher, a man having the King's message must be
able to make it known. And this is largely a matter of personal

482 TEE PRE AGREE' 8 COMMISSION.

enthusiasm. There is many a man that is adapted to communicate
ideas in a professor's chair, who is not adapted to communicate
ideas in the pulpit. That is to say, there is many a man who can
give out the truth in dry, didactic, systematic forms, by logical proc-
esses, who cannot give it out with a fervor which shall make it
efficacious.

In order to preach the Gospel to the masses of mankind, that
which one needs, is, first, a solid basis of truth ; and second, an in-
flammatory form of truth which takes hold of men through the
imagination ; through the emotions — not alone through the logical
reason, though that is not to be excluded. If he has that beside, so
much the better.

So, if a man finds himself endowed with a strong moral nature ;
if he finds that he has the gifts of sympathetic communication, he
has the foundation on which a call, if there is one, may stand.

A great many persons, it seems to me, have made a mistake, if
that is a foundation to a call to the ministry. Many men have come
into the ministry who have very few moral ideas, or none at all.
They are very barren in that direction. Many men go into the min-
istry who have no gifts of communication. They cannot speak with-
out writing ; and they cannot read well what they do write ; and
they do not think much when they are writing it. They communi-
cate the rounds of doctrine as they find them in the books. They
may do some good in that way ; they may administer the services
of devotion not altogether without profit ; but they are manifestly
men who do not bring to their function an original adaptation. So
we find hundreds and hundreds of men falling out of the ministry
every year because they do not succeed — some who have had bishops'
hands laid on their heads, and some who have not. The laying on
of hands makes no difierence. A good minister is good, if he never
liad a bishop's hand on his head ; and a poor minister is poor, if he
has had twenty bishops' hands on his head. If a man has got it in
him, he can get it out, and he does not need to ask for favors ; but
if a man has not got it in him, no favors can be given to him which
will enable him to get it out. It is all in a nutshell. ^

Many men have felt very strongly inclined to go into the min-
istry,— it seemed to them such a beautiful business ! It was such a
pleasant life ! Ah ! we are men of like passions with you. Min-
isters are proud like other folks. They have temptations in their
sphere of life, as well as the business man has in his. And if a min-
ister, lifted above men, did not experience their weaknesses, and have
a common sympathy with them, he would not be half a minister. It
is because he is bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh, and pas*

TEE PBEACEEE'S COMMISSION. 483

sion of your passion, among other things, that he is fitted to be a
good preacher of salvation to perishing souls. But multitudes of
men think the ministry is such a delightful thing ! They think it
is so splendid to be set apart from the hurly-burly of life, and to
stand before an elect congregation, and to minister the cleanest
ideas in the cleanest form, without the wranglings and debates of
outward life. And then, it is so respectable ! And then, a man who
is settled in a good parish is so released from thoughts which har-
ass men in other spheres ! And while the living of many men is
not certain, he gets his salary regularly. It is a good thing. It
is every way respectable and genteel. And a minister is at once
admitted into the best society. And so a great many people think
they are called to the ministry.

Therefore it is that we find so many men who are without work ;
so many who are without any call to preach, although they thought
they had a call to the ministry. Nobody is called to preach unless
somebody is called to hear him. And if, when a man has tried his
gifts patiently and faithfully, giving himself time to develop them
and make himself fully known, he cannot reach the minds of men,
it does not follow that he is not a good man, and good for many
things, but it does follow that he is not good for a minister.

I once saw a German professor sitting by the roadside near Cin-
cinnati, breaking stones. He was the son of the Minister of Public
Instruction in the kingdom to which he belonged. Being expelled
from his own country, he came to this land. He was an honest man,
and would rather earn his bread than beg it. He could not find
work fitted to his station ; so he tried to find work in the depart-
ment next below his station. He could not find it there ; and so he,
like a sensible man, took what he could get. And there he sat break-
ino" stones. I noticed that there was a burly Irishman not far from
him, who. was worth twice as much as he — who could break stones
easier, and work longer and better than he. If I had said anything to
that professor, I should have said, " You are not fitted for this busi-
ness" ; but it would not have followed that he was not fitted for a
hiorher business. If he had been put in a professor's chair in some
academy or college or university, he would have done a great deal
better, and might have done well

So I think it is no discredit to a man to say plainly to him, " You
are not fit for the pulpit. You have misjudged in the use to which
you are putting your talents. You may make a good editor, but
not a good preacher. You may make a good professor in a college,
or a good physician, or a good merchant, but not a good preacher.
You have tried and failed : that is the best evidence of it." It is
because men misapprehend the nature of the calling ; or it is because

484 THE PBEAGHEB'S COMMISSION.

in forming their judgment in regard to their adaptation to the work
of the ministry they make a mistake, that there are so many who
meet with little or no success in that avocation.

A call to the ministry, then, consists in a personal fitness for the
ministry in moral, intellectual, and sympathetic endowment. And
whoever is called with these elements, let him go into the ministry.
If he prefers to go into a highly-organized, well-regulated church,
let him go into what is called the church. I mean the Episcopal
Church. There are two or three churches — the Roman Church, the
Greek Church, and the Episcopal Church ; and this last, with its
decorous, beautiful services, is admirable ; and every man ought to
be grateful for it. And let him who is called to the ministry go
there if he prefers that form of service. But do not let him deceive
himself, and suppose that it was this, that, or the other external
thing which put him into the ministry. It was the grace of God,
added to what his father and mother gave him in his natural endow-
ments, that put him there. These other things are mere surplus-
age. Such matters of order and arrangement are good enough in
their way, but they are incidental things. The thing itself is, that
he was fitted for his work. That is the main point. And if you
pi'efer to go into the ministry without those other incidental things,
go without them. They are optional.

Councils are called to ordain and license men to preach. And
if a man chooses to be examined by the ministers of his neighbor-
hood, and to be guided by their judgment as to his general adapta-
tion to the work of the ministry, well and good ; but have a council
of ministers a right to say to a man, " You shall not preach" ? No,
not in our country. Have they a right to say to a man, " You shall
preach," or " You may preach" ? No. When they examine a man,
and find that his qualifications in regard to character, personal
piety, and natural endowment, are such as to fit him for the work,
and they say, " We authorize you to preach the Gospel," do they
give him a larger liberty than he had before ? No. He had as much
right to preach before as afterward.

Well, is there no use in a council ? Yes. What is it ? That is
just the question. According to our Congregational view, it is
within the province of a council, after having examined a man, to
say, " We have looked into the matter of this man's fitness to preach,
and we are prepared to recognize him as a minister among us."
Otherwise the man would have to go through a probation and give
people a chance to find him out by his actual work. Licensing is
merely a process by which a man gets letters of introduction into
the church. Beyond that it is nothing at all. The right to preach
God gave him. No body of men can bestow it upon him. Neither

TEE PBEA CHEWS COMMISSION. 485

can any body of men take it away from him. They can say to the
churches, " We do not believe in him any longer," but they cannot
Bay to him, " Shut up !"

It does not follow because men have certain gifts which fit them
for the sacred calling of the ministry, that they should enter upon
that calling. It is not a matter of course that all men who are
eminent in their moral tendencies should be pressed into the service
as preachers. There is sometimes almost a compulsory influence
brought to bear upon men. The mother prays long and earnestly
that she may see her son in the pulpit where she desires, above all
other places, to see him. But her son is born an artist child. And
all the way up, there is the clear shining of the primitive imagina-
tion, of the artist nature, in the child. And it is called an eccentrici-
ty, an irregularity. The father fights it ; and the mother fights it.
It is like fighting light, which comes in at the window, and dances
on the carpet. You cannot sweep it up, nor get rid of it. There is
nothing to do but to let it shine, as it will shine. The mother and
the father have consecrated the child to the ministry, and the child
means to become a minister, because his parents wish him to. And
so he goes to school, meaning, as he says, to study for the ministry ;
but he thinks of pictures. He means to preach ; but he thinks of
pictures. The artistic talent is working in him all the time. He
goes through college, saying that he means to be a preacher ; and
yet he is a natural artist, and wants to make pictures.

Now, it is wrong to put such a man into the ministry. God calls
him to something else, and keeps telling him of it ; but men say to
him, " Be a preacher of the Gospel." My advice to him would be,
that he should follow the strong indications in his nature. If a man
is drawn toward a profession, let him be a professional man. If he
wants exceedingly to be a mechanic, though he be a rich man's son,
let him be a mechanic. If God calls you to the shop, you will be a
thousand times happier than if you ignore the strongest tendency
of your being, and go into something for which you have no
adaptations. Thousands of men have chosen professions which are
not fitted to them, and have neglected tendencies which, if they had
been encouraged, would have made them happy all their days. It
is of the utmost importance, in a moral point of view, that a man
should work in the line of his strongest noble faculties ; that he
should not disregard, in his profession, that which God hinted to
him in giving him the charter of his being. If a man finds himself
far better adapted to mathematical pursuits than to preaching, let
him choose them. If there is any vocation of a secular nature to-
ward which a man feels specially drawn, let his profession or career

486 THE PEEA GHEE'S COMMISSION.

be in that direction. But if a man has no special predilection, and
he has those endowments which fit him for the ministry, there are
a hundred reasons why he should choose that.

