LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 Presented by 
 
 BV 4501 .G57 1877 
 Gladden, Washington, 1836- 
 
 1918. I 
 
 The Christian way r 
 
 ^ BOOKS ♦ 
 JSTATIONERVS 
 * ENGRAVING- 
 
The Christian Vi^j^- 
 
 WHITHER IT LEADS AND HOW TO 
 GO ON. 
 
 WASHINGTON "^GLADDEN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BRING A CHRISTIAN " '* PLAIN THOUGHTS ON THE ART OF 
 LIVING," "working PEOPLB AND THEIR EMPLOYERS," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, 
 
 Publishers. 
 
COPYRIGKT, 
 
 Bv DODD, MEAD & COM PAN V. 
 1877. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Christian's Aim , 9 
 
 II. 
 
 The Christian's Calling 28 
 
 III. 
 The Christian^ in the Church 4^ 
 
 IV. 
 The Christian as a Witness 65 
 
 V. 
 
 The Christian IN Business 8 
 
 VI. 
 The Christian in Society 104 
 
 VII. 
 The Christian's Quiet Life 121 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Most of the novels end with marriage. 
 When the period of romance is past, and the 
 young people settle down to begin the serious 
 work of life the novelist seems to lose his inter- 
 est in them, and turns away to fresh fields of 
 sentiment and pastures new of the tender 
 passion. 
 
 The reason of this method may be plain, but 
 it is not a good reason. Life after marriage 
 needs to be idealized quite as much as life 
 before marriage ; its scope is wider, its interests 
 larger, its affections deeper and stronger. And 
 we may hope that the time will come when 
 those who aspire to be the historians of the 
 human heart, will represent life in juster propor- 
 tions, no longer giving the impression that its 
 beauty fades with the orange flowers, and that 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 its tale is told when the minister's voice pro- 
 nounces the twain to be one. 
 
 Something like this has also happened in 
 the treatment by the church of those who 
 are brought into its communion. Before their 
 names are enrolled on the church register, they 
 are talked to and written at continually; a 
 great deal of advice, more or less luminous, is 
 thrown in their way ; but after that the teaching 
 is much less specific, and the impression is apt 
 to obtain that the end of all instruction is 
 reached at the first communion. Now it must 
 be true that some clear and definite religious 
 teaching is needed by those who have entered 
 the church, as well as by those who seek to 
 enter it ; that light should be thrown not only 
 on the beginning of the way, but also on its 
 after stages. It is important to know how to 
 begin to be a Christian, dud it is equally impor- 
 tant to know how to go on. 
 
 With the hope of making the way plainer 
 this little book his been written. It is designed 
 as a sequel to the small volume entitled, " Being 
 a Christian." That title might well be given to 
 this book; for it is of dem^;-^ rather than of 
 
PREFACK. 
 
 becomuig that these pages treat. I have heard of 
 some who were helped by the other little book 
 to enter the Christian way ; I wish that this one 
 might lead many from the joy of beginning into 
 ** the glory of going on." 
 
 Washington Gladden. 
 
 North Church Study, Springfield, 
 March 2, 1877. 
 
I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S AIM. 
 
 The first thing for the young Christian to 
 determine is what he is aiming at. 
 
 Christ tells us to be perfect even as our 
 Father in heaven is perfect ; and Paul, enforcing 
 the same truth, bids us leave the principles 
 (rudiments) of the doctrine of Christ and go on 
 unto perfection. That, then, is what we ought 
 to be aiming at. 
 
 ** Perfection ! " you cry. ** We cannot be 
 perfect, and therefore it is useless to try." Your 
 statement is true, but your conclusion does not 
 follow. You cannot be perfect, nevertheless it 
 is well worth while to try. You cannot draw a 
 perfectly straight line, or a perfect curve, and 
 probably you never will do either as long as you 
 live ; but if you expect to be an artist you must 
 keep trying to do these very things. Practice 
 will not make a draughtsman's work exactly 
 
10 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 / 
 
 and mathematically perfect, but the longer and 
 the more faithfully he practises the nearer he will 
 come to perfection. Absolute exactness in 
 drawing never was achieved and never will be, 
 but there have been many artists whose work 
 vas approximately accurate and very beautiful. 
 It would not have been so accurate or so beau- 
 tiful, if they had not tried to make it perfect. 
 Just so with the art of living. You cannot, 
 with your finite powers^ live a life of flawless 
 rectitude ; but you must bring your work at 
 every trial just as near as you can to absolute 
 perfection. The highest attainable beauty of 
 character is only reached by those %vho aim at 
 perfect goodness. 
 
 It is necessary, then, when you set out in 
 your Christian career to fix your mark at perfec- 
 tion, and aim at it steadily every day. Nothing 
 short of this endeavor will answer at all. 
 
 Just think! Would it do for a builder to 
 say : " I will not try to set this column exactly 
 perpendicular ; if it comes pretty near it, that 
 is all I care for? " Would a surveyor be justi- 
 fied in saying : *' I am not going to run this 
 north and south boundary line exactly straight ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. 
 
 no matter if it does veer a little to the east or 
 the west ? " What sort of music would the 
 singer make who did not try to sing in perfect 
 tune, but was content with coming within a 
 half tone or a quarter-tone of the pitch ? To 
 aim at any thing less than perfection would be 
 in the singer bad art, in the surveyor bad sci- 
 ence, in the builder bad architecture. To aim 
 at anything lower than perfection is in the 
 Christian disciple bad religion. 
 
 What would you think of one who deliber- 
 ately resolved to be less than perfectly truthful, 
 or less than perfectly accurate in making change, 
 or less than perfectly prompt in keeping his 
 promises ? I do not say that any one succeeds 
 in being perfect in any of these things, but what 
 sort of a man is he who either resolves that he 
 will not try to be, or, what is practically the 
 same thing, refuses to resolve that he will try to 
 be? I think he is the sort of man whom none 
 of us want to keep over night. In morals as 
 well as in art and in science the standard of per- 
 fection is the only standard that can for one 
 moment be tolerated. From him who does not 
 distinctly recognize it as the rule by which his 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 aims in life are guided, we instantly withdraw 
 iis from a man of corrupt thought and danger- 
 «ous influence. That is the fact so far as morals 
 are concerned. 
 
 But what is our religion if it is not the divine 
 power that aids us in living moral lives ? The 
 end at which Christianity aims is a perfect mor- 
 / ality. The object for which Christ came into 
 the world was to save men from trangression of 
 the moral law, and to bring them to obey it. 
 The work that he does for us reaches its con- 
 summation only when this law is enthroned in 
 our hearts and in our lives. To be a perfect 
 Christian and to be a perfectly moral man, are 
 then, at bottom, one and the same thing ; and 
 if it is not safe to attempt anything less than 
 perfection in morals, it is unsafe to have any 
 lower standard than perfection in our religious 
 life. 
 
 When I say that to be a perfect Christian is 
 the same thing as to be a perfectly moral man, 
 I use the word moral in a little larger sense 
 than that which some persons are accustomed 
 to give to it. The moral law, as the catechism 
 says, is "summarily comprehended in the ten com- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. 1 3 
 
 mandments : " and the ten commandments, as 
 Christ says, are summed up in these two : " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
 and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and 
 thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." That 
 is the moral law in its highest and completest 
 expression. Now no man can be properly 
 called a moral man who does not obey that law. 
 He who obeys half of it is not truly a moral 
 man. He who is perfect toward his neighbor ; 
 but is not perfect toward God is not a moral 
 man. Neither is he morally perfect whose 
 character is only negative; who merely obeys 
 the prohibitions of the decalogue ; who simply 
 does not kill, nor steal, nor cheat, nor lie, nor 
 slander, nor covet. Many men wish to pass for 
 moral men on the ground that they abstain 
 from these evil practices, but it is a very narrow 
 and inadequate definition which is given to the 
 word moral by those who make this claim. 
 Nothing really deserves the name that does not 
 signify obedience to the whole law, as Christ ha«» 
 laid it down. And beyond this there is nothing, 
 above this there is nothing ; it is the supreme 
 good of life Not to destroy this law but to 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 fulfil it, and to give us power that we too might 
 fulfil it and thus become the sons of God, was 
 the very errand that brought our Saviour down 
 to earth. 
 
 Let no man speak then of " mere morality,** 
 as if that were somehow a secondary and dis- 
 pensable good. Mere morality ! One might as 
 well speak of the mere sweetness of sugar, or 
 the mere beauty of a rose or the mere correct- 
 ness of a sum in addition. To say of a man 
 that he merely loves God with all his heart and 
 his neighbor as himself is not, I should hope, 
 greatly to disparage him ! 
 
 Such, then is the perfection at which in our 
 Christian lives we are to aim. It is nothing less 
 than entire obedience to the Christian law, per- 
 fect consecration to the service of Christ. We 
 hear a good deal now-a-days about " the higher 
 Christian life." I do not like the phrase. A 
 Christian life that finds its end in being a little 
 higher than some other Christian life ; a holinesa 
 that consists in being a Httle holier than some- 
 body else, I do not believe in. The curse of 
 Pharisaism is in the comparative degree. The 
 division of believers into two classes, the lower 
 
THE CHRISTIANS AIM. 1 5 
 
 and the higher, the fine and the superfine, is a 
 most mischievous device. Graded schools may 
 be very good, but graded churches are an abomi- 
 nation whether the grade line be money or cul- 
 ture or " holiness." There is a theory that there 
 are two kinds of piety, on one of which a man can 
 manage to scrape along and get into heaven when 
 he dies ; the other of which is a commodity vastly 
 superior; and that the difference between the 
 one state and the other is just as clearly marked 
 as the difference between the unconverted and 
 the converted. This theory has, as I believe, 
 no Scriptural foundation, and it is calculated 
 to do no inconsiderable damage. Those who 
 suppose themselves to have *' experienced " this 
 higher Christian life, are likely to be lifted up 
 with spiritual conceit ; and those who do not 
 aspire to it will be encouraged in indolence and 
 unfaithfulness. " There is a higher Christian life 
 and there is a lower," they say. But since both 
 result in final salvation, what is the use, the 
 worldly disciple wants to know, of straining 
 after this superior sanctity ? Any road by"which 
 a man can escape from hell and fly to heaven is a 
 good enough road for him. If the church is to 
 
1 6 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 be graded a great majority of the members will 
 be quite content to stop in the lower grade. 
 
 No , we want no merely higher Christian life. 
 Comparative piety is an offence. God's law 
 ' deals only in superlatives. Not toward that 
 which is higher, but that which is highest toward 
 our thoughts must rise, and our feet must travel. 
 No man can be a Christian without the honest 
 purpose of entire consecration. It is the whole 
 heart and nothing less that is demanded of 
 every believer. It is demanded at the beginning, 
 and what is required at the first moment of the 
 Christian life is equally required at every subse- 
 quent moment. Surely no less is expected of 
 the mature disciple than of the beginner. The 
 practiced accountant is not less particular to be 
 accurate than the child that is just commencing 
 to add. The adopted citizen is not supposed to 
 be less loyal after he has been voting ten years, 
 than when he first took his oath of allegiance. 
 And if a strenuous purpose to give the whole 
 heart to God, and to be perfectly conformed to 
 his will is the indispensable condition of entering 
 upon the Christian life it must be tk^ indispens- 
 nble condition of continuing in it. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. I7 
 
 The failure to understand this truth is the 
 cause of many feeble and defective Christian 
 lives. The standard set up at the beginning is 
 imperfect, and thus all the issues of the life are 
 distorted and vitiated. The ship whose com- 
 pass needle is deflected by some hidden metal, 
 is steered helplessly hither and thither, and is 
 fortunate if it be not driven upon the rocks ; and 
 thus the life whose aim is not directed at the 
 pole star of perfection, is at the mercy of every 
 current of caprice, and every gust of passion. 
 
 Many a young Christian starts out with no 
 higher purpose than to be about as good as the 
 average. Such- an one inevitably falls a good 
 deal below the average. No man ever comes 
 quite up to his ideals in moral or spiritual cul- 
 ture ; and if his conceptions are low, his practice 
 will be lower still. 
 
 Others set forth with the ambition to be as 
 good as the best Christians they know. But 
 they forget that these best Christians have at- 
 tained to their present high character, not by 
 trying to be about as good as somebody else, but 
 by trying to do just right every day, to have their 
 works perfect before God. No man ever reached 
 
THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 any exalted spiritual stature by obedience to 
 any lower rule of life. That is the only rule. It 
 is not " Be as good as Paul or Priscilla or Ed- 
 ward Payson or Lady Huntington." It is not 
 ** Be as good as the average." It is " Be per- 
 fect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 The projectile that is aimed at the zenith goes 
 the highest ; any other range reaches a lower 
 plane, and the more the range is depressed, the 
 more speedily does gravitation clip the wings of 
 the projecting force and bring the body down to 
 earth. That is the law of moving bodies, and 
 it is equally the law of self-moving and conscious 
 souls. 
 
 Because it is the only rational and logical 
 thing to do, and because it is the only safe thing 
 to do, we ought to set out in the Christian life 
 with the determination to come just as near to 
 perfection as we can every day we live. But 
 there is another reason. We ought to do it 
 because it is the easiest thing to do. That 
 seems incredible, I know ; but it is true. If 
 one is going to be a Christian at all it is easier to 
 be a thorough going Christian than to be a half- 
 way Christian. It is true that a different opin- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. I9 
 
 ion prevails. Many persons think that the diffi- 
 culties of the Christian life are all encountered by 
 those who are living consistent and devoted 
 lives : that the tempter gives us no trouble so 
 long as we are sluggish and unfaithful, but that 
 he brings all his forces of temptation and perse- 
 cution to bear upon us as soon as we wake up 
 and try to do our whole duty. But that, I be- 
 lieve, is a grave mistake. The devil is not only a 
 fool, he is a coward ; and the more resolute and 
 determined the Christian is the less the devil 
 will trouble him. Over faithless and timid dis- 
 ciples he domineers like an old tyrant, as he is ; 
 from the fact of the brave and trustful soldier 
 of the cross he incontinently flies. 
 
 If the awakened conscience be a vicarious 
 conscience, exercised about other people's sins 
 fully as much as about those for which it is alone 
 responsible, — if the new activity be an activity 
 that busies itself mainly with stirring up others 
 to a performance of their neglected duties, then, 
 very likely, the access of zeal will arouse opposi- 
 tion, and what seems like persecution. And 1 
 have noticed that those Christians v/ho are 
 heard complaining that fidelity bringr^ trouble 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 are often this very sort of people who are a 
 good deal more concerned to keep their neigh- 
 bors in the right way than they are to keep 
 the right way themselves. 
 
 It is true, of course, that sometimes faithful 
 living does bring loss and suffering, but even 
 then the loss and suffering that are incurred 
 through such fidelity are a great deal easier to 
 bear than the whips and scorpions of reproving 
 conscience with which the unfaithful Christian 
 is constantly tormented. 
 
 Look at Paul and Silas down in the dark 
 hold of that Philippian dungeon at midnight, 
 -t,v their feet fast in the stocks! What are they 
 
 X"*" t^j-^^doing? Singing! The two happiest men in that 
 ^v^ / city, I warrant you ! Ask them if the thorough- 
 going fidelity to Christ of which their lives are 
 full is a hard service. Listen! One of them is 
 answering:"! take pleasure in infirmities, in 
 reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in 
 distresses for Christ's sake : for when I am weak 
 then am I strong." 
 
 In the midst of perils and persecutions, the 
 man whose heart is stayed on God thus finds 
 His perfect peace. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. 
 
 Look at those two Christians — both tempted '■ 
 to-day in the market-place. The one yields 
 to the temptation, and by an act of fraud oi 
 oppression adds a handsome sum to his hoard, 
 the price of iniquity. The other resists the 
 temptation. The act of wrong which he might 
 have done would have saved him his little 
 property ; the act of right which he did do has 
 sacrificed it all and he is penniless. Which of 
 the two, think you, will go to his couch to-night 
 with the lighter heart ? Which is the happier 
 man ? Not which will be, by and by, when the \ 
 dead small and great shall stand before God 
 and the books shall be opened, but here to-day 
 while the living, small and great, are standing 
 before God, and the angel is writing in the 
 books the record that shall be read by and by — 
 now and here which of the two men is the hap- 
 pier? If you find any trouble in answering that 
 question, may God have mercy on your soul ! 
 Not to know and feel that losses which come 
 through integrity are more to be desired than 
 gains that come through sin is to be in the 
 gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity ! 
 
 Of course one may fall into such a condition 
 
22 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 of blindness and stupor that he shall have no 
 conscience about sins of this character, but I 
 am talking about Christians now, and a man 
 without a conscience is not a Christian. The 
 Christian may take the wrong road in a matter 
 of principle — such things have happened, and 
 are happening, alas ! every day ; but he finds it 
 always a great deal harder to travel than the 
 right road would have been. Long before he 
 gets to the end of it he wishes that he had gone 
 the other way. 
 
