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 The Kirkpatrick memorial 
 
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THE 
 
 KIMPATmCK MEMORIAL; 
 
 OR. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FATHER AND SON, 
 
 AND A SELECTION FROM THE 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR., 
 
 THE SKETCHES BY THE 
 
 Key. GEOEGE HALE, D.D. 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 Eev. wm. m. blackbuen. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 WESTCOTT & THOMSON 
 
 1867. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
 
 ELIAS COOK, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Westcott & Thomson, 
 Stereotypers, Philada. 
 
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The present memorial volume is not the result of a 
 sudden thought. It has a history. Declining health in- 
 duced the Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, Jr., to resign, in 
 1857, the pastoral charge of the Third Presbyterian 
 Church, Trenton, N. J. Both pastor and people saw no 
 hope of his recovery. Many of his friends, sorrowing 
 that they should hear his voice no more in the pulpit, 
 felt that it would be a consolation, if he might still preach 
 to them through the press. They requested the privi- 
 lege of pubhshing a small volume of his sermons. He 
 modestly declined, shrinking, as he had ever done, from 
 publicity. 
 
 In now publishing a few of his sermons, no violence is 
 done to his last wishes. It is true, that while lingering 
 at his father's house, waiting for the Heavenly call, he 
 requested that his manuscripts might be burned. But 
 his father interposed. At length he consented, saying, 
 in effect, to Dr. Kirkpatrick, "You can do with them as 
 
4 THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 you think best. Let them be used in any way, in which 
 they may do good. ' ' 
 
 Soon after his decease the Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick sent 
 the manuscripts to a friend to be at his disposal. This 
 the father would never have done, had not the fullest 
 consent been given by his son, whom he so ardently 
 loved, and whose dying wishes were regarded with pro- 
 found sacredness. Various events providentially delayed 
 the publication of the intended volume. The idea was 
 quite abandoned until, in May, 1866, Dr. Kirkpatrick 
 was called to his rest. It was then thought that a memo- 
 rial should be published, of these two beloved ministers, 
 whose loss was widely felt in the Presbyterian Church. 
 After due consultation it was resolved to publish a me- 
 morial on the present plan. 
 
 The editor was requested to supervise the work, and 
 the Rev. George Hale, D. D., of Pennington, N. J., to 
 prepare the biographical sketches, to which he appropri- 
 ately gives his own preface. To the many friends who 
 have aided him the editor offers his thanks. 
 
 In the editor's hands were placed more than two hun- 
 dred manuscripts of sermons and lectures; some of them 
 mere outlines, some half written, with wide blanks to be 
 filled up at a future day, and others quite complete. 
 Very few of them present a fully written peroration. In 
 
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. . 5 
 
 making his appeals, Mr. Kirkpatrick was usually guided 
 by a few catch-words, or phrases, many of which do not 
 now reveal what was in his mind. 
 
 This imperfection in the manuscript may indicate the 
 perfection of his study and his preaching. His power of 
 extemporaneous address was remarkable. He did not 
 sacrifice it in the pulpit. How many of his most elo- 
 quent utterances are lost, except as their effect remains 
 upon the memories and the souls of his hearers ! Many 
 persons will not find, in this collection, the sermons they 
 expected, for they were never written beyond the mere 
 first draft. Such were the discourses on "The Wonder- 
 ful, the Counsellor," "The Lamb of God," "The Cruci- 
 fied Saviour." The fact that his sermons upon the Di- 
 vinity, the hfe, the sufferings, and the atonement of 
 Christ, were delivered from a brief outline, may be taken 
 as a proof. of his familiarity with the great themes of 
 gospel theology. On no other subjects did he appear so 
 free in the resistless march of his thoughts. 
 
 His sermons were largely of an awakening character, 
 rather than consolatory. He earnestly sought the con- 
 version of sinners, the reclaiming of the fallen, the 
 arousing of the Church, and the reviving of the spiritual 
 life in the hearts of God's people. The published speci- 
 mens are to be read as the sermons of a young pastor, in 
 1 * 
 
6 TBJs editoh's preface. 
 
 tlie regular course of his preaching. They were not pre- 
 pared for special occasions. They have been selected 
 from the mass, on the plan of furnishing the best speci- 
 mens of different years, the most practical, and the most 
 varied in their style and thought. 
 
 None of the sermons bore a title. The editor has 
 endeavored to supply this want. He has been scrupu- 
 lously careful to maintain the integrity of what was 
 written. The portraits have been engraved by an emi- 
 nent artist from photographs, representing the deceased 
 as they appeared in their more vigorous days. 
 
 The largest credit, for the successful publication of the 
 work, is due to Elias Cook, Esq. , of Trenton, N. J. , the 
 guardian of the only and orphan child of the Rev. Jacob 
 Kirkpatrick, Jr. He assumed the entire pecuniary re- 
 sponsibility, sparing no pains to make it a fitting memo- 
 rial of the departed; one of whom was to him as a 
 paternal counsellor, and the other a beloved pastor. 
 
 If the reading of these biographical sketches shall lead 
 any to embalm the names of the commemorated dead, 
 by imitating their Christian example, and if the medita- 
 tion of these sermons shall be blessed of God to any, who 
 mourned when the voice of the preacher was silenced by 
 death, happy will be the reward of those to whom its 
 preparation has been a labor of love. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FA6E 
 PREFACE BY THE EDITOR „ „. 3 
 
 PREFACE BY THE BIOGRAPHER 11 
 
 THE KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 I. THE KIRKPATRICK FAMILY 13 
 
 II. THE REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. D. 83 
 
 III. THE REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, Jb -..- 78 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 I. GOD'S GLORY IN REDEMPTION.- „.... 128 
 
 n. MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 141 
 
 in. OPPORTUNITIES LOST 160 
 
 IV. THE HUMAN LEVEL ..„. 177 
 
 V. THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW „ 195 
 
 VL DO YE NOW BELIEVE? ...„ 214 
 
 7- 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOS 
 Vn. THE SETERE DENIAL OF SELF. 234 
 
 VIIL LESSONS FROM THE MANNA 251 
 
 IX. THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER 270 
 
 X. THE FUTURE SATISFACTION 288 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The necessity for the early appearance of this volume 
 denies to the writer of these sketches the power to follow 
 the advice which the poet Horace gives to the author of 
 a book — '^Prematur nonum in annum.'' With an abler 
 hand and a longer time to collect and verify facts, this 
 part of the volume would have been more nearly com- 
 plete and therefore more satisfactory; but it is sent forth 
 as it is, in the hope that some things stated may prove 
 gratifying to the numerous friends of this excellent 
 father and his most worthy son. 
 
 The compiler takes this method of expressing his 
 grateful acknowledgments to the Hon. Andrew B. Cobb, 
 of Parsippany, William Annin, Esq., of Liberty Corner, 
 the Hon. H. N. Congar, Secretary of State for New 
 Jersey, and other friends, too numerous to be named 
 here, for the facilities they have afforded him, and the 
 information they have imparted. 
 
 PENNiNaroN, Nov. 14, 1866. Q-, Jf. 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE KIUKPATRICK FAMIIjY. 
 
 ri'^HE Pilgrim Fathers of the May Flower, who 
 -*- landed at Plymouth in 1620, with those who 
 shortly afterwards fled to New England from the 
 persecutions of the Old World, laid the founda- 
 tions of this great nation. Their work, by the 
 blessing of God, will abide; and the record of 
 what they have done must make up an essential 
 part of our national history, not soon to be blotted 
 out. But there were others, holding the same 
 Calvinistic creed, inspired with the same Christian 
 heroism, and animated with an equally ardent 
 love for civil and Religious liberty, like the Pro- 
 testant emigrants from Holland and the Huguenot 
 refugees from France, who have rendered material 
 
 2 13 
 
14 KIEKPA THICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 aid in moulding our free institutions. Perhaps 
 sufficient credit has not yet been given to the 
 Presbyterian emigrants from Scotland and the 
 north of Ireland, known as the Scotch and Scotch- 
 Irish, for the powerful influence for good which 
 they have exerted. Well-trained in the School 
 and Kirk of their native home, familiar from 
 childhood with the Bible and the Catechisms of 
 the Westminster Assembly, and disciplined by 
 fierce persecution for their loyalty to the crown 
 and covenant of King Jesus, they have not only 
 contributed much towards giving character and 
 stability to the Presbyterian Church, but they 
 have ever been found among the firmest and most 
 intelligent supporters of evangelical religion, 
 popular education and good government. To 
 mention no others, how familiar among us have 
 become such names as Tennent, Witherspoon, 
 Doak, Nisbet, Alexander, Mason, Wilson, Brown 
 and McDowell. • 
 
 Of this class of our citizens were many of the 
 families Avho, in the early part of the eighteenth 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK FAMILY. 15 
 
 century settled near Baskingridge, Somerset 
 county, New Jersey, one of which was 
 
 THE kiukpatmick family. 
 
 The Hon. Walter Kirkpatrick, a cousin of the 
 late Dr. Jacob Kirkpatrick, at his decease, left in 
 his own hand this statement, to wit: 
 
 "The Kirkpatrick family possessed estates in 
 Nithsdale, [Scotland] in the ninth century. The 
 iirst on record is Ivone Kirkpatrick in the time 
 of David I. He was a witness to a C^harter of 
 Robert Bruce. He had a grandson Ivone and 
 from him descended a long line of Lords of Close- 
 burn. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, Gentleman of 
 the Privy Chamber of James VI., obtained a 
 patent of Freedom of the whole kingdom. He 
 died in 1628, and was succeeded by his son 
 Thomas, whose grandson Thomas was created 
 Baronet of Nova Scotia. [This order was founded 
 by James I. in 1611, and is given by patent], 
 March 26, 1686. He married Isabella, daughter 
 of Ijord Torpischen ; afterwards he married Sarah, 
 
16 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 daughter of Robert Furguson, Esq., of Craigda- 
 rock, by whom he had a son Hodger ; and thirdly, 
 he married Grizzel, daughter of Gain Hamilton, 
 Esq., of Raplock. >He was succeeded by 
 
 "II. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, who married 
 Isabel, daughter of Sir William Lockhart, of Car- 
 stairs, and was succeeded by 
 
 " III. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, who married 
 Susannah Grierson, of Capuncet, August 29, 
 1748. Fire consumed his mansion, family papers, 
 and everything except the tower. He died 
 October, 1771, and was succeeded by 
 
 "IV. Sir James Kirkpatrick, who married 
 Miss Jaudine, and died June 7, 1804, and was 
 succeeded by 
 
 " V. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, the present Ba- 
 ronet. 
 
 THE JKlBKPATItlCK ARMS. 
 
 or. a Sattier and chief az. 
 
 the last charger witJi 3 cttshions or. 
 
 Crest, a hand holding a dagger 
 
 in pale — distilling drops of blood. 
 Motto, * I niahe sure.' 
 Seat, Closebtirn's ]>unifries,*' 
 
THE KIRKPATUICK FAMILY. VJ 
 
 The name of the immediate ancestor of that 
 branch of the family of which this volume is a 
 memorial was Alexander. He was born in 
 Watties Neach, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He 
 removed with his family to Belfast, Ireland, after 
 the birth of his son David, in the latter part of 
 the reign of George I. probably about the year 
 1725, that he might enjoy greater liberty of con- 
 science and additional religious advantages. In 
 the spring of 1736 he embarked at Belfast for 
 America, and after a stormy passage of thirteen 
 weeks landed at New Castle, Delaware. The 
 passengers and crew were almost starved owing 
 to the unexpected length of the passage. David, 
 who was then twelve years old, speaking of this 
 to a grandson in after years said : " The first 
 thing I got to eat after we got on shore was corn, 
 in the state which we call roasting ears, and with- 
 out roasting or boiling I ate it till the milk of the 
 corn ran down both sides of my mouth, and I 
 have never eaten anything since that tasted 
 sweeter." The narrative by the grandson adds : 
 
 2* 
 
18 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 " They crossed the Delaware at Philadelphia, and 
 wandered up through the State of New Jersey 
 (which was partially settled) till they reached 
 Boundbrook, and from that they went over the 
 mountain. This incident he (the grandfather) 
 used to tell me, and smile at — they were all on 
 foot — there was no road other than the Indian 
 path. In the path before them they saw a land- 
 tortoise, speckled, sticking up his head ', and as 
 they had heard of rattlesnakes, they thought that 
 'monster must be one ; so they turned out in the 
 woods and went away round leaving his ^ torkle- 
 ship' in full possession of the path. When they 
 came to a spring of water at the side of what has 
 since been called * Mine Brook,' there they set- 
 tled down, built a log house and went to work." 
 
 The spot was well chosen, about two miles west 
 from the present site of Baskingridge in Somerset 
 County, New Jersey. It embraced the southern 
 slope of Round Mountain in a well- timbered 
 region, with unfailing springs of pure water, the 
 rich meadow-land through which Mine Brook 
 
THE KtRKPATRICK FAMILY. ig 
 
 runs with a sufficient fall of water for a mill-seat, 
 and with these material advantages, a charming 
 picturesque view of the adjacent region. The 
 spring of water is still there, marking the site of 
 the original log-house, and until within a few 
 years could be seen the remains of the apple-trees 
 planted by Alexander Kirkpatrick and his sons. 
 This improvement many of the early proprietary 
 leases required. In a lease of one hundred and 
 thirty-seven acres, (which it may be remarked 
 was a minor portion of what the family eventu- 
 ally obtained by title in fee simple) granted 
 November 23, 1747, to Alexander Kirkpatrick, 
 he agrees " to plant an orchard of at least one 
 apple-tree for every three acres, and in case this 
 lease shall continue beyond three years, then (to) 
 plant one apple-tree for every six acres, all 
 regular in one orchard, and to keep up the num- 
 ber planted, and to keep the orchard in good 
 fence." 
 
 Alexander Kirkpatrick died at Mine Brook, 
 June 3, 1758, mentioning in his will, which was 
 
20 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 executed " in articulo mortis/' his wife Elizabeth, 
 his sons Andrew, David, and Alexander, his son- 
 in-law Duncan McEowen, his youngest daughter 
 Mary, and his grandson Alexander. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that when he came to 
 America with his family he was accompanied by 
 his brother Andrew. This brother Andrew had 
 two sons, John and David, and two daughters, 
 Martha, wife of Joseph Linn, and Elizabeth, wife 
 of Stephen Roy, all of whom removed to Sussex 
 County, and there remained. 
 
 The children of Alexander and Elizabeth 
 KiRKPATRiCK were, 
 
 1. Andrew, who married Margaret, daughter 
 of Joseph Gaston, and had one son, Alexander, 
 and seven daughters, viz : Jennet, wife of Abner 
 Johnson ; Elizabeth, wife of Hugh Bartley ; 
 Margaret, wife of Joseph McMartin; Mary, 
 Sarah, Anne, and Hannah. This Andrew in- 
 herited the homestead, but not long after the 
 death of his father sold it to his brother David, 
 and removed to what was then called " the Red- 
 
THE KIRKPATRIGK FAMILY. 21 
 
 stone Countiy," or in other words to Western 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 2. David, who married Mary McEowen, sister 
 of Duncan, Daniel, and Alexander McEowen, of 
 whom more in the sequel. 
 
 3. Alexander, who married Margaret Ander- 
 son, of Boundbrook, who went to New York and 
 married there, and one daughter, Martha, wife of 
 John Stevenson, then of Morristown, afterwards 
 of New York. Alexander, the father, was a sur- 
 veyor, subsequently a merchant, and kept a store 
 at Peapack. 
 
 4. Jennet, wife of Duncan McEowen, who with 
 their family removed to Maryland. 
 
 5. Mary, wife of John Bigger, had two sons, 
 John and David, and four daughters, Elizabeth, 
 Anne, Ruth and Mary. They removed to War- 
 wick, [Orange county, N. Y., or Cecil county, 
 Md]. 
 
 David, the son of Alexander and Elizabeth 
 Kirkpatrick, was born at Watties Neach, Dum- 
 fries Shire, Scotland, February 17, 1724, and 
 
22 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 died at Mine Brook, March 19, 1814. His wife, 
 Mary 3fcEoice7i, was born in Argyle Shire, Scot- 
 land, August 1, 1728, and died at Mine Brook, 
 November 2, 1795. 
 
 David Kirkpatkick, -Esqr., and Mary 
 McEowEN were married March 31, 1748. They 
 had four sons and four daughters. 
 
 1. Elizabeth, born September 27, 1749, the 
 
 wife of Sloan, mother of the Rev. William 
 
 B. Sloan, for several years pastor of the Presby- 
 terian Church of Greenwich, Warren county, and 
 grandmother of the late William H. Sloan, Esq., 
 of Flemington. She, after the death of Mr. 
 Sloan, married General William Maxwell, and 
 died in 1829. 
 
 2. Alexander J born September 3, 1751, died 
 September 24, 1827. He was the father of the 
 Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, D.D., of Ringoes. 
 
 3. Hugh, born September 2, 1753, died Janu- 
 ary 9, 1782, unmarried. 
 
 4. Andi^eiv, born February 17, 1756, Chief 
 Justice of the State of New Jersey. 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK FAMILY. 23 
 
 5. David, born November 1^ 1758. 
 
 6. Mary, born November 23, 1761, married 
 Hugh Gaston, of Peapack, and had one son. 
 After Mr. Gaston's death, she married a Todd, 
 and died July 1, 1842. 
 
 7. Ayme, born March 10, 1764, married Moses 
 Esty, of Morristown. 
 
 8. Jennet, born July 9, 1769, married Dicken- 
 son Miller, of Somerville, and had six sons. 
 
 Andrew Kirkpatrick, third son of David 
 Kirkpatrick, Esq., and Mary McEowen, was 
 born at Mine Brook ; he graduated at the College 
 of New Jersey, in 1775, while Dr. Witherspoon 
 was President; he, shortly after completing his 
 legal studies, entered upon the practice of the law 
 at New Brunswick, where he married Jane, 
 daughter of Colonel John Bayard. Of their 
 children — (1) the Hon. Littleton Kirkpatrick, 
 attorney-at-law, graduated at the College of New 
 Jersey in 1815, was a member of the House of 
 Representatives, at Washington, from his native 
 state; married, but no children survive him. 
 
24 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 (2). John Bayard Kirkpatrick, Esq., graduated at 
 Queen's (now Rutger's) College in 1815; was for 
 some tim'e connected with one of the Departments 
 at Washington, and died, leaving two sons and 
 two daughters. (3). Mary Ann, wife of the Rev. 
 Samuel B. Howe, D.D., for some time pastor of 
 the First Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, 
 New Brunswick. (4). Jane, wife of the Rev. 
 Jonathan Cogswell, D.D., formerly Professor of 
 Ecclesiastical History in the East Windsor Theo- 
 logical Seminary, both now deceased, leaving one 
 daughter. 
 
 Andrew, their father, was elected a member of 
 the House of Assembly of New Jersey, in 1797, 
 and sat with that body during the first session ; 
 but on the 17th of January, 1798, he resigned 
 his seat, having accepted the office of Chief Jus- 
 tice of the state, as successor to the Hon. James 
 Kinsey. Chief Justice Kirkpatrick was for 
 twenty years a member of the Board of Trustees 
 of the College of New Jersey. He was one of 
 the original Trustees of Princeton Theological 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK FAMILY. 25 
 
 Seminary; is the first person named in tlie Cliar- 
 ter granted by the Legislature of Nev/ Jersey, 
 November .15, 1822; and was the first President 
 of the Board, holding that office until his deatli, 
 which occurred in 1831. 
 
 Capt. David Kirkpateick, fourth son of 
 David Kirkpatrick, Esq., and Mary McEowen, 
 born at Mine Brook, November 1, 1758, resided 
 there until his death, December 11, 1828. His 
 wife, Mary Farrand, of Troy, Morris County, died 
 September 5, 1805, in t4ie thirty-fourth year of 
 her age. Their children were — 
 
 1. Walter y born April 12, 1795. He graduated 
 at the College of New Jersey in 1813; was a 
 member of the Legislative Council of New Jer- 
 sey for the term of three years, and was a useful 
 citizen, highly esteemed. He married Mary 
 Caroline, daughter of Colonel Lemuel Cobb, of 
 Parsippany, Morris County, who was born Octo- 
 ber 12, 1798, and died October 6, 1826. The 
 Latin epitaph on the monument in the grave-yard 
 at Parsippany, where her remains and those of a 
 
26 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 beloved son lie, is a sincere and affecting expres- 
 sion of the grief of the surviving husband and 
 fatlier. The Hon. Walter Kirkpatrick was a man 
 of delicate nervous organization, of highly culti- 
 vated taste, a fine classical scholar and an amateur 
 of the Fine Arts. Repeated domestic bereave- 
 ments disappointing his fond expectations, wrought 
 powerfully upon his sensitive nature, and he went 
 down to his grave, a mourner, December 13, 1841. 
 No children survive him. 
 
 2. Hiighy born May 31, 1797, died March 11, 
 1860. He never married. He graduated at the 
 College of New Jersey, in 1815, and after pur- 
 suing the study of Medicine for the prescribed 
 time, he engaged in the practice of his profession 
 as a physician. He was a great favorite with his 
 friends, and familiarly known as '^Doctor Hugh." 
 As a token of the popular favor he was elected 
 Sheriff of Somerset county, and served one term. 
 Like his brother Walter he was of an amiable 
 disposition, retiring in his habits, and fond of 
 literary occupation. 
 
THE KIRKPATRWK FAMILY. 27 
 
 3. Elizabeth Farrwid, born November 19, 1799. 
 She married the Hon, Andrew B. Cobb, son of 
 Colonel Lemuel Cobb, of Parsippany, and died 
 December 11, 1857, leaving one daughter Julia, 
 now wife of Frederick A. Demott, Esq., of Mor- 
 ristown. 
 
 Alexander Kiekpatrick, the eldest son of 
 David Kirkpatrick, Esq., and brother of Chief 
 Justice Andrew and Captain David, married 
 Sarah, daughter of Judge John Carle, of Long 
 Hill, Morris County, and brother of the Rev. 
 John Carle. She died February 15, 1842, in tlie 
 eighty-second year of her age. 
 
 Thirteen of the children of Alexander Kirk- 
 patrick and Sarah Carle reached adult age, to wit, 
 
 1. David, born December 24, 1776, married 
 Sarah, daughter of Daniel Cooper, of Long Hill. 
 
 2. Mary, born April 25, 1781, wife of John 
 Lafferty Cross, of Baskingridge. 
 
 3. John, born July 24, 1783, married Mary, 
 daughter of David Ayers, and sister of Dr. Ayers, 
 of Liberty Corner, and died December 11, 1855. 
 
28 ^ KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 4. Jacobj born August 8, 1785, died at Rin- 
 goes, May 2, 1866. He married Mary Burroughs 
 Howell, daughter of John Sutfin, of. Freehold, 
 Monmouth County, New Jersey. Their children, 
 (1) John Sutfin, who died in infancy. (2) Alex- 
 ander. (3) David Bishop. (4) Henry Augustus, 
 M. D. (5) Calvin. (6) Newton. (7) Lydia 
 Baker, vnfe of Dr. Justus Lessey, of Philadel- 
 phia. (8) Sarah, wife of J. Gardiner Bowne, of 
 Oakdale. (9) Charles Whitehead. (10) Rev. 
 Jacob. (11) Frances J., wife of Edward H. 
 Schenck, of Ringoes. (12) Anna F., wife of 
 Henry Schenck, of New Brunswick. (13) Eliza- 
 beth G., wife of Martin Nevius, of Blawenburg. 
 (14) Mary. 
 
 5. Sarah, born September 22, 1787, wife of 
 William Annin, of Liberty Corner. The Rev. 
 John A. Annin, pastor of the Presbyterian Church 
 Red Wing, Minnesota, is their son. 
 
 6. Elizabeth, born September 21, 1789, wife of 
 Alexander Vail, of Bernard township, Somerset, 
 had two daughters. After Mr. VaiFs death, she 
 
THE KIBKPATRICK FAMILY. 29 
 
 married William Gaston, of Baskingridge, aiid 
 had several sons. 
 
 7. Lydia, born December 20, 1791, wife of 
 Peter Demott, of Bedminster. 
 
 8. Anne, born January 27, 1794, wife of John 
 Stelle, of Bernard township. 
 
 9. Bebeeca, born June 15, 1796, wife of Squier 
 Terrill, of Warren township, Somerset. 
 
 10. 3Iartha, born October 8, 1802, wife of 
 Israel Squiers, of Morris County, near Basking- 
 ridge. 
 
 11. Jane, born May 20, 1798, wife of John 
 Cory, of Morris County, near Baskingridge. 
 
 12. Alexander, born August 10, 1800, married 
 a Miss Tingley. 
 
 13. Robert Finley, born July 22, 1805, married 
 Charity, sister of Squier Terrill. 
 
 David Kirkpatrick, Esq., who came to this 
 country with his father Alexander at the age of 
 twelve, was well remembered by his grandson, 
 Dr. Jacob Kirkpatrick. Old documents show 
 
 that he was greatly esteemed and beloved. Plain 
 
 3 * 
 
30 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 and simple in his habits, of strict integrity and 
 sterling common sense, he was a man of great 
 energy and self-reliance. We have an exponent 
 of what he was in that fine substantial stone- 
 house which he built at Mine Brook in 1765, with 
 its thick firm walls laid in mortar almost as hard 
 now as the gray sand- stone itself, and with floors 
 made of white oak inch plank laid double. The 
 old stone-work and the old pointing look nearly 
 as fresh as on the addition recently built by the 
 present occupant. With proper care the house 
 might be made to last five centuries more. 
 
 On a stone over the front door (but now con- 
 cealed by a new portico,) are chiseled, " D. M. K, 
 1765/' the three initial letters standing for " Da- 
 vid and Mary Kirkpatrick." One of the oldest 
 residents of Mine Brook, Mr. Heath, aged 
 eighty-seven, well remembers hearing the old 
 gentleman speak of the pains he took in putting 
 up this dwelling-house. Indeed, whatever he 
 undertook he did thoroughly, nor Avas he ever 
 content not to be usefully occupied. The lily- 
 
THE KIRKPATRICK FAMILY. 31 
 
 fingered exquisites of the present day would have 
 met with many a stem rebuke from him in his 
 broad Scotch brogue. Although he lived about 
 two miles from the church at Baskingridge, he 
 always preferred to walk while the rest of the 
 family rode. It is said of him, when a member 
 of the New Jersey Legislature, that although he 
 would commence his journey on horseback, he 
 soon dismounted and leading his horse walked 
 the remainder of the way to Trenton. He lived 
 to enter his ninety-first year ; educated one son at 
 the College of New Jersey ; knew of at least six 
 grandsons who were liberally educated ; and at 
 his death left a numerous posterity to bless his 
 memory. In his last will executed thirteen years 
 before his death, we see the character of the man. 
 It begins : " I, David Kirkpatrick, having arrived 
 at a good old age, and being desirous of arranging 
 and settling my worldly affairs, and directing how 
 the property wherewith it has pleased God to 
 reward my labors should be disposed of after my 
 death," etc., and ends: "And now bavins: dis- 
 
32 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 posed of all my worldly concerns, I humbly com- 
 mit my immortal soul to God my Heavenly 
 Father in an humble hope that through the 
 merits and intercession of Jesus Christ my Saviour 
 and Redeemer I shall be raised again at the last 
 day in glory everlasting/' Both as to the great 
 concerns of eternity and the things of time he 
 seems to have acted in the spirit of the motto of 
 the Coat of Arms of the Kirkpatrick family : "/ 
 make sureP 
 
II. 
 
 BEV. JACOB KUtKJPATBICK, D. I>, 
 
 IN the northern part of Warren township, 
 Somerset County, New Jersey, in the beautiful 
 valley of the Passaic, about six miles south-east 
 from Baskingriclge stands the house where was 
 born, on the 8th of August, 1785, Jacob Kirk- 
 patrick, son of Alexander Kirkpatrick and Sarah 
 Carle. On the south lies Stony Hill, and on 
 the north extending half a mile to the banks 
 of the Passaic is a slope of green and fertile 
 meadow, while in the distance in full view is 
 the continuous range of high land in Morris 
 County known as Long Hill, covered with well- 
 tilled farms and dotted with comfortable farm- 
 houses. The. lasting spring of pure water not far 
 from the door seems to tell the stranger as he 
 slakes his thirst, that many who once drank of it 
 
 33 
 
84 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 have been scattered far and wide and are now 
 sleeping in the dust. 
 
 Here on a tract of four hundred acres taken 
 from the large landed estate of Judge Carle, the 
 parents settled soon after their marriage and en- 
 deavored to train up their family in the fear of 
 God. The responsible charge of thirteen children 
 who grew up to manhood and womanhood was 
 committed to their trust. In this work they were 
 assisted by the able and faithful servants of God, 
 the Rev. Samuel Kennedy, M. D., and the Rev. 
 Robert Finley, D. D., successively pastors of the 
 Church of Baskingridge on whose ministrations 
 they attended. They were regular in their at- 
 tendance at the sanctuary after the example of his 
 Scotch ancestors, and never did Alexander Kirk- 
 patrick and his family disturb the devotions of 
 the congregation by arriving after the public 
 exercises had begun. He was habitually so early 
 that one of his neighbors, it is said, never began 
 his preparations until he had seen Mr. Kirkpat- 
 rick drive by his door; and often, when that 
 
REV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, D. D. 35 
 
 tardy neighbor, whom for the sake of the inci- 
 dent we will call John Smith, reached the church, 
 the wags who were hanging around the door were 
 accustomed to say to each other with a wink of 
 the eye : " It's time to go into meeting, for John 
 Smith has come." The records of the Baskino;- 
 ridge Church show that Mr. Kirkpatrick was an 
 active and useful member. 
 