In determining whether a man shall preach, after the matter of
personal fitness is settled, the question to be considered is, What is
the relative want in the different departments of society ? Where
is there the most need of men ? And if you look over society to-
day, where is there the most need of men ? I think there is nowhere
in society any great necessity which stands in such crying need of
able, strong men, as the pulpit. The law is absolutely overrun,
pressed down, shaken together, running over — so much so, that hun-
dreds say that the profession is spoiled. They say that a man can-
not get a living legitimately in the law, and must go into some other
business, must form outside connections, in order to thrive. Only
here and there one succeeds in the law. But the profession is eo
immensely filled with temptations ; the remunerations are sometimes
so great ; the prospects which it holds out are frequently so prom-
ising, that it draws multitudes to it.

It is much the same with the medical profession. There are al-
most as many doctors as there are patients. The city is full of
them. They starve on every corner, all through the land. There
are more than can find foot-room. Where can you find a region in
all our territory from which the cry comes up, " Send us over phy-
sicians : we lack them" ? Nowhere. They might say, without ir-
reverence, " Where two or three are gathered together, there are
we in the midst of them," all over the land.

Look at the industrial pursuits. How thronged is society with
the intensest rivalry in business ! We do not need more factories.
The pursuits of industry are well served. There is no need of offi-
cers of the army. There is no need of farmers. There is no need
of mechanics. There is no need of physicians or lawyers. There
is a surplus in all these departments.

How is it with the ministry ? Hundreds and hundreds of
churches are empty. There are hundreds of fields where churches
ought to be established. There are large populations to whom the
Gospel is not carried. Looking over the community at large, we
see that there is a famine in the church, and a pressure everywhere
else. Nowhere else is there so great a need of able, devoted, fear-
less men who are willing to give their lives to the work of useful-
ness ; nowhere else is there such a marked, growing and crying
need, as there is in the sacred ministry. And this ought to be a
subject of serious consideration with young men who are determin-
ing what shall be their life-work. One should not go into the min-

TEE FBEACHEB'S COMMISSION. 487

istry merely because there is an opening there, without regard to
his titness for preaching, but if he is fitted for it, and he is situated
so that he may go in one direction or another, and he has a moral
impulse, and he foels that he will have a reasonable chance of suc-
cess in the ministry, or through it, it seems to me that he should go
in that direction. And it seems to me that there are many young
men in this city that are achieving success in worldly callings who
ouo-ht to withdraw themselves from those callings, and devote their
energies to the work of the ministry. And whatever pleasure there
may be in worldly pursuits, there is no pleasure in it to be com-
pared with that which is derived from preaching the Gospel to men,
sinply and fearlessly, for the love of it.

Men seem to think that there are many cares and responsibilities
in the Christian ministry. It has many cares and responsibilities ;
but I do aot think it has so many as the other average professions.
It uses mainly the noblest faculties of the soul. It deals chiefly
with the clearest truths. And although it may not be so fruitful in
money as many other callings, there is no calling whose remunera-
tions are greater. The best men that I have known were not poor
ministers, but ministers that were poor. But there is such a thing
as Christ's disciples — as he said they who followed him should — in-
heriting houses, lands, all manner of possessions, the whole world.
They who give their very soul-life for the salvation of their fellow-
men, are caught up into the sympathy of men. They are, as it
were, adopted.

** I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor hiaseed begging bread."

Though the average salaries of the ministers of the United
States are not over four hundi-ed dollars, taking the country thi'ough
I point to the profession of the ministry as a profession that bring
up their families, on the whole, with more culture than any other.
I point to the profession of the ministry, and say that they contrib-
ute more able men to the learned professions than any other pro-
fession, and that, on the whole, they have a better thrift They live
as well, they are as prosperous, and I think more so, than any other
profession. I believe it is partly the fulfillment of the promise,

*' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things [what ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye
shall be clothed] shall be added unto you."

They trust that promise, and they realize it.

Let no man, then, be deterred from preaching the Gospel because
the mmistry is an impoverished profession ; for though it cannot
give you great wealth, you may hope to get from it that which
great wealth cannot give — happiness.

488 THE PBEACHEE'S COMMISSION.

But, while I advocate strenuously the entrance into the Christian
ministry of educated men who intend to make that the business of
their life, I think that they should not constitute the whole of the
ministerial profession. On the other hand, it seems to rae that there
are multitudes of men in every community, who are called, not
waiting for an education, to be preachers of the Gospel. Not only
should there be men who are taken into the ministry by an abbrevi-
ated course, as the Methodist church very wisely takes men into the
ministry, but there ought to be more lay preaching. Men ought to
preach the Gospel who do not make preaching their professions.
The judge, the lawyer, the artist, the school-teacher, the physician,
the mechanic, the engineer, the day-laborer, whoever has been called
to seek his livelihood, and to develop his talents in some secular
channel, has a sphere for teaching and for preaching which he ought
not to ignore nor to neglect.

In the first place, it is utterly impossible for the population of
these whole United States to be supplied with regulation churches
and regulation ministers. We shall have immense destitutions, and
I know not for how long a time. It is preposterous to think of wait-
ing until we have what is called a thorough educated ministry. It
therefore becomes necessary for men to engage, in the intervals of
their regular occupations, in the work of preaching the Gospel, who
are not highly educated nor ordained. Every man in any business
who loves God and men, and has opportunities and gifts, should
preach — and not occasionally, either, but often. There is no reason
why men should not feel it to be a part of the duty of every week
to make known somewhere the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. If you
have the power to do it, who has exonerated you from the obliga-
tion of doing it ? Are we not to speak of that love which has made
life radiant to us ? Are we to hold commerce with hope immortal,
and keep that hope a secret from others ? Are we to be inspired
from day to day by the mightiest truths of creation, and shall there
be no echo of them sounded out to others ? It is your business, be-
ing a Christian, to let your light so shine that men, seeing your
good works, shall glorify your Father which is in heaven.

There are spheres which no minister can reach. What can I do,
going into Wall Street, and into the banks, and brokers' offices, to
preach the Gospel — that is, to make application of it to the special
trials and temptations of men there ? They have their peculiar
weaknesses and dangers, and if I go preach to them the theology
and ethics of the pulpit, there is in my preaching a want of adapta-
tion to their core. I lack a knowledge of their circumstances, and
therefore cannot sympathize with them in those cirftumstances. And

TEE FBEACHEWS COMMISSION, 489

they say to me, " We respect your desire and effort to do us good,
Mr. Beecher, but you never stood whei'e we do, and therefore you
cannot know what we have to contend with."

When a man like Daniel Drew goes into a broker's shop, and
preaches, he can do what I could not do. Here I can do what he
could not ; but among his own kind, among sinners with whom he
is in sympathy, he has a message that I could not carry. And so in
every profession or business there are men who have, or ought to
have, a message for those in that profession or business, which it
would be out of my power to deliver. Every person who has
a saving hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who is a child of light
and love, has a message and nourishment for those around about him,
and can do for them what I cannot. As the father and the mother
in the family can do for the children what no other person can, so in
every profession and in every business there are men who can do for
their fellows what can be done by nobody else, and can save some
who otherwise must be undone. Nobody else can preach such
things as he can. His sphere may be limited, and the occasions may
only come at intervals ; nevertheless, there is a call of God to him
to preach.

The lawyer, among squabbling contestants, has a sphere in which
he may bring home lessons of peace and love which no other man
has. The doctor, in the sick room, taking the hands of emasculated
young men who are destroying their life by vice — what counsel,
what warning, what saving truth, might he not pour into their needy
ears 1 Here is society opening opportunities for relieving different
and constantly recurring wants ; and one man can supply one ele-
ment of the Gospel here, another man can supply another element
there, and every man has some level where he can work as no one
else can. And do you who have faith in Christ, and make a pro-
fession of religion, bear a hope of salvation for yourselves, and never
speak of it to men who are dying around you for the lack of it ?

I think there is nothing more striking than the unused strength,
the latent and undeveloped power, in the church to-day. There are
many churches whose strength does not lie in the pulpit. There are
many churches where the pews surpass, in moral power and
efficiency, the pulpit. There are many members of some churches
who are more competent to instruct the minister than the minister
is to instruct them. And it seems to me that the church has a right
to edify itself by the gifts of all its members.