 Let me not seem to say that straight-forward 
 honesty and fidelity in this department of life 
 is more likely to bring material losses than dis- 
 honesty and fraud. I say nothing of the kind. 
 All I say is that when tribulations do come to 
 the upright Christian he knows how to glory in 
 them ; that he has more comfort in his misfor- 
 tune than the crooked Christian has in his ill-got- 
 ten gains. But beyond all this I have no doubt 
 it is true that, even outwardly, the Christian 
 who endeavors to rule his life by the higiiest 
 standards of honesty and honor, has in the long- 
 run, and on the grand scale, a smoother and 
 easier life of it than the Christian who thinks 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. 23 
 
 that ' business is business " and that ** religion 
 is reh'gion." ** Wisdom's ways are ways of pleas- 
 antness " — pleasanter by far, and more pros- 
 perous, too, even this side the pearly gates, than 
 are the ways of folly. Of course they are. Jeho- 
 vah, and not Beelzebub is supreme in this uni- 
 verse, — in the whole of it. Never forget that ! 
 
 What has been said of the Christian's service 
 in its moral aspects is just as true of it in its 
 more strictly religious aspects. It is easier to 
 be a good and faithful Christian in every de- 
 partment of life than to be a bad and unfaithful 
 one. It is easier and pleasanter to do our duties 
 thoroughly >and promptly than not to do them, 
 or to do them in a slipshod and reluctant fash- 
 ion. They who do the most Christian work do 
 it with the least effort. It is not hard for a man 
 to serve Christ, with voice or hands or feet or 
 purse, who is at it all the time, whose heart and 
 life arc full of it. It comes to be as natural as 
 breathing, and as good as a feiist to him. Not 
 to do it would be the hard thing for him. Peo- 
 ple talk about Christian labor being a cross, but 
 it is no cross to the thorough-going Christian. 
 It is his meat and drink. 
 
24 THE CHRISTIAN WAV. 
 
 The people in the church who have the 
 hardest time are not the people who work, but 
 the people who shirk. I am speaking of co'irse 
 of those people in the church who have con- 
 sciences, who know that there is work to be 
 done, and that they ought to help in doing it ; 
 but who make up their minds not to do as much 
 of it as they can, but to do no more than they 
 must. These are the people who live uncom- 
 fortable lives. While they are neglectful and 
 disobedient conscience keeps scourging them ; 
 and when, now and then, they make a desperate 
 effort to perform some slight service for the 
 easing of this pain, they find it very hard work. 
 The joints of the spiritual frame get very rusty 
 if they are not exercised, and it hurts us to bend 
 them. And not onl> is there a feeling that the 
 effort is severe, there is also a consciousness of 
 lost power. The man who does not use his 
 strength loses his strength. Any faculty neg- 
 lected is speedily impaired. One of our mis- 
 sionaries, who has been in this country on ac- 
 count of ill health for three years told me the 
 other day that he had nearly lost the use of the 
 language in which he had learned to preach; 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIM. 25 
 
 that it would cost him months of study if 
 he should return to regain his Bulgarian 
 vocabulary. So with the language of t\u 
 spiritual life. If you do not keep speaking 
 it, you lose the use of it, and when you 
 try to open your mouth, you stammer and 
 are dumb. 
 
 Is not all this true, my friends? Perhaps 
 there may be those among you who know by a 
 sorry experience that it is true. You have been 
 trying to live a half-way Christian life, — or a 
 little less than that, perhaps ! Have you found 
 it a comfortable life? Has not a feeling of 
 unrest and dissatisfaction made its home in your 
 heart, and kept you miserable ? Has not this 
 consciousness of your waning power, this ex- 
 perience of embarrassment and painful effort 
 whenever you have tried to say or do anything 
 for Christ distressed and humiliated you ? 
 Would you not have been happier Christians, if 
 you had been more faithful Christians? Has 
 not your comfort been in exact proportion to 
 your fidelity, and have not the ease and pleas- 
 antness of the labors you have undertaken for 
 the Master, been also in exact proportion to the 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 thoroughness and promptness with which they 
 have been done? 
 
 I know that it is so. I know that there is no 
 other way in which the Christian can find any 
 peace except that perfect way in which the 
 Psalmist strove to walk. Not one of us is 
 always in it ; not one of us but wanders from it 
 now and then ; but happiness is not found any- 
 where outside of it, and they who are furthest 
 from it are furthest from true peace. All you 
 then, who have begun to be Christians, no mat- 
 ter when you began, remember that the path in 
 v/hich your feet is set leads up to perfection, 
 and that you ought to be walking on in it 
 steadily every day. To do the right perfectly, 
 whenever the right is shown ; to shun the 
 wrong always, whenever the wrong is seen ; to 
 neglect no Christian service, to leave unim- 
 proved no opportunity of Christian growth, — 
 this is the only rational thing, the only safe 
 thing, the only easy thing to do. You will not 
 always accomplish it, but you cannot afford to 
 undertake anything less. He who knows our 
 frame, because he has worn it, will be patient 
 with our failings so long as our aim is the high- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S AIiM. 27 
 
 est ; when we wander and stumble he will help 
 us to rise and will lead us back into the perfect 
 path ; and by and by, O blessed hope ! out of 
 the reach of the sin anc he stain, we shall walk 
 with him in white, in the Paradise of God. 
 
aI 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S CALLING. 
 
 Christian perfection is a sphere whose 
 hemispheres are a perfect culture and a perfect 
 service. It is of culture, I suppose, that Paul is 
 speaking, when he says that he writes to the 
 Philippians, not as one who is " already per- 
 fect," but as one who is following after perfec- 
 tion and striving to attain it. And it is to ser- 
 vice that he refers when he prays for the He- 
 brews that the God of peace will make them 
 ** perfect in every good work to do his will." To 
 be good, and to do good are the two objects set 
 before the Christian ; to develop a perfect 
 character by rendering a perfect service, is the 
 mark of the prize of his high calling in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 Which of these objects ought to be first ? 
 Should our first care be to purify and ennoble 
 ourselves, or to do good to others as we have 
 opportunity ? 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S CALLING. 29 
 
 Practically it is hard to keep these two aims 
 distinct. True culture, Christian culture, leads 
 to service, and expresses itself in service, con- 
 tinually ; while faithful and loving service is the 
 very best means of promoting Christian culture. 
 
 Something that goes by the name of culture 
 and that has nothing at all to do with service, is 
 abroad in the land. It is a culture that deals with 
 the intellect and the taste, and, to some extent 
 with the conscience, but that does not change 
 the ruling love ; a culture whose result is not the 
 enlargement of the whole nature but the refine- 
 ment of a part of it, and the crippling of the rest ; 
 a culture that shuts men out from all pursuits that 
 are not agreeable, and from all society that is not 
 stimulating, and makes self-pleasing rather than 
 benevolence the law of life. Of course the vo- 
 taries of this sort of culture, even though they 
 may be members of our churches, are not likely 
 to have much trouble in settling this question. 
 Those who love themselves so much better than 
 their neighbors that they will have nothing what- 
 ever to do with any of them but such as can 
 minister to their profit or their enjoyment are 
 not in any proper sense Christians, and are not 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 interested in discovering the relation between 
 Christian culture and Christian service. 
 
 These words are not addressed to persons of 
 this class, but rather to those who have chosen 
 Christ as their Master, and who wish to be his 
 true disciples. And any one who with a sincere 
 mind has sought to be instructed in the things 
 of his kingdom, must have learned that the law 
 of service is among the swpreme laws of that 
 kingdom. If it is not the very highest law, it is 
 surely one of the highest. For they have heard 
 the Master himself saying : 
 
 " The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship 
 over them, and they that exercise authority 
 upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall 
 not be so : but he that is greatest among you let 
 him be as the younger; and he that is chief as 
 ne that doth serve. For whether is greater, 
 he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth ? Is 
 not he that sitteth at meat ? BiU I am among 
 you as he that serveth.'' 
 
 Even those who acknowledge this Master, 
 however, and who are faithfully trying to follow 
 him, may, if you put the question to them, find 
 it difficult to answer whether holiness is more to 
 
THE christian's CALLING. 3I 
 
 be desired than usefulness. They know that 
 Jesus went about doing good, and they know 
 also that he came to save us from our sins ; so 
 that if we accept his grace and become his disci* 
 pies, we shall surely be led not only toward ser- 
 vice, but also toward sanctification. The Chris- 
 tian cannot become good without doing good ; 
 neither can he do good without becoming good. 
 A holiness which is not the handmaid of benev- 
 olence, is a spurious holiness ; a benevolence 
 which is divorced from integrity and purity of 
 life is a cheat and a snare. The Christian idea is 
 that the two must always go together, that a 
 separation of them makes a fatal breach in the 
 character. 
 
 Unhappily they are often separated. There 
 is a Pharisaism which devotes all its energies to 
 the cultivation of personal righteousness, without 
 doing anything for the good of others ; and there 
 is a sentimental philanthropy which makes out 
 that the doer of generous deeds is a saint, no 
 matter how vile his life may be. It is hardly 
 necessary to portray and denounce Pharisaism, 
 for our popular literature during the last thirty 
 years has been making this exposure so con 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 stantly and so thoroughly that nothing remains 
 to be said. It is perfectly safe to abuse the 
 Pharisee ; he has no friends. But in their cru- 
 sade against Pharisaism our sentimentalists have 
 developed a type of character which is no less 
 disgusting. That is the good Samaritan with 
 bad morals ; the man who is unfaithful in nearly 
 all the relations of life, and dissolute in all his 
 habits, but whose generous impulses lead him to 
 do a great many kind things, and even to make 
 sacrifices for his fellows. In these popular por- 
 traitures integrity and purity are not only di- 
 vorced from benevolence, but are even con- 
 trasted with it, so that the impression is some- 
 times made that it is rather a contemptible thing 
 to be just and clean ; and that if a man is only 
 kind hearted and self-sacrificing it matters not 
 how great a rake he is. Thus, to give a plain 
 instance, Mr. John Hay glorifies his hero, Jim 
 Cludso, who stood at his post and burned to 
 death, as a man who "never lied," though, ac- 
 cording to the poet's own account, he had two 
 wives, living in different parts of the country. 
 Just how a man could have two wives at the 
 same time without lying to one or both of them 
 
THE christian's calling. 33 
 
 the poet does not tell us. But infidelity of this 
 description is, in all this sort of literature, a mere 
 peccadillo ; that sort of lying doesn't count ; 
 some deed that is done with a generous impulse 
 sponges out all that shame. Sentimentalism of 
 this sort is not only sickly, it is nauseating. 
 We cannot too soon understand that generosity 
 can never be a substitute for integrity, and that 
 the character in which the two principles are di- 
 vorced is a radirally unsound character, no mat- 
 ter which of them may have the supremacy. 
 
 What, then, must be our answer to this ques- 
 tion ? Is there no choice between holiness and 
 benevolence? Are they equally to be desired? 
 Should neith'er of them take precedence of the 
 other in our thought ? 
 
 It is not an easy question to answer, because, 
 as I have shown, they cannot practically be sep- 
 arated. Yet I think that there is a choice be- 
 tween them, and that in fixing our aim in life, 
 the preference must be given to benevolence 
 rather than to holiness, to service rather than to 
 culture. The two must always go together, but 
 benevolence must lead. In their practice Phar- 
 isees and sentimentalists are equally wrong, but 
 
34 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 in their theories, the sentimentalists are a little 
 nearer right than the Pharisees. 
 
 You will see that service rather than sanctifi- 
 cation is to be our supreme aim, if you remember 
 that the law of life is the law of love. This law 
 does not forbid a rational self-love, for we are to 
 love our neighbors as ourselves^ but the tendency 
 which it gives to the affections is outward, rather 
 than inward. We are to love God with all the 
 heart, and the only proof of love is service — '* If 
 ye love me keep my commandments." We are 
 to love our neighbors as ourselves, and this love 
 can only find expression in our efforts to do them 
 good. So far then as this law is obeyed, its effect 
 must be to turn the man's thought away from 
 himself, toward God and his neighbor, — to make 
 him think that it is more important that he 
 should serve them than that he should labor for 
 his own sanctification. Of course he will not 
 neglect his own soul, — he will keep himself un- 
 spotted from the world ; but he will always put 
 above his own interests, temporal and spiritual, 
 the service of God and of his fellow men. 
 
 The first thing to do is to break the sceptre 
 of the reigning selfishness. The law of Christ 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S CALLING. 35 
 
 meets this old law that is in the members, and 
 summons it to surrender. There is no compro- 
 mise between them, — there cannot be. No joint 
 supremacy is allowed and no concurrent juris- 
 diction. '* You have been loving yourself su- 
 premely," says Christ; " now you must renounce 
 that allegiance and love God with all the heart 
 and your neighbor as yourself." 
 
 Nothing can be done for the purification ol 
 any man's character till he ceases to make self the 
 centre of his thought and effort. The first step 
 to perfection leads out of self. Therefore the 
 law of Christ is not primarily a law of culture but 
 a law of servige. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this point because it is oi 
 considerable importance. If one makes his ow^n 
 sanctification the chief object of desire and effort, 
 even though he may believe that sanctification 
 can only be secured through service and sacri- 
 fice, yet because the supreme aim centres in self, 
 all his generous acts are vitiated by the thought 
 of the advantage that is to accrue. Thus the 
 reigning selfishness does not surrender, it only 
 shifts its position and flies its flag from the 
 citadel of Mansoul, instead of the outer wall. 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 Thus many a man is as selfish in his religion as 
 he ev^er was in his trade or his amusements. 
 He is a miser of spiritual gains : his whole 
 thought is of his own moods and conditions. 
 The only remedy for this distem.per is the reali- 
 zation of the truth that the end of all Christian 
 endeavor is service, rather than culture. 
 
 Paul's question, when the light from heaven 
 smote him, was^ then, the right question : 
 ** What wilt Thou have me to do? " Not first, 
 What wilt thou have me to be ? but what wilt 
 thou have me to do ? The being is the result of 
 the doing ; the perfect Christian character is the 
 fruit of the perfect Christian conduct. And the 
 ruling motive of the conduct is not to be self- 
 love, but love for God and for our fellow men. 
 
 What answer does Paul's life give to his 
 question. When the scales fall from his eyes at 
 the touch of Ananias, and he is baptized into the 
 name of that Christ whom he came to Damascus 
 to persecute, how does he begin his Christian 
 life ? Does his first thought seem to be of self 
 improvement, or of service? We are told that 
 " straightway he preached Christ in the syna- 
 gogues. * As he began, so he went on. Through- 
 
THE christian's CALLING. 37 
 
 out that part of his Hfe of which we have knowl- 
 edge his energies were wholly given to service. 
 The moral and spiritual culture that he gained 
 was not sought as an end, it came to him as the 
 result of faithful and self-denying work. 
 
 It does not, however, follow that because 
 Paul, after his conversion, went straightway into 
 the synagogue and preached, we must all go 
 into public places and begin to preach. We 
 may adopt the same rule of service that he 
 adopted, but we may not all be called to the 
 same kind of service. Paul was a thoroughly 
 educated man : he had graduated from the most 
 famous school of Jewish learning; he was famil- 
 iar with the Hebrew Scriptures, and he was in 
 every respect qualified for the kind of labor to 
 which he devoted his life. It was a very im- 
 portant, perhaps the most important branch of 
 the Christian service that he chose ; but there 
 are many ways of doing good besides public 
 speaking, and it is quite likely that the duties 
 to which we are first summoned may be of a 
 different kind from those in which he was en- 
 gaged. 
 
 Our Master himself often preached in public 
 
^8 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 places, but that, after all, was a very small part 
 of his work. Not only did he in his conversa- 
 tions with men, in their homes and by the way- 
 side, repeat to them the Gospel of his King- 
 dom ; not only did he in his many marvelous 
 works relieve their wants, and heal their sick- 
 nesses ; by methods less marvelous than these 
 he manifested his glory, and drew men unto 
 himself. When it is said that he went about 
 doing good, I think it is meant, not only that 
 he wrought miracles of mercy, and taught with 
 lips divine the mysteries of grace, but also that 
 his presence, wherever he went, was a benedic- 
 tion ; that his kindly speech and his gentle 
 spirit, his countless words of sympathy and 
 encouragement, his nameless deeds of fidelity 
 and of friendliness, made the hearts of men 
 glow within them. That part of Christ's life 
 which was most truly divine, most deeply and 
 powerfully helpful to men, was not reported 
 because it was unreportable. It was what found 
 expression in his looks and tones, in " the man- 
 ner of his spirit," rather than in the matter of 
 his speech. 
 
 It is in these less conspicuous virtues, that 
 
THE christian's CALLING. 39 
 
 wc shall wisely begin to imitate him. *' He that 
 is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in 
 much," the Master says. If we can serve well in 
 these lower walks of usefulness we shall learn to 
 do larger duties when they summon us. 
 