 Much of the time of Jacob's childhood, when 
 not prosecuting English studies in the common 
 schools of the neighborhood was occupied in such 
 labor on the farni as suited his age. He was 
 accustomed to relate to his own children how 
 often he had taken the grist to mill on horseback 
 and driven the team over the mountain with 
 loads of wood. All these labors served to 
 strengthen a constitution naturally good, and to 
 prepare him for that constant exposure and toil- 
 some service to which he was to be subjected in 
 after life as a minister of Christ. 
 
 When he was thirteen or fourteen years of age, 
 a circumstance occurred which made that, in all 
 
30 KIMKPA TRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 ]3robability, a turning-jioint in the history of his 
 life. He had been drinking, after the custom of 
 those times, some intoxicating liquor with one of 
 his companions, when suddenly he turned around 
 to his friend and said, with great earnestness: 
 ^^AVe ought never to drink any more liquor; if 
 we don't stop drinking we'll become drunkards." 
 He did stoj) from that hour ; and for the remainder 
 of life, not only as a personal safeguard, but for 
 the sake of the example, he was a total abstinence 
 man. His companion formed no such resolution, 
 but continued to drink until the habit became too 
 inveterate to be overcome, and he died a drunkard. 
 It is not improbable that young Kirkpatrick 
 had been awakened to though tfulness on this sub- 
 ject by something he had heard from the lips of 
 his pastor. On one occasion, early in his ministry, 
 Dr. Finley exchanged pulpits for a Sabbath with 
 the pastor of a neighboring church. At the latter 
 place the tavern was opposite to, or near by the 
 church, and with the bar kept open on Sunday as 
 well as other days, according to the old custom. 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, D. D. 37 
 
 Being much fatigued with his ride, he dismounted 
 and walked into the bar-room and drank some- 
 thing stronger than water for his refreshment. 
 As he passed out of the tavern for the church he 
 saw two young men, one of whom he overheard 
 saying to the other: "Come, let's go hear the 
 Dominie preach — he has just had ^a smaller^ and 
 I guess we'll have a good sermon." How good 
 th« sermon he preached to that congregation was, 
 tradition does not inform us, but he felt that a 
 pungent sermon had been preached to him in the 
 brief sentence uttered by that young man. It so 
 affected him that he resolved henceforth that no 
 man should have the opportunity to quote him as 
 an example to justify drinking-habits ; he resolved 
 to abandon altogether the use of intoxicating 
 liquor as a beverage— and those who knew him 
 were aware that for Dr. Finley to resolve was to 
 execute. 
 
 At the age of fourteen Jacob began his course 
 of classical study, making his home with his 
 grandfather, David Kirkpatrick, Esq., at Mine 
 
38 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 Brook, because it was four miles nearer to Bask- 
 ingridge than his father's house. The following 
 written by his own hand has been found among 
 his papers : 
 
 FINLEY'S FIRST CLASS. 
 
 " In the autumn of the year seventeen hundred 
 and ninety-nine, (1799) two lads of about the 
 same age, commenced the study of the Latin 
 Grammar together, under the instruction of the 
 Rev. Robert Finley, then pastor of the Presby- 
 terian Church of Baskingridge. Their names 
 were Samuel Lewis Southard and Jacob Kirk- 
 patrick. Their parents resided within the bounds 
 of the parish and were members of Mr. Finley's 
 church. Mr. Finley (afterwards Dr. Finley) was 
 recently entered upon the duties of a pastor, and 
 but lately from the College of New Jersey. 
 (There was no Theological Seminary then in our 
 land). From the combined motive of doing good 
 and obtaining a livelihood, he conceived the enter- 
 [iiise of an academy. The two lads above named 
 
REV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, D. D. 39 
 
 formed the nucleus around which a number clus- 
 tered, until there was formed in that place a large 
 and flourishing classical school. 
 
 "They had progressed part way through the 
 Latin Grammar (then Ruddiman's) when they 
 were joined by Philip Lindsly, a youth from the 
 same neighborhood. He had been a short time 
 at school at Morristown, but he fell into the same 
 class. A short time again elapsed when a fourth 
 one arrived. He then wrote his name Jacob R. 
 T. Frelinghuysen. He was the son of General 
 Frederick Frelinghuysen, (then living at^. Mill- 
 stone, Somerset County), of Revolutionary mem- 
 ory. These four constituted the first class of the 
 Academy of Baskingridge, under the care of Rev. 
 R. Finley. We were guided in our studies of 
 the different classics, which then constituted the 
 course in the lower classes in the College of New 
 Jersey, till the commencement of the College, 
 then the last Wednesday of September, A. D., 
 1802. 
 
 " We presented ourselves for examination before 
 
40 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 Dr. S. S. Smith, then President of the College, 
 and were admitted to a standing in the Junior 
 Class. 
 
 " The faculty of the College then consisted of 
 Samuel S. Smith, D. D., LL. D., President, John 
 Maclean, M. D., Vice President, and two Tutors, 
 James Carnahan and Benjamin B. Hopkins. 
 There was no other professor connected with the 
 institution. Dr. Smith preached regularly to us 
 on the Sabbath. There was no other clergyman 
 even of any denomination in Princeton. 
 
 ^^The College edifice (now the Old North Col- 
 lege) had been burned in the spring previous and 
 rebuilt during the summer of 1802. The rooms 
 were not deemed sufficiently dry for two weeks, 
 during which we boarded in private families 4n 
 town,' as the expression was. P. Lindsly and the 
 writer of this, furnished a room together, which 
 we obtained by lot. This was the way the rooms 
 were disposed of at our first occupying the new 
 edifice. The room we lived in was 24, second 
 entry, and we remained together there to the end 
 
BEV. JACOB KIBKPATBICK, D. D. 41 
 
 of our course, in September, 1804. We sang: 
 'Now we are free from College rules/ Each 
 having obtained his diploma we separated." 
 
 That was a class of unusual ability, containing, 
 as it did. Rev. Philip Lindsly, D. D., E-ev. Jacob 
 Kirkpatrick, D. D., Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, 
 D. D., Rev. Alfred Ely, D. D., Hon. Samuel L. 
 Southard, Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, Hon. 
 George Chambers, Hon. Thomas H. Crawford, 
 and Hon. Joseph R. Ingersoll, to mention no 
 others. His room-mate, Philip Lindsly, was a 
 man of great originality and power, and distin- 
 guished himself as an educator of youth, and the 
 career of Frelinghuysen and Southard as Counsel- 
 lors at law and Statesmen, proved them to be men 
 of mark, and has made them an honor to their 
 native state. 
 
 Immediately after taking his first degree, young 
 Kirkpatrick entered his name as a student of law 
 in the office of George C. Maxwell, Esq., Flem- 
 ington, at the same time teaching in the Academy 
 at Somerville. After pursuing the study of the 
 
42 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 law for about three years, during a visit to his 
 native parish at a season of revival under the 
 ministrations of Dr. Finley in 1807, his views 
 and feelings on the subject of religion became so 
 changed, that he relinquished the law and conse- 
 crated himself to the work of the gospel ministry. 
 This change was not determined upon without a 
 severe internal conflict. Quite a number of his 
 most highly esteemed classmates were just about 
 to begin their career at the bar, and he would 
 naturally prefer to continue to be, in a measure, 
 associated with them. Besides, that was a time 
 when our country had scarcely begun to recover 
 from the overwhelming influence of French infi- 
 delity — many of our influential public men were 
 skeptics — the Christian ministry, as a profession, 
 was held at a large discount, and conscientious 
 piety was looked upon by not a few who thought 
 themselves to be wise, as contemptible hypocrisy. 
 The popular current was in the wrong direction, 
 and there were men of high standing and influ- 
 ence, who would say, that for any young man of 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATRIGK, D. D. 43 
 
 education and talents to undertake the business 
 of a preacher, was to bury himself for life. But 
 our friend abandoned his long cherished aspira- 
 tions for distinction, and resolved to endure for 
 Christ's sake all the opprobrium his decision 
 might provoke; and his whole subsequent course 
 has proved that in this conflict the change wrought 
 was genuine, and that grace was surely triumphant. 
 His successor, the Rev. William J. Wright, 
 thus refers to this epoch in Dr. Kirkpatrick's 
 life : " The struggle was a close one whether to 
 keep back part of the price, or to throw heart, 
 soul, mind, and strength into the work of the 
 Lord ; and I think I hear the percussive words 
 of Chrysostom ringing in his ears, 'Contemn 
 riches and thou shalt be rich ; contemn glory and 
 thou shalt be glorious ; contemn injuries and thou 
 shalt be a conqueror; contemn rest and thou 
 shalt gain rest; contemn earth and thou shalt 
 gain heaven.' The year passes and we behold 
 the ardent worldling humbled and sitting at the 
 foot of the cross. The struggle had passed, and 
 
44 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 the world was surrendered for ever. In the bit- 
 terness of the contest he had beaten the world and 
 trampled it under foot. No one who knew Dr. 
 Kirkpatrick but must have felt that he gained a 
 rare and unsurpassed victory, and the triumph 
 appreciates in importance as we look at the then 
 opposing influence of associates and the time^- 
 honored traditions of his earlier years." 
 
 The Eev. John L. Janeway, D. D., also says 
 of him : " His talents, his eloquence, his practical 
 business turn of mind and popular manners would 
 have led to eminence and wealth in the profession 
 [of tlie law]. Ambition beckoned him on, but 
 God converted him, and had other work for him; 
 he designed him for the ministry. After due and 
 serious reflection, feeling assured that God had 
 called him to preach the gospel, he turned his 
 back upon the law with its honors and emolu- 
 ments, and commenced his preparation for the 
 self-denying life of the ministry. And after fifty- 
 six years of toil he laid down and died a poor 
 man. The only result of his years of labor was a 
 
BEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, D.D. 45 
 
 bare yearly support. Say — is not such a man 
 worthy to be esteemed and held in grateful re- 
 membrance, who for the sake of souls gave up a 
 profession which opened up honors and riches ? 
 But he counted the cost ; he took up the cross and 
 looked for his reward not from this world nor 
 from nien^ but from his Master in heaven." 
 
 The final decision having been made he imme- 
 diately placed himself under the care of the Rev. 
 John Woodhull, D.D., of Freehold, Monmouth Co., 
 who at that time, when there were no Theological 
 Seminaries, was often resorted to by candidates for 
 the ministry for instruction in Theology. He 
 took lodgings in the house of Mr. John Sutfin, 
 not far from the old Tennent Church, and over 
 against the Parsonage, once occupied by the cele- 
 brated Rev. William Tennent, and then by his 
 successor Dr. Woodhull. Here, associated with 
 Jacob T. Field, a fellow-student, he spent about 
 two years. He and his friend were taken under 
 the care of the Presbytery of New Brunswick at 
 the same time, October 7, 1807 ; their next ap- 
 
46 KIllKPATRlGK MEMORIAL. 
 
 pearance was April 26, 1809, when each read a 
 lecture, and they were both licensed to preach the 
 gospel on the 8tli of August, 1809. The pastoral 
 relation between the Rev. Thomas Grant having 
 been dissolved on the 26th of April previous, Mr. 
 Kirkpatrick preached for that people for the first 
 time in the month of September, and afterwards 
 by appointment of the Presbytery five Sabbaths 
 in December, 1809, and in February and April, 
 1810. This opened the way for his being called 
 to take the pastoral office among them, as appears 
 from the Records of the Presbytery at Trenton, 
 April 24, 1810. 
 
 This was a call for "five years," which the 
 Presbytery refused to put into his hands, but 
 resolved to ordain him and appoint him a stated 
 supply for five years. 
 
 Dr. Kirkpatrick states that "When it [this 
 call] was read in the Presbytery, Dr. S. Stanhope 
 Smith casting his keen eye upon me, remarked : 
 ^ I would throw it back in their teeth.' On the 
 19th of June, 1810, the Presbytery met in the 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, JD. D. 47 
 
 Amwell First Church and heard the candidate's 
 trial sermon for ordination from Col. iii. 4, and 
 on the next day, June 20th, Mr. Kirkpatrick was 
 ordained, Dr. John Woodhull preaching the ser- 
 mon and offering the ordaining prayer. The 
 Rev. Holloway W. Hunt gave the charge to the 
 minister, and delivered " a suitable address to the 
 people.' ' 
 
 At a meeting of the Presbytery held April 25, 
 1815, the Amwell people having acted upon the 
 advice previously given them, a regular call was 
 presented; and on the 16th of June following in 
 the " Old Stone Church," (formerly occupied by 
 a German congregation then dissolved), Mr. 
 Kirkpatrick was formally installed the pastor of 
 the Amwell churches, his cousin the Rev. Wil- 
 liam B. Sloan preaching the sermon, and the Rev. 
 George S. Woodhull giving the charges to pastor 
 and people. 
 
 The result was a happy one, evincing the wis- 
 dom of the Presbytery, tlie popularity of the 
 young pastor, and the kind feeling with which 
 
48 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 the people abandoned the deep-rooted prejudice 
 they had formed against settling a pastor in the 
 ordinary way. 
 
 In his half century sermon Dr. Kirkpatrick 
 says, " It was the remark of some when my pre- 
 decessor left them, Hhat they would not call 
 another man for life.^ Still they have had one 
 almost for life, and perhaps they will keep him as 
 long as he lives." And so it proved, for he com- 
 pleted fifty-six years of residence among them, 
 and the pastoral relation was dissolved only by 
 his death. 
 
 In his half century sermon we have his mature 
 views on this subject: "In conclusion let me 
 say, I have always looked upon the pastoral 
 relation, constituted by an installation service, as 
 a relation which ought not to be for trifles dis- 
 solved. Instances there are and have been, where 
 circumstances demanded a separation of pastor 
 and people; but is it not the fact that there are 
 many dissolutions that are to be regretted ? In 
 writing not long since to a beloved brother at the 
 
REV. JACOB KIUKPATRICK, I). D. 49 
 
 rc'C|iiest of a vacant church, I said to him, ^I 
 have nothing to say as to the salary which you 
 receive or which you may expect if you remove ; 
 but you and I are not to be governed by dollars 
 and (^nts, but by a sense of duty. If the hand 
 of God waves and seems to say remove, remove, 
 I can recommend the church of which I have 
 been speaking.' " It is well known that on several 
 occasions he received flattering overtures from 
 other congregations, where his worldly condition 
 would have been greatly improved, but his sense 
 of duty united to his unchanging love for the 
 people whom he had served in his youth con- 
 strained him uniformly to reject them and to 
 abide where he was. 
 
 In 1853, Dr. Kirkpatrick relinquished one 
 hundred dollars of his salary to secure the settle- 
 ment of a colleague. This colleague was the 
 Rev. Samuel M. Osmond, now pastor of the 
 Presbyterian Church of Iowa City, Iowa. Dr. 
 K. says: "For more than forty years I preached 
 alternate] V in the ^United First' and ^Second' 
 
50 KIRKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 cluirches. In 1852 I urged that as both churches 
 were large and able, they ought to have preaching 
 in both houses every Sabbath. Some of my 
 brethren and fathers whom I consulted advised a 
 separation — that I had better leave one church. 
 Some advised a colleague. I took the latter 
 course. In 1853 they called a colleague or co- 
 pastor. 
 
 "They who advised a separation of the churches 
 gave as reasons, that a colleague might ingratiate 
 himself into the good feelings of the people, as 
 he probably would be young; and as I was on 
 the decline, and going down, I might find myself 
 in an unpleasant situation. But none of these 
 things ever were manifest, even in the slightest 
 degree. He always treated me as a father. I 
 loved him, and love him still, but the tongue of 
 eulogy is dumb. For four years we lived to- 
 gether in friendship and peace, and love, and I 
 think could have lived together till my gray hairs 
 were laid in the grave; but his health not being 
 very firm, lie thought a removal to a diiferent 
 
REV, JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. I\ 51 
 
 part of the country might be advantageous and 
 he left us/' 
 
 During the last year of his life arrangements 
 were made for the settlement of a colleague with 
 him over the Amwell United First Church, who 
 should perform the more laborious part of the 
 pastoral w^ork. The Rev. William J. Wright 
 was the person called to that office; but his in- 
 stallation did not take place until about a week 
 before the death of the venerable senior pastor, 
 who was then confined to the house, awaiting the 
 call of his Master to go upward. 
 
 The following article prepared for the press at 
 the time by the writer of these sketches, is here 
 introduced both for the sake of the memorable 
 occasion, and on account of the facts, most of 
 which were on that day, gathered from Dr. Kirk- 
 patrick's own lips. It is entitled, 
 
 A GOLDEN WJEnniNG. 
 
 "In one of those hospitable mansions which 
 were then and are now so numerous in old Mon- 
 
52 KIRKPATHWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 mouth Comity, New Jersey, on the thirteenth day 
 of December, 1809, Jacob Ivirkpatrick and Mary 
 Sutfin were joined in holy wedlock by the Rev. 
 John Woodhull, D. D., her pastor, and Ids theolo- 
 gical preceptor. , The newly wedded were soon 
 found at Ringoes, in Hunterdon County, where 
 the husband was laboring as a minister of Christ. 
 On the 20th of June following he was ordained. 
 In the same place they have remained until this 
 day. On the 13th of December, 1859, the fiftieth 
 anniversary of their marriage, their golden wed- 
 ding was celebrated. The pastors of the adjacent 
 Presbyterian churches and other clerical friends, 
 with a large number of those who now are, or 
 have been, under Dr. Kirkpatrick's pastoral 
 charge, met at the Ringoes parsonage, and spent 
 the day with the venerable couple and their as- 
 sembled children and grandchildren. One person 
 who witnessed the marriage ceremony, a sister of 
 Mrs. K., was present. The groomsman and 
 bridesmaid are yet living, but the infirmities of 
 age, and the distance of the place of meeting, 
 
 ^- 
 
EEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, 1). T). 53 
 
 prevented their attendance. Of their fourteen 
 children, four sons have died, (one of whom was 
 the late Rev. J. Kirkpatrick, Jr.), and ten chil- 
 dren — four sons and six daughters, still survive — 
 all of them professed followers of Christ, and all 
 married except the two youngest daughters. Of 
 their thirty grandchildren, twenty-four are living, 
 and mast of them, if not all, have been dedicated 
 to God in baptism. 
 
 "A rich and bountiful repast was furnished by 
 the ladies of the congregation; and golden tokens 
 of respect and affection were liberally supplied by 
 the guests to fill the purse of the aged pair. 
 
 ^^In behalf of the assembly, the Rev. P. O. 
 Studdiford, D.D., of Lambertville, in a most ap- 
 propriate and happy mann^', addressed Dr. and 
 Mrs. Kirkpatrick. 
 
 ^^ The address was followed with prayer by the 
 pastor of the Pennington Church. After these 
 exercises were over, unexpectedly to all, the vene- 
 rable patriarch arose, nearly overcome by emo- 
 tion, and taking his position in the midst of the 
 
54 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 crowd of his friends and spiritual children, he 
 poured forth in strains of simple eloquence the 
 feelings of his noble heart. Notwithstanding the 
 many pleasing and striking occurrences of tlie 
 celebration, this speech was unquestionably the 
 event of the day. No description of the ready 
 writer, no pen of a stenographer could do it full 
 justice. To present it in its proper light, there 
 would be needed a series of photographic impres- 
 sions exhibiting the aspect of the speaker and 
 audience at each successive moment, with the 
 advantages of some new art that could arrest and 
 give permanence to the intonations of the voice 
 and to that powerful electric current which per- 
 vaded and swayed the minds and hearts of those 
 who hung upon the patriarch's lips. Even the 
 little grandchildren seemed to catch the spirit of 
 the scene as they gazed with a tender, wondering 
 interest upon their honored grandsire. He re- 
 marked that he was now addressing the grand- 
 children of the grandchildren (fifth generation) 
 of those who first called him to this pastoral 
 
BFV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. D. 55 
 
 charge; that within his original field of labor^ 
 twelve miles square, in the township of Amwell, 
 there was now living but one married cou2:)le, 
 whom he found in wedlock at his settlement, and 
 the husband (Mr. David Bellis) was here present. 
 Since his own marriage, he had married about six 
 hundred and thirty [at the time of his death, seven 
 hundred and five] couples, and in some cases had 
 officiated at the marriage of parents, children, and 
 grandchildren; of the ministers who were mem- 
 bers of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, at the 
 time of his licensure, all have died except one. 
 Dr. Isaac V. Brown, [since dead] ; though he had 
 not moved from his place for half a century, he 
 had belonged to two Synods and three Presbyte- 
 ries; when he was ordained, there were connected 
 with his charge ninety-four communicants, but 
 now attached to the five Presbyterian churches 
 occupying the same ground, there are at present 
 nearly ten times that number in communion 
 making no account of those who have died in the 
 faith, or have transferred their relation to other 
 
56 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 churches. Dr. Kirkpatrick stated that this was 
 the forty-ninth annual donation visit that had 
 been made to his family since he became their 
 pastor. Happy people! blessed with a long, an 
 honored, a faithful, and a successful ministry; 
 happy pastor so blessed in his work — ' May his bow 
 abide in strength, and the arms of his hands be 
 made strong by the hands of the mighty God of 
 Jacob; happy husband and worthy ^help-meet' — 
 may the blessings of the covenant rest on them 
 and their descendants to the latest generation, and 
 may their declining sun be bright to the last.' '' 
 
 Dr. Kirkpatrick's field of labor originally ex- 
 tended from the Delaware River, where Lambert- 
 ville now stands, to the Somerset line. On this 
 wide field he "made full proof of his ministry'' in 
 cold and heat, sunshine and storm, by day and by 
 night, doing the work of a missionary. Many a 
 tiihe he has been compelled to do a large portion 
 of his studying on horseback, or wlien riding in 
 his carriage from place to place through the con- 
 gregation, or to answer calls from a distance. 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, I), t). 57 
 
 Whatever reputation he might have gained as a 
 finished orator, or a profound scholar, was sacri- 
 ficed to calls upon the sick, the dying, and the 
 afflicted; to social visits in the families of his 
 charge; to attendance on religious services on 
 week-day evenings, and to the preaching of funeral 
 sermons beyond, as well as within the bounds of 
 his own parish. So great was his popularity as a 
 preacher, that his services were in constant de- 
 mand abroad, especially in revivals of religion. 
 The weeks spent by him and his friend Dr. Stud- 
 diford, in "doing the work of an evangelist'' in 
 various parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 
 would fill up no small part of the fifty-six years 
 of his ministry. Eminently successful as he was 
 in winning souls among his own people, the ag- 
 gregate of the spiritual harvests gathered in by 
 others as the fruit of his labors far exceeds the 
 results at home. He was the servant of any and 
 every one that he might gain the more, following 
 the example of his divine Master who "came not 
 to be ministered to, but to minister." He had 
 
68 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 nothing of the proselyting spirit about him, but 
 left every man to choose his own denomination 
 and his own place of worship. If any of his 
 ()^\■n people preferred to leave his pastoral over- 
 sight for another's, he never attempted to inter- 
 pose an obstacle by either word or act. He had 
 no ambition to convert men to himself, or to swell 
 the number of his followers ; for the great end he 
 sought was gained when the power of godliness 
 was increased in believers and souls were saved 
 from death. His Christia7i magnanimity was above 
 all praise. 
 
 Of selfishness, vanity, pride, worldly ambition, 
 envy, jealousy, wilfulness, and love of money, he 
 had as little as any man the writer ever knew. 
 He had a large, warm, generous heart, too gene- 
 rous even to assert his own rights when they were 
 infringed. He was a rare example of " the meek- 
 ness and gentleness of Christ.'' Though he 
 understood human nature well, and could often 
 read a man's character at a glance, he never used 
 this talent for selfish purposes but only to increase 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JD. U. 59 
 
 his power over the conscience and the heart in 
 private or from the pulpit. He had not set his 
 heart on earthly things. He could appeal to his 
 people with a clear conscience and say with Paul : 
 " I have coveted no man's silver or gold, or ap- 
 parel," or with the Prophet Samuel : " Whose ox 
 have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or 
 whom have I defrauded ? whom have I oppressed ? 
 or of whose hand have I received any bribe to 
 blind mine eyes therewith ?" 
 
 Few men have approached as near as he to a 
 literal conformity to these precepts of our Lord : 
 " But I say unto you that ye resist not evil ; but 
 whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, 
 turn to him the other also. And if any man will 
 sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let 
 him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall 
 compel thee to go a mile with him, go with him 
 twain. Give to him that asketh of thee and from 
 him that would borrow of thee turn not thou 
 away." 
 
 Whether or not he did sometimes yield too 
 
60 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 much, and submit to the infringement of his rights 
 to a greater degree than was consistent with the 
 good of others as well •as of liimself, it would be 
 presumption to affirm ; for he acted conscientiously 
 and was accustomed to say that he could not do 
 otlierwise. He was exceedingly jealous of him- 
 self lest he should either say or do anything that 
 might hinder the salutary effect of the gospel 
 upon his hearers. If he could but bring them to 
 Christ he was willing to do or bear almost any- 
 thing. 
 
 I haye sometimes thought that there was a 
 strange commingling in liis constitution of the 
 gentleness of woman with the heart of a lion. 
 His Christian courage wotdd haye taken him at 
 any time to the lion's den or the martyr's stake 
 if the honor of religion had demanded it. 
 
 Though he was mild, easy and courteous in his 
 manners, he was rigidly exact in eyerything that 
 related to the keeping of a promise, the meeting 
 of an engagement or the fulfilment of an appoint- 
 ment. He abounded in shrewd sayings and 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, D. D. 61 
 
 humorous anecdote/ but such was his nice discri- 
 mination between the true and the false that he 
 was always found adhering to the simple verity. 
 He was one whom it was well nigh impossible 
 not to love with a more than ordinary attachment. 
 His associates in the ministry, young and old, to 
 the end of his life, took delight in visiting his 
 hospitable dwelling; and whoever crossed his 
 threshold with a burdened sorrowing heart, soon 
 returned with new zeal and courage to the calls 
 of duty. And wherever he went he was more 
 than welcome. His cheerful countenance made 
 his very presence a light in the domestic and 
 social circle. Even when his friends visited him 
 to condole with him in his days of bereavement 
 and deep affliction they wondered at the grace 
 that sustained him, and retired with the convic- 
 tion that instead of imparting consolation they 
 were receiving comfort and instruction from him. 
 What a rich treasure such a man is and must be 
 to the community in which he dwells. 
 
 Arithmetic cannot present to the eye a proper 
 
62 KIEKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 estimate of the amount of good he accomplishes 
 while living, and the blessed fruits gathered long 
 after he lias passed away. 
 
 Dr. Kirkpatrick's ministry was honored of God 
 by ten seasons of refreshing, the revivals of 1843 
 and 1846 exceedino; in power either of the others, 
 for in each of these two years more than one hun- 
 dred were added to the number of the communi- 
 cants, and among them several of his own chil- 
 dren. The statistics kindly furnished by the 
 Rev. William J. Wright, pastor of the Amwell 
 United First, and the Rev. John Burrows, pastor 
 of the Amwell Second Church, show that in tliose 
 two churches six hundred and twenty-one have 
 been received on profession, and if to these were 
 added those of the Amwell First Church, (which 
 could not be learned in season owing to the sick- 
 ness of the pastor), the number would doubtless 
 reach seven hundred. The fact that during this 
 long period only fifty-three were received by cer- 
 tificate in one church, and sixteen in the other, 
 proves how little that community has clianged by 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. D. 63 
 
 immigration; and also reminds us that the 
 churches in most of our agricultural districts are 
 engaged in the important work of training and 
 sending out those who are to be the pillars of the 
 churches in our cities and in various other por- 
 tions of the land. 
 
 During his ministry he preached about eleven 
 thousand times, and attended about nine hundred 
 funerals. Much of his time was employed in 
 attending the judicatories of the church from 
 which he was never absent without good cause, 
 and in which his counsels were always wise and 
 helpful. He was one of the founders of the Hun- 
 terdon County Bible Society in 1816, uniformly 
 one of its most active supporters, and for many 
 years to the time of his death, its Secretary. He 
 was among the earliest and most energetic pro- 
 moters of the Temperance Eeformation, and 
 cheerfully responded to frequent calls to lecture 
 and preach on that subject in Hunterdon and the 
 adjacent counties. Without attempting learned 
 discussion or indulging in nice metaphysical ab- 
 
64 KIRKPATIUCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 stractions, he laid hold of the giant evil in the 
 concrete, and sought to apply a practical remedy 
 that would be effectual. To his people he was a 
 ready helper in every way. He wrote their wills, 
 and deeds and leases ; gave them legal counsel to 
 the extent of his knowledge of the law which he 
 had studied three years, and with a degree of wis- 
 dom, disinterestedness and affection extremely rare 
 imparted to them advice, such as they needed, in 
 both their temporal and spiritual concerns. He 
 was ever ready for any good work, and willing to 
 deny himself to almost any extent for the welfare 
 of others, and the advancement of the cause of 
 Christ. 
 