In meetings, those accustomed to speak, emotive and imaginative
persons, persons that are excitable, do the talking ; whereas, the
man of thought, the man of patient investigation, the man who has

490 TEE PBEACEEB S COMMISSION

reaped the field of life, and is full of valuable experience, sits silent,
a year, five years, ten years. He never opens his mouth. He is a
granary full of corn, not a single kernel of which is dropped into the
ground. It comes in silent, it stays silent, and goes out silent, and
does not propagate itself. And there is many a man of ample re-
sources who keeps those resources to himself. Is that right ?

Do you say, " I have no call " ? Why have you not a call ?
You are like one who puts his fingers in his ears, and then says, " I
do not hear anything. Is it not a call that you have the power to
speak ? Is it not a call that there is the need of speaking ? Is it
not a call that you are in the church to be edified by all its mem-
bers, and that the church has a right to your sympathy and power ?

It does not follow that you are to attempt to make long speeches ;
but in some way there is to be testimony from you in the church.
The lay members are not faithful to their duty in this respect. They
do not preach, in the church, out of the church, in Bible-class and
Sunday-schools, in jails and hospitals, in the car, in the field, where
there is no social adaptation, and where is no Sabbath bell, or
preacher, as they ought to do. They are competent to stand up and
utter the right word in the right place ; and yet they say nothing.
How many men there are who are well-informed, influential, power-
ful, and yet do nothing, because they are not regulation ministers !

The call to preach lies in the ability, and in the heart that sym-
pathizes with God and man ; and we shall never have full-power
preaching so long as we depend upon professional ministers. For
they bear the same relation to the whole church that the superior
officers in the army do to the whole army. And as the rank and file
must fight, so the great body of the church must witness and tes-
tify. And when there is a living power in the whole church, we
shall find, not only that the Gospel will have free course to run and
be glorified, but there will be such an education in it that those who
preach will become better and better Christians, and nobler and no-
bler testimonials of the very doctrines which they preach.

It only remains that I should say a word to parents, and those
who are rearing the young. It is high time that we should go back
again to the example of the mother of Samuel, that our children may
be brought up from the cradle with a higher ideal of moral life.

If you ask me how I came to be a preacher, I reply, that I
never knew anything else. I found it all cut out for me when I
grew up. The mother who bore me expected that I would be a
preacher. I learned, with inexpressible emotion, late in life, that
she had ordained me, with much prayer and many tears, to be a for-
eign missionary. That part of her desire never was fulfilled ; but

THE FEE A GHEE'S COMMISSION. 491

that I was to be a minister, that all her children were to be minis-
ters— of that she had no more doubt than she had of her own faith
in Christ. I found, too, that my father was expecting it ; and I had
no more doubt of it than he had — after my boyhood was passed, I
mean. T went through all the dreams of boys who intend, first or
last, to be stage-drivers, and midshipmen, and captains and generals,
and what not ; but as soon as 1 began to touch real manhood, the
very atmosphere was such that I felt called to preach. There were
seven of my father's sons in all, and every one of them preached.
One or two of them tried to escape, but they gave up the trial after
a little while. My youngest brother chose the sea after going
through college ; but he relinquished it, and went to preaching. He
went on ship-board and made himself ready to take command ; but
father's prayers were too much for him and pulled him to the shore.
And he is preaching now. And that influence which prevailed in my
father's family, was a legitimate household influence.

Take not the poorest and weakest ones of your flock, and say,
" Being good for nothing else, we will make ministers of these."
Take those of your children who are strong and deep — the strong-
built and the deep-built ; take those who are able to carry their
keels through deep waters, and make ministers of them. The church
needs them. The times need them. Begin with them at the morn-
ing of their life : not to weary them ; not to disgust them with im-
portunity, but to teach them to take sight of all questions of life
along the line of moral truth, which is the highest wisdom. Bring
up your children to preach, that they may raise aloft the banner of
Christ and carry it, as his faithful champions, through life. May
God raise up some from out of this congregation, who shall be ear*
nest and efficient preachers of the GospeL

492 TEJE PBEACEBW8 COMMISSION,

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

We thank thee, our Father, that we are permitted to draw near to thee.
Though thou art invisible, yet we feel thy presence. Our hearts respond
when thou, by thy Spirit, dost move upon us. Though the eye cannot dis-
cern thee, though we hear no voice, though we reach forth the hand in the
darkness, and there is none that we can find, yet we know that thou art
present. There is the witness of thy Spirit with ours. There is that in us
which rises up unbidden of ourselves. There is communion by which we
enter into the secrets of the life to come, and are refreshed more than by
our own will, or by our own thought, or by anything that is in us. We
rejoice to believe that thou art communicable; that thou dost with infinite
condescension bow down thyself to our wont; that thou dost follow us with
thy nature and surround us with thy presence; that we are buoyed up, and
borne upon thy being as ships are carried upon the great deep.

So, in thy mightiness, in the grandeur of thy being, in thine infinite suf-
ficiency, we find our weakness and our ignobleness remedied, and all our
wants supplied. And we rejoice that thou art our Father. We do not hum-
ble ourselves when we are humble before thee. We bow down before thee
without disgrace. We confess our sius to thee. We soar yet, notwithstand-
ing the poignant shame which we should have in the face of men. Better
and purer thou art than all others. Nowhere except in thy presence is
there such hatefulness of sin. Nowhere else is there such discord of wrong
things as in thine ear. And yet, nowhere else is there such lenience, such
forbearance, such consideration, such delicacy. Nowhere else is there such
all-suffering love.

How wonderful is that forgiveness which thou dost mete out, thou that
f orgettest nothing ; thou that dwellest forever in the presence of all knowl-
edge! And yet thou dost forget our iniquities, so that they are sunk as the
stones in the sea ; so that they are hidden from memory. They are as if
they never were, to thee. How wonderf al is thy mercy I How great is thy
magnanimity 1 How far beyond our reach or meditation is that grandeur
of thy nature by which thou art out of thine excellence planting in us excel-
lences that we need! And yet, why dost thou wait so patiently? Only be-
cause thou art God. How art thou the Guide of our life! Thou dost direct
our conduct. Thou art greater than we in the direction of goodness. Thou
art more tender than the tenderest. Thou art more gentle than the gen-
tlest. Wonderful as is thy power, vast as is the sweep of thy being and the
realm in which thou art moving, nowhere among men is there so much of
graciousness and long-suffering and patience as with thee. We, because we
are common sinners, we because we are ourselves weak, are in sympathy
with the weak; but why dost thou, who art lifted up in the grandeur of
thine own estate, have compassion upon the poor and the needy? This it is
to have divine nature.

And now we pray that we may more and more think of thee as divine in
goodness and mercy and graciousness. We thank thee that these have not
been expended upon us vainly, but that goodness and mercy and gracious-
ness are always at work, and have built us up into righteousness. Thou art
not content that we shall stand still and then be shined upon with happi-
ness; thou art ministering to us, by thy love and by thy benevolence, many
chastisements. Pains run to and fro and every whither, throughout thy
domain. But mercy is the attribute of God. And everywhere thou art
administering throughout the heaven and throughout the earth, for the
upbuilding, for the edifying, for the perfection, of those who are thine.
We are glad that so many have reached the estate of the blessed. We

TRE PEEACnEB'S COMMISSION, 493

are glad that of thosa who have gone home from among us there are so
many who hare sat in these seats with us ; so many who have sung together
these hymns; so many who have prayed and rejoiced together here; so
many who have triumphed over death, and are at rest with the people of
God in heaven. And we thank thee that there are so many more whose
faces already shine with the coming light, and that so many of us are draw-
ing near to the line and bound of departure, and looking over, yea, and
inhaling the very atmosphere of the other side by foretaste.

And we pray that we may be prepared to live, and be prepared to die.
Grant that there may be nothing in this life which shall be so sweet to U8
that we shall not rather be with Christ, which is better than life. And may
we not be so weary of life here that we shall desire to depart. May we await
thy righteous will.

And now, grant thy blessing to rest severally upon all that are gathered
together in thy presence to-night. Even with the richest blessings of the
Son of God, endow them. The indwelling of thy Spirit grant unto them.
The fruition of thy people may they have in their heart.

We pray that thy word may be expounded for the edification of those
who listen. May we rejoice together in sacred hymns. May we rejoice in
common communion with thee in hope and faith and expectation.

And grant, we pray thee, that thy kingdom may come, and thy will be
done in all our land. May churches be built in waste places. May there be
men who shall spend their lives in making known the unsearchable riches
of Jesus Christ. We pray that thy work may be carried forward in the
inlands of the sea, and in the dark places of the earth i and that there may
be those everywhere, throughout the bounds of the earth, who shall make
known the cause of Christ. And may they be strengthened. May they see
that their labor is not in vain.