 Home is a good place to begin. There is no 
 little good to be done within the four walls of 
 that temple. No service is more sacred than 
 that to which our homes call us. In no place in 
 the world can we hope to be more useful than in 
 that place wherein we spend our daily lives. 
 There are, of course, strictly religious duties 
 that we owe to those with whom we live. We 
 ought to desire their spiritual welfare above 
 everything else, and to find ways of expressing 
 that desire. But this is only one of the duties 
 that we owe them, and this duty is best done 
 when we have evinced our sincerity and our fidel- 
 ity in other ways and by many infallible proofs. 
 There are a thousand methods in which we may 
 put our religion in practice in our homes, and 
 practice goes further than preaching there and 
 everywhere. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of 
 unselfish service, and it ought to find expression 
 in all our conduct. To do good continually to 
 
4C THE CHRISTIAN WAY. • 
 
 the inmates of our homes ; to speak kindly to 
 them, always ; to lighten their burdens of care 
 and labor in every possible way ; to seek their 
 comfort and pleasure rather than our own ; to 
 Make cheerfully the little sacrifices that theif 
 happiness requires ; to be patient with their 
 faults, while faithfully and tenderly endeavoring 
 to correct them, — such service as this it is to 
 which Christ calls us in our homes. I doubt 
 whether he has any more important service than 
 this awaiting us anywhere. Yet there is reason 
 to fear that this kind of Christian work is greatly 
 overlooked. We do not always think, when we 
 ask the Lord what he would have us to do for 
 him, of the sacrifices that we may lay upon the 
 altar of the home — more precious in his sight 
 than whole burnt offerings. It is in this sphere 
 that the religious character is most sharply 
 tested, and it is in this sphere that its most 
 beautiful development is reached. The Chris- 
 tian who is thoroughly good at home, who min- 
 isters at that altar with steadfast patience and 
 loving fidelity, can hardly fail to have influence 
 away from home ; while he who fails to manifest 
 in the private walks of life the graces of that 
 
THE christian's CALLING. 
 
 religion which he commends in public places 
 can scarcely hope that his word ^\ill be with 
 power. 
 
 In other quiet ways outside the home uppor 
 tunities of service will be found. There arc 
 chances enough to say friendly words, and to 
 do helpful deeds, if one is only looking out for 
 them. There are plenty of rough places to be 
 made smooth, and crooked places to be made 
 straight, and the heart that is intent on doing 
 good will delight to discover them. And my 
 point is that these neighborly words and deeds, 
 that spring from a thoughtful regard for the wel- 
 fare of others, and a self-sacrificing purpose to 
 secure their happiness, are in the truest sense 
 Christian service. That is the most excellent 
 way of fulfilling the law of Christ ; better than 
 tongues, better than prophecies, better than 
 miracles. 
 
 Yet I am sure that many good people never 
 think of these unselfish endeavors in the little 
 details of social intercourse to promote the wel- 
 fare of their neighbors, as being in any sense 
 Christian service. Serving Christ, they think, is 
 speaking in the prayer-meeting, teaching in the 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 Sunday school, distributing tracts, visiting the 
 widow and the fatherless in their affliction, con- 
 versing with the impenitent about their souls, 
 and all such work. Now all this is important, 
 as we shall see hereafter, but after all a great 
 deal of genuine and valuable Cliristian work is 
 done in such ways as I have mentioned, in these 
 quiet ministries of brotherly kindness, and all 
 work that is done with a Christian spirit and a 
 Christian purpose is Christian work. He who 
 gives a cup of cold water in the name of a dis- 
 ciple shall in no wise lose his reward. 
 
 Of course you will not desire the temporal 
 enjoyment of your neighbors more than their 
 spiritual welfare, and in your care for their com- 
 fort you will keep wishing for the opportunity 
 and the power to do them a higher service ; but 
 the main thing is to get yourself installed in 
 the purpose and the habit of doing them good, 
 of ministering to them and blessing them in 
 every possible way. When that becomes the 
 impulse of your life it will be quite impossible 
 for you to forget their deeper necessities, and 
 the more enduring joys to which, if they are not 
 serving your Master, they are still strangers. 
 
THE christian's CALLING. 43 
 
 But you ought to remember that any honest 
 endeavor to confer benefits upon your neighbors 
 is a truly Christian service ; that in this field of 
 labor there is always plenty to do, and that it is 
 quite impossible for any of us to have too much 
 of this sort of religion. 
 
 Not only by acts of kindness can we serve 
 our fellows, but also by acts of fidelity, by stead- 
 fast adherence to truth and duty. Many ot 
 them are measuring their lives by false stand- 
 ards. Not only by our example, but also by 
 such sincere and faithful words as we may have 
 a right to speak, let us lift up before them a 
 better standard. Many of them are vain and 
 frivolous, thinking more of appearances than of 
 realities; can we not by our conduct, and by an 
 earnest word dropped now and then, show them 
 a sounder way of thinking, and a better way of 
 living? That is a most important service which 
 we render to our neighbors when we set before 
 them an example of integrity, of purity, of faith- 
 fulness to every obligation, of inflexible adher- 
 ence to the truth ; and thus by life as well as by 
 precept endeavor to lead them in wisdom's 
 ways. This kind of service calls for firmness as 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 well as kindness ; steady walking in the light of 
 our own convictions ; constant choice of duty- 
 above pleasure ; — no obtrusive thrusting of our 
 notions upon other people, but a readiness to 
 stand by them and live up to them at whatever 
 cost. By such fidelity and devotion as this we 
 can do our neighbors more good than by any 
 other method. 
 
 " Let your Hght so shine before men that 
 they may see your good works and glorify your 
 Father which is in heaven." It is all summed 
 up by saying that we ought to set out in our 
 Christian lives remembering that we are the 
 followers of one who went about doing good — 
 that his mission is our mission — that our main 
 business is to do good, and that we must not 
 look too high nor too far off for our opportunities 
 of doing good, seeing that the most and the 
 best of them lie very near our doors ; seeing 
 that the bringing of a Christian temper and of 
 a self-denying purpose into the details of our 
 home life, and into all our social and neighborly 
 and business intercourse — to brighten the lives 
 of those who walk beside us in the way, to help 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S CALLING. 45 
 
 them as we can in bearing their burdens, anj to 
 lead them if we may into the ways of truth and 
 peace — is the very highest kind of service that 
 any man can think of rendering. * What could 
 an angel more ? ** 
 
III. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 It is taken for granted that the persons to 
 wliom these words are addressed, being Chris- 
 tians, are members of Christ's church. 
 
 If they are Christians they are disciples ot 
 Christ, and the Church is Christ's school, in 
 which, by his appointment, instruction is given 
 to as many as desire to learn the word of truth 
 and the way of life. 
 
 If they are Christians, they are " workers to- 
 gether with Him," and his work in this world is 
 mainly done by organization, and the church is 
 the organization by which his work is done. 
 Much may be done, no doubt, by influences 
 purely spiritual, but as human beings now are, 
 the church of God must have an outward form, 
 a bodily organism, in order that it may live and 
 thrive in the world. There is just the same 
 need that the church should be incarnate in a 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHUkCH. 4; 
 
 visible assembly, as there was that Christ should 
 be incarnate in a visible body. No religious 
 impression can be made upon the dull senses of 
 fhe children of men without putting the re'n. 
 gious life into palpable forms. Moreover power 
 is gained by organization ; the work is subdi- 
 vided and wisely directed, and larger results are 
 obtained. It is just as unreasonable for a Chris- 
 tian to refuse to join the church and to insist on 
 doing his Christian work independently, as it 
 would be for a patriot to refuse to enlist in the 
 army that was defending his country, and to 
 insist on fighting the invader alone. In the 
 Christian warfare organization is necessary as 
 well as in the conflicts with carnal weapons ; 
 and it is therefore necessary that all the effec- 
 tive strength we have be added to our army. 
 The camp-followers may have a very patriotic 
 feeling, but it is not in that part of the force 
 that the good soldier wants to be counted. 
 
 Furthermore, if he is a Christian, he recog- 
 nizes the command of Christ as his law, and 
 Christ commands his disciples to be baptized. 
 No exceptions are mentioned, no alternative is 
 suggested. He who wishes to obey implicitly 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 the word of the Lord will avail himself of the 
 first opportunity to receive baptism as his dis- 
 ciple. His response to the Gospel will be the 
 word of the Ethiopian chamberlain. ** See. here 
 is water ; what doth hinder me to be baptized ? " 
 " But are there not Christians who are not 
 Church members ? " you ask. No doubt there 
 are ; just as there are Christians who do not 
 study their Bibles. The Bible is the revelation 
 of God to men, and Christ has commanded us to 
 study it. Yet there are those who seem to think 
 they know enough already, or who imagine that 
 they can learn of God what they need to know 
 in nature or by direct inspiration, and who there- 
 fore disobey Christ's command to search the 
 Scriptures. This command is certainly no more 
 explicit than the command to be baptized, and 
 to confess Christ openly before men. And the 
 reason of obedience is as clear in one case as in 
 the other. The Bible is the treasury of Chris- 
 tian truth, and therefore all those who desire to 
 be wise unto salvation ought to study it ; the 
 church is the organization for Christian work, 
 and, therefore, all those who desire to be about 
 the Master's business in this world ought to join 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 49 
 
 it It is true that some religious work is done 
 outside the church ; and it is also true that some 
 religious truth is found outside the Bible. 
 
 The man who professes to be a servant of 
 Christ, and yet neglects to join the church, is 
 therefore, just as foolish and just as disobedient, 
 as the man who professes to be a disciple of 
 Christ, and yet neglects to study the Bible. I do 
 not choose to take it for granted that the Chris- 
 tians to whom these counsels are addressed are 
 either foolish or disobedient, and therefore I 
 must conclude that they are either in the church 
 already, or mean to connect themselves with it 
 at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 There are, however, two doors by which men 
 go into the visible Church, the door of self-in- 
 terest and the door of consecration. The great 
 majority of those who enter the church go in by 
 the door of self-interest. The great majority of 
 those who begin the Christian life do so with 
 the hope of personal advantage. 
 
 Now let me not be misunderstood. I am not 
 saying that most of our church members joined 
 the church for the sake of increasing their busi- 
 ness, nor for the sake of securing a better social 
 3 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 position. Such an accusation would be a slan- 
 der. The number of those who seek admission 
 to our churches simply or mainly in view of 
 zi'orldly advantages that may accrue to them in 
 the relation, is, I believe, very small. The selfi 
 interest which is the ruling motive at the begin- 
 ning of most Christian lives, is of a much higher 
 and worthier type. The advantage sought is 
 not carnal but moral and spiritual. The man 
 enters the church because he expects to find in 
 its fellowship and in its worship a help in over- 
 coming sin and in attaining unto virtue. He 
 goes in because he thinks it will do him good, — • 
 that it will aid him in securing the highest good. 
 Now although this is self-interest of a very 
 wholesome sort, it is still self-interest. The 
 man's main concern is his own welfare ; his 
 thought centres on himself. 
 
 I do not complain that men go into the church 
 by this door. I am glad that they do. I wish 
 that this kind of self-seeking would begin to 
 spread. The ambition to be free from sin, to 
 build up a perfect character, is a very noble 
 ambition — next to the noblest. And if any one 
 accepts Christ as his Saviour from sin, and seeks 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CFIURCH. 5 I 
 
 to enter Christ's church because he beHeves that 
 in its associations and its services he will obtain 
 strength for his warfare with the evil, and his pur- 
 suit of the good, he ought to be most heartily 
 welcomed. If he is sincere and earnest in his 
 search after righteousness, he will soon make the 
 discovery that the sin from which he is seeking 
 to be saved is in its essence selfishness ; and that 
 the way to be rid of it is to begin to think less 
 about himself and more about others — *' to look 
 out and not in, and to lend a hand." 
 
 When he comes to that, he will find himself 
 in company with those who entered the church 
 by the other door — the door of consecratioii ; 
 whose main motive in seeking admission to it was 
 not the hope of personal advantage, but the 
 desire to help in doing the Lord's work. There 
 arc church members who came in by that door 
 There are those who, at the first surrender of 
 their lives to Christ, comprehended his saying : 
 " If any man will come after me let him deny 
 himself," — and who therefore came to the portals 
 of the church, seeking not to be ministered unto 
 but to minister. 
 
 It makes a world of difference with the com- 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 fort and the usefulness of a Christian which of 
 these motives is the ruling motive in his life. 
 The man who is seeking his own welfare as the 
 supreme object of his desire, even though it may 
 be his spiritual welfare rather than his temporal 
 advantage that he is seeking — is not in the mood 
 of service. It is vastly better that he should be 
 intent on this higher good, than that he should 
 be hungering after sensual gratification or worldly 
 gains or honors ; but so long as this is the tem- 
 per of his life he must still be numbered among 
 those who seek their own and not the things 
 which are Jesus Christ's. We are glad to have 
 people come into the church for the sake of the 
 good they can^^// but they area much less 
 useful and a much more troublesome class of 
 church members than those who come in for the 
 sake of the good they can do. Just in propor- 
 tion as the man's thoughts centre upon himself, 
 and upon the good that he is going to receive 
 from the relation, socially or spiritually, will he 
 fail to get what he is looking for. Such a per- 
 son is very liable to fall into a discontented and 
 complaining mood. Ninety-nine hundredths of 
 all the dissatisfaction that exists among church 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IX THE CHURCH. 53 
 
 members grows out of some real or imagined 
 neglect on the part of somebody to minister to 
 their selfhood. 
 
 It is said, and some of us have reason to 
 know that it is true, that great advantages of a 
 moral and spiritual nature come to us through 
 the family relation. That in these dear intima- 
 cies of the home our characters are purified, and 
 our whole natures ennobled, who does not be- 
 lieve? But in order that this result may be 
 reahzed, it is necessary that we enter into this 
 relation with the disposition and the purpose of 
 self-forgetfulness. Suppose that each member 
 of the hou^sehold is all the while looking out for 
 his own comfort or benefit ; all the while keep- 
 ing watch to see how much he is going to be 
 waited on and petted ; how much he is going 
 to be improved in his temper and his morals ; 
 whether the net result of this association is 
 going to be on the side of profit or loss in his 
 personal account — what sort of a home would 
 that be ? Does not every body know that it 
 could only be a cage of discords and alienations? 
 Is it not the plainest truth that the law of Christ 
 which bids us bear one another's burdens, which 
 
54 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 commands us to look not every one on his own 
 things but also on the things of others, is the 
 only law by which family hfe can be made en- 
 durable? And is it not the experience of those 
 who, in the household, have faithfully tried to 
 put this law in practice, that there is no happi- 
 ness to be compared with that which grows out 
 of the sweet accord, the sacred fellowship and 
 the loving ministry of the Christian home ? Well 
 Christ's law applies to his church, quite as truly 
 as to out families ; and it is quite as impossible for 
 one to derive the highest good from his associa- 
 tion with the church if his supreme thought is 
 of his own welfare, as it would be to find profit 
 in the family life with that spirit ruling him. 
 
 While, therefore, I am glad to have people 
 come into the church by the door of self-interest, 
 I know that they will be neither happy nor useful 
 there very long, if they do not rise to a higher 
 plane of action, and begin to work not for their 
 own welfare but for the good of others. And 
 by whichever door you went in, you ought not 
 to stop till you find yourselves in company with 
 those who went in by the door of consecration, 
 and who are seeking first the kingdom of God, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 55 
 
 rather than to read their own titles clear to man- 
 sions in the skies. You will not be of much use 
 anywhere till you have discovered that you are 
 not the centre of the universe, and that you are 
 the servant of one who " died for all that they 
 which live should not henceforth live unto them- 
 selves." Those members of the church that are 
 governed by this spirit never have any discon- 
 tents to ventilate; never complain of neglect; 
 never fail to find plenty of appreciation. Their 
 concern is not how much they are going to draw 
 out of the joint stock of good will and helpful 
 fellowship week by week, but how much they 
 will be able to put in. If they are troubled 
 about anything it is not that they receive less 
 than they should of notice and consideration, 
 but that they give less than they would of ser- 
 vice and brotherly kindness. 
 
 This, then, is the spirit by which every 
 Christian ought to be governed in his relation 
 to the church, because this is the spirit of 
 Christ. And if this is your spirit it will be easy 
 for you to learn to do the work to which the 
 church calls all its members. 
 
 In the first place, you will not wait for 
 
$6 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 somebody to go after you and beseech you to 
 lend your aid ; you will go yourself and ask for 
 work. '* Here am I ; send me ! " will be your 
 prompt answer to that call for laborers which 
 does not need to be spoken, because it rings in 
 all our ears continually. Go right to your min- 
 ister or your Sunday School Superintendent and 
 tell him you want something to do. It may 
 take his breath away the first time, for such ap- 
 plications are not near so frequent as the ring 
 of the tramp at the basement door bell ; but 
 never mind ! if you break it gently to him, he 
 will bear up under it, probably, and perhaps, 
 after several experiences of this sort, he may 
 even come to enjoy it. At any rate, I am ver> 
 sure that he will be able to find some service 
 for you. And why, I beg to know, is it not 
 your duty to ask for it, instead of waiting to be 
 urged to undertake it? Suppose that some 
 terrible accident occurs and scores of wounded 
 and needy sufferers are thrown upon the care of 
 the public. Immediately methods of rehef are 
 organized ; by general consent somebody takes 
 charge of the work, and gives direction how it 
 must be done. The sufferers are at your doors 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 57 
 
 in perishing need of immediate attention. It is 
 nobody's official duty to take care of them ; it 
 is simply the obligation of charity, and it rests 
 on all alike* What will you all do now ? Will 
 you sit still in your houses and wait to be sent 
 for, or will you volunteer ? What would be the 
 dictate of simple humanity ? What would you 
 think of the man who excused himself for neg- 
 lecting to do anything for these sufferers on the 
 ground that nobody had asked him to do any 
 thing? Now the need of Christian work in con- 
 nection with all our churches is really just as 
 immediate and just as urgent, as the need ot 
 charitable work in such a case. It does not 
 address itself quite so palpably to our senses, 
 but it is none the less a crying need. The 
 harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are 
 few. And no one who has any adequate idea 
 of the urgency of this work, or of the spirit in 
 which it ought to be prosecuted, will wait to be 
 urged to enter upon it. 
 