 It may here be added that on the ground which 
 he began to cultivate in 1810, there are now six 
 Presbyterian Churches, one Protestant Reformed 
 Dutch Church, three Baptist Churches, and five 
 Methodist Churches. 
 
 A communication from the Pev. Samuel M. 
 Osmond, the colleague of Dr. Kirkpatrick, giving 
 his views and impressions, is here inserted. 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATRTCK, D. D. 65 
 
 . He says: "I was providentially brought into 
 
 intimate association with both the subjects of the 
 
 proposed Memorial, more especially with Dr. K., 
 
 as his colleague for four years. I can recall 
 
 nothing that transpired in my intercourse with 
 
 either of them that brings up an unpleasant 
 
 thought, or casts the slightest shadow upon their 
 
 revered and cherished memories. 
 
 "My acquaintance was first with the son, and 
 
 through him with his venerable father. During 
 
 the Senior year in College, and through the whole 
 
 of, the Seminary course, I was a classmate of 
 
 Jacob. Your proposed Memorial will need no 
 
 additional testimony such as I might oifer to do 
 
 justice to his high order of talent, his brilliant 
 
 wit, his consistent devoted piety, or to illustrate 
 
 the characteristics of this stage of his too brief 
 
 career. 
 
 "As our Seminary course was approaching its 
 
 close, it occurred that the congregations of the 
 
 United First and Second churches of Amwell 
 
 yielded to the request to call a co-pastor. The 
 6 * 
 
66 KmKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 thoughts of the people with one accord turned 
 to Jacob, who, had he consented, would have re- 
 ceived a unanimous and enthusiastic call. It was, 
 however, his conviction, that a stranger might do 
 better; and it was at his suggestion, without my 
 knowledge of any arrangement of the kind, I 
 was invited to spend a Sabbath with them. The 
 result was that, in June, 1853, I was ordained 
 and installed as associate pastor with Dr. Kirk- 
 patrick, a position which I occupied until my 
 impaired health seemed to render a change neces- 
 sary. That change was made at the cost of one 
 of the sorest trials of my affections that life's 
 vicissitudes have ever brought. 
 
 "I shall never forget my first sight of Dr. Kirk- 
 patrick. The train had been detained, and it was 
 at a late hour on Saturday night, previous to the 
 day I was to preach for the Amwell people, that 
 I found myself at the door of the well-known 
 Ringoes Parsonage. I was a somewhat modest 
 young man, and it was not without a degree of 
 trepidation I knocked for admission. The door 
 
BEV. JACOB KlPdx PATRICK, D. I). 67 
 
 was speedily opened by the Doctor himself. The 
 first glance at that benevolent, beaming face, the 
 warm pressure of his hand, his affectionate words 
 of greeting gave me more than re-assurance. 
 
 " I needed nothing more to make me feel per- 
 fectly at home. I was in love at first sight, and 
 had I after the first moments of that reception 
 been called upon to decide whether or not I would 
 be his colleague, I should have waited for no 
 stronger guaranty that the relationship would be 
 a most agreeable one so far as he was concerned, 
 than these first impressions had already given me. 
 
 "Nor did I ever have cause to modify those im- 
 pressions. Years of close, endearing, sacred in- 
 tercourse only deepened them. They will last 
 while memory lasts. 
 
 " The Doctor lived in the Parsonage at Ringoes. 
 My residence was in the bounds of the Second 
 Church, near Mount Airy. We each preached 
 on alternate Sabbaths at the two churches. On 
 Communion occasions the two congregations united 
 in the service, and I was thus furnished with the 
 
68 KIBKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 principal opportunities I enjoyed for hearing the 
 Doctor preach. His sermons were constructed 
 with great simplicity, were never wholly written 
 out, but were by no means extemporaneous in the 
 usual sense of that term. As a preacher, he was 
 more practical than doctrinal ; yet the great prin- 
 ciples of gospel truth were never lost sight of, 
 and the distinctive views of Presbyterians as to 
 doctrine, order and ordinances were kept before 
 the people with such effect, as to make them d&- 
 cidedf though at the same time liberal Presbyte- 
 rians. He had a certain summary^ but telling, 
 way of disposing of controverted points — such, 
 for instance, as the mode of baptism, that I have 
 never heard surpassed for practical effectiveness. 
 His people Avere thus in a remarkable degree pre- 
 served from being ^carried away by every wind 
 of doctrine.' It was a noticeable fact, that every 
 now and then, while proselyting was one of the 
 very last things that Dr. Kirkpatrick could ever 
 be charged with, there would be additions from 
 other denominations. Nothing but Presbyterian- 
 
BEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, D. D. ^9 
 
 ism gained much foothold, or manifested much 
 vigor of growth in the neighborhood of the Am- 
 well churches. 
 
 ^^ An element of power in the Doctor's preaching 
 consisted in the depth and tenderness of his emo- 
 tional nature. It was evident that he yearned 
 over his people with the truest spiritual affection. 
 Often his swelling heart would impede his utter- 
 ance. It was no unusual occurrence for him to 
 weep as he spoke of the love of Jesus, or gave 
 expression to the tender appeals of the gospel; 
 and none can doubt that 
 
 * The tear 
 That fell on his Bible was sincere.* 
 
 " There can be no doubt that in the earlier years 
 of his ministry, before his powers had begun to 
 wane through age, he was a more than ordinarily 
 effective and eloquent preacher. The old people 
 of the Amwell and other congregations who 're- 
 membered the former days,' had much to say of 
 powerful sermons which they had heard him 
 
70 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 preach, generally from texts somewhat out of the 
 usual order. 
 
 "His nature was fervid, but he was not moved 
 by mere impulse. Principle regulated him. Duty 
 was his guiding star. Her claims were fulfilled 
 simply, promptly, and to the best of his ability. 
 It would have to be a serious matter that would 
 prevent him from taking his stand at the post of 
 duty. Insuperable obstacles only kept him away 
 from meetings of ecclesiastical bodies of which he 
 was a "member, and the money he took from his 
 moderate salary to defray the expenses, would 
 alone have made a handsome patrimony for his 
 family. He would cross swollen streams, find a 
 path through huge snow-drifts, encounter driving 
 storms and imperil health and life, but he would 
 not fail of his apj)ointments if it was possible to 
 keep them. He had once arranged with a brother 
 who had not half his years for an exchange. The 
 day was very unpleasant; the young brother 
 thought it entirely too bad to turn out; but punc- 
 tual to the hour of service the old Doctor was on 
 
REV. JACOB KIBKPATBICK, D. D. 71 
 
 hand to fulfil his part of the contract, and to 
 teach the mortified brother a lesson, he would not 
 be likely soon to forget. 
 
 " As however age crept on he shrank more and 
 more from wearisome journeys and exposure to 
 wintry storms. The self-sacrifice involved in 
 such duties became painful, but none the less did 
 he go steadily forward, and even after he was 
 eighty years old he performed labors and encoun- 
 tered hardships that would have taxed the powers 
 of many a youthful pastor. 
 
 ^' He was a patriarch among his people. They 
 came to him with their troubles as children would 
 come to a father ; and he composed their difficul- 
 ties, soothed their sorrows, and was ever ready to 
 do anything in his power for their benefit or 
 direction. 
 
 *^I can hardly trust myself to speak of Dr. 
 Kirkpatrick as I knew him at his own home. 
 His hospitality, his thoughtful kindness, his affec- 
 tionate yet ever gentlemanly bearing, his enter- 
 taining conversation full of anecdote and remi- 
 
72 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 niscences of other days are rarely surpassed. 
 There was something about the old Parsonage at 
 Ringoes that had for me and my wife an irre- 
 sistible attraction. In our rides through the 
 congregation, we were almost always sure to find 
 ourselves there, if but for a few pleasant moments 
 before our return, and never did we fail of such 
 welcome as to make us feel perfectly at home. 
 The Doctor was not the only element of attract- 
 iveness that drew us thither. All that have ever 
 shared our good fortune will recall other dear 
 ones of that peaceful home like-minded with its 
 revered head, and there will be many to breathe 
 the sigh of regret that the delightful circle has at 
 last been broken, which has so often been opened 
 for the admission alike of friend and stranger. 
 
 " It has been my privilege thrice to re-visit New 
 Jersey since my removal to the West. I could 
 notice the change that years were making on the 
 inmates of the parsonage. Age was tracing deeper 
 lines on the brow of the venerable Pastor. The 
 companions of his earlier years were fast passing 
 
MEV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. D. 73 
 
 away. The feeling that he was a stranger and a 
 pilgrim was evidently growing upon him. But 
 there was no repining, no sadness; nothing but 
 the peaceful waiting of a spirit, disengaged from 
 most of life's ties, lingering yet on the shore on 
 which he had seen so many friends of other days 
 set sail, Avith his own sails outspread for the 
 breeze. There was no restless impatient longing, 
 but simple acquiescence with the divine will only, 
 'choosing rather to depart and to be with 
 Christ.' '' 
 
 A letter from his son-in-law, J. G. Bowne, of 
 Oakdale, New Jersey, furnished me with the par- 
 ticulars of his sickness and death, with an extract 
 from which I will bring this imperfect tribute to 
 our beloved father to a close : 
 
 "During the last part of autumn he told me 
 he was not as well as he had been, and he feared 
 he would not be able to attend to his parochial 
 duties during the winter. We noticed that his 
 appetite failed, and he complained of constant 
 
74 KlRKl 'J TRICK MEMOR I A L. 
 
 nansea and distress at his stomach. His pipe* 
 (of which you know he was fond) was laid aside, 
 and his flesh wasted from his body. His decline 
 was very gradual He preached his last sermon 
 on the first Sabbath of January from Job xvi. 22, 
 ^ AVhen a few years are come, then I shall go the 
 way whence I shall not return.' I sa^v him often 
 and was satisfied that he was going down, althoiigh 
 he seemed to think he might again preach. He 
 was perfectly resigned, had no fear nor even wish 
 as to the final issue of his disease. He said — The 
 loving Saviour whom he had tried to serve sixty 
 years would not forsake him now. He spent 
 much of the time in the room w^ith his family, 
 walking without assistance from his bed-room 
 several times each day. He conducted family 
 worship regularly, and on the Saturday evening 
 
 * Dr. K. never used tobacco until his thirtieth year. It was 
 prescribed by his physician for the astlima, from which distress- 
 ing malady he jvas at times a great sufferer. He was not an apo- 
 logist for the habit, but his advice to a mere amateur at smoking 
 //v(.s lliiit Tie would do loell to let it alone. 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATEWK, D. B. 75 
 
 before he died he could not rise without help. 
 The family were much alarmed thinking it was 
 palsy, but in relating the circumstance to me on 
 Monday, he said ^ It was only a sleepy feeling in 
 one of his ankles/ He prayed with his family, 
 as usual, on Tuesday night. May 1st, and slept 
 comfortably until three o'clock Wednesday morn- 
 ing, when mother discovered he was awake. He 
 told her his head hurt him. It was his last word. 
 He was unconscious, after that folded his arms on 
 his breast, laid entirely still, and Mr. Schenck 
 who stood by his bed-side, told me that he died 
 so quietly he could not tell the moment when." 
 
 Thus, early on the morning of the 2d day of 
 May, 1866, this venerable servant of God went 
 to his rest. The funeral took place on Saturday, 
 May 5th, the services at the house being con- 
 ducted by the writer at the request of Mrs. Kirk- 
 patrick who was unable to go out. At the church 
 before a large audience, including several clergy- 
 men, the funeral sermon was preached by the 
 Rev. Peter O. Studdiford, D. D., from 2 Cor. 
 
76 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 viii. 16, "Thanks be to God, which put the same 
 earnest care into the licart of Titus for you.'^ 
 The devotional exercises were conducted by Dr. 
 John L. Janeway and the Rev. Messrs. Burrows, 
 Spayd, and Gardiner, and Dr. Janeway delivered 
 an address at the grave. The elders of the church 
 bore the remains to their final resting place. The 
 people of his late charge begged the privilege of 
 defraying the funeral expenses, and are making 
 arrangements for the erection of a suitable monu- 
 ment to his memory. His colleague, the Rev. 
 William J. Wright, now successor in the pastoral 
 office preached a Memorial Sermon on the 27th 
 of May following, from Psalm cxlix. 4, " He will 
 beautify the meek with salvation." 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1860, the fiftieth anni- 
 versary of his ordination, Dr. Kirkpatrick 
 preached a historical sermon which he concluded 
 with these words : " I have looked to yonder 
 grave-yard as the place where the resurrection 
 morn will find me ; and if I arise in the likeness 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, D. D. 77 
 
 of Jesus to his name be all the glory/' Precious 
 man ! 
 
 " Sweet is the savor of his name, 
 And soft his sleeping bed." 
 
 Amid all the agitations and strifes in Church 
 and State he strove to the utmost to " keep the 
 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." His 
 was a united people from the beginning to the 
 end of his ministry, and in answer to his prayers 
 may they ever so continue. He earnestly longed 
 for the day when the watchmen upon the walls 
 of Zion should " see eye to eye ;" when the bar- 
 riers which separate the friends of Christ on earth 
 should be broken down ; and when all men, 
 dwelling in concord, should love one another with 
 pure hearts fervently. Lovely, loving and be- 
 loved, he has found a home in just such a world 
 as his soul desired, where, in the presence of the 
 God of love in whom he delighted, he has joined 
 multitudes for whose salvation he wept and 
 prayed, where friendship cannot die, and perfect 
 
 love shall for ever reign. 
 
 7* 
 
Ill, 
 
 n^V. JACOB KIRKFATSICK, Jr. 
 
 rpHE Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, Jr., the eighth 
 -*- son of the Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, D. D., 
 was born October 6, 1828, in the village of Rin- 
 goes, shortly before the family removed to the 
 Craven property, which has since been occupied 
 as the Parsonage. 
 
 Those Avho knew him in his boyhood will 
 remember him as a lad small, quiet, silent, retir- 
 ing, yet closely observant of passing events, more 
 fond of books than of play — bearing on his counte- 
 nance lines of deep thought unusual for one of his 
 years. The bright glances which shot from, be- 
 neath those drooping eyelids revealed the intellec- 
 tual fire which had already begun to burn intensely 
 within. Often did the teachers of the public 
 school in his native village, where he acquired 
 
 78 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATEICK, JR. 79 
 
 the rudiments of his education, find an over- 
 match in their modest pupil, especially in mathe- 
 matical calculations. 
 
 He was ever ready to do his share of the many 
 services needed in a large family at a country 
 parsonage. If there was any toilsome or unplea- 
 sant task to be performed, his willing mind 
 prompted him to be among the first to undertake 
 it. He was a most considerate and loving son, 
 an affectionate brother, and kind and gentle in 
 his treatment towards all. His childhood and 
 youth seemed to be " without spot or blemish.'' 
 His early companions could remember no dis- 
 honorable, selfish, or ungenerous act, no unkind 
 word ; and his superiors in age never could lay to 
 his charge the utterance of a false or profane 
 word, or the performance of a deed foolish, ma- 
 licious, or in any wise discreditable. He was an 
 exception to the old proverb : *' A prophet is not 
 without honor save in his own country and in his 
 own house.'' So fair was the record of his early 
 life, that if he could have consented to become the 
 
80 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 colleague of his father, he would have commanded 
 the confidence and respect of the people as a ser- 
 vant of God, while he held a large place in their 
 affections. But his delicate, sensitive nature 
 shrank from the undertaking, although it would 
 have been no small pleasure to him to comfort 
 and assist his father in his declining years. 
 
 But although his course of life in his youth 
 was so unexceptionable he felt himself to be a 
 sinner against God ; indeed there is reason to be- 
 lieve that his upright conduct at this period is 
 due not so much to his naturally amiable dispo- 
 sition as to the restraints of conscience and the 
 deep religious impressions to which he was sub- 
 ject from childhood. Dr. Kirkpatrick was never 
 in the habit of delivering long moral and reli- 
 gious lectures to his children, indeed he said very 
 little to them on the subject of their personal 
 duty, but that little was full of meaning and to 
 the point. Next to his own example and that 
 of his like-minded help-meet, was the influence 
 of the Scripture reading and prayer at the family 
 
BEV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR. 81 
 
 altar morning and evening. That heart must be 
 hard that could remain unmoved while this tender 
 father with strong emotion wrestled with God 
 for the salvation of his children in their presence. 
 They could not doubt that he sought for them 
 first of all " the kingdom of God and his right- 
 eousness/' Such scenes often repeated could 
 scarcely fail to make an indelible impression the 
 effect of which would some day be manifested. 
 
 The happy issue in Jacob's case was reached 
 when he was just fifteen years of age, during a 
 powerful work of grace which added one hundred 
 and seven to the communion of the churches 
 under his father's pastoral care. In the parlor 
 of the Old Parsonage he appeared with several 
 others before the Session of the Amwell United 
 First Church, and after examination he with two 
 of his younger sisters were enrolled as communi- 
 cants on the 12th of October, 1843. 
 
 The decision to make a public profession of 
 religion was also a determination to serve God in 
 the ministry of the gospel of his Son. To do 
 
82 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 this, he, with the advice of his father, resolved to 
 begin the requisite course of preparatory study. 
 The necessary steps having been taken, within a 
 few weeks after he had sat down at the commu- 
 nion table, he accompanied by his venerable 
 father, entered his name as a pupil in the High 
 School of the Messrs. H. and S. M. Hamill, at 
 Lawrence vi lie, New Jersey. Here he continued 
 for two and a-half years. A complete record of 
 all his classical and literary exercises throughout 
 this period is to be found among the archives of 
 the school, and a more honorable record no pupil 
 of that Institution has ever been able to exhibit. 
 He stood "primus inter pares.'' Undemonstra- 
 tive as he was, his superior scholarship joined 
 with the high tone of his consistent piety soon 
 commanded the interested attention of his fellow 
 pupils, and awakened a high esteem which with- 
 out either envy or jealousy, continued to increase 
 as long as he remained. This was a beautiful 
 example of the power of unconscious influence ; 
 for almost without knowing it he was exercising 
 
REV. JACOB KIBKrA TRICK, JR. 83 
 
 daily a controlling moral power over the whole 
 school. Had his life ended when he left Law- 
 renceville, it could have been truly said that he 
 had not lived in vain. 
 
 After leaving the High School he entered the 
 College of New Jersey, where he was found com- 
 manding the respect of all as the faithful Chris- 
 tian student. Soon his exact scholarship and 
 close application marked him out as one of the 
 candidates for the highest honors of his class ; but 
 the failure of his eyes while a junior compelled 
 him to leave College for a year, so that he did not 
 take his first degree until 1850. 
 
 From the College he went directly to the Th^eo- 
 logical Seminary at Princeton, where he com- 
 pleted the full course of study for the ministry. 
 He was licensed in the autumn of 1852, by the 
 Presbytery of Raritan, of which his father was a 
 member, and, in the spring of 1853, was ordained 
 as an evangelist by the same Presbytery. 
 
 Upon leaving tlie Theological Seminary, he 
 was invited to Louisville, Kentucky, to supply 
 
84 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 for a season the pulpit of the Rev. William L. 
 Breckinridge, D. D., then pastor of the First 
 Church. Respecting this relation, Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge says: "I cannot forget that my Intercourse 
 with him was very pleasant In all respects, and 
 entirely satisfactory to me; and that from first to 
 last, he made a decided impression on us all as a 
 young minister of unusual promise every way.'' 
 
 While some of the people of Louisville were 
 contemplating a new church organization, and the 
 building of a Presbyterian house of worship, with 
 a view to his permanent settlement among them, 
 he received a call from the Third Church, Tren- 
 toil, made vacant by the resignation of the Rev. 
 Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. This call he accepted, 
 and was Installed pastor, November 3, 1853. 
 Here he continued in the active duties of the 
 ministry, preaching, with great acceptance, to a 
 warmly attached people until some time in the 
 year 1857. Probably from overaction of the 
 brain, in a physical frame, never robust, his ner- 
 vous system became prostrated, and he lost almost 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATEWK, JR. 85 
 
 entirely the use of his lower limbs. It was grati- 
 fying to see that, trying and painful as his disease 
 was, he retained the full use of liis nicntai facul- 
 ties, and was enabled to ^^ possess his soul in pui- 
 tience/' For months he and his people cherished 
 the hope of his recovery, and no skill or means 
 which gave a reasonable promise of effecting a 
 cure, were by them untried. When the issue of 
 his case became more doubtful, he finally signified 
 his purpose to the Session and the Congregation, 
 and upon application to the Presbytery of New 
 Brunswick, the pastoral relation was dissolved 
 February 3, 1859. The assiduous attention to 
 their afflicted pastor and the promptness with 
 which all his wants were anticipated by the peo- 
 ple of the Third Church, and the substantial 
 sympathy of other Presbyterians in Trenton, espe- 
 cially those of the First Church (Dr. HalFs) are 
 worthy of commemoration. God will surely re- 
 ward such a generous Christian people for their 
 unremitting kindness to his suffering young ser- 
 vant. The Saviour has said: "Inasmuch as ye 
 
8G KIRKPATEWK MEMORIAL, 
 
 liave done it unto one of the least of these my 
 brethren ye have done it unto me/^ Not only 
 the deed itself is to be commended, but the man- 
 iKT and spirit with which it was done. 
 
 Here it will be proper to introduce three letters 
 of Mr. Kirkpatrick, which illustrate some of the 
 admirable excellencies of his Christian character. 
 The first is addressed to the Session of the Third 
 Church, Trenton, and is dated, 
 
 "Trenton, December 31, 1857. 
 ''Dear Brethren: — From the commence- 
 ment of my illness I have been constantly cherish- 
 ing the hope of being able in a few months, to 
 resume my ministerial work; but have at length 
 been constrained to abandon it, and therefore it 
 becomes my duty at once to resign my pastoral 
 charge. The design of this note is to request you 
 to call the church and congregation together, at 
 an early day, to receive my resignation, and to 
 unite with me in petitioning the Presbytery, at 
 their next meeting, (in Princeton), to dissolve the 
 pastoral relation. 
 
EEV, JAVOB KIBKPATBJCK, JM. 87 
 
 "Making this request imposes upon me the 
 necessity of taking leave of you as a Session. In 
 doing so, I dare not undertake to exprcs.s the 
 emotions that are excited by the prospect of sepa- 
 ration ; but while I struggle to suppress these, it 
 is with lively pleasure, and with profound respect, 
 that I here record my testimony to the prudence, 
 fidelity, and brotherly kindness and courtesy which 
 have uniformly characterized you in all the trans- 
 actions and intercourse of the Session. This cor- 
 dial co-operation has been one of the distinct 
 sources of great satisfaction which I have enjoyed 
 in this pastoral relation. 
 
 "I deem it proper also, in this connection, to 
 express my high regard for the memory of our 
 departed brother, X. J. Maynard, Esq. May the 
 Lord grant to each of us as peaceful a departure, 
 when his appointed time shall come. It is my 
 earnest prayer that your circle may long be pre- 
 served from another breach; that the influences 
 of the Holy Spirit may thoroughly qualify you 
 for every official duty ; that the Lord Jesus may 
 
88 KIRKPATIllCK 3IEM0RIAL. 
 
 be with you at every meeting, and that you may 
 never want tlie encouragement which is to be 
 found in the visible prosperity of the beloved 
 church over which you have been called to rule. 
 
 *^ And now, brethren, I commend you to God, 
 and to the word of his grace, which is able to 
 build you up, and to give you an inheritance 
 among all them which are sanctified. 
 
 '^ J. KlKIvPATmCK, Je." 
 
 The second letter bears the same date. 
 
 '' To THE Third Presbyterian Church : — 
 I hereby tender to you the resignation of my 
 pastoral charge, in so far as I received it from 
 you, and request that you will co-operate with me 
 in making application to the Presbytery, at their 
 next meeting, to dissolve the relation which they 
 instituted between us. 
 
 "In the severity of this trial, I esteem it a re- 
 lief that I have no occasion to enter into a formal 
 vindication of my motives^ in order to guard against 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATEICK, JR. 89 
 
 the accusations and suspicions which often beset 
 those who are exchanging one pastoral charge for 
 another. And yet, unnecessary as it may be, I 
 cannot refrain from saying that, so far as my 
 knowledge extends, there is no situation in life 
 for which I would voluntarily have exchanged 
 the charge of this beloved church. 
 
 "On the other hand, I may well assign the 
 reason why I have withheld this resignation so 
 long, although unable to render you any service. 
 It is this alone — I have been led to postpone it 
 from time to time by the persistent hope of being 
 able to resume my work comparatively soon. The 
 extinction of that hope has left me no alternative 
 but to bring myself to the stern necessity of leav- 
 ing you, I beg you to overlook the blank which 
 my weakness obliges me to leave here, where you 
 might naturally expect an expression of my feel- 
 ings, and to pray that I may be enabled to trust 
 and adore the mysterious wisdom and sublime 
 sovereignty of that Providence which has thwarted 
 my hopes and swept my plans into confusion, to 
 
 8 * 
 
90 KIRKFATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 make way for the infinitely better pnrjwses of 
 God. 
 
 " Be assured of my exquisite appreciation of the 
 confidence with which you first received me, the 
 respectful and affectionate treatment which I have 
 uniformly enjoyed in the midst of you, the indul- 
 gent spirit with which you have borne with my 
 frailties and defects, and the noble liberality with 
 which you have provided for my personal and 
 domestic comfort. 
 
 "While I cannot forget the responsibility 
 under which I have often been bowed down to 
 the dust, and the inefficiency with which I have 
 represented the cause of Christ, yet my mind will 
 never recur to my ministry here without filling 
 itself with pleasant memories. It is my earnest 
 prayer and confident expectation that the Lord 
 will send you a far worthier and more efficient 
 pastor, and that your beloved church will be 
 built up, and strengthened, and purified abun- 
 dantly, and always to the glory of the grace of 
 God. I leave you with undiminished solicitude 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR. 91 
 
 for the spiritual welfare and salvation of every 
 individual in the congregation, and must say to 
 each once more, ^Behold the Lamb of God/ 
 * The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love 
 of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost 
 be with you all. Amen/ 
 
 "J. KiRKPATRICK, Jr.'' 
 
 " P. S. It is my desire that you will omit the 
 customary resolutions of esteem and regret, etc. 
 Not because I should for a moment doubt the 
 perfect sincerity of what you might see fit to ex- 
 press in that form, but for reasons drawn entirely 
 from other cases by which the custom is dis- 
 honored. I shall be gratified, and shall consider 
 myself sufficiently distinguished if you will tacitly 
 comply with my request. 
 
 "J. K., Jr.'' 
 
 The third communication was sent in acknow- 
 ledgement of the provision of twelve hundred 
 dollars contributed by that people for the support 
 of his family. 
 
92 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 "Trenton, January \bth^ 1858. 
 "To THE Third Church and Congrega- 
 tion : — I have been informed by one of the elders, 
 of the very generous provision which you have 
 been pleased to make for the support and comfort 
 of my family during the time which it is expected 
 will be required for the restoration of my health. 
 I seem to be obliged by circumstances to speak 
 of myself much more than I desire — indulge me 
 thus far. The physical suffering, the tedious con- 
 finement, and consequent privations which Provi- 
 dence has most righteously imposed upon me, I 
 have been enabled to bear with a good degree of 
 composure ; under the far heavier trial of resign- 
 ing my pastoral charge, and renouncing the hope 
 of a happy and useful life in the midst of you, I 
 have been enabled to retain my self-possession in 
 a considerable measure; but by this expression 
 of kind solicitude and sincere affection, with 
 which you are pleased to follow me in my de- 
 parture, I have been overwhelmed. I take this 
 method of assuring you of the grateful love which 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, JB. 93 
 
 I dare not undertake to express personally to 
 individuals. 
 
 " My whole heart and soul are filled with the 
 fervent prayer that God, in the infinitude of his 
 goodness and mercy will return this kindness to 
 you a thousand fold in this world, and ten thou- 
 sand in the next. Yours, as ever, and for ever. 
 
 " J. KiKKPATRICK, Je.^ 
 
 jy 
 
 " P. S. As I am constrained in a great measure 
 to deny myself the pleasure of giving vent to my 
 feelings, I reluctantly request that my friends will 
 endeavor to treat me as though I were not going 
 to leave them soon, without any fear that I will 
 misconstrue the seeming unconcern. 
 
 "J. K., Jr.'' 
 
 Upon the settlement of his successor, he re- 
 moved his family from Trenton to reside with an 
 elder brother near Ringoes. Here a new trial 
 came upon him. That sweet and estimable 
 woman, Sarah Catharine Vanliew, to whom he 
 had been united in marriage in the spring of 
 
94 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 1853, wasted rapidly with disease, and died 
 ]\Iarc]i 20, 1859. Her remains were taken to 
 Trenton and laid in the Mercer Cemetery. After 
 this, he and his only child, the now motherless 
 daughter, w^ere taken to the Parsonage to be 
 under the care of his venerated parents and affec- 
 tionate sisters. 
 