Advance thy banner. Come, thou that bearest victory, and consummate
thy work, and let the whole earth see thy salvation. And to the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises evermore. Ameiu

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon the
word of exhortation. Grant, we pray thee, that it may inspire thoughtful-
ness. May there be many who shall inquire whether they have done their
whole duty to their God and their fellowmen. May none wrap their tal-
ents in a napkin. May all consider what use they shall put their powers to.
We pray that thou wilt inspire men with wholesome thought and a new
spirit. May every family be a church ; and may every parent be a priest ;
and in love may households be brought up ; and may many come forth who
shall carry Christian effort and example into all professions and pursuits of
life ; and may there be many who shall go forth as ministers of the word,
and who shall be valiant in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We pray that thou wilt revive thy churches everywhere. And in this
church, especially; in the heart of its pastor and in the hearts of its mem-
bers; in all our schools and colleges ; and among the poor and necessitous
as well as among the prosperous, grant that cleansing, inspiring Spirit by
which we shall live a life unto God. Hear us in these petitions, and answer
us, through Christ the Beloved. Amen.

XXVI.

The Privilege of Working.

Grant unto us, our Father, the open vision of thy face, that it may be
day with us, and that we may be children of light this day. In thy smile,
all our sorrows go and all our joys come. Be pleased, then, out of thine in-
finite fullness to supply our lack. Out of our life, Uft up in us life in bettef
things. May we dwell in the hours of this day as upon the threshold or
heaven. May the service of song, and of prayer, and may all instruction in
holy things, abound this day in the blessing of God, to the honor of thy
great name. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

26.

THE PRIVILEGE OE VORKING.

" Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
Eph. III. 8.

The union of pride and humility was never so remarkable as in
the case of Paul. The most profound self-abasement, and the most
intense self-confidence, were united in him. In one point of view he
declares that he was second to none of the apostles in labors. He de-
clares that he abounded in labors more than all of them — as he did.
And yet, in other points of view he speaks of himself as less than the
least of them, as in the text :

" Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints [not merely less than
his fellows, the apostles, but less than the saints], is this grace [this glorious
permis,-ion] given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearch-
able riches of Christ."

You will find the same declaration contained in the 15th chapter
of 1st Corinthians :

" Last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. Fori
am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because
I persecuted the Church of God."

There is humility for you. But listen again :

" By the grace of God I am what I am : and his grace which was be-
stowed upon me was not in vain."

He did not think it necessary to make believe in order to be
humble. He knew that fact was fact.

♦' I labored more abundantly than they all."
But the moment he took another view of it, he added,
* Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."
The predominent feeling of Paul in respect to his ministry was,
that permission to labor for God and man was an unspeakable
privilege. He accepted his toil, his suftering, the obloquy which
was brought upon him, bis exile, his weariness, his sickness, and all
the other concomitants of his extraordinary career ; and then,
in vipw of them all, he declared that to preach the Gospel to men
who did not know the truth, was an unspeakable privilege. He re-

SuNDAY Morning, Oct. 30. 1870. Lesson : 1 Pet. I. Hymns (Plymouth Ck>lIeo-
tiOQ) : Kos. 43, iUi, tiOd.

498 TEE PBIVILEGE OF WORKING.

joiced as if it were a favor, and a remarkable favor, that God had
conferred upon him.

Through many years he was the most prodigious of workers. It
may be said that Christianity has delivered itself to us on account
of Paul. It was his conception of Christianity, it was his applica-
tion of it to the various phases of life, that determined the shape
which Christianity has assumed in the world. Yet, through all he
preserved the feeling that he was one who was favored, in that he
was permitted to work for Christ. He had the feeling, not that he
had attained a great thing, but that a great thing had been done to
him. He had a profound sense of his obligation for the redemption
of his soul by Jesus — such a sense as made him feel that he never
could repay the debt, and that all his time, and his every thought,
and every power, and every effort, would only be a minimum con-
tribution, a mere fractional payment, of his indebtedness to Christ.
No one (not even Dante) ever had such a vivid sense of what it is to
be without God in the world, and to be a child of wrath and dark-
ness, as the apostle Paul had. If you go through his writings, and col-
lect his intimations and affirmations on the subject, you will be struck
with the magnitude and dreadfulness of his conception of the state
of being lost. He had, all through his life, the feeling that he had
been as one suspended over a mighty abyss, and that in an unex-
pected hour he had been grasped and brought back to safety again.
And he never forgot the shock. He never got rid of the impression
which was produced upon his mind. No one ever had a more inti-
mate and personal feeling, either, of the meaning of this rescue by
the Lord Jesus Christ of which he was the subject. With all that he
was in the fullness of his power, with all his intuitions, with the suc-
cess which attended him everywhere, with that self-consciousness
which rather magnified than minified his real gifts, the. apostle
always felt that he owed everything he was to the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ.

I have in my mind a man of a great nature, with great faults
and great excellences, to whom God has given a companion of rare
excellence ; and I have heard him say, many times, with tears roll-
ing down his dieeks, " If I have been saved from wickedness, and I
have turned out anything good, I owe it to that woman." I have
heard this testimony borne, not once nor twice, but many times. It
is one of the most affecting testimonies that one can have, that the
influence of another person has been such as to save him from the
evil that is in him, and in the world, and lift him up on a higher
plane, and give him an exalted sphere and life, and that he owes a
debt of gratitude to that other for that influence.

THE PBIVILEQE OF WOBKING. 499

Now, Paul, feeling so in regard to the Lord Jesus Christ, says,
*' By the grace of God I am what I am." "Because we thus judge, that
If one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that they
which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him
which died for them.

The figures which he employs show this. He speaks of himself
as of one that was lost, and recovered again ; as of a person lost in
a great wilderness, and sought out, and found, and brought back,
and saved from starvation, or from other destruction. He speaks
continually of darkness as having been his former state, and of him-
self as having been restored to light by the power of Christ. All
his foregoing life was as the life of a man in a dungeon, except that
he did not know it ; and all his after conscious life was as the life of
a man who was living and walking under the blessed sun. And all
that he owed to Christ — to the influence which Christ had exerted
upon him. At other times he speaks of himself as of one who had
been taken captive by cruel enemies, but had been rescued. As a
person is rescued by being bought out of slavery, so he sometimes
represents himself as having been bought by the precious blood of
Christ. At other times he represents himself as a warrior triumph-
ing over his enemies. As one sets free those who are endungeoned,
by breaking down the door, and opening the recesses of cruelty,
and bringing out the victims, so Paul speaks of himself as having
been found and rescued by the military power, as it were, of the
Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus dilFerent figures are employed by Paul interchangeably, to
set forth the truth that he had been horribly ensnared and horribly
bruised in his bitter captivity of sin, and that he had been rescued by
the Lord Jesus Christ, and brought out into life and liberty and glad-
ness, into an ampler manhood, and into a hope far transcending the
present, and that he owed it to Christ. It was not the drift of his
faculties, nor the drift of the institutions under which he lived. It
was not the work of his organization nor of his will. It was the
continuous divine influence. He was conscious that it Avrought this
work in his soul ; and he never forgot it. It never wore out with
him.

His life therefore seemed to him a gift. All that he had, and all
that he was, and all that he could think, and all that he could do,
and whatever enthusiasm he had, and whatever power he had of in-
spiring other people with enthusiasm — these were, all of them, in
his language, bought with a price — even the precious blood of Jesus
Christ.

Therefore, wherever Paul labored, and however much he labored,
he never seemed to himself overworked. Never had he exerted

500 THE FBIYILEGE OF WOBKINQ.

himself beyond what he thought he ought to. Never did he feel
that he had performed an overplus of work. There is a generosity
and humility in love which can work from a profound sense of gen-
erosity. There is a love that scorns measuring. And the apostle
never felt, " I have worked fully up to my share of that which is to
be done on earth." He felt, rather, " As long as I have a sentient
emotion, as long as I have a pulse-beat, all that there is of me is not
enough to pay the debt that I owe to him that loved me, and gave
himself for me," He felt that he could never pay that debt. There
are some debts, you know, that cannot be paid. Heart-debts you
cannot pay.

Oh, how beautiful a thing is such sensitive and honorable grati-
tude ! There are men who cannot hear the name of Arnold of
Rugby spoken without tears, to this day, though he has been dead
for a score of years. Thomas Hughes, who has just gone home, is
one of them. I do not believe he could speak of him five minutes
without tears, and without saying, " From the foundation to the
roof-tree, everything that I am, I owe to that man,"

There are persons who know that if they had not been taken by
Jesus at just such a time, into fi-iendliness and love, and been snared
in the golden-meshed web of divine sympathy, and been rescued,
they would have been utterly destroyed. And in regard to every-
thing that comes to be bright and beautiful in their experience, to
the end of their life, they will never cease to feel, " I owe it all to
him."