 Ask for work, then. Wherever you may be 
 sojourning, with whatever church you may be 
 worshipping, report for duty. Go right to head- 
 quarters and say : " Here I am ! I have no 
 3* 
 
58 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 boasts to utter about my own capacity, but such 
 gifts as I have I want to make the most of. 
 Use me. Jud^;e for yourself what I am good 
 for and set me at it ; I'll do my level best, what 
 ever it is. If you find that I don't succeed in 
 it, and that somebody else would do better, then 
 put somebody else in my place, and give me 
 something that I can do. I don't want the best 
 place nor the easiest place ; I want the place 
 where I can do the most good, and I want you 
 to judge where that is." 
 
 That, it seems to me, is the spirit in which 
 the church member ought to approach church 
 work. He ought to accept every service as- 
 signed to him, if it be at all possible for him 
 to perform it, and he ought to discharge its 
 duties to the best of his ability. He ought 
 not to suppose that his pastor or the leaders 
 of church work are so insincere as to assign 
 him to a service which they do not want 
 him to perform, or which they do not think 
 him capable of performing ; and their judg- 
 ment as to the best man for the work is 
 probably quite as good as his. Let him take 
 up the duty therefore cheerfully, and do 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 59 
 
 his best to justify the confidence reposed 
 in him. 
 
 Not seldom service is refused on the plea ot 
 incompetency. It is a plea that a soldier never 
 thinks of making, and that a Christian ought to 
 be ashamed to make. If you cannot stand at 
 the post assigned you, you can fall there. 
 
 Laziness and faithlessness go stalking abroad 
 in all our churches under the garb of modesty. 
 It sounds a great deal better to say *' I am not 
 capable," than to say '' I am too indoleiit," or 
 *' My heart is too full of other interests." If you 
 are the willing worker that you ought to be you 
 will have nQ occasion to resort to any of these 
 small hypocrisies. 
 
 Don't be numbered among the decliners. 
 Some of the religious teachers say that this is 
 an age of declension. However this may be I 
 am sure that it is a declining age. 
 
 Of all things doleful in speech or sign 
 This is the dolefuUest " I decline ! " 
 
 After one has heard that said four or five 
 times in the course of one meeting, he wants to 
 go home. Don't say it. Unless it is an absolute 
 
6o THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 impossibility, accept, cheerfully, every position 
 to which you are chosen. 
 
 Some one has said that the whole human 
 race may be divided into two classes, — those 
 who will serve on comm.ittees and those who 
 will not. The first class will because they say 
 " somebody must ; " the second class won't be- 
 cause they say " somebody will." Be sure and 
 belong to the first class. 
 
 Do not, however, always wait to be assigned 
 to service. There are certain services to which 
 you may assign yourself. A recruiting officer 
 in Christ's army requires no commission. The 
 work of gathering in them that are without is 
 one of the most important kinds of work, and 
 that is best done without definite plan, a^ oppor- 
 tunity offers. When you meet those who have 
 tio regular place of worship ask them to come to 
 church with you. Tell them that you will wait 
 for them at the door, and see that they are pro- 
 vided with a seat. Make them feel that they 
 will be welcome if they come, and when they 
 come, make them feel that they are welcome. 
 Have this word of invitation always in your 
 mind and lose no opportunity of speaking it. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 6l 
 
 Men are not saved by going to church, but go- 
 ing to church is a means of grace, and it is a 
 most useful work to bring those who now neg- 
 lect it to avail themselves of it. Recruit for the 
 Sunday school and the prayer-meeting also. If 
 you attend a good meeting, remember it and 
 mention it to those who were not there. If 
 they see that these social services have kindled 
 a flame of sacred love in your heart, perhaps 
 they will want to come and warm themselves by 
 the same fire. 
 
 Of course this implies that you will attend 
 yourself upon these services. By your constant 
 presence, you will do what you can to sustain 
 them. They also serve who only stand and are 
 counted. That is sometimes a most momen- 
 tous duty. And they who can always answer 
 '* Here " when the roll of the battalion is called, 
 are in that very act most useful helpers. Con- 
 cerning your active participation in these services 
 I shall have something to say hereafter. J only 
 wish now to urge the importance of giving them 
 your countenance — not metaphorically, but liter- 
 ally. There are a great many little services that 
 p/^ed to be performed in connection with every 
 
62 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 church, services which fall to nobody in partic- 
 ular and which will be neglected unless there 
 be vigilant eyes to look out for them and will- 
 ing hands to undertake them. There is a good 
 deal of business to be done which is every- 
 body's business. You know what the proverb 
 is. Let me suggest to you a better reading: 
 What is everybody's business is nobody's, and 
 what is nobody's business is mine. Look after 
 the little duties that other people are likely to 
 neglect. 
 
 There is one other work which you may 
 safely assign yourself. That is the work of pro- 
 moting acquaintance and good fellowship in 
 the congregation to which you belong. Appoint 
 yourself a member of the welcome committee. 
 Make it a point to speak a polite and pleasant 
 word not only to those who worship regularly 
 with you, but to occasional visitors and especially 
 to strangers. 
 
 '* James a servant of God and of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes which are scat- 
 tered abroad greeting^ That is the way the 
 grand old apostle begins his encyclical letter. 
 Thank God for James and the first verse of his 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH. 6^ 
 
 epistle ! Get it by heart and carry it in the grip 
 of your hand and the look of your face wherever 
 you go, but especially when you go to church ! 
 
 My friends, that is a noble and inspiring ser- 
 vice to which we are called by the church to 
 which we belong. To build it up and strengthen 
 it ; to beautify not only the place of God's 
 sanctuary but also the spiritual house of which 
 it is the shelter ; to labor in season and out of 
 season to make the church that is precious to 
 God honorable in the sight of men, — this is a 
 work that may well call forth the enthusiasm of 
 every man to whom the highest things are dear. 
 There is no kind of labor in which we can engage 
 whose result will last so long, and tell so power- 
 fully on the good of those who shall come after 
 us, as that which we give to the edifying of the 
 body of Christ. 
 
 The collegians going forth from the halls of 
 their Alma Mater, plant — each class of them- -a 
 vine that shall climb upon the walls and clothe 
 them with greenness in the summer, and with 
 purple robes in the autumn, so that hie, tarrying 
 after they ase gone and building for them shall 
 help to decorate the places that have grown so 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 dear. Let it be ours, my friends, to plant some 
 seed of truth, or some germ of love, that shall 
 live and grow after we have gone, rising from 
 the foundations of that spiritual house which i^ 
 our home, entwining itself through all its sacred 
 forms, through all its solemn ministries, and 
 helping to clothe it with beauty and with glory 
 in the centuries to come. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 
 
 We have had, of late, a good deal of talk 
 against talk. Carlyle, himself an everlasting 
 talker, set the fashion of denouncing talk ; anu 
 all the glib little fellows who have nothing to saj 
 have been swift to follow it. When there is noth- 
 ing else to ridicule, a tirade against talk is in order. 
 Doesn't it ever occur to these people that the 
 evil, if evil it be, is not mended by increasing it ? 
 that you do not cause the flood to abate by 
 emptying your own dipperful into its swollen 
 current ? 
 
 Let us have this topic treated with a little 
 discrimination. The cant about silence is as 
 offensive as any other kind of cant. There is a 
 time to keep silence, doubtless ; and there is ' 
 also a time to speak. 
 
 Of insincere talk there is reason enough to 
 complain. When a man speaks what he does 
 
66 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 not believe, when his acts steadily belie his 
 words, we may well refuse to hear him. Against 
 foolish talk, random talk, talk that expresses no 
 careful thought, we may also wisely protest. It 
 is fair to demand that he who speaks shall have 
 something to say. 
 
 No one can deny that the gift of speech is 
 easily and frequently abused. The best gifts 
 are the most liable to abuse. But to disparage 
 speech is to set at nought one of the crowning 
 distinctions between man and the lower animals, 
 to make light of the noblest faculty that God 
 has given to men. And, after all this cant about 
 silence, it remains true that speech furnishes the 
 vehicle by which thought travels, the wings by 
 which love flies. Is not the sword of the spirit 
 *^ tke word of God?" *' Talking!" — says one, 
 ** it is the only force that moves the world. 
 Voting changes no opinions — it only records 
 them. It is talking and nothing else — the mere 
 foolishness of preaching, that makes up the 
 skirmishes and the battles of our crusades of 
 politics and science and morals and religion." 
 
 Of what are our Congresses of natural and 
 social science, our educational conventions, and 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 6^ 
 
 boards of trade, made up, if not of talk? 
 What is the work of the teacher, if it is not 
 talking? And even in the household how large 
 a part of the best training is accomplished 
 through the agency of judicious and well-chosen 
 words. Here, of course, more than almost any- 
 where else, the words of the parent must be en- 
 forced by his life ; yet there is need of line upon 
 line and precept upon precept in order that the 
 laws of good conduct may be impressed upon 
 the memories of our children. 
 
 Now the work of Christ in the world, which 
 we as Christians are called to do, is done not by 
 the neglect, but by the use of this instrument of 
 speech. It is not all done by talking, as 1 have 
 already tried to show, but the emphasis which is 
 put upon preaching in the injunctions of Christ 
 to his disciples, and in the whole of the New 
 Testament, makes it plain that a very large part 
 of it is done in this way. But preaching, in the 
 New Testament sense of the word, is not al- 
 ways the formal delivery of truth by an oratoi 
 to a congregation ; it is any utterance, no mattei 
 how familiar or conversational, by which the 
 truth of the Gospel is communicated. Two mcD 
 
6S THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 are riding together along a desert road in 3 
 wagon, and one of them is said to preach to 
 the other. '' Daily in the temple and in every 
 housey' the historian of the Acts tells us^ the dis- 
 ciples " ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus 
 Christ." I do not suppose that Philip, when he 
 preached to the eunuch, or that the apostles 
 when they preached from house to house in Je- 
 rusalem, laid out their discourses with a firstly 
 and a secondly and a thirdly, or that they raised 
 their voices in a preaching tone, or that they 
 held forth solemnly while their auditor or audi 
 tors listened silently. It was not always mon* 
 ologue, when Christ and his apostles preached ; 
 it was often dialogue. Talk as well as speech- 
 making comes under the head of preaching. 
 And indeed, the best kind of speech-making, as 
 we are beginning to learn, is that which, by its 
 natural and familiar style, most closely resem- 
 bles talk. 
 
 It is highly important, then, that the young 
 Christian learn to talk well. That is an art 
 which he is bound to cultivate, the art of ex- 
 pression. Let him not be misled by the prat- 
 ing against talk of a few garrulous people who 
 
THE CIIRISriAN AS A WITNESS. 69 
 
 tliemsclvcs want to make all the noise. The 
 confession by the mouth of Jesus Christ as the 
 Saviour, the testimony of the lips to the truth of 
 bis gospel, the utterance in words of the call to 
 the heavenly life, are not matters of no conse- 
 quence, nor are they duties that can be wholly 
 done by the ministers and the deacons, or the 
 college-taught people in the churches. ''Let 
 him that heareth " not only come but ""say 
 Come !" 
 
 Paul gave thanks for the Corinthian Chris- 
 tians, not for the ministers but for the people, 
 that in everything they were enriched by Jesus 
 Christ, in all utterance^ as well as in all knowl- 
 edge. It is not less a matter of congratulation 
 in these days when Christians learn to use the 
 gift of speech wisely and well. 
 
 By the use of speech truth is imparted, but 
 that is only one of the benefits that flow from it. 
 By the use of speech our own ideas are cleared 
 and sharpened. No man knows anything very 
 well till he has tried to express it. Every school- 
 master will testify that he has learned more 
 about the sciences in which he gives instruction 
 by teaching them to others than by studying 
 
70 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 them for himself. The best way to make a 
 thing plain to your own mind is to explain it to 
 somebody else. Action and reaction are equal, 
 and therefore expression is balanced by impres- 
 sion. In all mental commerce it is better to 
 give than to receive, because one gains in giving 
 more than in receiving. The very effort to put 
 your thought about religious truth and the re- 
 ligious life into intelligible words must, then, 
 have the effect to strengthen your possession of 
 that truth and your hold upon that life. 
 
 Moreover your ideas will be likely to under- 
 go revision if you speak them out. Not unlike- 
 ly some of them are wrong. When you utter 
 them in conversation, the questions with which 
 they may be met and the doubts that may be 
 expressed about them will perhaps result in cor- 
 recting them. Talking implies listening. He 
 who talks well receives as well as imparts. He 
 may not gain so much from what is said to him 
 as from what he himself expresses ; but if he is 
 candid and modest he can hardly help learning 
 something in every conversation. And if he is 
 able to express his own thoughts clearly, those 
 who hear will almost surely be stimulated to re- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 7I 
 
 plies that will throw light upon the subject of 
 which he speaks. "He that watereth shall be 
 watered also himself." Not only correction of 
 error, but also mental and spiritual enlargement 
 and inspiration are to be gained in conversation 
 
 As a means of culture, then, and also as a 
 means of usefulness, the Christian is bo.und to 
 exercise his gift of speech. A large part of the 
 good that we receive will come through talk ; 
 much of the good that we do will be done through 
 talk. Much of it, I say ; not all of it, not most 
 of it, but much of it. We have a right to be 
 impatient with those people who seem to think 
 that talk is,the panacea for all the ills of life, that 
 there is no other kind of Christian work except 
 speech-making ; but when we refuse to accept 
 these extravagant notions, we need not deny that 
 speech is one of the weightiest instruments in 
 the propagation of truth ; we need not neglect 
 the duty of keeping this instrument in order for 
 effective service. 
 
 In order that one may talk usefully, it is 
 highly important that one should know some- 
 thing. The graces of speech are barren when 
 divorced from the gifts of knowledge. Meie 
 
THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 elegances of diction are of small account ; a fault- 
 less pronunciation and an absolute accuracy of 
 grammatical construction only make the speech 
 that co.nes from an empty head sound all the 
 more hollow. If the speaker only know some- 
 thing ; if by his study of the Word, and of him- 
 self, and of nature and of society, and of God's 
 providential order, he have learned something of 
 the nature of the Redeemer's kingdom, some- 
 thing of those deep mysteries that unfold them- 
 selves only to the humble and thoughtful student 
 of divine truth, then, no matter though his sen- 
 tences may be rudely constructed, and his words 
 barbarously pronounced, we may sit at his feet 
 as delighted and profited listeners. I do not 
 mean that there is any merit in bad grammar, 
 — quite the contrary ; but the defect is one that 
 can far more easily be borne than a lack of un- 
 derstanding 
 
 In order that we may be qualified to talk 
 well in public or in private upon religious 
 subjects, the study of good books is a great 
 help, and none of us can afford to neglect 
 it. Some underwise people, ministers even, 
 affect to despise the knowledge that comes 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. J^ 
 
 through books, and pretend to draw all their 
 inspirations from the incidents and associations 
 of common life ; but a mere horse-car or ferry- 
 boat culture is not apt to be very exalted, and 
 the sermons of the preacher who never reads are 
 Hkely to be more sensational than stimulating. 
 What the minister needs is needed also, in some 
 less degree, by every layman who wants to be 
 useful. The best minds of the ages have left for 
 us their legacies of priceless wisdom in the books 
 that they have written ; guidance and comfort 
 are in the words that hold the results of their 
 experience, and we are not wise if we refuse the 
 counsel and support bequeathed to us. I find 
 a few friends wherever I go, whose wide experi- 
 ence and clear insight and commanding convic- 
 tions make me a large debtor whenever I talk 
 with them ; but in my study any day I can sit 
 down with Pascal, or with Coleridge, or with 
 Dr. Arnold, or with Robertson, or with Bush- 
 :iell ; I can have him all to myself, in silence ; 
 I can commune with him more perfectly and 
 with larger gains of wisdom and knowledge than 
 I could hope to receive in any oral intercourse 
 with any man, and when the interview is ended, 
 4 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 I feel that I have been lifted on the wings of 
 a mighty spirit up to heights where the out- 
 look is wider than that of my daily path in life, 
 and the air is purer than that which I breathe in 
 the market-place. Such a season of communion 
 with a great soul always gives me something to 
 think about, and something to talk about. I do 
 not despise the light that I find on lowly ways ; 
 the stimulus and help that come to me in con- 
 versations with those who have written no books, 
 but whose lives are full of the fruits of a sweet 
 and sincere piety ; one needs both kinds of 
 knowledge, that which is gained from books and 
 that which is gained in daily life ; intercourse 
 with common people and with uncommon peo- 
 ple. I only desire to insist that for all of us who 
 desire to qualify ourselves to be useful, this 
 means of improvement is open ; and that while, 
 :>n account of the burden of daily cares, many 
 are not able to read as much as they would like 
 tc read, there are yet odd moments in the busi- 
 est lives that can be put to good use in this way. 
 Thus by our communion with the wise and the 
 good, we may get wisdom and understanding 
 that shall qualify us to speak acceptable words, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 75 
 
 when we sit in the house, when we walk by the 
 way, and when we stand up in the assembly of 
 worshippers to bear witness of the truth. 
 
 I have not spoken of the study of the Bible, 
 as a means whereby we may prepare ourselves 
 to talk of things divine, because I desire to de- 
 vote part of another chapter to the uses of this 
 holy Book. But it is evident that all that has 
 been said concerning the value of good books 
 applies with greatly added force to the Bible, 
 which is the best of books. None of us can ex- 
 pect to speak wisely or convincingly of things 
 divine if we neglect the sacred oracles. 
 