 In reply to a kind letter of inquiry from the 
 Hon. Edward W. Scudder, (now a ruling elder 
 in the Third Church,) he speaks in a most touch- 
 ing manner of his peculiar trials. 
 
 "RiNGOES, April 2^th, 1859. 
 "Mr. E. W. Scudder— My dear Sir: You 
 know already why I could not answer you 
 sooner. The little I can now write you w^ill 
 expect to be, I suppose, concerning myself. I 
 have no dismal story to tell. I have lost my 
 health, my church, my home, and my precious 
 wife but not my Saviour. 
 
 " * He neA'er takes away our all, 
 Himself he gives us still.* 
 
BEV. JACOB KJBKPATBWK, JB. 95 
 
 " In all my afflictions I see nothing but the 
 glory of God, his majestic sovereignty, infinite 
 wisdom, righteousness, and love. In all my 
 mourning I am filled with wonder, love and 
 praise. All this would be miseiable egotism but 
 for one thing — ^the poor Ego is put to shame — it 
 is not I, but the grace of God that is given unto 
 me. To Him be all the praise. My health is 
 considerably better than during the winter. I 
 am stronger and can take a few steps with more 
 ease than at any time in sixteen months. I ex- 
 pect to go to my father's next week to spend the 
 summer if I live. With kindest regards to your 
 family, I am yours, sincerely. 
 
 "J. KiRKPATRICK, Jr.^' 
 
 Let the afflicted and bereaved take courage 
 when they see the steadfastness and serenity of 
 spirit of one placed in such affecting circum- 
 stances. Let skepticism retire abashed, if not 
 convinced, by such a triumph of divine grace. 
 To hear a man whose character from infancy u[)- 
 
9G KIRKPATEICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 ward had been without one stain, and wliose sin- 
 gular devotion to his INIaster's work was enough 
 to oau^e ordinary men to blush with shame, de- 
 claring with the utmost sincerity amid an accumu- 
 lation of sorrows that he deserved all that he 
 suffered, and that to him there was nothing mys- 
 terious in God's trying dispensations towards 
 him, must convince the most thoughtless that in 
 him there were humility and child-like faith of 
 no common grade, and a strength of soul which 
 noticing but the power of a gracious God could 
 bestow. 
 
 Two weeks before his death he called his aged 
 father to his bed-side and said, " Father, I am 
 now dying. Up to this hour I thought the Lord 
 \vould raise me up to preach the gospel a little 
 longer ; but it is not his will. I desire to preach 
 once to the Third Church of Trenton after I am 
 dead. Tell them — I mean them all, whether 
 now of the Third Church or the Fourth — tell 
 them I love them all. I have not ceased to pray 
 lor them to the latest breath, that they may live 
 
REV. JACOB KIEKPATRICK, JR. 97 
 
 in peace, and that the God of peace may be witli 
 them. I wish you to see that my body follows 
 tliat of my beloved wife. I desire no eulog^^ — no 
 parade. I have been a great sinner ; ^ by the 
 grace of God I am what I am.' " On a subsequent 
 occasion after his father had laid him in as easy a 
 condition as possible, with each arm resting on a 
 pillow, being "just on the verge of heaven,'^ he 
 said, " Now leave me with my Saviour and 
 He will take care of me;'' and in that 
 peaceful confidence his spirit gently passed away. 
 The precious remains were removed from 
 Ringoes to Trenton on the 31st of October, under 
 the direction of his trusty friend Benjamin S. 
 Disbrow, Esqr., and placed in front of the pulpit 
 of the Third Church. Here crowds gathered 
 around, to take the last look at that countenance 
 yet mild, benign and heavenly in death. It was 
 an aifecting scene. The falling tear, and the 
 grief depicted on the faces of all, especially of 
 several of the humble poor, manifested the 
 sincerity of their attachment, for they " sorrowed 
 
98 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 most of all, that they should see his face no 
 
 more/' 
 
 Tie funeral services were commenced by a 
 Voluntary by the choir and the singing of the 
 519th hymn : ^' Hear what the voice from heaven 
 ])roclaims/' etc., after which the second chapter of 
 the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was read by 
 the Rev. A. D. White, then pastor of the Second 
 Church. This portion of Scripture contains, as 
 w^as justly stated, a remarkably truthful exhibi- 
 tion in almost every particular of the character 
 of Mr. Kirkpatrick's ministry. After prayer by 
 the Rev. Henry B. Chapin, then pastor of the 
 Third Church, the funeral sermon was preached 
 by the Rev. John Hall, D. D., pastor of the First 
 church from the farewell address of the apostle 
 Paul to the church at Ephesus : " And now, be- 
 hold I know that ye all, among whom I have 
 gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my 
 face no more. Wherefore I take you to record 
 this day that I am pure from the blood of all 
 men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you 
 
REV. JACOB KIEKPATEICK, J 11 99 
 
 all tile counsel of God/' The solemn lessons 
 drawn from these words, as connected with the 
 example of the deceased in life and in deatli, will 
 not soon be forgotten by any whose privilege it 
 was to mingle their tears with that deeply moved 
 assembly. 
 
 The discourse was followed by some well-timed 
 remarks of the Rev. P. O. Studdiford, D. D., of 
 Lambertville, who had known Mr. Kirkpatrick 
 from his infancy. The concluding prayer w^as 
 oiiered hy the Rev. Edward D. Yeomans, D. D., 
 then pastor of the Fourth Church, and the exer- 
 cises closed by singing the 625th hymn, " O for 
 the death of those," etc., and the Benediction. 
 
 The funeral procession then moved to the 
 Mercer Cemetery, (the Ruling Elders of the 
 Third Church acting as bearers) embracing about 
 twenty ministers of the gospel, the elders of the 
 churches of Trenton and vicinity with many 
 relatives ; and there, agreeably to his dying request, 
 he w^s laid by the side of his wife. The Rev. 
 Eli F. Cooley, D. D., then made a brief address ; 
 
100 KIRKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 and with the benediction ended one of the' most 
 touching and instructive funeral services the writer 
 has ever attended. 
 
 Our lamented friend was a laborious minister 
 of Jesus. This is evident in both the quantity 
 and quality of his sermons and other manuscripts. 
 With an eye single to his Master's service, his 
 work was varied in character according to wiiat, 
 in his judgment, the circumstances demanded. 
 At one time we find him delivering a well- written 
 Temperance Address ; at another an address before 
 a society for the promotion of the cause of Minis- 
 terial Education; and at another a I^ecture of 
 much ability on " The Relations of Language to 
 History." That he prepared thoroughly for the 
 Bible Classes which he heard, is to be seen in the 
 pertinent notes he has left behind. In his sermon 
 from the words : " Render therefore unto Csesar 
 the things which be Caesar's and unto God tlie 
 things which be God's," we have a manly, dis- 
 criminating and fearless vindication of the right 
 and duty of the Ambassador of Christ to press 
 
REV. JACOB KIBKFATRICK, JR. IQl 
 
 lioiiic upon the consciences of men their obliga- 
 tions as citizens notwithstanding the hue and ciy 
 raised about " political preaching.'^ 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Blackburn has briefly stated in 
 tlie preface some of the impressions received from 
 an examination of his manuscript Sermons, and 
 having learned much from the former parishioners 
 of the Kev. Mr. Kirkpatrick, he has furnished 
 me with the following, in reference to him as a 
 preacher. 
 
 "He was an Apollos, ^an eloquent man, and 
 mighty in the Scriptures. This man was in- 
 structed in the way of the Lord ; and being 
 fervent in spirit, he spake and taught diligently 
 the things of the Lord.' But he knew more 
 than ^ the baptism of John,' and he needed none 
 to take him aside and ^ expound unto him the 
 way of God more perfectly.' With the great 
 doctrines and Scriptural statements of redemption 
 he was so familiar that, when dealing with these 
 high themes, his preparations for the pulpit were 
 usually the merest notes, suggestive words and 
 
 9 * 
 
102 klRKPATRlCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 phrases. In preaching from his more fully written 
 manuscript he gave the people his searching eye, 
 and his energetic soul. He poured forth his 
 thoughts as a broken cloud pours down the rain. 
 Forgetting oratory, he was a true orator ; almost 
 negligent of rhetoric as a mere art, he illustrated its 
 real power, for he hastily grasped whatever would 
 make clearer his subject, and threw it into the 
 torrent of his words. Soaring aloft in his thoughts, 
 he was still with the people, near to them, and 
 coming nearer, that he might send home the 
 truth to their hearts. As when on his couch 
 suffering, so when in the pulpit preaching, he lost 
 sight of himself; God was all, his glory Avas the 
 absorbing theme. He fixed his eye on sinners, 
 and thought how they ^ came short of the glory 
 of God,' and how blind they were to the ruin be- 
 fore them ; the tears gathered as he warned them 
 of the ^ wrath to come ;' the lip quivered as he 
 pointed them to the throne of judgment; the tone 
 of his voice softened as he entreated them to ^ pre- 
 pare to meet their God,' and his whole soul was 
 
BEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, 7B. 103 
 
 moved when lie told them how God might be 
 glorified in their salvation, 
 
 " Unassuming at all times, he stood in the pul- 
 pit with ^ much trembling/ But the Divine word 
 and grace gave him an unusual ^ holy boldness' 
 in declaring the whole counsel of God. He spake 
 directly to the hearer, aiming at the conscience. 
 His eloquence was only a force in using the ^ ham- 
 mer' of the Word. His earnestness made it ' a 
 fire' that kindled on the whole soul. His imagi- 
 nation, of which he had a true poet's share, was 
 but the wing to the arrow of truth. His fine 
 command of language was employed to give effect 
 to the very words of Scripture, which he quoted 
 with powerful adaptation. His keen j)erception 
 of what lay hidden in a text, and his wonderful 
 method of applying it to everybody, enabled him 
 to divide unto saints and sinners their portion. 
 It was often said that he applied it so closely and 
 universally, that not a soul escaped. He fre- 
 quently chose a short interrogative text and made 
 it the point of many a sentence, the climax of 
 
104 KIBKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 many a paragraph, the arrow in many an appeal, 
 and caused it to ring again and again in the car 
 of the listener. 
 
 " In preaching theology he avoided the abstract 
 method, and applied the great doctrines of tlie 
 gospel, at once, to every class of his hearers, to 
 their wants, their sins and their sorrows. He 
 sought to convince, persuade and secure a practi- 
 cal obedience. Men must know their natures, 
 their depravities, their transgressions, and their 
 ruinous habits ; therefore he cried aloud and spared 
 not. He laid hold of the evils in society, the 
 sins of the times, the commercial dishonesties, the 
 public vices, and the national iniquities. He was 
 a reformer, but his idea of a genuine reformation 
 was, first of all, regeneration of the soul and 
 sanctification of the life. Nothing short of this 
 would prove an eternal benefit. As a specimen 
 of the manner in which he dealt with the popular 
 sins, a quotation is here made from his sermon on 
 Temperance. It was delivered October 29, 1854, 
 at a time when the subject was unfortunately en- 
 
EEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, JR 105 
 
 tangled with politics. Only the first part of it 
 was written in full, and when he was repeatedly 
 urged to prepare it for the press, he positively de- 
 clined. 
 
 " His text was 1 Corinthians vi. 10 : ^ Nor 
 drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God.' 
 In order to give it point he cited the whole pas- 
 sage : ^ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall 
 not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not de- 
 ceived : neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor 
 adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of them- 
 selves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, 
 nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, 
 shall inherit the kingdom of God.' He then 
 said : 
 
 " ' Whenever it can be shown to be unjustifi- 
 able, or unimportant to preach against idolatry, 
 licentiousness, covetousness, and extortion, then, 
 but not before, the preacher may be fairly called 
 upon to apologize for lifting up the warning voice 
 from the pulpit, against intemperance, in the 
 name of the Lord. Until public sentiment can 
 
106 KIBKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 (^ODsecrate all the crimes in this disgusting cata- 
 logue, and place them all alike beyond the reach 
 of denunciation, any objection to a ^^ temperance 
 sermon,'^ as such, is sheer prejudice, which no 
 man ought to cherish for a moment, and which 
 if cherished by any, can hardly be expected to 
 silence the admonitions of those who feel that 
 they are accountable to God, rather than to men, 
 for what they proclaim from the Sacred desk. 
 Men have often been found who are free to say 
 that this is a subject which preachers of the gospel 
 ought to let alone ; if the Holy Spirit w^ho 
 inspired the Apostles had " let it alone," then we 
 might. If it were a mere i^iatter of opinion, or 
 of taste, or of worldly policy, then prudence might 
 dictate, and conscience might allow, that we should 
 let it alone, but how can we, while it is a matter 
 involving the everlasting destiny of the souls of 
 thousands ? How can we, wdiile the kingdom of 
 God is closed, as with walls of adamant, high as 
 heaven, against all drunkards ? 
 
 ^' ^ But perhaps every one now present is ready to 
 
EEV. JACOB KIRKPATEICK, jR. 107 
 
 say, I have no objection to a sermon against intem- 
 perance ; the Bible plainly condemns it as a damning 
 sin, public sentiment universally condemns it as a 
 monstrous social and moral evil ; we all abominate 
 it as a loathsome degradation of everything that 
 is lovely and noble in manhood ; preach against it. 
 And yet, some may be disposed to add something 
 like this, but do not condemn the moderate use of 
 intoxicating beverages, and above all things, be- 
 ware of politics in the pulpit. Well then, with- 
 out venturing to announce the broad assertion 
 that it is a sin, in the sight of God, to drink any 
 intoxicating liquor at all, without venturing to 
 deny that the pulpit may have been sometimes 
 dishonored by a sort of sermon which bore too 
 close a resemblance to a political harangue; on the 
 other hand, without undertaking to search for that 
 particular degree at which moderation passes into 
 excess, and witliout attempting to ascertain pre- 
 cisely how many allusions to human government 
 it takes to desecrate a sacred desk, I will take my 
 stand this morning, upon the safe, and clear, and 
 
108 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 undisputed ground, where we can all harmoniously 
 meet, and there kindly invite your candid atten- 
 tion to a discourse upon drunkenness. 
 
 " ' Where, in all the world-wide experience of 
 fallen man, where, on all the sin-blighted earth, 
 where is to be found a lower form of degrada- 
 tion than is embodied in the confirmed drunk- 
 ard? 
 
 " ^ Look at him as a member of the community ! 
 He has forfeited and lost the respect and confi- 
 fidence of his former associates, he shrinks from 
 the companionship of his own friends, and they 
 from his, he is exiled from all the circles of re- 
 spectability, and instead of filling his appropriate 
 sphere of usefulness, is almost universally re- 
 garded as an incumbrance and nuisance. Look 
 at him as a father ! Heaping disgrace and wretch- 
 edness upon those whom he ought to cherish, and 
 protect and ennoble! Look at him as a son! 
 Bringing down with sorrow to the grave the gray 
 hairs of those whom he ought to honor and com- 
 fort, and bless. What object is more pitiable 
 
EEV. JACOB KIBKPATRICK, JR. 109 
 
 than the suiferer and inflicter of so much misery? 
 Hear his confessions and lamentations ; not im- 
 agined for this occasion, but actually heard from 
 lips that were quivering with agony, and vividly 
 remembered from an hour of most painful sym- 
 pathy. Would it were a fancy sketch ! 
 
 " ^ Here it is, all but the emphasis of agonizing 
 earnestness, and the tears forced from a fountain 
 that had long been supposed to be dry, which ac- 
 companied its original utterance ; " I am the most 
 miserable wretch that lives; the best years of my 
 life are wasted, my mind is enfeebled and ruined, 
 my finer feelings are blunted, my body is the prey 
 of relentless disease, all my powers are subjected 
 to the brutalizing mastery of the worst and 
 mightiest of habits. I have effectually driven from 
 me all the confidence even of those who weep for 
 me still. I am an outcast, I have nothing left, I 
 can regain nothing, I am damned before death ; 
 let me alone, let me die and plunge into oblivion." 
 Fancy sketch ! it is a reality that has been mul- 
 tiplied into millions of dirge-like soliloquies, and 
 
 10 
 
110 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 desperate confessions. AVho can withhold his 
 deepest, truest pity from the blasted victim of in- 
 temperance ? And yet, opposite to unsympathiz- 
 ing indifference, there is an extreme no less to be 
 deprecated, and that is the indulgence of such a 
 sympathy as overlooks or excuses the drunkard's 
 sin. Intemperance is not merely a misfortune, it 
 is a crime, not a trivial offence either, but a hein- 
 ous crime. If it be not within the province of 
 Gospel-preaching to oppose it as a gigantic social 
 and domestic evil, and the very consummation of 
 individual ruin, in a worldly point of view, still, 
 it surely is within the province of gospel-preach- 
 ing to denounce it as a monstrous sin against 
 God.' 
 
 " His appeal at the close of the sermon to the 
 advocates of moderate drinking, exhibiting as it 
 does the folly and absurdity of their arguments is 
 searching, irresistible, scathing. 
 
 " The outlines of his application indicate the 
 power with which he must have brought the sub- 
 ject home to young men ; to those who are 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR. HI 
 
 afraid to drink at all ; to those who already drink 
 frequently ; to parents in regard to their children; 
 to those whose duty it is to raake and execute the 
 laws, and finally to Christians. 
 
 " The last sermon preached by Mr. Kirkpatrick 
 was attended by circumstances that made it 
 peculiarly interesting. In his naturally modest 
 way he had intimated to a few friends that the 
 architectural style of his pulpit was not quite to 
 his mind. He did not feel free in it. He wished 
 one better adapted to extemporaneous speaking. 
 The people at once proposed that a new one should 
 be constructed according to his own plan. They 
 cheerfully acknowledged his right to a ^sacred 
 desk' made to suit himself. He wished also to 
 please them. After visiting several churches he 
 decided upon the model, and he took a most ac- 
 tive interest in superintending its erection. The 
 old one must be removed, and the new one 
 set up in all its elegance within a week. Satur- 
 day came ; the last touch was given to it as the 
 day was closing. He entered it, and felt as if he 
 
112 KIBKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 could stand there and preach with freedom of 
 spirit. It could not fail to please, as any one who 
 may now occupy it will readily understand. But 
 where was his sermon^ He had been making 
 the pulpit rather than preparing for preaching in 
 it. The pen had laid quiet in his study. It was 
 probably not the first time that the manual labor 
 of sermonizing had been postponed until the 
 hastening hours of Saturday. He often said that 
 he could work best when ^ driven into a corner.' 
 It was now five o'clock in the afternoon, and in 
 that new pulpit a new sermon must be preached 
 on the morrow. It seems that his mind had not 
 been idle. He had probably thought that there 
 was danger of attaching too much importance to 
 the beautiful structure, and this may have sug- 
 gested the text. It was Ecclesiastes i. 2 : ^Vanity 
 of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities ; 
 all is vanity.' With a pencil he had, doubtless, 
 already made a rough outline of what he intended 
 to deliver. This we find copied in a rapid hand. 
 The next morning, March 15, 1857, he was in his 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, JB. 113 
 
 place to declare the message of God. He began 
 thus : 
 
 "^Whoisthis melancholy preacher? Who is 
 he that utters this dismal wail of disappointment 
 and hopeless want? Who is he that takes such a 
 sad and murky view of life? Is he the official 
 preacher, the representative of the ministers of the 
 gospel as a class ? No ; it is not their duty nor their 
 practice to proclaim that "all is vanity/' this is not 
 their message. If any do proclaim it, they tran- 
 scend their instructions, they assume the authority 
 of self-taught sages or prophets ; or more probably 
 they are led astray by an unthinking and inordi- 
 nate disdain; by morbid despondency. There is 
 an overweening contempt of the world which over- 
 looks its real value, and its right and noble uses ; 
 this contempt may arise from disappointment and 
 border upon despair; or it may arise from a zeal 
 which is not according to knowledge and border 
 upon fanaticism. iVever may this pulpit be 
 clouded with the gloom of such preaching. Never 
 may it be here declared, in direct and final 
 
 10 * 
 
114 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 earnestness, without due limitation, that all is 
 vanity. 
 
 " ^ It overlooks all that is of value in nature, in 
 life, in manhood; it underrates all the royal benefi- 
 cence with which the Creator has brightened and 
 blessed the world. . . . There is a sense in which " all 
 is vanity" and emptiness. To the man who makes 
 the world his portion it is empty, because dissevered 
 from the eternal source of all good. . . The error of 
 the expression, '^ all is vanity^' consists in the un- 
 warranted scope given to it. . . . The preacher is 
 Solomon — iuvspired fully so that he might faith- 
 fully record his own errors, as the Psalmist was 
 inspired in recording the fact that "the fool hath 
 said in his heart. There is no God." 
 
 " ^ The Sermon is his own life, his autobiography, 
 his experience in the vain search for happiness in 
 mere earthly labors, mirth, enterprises, wealth and 
 honors. To him all had been vanity and vexa- 
 • tion, because he had made them his portion. . . . 
 Show that his reign was a period of decline, not 
 only to Israel, but to himself individually. . . . 
 
EEV. JACOB KIBKPATBICK, JB. 115 
 
 (1.) Apparent worldly prosperity is not always 
 really such. . . (2.) If real it is not always last- 
 ing. . . (3.) Even if it last through this life, it 
 lasts no longer unless it is sanctified by the love 
 of God. . . (4.) What is real prosperity ? This 
 question is reserved to be answered this afternoon, 
 and the answer confirmed by further views of the 
 royal preacher.^ 
 
 "Perhaps this suggestion, made in his notes, 
 was not made in the pulpit. Yet he did not sus- 
 pect that he would never give publicly the answer 
 to his question. It was evident to his friends that 
 he needed rest, and it seems that, at their urgent 
 solicitation, he consented to take it, inasmuch as a 
 ministerial brother was providentially at hand to 
 supply his place in the afternoon. Disease had 
 smitten him. He never preached again. With- 
 out knowing it he had delivered his last sermon. 
 He had not to endure the pang of uttering a pub- 
 lic farewell. Will any say of his ministry, ^all * 
 is vanity?' Was it nothing but Wexation of 
 spirit?' His short, earnest, blessed life answers 
 
116 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 his last recorded question from the pulpit, ^What 
 is prosperity ?' '' 
 
 His solicitude for the welfare of his flock was 
 uninterrupted and absorbing; and his yearning 
 for the salvation of sinners was, by day and by 
 night like a consuming fire in his bones. On one 
 of his discourses, which is noted as having been 
 preached in the Third Church, are written a few 
 words which revealed the inmost heart of this 
 devoted pastor: "Traced one conversion to 
 THIS sermon. To God be the praise." 
 
 The Presbytery of New Brunswick, at their 
 next meeting after his death, thus recorded their 
 estimate of Mr. Kirkpatrick: "The Presbytery 
 would bear testimony to the singleness of heart 
 with which he devoted to Christ his superior 
 talents and acquirements ; to his fidelity, prudence 
 and zeal as an ambassador of Christ ; and to the 
 meek, humble, patient, unostentatious, self-sacri- 
 ficing, and benevolent spirit by which he endeared 
 himself to his brethren in the ministry, and pre- 
 
REV. JACOB KIRKPATBICK, JR. 117 
 
 sented to the church and the world a bright 
 example of Christian excellence/' 
 
 A model of sincerity, truthfulness, genuine 
 modesty, submission to the will of God, cheerful- 
 ness in affliction, disinterested sympathy for others, 
 love to tlie brethren, and burning love to souls for 
 Christ V: sake — his example was a living gospel, 
 for he practiced what he preached. Like David 
 Brainard and Henry Martyn, this devoted servant 
 of God went up to his reward at the age of thirty- 
 one; but "he being dead yet speaketh," and long 
 will it be before the last echoes of that voice aifec- 
 tionate and earnest in its tones, and tremulous 
 with emotion, will have died away from the hearts 
 of those to whom he ministered. 
 
 The people of the Third Church joined by 
 those of the Fourth, who were once under the 
 pastoral care of the Rev. J. Kirkpatrick, Jr., have 
 erected a chaste and appropriate monument over 
 the remains of this beloved man and his com- 
 panion in life, on which are the following inscrip- 
 tions : 
 
118 KIRKPATEICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 THE CHIilSTI^^lS' IjIFE 
 
 AND MINISTRY OF THE 
 
 REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR. 
 
 Born October 6, 1828. 
 Died October 27, 1859. 
 
 Pastor of tlie Tliird I»res"by- 
 
 terian. Chnrcli of Trenton, 
 
 from October, 18S3 to 
 
 Jannary, 1858. 
 
 This monument was erected as a mark 
 
 of affection by those who enjoyed 
 
 the benefit of his ministry 
 
 in Trenton. 
 
EEV. JACOB KIBKPATBICK, JB. 119 
 
 SARAH C. VAN LIEW, 
 
 WIFE OF 
 MJSr. JACOB KUtJBjPATMICK, JB, 
 
 Born June 14, 1829, 
 Died March 20, 1859. 
 
 Born again A. D. 1848. 
 Is not dead but sleepeth. 
 
SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. JACOB KIRKPATRICK, JR. 
 
I. 
 
 • GOD'S GLOBT IK MEDEMrTION.* 
 
 Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. 
 Psalm viii. 9. 
 
 WE observe that this Psalm commences and 
 closes with the same words. But I have 
 selected the last verse as the text, intentionally, 
 and in preference to the first. Of course, the 
 inquiry is awakened, at once, why the last is pre- 
 ferred, if they are verbally just alike? In the 
 answer to that question lies the very point to 
 which I desire ultimately to guide our minds. 
 In order to reach it, it will be necessary to follow 
 the writer through the whole Psalm ; and to in- 
 clude the whole of it, in a general way, within 
 the scope of these remarks, will not involve a 
 
 * Preached before the Presbytery of New Brunswick, January, 
 
 1857. 
 
 123 
 
124 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 departure from the unity of the text; inasmuch 
 as this contains the theme, and therefore may be 
 considered as containing the whole substance of 
 the Psalm. 
 
 David announces this theme at the beginning; 
 then his quickened spirit proceeds to explore the 
 depths and heights, the length and breadth of the 
 subject; then overawed by its vastness and en- 
 raptured by its beauties and sublimities, he pours 
 out the overflowing abundance of his grateful 
 praise, in a more fervent and emphatic rej)etition 
 of the theme. Or, considering the Psalm as ad- 
 dressed to us, he places before us, first, the casket 
 still closed; Ave admire it for its own matchless 
 beauty, and the more we gaze upon it the more 
 we admire, and t'he more we admire it the more 
 we feel that there must lie hidden within it jewels 
 of unrivalled splendor, and of priceless value; 
 then he opens it, and spreads out before us its re- 
 splendent treasures ; and when our vague expecta- 
 tions have all been lost in the surpassing bril- 
 liancy of the display, ke replaces them in the 
 
GOUS GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 125 
 
 casket, and while the vision of what is there still 
 lingers in our eyes, he places the whole before us 
 again, to be all taken into one conception, and to 
 call forth a more intelligent, and proportionally a 
 more fervent exclamation of devout gratitude. 
 Thus, not only the whole meaning, bui the whole 
 power and life and ardor of the Psalm are poured 
 into these closing words. 
 
 Let us endeavor to see how this force is accu- 
 mulated during the progress of the Psalm ; and 
 in so doing, may we attain, by the grace of God, 
 a livelier sense of our own obligation to magnify 
 the name of the Lord, and acquire a truer and 
 more ardent spirit of praise, a more cheerful trust 
 in God, and a firmer and more energetic purpose 
 of consecration to his service. 
 
 The glory — the manifested excellency — of God 
 is the subject which David invites us to examine 
 with him. 
 
 First, he directs our attention to the material 
 universe. Hear his reverential address to Jeho- 
 vah. "When I consider thy heavens, the work 
 11 » 
 
126 KIRKPATEICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which 
 thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art 
 mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou 
 visitest him?" A single glance at the starry 
 heavens is enough to fill us with wonder, and 
 speechless admiration of the glory of God. But 
 we are so familiar with the scene that it awakens 
 in our breasts, ordinarily no true, much less any 
 adequate response. 
 
 Let us, for a moment, with reference to the end 
 before us, consider the heavens, the work of God's 
 fingers. World beyond world, worlds beyond 
 worlds, thousands upon thousands of worlds; 
 worlds without number, and worlds without mea- 
 sure; worlds at distances from us which confound 
 our understandings as easily as our senses, and at 
 distances from one another which suffocate the 
 imagination; and all, notwithstanding the im- 
 mensity of their masses and the vastness and in- 
 tricacy of their circuits, all moving perpetually 
 with absolute precision. 
 
 How great, how incomprehensible in majesty 
 
00 us GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 127 
 
 and wisdom and power must be He who created 
 all these things out of nothing; who devised all 
 their complicated, yet most harmonious arrange- 
 ments, and who hath guided them all in their 
 pauseless movements through all the boundless 
 labvrinth of intersecting orbits, without a jar 
 which even the subtile beams of light could feel ! 
 Even with this general view of the heavens, with 
 hardly a definite thought of the countless, brilliant 
 links of mystery that unite them all in one bound- 
 less but harmonious whole, well may we exclaim 
 with the Psalmist, " What is man that thou art 
 mindful of him?'' 
 