There are children who cannot hear their mother's name men-
tioned without having a tide, a gulf-stream, as it were, setting out
of their heart. For they know that the life which they are living
here, and which they hope to live hereafter, was so intimately con-
nected with her influence and fidelity and love, that if it had not
been for her faithfulness, their souls would not have lived.

These are very blessed testimonies ; they are comely, seemly,
beautiful, rational, admirable ; but above them all stands One who
is more to us than father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband
or wife, or dearest and most self-sacrificing friend — Jesus Christ,
who sacrificed his life for us, and now lives his heavenly life for us
from day to day, and from hour to hour. And Paul felt, as we
ought to feel more than we do,

" The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Sod of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

He really felt so ; and he never could do enough for Christ. You
never can do enough for one whom you thoroughly love. What
mother could ever do enough for her child when her heart was

THE PBIVILEGE OF WORKING. 601

bound up in it ? In the hour of love, who ever could say all that
he wanted to say, or express all that he felt, or do all that he desired
to do ? How poor, to love, is the best offering of love !

No one ever had a more vivid sense of the grandeur of the work
which God was carrying on in the earth than the apostle Paul.
Of the redemption of men from the bondage of the flesh to the liberty
of the Spirit ; of the joyfulness, the beauty, the creative admirable-
ness of that work Avhich was going on — he had a very clear and
abiding conception. Men generally think of the world, and of God's
work in history, from their exterior. We trace the development of
commei'ce, the development of art, and of the mechanic arts, the
upbuilding and wasting of kingdoms, bringing in more or less of the
moral element ; but to the apostle Paul the whole history of this
world lay in its interior. Although the wisdom and love of your
neighbor are represented to you by the emblem of the body, yet,
after all, the real man that you think of is the interior and invisible
man. And God's work, to the apostle Paul, was that spiritualizing,
Christianizing work which was going on.

The kingdom of God came not with observation. That king-
dom was described as leaven hid in three measures of meal. And
the leaven was not less there, and was not less powerful in its work-
ing, because it was invisible. The apostle saw all things in this
light of the interior meaning. Everything in this world to him was
to be estimated by its relation to man's spiritual development and
growth. What the ground was worth, what the spider was worth,
what the throne was worth, what the merchant and his merchandise '
were worth, was to be determined by their effect upon man's spir-
itual nature. The apostle saw within. He was a seer in that regard.

The wonder of the future was added to this. There is to be a
history yet in this world, compared with which all past history is as
nothing. I believe that we are just about in the month of March in
the world's great year. We have got through the winter, and are /
in the blustering days when nature does not know whether she means
to be hot or cold ; and the world is full of wars and commotions and
storms. And yet, many beautiful things are developed. Thei-e is a
great deal that is sweet and delightful; but it is March weather, with
here a bright day, and there a dark and stormy day.

Is this a modern idea ? To a great extent it is. It is largely the
out<^rowth of modern habits of thought. Did the apostle believe
there was to be a future of Christ's work on this earth ? We should
expect that as a Jew he would have believed it ; for the Jews be-
lieved that the whole world was to be given to the Messiah ; and
when Christ came, if he would have put himself at the head of a

502 THE FBIVILEGE OF WOBKING.

Jewish phalanx, and accepted their prejudices and hatreds and no-
tions, every Pharisee, every Scribe and every scoundrel, would have
bowed before him and taken hira to be their king. It was because
he would not do this that he was rejected. The Jews, with the ex-
ception of a few, did not believe in a near and important consumma-
tion. They believed that the earth was to be redeemed ; only Jeru-
salem was to be first redeemed, and the Jews, the aristocrats of the
globe, were to be the instruments by which Christ would redeem
the world. They believed that there was to be a great future on
the earth ; but it looks as though the apostle Paul did not believe
in it. For instance, if you turn to such language as you will find
in the 1st of Thessalonians, it seems impossible to suppose that Paul
did not expect that Christ would come in his day :

" This we say unto you by the word of Ihe Lord, that we which are alive
and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before, an-
ticipate] them which are asleep [or dead]. For the Lord himself shall de-
scend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with
the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Where-
fore comfort one another with these words."

There is no getting away from that. If it means anything, it
means that the writer thought that before he died he should stand
with his companions and see the consummation of all things.

Nor can you read the following passage in the 15th chapter of
1st Corinthians, without coming to the same conclusion, in regard
to Paul's impression on this subject ;

" We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye."

In this chapter Paul goes through that same thought precisely.
Therefore it has been said that he believed there was to be no
great future of Christianity in this world ; that there was to be
a cataclysm ; and that in his own day it was to be consummated.
And, indeed, it looks very much so.

But, on the other hand, look at such a passage as this, in the 1st
chapter of Philippians, and the 20th verse:

"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I
shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ
shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For me to
live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I lire in the flesh, this is the fruit
of my labor : yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt
two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ; wbijh is far better:
nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."

Here you perceive that the apostle Paul expects to live, and die,
just like anybody else, and go to Christ on the other side, leaving
the work behind. He says the work leads me to want to live, but I
shall leave it behind." That does not sound as though he expected

TEB PEIVILEGE OF WORKING. 603

that Christ would come, and that the work Avould be wound up. "I
desire to live for the sake of the work," he said ; " although when I
think of Christ I desire to depart."

You will find this same thing in the 2nd Epistle to Timothy :
" I am now ready to be offered, aud the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good flght, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: aud not to me
only, but uuto all them also that love his appearing."

Here is no idea of a precipitate consummation. Here is the reg-
ular modern thought — namely, that there is to be an indefinite con-
tinuance of the work of God. " I shall die, and go and inherit my
crown ; and in long succession others will go up after me " — that is
the purport of the apostle's declaration.

How are we to reconcile these things? I have no doubt that in
certain ecstatic visions, the apostle saw the consummation so near,
that it seemed to him as though there was not a handsbreadth be-
tween the end and himself; and he spoke accordingly. Doubtless
at other times he had the view that the kingdom of Christ was to
have a future in this world — periods of evolution and extension.
How long he did not know. And so he fluctuated between these
two ideas. That he felt that he was going to die and go up to
heaven, and that the church would continue on earth, and go for-
ward for ages, we do not doubt ; and that he had a clear and correct
conception of the coming glory of Christ's kingdom on earth, and
that it was to be a kingdom built without hands, a mighty spiritual
kingdom, and that compared to that which was to come all the glory
of the past of the race was but as a taper comj)ared with the sun-
light, we do not doubt.

Now, he looked upon the new heaven and the new earth that
were to come, and he saw how glorious men were to be. He saw,
doubtless, in prophetic vision, at times, what nations were yet to
become. Without doubt, much that he saw was obscure ; much of
it was enveloped in a golden haze ; but there was much tliat was
clear to his mind. And when he thought that he was to build that
great kingdom, that his hands were now helping to lay the founda-
tion stones, the magnitude and the grandeur of the work over-
whelmed him, and he felt that it was a privilege to be permitted to
labor in such a great development. And looking at it more in de-
tail, I do not know how any one can help feeling so. Consider the
salvation of a single soul; the rescuing of a man from his animal life*
the briiiging him under that divine influence by which he is trans-
formed into a truly spiritual being, the beauty of heaven beo-innino- to
grow upon him ; the blessedness and the glory of God beo-innino- to

504 THE PBIVILBGH OF WOBKINQ.

rest upon his head. To be permitted to lead one single soul to
Christ, if one only stood at the right point of view, would seem to
him more than a crown, and more than a coronet given by a king's
hand.

When Raphael was executing the various frescoes which he was
commissioned to paint by the Roman Papal government, he drew
the figures, determining the subjects, and grouping the difterent ele-
ments. He worked the designs out with his pencil. Then he put
them into his scholars' hands, and they went on and filled them out.
And after they had done the best they could, when their part of the
work was completed, Raphael was accustomed to take his pencil and
give the pictures a last finish. And so he was the author and tlie
finisher of the pictures worked upon by these his apostles.

To be permitted to be with Raphael, and belong to his school,
and paint upon the wall a picture that came from his brain, and was
to bear his name, was thought to be one of the greatest of privileges,
and was enough to make an artist's reputation.

We are of Christ's school. He lays out the work. We execute
some of its intermediate stages, while his grace perfects what we do.
And if we were in a condition of true spiritual-mindedness, we should
feel that it was an unspeakable favor that we were permitted to work
out these tiessed figures, these glorious natures, these living pictures,
which are to shine forever and forever in the heavenly land.