 It is not, however, wholly by the reading of 
 good books, not even by the study of the Bible, 
 that we perfect ourselves in the Christian art of 
 talking. We must think, as well as read. We 
 must meditate on what we read, and what we 
 hear, and what we see. We must try to apply 
 these truths of religion to life as we witness it, 
 and as we are living it ; to work out the prob> 
 lems of grace in our daily experience, and obser- 
 vation. There is time for most of us to do a 
 good deal of honest thinking about religious 
 truth. Many ol those who cannot read much 
 
'j6 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 have plenty of time to think. And they who 
 read a httle and think much are often wiser than 
 they who read much and think but little. What 
 we all need, in order to qualify us to speak un- 
 derstandingly and forcibly about these themes, 
 is daily meditation upon them. The reason 
 why many of us cannot speak on religious sub- 
 jects, or can only speak drily and clumsily, is 
 that we do not think much about them. We 
 should not find it easy to talk about politics if 
 we thought no more about politics than we do 
 about religion. We should not find it hard to 
 talk about religion if we thought as much about 
 religion as we do about politics. 
 
 Add to meditation practice. He who lives 
 well can generally talk well. Even if he does 
 not say much, what he does say means a great 
 deal. The reduction of these truths of religion 
 to the terms of daily life puts us into such 
 thorough possession of them that when we 
 speak our words like our Master's in some 
 smaller measure are spirit and life ; and we are 
 listened to as those having authority and not as 
 the scribes. 
 
 When you have thus by study, by medita- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITxXESS. 77 
 
 tion, by consistent practice, got something to 
 say and a right to say it, then open your Anouth 
 and speak. You need not wait until you have 
 read ail the books, or until you have thought 
 over all possible subjects of reflection, or until 
 you have become perfect in your Christian lives ; 
 but while you study, while you think, while you 
 faithfully live, give utterance to the thought 
 that is in you. Talk about religion. Make it a 
 common and a familiar topic. Don't be afraid to 
 talk about it. You who fear the Lord speak often 
 one to another! Do not lecture one another; 
 do not preach to one another; but converse 
 about the religious life, as you are endeavoring 
 to live it ; about your own experiences in apply- 
 ing the truth of the New Testament to your 
 daily conduct ; about your successes and your 
 failures, your doubts and your encouragements; 
 your hopes and your fears. Compare notes. 
 There will be some things in your experience of 
 which you will not desire to speak ; of which you 
 will have no right to speak. There are bounds 
 of reticence that must not be transgressed. 
 There are inner struggles through which we 
 must pass with no counsel and no sympathy 
 
THE CHRISTIAN W^Y. 
 
 save that of him who in Gethsemane agonized 
 for our deliverance. But of many phases of 
 our Christian Hfe we may freely speak to our 
 Christian friends, and our communion with them 
 may be helpful to them as well as to ourselves. 
 Do not be afraid to talk about religion with 
 those who are not Christians. It is not neces- 
 sary, however, for you to lecture them. It is 
 not best to go at them in a formal, official sort 
 of way, as if you had a duty to discharge, and 
 felt bound to do it, whether they liked it or not. 
 You can converse on the subject of religion 
 with a man without "giving him a talking to." 
 That is what few of us enjoy, be the subject 
 what it may. When you assume by your air 
 and tone that you are in some sense superior to 
 the person with whom you are conversing, — 
 that you a saint, have come to him a sinner, to 
 reclaim him from the error of his ways, you 
 immediately put him into the attitude of resist- 
 ance. Of course you do not feel any such supe- 
 riority, and your method of approach should 
 not convey such an impression. Talk with him, 
 not to him. Draw him out. Get him to tell 
 you what his thoughts of the religious life are, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 79 
 
 (for all of our neighbors have thoughts about 
 it,) and what his purposes and experiments have 
 been in trying to live religiously, (for there are 
 \ cry few who have not at some time in their 
 lives tried to be Christians.) Perhaps you can 
 help him out of his difficulties ; if you cannot 
 you may be the means of putting him into com- 
 munication with some one who can. At any 
 rate you can show your interest in him, and 
 your desire to do him good, and you can make 
 him see that you have no wish to dictate to 
 him, or to exalt yourself above him. 
 
 You must not, however, be obtrusive. Do 
 not force this kind of conversation at unseemly 
 times, and in rude ways. 
 
 When you talk, talk naturally. You require 
 no holy tones, and no theologic phrases. There 
 is no call for cant. Be cheerful about it. Don't 
 give any color to the notion that religion is a 
 gloomy subject ; that it can never be mentioned 
 without bringing a shadow upon the face and a 
 drone into the voice. Let your talk be talk, 
 not snuffling, nor wailing, nor maundering. And 
 if with a hearty good will, and a cheerful confi- 
 dence in the truth of what you are saying, you 
 
8o THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 thus beside all waters sow the seeds of truth 
 divine, doubtless you shall come again with re- 
 joicing bringing your sheaves with you. 
 
 But there is need, sometimes, of talk in pub- 
 lic places, in prayer and conference meetings, 
 and in other public meetings for religious pur- 
 poses. If these social religious meetings could 
 be made less formal and more social, so that 
 the exercises should more resemble a familiar 
 but decorous conversation, and be less like a 
 series of set speeches, the result, I am sure, 
 would in many cases be beneficial. If each per- 
 son, male or female, would feel free without 
 rising to put in a sentence or two pertinent to 
 the theme or the occasion, our conferences would 
 often be greatly enriched. Often, the substance 
 of what one has to say is summed up in one or 
 two sentences. Amplification only weakens it. 
 Tersely put it sticks in the memory and quick- 
 ens the feeling. If we could have more of these 
 sententious and informal utterances our meet- 
 ings would be greatly improved, and many who 
 now shrink from participating in them might do 
 so with profit to themselves and to the rest 
 of us. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 8 1 
 
 But even such short sayings must have 
 thought in them and Hfe behind them. Some 
 preparation is necessary, even for this unpreten- 
 tious service. And this preparation should be 
 carefully made. None of us should wait until 
 the meeting, and then expect a sudden inspira- 
 tion. Beaten oil in the sanctuary makes the 
 flame burn brightly ; and it matters not whether 
 the candlestick be set in the pulpit or in the 
 prayer-room. I believe in inspirations, most 
 heartily ; but I believe that they come to those 
 who work, not to those who shirk. When I 
 have been lazy in my preparation for the pulpit, 
 then I cannpt be confident that the Lord will 
 do my work for me ; but when I have been dili- 
 gent in making ready for the service I am always 
 sure that he will stand by me and help me to 
 preach his word. And the same rule must, I 
 am sure, hold good of those who speak in the 
 prayer-meetings. We do not need to prepare 
 set speeches — far from that ; but we do need to 
 be thinking during the week of the subject of 
 which we will speak ; of the truth to which we 
 will bear witness ; and we ought to be in readi- 
 ness to utter it clearly and promptly. If we 
 
82 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 can condense it into a very few words, so much 
 the better. 
 
 It is not, however, always possible to reduce 
 what we have to say to a sentence. Sometimes 
 several sentences will be required to convey our 
 thought. And the power to stand on his feet 
 and utter these sentences with distinctness is one 
 that every young Christian ought to cultivate. 
 The gifts of the orator are not for all, but the 
 ability to express, with clearness and simplicity, 
 any truth that we may happen to know, may be 
 acquired by all of us. It is harder for some than 
 for others to gain this power, but it is not be- 
 yond the reach of any. Some are naturally dif- 
 fident ; but repeated and persistent and deter- 
 mined effort, with faith in God's help, will over- 
 come this diffidence. First be sure that you 
 have something to say, and that you know what 
 that something is; then arise and say it. If 
 what you are trying to say is the truth, if you 
 liave verified it in your experience, then it is a 
 message which God has given you, and no doubt 
 he will help you to utter it. Believe that he 
 will. Expect his spirit to speak through you, 
 and be not dismayed if you seem to fail ; for 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AS A WITNESS. 83 
 
 the broken utterances of his feeblest children 
 are often by his convincing power applied to 
 the consciences of those who hear. Even 
 though you may succeed but imperfectly in 
 giving utterance to your thought, try it again, 
 and keep trying until your timidity disappears, 
 and the service becomes a joy. Make ready, 
 every time, the word that you will utter, pray 
 every time, that God will help you to utter it ; 
 expect always his presence and his sustaining 
 grace and you will gain, at length, this excellent 
 gift of clear and helpful speech. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 
 
 I ONCE heard a man, who was reputed to be 
 a. trickster in trade, say in a prayer meeting, that 
 what we wanted most was more religion in our 
 business. Coming from such a man I confess 
 that the utterance somewhat puzzled me. Two 
 possible explanations suggested themselves. 
 One was that the speaker was unjustly accused of 
 dishonesty — that he was not the untruthful and 
 scheming fellow that common rumor made him 
 out to be. That was the most charitable, and I 
 would fain hope, the most credible theory. It 
 might be, however, that by carrying our religion 
 into our business this man meant talking religion 
 in business hours and in business places, rathei 
 than practicing it in the transactions of trade. 
 It might be that his idea of mixing religion with 
 business was conversing with your customers 
 ovei the counter in a confidential manner about 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 85 
 
 their souls ; keeping the Bible n the money- 
 drawer, and reading a verse or two fronn it now 
 and then, for your own edification or for the 
 benefit of persons happening in ; putting a Httle 
 Scripture into an advertisement, or shpping a 
 tract into a parcel of goods, or printing a text 
 upon the envelope in which you send out your 
 trade circulars. Some such methods as these 
 might have been in his mind when he said that 
 we wanted more religion in our business. His 
 conscience might have reproved him for not re- 
 sorting to these evangelistic devices more fre- 
 quently in connection with his trade, while it did 
 not at all 4:rouble him on account of any lies that 
 he might have told, or any sharp tricks that he 
 might have played upon his customers. 
 * It is a melancholy fact that there are a good 
 many people in our churches whose conscience 
 is of just this quality. It is punctilious about 
 deeds of piety, it is careless about works of 
 righteousness. I do not say that such people 
 are never Christians ; sometimes they are, no 
 doubt ; they really mean to do right, and their 
 failure is due to an imperfect education more 
 than to conscious and intentional hypocrisy. 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 Their method of mixing business with religion 
 will however, scarcely approve itself to any well 
 instructed conscience. 
 
 I do not say that a business man should 
 never seize upon the opportunities that come to 
 him in business intercourse of speaking on the 
 subject of personal religion. Such occasions 
 will present themselves, and he who is ready to 
 do good to all men as he has opportunity will 
 not neglect them. Ordinary common sense will 
 however, suggest one or two maxims that may 
 well be observed by those who undertake to do 
 good in this way. The first is that the merchant 
 or clerk who talks religion to a customer, must 
 be sure that the customer has entire confidence 
 in his integrity as a man of business. The word 
 of exhortation is not likely to be mixed with 
 faith in them that hear it, if it is spoken by the 
 lips of one to whom suspicions of sharp practice 
 have somehow attached themselves. 
 
 The second is, that the imputation of making 
 gain of godliness ought not to be incurred. If 
 our zeal for religion has the appearance of being 
 a device to get the favor of a certain class of cus- 
 tomers, it will do more harm than good. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 8/ 
 
 On the whole, therefore, while I do not doubt 
 that it may sometimes be the duty of the busi- 
 ness man to use the intercourse between himself 
 and his customers for evanf^elistic purposes, it 
 seems to me that there are other ways in which 
 a Christian man may more successfully introduce 
 his religion into his business. It is not so much 
 by making the store or the office or the shop a 
 preaching place, as by making it a practicing 
 place, that he most conclusively proves the 
 gospel true. If in all his transaction:: the fact 
 appears that his conduct is guided by strict 
 integrity, his religion will get abundant honor. 
 
 The Christian in business is, then, first of all, 
 an upright man. He is one on whose word all 
 his neighbors unhesitatingly depend ; he is one 
 who is never known to take an unfair advantage 
 in a bargain ; he is one who " sweareth to his 
 own hurt and changeth not." The Christian 
 man of whom this can be said wins for his Mas- 
 ter a meed of respect that few other servants 
 have the power to gain. I know of no man 
 who wields a more powerful influence than the 
 business man who shows that his religion keeps 
 nim scrupulously honest. 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 The young Christian who has devoted his 
 !ife to business need not then imagine that he 
 has chosen a calHng in which the opportunities 
 of usefuhiess are Hmited. There is no more fruit- 
 ful service than that to which the man is called 
 who practices religion in the midst of the temp- 
 tations of trade. 
 
 The first and most conspicuous of the traits 
 by which the Christian in business will shine 
 forth as a light is truthfulness. This is indeed, 
 the fundamental virtue. In every system of 
 morals, in every estimate of character, we must 
 put truth first. Without veracity and the con- 
 fidence which rests upon it, society cannot exist. 
 That is the fair bond by which the social order 
 is compacted. ^' Wherefore putting away lying, 
 speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we 
 are members one of another." Every lie that is 
 told disturbs the security of the neighborhood, 
 and weakens the foundations of the state. Every 
 lie that is told hurts not only the man that tells 
 it, and the man that is deceived by it, but ako 
 the whole community ; for it helps to impair the 
 confidence of men in one another ; and it is upon 
 this basis of confidence that our civilization rests. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 89 
 
 Truthfulness, I say, is the virtue to be first 
 cultivated not only by the merchant, but by the 
 laborer, the mechanic, the professional man 
 Even the journalist with all his shining traits can 
 well afford to covet this best gift. The professor 
 of theology, the minister of the gospel, who dis- 
 sembles or prevaricates in the execution of hia 
 trust, who hides the truth that he thinks, and 
 teaches a doctrine that he does not believe ; 
 whose words flow on in the channels of tradition, 
 while his convictions have made for themselves 
 another channel out of sight, is surely doing all 
 he can to undermine the faith of men not only 
 in the docti:ine that he teaches but in truth 
 itself. Such insincerity will out. It cannot be 
 hid. And when one who stands to unfold the 
 divine oracles is found to be paltering with words 
 in a double sense, or teaching orthodoxy with 
 his lips while his thought is far from it, a terrible 
 blow is dealt at the very foundations of faith in 
 the hearts of men. It is not necessary that every 
 crude questioning, every undigested speculation 
 of the religious teacher should be spoken forth ; 
 but when, after fair investigation, he reaches any 
 conclusion respecting religious truth, it is his 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 duty to utter it, even though it may put him out 
 of sympathy with those to whom he ministers. 
 *' Between us be truth," always and by all means. 
 The people may be glad to have their minister 
 agree with them, but they will not, it is to be 
 hoped, be so base as to demand that he should 
 pretend to agree with them when he does not. 
 They will not regard the teacher who insincerely 
 speaks their thought as a better man than the 
 one who sincerely speaks his own. They will not 
 make it perilous for the man to be sincere, by 
 banishing from their presence all who do not 
 voice their convictions. Disagreement is to every 
 honest seeker after truth an evil infinitely less to 
 be dreaded than deceit. 
 
 I have dwelt upon the need of truth between 
 the teacher and the taught, because the depart- 
 ment is one concerning which I have a right to 
 speak. But I cannot see why the obligation of 
 sincerity does not rest alike upon all men in all 
 callings. Falsehood is the fundamental evil. 
 The Devil is the father of lies. His kingdom 
 rests upon deceit. And it will never be ovei- 
 thrown till all Christians put away lying utterly, 
 and speak every man truth with his neighbor. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 9I 
 
 Veracity is no more necessary in commercial 
 life than in domestic life or social life, but it is 
 perhaps more difficult to practice the virtue in 
 trade than anywhere else. There are so many 
 motives to lie, there are so many ways of lying, 
 the atmosphere of the market is so charged with 
 falsehood, that it is often very hard to tell the 
 exact truth. The usages and traditions of trade 
 in many quarters are such that one who under- 
 takes to be truthful will find himself rowing right 
 against the current. Not seldom the question 
 of livelihood will be raised if he resists the bad 
 practice. 
 
 A young man in this city entered a dry goods 
 store (not now open, I am happy to say) in which 
 a bankrupt stock was being disposed of. But 
 new goods were constantly added to the bank- 
 rupt stock, and one of the tricks of the establish- 
 ment was this. The new goods were all marked 
 twice, a very high price was put upon the tag 
 with ink; then that was marked out with pencil, 
 and a much lower figure was written underneatlu 
 The customer was shown this tag by the clerk 
 who was required to say, " Here ! you can see 
 what Mr. So and So was selling these goods for 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 and what a reduction we have made." The 
 young man did not think this method of doing 
 business exactly honorable, but I am sorry tc 
 say that he had not the moral courage to refuse 
 to do it. It takes some moral courage to do just 
 right always in hard times like these, when situa- 
 tions are not plenty, and the prospect of long 
 idleness, if not of starvation, opens before every 
 man who loses his place. Nevertheless, the case 
 is very plain. No man can afford to lie. That, 
 in the long run, is the most expensive and the 
 most ruinous of all indulgences. And especially 
 is the Christian restrained by his vows of allegi- 
 ance to Him who is the Truth, from such base- 
 ness. It takes some moral courage to tell the 
 truth, but I should think that it would require 
 some immoral courage in a Christian man to lie, 
 right before God and the angel that is writing in 
 the book of life ; right under the sad reproving 
 look of Him who came to bear witness to the 
 truth, and who cannot, surely, witness without 
 pain the falsehoods of his disciples. 
 