 For, let us not fail to observe here, the real 
 scope of the comparison. It is not between the 
 material creation and man. Man is in fact superior 
 to all this. The grandest movement in nature, 
 the vast simultaneous movements of all nature, 
 are, in themselves, immeasurably beneath a single 
 thought of the human mind; and the substantial 
 greatness of all worlds, is still a microscopic thing, 
 compared with the greatness of a single immortal 
 
128 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 soul ; and for enduring value, those worlds, with 
 all their wonders of wealth, mocking the wildest 
 dreams of fable, when compared with the spirit 
 of man, are no more than a shred of an old gar- 
 ment taken up by the rag-j)icker from the street, 
 and offered for the power and pride and worship 
 of an empire. 
 
 But the contrast is between frail man and the 
 Creator of all worlds. The reference to the 
 heavens is introduced here chiefly to set this con- 
 trast in bolder relief; and now, the feeble crea- 
 ture sinks to an unsounded depth of insignificance, 
 while the effulgent glory of God rises up from all 
 the earth, like a vast cloud with the sun in ' its 
 bosom, and spreads itself out over the very heights 
 of all created being. Let us bow down and say, 
 "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" 
 
 In addition to the glory which he has displayed 
 in the visible creation, we have now to turn our 
 attention to that which he exhibits in this conde- 
 scension. Are we arrested for a moment by the 
 question, how can condescension be glorious? Is 
 
GOD'S GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 129 
 
 it not rather humiliating? No, never, unless it 
 involves the sacrifice of moral excellency, or moral 
 power. It is the transition from a higher to a 
 lower moral grade that gives to condescension its 
 humiliating sense. If a man comes down from 
 some elevated social position, with the attitude 
 and sill lie of benignity, to lift up one whom mis- 
 fortune has cast down, or to bind up some broken 
 heart with kindly charities, we instinctively feel 
 that he merits honour by the act. If the sufferer 
 is also morally degraded, our estimate of the mag- 
 nanimity of the deed may be lowered; but if so, 
 it is only, in the case of any right-minded man, 
 on account of the feeling that the benefactor is 
 exposing himself to contamination, and endanger- 
 ing the true dignity of his character, or weaken- 
 ing the efficiency of his moral influence. 
 
 Apart from these considerations, the condescen- 
 sion is really the greater, in proportion as moral 
 degradation is lower than social insignificance. 
 It is our false pride, perverting our notion of true 
 dignity — it is sin, which has so closely associated 
 
130 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 in our minds the ideas of condescension and de- 
 grading humiliation. They are not synonymous ; 
 they are not necessarily inseparable above the 
 region of sin; they are not possibly incompatible. 
 There is, then, before us, a reality, and one worthy 
 of our contemplation, in the glory manifested in 
 the condescension of God. 
 
 There is no reference here to the love which 
 prompted it, nor to the administration of mercy, 
 which has accompanied it, nor to the magnificent 
 results which are to follow it; but our attention 
 is now called to the praise-worthiness of this con- 
 descension, in itself considered. 
 
 In the simple act of condescension, if we may 
 designate it as an act, the being mindful of man, 
 the stooping to visit the son of man, in this there 
 is a grandeur not only surpassing any that the 
 world exhibits, but a grandeur too great for any 
 scope which the world presents, and commensurate 
 with the distance from heaven to earth, from God 
 to man. It is all- worthy of divinity. Yet great 
 as this condescension is, low as it comes, it in- 
 
GOD'S GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 181 
 
 volves no loss of majesty upon the part of God; 
 and in this fact there is a mystery of excellence 
 which demands our most reverential praise ; praise 
 not only in view of the infinite majesty which he 
 retains, but in view of that wondrous fact, that 
 his condescension is real, and yet involves no 
 sacrifice of his most exalted greatness. In stoop- 
 ing to the depraved he gives no countenance to 
 sin, and in the midst of a world reeking with cor- 
 ruption, the stainless splendor of his purity repels 
 every touch of evil, every breath of pollution. 
 
 Now, the more he does for this insignificant 
 and unholy creature, man, the more conspicuous 
 his condescension, and the greater the glory of it. 
 What is it? "For thou hast made him a little 
 lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
 glory and honor. Thou madest him to have 
 dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast 
 put all things under his feet : All sheep and oxen, 
 yea, and the l)easts of the field; The fowl of the 
 air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever pass- 
 eth through the patlis of the seas." 
 
132 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 But is this true? How, or when, or where, 
 has this description ever been realized? True, it 
 was realized in paradise; but is the Psalmist's 
 design to awaken a cruel, mocking memor}^ of 
 excellence and regal authority that have been ir- 
 recoverably lost? No, but to direct the eager eye 
 of faith to the opening vision of a future state 
 like that which seemed to have receded from the 
 remotest memory of man still backward into the 
 ray less darkness of eternal oblivion. This de- 
 scription has been realized again, for the apostle 
 Paul so declares in Hebrews: "For unto the 
 angels hath he not put in subjection the world to 
 come whereof we speak. But one in a certain 
 place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art 
 mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou 
 visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower 
 than the angels; thou crownedst him mth glory 
 and honor, and didst set him over the works of 
 thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection 
 under his feet. For in that he put all in subjec- 
 tion under him, he left nothing that is not put 
 
iJiJl)\S ULOIIY IN REDEMPTION. 133 
 
 under him. But now we see not yet all things 
 put under him: but we see Jesus, who was made 
 a little lower than the angels for the suffering of 
 death, crowned with glory and honour; that he 
 by the grace of God should taste death for every 
 man. For it became him, for whom are all 
 things, and by whom are all things, in bringing 
 many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of 
 their salvation perfect through sufferings. For 
 both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sancti- 
 fied, are all of one: for which cause he is not 
 ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will de- 
 clare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst 
 of the church will I sing praise unto thee." 
 
 It has been realized in Him who is pre-emi- 
 ijently the Son of man. In Him we see the per- 
 fection of man restored. All who are in Christ 
 by faith shall be made like unto Him. This de- 
 scription shall again be realized in the race of 
 redeemed mankind. We have now to turn our 
 
 attention to the glory of God's condescension as 
 
 12 
 
134 KIRKPATEWK MEMORIAL, 
 
 exhibited in this exaltation of man. Let us be- 
 hold it: 
 
 I. In the means of his exaltation. All these 
 are such as to make the most marvellous display 
 of his excellency. The gift of his only-begotten 
 and well-beloved Son is the infinite munificence 
 of infinite love. The person and character of 
 Christ constitute the brightest and clearest reve- 
 lation of himself. The life of Christ culminating 
 upoii the Mount of Transfiguration, exhibits the 
 perfection of heaven, unstained by the world of 
 pollution, untarnished by the hot, fetid breath of 
 tlie world's fiery passions, and undimmed by 
 earthly darkness. While the self-sacrifice of 
 Christ pours into the ocean of divine love another 
 ocean of divine love till it overflows the world, 
 it exhibits in the clearest possible light the jus- 
 tice and the holiness of God, and irradiates the 
 earth with tlie beams of infinite mercy. And 
 while the sacrifice of Christ exhibits the infinite 
 holiness of God in an abhorrence of sin, the con- 
 verting and sanctifying influences of the Holy 
 
GOB'S GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 135 
 
 Spirit, which were procured by that sacrifice, 
 transforming man into the image of God, exhibit 
 the same holiness in its sublime out-going after 
 the fellowship of holiness. 
 
 II, This brings us to behold the glory of God 
 as exhibited in the exalted man. The means just 
 alluded to, derive their chief excellency from the 
 motives which originated them, and from the end 
 to which they are directed. *^God so loved the 
 world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him might not perish but 
 have everlasting life." This it is that makes the 
 gift of Christ an exhibition of the divine glory ; 
 and the life of Christ assumes its loftiest character 
 only when we regard it as tlie example for man 
 to imitate, and the character for man to attain. 
 The secret of its highest excellency is in these 
 words, ^'Be ye perfect, for I am perfect.'' The 
 death of Christ assumes its loftiest character only 
 when we regard it as procuring not only the jus- 
 tification of man but also the descent of the Holy 
 Spirit to aid him in the imitation of that exam- 
 
136 KIRKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 pie, and to transform him into that likeness. 
 Thus all these means are to be viewed in imme- 
 diate connection with the end to be accomplished, 
 which is the complete redemption of man. So, 
 this end accomplished is the highest display of 
 the glory of God, yea this end accomplished takes 
 up into itself every subordinate manifestation of 
 his excellency. 
 
 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 firmament showeth his handiwork unto man. 
 The material world is designed for his uses. The 
 condescension of the great Creator is toward him 
 and for him. The means of redemption are 
 adapted and appropriated to him. The end of 
 all is his restoration to the image of God, and 
 exaltation to his presence; and when Christ in 
 his glorified humanity shall stand before the 
 eternal throne with all his ransomed people, and 
 say, " Here am I and the children whom thou 
 hast given me," then God will breathe his fiat 
 of destruction upon the material world, and Avaft 
 it away upon the \vings of devouring fire, and 
 
GOD'S GLORY IN REDEMPTION. 187 
 
 then will he gather the rays of his glory, which 
 have been dispersed through the world, all toge- 
 ther again to irradiate and emblazon the eternal 
 home of himself and his people. 
 
 In view of this whole process, and in view of 
 its consummation in heaven, how can we fail to 
 exclaim with the emphasis of ecstatic adoration, 
 " O Lord, our Lord, how^excellent is thy name 
 in all the earth !" 
 
 But alas ! there are many who cannot join in 
 this exclamation because they have no true appre- 
 ciation of all this manifested excellency of God. 
 They have no well-founded hope of being raised 
 to this blissful height. There may be some such 
 here. Can you, my friend, say with the people 
 of God, " O Lord, how excellent is thy name ?" 
 
 Can you compass the visible creation in your 
 view, and with a spiritual apprehension of the 
 glory which it displays, and with the tranquillizing 
 conviction that the same wisdom and power and 
 goodness, which gleam forth throughout the scene, 
 are engaged in your behalf, can you take up the 
 
 12 * 
 
138 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 theme and ascribe all this excellence to our 
 Lord ? 
 
 Can you clasp the gospel to your heart, — can 
 you go up high upon the Pisgah of faith, and 
 cateh the truant gleams of celestial light, and the 
 truant whispers of celestial harmony and say, 
 "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name?'' 
 
 O my brethren in t^e ministry, let us be duly 
 affected by the condition of the unbelieving ! AVe 
 know that it is only through the enlightening in- 
 fluences of the Holy Spirit that they can ever see, 
 and though inadequately, yet truly appreciate 
 this accumulated glory of God. We know that 
 it is only by a living union with Christ, the Son 
 of Man, only by this living union through faith 
 in his blood, that they can ever realize in them- 
 selves this description of the Psalmist, this divine 
 theory of redemption, this central promise of the 
 gospel, this only hope of immortality. If they 
 continue in unbelief, what will.be their ultimate 
 condition as seen in the light of this subject? 
 
 All these displays of divine glory will be lost 
 
GOD'S GLOliY IN REDEMPTION. 139 
 
 upon them. If the legitimate end and consum- 
 mation of all is man\s complete redemption^ 
 then, — not upon the part of God, indeed, but 
 upon their part, this whole scheme and process 
 of creation and redemption, will have been a 
 total, ruinous failure. And though this enor- 
 mous, incalculable loss may be unappreciated, 
 unfelt as yet, still it will be found in the end to 
 constitute a temble doom. For when God shall 
 have gathered all these scattered beams of his 
 glory together in the home of his people, they 
 will be left in outer darkness. The world lost, 
 on the one hand, heaven lost on the other ; the 
 world wasted, heaven rejected, and themselves 
 lost in eternal blank despair. Whatever may be 
 meant by the fire that is not quenched, and the 
 worm that never dies, is there not enough in this 
 everlasting failure and destitution ; in the full con- 
 sciousness of this loss; in this blackness of dark- 
 ness, this abandonment, this eternal emptiness, 
 and cast-off worthlessness, this wild conflict be- 
 tween exasperated memories' and relentless de- 
 
140 KTRKPATliJCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 spair, is there not enough in these to move our 
 deepest sympathies? Let us be moved by the 
 greatness of their uncertain unsettled destiny. 
 Let us '' preach the word, be instant in season, 
 out of season,"^ let us urge them, with all the ear- 
 nestness of which we are capable, to flee to Christ, 
 and by a living faith in him, to rise up in new- 
 ness of life, into the full eternal glory of God's 
 completed redemption. 
 
 % ^ 
 
11. 
 
 MOTIVES TO EFFOHT. 
 
 Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the 
 error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a 
 multitude of sins. James v. 20. 
 
 rpHESE words refer directly to the case of an 
 -■- apostate professor of religion. This is mani- 
 fest from its connection with the preceding verse; 
 "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth.'' 
 Nevertheless, it includes the case of every unbe- 
 liever who has never become united with the 
 brethren in Christian fellowship. The fallen 
 professor, and the avowedly unconverted man are 
 alike in all the particulars hei^e nv^iitioned ; both 
 have need to be converted, both have a multitude 
 of sins exposed to the view of divine justice, and 
 both are on the way to death. In our medita- 
 tions upon these words, therefore, we may leave 
 
 141 
 
142 KIRKPATEWK MKMOllIAL. 
 
 such distmctioiis entirely out of view, and allow 
 our minds to turn to any case that comes within 
 the scope of these general terms, "Let any one 
 know that he who converteth a sinner from the 
 error of his way, shall save a soul from death, 
 and shall hide a multitude of sins." 
 
 This is not a mere item of information, as the 
 form of the expression seems to indicate. It is, 
 in reality, the offer of a reward as an incitement 
 to the performance of a good work. The future 
 and complete recompense is not, indeed, men- 
 tioned; there is no definite allusion, even, to the 
 promise that " they who turn many to righteous- 
 ness shall shine as stars in the firmament for- 
 ever;'' but it is tacitly assumed that the con- 
 sciousness of doing good is in itself a great 
 reward, and to the right-minded, a sufficient 
 inducement. Such it ought to be and such it is 
 to those whose motives are entirely incorrupted. 
 It is not, by any means, intended that we are not 
 to look for any additional positive recompense, 
 nor that the uncontaminated desire of beino- 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 143 
 
 useful is absolutely the only thing which should 
 prompt us to good works. The Scriptures plainly 
 recognize the correctness of other motives, and 
 actually appeal to them, w^hen they attach a pro- 
 mise of blessing to any of the divine requirements. 
 For example, when it is said tliat ^^the liberal 
 soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth 
 shall be watered also himself/^ it is directly im- 
 plied that, in the exercise of beneficence, we may 
 properly be influenced, in some measure, by the 
 desire of prosperity. And so, all the conditional 
 promises of the word of God, involve the conces- 
 sion that the hope of future reward may combine 
 with a sense of duty to determine and regulate 
 our conduct. 
 
 But here two qualifying remarks are demanded. 
 The first is, that a sense of duty ought to be, of 
 itself, sufficient to keep us constantly in the ser- 
 vice of God. The other is that, apart from any 
 other consideration of advantage, the conscious- 
 ness of being useful is, in itself, a reward adequate 
 to any effort, or to any sacrifice. He, who does a 
 
144 KIRK PATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 good deed under the influence of unhallowed am- 
 bition, ^vill not be content until the fame of the 
 act shall have been sounded abroad ; he will ex- 
 pect his compensation in the applause of men, 
 and will consider himself virtually a loser, until 
 that applause shall have actually begun to delight 
 his vanity. Pie, who performs a good deed merely 
 for the sake of personal aggrandizement, in some 
 form or other, will chide himself for the risk 
 until he attains his object, and even then, in all 
 probability, he will be disappointed in its value, 
 for sheer selfishness is too mean to enjoy what it 
 has, or what it seizes. But he, who does a good 
 work with a right spirit, although no one should 
 have an opportunity to praise him for it ; although 
 his left hand should not know what his right 
 hand has done, and long before the final plaudit 
 and reward come to greet him ; in the very per- 
 formance of the deed, and afterward in view of 
 its happy results, will find ample compensation 
 in the unspoken consciousness of being useful. 
 It will not be in the proud and self-complacent 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 145 
 
 reflection that he has been able to lay some insig- 
 nificant suiferer, or poor dependent fellow-creature 
 under lasting obligation, and has merited all 
 lieaven ; but it will consist in the benevolent and 
 humble reflection that he has done good, and has 
 been enabled to please his heavenly Father. 
 This is genuine enjoyment; this is one great 
 reason why "it is more blessed to give than to 
 receive/' This is a worthy, and when rightly 
 viewed, a very strong inducement to exertion and 
 self-denial, and accordingly the Apostle says not, 
 he that converteth the sinner from the error of 
 his way shall be the object of special favor, or 
 shall be the more abundantly blessed hereafter, — 
 but, " Let him know" that he is thereby accom- 
 plishing great and lasting good. 
 
 It is also implied in the text, that the real 
 gratification springing out of the conviction of 
 having been useful, will be graduated according 
 to the amount of good which one has been instru- 
 mental in accomplishing. If a man, from purely 
 benevoleut motives, should perform merely an 
 
 13 
 
146 KIRKPATniCK JlEMuiilAL 
 
 ordinary act of noigliborly accommodation for 
 another, he would find comparatively little plea- 
 sure, however real it might be, in the conscious- 
 ness of having conferred the favor. If he should 
 relieve some groaning sufferer from his distress, 
 his inward compensation would be proportionally 
 greater; and if he should afterwards learn that 
 by that act of kindness he had not only relieved 
 the individual sufferer, but filled the bosom of his 
 family with joy, surely his inward compensation 
 would be not a little enhanced; and if, in after 
 time, he should ascertain, that by his timely in- 
 terposition he had rescued the sufferer from de- 
 spair ami from consequent suicide, and had turned 
 him, with his energies* revived, and his lost hopes 
 restored, into the path of honest prosperity, along 
 Avhich he had gathered up a fortune for himself 
 and for the charitable uses of a grateful and 
 generous heart, he would feel still more lavishly 
 repaid by the reflection that he had done the deed 
 of kindness years before. And this idea, of a 
 sort of proportion between the satisfaction oi 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 147 
 
 doing good and the magnitude of the results ac- 
 complished, seems to have been in the mind of 
 the apostle James when he penned the vv^ords of 
 the text. 
 
 What an inducement to seek the conversion oi" 
 others is here presented ! He who instrumentally 
 converts a sinner from the error of his way, hides 
 a multitude of sins. Not his own sins; apparent 
 devotion to the service of God, efforts for the con- 
 version of sinners, may, indeed, blind some human 
 eyes, for awhile, to many of the faults and sins 
 of him by whom those efforts are put forth. 
 These efforts, especially if they are successful, 
 being deemed of themselves satisfactory evidence 
 of his sincerity and pious zeal, may serve to avert 
 from him the scrutiny of many. They may lead 
 others to look upon him with the illuded eye of 
 partiality, and thus indirectly hide many of his 
 sins from human view. But this falls far below 
 the meaning of the apostle. And no endeavors 
 to do good, even to lead men to the knowledge of 
 the truth, whatever be the motive, can hide any of 
 
148 KIIIKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 oiir siiis^ not ev^en tlie least^ directly or indirectly, 
 from tlio Ir.evitablc and impartial view of God. 
 He does not overlook the sins of the best of mcn^ 
 for the sake of what they do, although in labors 
 and success they be "not behind the very chief 
 of the Apostles/' for after they have done all they 
 have reason to own "we are unprofitable servants." 
 Not only are the impenitent unable to merit for- 
 giveness or indulgence, but the regenerated, even 
 the most pious among them, are equally unable, 
 for they are still constrained to acknowledge " by 
 the grace of God I am what I am;" and when 
 all their labors and successes are wrought together 
 into one broad mantle of righteousness, the whole 
 of it is the w^orkmanship of the gracious strength 
 of God working in them, and cannot be stretched 
 over their positive obligations, much less can it 
 be drawn beyond them, and made to cover the 
 least of their transgressions or faults. Nay, more, 
 a man may preach to others and yet be himself u 
 cast-a-way; this possibility, this danger, even 
 Paul did not fail to recognize with humility and 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 140 
 
 fear. Nay, nay, no man can hide his own sins 
 from God, in any sense of the word, even by con- 
 verting sinners. 
 
 But still he "shall hide a multitude of sins," 
 the sins of that man whom he is instrumental in 
 leading to the Lamb of God. When a man who 
 is hurrying onward, impelled by the restless pas- 
 sions of a depraved nature, and by the stimulants 
 of manifold temptations, in a career of wicked- 
 ness, strengthening his habits, and hardening his 
 heart, and acquiring more and more unholy skill 
 by the practice of iniquity, and enlarging his 
 plans of evil-doing, when such a man is merci- 
 fully arrested, and transformed by the regenerating 
 power of God, what a multitude of sins is thus 
 prevented! Such was his sinful disposition, by 
 nature; such was the fixedness of his character; 
 such his purposes of continued impenitency and 
 disobedience ; such was the moral certainty that, 
 if he lived on unconverted, his future experience 
 would be essentially a repetition of the past, and 
 that he would commit a multitude of sins, that 
 
 13 » 
 
"150 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 those sins may be said to have had an existence 
 already ; an existence in his imaginations, and lia- 
 bilities, and designs, and plans, a germinal exist- 
 ence in his carnal disposition ] and consequently 
 they may be said to have been hidden by his con- 
 version, covered up, confined to their secrecy, de- 
 stroyed before they came to the light. Is not this 
 an object worthy of our diligent instrumentality? 
 Take the case of any unconverted individual to 
 whom your mind reverts; how many more sins 
 he is likely yet to commit, how many more he 
 will yet commit, if the forbearance of God spare 
 his life, and he continue in unbelief! how his 
 guilt will increase, his liability to deeper and 
 deeper woe ! And as his sins are multiplied, as 
 he grows old in sin, how the likelihood of -his 
 conversion in all human probability will diminish ! 
 His sins are rapidly increasing, and is not that 
 fact, in all its aspects and bearings, enough to 
 urge you mightily to seek his conversion earnestly 
 at once, and thus throw a veil over the future de- 
 velopments of his unregenerate disposition ? Thus, 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 151 
 
 on a larger scale, what great multitudes of sins 
 will yet be committed by the unconverted round 
 about us, if thty be not speedily turned unto 
 God. And if the multiplication of crimes, the 
 prevalence of iniquity is ^'an evil and a bitter 
 thing,^^ fatal in its ultimate results, full of dire 
 contagion, and detrimental to all the interests of 
 mankind, how anxious and earnest should we be 
 to convert men from darkness to light, and thus 
 hide a multitude of sins, confining them forever 
 in their embryonic secrecy. 
 
 The expression we are now considering includes 
 much more than the idea which has just been 
 suggested. To hide sins, or to cover sins, in 
 Scripture phraseology, is upon the part of God to 
 remove them from the view of his vindictive jus- 
 tice. It is to overlook them, to forgive them; 
 and in the case before us, instrumentally to pro- 
 cure their pardon. ^^God is angry with the 
 wicked every day.'' He looks constantly upon 
 their sins with holy indignation. No plea modi- 
 fies their hateful aspect ; no excuse intercepts his 
 
152 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 view. O, it is a fearful thing to be thus exposed 
 to the searching gaze of the offended God, as the 
 unbeliever is. There is no concealment for him, 
 in his sinful state. If he ascend up into heaven, 
 God is there; if he make his bed in hell, God is 
 there; if he take the wings of the morning and 
 dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, behold! 
 the Omnipresent is there; and wherever he goes 
 the same retributive justice frowns upon his sins. 
 O the miser}^, the danger of such an exposure! 
 Those sins are odious in the sight of God. They 
 are objects of abhorrence; yea, more, they are 
 provocations of his wrath; they cry unto him like 
 the blood of Abel, and if they continue thus in 
 full view, like so many challenges of his justice, 
 the unmitigated penalty of the righteous law must 
 descend upon the transgressor. How shall he 
 escape? So long as Jehovah looks upon those 
 sins, there is no escape for him. O, that those 
 sins were hidden! Then he might be relieved 
 from the peace-destroying consciousness that the 
 eye of the Lord is upon him for evil. Then he 
 
3I0TIVES TO EFFORT. 153 
 
 might draw near to God without dread, in close 
 and holy fellowship. Then his heart might be 
 filled with that peace which passeth understand- 
 ing; a tranquillizing and delightful sense of that 
 favor which is life and that loving-kindness which 
 is better than life. O that those sins were hid- 
 den! Then God would regard him differently. 
 He would look upon him with complacency. 
 Now his wrath abideth upon him, but then he 
 would treat him as righteous, and admit him to 
 all the privileges and joys of sonship. Fellow- 
 Christians, you know much, and can imagine 
 much more of the blessedness of that man whose 
 transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 
 How many dangers would be averted, and how 
 much felicity secured, in the case supposed, if 
 those sins were only hidden ! But how can they 
 be? If he say surely the darkness shall cover 
 me, the darkness and the light are both alike to 
 God. No earthly veil is thick enough, no earthly 
 retreat is secret enough, no earthly night is dark 
 enough. But let it be known that he who con- 
 
154 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 vertet^i iiini from tlie error of his way shall hide 
 elfeetually the multitude of his sins. He shall 
 lead him to appropriate, by faith, the righteous- 
 ness of Christ, which will cover them all for ever 
 from the view of retributive justice. How low 
 an estimate should we place upon our solicitude, 
 and pains-taking, and self-denial, if it be requi- 
 site, in comparison with such a result ! 
 
 Nor is this, by any means, the whole of the 
 result to be accomplished ; he " shall save a, soul 
 from death.^^ To save a man's body from death, 
 when it is imminently threatened, by casualty or 
 disease, is deemed a great achievement. How 
 much greater to save a soul from death ! What 
 is the mortal body compared with the soul? and 
 even in an extreme case, the body is saved from 
 death only for a little while, for soon will come 
 the crisis in which no human power or skill can 
 baffle the all-conquering destroyer. But the soul 
 once saved is saved for ever; "on such the second 
 death hath no power." To save a mind from 
 ignorance, by conferring upon it the benefits of 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 155 
 
 education, is a noble work; to save a heart from 
 grief by preventing calamity, or affording conso- 
 lation is an invaluable favor; but what are these 
 things compared with saving a soul from death? 
 Many of you, doubtless, have read or heard some 
 account of that remarkable case of education 
 which occurred some time ago, in one of our 
 cities. There was a poor, idiotic boy, whose case 
 was deemed hopeless even by his parents, who 
 might have been expected to hope against hope; 
 he was deformed, helpless, apparently without 
 ideas, without emotions, and almost without a 
 spark of reason; but through the kindness, and 
 wise judgment, and marvellous patience, and per- 
 severing labors of a philanthropic gentleman, lie 
 was gradually raised to a considerable degree of 
 mental vigor and intelligence. Who does not 
 recognize in that a grand achievement, to save a 
 soul from blank idiotcy, and elevate it almost to 
 the ordinary standard of intelligence? 
 
 But what is that even compared with saving a 
 soul from death? Estimate if you can the value 
 
If)!) KIUKPATllICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 of the soul ; you might as well attempt to count 
 the grains of sand upon the sea-shore. Consider 
 what it IS saved from -, our worst conception of 
 physical death is almost without significancy here. 
 That death from which the ransomed soul is 
 saved is horrible in proportion to the noble nature 
 of the soul, and as lingering as immortality is 
 lasting. Consider too, that when the soul is 
 saved from death that is not all. It is exalted to 
 tlie beatific presence of God, and filled full of the 
 rapture of everlasting life. 
 
 How can we be so indifferent about the con- 
 version of men, or do so little to secure it, when 
 we know that he who converteth the sinner from 
 the error of his way shall save a soul from death ? 
 Is not this a motive sufficient to thrust us out of 
 our slothfulness, to awaken our deepest sympa- 
 thies, and incite us to the eager seizure and dili- 
 gent improvement of every opportunity of effecting 
 or contributing towards the conversion of our 
 fellow-men? And when the souls of those we 
 ]<)\'e are in (juestion how much stronger the in- 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 157 
 
 diicement to pray and labor for their conversion. 
 Let parents look upon their unregenerate chil- 
 dren, and children Ujoon their unregenerate 
 parents ; let brothers look upon their unbelieving 
 sisters, and sisters upon their unbelieving brothers, 
 and let them know, and let them meditate upon 
 it, that he who converteth a sinner from the error 
 of his way shall save a soul from death. 
 