No man ever had more of what I may call spiritual esprit de corps
than the apostle. No man ever carried about with him such a sense
of who was working with him. No man ever so well understood the
grandeur of the campaign on which he had entered, or was so con-
scious of the pi'esence of the soldiers that were alongside of him. I
do not mean that he referred to the holy men who were living on
the earth, though he reverenced and honored them. But he felt, "I
am a laborer together with God." He felt that he was surrounded
by hosts, clouds, of witnesses.

Our heavens have a drought in them, I think. In our dusty
modei'u times, in our hard materialism, we have swept out of our
sky pretty much everything that we cannot see. We believe in
telescopes, and in everything that the telescope believes in, but in
nothing else.

The Apostle Paul had a wonderfully populous heaven above his
head. All the hosts of God, to his thinking, were at work. He be-
lieved that the ransomed did not go into everlasting indolence and
call it rest. He believed that the heaven was thronged with spirit-
workers, and that they had sympathy with the work ; that they
liked it not only, but were commissioned to help perform it ; and

TEE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING. 505

that time, and all the cope, wei-e filled full of God, and God's workers.
And he felt that he was ever working in the midst of this great
and royal company, never unattended, never alone. And when he
was ui)on the sea, or in the wilderness, or in the persecuting city,
more were they that were for him than they that Avere against
him. All the way through he worked with a magnificent sense of
companionship. And it was this which made him feel that he was
highly privileged. To be admitted into such a working company
was a great thing.

You think you do not believe in that. Yes you do. Every one
of you, if you were to go to Europe, would wish that you had an
introduction into the Court of Queen Victoria, And if it so hap-
pened that you were invited to a royal reception, you Avould write
home about it, and all your friends would know it, and you would '
not forget it to the day of your death. If a woman, of flesh and
blood like yourselves, only in royal conditions, takes notice of you,
and invites you to go where you can just see her, look at her, your
pride and vanity are gratified ; for the spirit of self-seeking, and
the appetites and lusts are about the same the world over, through
all time, and in all governments. Men feel that when they are in-
vited to see such a man as Humboldt, they are honored. They feel
that when they are invit-ed to the country seats of nobles, they are
honored. They admit it to themselves, whether they admit it to i
their fellows or not. There is a universal feeling of this sort. And
Paul had it. But I do not think he felt that Agrippa had anything to
give him, I do not think that if it had been any monarch, even
Caesar, Paul would have felt particularly abashed in the royal pres-
ence ; but to him it was God, it was Jesus Christ, who was leading
forth the spiritual forces of the universe, and was King ; and the
heavenly host were the aristocrats and nobles. And he felt that he
was called into their company. And to be called into such com-
pany touched the feeling of humanity in him, as well as that of re-
joicing pride ; and he felt it to be an unspeakable privilege to be
allowed to work with such workmen.

No one ever seems to have had so grand and magnificent a
sense of the final outcome of God's moral government over this
world as the Apostle Paul. There is a great deal more meaning in
many of the passages of the Bible than we can give to them. The
fact is that many of the texts of Scripture kill sermons dead. A '
wise preacher skips the best texts. He cannot work them up.

When mahogany was first introduced into Europe, there was
not a carpenter shop in any kingdom that had tools highly tem- .
pered enough to work it. It broke every tool that there was, and

506 THE FBIVILEGE OF WOBKING.

new tools had to be made, of better steel, and steel of a hio-her
temper. And our tools with which we handle texts, are not of o-ood
enough material. We must have new ones with better material,
and material more highly tempered. Here is this passage :

" As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every
man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; aftern^ard they that are
Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end."

How far away that magnificent end is we do not know. But in
the contemplation of it our imagination lifts itself, and spreads its
wings, as the eagle spreads his.

"Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom
to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all au-
thority and powtr. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under
his ft et. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath
put all things uuder his feet. But when he saith all things are put under
him, it is manift st that he is excepted which did put all things under him.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also
himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may
be all in all."

Who can give an interpretation of that ? He that dare, let him
do it ; but not I. I should as soon think of setting a mouse at sur-
veying the chain of the Andes, and making a typographical report,
as to take this magnificent vision of the consummation of God's
mediatorial government in the universe, including this world, and
what others we know not, and undertake, without experience, and
without anything else but the blazonry of these grand figures, to
give any precise idea of what it was — only this : that after a cam-
paign, magnificently planned and nobly conducted, the General
comes back to his King, and having defeated everything in the field,
and having subdued all the provinces, and holding in his hands the
keys of cities, lays them at his King's feet, and then takes his place
near by his seat. That is the figure. "

So when the vast work of God on earth and in heaven shall have
been done, in the far and grand future, Christ shall come back, and
shall lay before God the tokens of universal victory, and God shall
be all and in aU. Whether it shall be by the resumption of the
Son, or whether by some co-equality, or some other steps, no man
knows, and no man need try to know. Suflicient it is that it shall
be a scene of unequaled grandeur and glory.

Paul worked with that in his mind. He had a horizon that
swept as far as thought. And he could not be lifted up into petty
pride and vanity by the consciousness of what he was doing, of who
his companions were, of what the field was on which he labored, of
who it was that led him, and of what was the consummation of this
great scheme in which he was but a factor and single unit.

We may, I think, take from this example of Paul even more les-

THE FBIVILEGE OF WORKING. 507

sons than we have attempted to draw as we have gone on. His
sense of the pi'ivilege, the great favor, of being allowed to work in
the kingdom of God, ought to give us some new ideas, and some
new issues to old ideas.

First, we are living in an age which is apt to glorify the indi-
vidual. 2^he sovereignty of man is one of the cant phrases of the
day. There is a great deal in philosophy, as well as a great deal in
the best part of human nature, which is leading men to feel that
they are immensely important. Man is important in God : out
of God he is worthless. But philosophy makes man feel that, in
and of himself, without any regard to his origin, without regard to
the branch on which he is growing, he is individually something
great. This feeling is fostered by the institutions under which he
lives. Our institutions tend to make everybody independent. We
are talking about the rights of the individual. We are seeking to
secure them. We are stimulatioig the individual, and we are en-
deavoring to stimulate the great mass of men, so that every indi-
vidual bel®nging to the republic shall be a factor of power. That
is air right. But the overaction of this tendency is in the direction
of jiride and vanity — democratic pride ; philosophic pride ; j^ride
of individuality ; the consciousness of our own strength, which
often ripens into arrogance. And this destroys that fine sense of
spiritual dependence which belongs to the noblest natures. It takes
us largely out of the feeling and spirit of Gospel life. It takes
us out of household life. It takes us out of that life in which we
are woven into the divine nature, and makes us idols.

Now, we Avant a sense of personal unworthiness. We are not in
danger, in this nation, of being crushed in our pride too much. In
some nations there is danger, where the king crushes one half, and
the priest crushes the other half, of being unmanly, and ground
down into a sordid submission ; but that is not a temptation of our
nation, either in their native or imported dispositions. In this coun-
try we are in no danger of being too humble. On the other hand,
we need, more than almost anything else, influences that shall ra-
tionally, intelligently, promote some sense of our relative weakness
in the great scheme of God in this world. We need something
which shall make us feel that nature did not srive us evervthino- :
that redemption came by Jesus Christ. We need something that
shall teach us that there is not alone a Son, but a Sun of righteous-
ness ; that there is not alone a providence, but a grace of God. We
need something that shall keep alive in our minds a sense of the
grandeur of that work which is going on, and the glory of the fu-
ture of that work, and its outcome in this world, so that we shall

508 TEE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING.

not seem to ourselves to be conferring favors, but rather receiving
favors, when we are permitted to join our force with God and our
fellow men, and work for the world and for eternity.

This S'ubject may comfort those who are weary of work ; or
rather, it may rebuke them, and so convert them. There be many
who say, " Have I not fulfilled my duty ?" " As long ago as I can
remember," says one, " I have been working in the Sunday-school,
and in the industrial school ; but now I am married, and duties at
home engage me, and I feel as though I had done my share." What
is your share f Do you suppose work is a contribution-box, and
that God is a beggar, and that he is passing it down to you, and that
you are to throw in your share f The box comes round, and it must
be filled up. And what do you owe ? Do you not owe life in its
totality ? That which you give to the household is a part of what
you are giving to the world. And if you have time and power tc
do more, it is not a benefaction. You are not benefactors conferring
benefits on the community. It is a privilege that you are permitted
to rear in the household, children for God and glory.
1 Ah ! you do not know what you are doing. You carry your
little babe. Each one's child, you know, is a paragon! And you
dress it, and love it, and bear it about in your arms, and friends ad-
mire it, and how proud you are ! There is something amiable and
lovable and beautiful in this ; but it is only an emblem — for that
babe you carry for friends to admire before there is anything admir-
able about it, so far as outward appearances are concerned. But
when you have trained it, and shaped it, and its character has been
made illustrious, and you have brought it before God, before Christ,
and into the presence of the whole household of faith, to be loved
and admired, then, O mother, you will feel, in the presence of God
and the holy angels, that you have had an unspeakable privilege.
No person will ever bring a child in his arms to Jesus and not feel
that he has been himself crowned in having permission thus to bring
a human being home to glory.