 No, my friend, it will not do to lie The 
 employer who requires it of you is a man whom 
 you cannot afford to work for. Shake off the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 93 
 
 dust of your feet for a testimony against him 
 and go. Trust in the LorcJ and do right and 
 you will be better off, even in this world, than if 
 you trust in the devil and do wrong. But there 
 is no conceivable privation or suffering that the 
 Christian man will not gladly encounter sooner 
 than be guilty of untruth. 
 
 Let this law of truthfulness be your guide in 
 all your business life, whether you are principal 
 or agent, merchant or clerk. Don't suppose 
 that you are absolved from blame when you 
 employ another to do wrong or when you are 
 employed by another to do wrong. If you con- 
 sent to it, you are responsible for it. Never 
 misrepresent the quality of what you are selling, 
 never be silent if you know that one with whom 
 you are dealing is deceived to his detriment. 
 If you know that the article appears to him to 
 be what it is not, undeceive him. If the label 
 on the goods lies, whether as to quantity or 
 quality, (and most labels do) expose the false- 
 hood before the goods pass from your hands. 
 Have no part nor lot in the abominable trick- 
 eries by which the trade of the world is infested. 
 Do your utmost to expose them, to prevent 
 
94 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 them, to make them disgraceful and unprofita 
 ble. If as a Christian man you can succeed in 
 raising, though it be only in a small degree, the 
 standard of truthfulness among the business men 
 of the community in which you live, in making 
 veracity more honorable and deceit more despi- 
 cable, you will be helping mightily to build up 
 the kingdom of your Redeemer in the world. 
 
 Closely connected with this virtue of truth- 
 fulness is the virtue of honesty. The honest 
 maji must be truthful ; the truthful man can 
 hardly be dishonest. He who recognizes and 
 respects his neighbor's right to the truth is not 
 Hkely to trespass against any other of his neigh- 
 bor's rights. It is not safe for a man to steal 
 who will not lie ; he is sure to be caught at it. 
 A thief who was not also a liar would be a moral 
 curiosity. If the foundation of character be 
 laid in truthfulness, there is therefore no doubt 
 but that the life that is built upon it will be an 
 honest life ; nevertheless, it is well for the young 
 Christian to remember that his religion does 
 imply not only sincerity of speech, but careful- 
 ness to respect other people's rights of property 
 In a good many small things it is the way of the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 95 
 
 world to be dishonest ; but the Christian hears 
 his Master saying: "He that is unjust in the 
 least, is unjust also in much." One cannot be 
 too scrupulous in such matters. 
 
 The private secretary of the late Chief Jus- 
 tice Chase told me that during the whole of his 
 official life at Columbus as Governor of Ohio he 
 always kept a separate stock of stationery and 
 stamps, for his own private correspondence, and 
 never used the supply furnished him by the 
 State except for official business. It was a small 
 matter but it indicated the integrity of the man, 
 which in all the earlier and better part of his life 
 was so illustrious, and which, if toward the close 
 of his life it ^seemed to be somewhat dimmed 
 only faded with the waning of his mental power 
 Judge Chase's practice was none too strict. In a 
 public officer it seems almost incredible, but 
 whether a man be dealing with the property of 
 the State or with the property of an individual, 
 he can be none too scrupulous about taking that 
 which does not belong to him. Even the Gold- 
 en Rule will not serve us here. For if we are 
 so careless or so generous as not to be disturbed 
 when others make free with our possessions, that 
 
96 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 will not justify us in making free with the pos- 
 sessions of others. I had a neighbor once, — a 
 most obliging man, always ready to do me a 
 iavor, and equally ready to help himself without 
 asking to anything that belonged to me. I 
 confess that he was one of the most difficult 
 neighbors to deal with that I ever had. I did 
 not want to warn him off, peremptorily, from 
 my premises ; but it was very aggravating to see 
 how little respect he had for my rights as a pro- 
 prietor ; how utterly confused were his notions 
 of mine and thine. This lack of precision in 
 defining and respecting property rights very 
 often leads to gross dishonesty. 
 
 Promptness in meeting his engagements is 
 another distinguishing mark of the Christian in 
 business. Truthfulness underlies this virtue 
 also ; it is one of the forms in which truthful- 
 ness is exhibited. In these days it is sometimes 
 haid for the best of us to be punctual in keeping 
 our promises. " We are members one of an- 
 other ; '* and the failure of one neighbor to 
 keep his engagement with me, may make it im- 
 possible for me to keep my engagement with 
 another neighbor. I suppose that we must all 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 97 
 
 be patient ; that is one way in which, in these 
 times, we are to bear one another's burdens. 
 But the Christian man will be very careful not 
 to enter into any engagement which he does not 
 see his way clear to fulfil. He will not recklessly 
 take upon himself obligations which he has no 
 visible means of discharging. He will not let 
 his imagination or his hopefulness delude him 
 into making promises which he cannot perform. 
 
 Just here, I think, some Christian men who 
 mean to be honest make deplorable mistakes 
 and bring great scandal upon the church. They 
 are altogether too sanguine. They take coun- 
 sel in their business ventures of their hopes 
 rather than pf experience and judgment. And 
 thus they take upon themselves obligations 
 which they never can meet and drag others 
 along with them into loss and suffering. Now 
 it is well to be hopeful, but it is not well to be 
 visionary ; and the Christian is bound to culti- 
 vate a sound mind, a sober judgment in all 
 these matters, and to be very cautious how he 
 ventures upon any undertaking whose success is 
 not reasonably certain. 
 
 Every Christian, -whether engaged in com- 
 5 
 
98 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 mercial pursuits or not, ought to be sure that 
 he knows what his income is, and ought to be 
 careful that his expenditures do not exceed it, 
 unless he has a surplus on which he can draw. 
 lie who, with nothing laid by, is spending more 
 than he is earning, is living at somebody else's 
 expense. This may sometimes be necessary, 
 but when it is done there ought to be a fair un- 
 derstanding. Those who are thus assisting us 
 ought to know just what they are doing ; then, 
 if they are able and willing to continue the 
 assistance, and we are willing to accept it, no- 
 body will have any complaints to make. 
 
 Fidelity to trusts is another form in which 
 Christianity displays itself in business. The 
 property of others is sometimes committed to 
 our care. It then becomes our duty to deal with 
 it much more carefully than if it were our own, 
 to refrain especially from any use of it which 
 the owner himself would not approve. We have 
 no right to employ it in any private specula- 
 tions. We have no right to use it unless there is 
 a distinct understanding to that effect. Money 
 for charitable purposes or money belonging to 
 social organizations, that comes into your hands 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 99 
 
 ought to be kept sacredly separate from your 
 personal and private funds. It is not right to 
 .use it, trusting that you will be able to replace it. 
 No matter how fair the prospect may be of mak- 
 ing this restoration, you cannot be sure of any- 
 thing in the future, and the only safe way is not 
 to touch a penny of it. 
 
 The appropriation of trust funds is a crime 
 which has been increasing in frequency of late. 
 Many shocking instances of this kind of infidel- 
 ity on the part of professing Christians have 
 come to light. The treasurer of one of our 
 leading benevolent societies was accustomed 
 not long ago to receive funds entrusted to him 
 for investment. Several poor widows put their 
 little all into his hands, and some of the mis- 
 sionaries of the American Board, who had 
 saved a little money, sent it to him to be safely 
 placed. 
 
 Instead of putting it into good securities he 
 used it to set up a dissolute son of his in business 
 at the West, and every dollar of it was sunk. 
 One good and well-known missionary lost the 
 small savings of a life-time by this infidelity. 
 
 Now between an act like this and that of the 
 
lOO THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 burglar who blows open your safe with nitro- 
 glycerine and runs away with your bonds de- 
 posited there, I confess the burglar's operation 
 seems to me a good deal more respectable. 
 Such a reckless and irresponsible use of trust 
 funds is one of the gravest of crimes. Yet I 
 suppose that this man had accustomed himself 
 to taking other people's money for his own use 
 or for speculation and replacing it afterward, till 
 he had come to feel that it was a perfectly legiti- 
 mate transaction. The ethics of financial trust 
 need to be revised and enforced with all solem- 
 nity upon every man who stands in this relation. 
 ** It is required in stewards that a man be found 
 faithful," that he keep, sacredly, that which 
 is entrusted to him, and that he refrain from 
 using it for private or speculative purposes. 
 
 Closely connected with this is the question 
 whether it is the duty of a bank officer to defend 
 with his life the property entrusted to him. I 
 cannot doubt that it is. At any rate, the bank 
 officer has no right, 1 am sure, to assist in rob- 
 bing the bank. He had better sacrifice his life 
 than be a thief or the partner of thieves. The 
 soldier guarding the arsenal who should be cap- 
 
TlllC CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. lOI 
 
 turcd and threatened with death if he would not 
 open to the enemy the building he was set to 
 guard and aid them in pillaging it, would be 
 execrated if he should save his life by such an 
 act of baseness. I see not why the honor of 
 a bank officer ought not to be as sacred as the 
 honor of a soldier. 
 
 Finally, the Christian in business will prove 
 that his religion is genuine by making his busi- 
 ness always subordinate and tributary to his 
 religion. He will not feel that business is the 
 principal thing ; he will not act as if he thought 
 that the gains of trade are of more consequence 
 than the treasures laid up in heaven. If " a 
 Christian in business," be the title that describes 
 him, the emphasis will rest on " Christian," 
 rather than on ** business." He will seek first 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, be- 
 lieving that all needful things will be added after 
 that. "Not slothful in business," says Paul; 
 but that is a measured phrase, a negative phrase 
 •* fervent in spirit serving the Lord ; " that is an 
 energetic phrase, a positive phrase. There is no 
 testimony by which the Christian business man 
 can more strongly support the faith which he has 
 
102 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 professed, than by showing to all those with 
 whom he deals that the concerns of religion are 
 dearer to him than those of traffic ; that he is 
 more ready to forego a business advantage than 
 a Christian duty. And not only by keeping 
 business under, and giving religion the supreme 
 place in his life will he win honor for his Master, 
 but also and most effectively by using his busi- 
 ness benevolently, by conducting it not solely 
 with an eye to personal aggrandizement, but also 
 as a means of serving others. We are all able 
 to see in a time of depression like the present, 
 how great is the service that the man renders to 
 his neighbors who is able to give them employ- 
 ment, by which they may gain a livelihood. I 
 know some good Christian gentlemen who have 
 engaged in business of late for this reason, 
 because they desired to provide work for those 
 who were idle. It is a most excellent and Chris- 
 tian thing to do, and I trust this method of 
 doing good will become more and more popular. 
 When Christian business men generally begin to 
 comprehend this truth, that the enterprises in 
 which they are engaged may be and ought to be 
 carried on with benevolent thoughts ; that the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN BLSINESS. I03 
 
 faculty of organizing business is one of the 
 talents of which a Christian use must be made ; 
 that the people in their employ are not their 
 foes nor their menials, but their brethren beloved, 
 in whose welfare they have a special interest, foi 
 whose good in all things, temporal and spiritual, 
 they are especially to care, the kingdoms of this 
 world will speedily become the kingdoms of 
 Jehovah and of his Christ. This realm of mam- 
 mon, with its selfish maxims and its sordid ten- 
 dencies and its fierce competitions, is now the 
 stronghold of the world's evil, and the only force 
 that can successfully lay siege to it and take it 
 for Christ is a consecrated army of Christian 
 business m^n. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. 
 
 The Christian is a member of society. Not 
 only does he belong to that larger society which 
 constitutes the state, but also to that smaller 
 community which is gathered in the city o' che 
 village or the rural district where he dwells. This 
 is not a close corporation, into which non '; are 
 admitted save by the vote of those already be- 
 longing; it is not even a body politic, limiting 
 by rules more or less wise the rights of citizen- 
 ship : it is a natural organism into which every 
 human being is born; and the duties that per- 
 tain to it are no more optional than are our 
 duties to God. The individual has no more 
 power of determining whether or not he will be 
 a member of society than the hand has of deter- 
 mining whether or not it will be a member of the 
 body. The hermit is not absolved from social 
 obligations ; he may forswear them, but he cannot 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. I05 
 
 escape them no matter how deep the seclusion 
 into which he may be plunged. 
 
 It is not left w^ith any one to choose 
 whether he will be a member of society or not. 
 Is the drop requested to choose whether it 
 will be a part of the river, or the twig to makeup 
 its mind whether it will belong to the tree? 
 Here you are in society ; and you are of it, as 
 well as in it; into its relations and its obligations 
 you were born and you will not escape from 
 them until you die nor even then. 
 
 What then is the nature of the debt which 
 the Christian owes to society ? Simply and 
 comprehensively, it is the debt of love: "As we 
 have opportunity therefore, let us do good to 
 all men." Our best opportunities of doing good 
 are those which grow out of our relations to the 
 people who live in our own immediate neighbor- 
 hood. To secure their welfare, to promote their 
 happiness, to improve, in all laudable ways, the 
 conditions of their life — this is our duty to them. 
 The community in which we live has interests 
 which we ought to consider and help in advan- 
 cing. Of course its religious interests are para- 
 mount, and the Christian will make these his 
 5* 
 
I06 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 peculiar care. But there are other things that 
 lie is bound to care for. If all his neighbors 
 were converted, and were walking in the fear of 
 the Lord, his duties to society would not be 
 ended ; they would be only just begun. A great 
 many things can be done for the good of the 
 saints that are in the earth ; to improve their 
 circumstances and to cheer and brighten their 
 lives. And Paul says that we are to do good 
 not only to the saints but to all men as we have 
 opportunity. 
 
 How, then, is the Christian to discharge this 
 debt of love that he owes to the society in which 
 he lives? After he has performed his religious 
 duties in what other ways can he do good to his 
 neighbors ? 
 
 In the first place he ought to do all that he 
 can to promote the health of the neighborhood 
 in which he lives. Health is of all things tem- 
 poral the chief good ; life is a burden without it 
 and earthly possessions and gains are of small 
 account when it is wanting. The apostle prayed 
 for the well-beloved Gaius that he might prosper 
 and be in health, even as his soul prospered. 
 You may well pray and labor, too, for those 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. lO/ 
 
 »vhose souls are prosperous that their bodies 
 may be sound. It is not true that all moral 
 evil has its source in physical disease, but it is 
 true that a considerable part of the sin as well 
 as of the suffering of this world is directly con- 
 nected with morbid bodily conditions. Who- 
 ever helps, therefore, to improve the general 
 health of the neighborhood, — to banish malaria, 
 to guard against infection, to provide good drain- 
 age and good water, to make all the surround- 
 ings wholesome and salubrious, is doing part of 
 his duty as a Christian in society. 
 
 In the second place the Christian is bound 
 to do what he can toward improving the morals 
 of the neighborhood in which he lives. He 
 does this first and most effectively by himself 
 obeying the moral law ; by speaking truth and 
 doing justice and by keeping himself pure from 
 the pollutions of vice. But he must also bear 
 witness against the evil as it appears in the com- 
 inunity, and do his utmost to create a public 
 sentiment by which it shall be exterminated. 
 As he meets his neighbors day by day, he will 
 stir up their pure minds to abhor the wrong, and 
 to make war upon it. And when the conflict 
 
I08 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 comes, as it often does come, between vice and 
 virtue in the community; when a determined 
 and organized effort is made to check the rava- 
 ges of wickedness, then he will be ready to fight 
 as well as talk ; to take risks and endure hard- 
 ships if need be in the service of social virtue. 
 He is a very poor sort of Christian who is not 
 outspoken and aggressive in his championship 
 of morality, and in his hostility to disorder and 
 corruption. '* Ye that fear the Lord hate evil." 
 The Christian is bound to cultivate hatred of 
 evil as well as love of goodness and to exercise 
 this grace by grappling with the evil, as it in- 
 trenches itself in society, and makes war upon 
 the peace and welfare of his neighbors. 
 
 Again, the Christian in society will seek to 
 promote intelligence. Knowledge is a gift that 
 he will covet for himself, and that he will be 
 glad to see conferred upon his neighbors. He 
 will be deeply concerned for the interests of a 
 true and generous culture in the community in 
 which he lives. He will desire that it may be 
 an enlightened community. He knows that ig- 
 norance is the parent of superstition, of jealo-.isy, 
 of all unkindness. He knows that every truth 
 
TIIK CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. IO9 
 
 is God's truth ; that every true word is God's 
 word ; and he believes that the entrance of 
 God's word giveth light, that it giveth under- 
 standing to the simple. Therefore he seeks to 
 let light into all dark places, and all clouded 
 minds ; and does whatever he can to increase the 
 brightness of the beam that shines from science, 
 or from history, or from philosophy or from lit- 
 erature, into the daily life of the people among 
 whom he dwells. There are many things that 
 we can do as individuals or by voluntary associ- 
 ations to promote culture in the community. We 
 can improve our own minds, for one thing, by 
 reading and study, so that our conversation 
 may be stimulating and helpful to others. If 
 we would furnish ourselves with something to 
 talk about, so that when the weather and the 
 hard times and the election news are exhausted 
 as topics of conversation we need not resort to 
 gossip, but might be able to impart something 
 really instructive and enlightening, we could do 
 a valuable missionary work in a quiet way, on 
 behalf of culture. " To do good and to com- 
 municate forget not," says an apostle, " for with 
 such sacrifices God is well pleased." " To com- 
 
no THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 municate " what? Charity, no doubt, where 
 charity is needed ; sympathy when sympathy is 
 called for ; and always thoughts, wise thoughts, 
 high thoughts ; truths that kindle the better 
 life within ; that strengthen the soul's hope and 
 widen its horizon. 
 