 We are not left to be moved merely by the 
 exceeding desirableness and importance of the 
 conversion of our fellow-men, considered with 
 reference to their own interests, and to our sym- 
 pathies and affections. We are plied here, also, 
 by the offer of a great reward. If we are instru- 
 mental in converting any from the error of his 
 way, not only will the results be such as have 
 been alluded to, but we have the haj)piness of 
 knowing it. How great is that happiness, even 
 here, disturbed as it often is by uncertainty about 
 the genuineness of conversion, and limited as it 
 is by our imperfect knowledge of its glorious 
 results ! How that happiness Avill be enhanced 
 
 14 
 
158 KlRKPATlilVK MEMORIAL. 
 
 hereafter, when we come to view those results in 
 the light of eternity ! AVhen w^e come to rejoice 
 in perfect purity, and behold the glories of a 
 peopled world all without a stain, then we shall 
 know more truly what it is to hide a multitude 
 of sins. When we come to estimate the soul 
 according to the standard employed in heaven, 
 by Him who sacrificed himself to save it, and by 
 the angels who minister to the heirs of salvation, 
 and when we come to exult, by the grace of God, 
 in the safety and ecstacy of immortal life, then we 
 shall know more truly what it is to save a soul 
 from death. And then, with our enlarged know- 
 ledge of these things, what, think you, will it be 
 worth to reflect that we have been instrumental 
 in converting some sinners from the error of their 
 ways ? Even if it does now require some effort 
 and self-denial to gain such a result, what then 
 will those things be in our estimation ? . . . . 
 
 Suppose we should meet in heaven some soul 
 converted through our instrumentality ! . . . . 
 
 Though not mentioned here, yet it is distinctly 
 
MOTIVES TO EFFORT. 159 
 
 revealed, elsewhere, and is not to be overlooked 
 in our meditations upon this subject, that spe- 
 cial rewards will be bestowed hereafter upon spe- 
 cial efforts 
 
III. 
 
 OPPOHrUNITIES LOST. 
 
 " And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." 
 1 Kings XX. 40. 
 
 IN order to ascertain the significancy of these 
 words^ and to make a legitimate and proper 
 use of them, let us trace the tenor of the narra- 
 tive in which we find them. Benhadad, the 
 King of Syria, gathered all his host together, and 
 with the aid of thirty and two kings, or princes 
 of the neighboring countries, who were probably 
 his allies or vassals, " went up and besieged Sa- 
 maria, and warred against it." After some mes- 
 sages had passed between him and Ahab, the 
 King of Israel ; boasting and insolent upon the 
 part of Benhadad; pusillanimous and fickle at 
 first, but finally decided upon the part of Aliab, 
 the battle commenced. Although the Syrians 
 
 160 , 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. igj 
 
 had a vast advantage in numbers and strength, 
 yet by the miraculous interposition of the Lord 
 of Hosts, they were defeated with enormous 
 slaughter. The king, however, escaped alive. 
 His servants, attributing the victory of the Israel- 
 ites to the fact that their gods were gods of the 
 hills, and convincing him that he could overcome 
 them upon the plains induced him to reorganize 
 his army, and renew the war at the return of the 
 year. But with all the advantages of their posi- 
 tion, upon which they placed so much reliance, 
 they were utterly discomfited before the little 
 band of God's chosen people, and Benhadad him- 
 self sought refuge in an inner chamber in the city 
 of Aphek. Yielding again to the urgent advice 
 of his servants, he suffered them to go to Ahab, 
 wearing the emblems of deep mourning and hum- 
 ble submission, to implore his clemency. This 
 wicked king, contrary to the instructions of the 
 Lord's special prophet, showed favor to the 
 enemy of God's people, made a disadvantageous 
 covenant with him, and sent him away. For this 
 
 14* 
 
162 KIBKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 he was reproved by one of the prophets in the 
 parable which follows ; " And a certain man of 
 the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbor 
 in the word of the Lord, Smite me, I pray thee. 
 And the man refused to smite him. Then said 
 he unto him. Because thou hast not obeyed the 
 voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as thou art 
 departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And 
 as soon as he ^vas departed from him, a lion found 
 him, and slew him. Then he found another man, 
 and said. Smite me, I pray thee. And the man 
 smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him. 
 So the prophet departed, and waited for the king 
 by the way, and disguised himself with ashes 
 upon his face. And as the king passed by, he 
 cried unto the king : and he said, Thy servant 
 went out into the midst of the battle ; and behold, 
 a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, 
 and said. Keep this man : if by any means he be 
 missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else 
 thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy ser- 
 vant w^as busy here and there, he was gone. And 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 163 
 
 the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy 
 judgment be; thyself hast decided it. And he 
 hasted, and took the ashes away from his face; 
 and the king of Israel discerned him that he was 
 of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus 
 saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of 
 thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter de- ' 
 struction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, 
 and thy people for his people," 
 
 The main features of this whole narrative, as 
 you will readily perceive, are these; God had 
 committed to Ahab an important trust. He had 
 proved recreant to the obligation, the opportunity 
 of discharging it had passed, and the forfeit was 
 to be paid. He perceived, and by his immediate 
 sadness and displeasure acknowledged the appli- 
 cation of the parable to himself. He felt the in- 
 evitable closeness of that application far more 
 severely afterward, no doubt, when the forfeit of 
 his life was demanded and obtained in the car- 
 nage of unsuccessful war. 
 
 And now, my friends, does it not become us to 
 
164 KIBKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 inquire whether this reproof may not have some 
 application to ourselves ? As Ahab was acting in 
 an official capacity and in a matter involving the 
 welfare of Israel, the closest analogy is to be 
 found in the administration of justice, and the 
 control of national interests. God has committed 
 to American rulers and American people a most 
 important and sacred trust, even the guardianship 
 of the rights, the safety, the altars, the homes, 
 the character, the true welfare, the highest and 
 dearest interests of a great Christian nation. The 
 enemies to be repelled and utterly overthrown 
 are many and dangerous, — they are not only the 
 Benhadads of foreign dominion, but more espe- 
 cially such as these, ignorance, crime, insubordi- 
 nation, fanaticism. If intelligence be not widely 
 diffused ; if the benefits of education be not libe- 
 rally disseminated ; if men do not contend ear- 
 nestly for the faith once delivered to the saints ; 
 if laws be not made, or when made, be not en- 
 forced, against those who, fearing not God, neither 
 regarding man, would make the Sabbath a day of 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 165 
 
 business in our streets; if the tables of these 
 money-changers in the temple of God be not over- 
 thrown ; if the distinct and special laws of God, 
 even though they require the shedding of blood, 
 be modified by the morbid sympaMiies of a false 
 philanthropy; if justice be not dispensed to the 
 guilty as well as the innocent; if we enter into 
 a covenant w^ith our enemies, who have been 
 appointed to destruction by God himself, upon 
 any such dishonorable and ruinous terms, they 
 will insidiously gather strength and triumph over 
 us. Ignorance will stalk abroad with instru- 
 ments of cruelty putting out the very eyes of men 
 for whom God has prepared bright visions of 
 truth ; fanaticism, crime and anarchy will follow 
 on, like hundred-handed monsters, to complete 
 the ruin, and at last, the only account we can 
 give of that prosperity wdiich has been entrusted 
 to us, will be in words like these, "As thy ser- 
 vants were busy here and there, it was gone/' 
 
 This national field of observation is so vast, 
 and the objects it presents are so many and va- 
 
166 KIRKPATRKJK MEMORTAL. 
 
 rious that it is (lifficultj at least in a brief view, 
 to keep their impressions distinct, — the responsi- 
 bility is shared by so many that admonitions seem 
 to lose their power. But there are narrower ap- 
 plications of tkese words in which each of us may 
 feel a more definite, individual interest. For 
 example, there have been entrusted to us oppor- 
 tunities of usefulness. First, to those over whom 
 we can exert an immediate influence. If you are 
 a parent, the spiritual welfare of your child has 
 been, in a large measure, committed to you as a 
 most i>recious trust. Fearful dangers surround 
 him. Cunning and malignant enemies lie in wait 
 for him. His liabilities to ruin are such as are 
 devised by the great adversary of souls. They 
 are such as the hazards of the world's great bat- 
 tle-strife ; such as the strong, evil propensities of 
 an apostate nature. Here, moreover, are the un- 
 numbered temptations peculiar to large towns 
 and cities ; those insidious temptations that have 
 marred so many fair characters, drowned with 
 their syren music the warning voices of so many 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 107 
 
 consciences, unbound so many resolutions, made 
 so many outcasts, blighted so many hopes, 
 crushed so many joys, broken so many hearts, 
 eternally ruined so many souls. If you leave 
 your children unnecessarily exposed to these temp- 
 tations ; if you do not exercise a watchful Chris- 
 tian guardianship over them ; if you neglect their 
 religious instruction ; if you neglect to take them 
 with you to the throne of grace and commend 
 them to the omniscient guardian of spirits ; if you 
 do not endeavor to warn tliem of their danger, 
 and lead them to the Lamb of God, the time may 
 come when the only account you can give of them 
 will be in such mournful words as these: "As 
 thy servant was busy here and there he was 
 gone/' 
 
 How many are there who could not subscribe 
 to some such narrative as this? I knew a father 
 and mother to whom was committed the responsi- 
 bility of training up a son for life-long, extended 
 usefulness and a blessed initnortality. Parental 
 indulgence eagerly (irntilicc! all the changing de- 
 
168 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 sires of his childhood, and lavished upon him 
 caresses of fondness, and smiles of pride. It 
 carefully supplied all his wants, except the most 
 urgent of all, the wants of his moral nature. 
 Unhappily free from restraint, he followed his 
 own inclinations; frequently, in their dangerous 
 tendency to evil, they directed his rambles to the 
 places where idlers resort, or to scenes of wicked 
 amusement. He caught the phrases of profanity 
 as they floated along the street. He loitered 
 around those places where scenes of iniquity are 
 partially concealed by suspicious-looking curtains; 
 where the ribald jest and the loud laugh, and the 
 rattling of dice may be heard mingling together. 
 He wxnt with the multitude to do evil. The 
 temptations became stronger and more numerous 
 as he grew older. In his gaily painted boat he 
 glided at first, at a distance, and as he thought 
 safely, around the whirlpool, listening to the far- 
 off roar and watching the sunlight as it danced 
 upon the foam; then, gradually he drew nearer 
 to trace the bright pathway of the outer circle, 
 
OPPOllTUNiTlES LOST. 169 
 
 and then he followed circle after circle as they 
 became narrower and narrower ; faster and faster 
 flew his fragile bark, and intoxicated by the ex- 
 citement of the whirl and the roar of the dashing 
 current, he threw down his useless oars, and sent 
 up through the sparkling spray loud and louder 
 laughs of recklessness, until in the very midst of 
 his hilarity he was caught by the maniac waters 
 and hurled into the boiling vortex; and as his 
 parents were " busy here and there, he was gone." 
 In ten thousand such narratives the blanks 
 might be filled up with names that are seldom 
 mentioned, and then always with a sigh; names 
 that lie in some memories like pieces of ice upon 
 the wrist. O ye who are parents, beware lest 
 through your inadvertence or neglect your sons 
 should be snatched away as so many have been, 
 and you be left to make the sad acknowledgment 
 of the text. How often in a city, at the corners 
 of the streets is the attention called to the fact 
 that while some parents or servants have been 
 busy here and there a child lias been lost? AV^hat 
 
 15 
 
170 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 would be your feelings, think you, if your child 
 should be thus lost, and search should be made in 
 vain? and can you go from one to another of the 
 ordinary, perhaps trifling engagements of every- 
 day life, and neglect the souls of your children 
 until suddenly they be gone for ever beyond the 
 call of any messenger? 
 
 Perhaps you have a brother or a sister, or some 
 near friend over whom you can exert a powerful 
 influence. In just so far as that influence may 
 extend that brother or friend is entrusted to you. 
 Oh, be not recreant to your obligation; turn not 
 neglectfully away. That friend is in danger; the 
 battle is raging around him. He may be snatched 
 away before you are aware, and what then will be 
 your account of the trust? Will you be justifi- 
 able upon the ground that he was never directly 
 and formally committed to your care? Suppose 
 that same relative or friend had fallen into the 
 river, and you were standing upon the bank, look- 
 ing at him as he struggled in the pitiless Avaters, 
 as lie caught at useless straws, as he sank and rose 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 171 
 
 again, as he turned a last momentary glance of 
 hopeless agony toward the home of those he loved, 
 would you turn aw^ay and say " he has never been 
 specially committed to my care; I esteem him 
 highly but I have never been formally constituted 
 his guardian, and therefore I need not offer him 
 any assistance?'' No; unless your heart has 
 already become the frozen sepulchre of all your 
 sympathies, you would forget all such miserable 
 sophistry, the ignoble excuses of cowardice, per- 
 haps even your own safety, and exert your utmost 
 strength to rescue him from his peril. If uncon- 
 verted, he is even now in danger of a far more 
 terrible doom than drowning in the waters w^liose 
 mournful roar can be heard where his loved ones 
 vainly await his return. He is in danger of sink- 
 ing amid the surging billows of everlasting fire. 
 Your influence may do much toward saving him, 
 and will you turn away and leave him sliding 
 recklessly toward the fatal brink? Will you 
 leave him to perish without an effort upon your 
 part, because no audible voice from Heaven has 
 
172 KIRKPATIIICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 entrusted him to your sole guardianship, repeat- 
 ing that first contemptuous inquiry of selfishness, 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" 
 
 Will you be justifiable upon the ground that 
 you were "busy here and there?'' Are you 
 necessarily so occupied that you can make no 
 special effort to lead to the Lamb of God those 
 over whom his providence has given you an im- 
 mediate influence ? It is our duty to be " dili- 
 gent in business/' but are the demands of business 
 more important than the salvation of a soul? 
 Let me suppose a case, by way of partial illustra- 
 tion. Your relative or friend is ill, and the house 
 in which he is lying takes fire. The relentless 
 destroyer rages more and more furiously, the 
 winds eagerly join in the work of ruin. The flames 
 leap up as if with the fiendish laughter of con- 
 scious malignity and cast their fatal contagion 
 upon the roof. Clouds of smoke burst through 
 every opening, here and there is heard the crash 
 of falling timber, and soon the whole building 
 seems to struggle like a thing of life in the deadly 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 173 
 
 embrace of the fell destroyer. Do you pass by 
 the scene of terror, regardless of the fate of your 
 friend, and hurry away on some errand of busi- 
 ness? You meet some one, prompted by mere 
 ordinary sympathy, running with breathless haste 
 toward the conflagration. He exclaims in 
 amazement, "Where are you going? Your 
 friend's house is in flames ; the fire is furious, he 
 is ill and helpless, he'll be injured, suffocated, 
 burned up !'' Do you reply, " I have need to be 
 busy here and there," and then go calmly on? 
 No ! you seize the first ladder that can be ob- 
 tained, forgetful alike of business and danger. 
 With a daring spirit you mount to the window; 
 you buffet the mingling flames and smoke ; you 
 hold your breath; you leap into the room and 
 with the strength of frenzy and the generous 
 assistance of others, you drag the fainting sufferer 
 out beyond the reach of harm, and the glad shout 
 goes up from a hundred friendly hearts, " He is 
 safe, he is safe !'' 
 
 Have you not some friend who is in imminent 
 
 15* 
 
174 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 danger of sinking to eternal perdition, "where 
 their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
 qnenched?" It may be that yonr influence might 
 be made the means of saving his soul. Is your 
 conscience satisfied with the reflection, — and if 
 you should survive him to remember his dying 
 agony, will your conscience then be satisfied with 
 the reflection, that you were called to be " busy 
 here and there,'' and while you were busy he was 
 gone? O, let not the demands of worldliness, 
 however numerous and loud they may be, lead 
 you to neglect the eternal welfare of those whom 
 God has placed within the sphere of your imme- 
 diate influence. 
 
 Finally, life has been entrusted to you as the 
 time to prepare for eternity. It is passing rapidly 
 away. Its duration is wholly uncertain, every 
 moment is precious. You must account for it 
 all, as an invaluable trust, at the bar of God. It 
 is the time to serve the Lord ; the time " to in- 
 sure the great reward.'' As such it is to be 
 accounted for at the bar of God. O ! what an 
 
OPPORTUNITIES LOST. 175 
 
 account will this be to render to the Judge upon 
 the great white throne ! " As thy servant was 
 busy here and there, it was gone." And if the 
 Judge should ask you with what were you busy, 
 oh, what would be your answer? Standing so near 
 those mansions that are to resound for ever with 
 the impromj)tu songs of perfect bliss, will you 
 dare to answer, " I was busy enjoying the plea- 
 sures of the world — the paltry, sickening, poison- 
 ous pleasures of the sinful world ?" Standing so 
 near the jasper walls and pearly gates of the holy 
 city, within which are laid up such stores of 
 never-fading treasures, and looking first upon the 
 flashing gems of every hue, the golden streets, 
 the nameless riches and unguessed splendors of 
 heaven, and then back upon the smoking, dying 
 embers of the world, will you dare to answer, " I 
 was busy laying up treasures upon earth?" 
 Standing in the very presence of that God who 
 made you, in whom you lived and moved and 
 had your being, by whose bounty you were fed 
 and clothed, whose air you breathed; standing 
 
176 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 ill the presence of that God, who had a sovereign 
 claim upon your supreme aifections, and all your 
 powers, and who asserted that claim in every 
 blessing of your life, and finally in your inevi- 
 table death, will you dare to answer, ^^ I was 
 busy serving mammon ?" 
 
 Would you make a proper use of this life which 
 has been entrusted to you, with all its privileges? 
 then cherish the influences of the gospel — of the 
 Holy Ghost — of Christian friends — of Sabbaths — 
 of divine ordinances. . . . 
 
IV. 
 
 THE HUMAN LJEVEL, 
 
 The rich and poor meet together j the Lord is the maker of 
 them all. Proverbs xxii. 2. 
 
 QjOME of the proverbs of Solomon are ex- 
 ^ pressed in general terms, and have reference 
 to abstract truths. The most of them are ex- 
 pressed in specific terms designed for general 
 application. Such is the one now before us. 
 The terms rich and poor have reference, not only 
 to the difference in point of wealth, in the strict 
 meaning of the term, but to the whole class of 
 social inequalities which are included within the 
 range of this familiar contrast. Nor does the 
 latter clause, "the Lord is the maker of them 
 all,^' refer solely to our relation to God as the 
 Creator, but to all the relations we sustain to 
 Him ; as if it were said, all classes of society meet 
 
 together; they have all one God. 
 
 177 
 
178 KIRKPAlTdCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 The whole force of the proverb depends upon 
 the close and vital connection between the two 
 clauses. Not merely are there two such classes 
 as the rich and poor really existing; not merely 
 do they meet together in the various walks of 
 life, and in places of promiscuous resort — it would 
 be a meagre proverb if that were all its meaning. 
 The rich and poor do, indeed, meet together in 
 many ways and many places, but the far greater 
 truth to be found in the text, is that they all meet 
 at 4;his one point ; in this one immutable fact, viz. : 
 that they sustain common relations to the same 
 God. Whatever their social distinctions, and 
 inequalities, here they stand upon common ground. 
 The main object of this discourse is to bring to 
 view some particulars included in this general 
 statement : to bring to view some points in which 
 they meet together, in order to show that the only 
 effectual remedy of social evils and inequalities is 
 the true religion of the gospel, and that all classes 
 need that religion. 
 
 I. They have a common origin. "The Lord 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL. I79 
 
 is the maker of them all." ^^He hath made of 
 one blood all nations.'' This does not set at 
 naught the value of descent from the noble, the 
 great, the wise, the good. 
 
 There are family characteristics distinctly 
 marked, estimable or contemptible, lovely or 
 odious; there are hereditary excellences and de- 
 fects; there are real advantages belonging to the 
 lineage of true nobility; there are real disadvan- 
 tages cleaving to the lineage of poverty, and 
 obscure lowliness. The children of the rich may 
 have access to means of improvement, and some- 
 times to positions of usefulness, from which the 
 children of the poor are debarred by their circum- 
 stances. And yet, on the one hand, the advan- 
 tages are often utterly squandered, or perverted 
 into occasions of harm, while, on the other hand, 
 the disadvantages are often triumphantly over- 
 come. "What then?" one may ask; "If my 
 great-grandfather was a duke or a millionaire, am 
 I not, on that account alone, superior to my 
 neighbor whose ancestors were poor day-laborers?" 
 
180 KIRKPATEICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 Not a wliit, unless you are wiser and better on 
 that account. "What then/' another may ask; 
 "Am I an heir of fortune and fame to be thrust 
 down to a level with the nameless child of pov- 
 erty?'' Not necessarily, and yet, you may sink 
 lower in reality. That depends upon your cha- 
 racter and his. But in regard to your origin 
 alone ; in regard to your origin considered apart 
 from its actual results as they appear in your ex- 
 cellency of character, you can claim no sort of 
 superiority. One boasts, I was born in a palace; 
 another acknowledges, I was born in a hut ; Solo- 
 mon says, "The rich and poor meet together; the 
 Lord is the maker of them all." 
 
 Here let me disclaim any intention of rebuking 
 that personal gratification which many enjoy in 
 tracing their lineage through noble channels, 
 back to noble sources. Let me disclaim any in- 
 tention of undervaluing what men are pleased to 
 call the science of heraldry, and any intention of 
 undertaking to decide, either way, the long-con- 
 tinued controversy between the aristocracy and 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL. 181 
 
 the commonalty. Without denying the reality, 
 or the validity, or the importance, or even the 
 neceSvsity of such distinctions in society, but sim- 
 l^ly leaving them out of view, for the present, — 
 let us fall back upon the fundamental truth that 
 all classes meet together in their proper origin, 
 since '^ the Lord is the maker of them all/' 
 
 It follows, both logically and theologically, 
 that all men are brethren. Do not recur at once 
 to some ragged vagrant whom you have recently 
 met, and ask, with indignation, is he my brother? 
 Be calm, while I presume to answer. He is. 
 He may be a degraded brother. You may be, 
 by the sovereign pleasure of God, a favored bro- 
 ther ; but remember who hath made you to differ ; 
 and remember, too, that this difference, wide 
 though it be, does not dissolve the relationship. 
 Though your brother be an outcast, though you 
 may disown him, yet you cannot cut the tie of 
 nature by which you are bound together. AYhat 
 follows ? Manifestly this, — that we should treat 
 
 all men Avith whom we meet, as brethren by 
 16 
 
182 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 nature. This is not to be pressed to tlie extreme^ 
 even in theory. It does not necessarily mean 
 that we are to treat all men alike under all cir- 
 cumstances. It is not incompatible with all 
 preferences and partialities. The gospel itself 
 sanctions a preference in our treatment of others. 
 "Do good unto all men, especially unto those who 
 are of the household of faith.'' The principle is 
 recognized in Scripture that some men have spe- 
 cial claims upon our esteem and our beneficence. 
 We are not required to regard the base and the 
 honorable, the mean and the geneipus, the repul- 
 sive and the amiable with precisely the same feel- 
 ings. But still, with modifications of this sort, 
 which do not all affect the essential idea contained 
 in the proposition, it remains true that we are 
 bound to treat all men as brethren. Such is the 
 true spirit of evangelical religion, and thus we 
 see, from this point of view, how that religion is 
 adapted to remove or correct innumerable social 
 evils. For, without dwelling upon the details of 
 the matter, we may see, at a glance, what a great 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL, 133 
 
 and glorious change would be wrought in the 
 whole condition of society, if it was only pervaded 
 by this genuine, practical brotherly-kindness 
 which the gospel enjoins. 
 
 Before leaving this topic, the sameness of ori- 
 ginal nature, let us take another point of observa- 
 tion. ^V'hile it is true that the Lord is the maker 
 of all classes of men, — still, as was remarked a 
 while ago, this does not set at nought the value 
 of descent from the rich or the great. There are 
 real advantages belonging to sucli a descent. 
 But in what do those real advantages consist? 
 In abundant means of self-improvement, and in 
 the greater opportunities of exerting a wide- 
 spread influence for good. And here, we may see 
 again how true religion is adapted to remove the 
 lamented evils of society ; for if the rich and the 
 great were also devotedly pious, and would train 
 up their children in the nurture and admonition 
 of the Lord, and dedicate them to his service, — 
 and if the children of the rich and the great were 
 thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the gospel, 
 
184 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 who does not see liow they would be led to use 
 their distinguishing means, and their paramount 
 influence, to relieve, and enlighten, and elevate 
 their less-favored fellow-men? If the boasted 
 advantages of birth, and the consequent facilities 
 of usefulness were all sincerely consecrated to the 
 honor of God and religion, what a blessed trans- 
 formation would thus be wrought in the condition 
 of society, and how many mere nominal, and yet 
 deplorable distinctions would thus be obliterated ! 
 II. " The rich and poor meet together," as to 
 their natural condition. All such classes are 
 alike in this ; they are all fallen, depraved, sinful 
 creatures. It follows that they all need the reli- 
 gion of the gospel. They all need the transform- 
 ing power of divine grace ; they all need its con- 
 solations ; they all need " wisdom and righteous- 
 ness, and sanctification and redemption." How- 
 ever affluent may be some, and however indigent 
 others, however learned may be some, and how- 
 ever ignorant others, — however high, or however 
 low, they are all burdened with the same neces- 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL. 185 
 
 sity ; they are all under condeniiiatioii ; no worldly 
 superiority can aiford them exemption. '^ God is 
 no respecter of persons." In regard to their con- 
 dition, and spiritual necessities, they meet together 
 now; hereafter they must meet together at the 
 bar of God, and if not forgiven and redeemed, 
 they must meet together in the world of woe. 
 Some who are overlooked, derided, spurned here, 
 will be companions there ; some who are looked 
 upon with awe, or fear, or raging envy here, 
 will be only companions there. But, if all classes 
 meet together as to their natural condition, if all 
 are depraved creatures, — it follows^ not only that 
 all need religion as the only security for their 
 everlasting welfare, but also that this same reli- 
 gion is adapted to remove the obstacles that exist 
 between these different classes in this world, and 
 to shorten the interval between them. The 
 miserable condition of society is not due to the 
 mere existence of different classes, but rather to 
 their feelings and conduct toward one another; 
 envy, jealousy, ambition, dejection, an oppressive 
 
 16* 
 
186 KIRKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 sense of the contempt of others; pride, scorn, 
 selfishness, false notions of honor, — these, and 
 such as these, are the chief sources of what men 
 are accustomed to call social evils. Their pol- 
 luted fountain is in the depravity of human 
 nature. The j)roper corrective is true religion. 
 This tends to remove pride on the one hand, and 
 envy on the other; it tends to beget a kindly 
 charity on the one hand, and contentment on the 
 other ; it tends to nourish a magnanimous libe- 
 rality on the one hand, and by this very means to 
 effect a real elevation on the other. If a rich 
 man is filled with the spirit of Christ, who veiled 
 his Godhead, and ate with publicans and sinners, 
 he will not look haughtily nor scornfully upon 
 his indigent neighbor. If a poor man is filled 
 with the spirit of Christ, who never complained 
 though he had not where to lay his head, he will 
 not be tortured with morbid jealousies, but cherish 
 a quiet satisfaction with his lowly lot, while he 
 actually rises in the esteem of all who estimate 
 worth by the right standard. So, in general, in 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL. I87 
 
 regard to all the extreme divisions of men ; the 
 real evils which belong to them are such as spring 
 from the common depravity of men. Therefore, 
 the remedy is regeneration and sanctification. If 
 this remedy be applied to all classes, the needed 
 compromise will be effected,— and thus, true reli- 
 gion, though it may not bring all classes into one, 
 is yet adapted to bring all classes into harmony. 
 
 III. "The rich and poor meet together" in 
 this ; they are all subject to the same law. The 
 sum of that law is this: "Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as 
 thyself." The high are bound to love the low, 
 and the low are bound to love the high; the rich 
 are bound to love the poor, and the poor the rich. 
 Whatever the ground of distinction may be, and 
 however wide the distinction, the command is 
 that it shall be overreached by love. "Love suf- 
 fereth long and is kind, envieth not, seeketh not 
 her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, 
 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
 all things, endureth all things, never faileth." 
 
188 KIRKFA TRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 '* Love is the fulfilling of the law;" love is the 
 heart of religion. The more this great obligation 
 of the law is acknowledged and felt, the more 
 pure religion abounds, the greater will be the 
 prevalence of peace and concord, and mutual wel- 
 fare, among all classes of men. Mere philan- 
 thropy will not answer the purpose. It is too 
 impulsive and too feeble, because it is divorced 
 from a sense of duty. The charity which is 
 requisite to overcome the obstacles which lie be- 
 tween the different social departments is that 
 which is the fulfilling of the law, that which 
 springs out of supreme love to God, that which 
 is characteristic of evangelical piety, and is to be 
 found nowhere else. Hence, the more widely 
 evangelical piety prevails, the more will men of 
 all grades and conditions be led ^'to keep the 
 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." 
 
 IV. "The rich and poor meet together" in 
 this ; they must all be saved upon the same con- 
 ditions. "There is no royal road" to heaven; 
 there is no aristocratic way of salvation. They 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL, 189 
 
 must kneel at the same mercy-seat; they must 
 believe in the same Saviour; they must sit at the 
 same communion table; they must carry on the 
 same warfare; they must run the same race, and 
 they look forward to the time when they shall 
 stand together at the right hand of God. Thus 
 religion gives men an identity of interests, a com- 
 mon experience, common hopes; it brings them 
 into fellowship under the most solemn and sacred 
 influences, and thus its direct tendency is to 
 equalize, familiarize, and harmonize all ranks of 
 men. 
 