If God gives you work in the household, and that absorbs your
talents, well and good ; but if you have more talent and power than
is demanded in the household ; if by a wise economy you are quali-
fied to do something outside of the household as well as within it,
do not fail to see your privilege. Oftentimes it is the case that a
person can do work as a candle does, which gives light to all that
are in the room, but, not stopping there, throws light through the
window and along the road as well. What mothers and fathers do
in their homes may be reflected far beyond the human sphere
to whicli they are confined, and bless many others besides their own

TRE FEIYILEGB OF WOBKING, 509

families. And if you are working in the household, do not demean
yourself or dishonor yourself by saying, " I have done about my
part ; I have worked long enough." Never ! never I Not until the
last heart-beat, not until the last expiring throb of power, will you
have done enough for Him who gave all for you, and who gives all
for you.

You belong to a different family from that of the vulgar and sel-
fish. You belong to the generous, to the noble, to the true, to the
Christlike, to the heavenly. Do not, therefore, measure and parti-
tion off your bounds. Work as long as there is work and you have
strength to do it; and count it a blessing, every day, that God gives
you something to do.

So, whenever you have a chance to put in a blow, put in a blow
with heartiness, and be glad of it. Be willing, generous, brave sol-
diers. When, in time of danger, the general of an army calls for a
forlorn hope to carry an important position, see how some noble
natures, who have as much to live for as you or anybody else,
quarrel for permission to do that work. And see how they take their
lives in their hands, and plunge into the cloud of death, almost not
caring what befalls them. And when Christ's battle opens, and he
calls for volunteers, and it is for us to labor, and suffer, and give up
all that we have and all that we are to have, let us not shrink from
the undertaking. Do not weary in well-doing. You have gone a
great many times, and a great way off, and your feet grow tired ;
but do not give up. Are you pondering whether you shall leave that
class ? Are you questioning whether it is your duty to continue to
work in that neighborhood ? Are you beginning to say, " Somebody
else must take this work, for I have done my share " ? Oh, rebuke
the ignominy of such a thought as that. Work on, my brother ;
work on my sister ; God needs you, and man needs you. Until
tears are wiped away, and hearts cease to ache, and sin no longer
desolates, you have a mission in this world, and you must not give
up your work. Remember that you are not working because you
are conferring a favor, but because it is your privilege to work.

There are many who are almost out of patience because they are
so continually approached with solicitations to do something. There
are so many colleges to build, so many schools to found, so many
home missionaries to support, so many foreign missionaries to send
away, so many churches to be maintained, so many societies to be
kept up, so many poor people to be taken care of, so many calls for
charity, that men get out of patience. I suppose I am no worse than
you are in this respect, and sometimes I feel as though I could not
bear solicitation. Do you ever lose your patience ? Then you know

510 IRE PRIVILEGE OF WOBKING.

how to pity me. Do you ever get tired, and want to shut the door
in the face of Providence, and say, " You have come often enough " ?
Then you know just how guilty I am. Do you ever feel, " I wish I
were dead " ? Then you know how I feel. And do you, when you
come to you better self, feel very much ashamed of it ? Then you
know how I feel when I come to my better self In those golden
moments, when I think of what Christ has done for me, when he is
more than father or mother to me, when I have some sense of the
arms of God in infinite love around about me, when I look up into
the face of the forgiving and unwearied Saviour — the faithful One —
and think that I was ever tired of his work, I am ashamed. A child is
sometimes fretful, when it is sick, even to the mother, and pushes her
away with its hand; and with tears, when it gets Avell, asks her forgive-
ness. Even though it was sickness that did it, it can scarcely for-
give itself And so a soul feels that is impatient with God. Christ
redeemed you by his precious blood ; and if you have been endowed
with strength to amass property, and he wants your treasure, and
he appeals to your conscience and reason, and says, " You are my
steward, and I gave you life and health that you might work for me
and your fellow men," do not withhold it from him. Is there any-
thing which you possess that is too good for Christ — talent, money,
labor, or suffering ? " To you it is given to suffer with Christ," says
the apostle, " as though you were distributing precious gifts." My
dear brethren, be not weary in well-doing.

Well, how long shall you work, then ? As long as you live.
How long ? Till there is uq more war nor thunder nor wretched-
ness on the earth ; till fliere is no more slavery to mar and disfigure
the image of God in man ; till there is no more superstition to blind-
fold men, and plunge them into destruction ; till there is no more
ignorance to mislead men, and cheat them of their birthright ; till
there is no more pride, or selfishness, or avarice, or power of the
air, to lord it over the spirits of God's people. You are to work till
all things end. You are enlisted for the war. If you enlisted under
Christ's banner, you enlisted to remain as long as your life shall last.
You are not a three months' or a six-months' man. And you have
reason to sing for gladness that you ai'e permitted to go into Christ's
army and work until the c< nflict is ended.

The things which we do here perish in the doing, almost. When
I we write our names in time, it is as when men write their name

upon the sand. The ocean is at it almost before they leave it. The
waves roll over it and soon obliterate it. Such is fame in this world.
The world is too full to remember everybody. Almost everybody
must be forgotten. Only here and there are the names of men per-

TEE PRIVILEGE OF WOIiKING. 511

pctuatecl, and generally they are men who do not expect it. The
work which will be remembered is that which is registered above.
You must strike clear through beyond the physical, you must work
where the angels shall require you to work, you must make an im-
pression on the living hearts, the palpitating souls, of men. And
to do this, devote your whole self — your body, your talent, your
property. Put everything God has given you into this great
spiritualizing work. And rejoice that God has permitted you to
work. Die with your harness on. When the Master comes, let him
find you working. And go up from the sweat and the toH, from
the infirmity, if need be, and the decrepitude, of earthly fidelity,
into the blessedness of eternal youth. And one moment's look of
the Eye of Love will be more to you than all the glories of the
round globe. And when the Ineffable shall say, " "Well done, good
and fiiithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord," all the sym-
phonies that ever sighed music, and all the sweet sounds of whis-
pered love, and all that the ear has drank in upon earth, will not
equal the ecstasy which will come to your heart in that one single
word.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMOK

Our heavenly Father, thou hast taupjht us not to have fear, except the
fear of love. Thou hast unveiled thyself ; and with a voice that nations
could not speak, through holy men of old thou hast made known to us what
thou art, and what are thy dispositions, and what is thy will, and wherein
our duty lies. And we rejoice that in that disclosure, while there is some-
thing for fear, there is more for hope, and that every special act of obedience
brings peace and gladness in widening circles forevermore. Blessed are
they to whom thou hast revealed this, not by the outward letter, but by the
emotion of the heart, and by the unuttered communication of the Spirit.
How blessed are they who have been taught that they are the children of
God, and have in themselves the witness and the joy! How blessed are
they who are armed against everything that can assault their peace, and
who know that if God is for them, none can be against them to harm them !

Blessed are they whose world is not that which the eye can measure and
the hand handle, but who are influenced by the eternal world, and who,
being sons of God, know that they are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Jesus.

Grant, we beseech of thee, unto all of us who have named thy name, more
insight of thy grace ; more personal experience of thy presence and of thy
love ; more contrition for our own sinfulness ; more gratitude for thy faith-
fulness ; more love for the glory of thy nature ; more sympathy to*r that
great work of salvation which thou art carrying forward in time and upon
the earth.

Grant, we beseech of thee, that we may live more and more toward thee;
toward things spiritual ; toward the ineffable ; toward treasure that cannot

512 THE FBIYILEGE OF WOBKING.

be exchanged, nor bought, nor sold, nor lost, but which once won, is won
forever. Oh, grant that our lives may be evermore as the flowers, looking
to the Sun, and grow bright in the light thereof. May our souls become
rich toward God. And though we may be increased in outward strength
and outward goods, may we cleave to our confidence in thee. May we be
grateful for all the mercies of thy providence to us— for life ; for health ;
for household mercies ; for the great comfort of our children; for all the
goodness which thou dost strew with such bounteous hands in the meagerest
path, and which overflows in many places. Grant that we may not be
unmindful of these minor blessings. But may we discern that they are
only the first-fruits, the earnests of thy goodness to us. May we discern
that for the soul is reserved coronation ; that thy providence deals bounti-
fully here with our bodies, but that thy grace waits to crown us hereafter.
And may we all know that we are the sons of God, and feel royalty beating
in our souls, and long amidst duty and care and labor, in those moments
when the soul looks away, to appear in Zion and before God ; there to know
as we are known ; there to hush every sorrow ; there to see death itself over-
thrown and slain ; there to rest from temptation, and from sin, and to be as
the saints and the angels of God.