 Then there are numberless ways in which 
 we may aid in spreading knowledge among our 
 neighbors, and in quickening their thirst for it. 
 By encouraging the dissemination of a pure lit- 
 erature, by helping to establish libraries and 
 reading rooms, by joining in the patronage of 
 useful lectures, by forming circles for reading 
 and study, so that the leisure hours may be 
 given to the enriching of the mind rather than 
 <o its impoverishment, as they so often are, — by 
 all such methods we may prove ourselves friends 
 of knowledge, and worthy laborers in that fruit- 
 ful field where light is sown for righteousness. 
 In such ways and in every way the Christians of 
 the community ought to be known as the apos- 
 tles of true culture, as children of the light. 
 
 Beauty as well as truth claims the counter 
 nance of the Christian in society. God has 
 made everything beautiful in its season. God 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. II T 
 
 loves beauty. It is one of the divine attributes. 
 And we who are his children will honor him if 
 we do what we can to fill the homes and the 
 hearts of the people among whom we live with 
 the beauty that helps in some degree to reveal 
 God to them. 
 
 It is also a Christian duty to promote 
 acquaintance and sociableness among neigh- 
 bors. Not only ought members of the same 
 church to know one another, but people living 
 in the same neighborhood owe one another 
 friendly offices, and ought to meet novv and 
 then, for purely social purposes. Our churches 
 claim much of our time and sometimes exhaust 
 our good fellowship, but it seems to me that 
 our fraternal intercourse should overflow the lim- 
 its of church relationship, that we may not seem 
 to be sectarian and exclusive in our religious 
 life. In every community, whether it be city or 
 village or farming district, much may be done 
 by the exercise of a kindly hospitality and by 
 the cultivation of a social spirit to make life 
 pass pleasantly and to lighten the burden ot 
 daily care. If our social assemblies could al- 
 vays be without pararle or formality ; if they 
 
112 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 were less devoted to the exhibition of finery and 
 more to the cultivation of friendliness ; if they 
 were not so vulgarly expensive in the ordering 
 as they sometimes are, but were more homelike 
 and unpretentious in their style, they might be 
 very useful. And the Christian in society will, 
 if he is an intelligent Christian, use all his influ- 
 ence to restore to the social life of the commu- 
 nity where he lives these simpler manners. 
 
 In these gatherings for social purposes and 
 in other places diversions of one sort or another 
 will be provided, and it is the duty of the Chris- 
 tian to assist in providing these, and by partici- 
 pating in them to preserve them from the abuses 
 that often infest them. Recreations and amuse- 
 ments are not only not necessarily sinful, they 
 are indispensable adjuncts of social life. Young 
 people need them and so do old people ; the 
 rich want them, and not less do the poor. The 
 business man, loaded with cares and goaded by 
 anxieties, requires occasional relaxation • the 
 laboring man, whose toil is monotonous, and 
 whose life is desolate, wants some pleasant pas- 
 time now and then in which he can forget him- 
 self. Rest is not enough ; the mind needs 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. II3 
 
 diversion. There is excellent tonic in " a good 
 time " for the jaded and anxious worker. " A 
 merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Ex- 
 perience teaches that people will have amuse- 
 ments. They cannot do without them. And 
 it is therefore the duty of the Christian in society 
 to take hold of this department of life and 
 Christianize it. The thing can be done — there 
 is no doubt about it, — and it must be done. It is 
 quite vain for Christians to stand aloof from all 
 the diversions of society, complaining of the 
 evils connected with them ; they must enter 
 heartily into them, and guard them against the 
 evils. What is more, they must learn to use a 
 little common sense in their treatment of all 
 these questions of amusement, and when a pas- 
 time, in itself innocent, is badly abused, they 
 must direct their censure not at the pastime 
 but at the abuse. It is sometimes a great service 
 to reclaim a diversion that has fallen into the 
 hands of the devil, and to show how it may be 
 harmlessly and helpfully used. That makes the 
 good apparent and the evil also manifest, and 
 establishes a principle which it is always safe to 
 fellow 
 
114 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 It is always important that the Christian who 
 enters into society, into the social assembhes 
 and the diversions of the day, go always as a 
 Christian ; that he be not subservient to the cus- 
 toms and conventions of society, many of which 
 are foolish and some of which are sinful. He 
 is to govern his conduct not always by the 
 usages of society but always by the law of 
 Christ. When the two come into conflict he can 
 never hesitate for a moment as to which he 
 shall obey. And the man who thus in utter fidel- 
 ity to the higher law goes out into society and 
 lets his light shine will be as a city set on a hill 
 that cannot be hid. 
 
 Some of these interests that I have men- 
 tioned, as esthetic culture, sociableness, diversion, 
 can only be cared for by voluntary effort. But 
 those more important ones which I mentioned 
 first, health, morality, and education, are largely 
 entrusted to the care of the laws. Much can be 
 done to promote these interests by private effort 
 and voluntary association ; but as our society is 
 at present organized, the government of the 
 town or the city takes upon its shoulders the 
 greater part of the burden. But what is as- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. II 5 
 
 sumed by the government is not withdrawn from 
 the sphere of Christian activity, because the 
 Christian is a citizen, and it is part of his Chris- 
 tian duty to see to it that the government is 
 wisely chosen, and that it faithfully performs its 
 duties. One of the first and most urgent of the 
 duties of the Christian in society is to see that 
 good laws are made and good magistrates 
 elected. There is no better opportunity of doing 
 good than that which presents itself where re- 
 sponsible offices are to be filled. The welfare ot 
 the community depends in no small degree upon 
 the men to whom its affairs are entrusted. And 
 the best men do not gravitate into office ; they 
 must be put in by main strength and kept in by 
 resolute endeavor. The price of liberty and 
 good government is not only eternal vigilance 
 but eternal courage and eternal sacrifice. The 
 Christian citizen must never think the victory 
 over bad government won ; like the battle with 
 sin in his own heart the conflict must be renewed 
 boldly every day. 
 
 The Christian in society is, as I said at the 
 beginning, a member of that larger society 
 which we call the state or the nation ; and aU 
 
Il6 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 that has been said about the duty of securing 
 good iaws and good magistrates for the town or 
 the city applies with still greater force to those 
 higher and more responsible relations into which I 
 oar citizenship in the commonwealth and the 
 republic introduces us. The political duties of 
 a Christian are among the most important du- 
 ties that he is called to perform. If in any part 
 of his service he needs the wisdom of the Most 
 High to guide him, he needs it when he deter- 
 mines upon his political action. There is great 
 danger that his decision will be influenced by 
 unworthy motives. In every political campaign 
 a great many lies are told. He ought to be in- 
 telligent enough to detect and reject the false- 
 hood. In every great national contest the 
 basest passions are continually appealed to, and 
 the most unfair and outrageous misrepresenta- 
 tions of opponents are all the while indulged in. 
 He ought to be upright and honorable enough, 
 not only to resist this onset of hate and spi*-e, 
 but to denounce and repudiate everything that is 
 unfair and dishonorable. In every heated polit- 
 ical arena the Christian ought to try to keep a 
 cool judgment and an even temper. I do not 
 
Tllb: CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. II7 
 
 say that he should never feel or manifest indig- 
 nation, for things will be done which, as an 
 honorable man, he ought to resent, and men will 
 api)ear as candidates for public favor that ought 
 to have the truth told about them, even if it 
 takes very hard and strong words to tell the 
 whole truth. But a proper indignation at 
 wTongs done or attempted and a proper abhor- 
 rence of rascals in office or seeking office, are 
 quite compatible with the utmost fairness to 
 opponents, and the most judicial temper in 
 studying the issues of the campaign. It is gen- 
 erally safe to conclude that the good men are 
 not all in one party nor the bad men all in the 
 other ; it is, always best to hope that there may 
 be some patriotism and some intelligence among 
 our political opponents. The Christian man 
 ought to remember that Christ's word about 
 judging and being judged, and his rule about 
 doing to others as we would that others should 
 do unto us, hold good even in a presidential 
 year ; and that the charity that thinketh no 
 evil, and that rejoiceth not in iniquity, is be- 
 coming even in our treatment of poli*-icaI op- 
 ponents. 
 
Il8 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 With this spirit of moderation anJ this de- 
 termination to know the truth, and to put 
 country always above party, the Christian 
 should enter into politics. I can think of few 
 spheres of activity in which there is more need 
 of him. They tell us that the olden times were 
 worse than these ; that there was not only more 
 of corruption and chicane in politics during the 
 first two decades of our national life than there 
 is to-day, but that partisanship was more bitter 
 then than it is now. I suppose that this is true, 
 nevertheless it is difficult to conceive how any- 
 thing could be much viler than the torrent of 
 political agitation that is poured through the 
 land now, every four years. To say that our 
 presidential campaigns as at present conducted 
 are a valuable means of educating the people is 
 to my mind a pitiful absurdity. Educating 
 them in what ? In falsehood and hate, if in 
 anything. Fair, intelligent, discriminating dis- 
 cussioi' of the issues before them they do not 
 get. Each party presents every fact and every 
 consideration that makes for itself and against 
 its opponent, and energetically suppresses every 
 fact and every consideration that makes against 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIETY. 
 
 itself and for its opponent. The candid and 
 impartial voter can only weigh two partial and 
 contradictory statements, and seek to strike the 
 balance between them ; but how many are there 
 who hear both sides, and weigh both sides ? 
 Not one in a hundred. 
 
 I cannot but feel that these quadrennial 
 contests are a fruitful source of demoralization, 
 rather than of profit. Not only because of the 
 bribery that is so freely resorted to, not only 
 because of the corrupt bargains that are so often 
 made to secure nominations, but also and chiefly 
 because of the poisoning of the mind of the 
 people at large with false accusations and false 
 theories and the embittering of their hearts with 
 hateful passions. Men learn to take distorted 
 and one-sided views of all political questions* 
 they learn to put the worst possible construction 
 always upon the conduct of their opponents ; 
 what is worse, they learn to stand by when out- 
 rageous wrongs aie done in the interest of the 
 party to which they have attached themselves, 
 and either keep silent or defend the wrong. 
 The optimistic moralists are always inclined to 
 make light of this when it is past. " See," they 
 
I20 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 say, " how quickly these people that were but 
 a little while ago so hot in their animosities 
 get over their passion ! " Yes ; but the fact that 
 a man is sober and quiet this morning does not 
 cancel the fact that last night he was drunk and 
 violent. And I do not think it good to be 
 drunk, either with wine or with party passion, 
 even though one may after a while become 
 sober again. 
 
 Into this fierce and brutal strife the Chris- 
 tian ought to carry his Christianity ; standing 
 always for honor and fair play; for chivalry in 
 the treatment of opponents; for truth and the 
 whole truth against the perversions and conceal- 
 ments of partisans ; for all things honest and of 
 good report no matter with what party they may 
 be identified ; against all things base and vicious 
 in his own party quite as stoutly as in the other. 
 For such a mixing of religion with politics there 
 is surely an urgent call. And when a little 
 more of the spirit of Christ is infused into oui 
 political discussions, we shall find that our reli- 
 gion as well as our politics will be the gainer , 
 that the one will be more vigorous and manly 
 and the other more pure and honorable. 
 
VII 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S QUIET LIFE. 
 
 Service and not sanctification is, as we 
 have seen, the supreme object of the Christian's 
 desire and endeavor. " To serve the present 
 age," this is his high calling. The attainment 
 of a perfect character is not neglected by him, 
 but that is an object to be sought indirectly. 
 
 It may be said that character is the supreme 
 thing; that a perfect soul is better than any or 
 all the acts that issue from it ; just as the mind 
 of Shakespeare is greater than the sum of all his 
 dramas. That is true. But Shakespeare's won- 
 derful mind was not the result of constant labor 
 exf:ended directly upon his mind. If his mind 
 had been a constant care to him, he would have 
 been a noodle. It was not by nursing his mind 
 but by using his mind, that he became the par- 
 agon of poets, and the prince of modern inter- 
 preters of human life. The man who devotes 
 6 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 his whole Hfe to the study of his mental pro- 
 cesses, and the curing of his mental ailments, 
 and the discovery of the laws of mental hygiene 
 and the practice of mental gymnastics, will prob- 
 ably develop a very pretty little model of a 
 mind, but like the inventor's model engine, it is 
 fitted to look at or to play with, not to use. It 
 is the vigorous and productive use of the mind 
 in the study of truth, in the business of life, that 
 makes the intellectual man. 
 
 Happiness like mental culture is missed by 
 those who seek it directly. 
 
 '* O Happiness, our being's end and aim," 
 
 cries out the unphilosophical Pope. But they 
 who make happiness their being's end and aim, 
 who say to themselves " Go to ! let us be hap- 
 py," are always sure to make themselves miser- 
 able. Happiness always flies from those that 
 pursue it ; it is found only by those who forge 
 to seek it, and devote their lives to some honest 
 and beneficent labor. 
 
 What is true of mental development and of 
 happiness is true also of moral and spiritual per- 
 fection. The highest religious culture is not 
 
THE CHRISTIANS QUIET LIFE. I23 
 
 attained by those who make religious culture 
 the supreme object of their thought and their 
 endeavors. Those Christians whose chief con 
 cern is their own spiritual condition, are a ver> 
 poor sort of Christians. A self-conscious holi- 
 ness is a contradiction in terms. It is through 
 a self-forgetful service that the highest culture is 
 gained ; through a faithful following of Him who 
 came not to minister to himself, not to be min- 
 istered unto, but to minister to others ; who be- 
 came King of kings and Lord of lords by his 
 utter self-surrender ; and whose highest praise 
 is spoken in the scoffs of his murderers — " He 
 saved others — himself he cannot save." 
 
 Nevertheless there are passive virtues as well 
 as active virtues; and there are, or ought to be, 
 many hours in the Christian's life when he is 
 not employed directly in doing good to others, 
 and when he must think of himself — of his own 
 spiritual condition, of the gains and losses of his 
 daily commerce in the heavenly treasures of 
 wisdom and grace and power. There is a time 
 to meditate as well as a time to act ; and this 
 quiet life of the Christian, in which his spirit is 
 refreshed and his strength for labor is replen- 
 
124 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 ished, is a most essential part of the regimen 
 under which his character is developed. Per- 
 haps many of us do not know so much as we 
 ought about the peace of the still hour, the fruit- 
 ful growths of the quiet life. I would not say 
 that there is too much service and too little cul- 
 ture. Too much genuine service there cannot 
 be ; but there may easily be too much parade 
 of service ; too much bustle and noise of doing ' 
 too much public service as compared with those 
 more private and unostentatious ministries in 
 which some of the best traits of the Christian 
 character are wholly developed. But while ser- 
 vice is the principal thing, and while, if rightly 
 divided and directed, there cannot be too much 
 of it, there may easily be too little of medita- 
 tion, too little dwelling apart in the secret 
 silence of the mind. Our Lord himself went 
 away more than once from those ministries of 
 love in which his strength was consumed, and 
 climbed the mountain side to spend the night in 
 prayer. If he needed such seasons of repose 
 and refreshment much more do we. 
 
 " But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy 
 closet, and when thou hast shut thy door pray 
 
THE christian's QUIET LIFE. 12$ 
 
 to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father 
 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." 
 These words from the Sermon on the Mount 
 aie not a prohibition of public prayer or social 
 prayer ; they are only a reproof of those who per- 
 formed their private devotions in public places ; 
 who said their prayers on the corners of the 
 stree.ts to be seen of men. It is this ostentatious 
 abuse which our Lord condemns in the verse 
 before the one 1 have quoted. But these words 
 are the most explicit authority for that quiet Hfe 
 of prayer and meditation of which we have been 
 speaking. The' closet hours are to be sacredly 
 set apart and sacredly observed. It is not well 
 to leave this jnost important business to impulse 
 or caprice. The volitions that lead to it ought 
 to be fenced in with the force of habit. That 
 which is habitual is easy of performance; and a 
 good habit hke this may come to rule the soul 
 as firmly as those evil habits do that hold us in 
 painful thrall. 
 