 In the light of this subject we see (1) the im- 
 portance of religion in its mere worldly bearings. 
 Strange that men who profess to desire the peace 
 and welfare of the community and the race, should 
 contemn or overlook religion as the great means 
 of securing that peace and welfare. Agrarianism, 
 socialism, philanthropic associations, mere intel- 
 lectual culture, all such schemes and agencies are 
 inadequate because they are superficial; they en- 
 deavor to remove the evil effects while they leave 
 
190 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 the causes undisturbed, in active operation. Re- 
 ligion strikes at the root, of all real social evils. 
 
 (2). The importance, the duty, of endeavoring 
 to promote the prevalence of religion. The phl- 
 lanthroj^ist, if he be nothing more, yet if he 
 would do his utmost, if he would do that which 
 is worth doing, for the benefit of his race, let him 
 take this method of manifesting his philanthropy. 
 The good citizen, if he be nothing more, yet if he 
 Avould prove himself to be that, let him take this 
 method of promoting the welfare of the commu- 
 nity in which he lives. It is the surest method. 
 It is the method by which he can accomplish 
 most. The most injurious members of commu- 
 nity, so far as their influence extends, are those 
 who oppose or discountenance religion; the men 
 most useful to the community are those who do 
 most to encourage and promote vital godliness, 
 and to maintain, and make successful, the ordained 
 means of grace. It is a great mistake^ to suppose 
 that religion is solely a personal matter, and is 
 designed to secure only the s^^iritual welfare of 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL. igj 
 
 the soul. It is the greatest blessing that can be 
 bestowed upon human society considered in refer- 
 ence to its common worldly interests. 
 
 Here it may be objected that Christianity has 
 long been exerting its varied influences, and so- 
 ciety is still infested by many and great evils. 
 In answer to this objection, three remarks may be 
 made. 
 
 First. The design of the foregoing remarks has 
 been not so much to describe what religion has 
 done or is doing, as to show what it is adapted 
 to do. 
 
 Secondly. A candid exaraination of the history 
 and present state of the world is enough to con- 
 vince any one that the state of society is, in every 
 sense of the word, better, in Christian than in 
 heathen lands; that it is better where genuine 
 Christianity prevails than where a corrupt Chris- 
 tianity is dominant; compare, for example, pro- 
 testant Scotland with papal Ireland. Come to 
 narrower fields of observation. Is there not far 
 more of social equality, and social concord, and 
 
192 KTRKPA TRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 common social enjoyment in thoroughly religions, 
 than in thoroughly irreligious communities? Do 
 not these social blessings abound more in churches 
 which are distinguished for godliness, than in 
 those which are worldly and formal? Yes; true 
 religion has, in very deed, greatly blessed society 
 in the very ways that have been mentioned. 
 
 Thirdly, It is adapted to accomplish in those 
 ways immensely more. The simple reason why 
 it has effected so little, comparatively, is that 
 there has been really so little of it at work ; and 
 therefore the fact that it has accomplished so 
 little, should rather be regarded as the fact that 
 there is so much yet to be accomplished in order 
 to make society what it ought to be. Thus this 
 fact, instead of being a valid objection to the view 
 we have taken of the subject, is found, after all, 
 to be the great reason why all who are interested 
 in the mutual welfare of all classes should use 
 tlieir utmost influence to maintain, and promote, 
 luid give far greater success to the genuine reli- 
 gion of the gospel. 
 
THE HUMAN LEVEL, igiS 
 
 To Christians, especially, this subject presents 
 11 higher motive. " The rich and poor meet to- 
 gether, and the Lord is the maker of them all." 
 In other words, in their relations to God, they all 
 stand upon the same ground. They are all sin- 
 ners by nature and by practice ; unless converted 
 they are all condemned. They are all to stand 
 before the judgment-seat of Christ. They are all 
 to be saved or lost. Eternity will be as long, the 
 second death will be as terrible, and everlasting 
 life will be as precious, to one as to another. 
 Hence it is our duty to exert ourselves for the 
 salvation of all classes. When Christ came it 
 was said, "The poor have the gospel preached 
 unto them." They ought to have, they must 
 have, they will be for ever undone without it. 
 We must preach the gospel to them ; we must 
 send the gospel to them. When Peter was sent 
 to preach Christ to the Gentiles, a voice from 
 Heaven said unto him, " What God hath cleansed, 
 that call not thou common or unclean." The 
 
 gospel does not belong to the favored classes 
 17 
 
194 KIRKPATUWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 alone, — it does not belong alone to those who can 
 aiford to build handsome churches. It is adapted 
 to all; it is indispensable to all, and it is the 
 solemn duty of those who enjoy its blessings to 
 send it with all its treasures of life and immor- 
 tality to those who are destitute in other lands, 
 and in other parts of our own land, and to use 
 all proper means to bring the neglected classes 
 immediately around them under these transform- 
 ing and saving influences. 
 
 Finally, this subject admits of a more directly 
 personal application. The rich must become 
 poor in spirit, and the poor must become rich in 
 faith. Men of all classes and conditions must 
 humble themselves before God, must acknowledge 
 their guilt, must renounce the world, must accept 
 salvation as a gift of free grace 
 
V. 
 
 THE TWO FORMS OF SOBROW. 
 
 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be 
 repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 2 Co- 
 rinthians vii. 10. 
 
 rpmS fallen world is full of sorrow. Go whither 
 -^ you will, you will find its causes ; its unmis- 
 takable tokens ; its familiar emblems ; its doleful, 
 or its happy results. There are happy homes; 
 but there is sorrow even in the midst of them. 
 There are stories of Elysian fields and Utopian 
 isles, and Fairy palaces, but no mortal has jour- 
 neyed beyond the dark-shaded domain of sorrow, 
 except in his dreams, waking or sleeping. It 
 has a large share in the mighty work of swaying 
 the world ; it has a language of its own, common 
 to all nations and all times, by which wanderers 
 from the most distant lands can freely mingle 
 their emotions of grief and sympathy. 
 
 195 
 
196 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 The operations of sorrow are wonderfully 
 various ; to one, it is a burden, pressing the soul 
 down into tiie deep of death, — to another, it is a 
 buoy iijion which he floats over the sea of life 
 into the haven of eternal rest ; here it grows mor- 
 bidly to madness, — there it blooms into everlast- 
 ing delight. While, in every case, it is the con- 
 sequence of sin ; in one, it still leads on to sin ; 
 in another, it is the first step toward complete 
 deliverance from evil. The Apostle here specifies 
 two forms of sorrow. 
 
 I. Consider the sorrow of the world. Of this 
 there are three kinds. (1) That which arises 
 from a fear of the punishment due for sin, and 
 yet not accompanied with any hatred of moral 
 evil. Doubtless every man has known by expe- 
 rience something of this. For even without the 
 gospel, and without the written law, men have a 
 consciousness of guilt more or less distinct ; " For 
 when the Gentiles which have not the law, do 
 by nature the things contained in the law, these 
 having not the law ai*e a law unto themselves; 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 197 
 
 which show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts ; their conscience also bearing witness, and 
 their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else 
 excusing one another/' No man is a stranger to 
 this fear of punishment, this legal conviction ; 
 and it is vain for any man, infidel or moralist, 
 utterly to disclaim the regrets that spring out of 
 it. Whatever the obduracy and recklessness, 
 which he would fain dignify with nobler names, 
 he has felt and mourned that he was under con- 
 demnation. This is indeed, as we shall see, one 
 element of a better kind of sorrow, but of itself, 
 it brings forth no good fruit. A man may pos- 
 sibly cherish it until he has no joy, no peace, no 
 rest, and yet make no further advancement toward 
 reconciliation with God. Whatever the depth of 
 his sorrow, simply on account of his exposure to 
 the penalty of God's violated law, if that be all 
 of it, and continue to be all, that penalty will 
 surely yet overtake him in its resistless rush. 
 Indeed, it not only of itself fails to bring forth 
 
 life, and ward off eternal wrath, but it sometimes 
 17* 
 
198 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 literally worketh death. It is equally strange 
 and true that men often rush most hastily upon 
 the very edge and brunt of that which they most 
 dread. The fate of him who sold the life of his 
 Lord for thirty pieces of silver horribly illustrated 
 the death-working power of this deep sorrow. 
 When he saw that Jesus was condemned, he 
 repented himself, and came to the chief priests 
 and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have 
 betrayed the innocent blood; he cast down the 
 pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and 
 went and hanged himself. Not a few have been 
 driven by the same power to the same desperation 
 and a similar doom. 
 
 (2). That which arises from disappointment in 
 regard to the accomplishment of some evil pur- 
 poses, or from envy in view, of the prosperity of 
 others, or from the indulgence of some other un- 
 holy aifection. This works death in so far as it 
 is sinful in itself. To grieve because our evil 
 designs have been baffled by God or man, is in 
 itself a sin ; to repine because the providence of 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 199 
 
 God has passed us by to heap distinguishing 
 favors in the lap of another, is itself a sin. The 
 indulgence of any such sorrow, Vvdiich springs 
 from depraved affections or emotions, is sin, and 
 the wages of all sin is death. But this is not all 
 The kind of sorrow which we are now considering 
 acts by a reflex power upon the very emotions by 
 which it was engendered; it stirs up the depths 
 of depravity in the heart; it inflames evil pas- 
 sions; it gives new impulses in the path of ini- 
 quity. Grief for the disappointment of wicked 
 desires, often prompts to the formation and exe- 
 cution of new plans for the accomplishment of 
 the same desires. If a man grieve because his 
 friend is more prosperous than he, that grief will 
 hardly fail to beget jealousy, and may easily 
 nourish that jealousy into the hideous maturity 
 of hatred. If a man grieve because his ungodly 
 lusts have been deprived of their polluted enjoy- 
 ments, or because they have mistaken misery for 
 pleasure, his grief will the more enrage those very 
 lusts. In brief, sinful sorrow is like a festering 
 
200 KIBKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 wound in the heart; it stimulates and exasperates 
 those very evil passions from which it springs, 
 and thus indirectly, but with dreadful certainty, 
 if left to have its course, it worketh death. 
 
 (3). The last of the three kinds included in the 
 sorrow of the world is that which may be called 
 natural in distinction from moral. It is that pain 
 or uneasiness of the heart which is produced by 
 the loss of any lawful good, or by disappointment 
 in the expectation of any such good. In itself 
 considered, this has no moral character. It is 
 often mingled with godly sorrow; it is sometimes 
 made the means of awakening godly sorrow. 
 The heart is smitten; the man is brought to real- 
 ize, in a new degree, the instability of mere 
 earthly good. He is induced to look for more 
 worthy and enduring objects of affection, and at 
 the same time is made to feel that he is a sufferer 
 because he is a sinner. He is led to look more 
 deeply into his own heart, and to contrast him- 
 self and his life, with the character, the law, the 
 providence, and the forbearance of God, and thus, 
 
THE TWO FORMS OP SOBHOW. 201 
 
 or by some similar process^ he is led to the exer- 
 cise of genuine repentance. Many a man has 
 walked, with downcast face and tearful eyes, 
 through a dark and thorny path of sorrow, not 
 knowing whither he went, until he emerged into 
 the path of the just which "is as the shining^ 
 light that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
 day." Many a man has devoutly thanked God for 
 the stroke which well nigh broke his heart, and 
 thus constrained him to seek the great Physician 
 who not only binds up the broken heart, but heals 
 for ever all the deep-seated maladies of the spirit. 
 On the same familiar principle, afflictions are often , 
 used as the means of sanctifying those who have 
 believed. Natural sorrow is poured into their 
 breasts to minister to their purification. It is a 
 mysterious but a gracious arrangement. And, 
 hence, being the subject of great afflictions does 
 not necessarily prove one to be a conspicuously 
 great sinner. This w^as the mistake into which 
 the friends of Job fell; their reproachful advice 
 was given upon this false assumption, and one 
 
202 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 great design of that book was, doubtless, to teacli 
 that we should not judge of the characters of 
 men by God's dealings with them in the present 
 life. Many of his chosen, devoted servants are 
 made to drink the cup of sorrow to the dregs, 
 that thereby, through a process peculiar to God's 
 economy of grace, they may be prepared for 
 larger and purer draughts of joy. There is mercy 
 in the form of judgment; grief is sown, but the 
 harvest is everlasting joy. 
 
 Still, when separated from the fear and love of 
 God, and faith in Christ, even this natural sorrow 
 of the heart worketh death. Not only does it 
 drink up the spirits, and banish animating hopes, 
 and derange the nervous system, and prey upon 
 the energies, and thus, when inordinately indulged 
 sometimes hasten temporal death; but, unless re- 
 strained and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it 
 has a tendency to work out everlasting death. It 
 excites a spirit of rebellion against Jehovah. It 
 is an unqualified declaration of Scripture and 
 abundantly confirmed by human experience in its 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 208 
 
 widest range, that men have a natural disposition 
 to contend against God. Who does not know 
 how alarmingly that disposition is quickened by 
 sorrow ? How hard it is to submit to iniglity be- 
 reavements with an uncomplaining spirit? How 
 prone we are to resist His will when it is em- 
 bodied in the heartless forms of adversity? How 
 a single stroke of his rod arouses a sudden rebel- 
 lion in the bosom? And if this is often the 
 actual result of sorrow, in its most violent opera- 
 tions, every smaller degree of it, has, in its own 
 measure, the same dangerous tendency. It is a 
 fearful tendency; at the very best, we have too 
 strong an inclination to resist God, and we have 
 reason to dread the force of such a stimulant* 
 We have far more reason to deprecate sorrow, be- 
 cause of this danger, than because of the pain it 
 brings ; w^e have far more reason to seek the grace 
 of God to counteract this tendencv, than to seek 
 his consolations for the mere relief they bring. 
 
 This sorrow sometimes results in turnina: tlie 
 current of affection with fatal certainty, and re- 
 
204 KinKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 doubled intensity toward some other earthly 
 object which comes into the place of that which 
 lias been lost and mourned. How often does it 
 occur, that when parents lose one child in their 
 sadness, they cling with more fondness and in- 
 creasing devotion to another that is left? So in a 
 multitude of similar and various instances, sorrow 
 for the loss of one object forges new chains and 
 binds us more firmly to others. By nature, we 
 are prone to idolatry as the sparks fly upward, 
 and when our idols are torn away, our very sor- 
 row often makes us more idolatrous. In this par- 
 ticulai-, its tendency is to evil and to death. 
 
 Sometimes it begets a morbid disgust for the 
 world, and leads to a misanthropic seclusion from 
 its kindly and salutary influences. True, the 
 world is full of temptations, and it might be 
 thought, at first view, that seclusion was the best 
 place for the cultivation of piety and spiritual 
 life. Thus many have thought in every age^ but 
 the history of all such experiments has proved 
 tlie notion a fallacy. Man is a social being, and 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 205 
 
 even his spiritual nature has social relations whicli 
 cannot be torn asunder with impunity. Occa- 
 sional retirement is indispensable to growth in 
 grace, but a soul in habitual seclusion is like a 
 plant in a dark cellar. Although the world is 
 full of temptations, there are many genial, and 
 healthful, and converting, and purifying influences 
 circulating through the varied channels of social 
 and religious life, and when sorrow drives men 
 into a misanthropic seclusion, it is exerting no 
 trifling tendency to death. 
 
 Even in less conspicuous instances, in ordinary 
 instances, it often tends to death. If it does not 
 soften, it hardens the heart. Men are exhorted 
 to rejoice with trembling, but sorrow is little less 
 dangerous. These which have been mentioned 
 are some of the ways in which it worketh death. 
 O, how much need we have, in all our afflictions, 
 to guard against the excessive indulgence of sor- 
 row, and to seek the restraining and sanctifying 
 grace of God to counteract its evil tendencies, and 
 prevent its fatal working. 
 
 18 
 
206 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 TI. Let us now turn our attention to that 
 which the apostle calls ^' godly sorrow/' In gen- 
 eral, it is that of which God, the Holy Spirit, is 
 the author. Like faith, it is his gift. It is that 
 wliicli is excited through certain views of God. 
 He who does not behold God as a holy Being; he 
 who has no correct views of his justice; lie who 
 despises the goodness of Him against whom his 
 sins have been committed, can have no godly 
 sorrow. It is that which in all its exercises con- 
 templates God as the ultimate object. Such sor- 
 row David had when he exclaimed " Against thee, 
 thee only have I sinned.'^ The great sin of his 
 life was enormous, even as a sin against his fellow- 
 man; but its injustice and cruelty to him were 
 completely absorbed in that heinousness which 
 characterized it as a sin against God. If we do 
 not perceive and feel that all our sins of every 
 grade are committed against God, and that in that 
 opposition consists the essence of their sinfulness 
 we do not exercise a godly sorrow for them. The 
 chief elements of godly sorrow are these: 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 207 
 
 1. A sense of guilt. Guilt is n -.onymous 
 with sin. It means a just exposure to the penalty 
 of the violated law; desert of punishment. The 
 sinner must not only feel that he is liable to pun- 
 ishment, that he is in danger of it, but that he 
 deserves it, and that God would be just in his 
 damnation. There may be "a fearful looking for 
 of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall 
 devour the adversaries," and yet no true convic- 
 tion of the personal desert of that judgment and 
 indignation. But terror, apart from shame and 
 self-condemnation, is no element of godly sorrow. 
 
 2. It includes, also, a conviction of the in- 
 trinsic evil of sin, and its odiousness before God. 
 Accordingly we find that the most moral and up- 
 right men in human estimation, when their eyes 
 are opened to an humbling view of their own 
 hearts, condemn themselves, not only as sinners, 
 but as great sinners. They see that sin, all sin, 
 any sin, is vile, miserably vile; and though the 
 crimes of many others may be of deeper and 
 blacker turpitude; although their sins are com- 
 
208 KIRKPATRWK MEMOUIAL. 
 
 paratively small, yet, absolutely, they are "ex- 
 ceedingly sinful/' because they have been com- 
 mitted against the law, the will, the very nature 
 of Him who is holiness itself. If any man have 
 not such a sense and abhorrence of the evil nature 
 of sin, apart from the number and magnitude of 
 his transgressions, he has not genuine godly 
 sorrow. 
 
 3. It includes, also, a sense of base ingratitude. 
 Who can have a just view of sin as committed 
 against that God who is love, whose goodness and 
 mercy have followed him all the days of his life, 
 and indeed feel that his very life is but the pro- 
 tracted forbearance of God who is "not willing 
 that any should perish, but that all should be 
 saved and come to the knowledge of the truth?" 
 Who can have a just view of his iniquities in their 
 contrast with infinite benevolence, and mercy, and 
 love, without an overwhelming conviction that he 
 has been grievously ungrateful? Such are the 
 elements of godly sorrow. 
 
 III. It is a fatal mistake to confound sorrow 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 209 
 
 and repentance ; they are widely different. One 
 is the cause, the other the effect. One is the tree, 
 the other is the fruit. We can readily conceive 
 of a man being sorry for sin all his life, and yet 
 dying without repentance. It is not improbable 
 that many a self-deceived soul has gone to ever- 
 lasting perdition because he was content with 
 sorrow under the name of repentance. Even 
 godly sorrow is not enough to insure pardon, un- 
 less it progresses to its legitimate issue. It work- 
 eth repentance. Here is the grand test for godly 
 sorrow. If it be genuine, it will always produce 
 this result. If it come short of this, it is worth- 
 less, yea worse, it is the death-working sorrow of 
 the world under a borrowed title. 
 
 What then is this repentance in which godly 
 sorrow eventuates ? The word literally means a 
 change of mind, a change of the prevailing pur- 
 pose, and inclination of the mind. And when a 
 man changes his mind, he changes his plan and 
 conduct. Thus genuine repentance is never sepa- 
 rate from outward reformation. The man who 
 
 18 * 
 
210 KinKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 professes to be sorry for his sins, and yet does not 
 sincerely and habitually endeavor to forsake them, 
 is false to his God, and false to himself, — for 
 godly sorrow worketh repentance. It worketh a 
 change of mind, a change of the moral disposition 
 and inclinations and desires, and moral habits of 
 the soul, and a corresponding change in the tenor 
 of the outward life. Of this process the final end 
 is salvation. Sorrow is bitter, repentance is diffi- 
 cult ; but salvation is — what shall I say ? It is 
 an everlasting mystery of blissful glory. It is 
 beyond description, and therefore the Apostle 
 adds these words, " not to be repented of." This 
 phrase may have reference, either to the repent- 
 ance or the salvation. 
 
 The word here translated " not to be repented 
 of ^' is very different from the former word repent- 
 ance. It occurs in only one other place in the 
 New Testament where it is said that " the gifts 
 and calling of God are without repentance." 
 There it is generally understood to mean " secure, 
 certain, unchangeable." Accordingly it might 
 
THE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 211 
 
 here mean that salvation thus effected is un- 
 changeable ; once obtained, it is secure for ever ; 
 for we may be well persuaded " that neither death 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
 nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, 
 nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to 
 separate us from the love of God which is in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord/' More probably, how- 
 ever, it refers to repentance, and means not to be 
 regretted. 
 
 In this the Apostle has declared the invariable 
 experience of all true penitents. There may have 
 been victims of delusion, who, in the black mid- 
 night of apostacy, have regretted that they ever 
 united with the visible church of God without a 
 spark of true religion. Many doubtless have 
 regretted that they mistook the dangerous sorrow 
 of the world for godly sorrow. But let the ene- 
 mies of religion, and all ingenious antiquarian 
 skeptics roll out and sift all the confessions, and 
 pry into all the secrets of the universal scroll of 
 history. They will search in vain for any man 
 
212 KIBKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 \\'\\o has for a moment repented of genuine re- 
 pentance. 
 
 When will a man repent of that ? When he 
 is struggling to be free from sin because it is his 
 worst enemy ? As soon would a man repent of 
 his fear while he was fleeing from the jaws of a 
 roaring lion. Will he repent of it while he lives, 
 rejoicing in the favor of that God whose frown 
 rests upon the unbeliever; rejoicing in commu- 
 nion with Him whose loving-kindness is better 
 than life; rejoicing in that peace of conscience 
 which the world can neither give nor take away ; 
 "rejoicing in hope of the glory of God?" Will 
 he repent of it in the hour of death, when a new 
 smile of heavenly love falls gently on him, and 
 he exclaims to the praise of divine grace, " I have 
 fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ; 
 henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
 righteousness ?'' 
 
 Will he repent of it when his transported spirit 
 enters the gate of the celestial city, while a wel- 
 coming flood of light and music lifts him gently 
 
THJE TWO FORMS OF SORROW. 213 
 
 into the very presence of his heavenly Father ? 
 Will he repent of it when he sees his name in the 
 Lamb's book of Life ? Will he repent of it when 
 the crown is placed upon his brow and the harp 
 in his hand ? Will he repent of it when his 
 voice swells up spontaneously, and to his own 
 rapturous amazement, harmoniously into the great 
 choral song of redemption ? Will he ever, ever 
 in the lapse of ages, sit down wearied with the 
 joys of heaven, tired of the beatific vision, and 
 regret that he repented of his sins ? 
 Converse.* 
 
 * This word ia retained in its so]jjgiriness, as a specimen of the 
 suggestive terms frequently employed by Mr. Kirkpatrick in his 
 sermons, and especially at their close. With an unfettered spirit 
 he addressed his exhortations to his hearers. Much of his power 
 was manifested in these extemporaneous appeals. — Editor. 
 
VI. 
 
 no YE NOW BELIEVJE? 
 
 Do ye now believe? John xvi. 31. 
 
 THE Saviour knew the hearts of all. He 
 needed not that any one should testify of 
 man, for he himself knew what was in man. 
 Yet he often asked questions. He did so for the 
 benefit of others. He suggested questions which 
 his disciples might r^eat to one another and to 
 themselves, with the design of bringing their own 
 experience under review, and in order to show 
 them the state of their own hearts through the 
 candid answers of their own consciences. Under 
 this category comes the question now before us. 
 It was addressed to the disciples immediately 
 after a decided profession, upon their part, of in- 
 telligent confidence in him. As the case often is, 
 this question expresses different shades of mean- 
 
 2U 
 
BO YE NOW BELIEVEf 215 
 
 ing according to the emphasis with which it is 
 pronounced. By looking at its different phases, 
 we may, by the blessing of God, obtain varied 
 instruction and profit. The original emphasis, or 
 precise statement of the question as uttered by the 
 Saviour, can hardly be determined with certainty; 
 but we shall not fail, surely, to include it, if we 
 duly consider the natural and profitable varia- 
 tions of the inquiry which accord with the context 
 on the one hand, and with certain common va- 
 rieties of human experience on the other. 
 
 I. We may understand this question as having 
 reference to the reality of faith, to saving faith as 
 distinguished from other grades of belief. Do ye 
 now believe, indeed, in the highest sense ; in the 
 gospel sense? Shortly before these words were 
 uttered, in his interview with the disciples, Christ 
 had made this declaration, " A little while, and 
 ye shall not see me ; and again a little while, and 
 ye shall see me; because I go to the Father." 
 "Then said some of his disciples among them- 
 selves, what is tliis that lie saith unto us, a little 
 
216 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 while. We cannot tell what he saith." Jesus 
 followed with an explanation of his saying, and 
 the explanation ended thus, " I came forth from 
 the Father and am come into the world ; again, 
 I leave the world and go to the Father." This 
 explanation was unasked. Jesus perceived their 
 need of it, and their desire for it, and to their 
 astonishment had precisely met that desire. They 
 replied, "Lo now speakest thou plainly, and 
 speakest no proverb. Now we are sure that thou 
 knowest all things, and needest not that any man 
 should ask thee; by this we believe that thou 
 camest forth from God.'' Jesus answered in sub- 
 stance thus; Ye believe that I have an insight 
 into the heart; ye believe that I came forth from 
 God ; but do you exercise an implicit trust in me 
 as your only and all-sufficient Saviour? The 
 question in this form comes home to us. Belief 
 in the Scriptures, as the word of God, is indeed 
 indispensable to salvation. It is the first step, 
 without which, most assuredly, the goal cannot 
 be reached. No man who rejects the Bible can 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE! 217 
 
 go to heaven, whether he be a heathen groping in 
 darkness, or .an infidel blind in the midst of light. 
 Therein, the way of life is made known. Witli- 
 out it that way is unknown, and how can a man 
 travel to the region of immortal bliss unless he 
 knows ^the way? It is in vain that men talk 
 about the religion of nature, or the light of reason, 
 or special revelations, or the ^'eternal verities'' 
 that are latent in the consciousness, or the claims 
 of human virtue, or the untrammelled goodness 
 of God, which must by a logical necessity, confer 
 happiness upon all men. All religion is as un- 
 stable and useless, for everlasting purposes, as 
 cliaflP, except the religion of the Bible. You, 
 doubtless, believe in the Bible, but that is not 
 enough. Though your convictions in this respect 
 be unwavering ; though you may be able to de- 
 fend them with impregnable arguments ; though 
 you may be accustomed to maintain them with 
 reasons as familiar to you as household words, 
 and as strong as the testimony of the senses ; still 
 the question recurs, ^^ Do you believe ?" Import- 
 
 19 
 
218 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 ant, essential as it is, yet comparatively, a mere 
 faith in the evidences of Christianity may be 
 regarded as no faith at all, and as though that 
 were entirely beneath the view, it may still be 
 asked, do you now believe ? Not, do you believe 
 the Scriptures? but do you believe in the Sa- 
 viour ? 
 
 It is worth our while to dwell upon this point, 
 plain as it is, because such a dangerous practical 
 mistake is so commonly made just here. So 
 many who would shrink with horror from the 
 dismal abyss of infidelity, are yet satisfied with a 
 mere nominal Christianity ; so many yielding the 
 assent of their understandings merely, are resting 
 in a false and perilous security. You might not 
 only believe the Scriptures, but commit them all 
 to memory, and choose to die with the well-worn 
 volume beneath your head, and yet, if you went 
 no farther, if you did not repent, and discard your 
 own righteousness, and receive the Saviour, your 
 everlasting experience would be but the fulfilment 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE? 219 
 
 of that awful denunciation, " He that believeth 
 not shall be damned," 
 
 And there is another thought in connection with 
 this, which we cannot overlook. Your acquaint- 
 ance with the word of God, if not folloAved by a 
 saving faith, will enhance your condemnation. 
 ''That servant which knew his Lord's will, and 
 prepared not himself, neither did according to his 
 will, shall be beaten with many stripes; while he 
 that knew not and did commit things worthy of 
 stripes, shall be beaten with few." Do you doubt 
 it? do you hesitate about the application of it? 
 "Go ye and learn what this meaneth," ''Unto 
 whomsoever much is given, of him will much be 
 required." 
 
 The disciples had just declared their faith in 
 the divinity of Christ. " Now we are sure that 
 thou knowest all things, and needest not that any 
 man should ask thee." Omniscience is an attri- 
 bute of Deity alone. It cannot belong to any 
 creature. To believe, as the disciples did, that 
 Jesus kuoweth all things is to believe that he is 
 
22a KIRKPATRIGK MEMORIAL. 
 