How can we thank thee for such hope? How can we enough bless thee
for the consolation which hath already been ministered to us? In the
greatness of the Way in which we have walked, how many times should we
have failed, but for our hope in God ! How many afQictions have broken
upon us that would utterly have overthrown us, but that thou didst hold
us ! Yes, Lord, thou hast been a pavilion, and we have rim into thee, and
have hid, until the storm was overpast. We have wondered in the day of
trouble that we seemed to ourselves not to be ourselves, but to be kept in a
great peace, while our troubles were as the outward storm that beat upon
the house, and we heard the peltings of it, and felt that we were secure, and
were happy. So canst thou temper affliction. So canst thou by affl^iction
release us from our passion and pride and worldliness. So in the midst of
affliction canst thou kindle in us the strange lights of coming glory, and fill
us with hope and joy in the Holy Ghost.

We rejoice in this mystery of experience — in this incommunicable life
which thou hast granted unto many of us. How many are there that were
very weak, but that have grown strong by bearing burdens ! How many
are there to whom the outstretched arms of Christ have been as the wings of
a mighty bird ! And bearing, they have been borne upward, and carried
above all trouble and all sorrow. How hast thou made the very word more
fruitful of thy promises than seeds are that come forth a hundred fold !
For thou art He that dost abundantly more than we ask or think. And this
is the measure of thy grace— not of our desert, nor even of our containing
power. It is the measure of the horizons and bounds of thine own heart-
generosity to us. And so we are always more, if we but knew our joys, our
riches, and the love and the promises that wait upon us, than conquerors,
through Him that loved us.

And now. Lord, we mourn over our unworthiness. We mourn that when
thou lookest upon us there is no such sight as when thou lookest upon thy-
self. For all thy goodness, how much selfishness we give back ! For all the
influences that swarm the heavenly gate, how sordid are we! How full are
we of earthiness ! How much from day to day do we seek the bread that
perisheth, and the things which come from men ! How are we effeminate,
shrinking from suffering for Christ's sake, and seeking the smoothest paths,
and asking that ours may be the pleasantest place in experience! How little
is there in us of that endurance which thy servants of old had I

TEE PBIVILEGE OF WOBKIKG. 518

We beseech of thee, O Lord, that thou wilt forgive our sinfulness ; our
■vraut of sensibility toward thee ; our want of love toward those that thou
dost love. We beseech of thee that our hearts may be enlarged, and that
we may endeavor, though it be only feebly, with our sympathy to follow
thine affection, and to love our brethren — not those that are comely, not
those that already bring forth the blossoms and the fruit. As thou hast had
to love us in our sins, and in our deformities, and in our sores, and in our
sicknesses, and hast ministered to us ; so may we learn to take up those
around about us who are deformed, and are filled with things deceitful, and
are not comely to the Lord, nor to our feeble moral sense. May we learn to
ha%'e patience with them, and compassion upon them, and to long for their
deliverance, and to pray for them, and, if need be, to labor for them. And
may we not call this a sacrifice, but the best using of ourselves. May we
live to do good, even as thou didst come doing good in thy mortal life, our
Exemplar and our Head.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt forgive all the pride that we have had,
and all the vanity that we have had. If any of us think we have done much
for the Lord, and praised our own wisdom, and looked with censoriousness
upon those who have labored less, as if they were our inferiors, or looked
upon them with pity and contempt, forgive us that we have arrogated supe- ■
riority to ourselves ; that we have sought to make ourselves seem fruitful,
when we were all unprofitable servants. If thou wert to reveal the truth as
it is to the heavenly Eye, we should seem indolent and self-seeking ; our mo-
tives would seem poor and mixed ; and at best we should seem sinful, and
only sinful. And yet, thou art sparing and encouraging us. If we were
perfect thou couldst not be more tender in thy heart than thou art in
all the ruggedness of our sins. Though we are outcasts, we are as if we were
royal; and though we do not understand, and do not reciprocate, and do
not know how even to accept the mercies of God aright, they come as the
dews come by night. They come as the light comes through all the summer
day. And this is the royalty of thy nature. This it is to be God : to be full
of graciousness, and of compassion, pursuing purity and truth and justice
ua all thy way, but pursuing them by the road of love. And so we beseech
of thee that we may not count the long-suffering of God as another argu-
ment for our own sinfulness.

Call back those who have wandered. Call back those who, knowing bet-
ter, have transgressed their own deliberate knowledge, and sinned against the
light that shines upon their paths. Call back those who have backslidden
from their faith in Christ. Call back those that once were very near, but
that now are afar off. Remember the forgetting; remember the prayerless;
remember those whose consciences testify against them from day to day, and
testify in vain. And we beseech of thee, O Lord our God, that thou wilt
grant that there may be many that are in darkness, and are arrayed against
thee and thine, who shall be subdued by the power of thy Spirit, and by the
word of truth, and by the mighty grace of God. And may there be many
souls born again in our midst. May there be many that shall become wit-
nesses for Christ, As after the long winter the birds come, and break out
in all the trees, and sing their renewed songs of gladness in the beginning of
the year, so may we have the voices of those who sing forth the praises of
thy salvation. Is it not time for the singing of birds again ? We beseech of
thee that the winter may be passed, and that there may be all the signs and
tokens of thy coming with thy great grace and power in the midst°of this
congregation. And we pray, O Lord our God, that we may every one of us
search out the hidden places of our life; that we may put in order every-
thing in our household, and everything throughout all our lives. May we
endeavor to prepare the way, and cast it up, that the ransomed of the Lord

514 ■ THE FBIVILEGE OF WOBEING.

may return and come to Zion. Bring in the ransomed ones. Go forth for
those who are in captivity, Bring them hack with shoutings of joy.

And now, Lord, we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless every one in thy
presence according to his individual need — for thou kuowest what that need
is. Thou and the heart that suffers only know the secret suffering. And
we pray that thou wilt succor those who are in the bondage of fear, and
those who are in despondency, and those who are overmatched in their con-
flicts with life, and who every day fall down and add sin to the conscious-
ness of their imperfections. In every way, O Lord, have compassion upon
those who do not know how to help themselves, and who are crushed indeed.
Lift them up. Speak comfortable words to them. And though they sit
desolate, and the shame of their nakedness oppresses them, O thou that
didst rescue by thine own life, and that didst give thine own blood to save
thy creatures, O thou that art full of mercy alike to the children of sin and
of affliction, succor them.

And we pray O Lord our God, that thou wilt be very near to any who
are in thy presence to-day— stranfiers among us, yet not strangers to the
household of faith. And wilt thou grant that here they may find the open
gate. Here may they find the altar. Here may they And their Father's
house, and take bread from his table. And if tlieir thoughts go backward
toward those whom they have loved. Lord go with their thoughts. And
multiply the blessings which they receive. Open all honor and truth to
them.

And we pray, if there are any wandering aimless and discouraged,
strangers in a strange land, with staff broken and every hope cut off, that
they may not give up all confidence. May thpy kaow how to wait patiently
on the Lord, and to be sure that their cup shall be filled, and that their
staff shall yet be established in strength. And when their eyesight fails,
may they have faith.

And we pray, O Lord our God, that thou wilt be very near to those who
are seeking to restore themselves to their first-love. And have compa^s'on
upon all that are endeavoring to break away from the bonds and the thralls
which have bound them and held them so long. Are there not many who
stretch out their hands from prison windows which they cannot escape
from? O thou that didat come to open the prison-doors, come and bring
them forth. Are there not many the sound of whose chsiins is in thine ear,
and who cannot free themselves ? O thou that didst break the chain of the
captive, we pray that thou wilt help friie helpless, and succor the needy, and
take care of the outcast, and breathe the Spirit into us by which we, too, in
our places, shall endeavor to do the same work of the Lord.

May we all remember that our time is short, and that our day is hasten-
ing. The sun is going down already upon us. What we have to do we miefc
do quickly. The night cometh when no man can labor. May we therefore
gird our loins with the fresh consecration of a new zeal. May we begin
from this day forth and do the Lord's work, wherever in his providi^nce we
are planted. We commend ourselves to thee for life, and for death, and
for immortality.

And to the Father, the Son and the Spirit, shall be the praise forever and
ever. Amen.

Princeton Theoloqical ^^"]j,^„^,il,l^^!.f^\l^^

1 1012 01166 2287

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