 I have spoken already of the uses of reading 
 in preparing us to speak well ; but reading is also 
 a good help to those who would think well. 
 There are many books that are not fit compan- 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 ions for the closet hrur ; but there are a few with 
 which we may well bit down in the secret place, 
 because they will aid us in calling in our thoughts 
 from the noisy world outside and in fixing them 
 upon the things that are unseen and eternal. 
 It sometimes requires a strong effort of the will 
 to wrench one's attention loose from the cares 
 and interests of this p resent life ; and if we begin 
 the silent hour by simply trying to think good 
 thoughts, the good thoughts may fail to come 
 when we summon Ihem, and thoughts that are 
 unbidden and unprofitable guests may throng in 
 and fill the space that ought to be sacred to de- 
 votion. But many m hose mental discipline has 
 not been sufficient to enable them to think con- 
 secutively and profitably in such a season, can 
 yet fix their attenti )n upon a book, and out of 
 the truth which it contains may draw stimulus 
 and refreshment. And though the book should 
 not occupy all the ti'ne set apart for meditation, 
 it may often servf i 5 a bridge over which the 
 Christian may pass from the busy life to the 
 quiet life. Such books as Professor Phelps* 
 " The Still Hour," Miss Dora Greenwell's '* The 
 Patience of Hope," and '* A Present Heaven " 
 
THE CHRISTIANS QUIET LIFE. 12/ 
 
 Dr. J. P. Thompson's *' The Holy Comforter," 
 Dr. VV. W. Patton's '* Spiritual Victory," Dr. E. 
 H. Scars' " Sermons and Songs for the Christian 
 Life," the Sermons of Dr. Bushnell or President 
 Woolsey or President Hopkins or Frederick Rob- 
 ertson or Robert Leighton or Jeremy Taylor ; 
 the Life and Letters of Robertson, Pascal's 
 " Thoughts," or Dean Goulburn's '* Thoughts on 
 Personal Religion," may lead the studious dis- 
 ciple into that contemplative mood in which the 
 great themes of the immortal life become reali- 
 ties. Novels, even those of most religious intent, 
 are to be eschewed in the hour of meditation ; 
 what the soul needs is not excitement nor even 
 exhilaration,- but the clearing of its spiritual 
 vision and the strengthening of its pinions for 
 flights above the world of sense. 
 
 But while such books as I have named may 
 often serve us well in our quiet hours, there 
 if, but one book, after all, that is fit to be the 
 inseparable companion of the closet, and that is 
 the Bible. For instruction, for inspiration, for 
 stimulus, no other words are to be compared 
 with those which we find upon its sacred pages. 
 Not all parts of the Bible are equal'y adapted to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 the uses of the closet ; the Psalms and the Book 
 of Job, and the Prophecies of the Old Testa- 
 ment, with the whole of the New Testament, 
 ire the portions from which we shall derive 
 most benefit. The Bible in the closet is not to 
 be used as a text-book of theology ; it is not by 
 the microscopic method of interpretation that we 
 get the most good from it ; we must beware how 
 we place too much stress on a literal rendering 
 of certain texts ; it is by a large and free use of 
 the book that its truth is unfolded to us ; the 
 letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. To put 
 ourselves in the place of the sacred writer so far 
 as we are able ; to feel the impulse that moves 
 him to write — the lift and sweep of his inspira. 
 tion ; to get into the current of the divine 
 thought that is bearing him on ; to catch his 
 spirit and see the life that now is and the lifo 
 that is to come with his eyes — this is the right 
 method for him who uses the Bible as an aid to 
 secret meditation and devotion. At other times 
 and for other purposes it may be well to .study 
 the Book critically, grammatically, narrowly, 
 but that is not the way to use it in the closet. 
 It is to our feelings rather than our critical fac- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S QUIET LIFE. I2g 
 
 ulties that it ought to address itself there ; the 
 awakening of our desires for better Hfe, the 
 kindling of our hopes, the quickening of our 
 consciences, the enlarging of our faith is the 
 service we then dennand of it. And this is 
 obtained, not when we set ourselves up as in- 
 quisitors, and controversialists, to cross question 
 the Bible, but when we drink in with reverent 
 faith its holy inspirations, when without setting 
 forth in quest of somewhat upon its pages, we 
 quietly wait and let the truth discover us. We 
 do not always need to seek God in the Bible, 
 for in the Bible God is seeking us, and he will 
 surely find us, if we are ready to be found of 
 him. 
 
 To read, and think ; to think while we are 
 reading ; to pause in our reading for more care- 
 ful thought ; to *' mark, ponder, and inwardly 
 digest " the word of truth as it is brought to us 
 whether upon the inspired oruninspiied page, — 
 this is a means of grace that we cannot afford to 
 neglect. Not all our thinking however, will be 
 the product of our reading. Life as well as 
 literature will furnish us with profitable themes; 
 the events that happen within our knowledge, 
 6* 
 
130 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 the passages in our daily experience will be fruit 
 ful of thought. If we are faithfully endeavoring 
 to apply our religion to our lives, difficult ques- 
 tions will be arising continually, of which we 
 shall need to think ; questions of conduct, ques- 
 tions of service. Off hand decisions of problems 
 of duty are often unwise; a fuller investigation 
 of the subject in all its bearings would have 
 resulted in a different judgment. For such 
 careful examination of the doubtful cases aris- 
 ing in our every day practice time is wanted — 
 and the hour of quiet study is the right time. 
 
 There is need also of some thorough probing 
 of the inner life ; some strict and stern self-judg- 
 ment. All that I have said about the unwisdom 
 of making one's own spiritual condition the up- 
 permost concern is true. The religious life 
 whose energies are consumed in self-question- 
 ing, whose one great concern is expressed in the 
 hymn : 
 
 " Do I love the Lord or no ? 
 Am I his or am I not ? " 
 
 is always an unfruitful life. Yet there is a time 
 for careful self-examination, for thorough in- 
 spection of the foundations of character. Old 
 
THE CIIKISTIAN'S QUIET LIFE. 13I 
 
 George Herbert's quaint counsel is to be duly 
 
 heeded : 
 
 • 
 
 •*By all means use sometimes to be alone ; 
 
 Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; 
 Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own, 
 
 And tumble up and down what thou find'st there." 
 
 The comparison of our conduct with our 
 ideals ; the measurement of our daily practice by 
 the perfect standard of Christ's law ; the fair 
 estimate of our attainments in the light of our 
 opportunities — these are useful exercises. They 
 are not to be too frequently resorted to ; the 
 staple of Christian devotion is not self-examina- 
 tion ; but in due measure they are profitable. 
 Ask yourself about the temper, whether that is 
 growing less fractious and less sullen ; about the 
 will, whether that is growing firmer and steadier 
 in its adherence to right principles and good 
 purposes, and more pliable and gentle when 
 honest opinions collide, and opposing interests 
 are to be harmonized ; about the thoughts, 
 whether they are becoming purer, and holier; 
 whether the flocks of evil fancies that were once 
 continually darkening the mind, now return less 
 frequently, and are more quickly driven away 
 
132 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 about the disposition, whether that is growing 
 more generous and loving ; whether it is easier 
 than once it was to practice self-denial in the 
 small affairs of every day, as well as in the 
 great sacrifices that now and then must be 
 made ; whether the foolish vanity that puts the 
 externals of life above its realities, and the fool- 
 ish pride that leads you to despise those less for- 
 tunate than you, and the mean envy and jeal- 
 ousy that sometimes disfigure your characters, 
 and the petty ambitions that often domineer 
 your better natures — whether all these degrad- 
 ing passions are being subdued ; ask yourself 
 about the tongue, whether that is getting tamer, 
 slower to censure, swifter to bless ; about the 
 appetites, whether they are learning to submit 
 to the sway of the nobler affections and the rea- 
 son ; you will find questions enough doubtless 
 to ask yourself, and if you urge them with thor- 
 oughness and answer them with honesty, the 
 inquisition may be fruitful of good. 
 
 Such a candid survey of one's own character 
 is pretty certain to discover weak points, easily 
 besetting sins. There are faults of tempera- 
 ment, or faults of training, or faults of habit to 
 
THE christian's quiet life. 133 
 
 which we are all addicted, and which such an 
 inspection will make us conscious of. And the 
 result ought to be the direction of our efforts at 
 self-discipline toward these weak points. ** Es- 
 pecially," says the apostle, (for this is the right 
 reading) " especially " let us guard against " the 
 sin which doth so easily beset us." The weak- 
 est point in the defenses is the point that the 
 enemy will assail and it is there that the strong- 
 est force must be massed. 
 
 But study and reflection and self-examination 
 are not the only occupations of the still hour. 
 It is also, and more especially, the time for 
 prayer. It is well to commune with wise men 
 who have left for us in the books that they have 
 written the record of their own experience ; it is 
 well to commune with those holy men of old who 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, 
 and whose words, written for our learning, are 
 profitable for doctrine, reproof and instruction in 
 righteousness ; it is well to commune with our 
 own hearts in silence as we measure the poor 
 achievements of our lives with the high calling 
 of God in Christ Jesus ; but to commune with 
 God himself, to speak distinctly to him and 
 
134 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 know that he hears us ; to open all our hearts 
 to him in thanksgiving, in confession, in entreaty, 
 in intercession, and be assured that he is more 
 responsive, more sympathetic, more compassion- ( 
 ate than the tenderest father, the most loving 
 mother into whose ear the erring but trusting 
 child pours the story of his penitence and his 
 purpose of better living, — this is at once the 
 highest privilege, the greatest honor, and the 
 noblest occupation permitted to mortal men. 
 Public prayer, social prayer, and family prayer 
 are all useful and even indispensable means of 
 grace; but the prayer that most enriches the 
 believer, that brings him into the closest fel- 
 lowship with his Lord and Master, is that which 
 is lifted up in the secret place. It is when none 
 but God is near, that the heart most freely 
 utters its need, and most strongly urges its 
 petitions. In your closet you can pray for 
 many things that you have no right to speak of 
 in the prayer-meeting, or even at the family 
 altar. The deepest needs of the human soul 
 are often those which none but God can know ; 
 the deepest sorrows are those which we can tell 
 none but him ; the struggles that are most 
 
THE christian's quiet life. 135 
 
 decisive in our spiritual warfare are those that 
 are waged when we are left alone, as Jacob was, 
 and wrestle with the Angel of the covenant some- 
 tinnes even unto the breaking of the day. The 
 Christian who lives without secret prayer, or 
 who prays in secret perfunctorily and drily — 
 just saying his prayers and letting that suffice, — 
 is neither a growing Christian nor a working 
 Christian. I doubt whether he is a Christian 
 at all. 
 
 Let me offer a word or two of counsel con- 
 cerning the manner in which this duty of private 
 devotion may best be performed.. 
 
 1. Be simple and direct in your secret 
 prayer. Tl}e grace of simplicity is not to be 
 despised in public prayer ; but when we call on 
 God in secret, any formality or elaborateness in 
 our petitions is an offense. 
 
 2. Pray audibly. You need not lift your 
 voice to be heard in the street, but it is vastly 
 setter to pray not merely in our thoughts but 
 ilso with words. The utterance of our wants 
 Helps to define them. Wishes that merely drift 
 through the mind and never find articulate ex- 
 pression are not apt to be influential in theif 
 
136 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 effect upon our characters. And prayers on 
 which we are not willing to put the emphasis of 
 utterance are not likely to be effectual prayers. 
 I do not deny that a silent wish, a sincere 
 desire of the soul, unexpressed as well as 
 uttered, may be recognized as genuine prayer 
 and may be answered ; but I say that when one 
 enters into his closet to pray to his Father in 
 secret, it is far better that he should put his 
 petition into plain words. *' Beware," says Dr. 
 James W. Alexander, " of confining yourself to 
 mental prayer, but in your regular devotions 
 employ audible utterance ; for great is the reflex 
 influence of the voice upon the feelings." 
 
 3. Be honest in your secret prayer. Do not 
 express any want that you do not feel. Do not 
 confess any fault that you do not mean to for- 
 sake. Do not keep anything back. Remember 
 that it is He that searcheth the heart to whom 
 you are speaking. Do we not sometimes while 
 I conscious of a fault or a sin ignore it in our de- 
 votions, praying all round it, but never men- 
 tioning it ? We know that we are in the wrong, 
 but we do not mean to forsake the wrong ; 
 therefore we choose to pass the matter by in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN S QUIET LIFE. I37 
 
 silence. Such prayers as these must be arid 
 and profitless for they are an abomination to the 
 Lord. If there is a secret fault to which we 
 deliberately cling we cannot expect the favor of 
 him who demands of every worshipper the 
 whole heart. 
 
 4. Pray earnestly. The words need not be 
 loud, but the desire should be intense. " The 
 fervent, energetic prayer of a righteous man 
 availeth much." *' The Kingdom of heaven 
 suffereth violence, and the violent take it by 
 force." No listless, drowsy petitioning will 
 serve. The closet is a quiet place, but there are 
 strenuous and mighty forces that do their work 
 in silence.- 
 
 5. Do not mock God in your prayers. Do 
 not beg him to come to you. You know that he 
 is never far from any soul that seeks him. That 
 prayer is answered before you utter it. Do not 
 ask God to do for you that which he has ex- 
 pressly bidden you to do. How grossly in such 
 prayers as these we abuse his infinite patience. 
 Ask him always to help you ; in every strife, in 
 every service, in every simplest act of devotion 
 or obedience you need his help : but do not 
 
138 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 beseech him to do your duties for you and to 
 give you without labor those gifts which he has 
 expressly declared shall not be enjoyed except 
 as the fruit of labor. 
 
 6. Pray always with special reference to the 
 needs of the day and the hour ; — the warfare 
 to be waged, the temptations to be resisted, the 
 work to be done, the sorrow to be borne ; put 
 your life into your prayer; and let it be the 
 most real and the most immediate business of 
 your life. 
 
 No doubt these seasons of secret devotion 
 will sometimes be seasons of conflict. It was 
 when our Lord was alone in the wilderness that 
 Satan tempted him ; and every one who seeks 
 the still hour will be sure to encounter the same 
 adversary. Times of reflection are often times 
 of doubt. While we are pondering the great 
 themes of eternity the unexplained and inex- 
 plicable mysteries of the life that is to come 
 will sometimes settle like a thick mist upon our 
 minds and envelop us in bewildering uncertain- 
 ties Oftener still our own lapses into sin, our 
 failures to keep the vows we have spoken, or to 
 conquer the evils we have tried to overcome 
 
THE christian's QUIET LIFE. 1 39 
 
 fill US with discouragement, and make us doubt 
 whether there be indeed any truth in this Gos- 
 pel we profess. For the solution of these 
 doubts there are a few simple rules. 
 
 1. ** Hold fast that which thou hast." In 
 khe midst of this uncertainty, some things will 
 be certain. Adhere to these. You are per- 
 plexed about many duties but there are duties 
 about which you have no misgivings. Set right 
 about them with a resolute purpose and a thor- 
 ough diligence. 
 
 2. Resolve that just as fast as truth is given 
 you, you will accept it and live by it. 
 
 3. Remember that religious truth can never 
 be ascertained by mere speculation. It is largely 
 truth of experience and can only find entrance 
 to the mind through the life. It is heat as well 
 as light, and you must suffer it to warm the 
 heart as well as to illuminate the intellect. 
 That is to say, you must study it with youi 
 affections as well as with your reason. Take 
 therefore the character of Christ as delineated in 
 the Gospels, and the character of God as Christ 
 has unfolded it in his teachings, and reverently 
 study them, asking yourself all the while what 
 
140 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 relation yod sustain to these persons; and 
 whether there is in your heart and life any room 
 for such a friend.ship as that which Christ offers, 
 any need of such a salvation as he has provided, 
 any witness to the truth of which his life is the 
 revelation. I think that when you come to 
 study carefully first your own moral condition, 
 and then the person and work of Jesus Christ, 
 you will find a marvelous correlation between 
 them, and that you will be convinced tjiat he is 
 indeed the very Friend you need. If you will 
 then commit yourself to him as your Saviour 
 and your Guide, you will soon find the way out 
 of your bewilderment. 
 
 This topic is too large to be treated here 
 with any fullness ; let me commend to all whose 
 lives are sometimes overcast by the haze of un- 
 belief, a noble sermon of Dr. BushnelFs, printed 
 in his last volume, and entitled " The Dissolv- 
 ing of Doubts." 
 
 I have spoken now of the Christian's quiet 
 hour in the closet, the hour that is sacred to 
 study and thought and prayer, the hour which 
 he sets apart for silent communings with things 
 unseen and with Him whose presence fills all 
 
Till' christian's quiet life. 141 
 
 secret places. But the Christian lives a quiet 
 life outside the closet, llis communion with 
 high truth, and with the Invisible God is not 
 all enjoyed in secret places. In the clatter of 
 the shop, in the din of the street, in the hum 
 o^" busy voices he is often alone with God. 
 
 "Still with thee, O my God, 
 I would desire to he, 
 By day, by night, at home, abroad, 
 i would be still with thee. 
 
 •*Wifh thee when dawn comes in 
 And calls me back to care ; 
 Cach day returning to begin 
 With thee, my Gotl, in prayer. 
 
 "With Thee amid the crowd 
 That throngs the busy mart ; 
 To hear thy voice, 'mid clamor loud, 
 Speak softly to mv heart." 
 
 It Js this consciousness of a presence always 
 near, in the noise as well as in the silence, of a 
 help that never fails in danger and extremit)-, 
 that makes the Christian's life so blessed. The 
 comfort of this assurance is very sweet. So 
 long as he keeps it he is safe from temptation 
 and strong for duty. The Friend that walks 
 unseen beside Him is mighty to deliver. His 
 
142 THE CHRISTIAN WAY. 
 
 thought, reaching out in the pauses of his toil, 
 in the emergencies of his experience, always 
 iC5ts on the Almighty Helper. Quick as the 
 volition can spring from the brain to the eyelid, 
 the desire can fly to Immanuel and come back 
 satisfied. " Let your thoughts," says Dr. Alex- 
 ander, '^ during the employments of the day 
 often go up in ejaculatory prayer, which is so 
 called because such aspirations are like arrows 
 shot up toward heaven ; and blessed is he that 
 hath his quiver full of'them.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
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