 Divine. This is essential to salvation. The 
 Scriptures make it an express condition ; '' Who 
 is he that overcometh the world, but he that 
 believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" But 
 this is not enough. The remarks just made upon 
 the forcgohig topic Avould be applicable here. 
 Here is the same danger of false security, and 
 even a greater danger. You may believe that 
 Jesus is the Son of God; you may admire his 
 exhibitions of the Godhead ; you may admire the 
 glorious perfection of his character; that admira- 
 tion may even be such as to prompt you to imi- 
 tate, in some respects, his beautiful example, and 
 yet, in reality, you may reject him and perish. 
 O, be not satisfied with correct intellectual appre- 
 hensions of the Saviour! Cast away your own 
 righteousness; abandon every scheme of salvation 
 by works ; receive the Saviour ; embrace him with 
 love; with a sense of your lost condition cast 
 yourself into his arms for safety; banish every 
 other hope of salvation that Avould cheat your 
 soul of heaven; with humility, and penitence, 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE! 221 
 
 and simple implicit trusty rely upon Him; give 
 him your heart and all your powers; give your- 
 self unreservedly to him to be saved by his grace, 
 and to be used for his glory. In this sense, "do 
 ye now believe?"- * 
 
 II. We may understand this question as in- 
 tended to remind us of the possibility of being 
 self-deceived, and to incite us to a renewed inves- 
 tigation of the matter. ^^ Do ye now believe?" 
 Are you assured of that? Let us not repel the 
 inquiry as an uncharitable insinuation ; but aware 
 of our liability to err even in so vital a matter, 
 let us humbly and sternly ask ourselves the ques- 
 tion. Do I indeed believe? In order to answer 
 this correctly, let us look for the Scriptural evi- 
 dences of genuine faith. 
 
 It is the gift of God; it is wrought in us by 
 his Holy Spirit; and there are certain exercises 
 antecedent and preparatory to the introduction 
 and exercise of faith. (1), Illumination. This 
 is the first requisite, in time, if not in importance. 
 When Christ sent Paul to preach to the Gentiles, 
 
 19* 
 
222 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 his conip.iissioii was in these words: "To open 
 their eyes, and to turn tliem from darkness to 
 light, and from the power of Satan unto God, 
 that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and in- 
 heritance among them which are sanctified by 
 faith that is in me." How can a man receive 
 Christ while he is blind, or in darkness? If we 
 have not been enlightened Ave have not believed. 
 It is comparatively easy to determine whether we 
 have been enlightened; if so, our views of sin, 
 and holiness, of truth and error, of justice and 
 the mercy of God in Christ have been vastly 
 changed. If we regard these things as we for- 
 merly did, we have not been enlightened; if our 
 views are not materially changed, we have sad 
 reason to fear that our illumination has been only 
 a hallucination; for, as one* has well said, "If 
 God has opened our eyes by saving illumination, 
 we will find as great a difference betwixt our 
 former and present apprehensions of sin and 
 danger as betwixt a painted lion upon the wall or 
 
 * Flavel. 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE f 223 
 
 a sign-post^ and the real living lion that meets us 
 roaring in the way." 
 
 (2). Conviction, also, must precede faith. Tlie 
 Sj)irit first convinces of sin, then of righteous- 
 ness. "Repent and believe," is the invariable 
 form of the command. Men must have some 
 "sick days and restless nights for sin before they 
 rightly close with Christ by faith." True, con- 
 victions are more pungent and distressing in some 
 cases than others; some are left to writhe in agony 
 for days, or weeks, but this is not the experi- 
 ence of every true convert. This is not necessary, 
 not indispensable. And yet if we have not been 
 thoroughly convicted of sin; if we have not seen 
 our exposure to divine vengeance with alarm ; if 
 we have not looked upon sin with abhorrence; if 
 we have not looked upon our own sins with deep 
 contrition; if we have not come to a practical 
 willingness and determination to forsake sin, then, 
 we have not believed. 
 
 (3). Self-distrust, self-despair must also precede 
 faith. "Men and brethren, what shall we do?^' 
 
224 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 exclaimed the stricken multitude upon the day of 
 Pentecost. It was the language of men who felt 
 that they were lost; who felt, in the depth of 
 their souls, that they could not save themselves, 
 and that there was no way of escape by any 
 chance, or any possibility, through the sympathies, 
 and interposition of any creature on earth or in 
 heaven. It is the language which must break 
 forth from the fulness of every heart before it 
 will rest upon Christ. No man will truly rely 
 upon the Saviour until he is deeply and practi- 
 cally convinced of his own desperate condition. 
 If we have not felt as really that we were lost, 
 and as utterly distrustful of our own powers as 
 though we were falling from an overhanging 
 precipice, of almost measureless height, into the 
 raging sea, then it is to be feared, we have not 
 believed. 
 
 (4). The consequence of this sense of ruin, and 
 absolute helplessness must be earnest, agonizing 
 prayer to God for faith. Not an indifferent peti- 
 tion, with a lie in its bosom ; not a mere spasmo- 
 
BO YE NOW BELIEVE f 2'25 
 
 die shriek of anguish shaped into a prayer; but 
 vehement^ importunate, persevering supplication. 
 One who is passing through a genuine experience 
 of conversion will prostrate himself before the 
 throne of grace, with the burden of some such 
 prayer as this: "Lord, help my unbelief/' ''God 
 be merciful to me a sinner," I am undone; O, 
 give me Christ or I perish for ever; deny me not; 
 give me Christ if thou take away every earthly 
 friend. Lead me to the cross, even though I 
 should be compelled to bear the cross until I sink 
 into death. Give me faith, even if thou take 
 away, in return, everything I have; give me faith, 
 even if thou take away my life. " How can I let 
 thee go without thy blessing !" If w^e have not 
 been led to call upon God for faith, with all the 
 earnestness of which our souls were capable, then, 
 it is to be feared, we have not believed. 
 
 Let us look further at some of the effects of 
 genuine faith. (1). One is sincere gratitude ; " a 
 melting of the heart under the apprehensions of 
 grace and mercy .'^ Who can believe that Christ 
 
226 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 is able and willing to save him ; who can con- 
 template the awful humiliation of the Son of 
 God ; who can trace his life of toil, and privation 
 and suffering ; who can behold him in the gar- 
 den, in the midst of the maddened mob, on the 
 cross, and believe that he suffered all that for 
 him ; w^ho can believe that Jesus is actually bear- 
 ing him in his arms above the scene of ruin, 
 above the carnage of death, above the mighty 
 sweep of wrath, upholding him in safety while 
 the ministers of vengeance strive together in their 
 ravages below, and carrying him up, up into the 
 invigorating uncontaminated air; up, up into the 
 purifying light of eternal rest, and sanctity and 
 life ; who can believe all this without unspeakable 
 gratitude? Such a thankfulness as cannot be 
 awakened by any proofs of human friendship; 
 such as cannot be awakened by the bestowment 
 of any temporal good. 
 
 (2). ^^ Faith without works is dead/' "What 
 doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he 
 hath faith, and have not works ; can faith save 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE f 227 
 
 him ?^' Can such a faith save him ? ^^ If a brother 
 or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 
 and one of you say unto them depart in peace, be 
 ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give 
 them not those things which are needful to the 
 body, what doth it ]3rofit?" What is such love 
 worth? What would the suiferer deem it, but a 
 mockery of his misery? Even so, faith, if it 
 does not prove its genuineness by works is dead, 
 worthless, deceptive, dangerous. Faith without 
 obedience is a dream. We might as well talk of 
 a living tree in summer, without fruit or foliage ; 
 we might as well talk of a sun without light or 
 heat. Paul speaks of '4he obedience of faith," 
 almost as though the two were identical. If we 
 do not make it the great business of our lives to 
 do the will of Christ, then, assuredly, we have 
 not believed. 
 
 (3). " Faith works by love." It will show its 
 energy in the heart by love to Christ, love to his 
 cause, love to his followers. It works through 
 love ; it prompts not only to obedience but to a 
 
228 KIRKPATIIICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 willing, cheerful discharge of duty. It manifests 
 itself in the form of love which yields its appro- 
 priate fruits. Would you be satisfied with the 
 affection of a professed friend who did nothing 
 for your welfare, manifested no sympathy with 
 your feelings, no concern for your interests ? Our 
 love to God is an empty name, if it does not flow 
 out into a life of cordial devotion to his service, 
 and thus assert the genuineness of our faith. 
 
 (4). " Faith purifies the heart." Other motives, 
 selfish, or legal, or moral, may cleanse the hands, 
 and may regulate the conduct, but they cannot 
 purify the heart. Morality may partially conceal 
 inward corruption, but it cannot remove it. 
 While the Holy Spirit is the efficient cause, faith 
 is the instrument of purification. Where unholy 
 passions rage and reign ; where the natural cor- 
 ruption remains undiminished; where the sin- 
 sores are still festering with unabated virulence ; 
 where the heart is not purer than it was, there is 
 no true faith. 
 
 (5). " Faith overcomes the world. '^ The world. 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVEf 229 
 
 ill this sense, is an enemy to be conquered. We 
 must overcome the inordinate influences of its 
 honors, and treasures, and pleasures, and decora- 
 tions, and friendship. We must overcome our 
 fear of the frowns, and rage, and contempt of 
 worldly men. It is faith that does this. If the 
 Avorld has hitherto overcome us, we have not yet 
 believed. If we have not overcome the world, 
 we have not rightly believed. 
 
 Such are the evidences of saving faith. In 
 view of them the solemn question recurs to us, 
 '^ Do ye now believe ?^' Let us not shrink from 
 it; let us not repel it; let us repeat it to our- 
 selves, and search our experience for the answer. 
 
 III. This question may be understood as re- 
 buking a former want or weakness of faith. 
 Before this particular interview with his disciples, 
 Christ had sufficiently manifested his character 
 as a ground of confidence. They had believed, 
 but their faith had been weak. Upon this new 
 and striking display of his omniscience, they ex- 
 claimed " Now we are sure." Is not our faith 
 
 20 
 
230 KIIIKPATIUCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 produced, or awakened, and renewed sometimes 
 by special and remarkable exhibitions of his 
 power and mercy ? Such a marlied increase of 
 faith presupposes former doubt; at such a time 
 the Saviour saith unto us, ^^ Do ye note believe ?" 
 Ye had before abundant reason to believe; ye 
 have always reason ; why should your faith pass 
 through such frequent vacillations ? Why should 
 it waver and recover, fail and revive, wane and 
 wax, so much? Why do ye not always believe 
 more firmly, without extraordinary causes? Do 
 we not deserve this rebuke for our habitual or 
 frequent deficiency in this particular ? 
 
 lY. This question may be understood as an 
 admonition not to boast of our faith presumptu- 
 ously, but to beware lest it should fail in the hour 
 of trial. This was most probably the original 
 design of the inquiry. Jesus answered them " Do 
 ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh, yea, is 
 now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man 
 to Ills own, and shall leave me alone!" And so 
 it came to pass; when he was arrested "they all 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE f 231 
 
 forsook him and fled." Let us profit by that; 
 "Do ye now believe?" Be not too well satisfied 
 with your present faith; when it shall be weighed 
 in the balance, it may be found wanting; at the 
 time of severe testing, it may fail. Lest it should 
 fiiil, let us seek to have it strengthened. Let us 
 not be content with what we have; let us cry out 
 frequently and earnestly in prayer, "Lord, increase 
 our faith." Enable us to stand in the evil day, 
 lest we be scattered, and leave thee alone ! Our 
 trials are many ; we need much faith. It is the 
 gift of God; conscious of our dependence upon 
 him for it, let us not cease to seek importunately 
 for more and more faith. 
 
 Unconverted friends, "It is a faithful saying, 
 and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners." "God so 
 loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." He has given 
 himself a sacrifice; the sacrifice has been accepted ; 
 the foundation of Gospel hopes is as firm as eter- 
 
232 KIRKPATPJCK MEMOIUAL. 
 
 nal truth. ^^Do ye now believe?" Witness the 
 love of Jesus; behold his condescension in the 
 manger, his life of labor and heavenly kindness; 
 see him in his agony; counting blood-like drops 
 upon his brow; see him on the cross; hear him 
 groan; see the light of life fading away from his 
 eye of innocence; ^^Do ye now believe?" 
 
 AVitness the power of Jesus; see him opening 
 blind eyes to the streaming light ; hear him speak^ 
 ing to sad souls which deafness had long kept 
 shut up in their silent cells away from every ac- 
 cent of sympathy and every cadence of melody; 
 hear him calling Lazarus from the tomb, and 
 driving foul spirits into darkness with a word, 
 and rebuking to silence the mad sea; behold him 
 folding up and laying aside the cerements of death 
 and coming forth from the sepulchre as the resur- 
 rection and the life; ^^Do ye now believe?" 
 
 "He that believeth on the Son hath everlastins: 
 life; he that believeth not the Son shall not see 
 life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." "Do 
 ye now believe?" not now? not yet? When theit 
 
DO YE NOW BELIEVE f 233 
 
 will ye believe? What additional reason, proof, 
 and motive do you demand? There is reason 
 enough, proof enough, motive enough; they are 
 high as heaven, deep as hell, vast as eternity. 
 Why will ye not believe ? Why not now ? " Now 
 is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation.'^ 
 
 20* 
 
VII. 
 
 THE SEVJEJRE DENIAL OF SELF. 
 
 If thy hand offend thee, cut it off. .... If thy foot offend 
 thee, cut it off. .... And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. 
 Mark ix. 43, 45, 47. 
 
 ^TTHEN the Christian courage of Cranmer was 
 * ' brought fairly to the test of persecution it 
 gave way, and in his timidity he signed an instru- 
 ment retracting the protestant sentiments he had 
 avowed. Soon after, by the grace of God he re- 
 pented of his recantation, and determined again, 
 with more than his former firmness, to advocate 
 the cause of Christ, if need be, at the sacrifice of 
 life. When he was brought to the stake, deeply 
 grieved on account of his late defection, he de- 
 liberately thrust his right hand into the flames, 
 saying, "that hand which did the wicked deed, 
 shall suffer first; that unworthy hand!'' That 
 
 234 
 
THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 235 
 
 was a strong expression of his self-condemnation 
 and repentance, and a noble testimony in favor of 
 the cause to which he was a martyr ; but although 
 it conformed so nearly to the letter of the text, it 
 was not strictly an exemplification of its spirit. 
 
 The descendants and co-religionists of those 
 who put Cranmer to death, fast often, afflict their 
 bodies and make sacrifices, and perform difficult 
 works, and pay large sums, and enslave them- 
 selves to the power of priestcraft, in order to 
 secure the pardon of their sins, and work out 
 their salvation meritoriously; but that is very far 
 from complying with the sense of the injunction 
 in our text. Some, yes, great multitudes have 
 lacerated their bodies, and subjected themselves to 
 constant physical sufiering, in one form or an- 
 other, in order to bring their unholy propensities 
 into subjection, and free their souls from the evil 
 which they supposed originated, and held its 
 dominion in their bodies. This, of course, is 
 still farther from the meaning of the Saviour. 
 
 If we could merit salyation by literally cutting 
 
236 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 off our right hand, it would infinitely compensate 
 the sacrifice. If a man's eye were the source and 
 seat of sin, he might well afford to pluck it out 
 literally, to get rid of such an enemy. But, 
 alas ! the seat of sin is deeper ; it is not so easily 
 reached; and when reached, it can neither be 
 cut off nor plucked out by a physical act. It is 
 so identified with the soul that it cannot be sepa- 
 rated from it, except by the thorough change that 
 is wrought in regeneration, and the process of 
 sanctification carried on by the Almighty Spirit 
 of God. But the Saviour does not refer in these 
 words directly to the eradication of sin as a prin- 
 ciple, but rather to acts of sin, instruments of sin, 
 occasions of sin, and the indulgence of sin. 
 
 Let not this be misunderstood ; -it is not inti- 
 mated that he refers solely to outward reforma- 
 tion, apart from inward sanctification; but he 
 refers to outward reformation as indicative of the 
 sanctification of the heart, and as a reacting means 
 under God, of promoting that sanctification. The 
 holier men are at heart, the less sinful will be 
 
THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 237 
 
 their lives. The more they check, and deny 
 their evil passions and desires, the more those 
 passions and desires will be Aveakened, and the 
 more nearly they will be brought to destruction. 
 Accordingly when the Scriptures enjoin holy 
 living, they imply ih^ idea of holiness of heartl- 
 and when they inculcate holiness, they include 
 the whole duty of holy living. So, in the passage 
 before us the Saviour refers primarily and directly 
 to the occasions of sin, those things which lead to 
 sin, but through these he refers also to the actual 
 indulgence of sin. For example, when he says, 
 avoid those things which lead to covetousness, he 
 says, in the most emphatical way, abstain from 
 covetousness. And, therefore, in this discourse, 
 we may cross and re-cross at pleasure this line of 
 distinction between the external and the internal, 
 and speak to the same purpose about stumbling- 
 blocks, and about evil passions, about any thing 
 which conflicts with the everlasting interests of 
 the soul. " If thy hand offend thee, cut it offl'^ 
 For convenience of arrangement, the hand, and 
 
238 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 foot, and eye, may each be regarded as represent- 
 ing with more or less accuracy, a distinct class of 
 sins and stumbling-blocks. 
 
 The hand, as the ordinary instrument of work, 
 suggests (1) that class of passions and desires 
 which develop themselves into deeds of iniquity, 
 together with those deeds themselves. Light has 
 come into the world, but men love darkness rather 
 than light, because their deeds are evil. If we, 
 through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the 
 body we shall live. We must put off the old 
 man with his . deeds. For all the workers of 
 iniquity shall be scattered ; the terrible sentence 
 at last w^ill be, " Depart from me ye that work 
 iniquity.'^ All those positive acts in which the 
 natural man takes pleasure, contrary to the will 
 of God, we must renounce. They are too nume- 
 rous to be specified ; they are too various to be 
 classified ; but whatever they be we must abandon 
 them. That hand which works iniquity, Ave 
 must cut it off. We all have by nature a spirit 
 of rebellion against God, "The carnal mind is 
 
THE SEVERE DENTAL OF SELF. 239 
 
 enmity against God.'' The natural man desires 
 not the knowledge of his ways. He deems the 
 service of the Lord an uninviting and a hard 
 service. Jehovah proclaims his law amid the 
 thunders and lightnings of Sinai, but notwith- 
 standing his high authority, and those terrible 
 sanctions, men wilfully and habitually disobey it. 
 The nations rage, and the people imagine a vain 
 thing ; the kings of the earth set themselves and 
 the rulers take counsel together against the Lord 
 and against his anointed, saying. Let us break 
 their bands asunder, and cast away their cords 
 from us. The Lord Jehovah speaks, but men 
 refuse to hearken, and pull away the shoulder, 
 and stop their ears. This is his testimony con- 
 cerning them ; " I have called and ye refused, I 
 have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; 
 but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and 
 would none of my reproof." Such is the natural 
 disposition of man; he is disobedient, self-willed, 
 opposed to God, opposed to his law, and opposed 
 to his gospel. 
 
240 KTRKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 A familiar Scriptural phrase for rebellion is the 
 defiatory uplifting of the hands. This spirit of 
 opposition we must renounce ; this high hand of 
 rebellion, we must cut it off. Even after we be- 
 come reconciled to God through his Son, our con- 
 formity to his will is liable to many disturbances ; 
 our spirit of submission is prone to fickleness. 
 While prosperity cheers us, while the current of 
 our aifairs runs smoothly, while our health is un- 
 touched, while those we love are preserved, our 
 love to God is placid and constant. But the 
 aspect of providence changes ; some heavy afflic- 
 tion comes upon us, perhaps, taking us by sur- 
 prise, and up goes the hand of rebellion. We 
 must cut it off; " It is the Lord, let him do what 
 seemeth him good." It was predicted concerning 
 Ishmael, " His hand will be against every man, 
 and every man's hand against him.'^ It is a 
 figurative mode of expressing a spirit of conten- 
 tion, unfriendliness, a disposition to injure others. 
 This disposition, though pre-eminently character- 
 istic of Ishmael, has been by no means confined 
 
THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 241 
 
 to him. In a less degree it belongs to many ; in 
 some degree to all. Selfishness belongs to human 
 nature everywhere; and not only do men seek 
 their own welfare, and endeavor to secure their 
 own interests first; not only do they seek their 
 own, often, to the . culpable neglect of others ; 
 selfishness is not always satisfied even wath that — 
 it often prompts them to take advantage of others, 
 to strengthen or distinguish, or enrich or aggran- 
 dize, or in some way aid themselves at the ex- 
 pense of others. It often begets a jealousy of 
 others, -makes light of them, throws obstacles in 
 their way, defeats their plans, and devises ways 
 to do them wrong, in order to accomplish its own 
 ends. Nor is this form of selfishness the only 
 instigator of opposition to neighbors. Sometimes 
 men endeavor to injure others under the influence 
 of revenge, sometimes even from malice, some- 
 times from prejudice. They not unfrequently do 
 injure others without any such deliberate inten- 
 tion. They do it from a mere passion for gos- 
 siping ; from a restless disposition to busy them- 
 
 21 
 
242 KIRKPATBWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 selves about other men's matters; from a censo- 
 rious spirit; from a morbid indulgence of suspi- 
 cion, or from an excessive fondness for ridicule. 
 All these injurious propensities we are bound to 
 mortify. This hand of opposition to others, we 
 must cut it off; "As ye would that men should 
 do unto you, do ye even so to them." 
 
 The most frequent use of the hand, viz.: in 
 the act of grasping, is significant of another pro- 
 pensity of our nature which we must subdue. 
 The love of gain is not rare; it is not unfre- 
 quently the ruling passion; perhaps few are 
 wholly free from it. If indulged, it leads to a 
 multitude of sins; frauds, great and little, em- 
 bezzlement, forgery, robbery, commercial dis- 
 honesty, petty cheating. Many a young man has 
 it, seized and branded even in his youth with the 
 stigma of a peculator, or a forger. Many a man 
 who enjoyed the confidence of the community, 
 and sustained a fair reputation for integrity, has 
 been hurried by it into that wholesale robbery 
 which men are wont to call by some such name 
 
^ THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 243 
 
 as defalcation, and overwhelmed with lasting in- 
 famy. "They who will be rich fall into tempta- 
 tion and a snare, and into many foolish and hurt- 
 ful lusts which drown men in destruction and 
 perdition." 
 
 Not only does it lead to many sins; in itself it 
 is forbidden, it is dangerous. Christ said unto 
 his hearers, "Take heed and beware of covetous- 
 ness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
 dance of the things which he possesseth." And 
 he spake a parable unto them, saying, "The 
 ground of a certain rich man brought forth plen- 
 tifully; and he thought within himself, saying, 
 What shall I do? because I have no room where 
 to bestow my fruits. And he said. This will I 
 do; I will pull down my barns and build greater; 
 and there will I bestow all my fruits and my 
 goods, and I will say to my soul. Soul, thou hast 
 much goods laid up for many years; take thine 
 ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said 
 unto him. Thou fool ! this night thy soul shall be 
 required of. thee; then whose shall those things 
 
244 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 be which thou hast provided? So is he that lay- 
 eth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward 
 God/^ This grasping hand — this hand of cove- 
 tousness— we must cut it off; it will grasp too 
 much, it will fill our bosoms with burning coals. 
 If a man is engaged in any business, which from 
 its very character interferes with the welfare of 
 his soul, it behooves him to abandon it. Or if 
 he is engaged in business so extensively, if he is 
 so engrossed with it, that he cannot find time nor 
 opportunity to attend properly to his spiritual 
 concerns, he is wrong. His excessive devotion to 
 business is a sinful form of worldliness. It is 
 endangering his soul; it is hurrying him on 
 through the bustle and turmoil, and shifting 
 crowds of a great thoroughfare down toward the 
 region of everlasting unrest. If he is wise he 
 will abandon it; "If thy hand offend thee^ cut 
 it off." 
 
 "And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off." As 
 the feet are the instruments of locomotion, the 
 word here suggests all that class of sins which 
 
THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 245 
 
 consist in transgressions of the prohibitory com- 
 mands of God. He has marked out certain limits 
 beyond which we may not go. Those things 
 which induce us to transcend these limits we must 
 discard; our propensities to transgress we must 
 deny; our excesses we must forego. We are 
 prone to wander from the right way; that dispo- 
 sition to go astray we must check and subdue. 
 Many things around us present strong attractions 
 to draw us away from the paths of duty; those 
 things we must renounce; those attractions we 
 must resist. ^^My son/' says Solomon, ^4f sin- 
 ners entice thee, consent thou not. Walk not 
 thou in the way with them ; refrain thy foot from 
 their path." 
 
 One great cause of the ruin of many, is their 
 fondness for the company of those who devise 
 mischief, and stimulate one another to evil, and 
 exert a corrupting influence; that fondness we 
 should check at the sacrifice of social partialities. 
 If need be, even at the sacrifice of the friendship 
 of those who are dangerous companions; "Go 
 
 21 * 
 
246 KIRKPATRICS: MmtOttlAL. 
 
 not in the Way of evil men.'' Perhaps they will 
 "think it strange that ye run not with them to 
 the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." 
 Ah, this dread of contempt and scorn, this false 
 sense of shame, this fear of men ; how many has 
 it destroyed ; cast it away ; it will lead you into a 
 multitude of sins; it is an offence; it will prove 
 your ruin. Whoever is ashamed of Christ, of 
 him will Christ be ashamed. This false pride, 
 natural as it is, deny it, subdue it ; whatever they 
 may say, " Go not with the multitude to do evil.'' 
 "If thy foot offend thee, cut it off." 
 *^ And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." 
 Let us take a suggestion or two from this. The 
 eye, in the style of the sacred writers, is often 
 used for the understanding. Pride of reason, a 
 disposition to rely upon our own judgment, and 
 to make it the ultimate standard of truth and 
 right, is a common characteristic of men. And it 
 is both sinful and dangerous. It begets impa- 
 tience of restraint ; it fortifies us against salutary 
 reproofs ; it leads us to think more highly of our- 
 
THE SEVERE DENIAL OF SELF. 247 
 
 selves than we ought to think ; it leads to neglect 
 of the true standard of truth in the Scriptures. 
 It often leads to perversions of the truth, and not 
 unfrequently to skepticism and infidelity. The 
 admonition of the Saviour is, subdue it, reject it; 
 agreeable as it is to the depraved heart, abandon 
 it. Cast down imaginations, and every high 
 thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
 of God, and bring into captivity every thought to 
 the obedience of Christ. " Lean not to thine own 
 understanding." 
 
 The eye, as the instrument of vision, suggests 
 among other things our undue readiness to per- 
 ceive the faults of others. " And why beholdest 
 thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but 
 considerest not the beam that is in thine own 
 eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let 
 me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; and be- 
 hold a beam is in thine own eye ?" " Judge not, 
 that ye be not judged." This morbid disposition 
 to judge, this censorious spirit ; let us renounce 
 it, it is an evil eye, let us pluck it out 
 
248 KIRKPATRICK MEMOBIAL. 
 
 The love of pleasure often proves a stumbling- 
 block, especially to the young. It stimulates to 
 excessive indulgence ; it often prompts to the en- 
 joyment of sinful amusements; it weakens the 
 attractions of religion; it sadly interferes with 
 heavenly-mindedness ; it connives at the deceit- 
 fulness of the world ; it divorces the heart from 
 the Saviour. As the bright jeweled gate- way of 
 delights, as the chief inlet of pleasure to the soul, 
 the eye may fitly represent this love of pleasure. 
 It is prone to extravagance ; it demands our con- 
 stant vigilance ; let us check it ; let us keep it by 
 force if need be, within the restraints of true Chris- 
 tian consistency. The undue love of pleasure, the 
 love of sinful pleasure ; let us divest ourselves of 
 it; let us cast it away ; " If thine eye offend thee, 
 pluck it out.'^ 
 
 Now it is plain that the way to heaven is nar- 
 row ; the gate is strait. And, perhaps, some 
 have been thinking already, that the sacrifices to 
 be made are many and great. So they are many, 
 and in the view of the natural man, they are 
 
THE SEVEBE DENIAL OF SELF. 249 
 
 great. The gospel does not conceal that; the 
 chief peculiarity of the text is its recognition of 
 the fact. If thy hand or foot lead thee into sin, 
 cut it off; indispensable as it seems to your enjoy- 
 ment, cut it off; painful as the operation may be, 
 cut it off. Additional intensity is given to the 
 idea, by the very repetition of it; if thine eye 
 offend thee, or lead thee into sin, pluck it out; 
 hesitate not for the present suffering, but pluck it 
 out ; though it spoil half the value of the light, 
 and mar half the beauty of the world, pluck it 
 out. It is not implied herein, that everything 
 which we are called upon to abandon is as valu- 
 able as a hand or an eye, — nor that every sacri- 
 fice which we are called upon to make will be as 
 painful as amputation ; but it is taught that if 
 they were we would still be called upon to bear 
 the self-denial. It is taught that whatever self- 
 denial may be required, more or less, we are not 
 to shrink from it ; that we are to part with our 
 Bins and stumbling-blocks, however we may de- 
 light in them, by nature, however closely they 
 
250 KIRKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 may be connected with our evil hearts. Now, if 
 there be something repulsive about this, we must 
 remember that this surgery is for the saving of 
 life. Who would not rather lose a limb, if it 
 were necessary, than his life ? " It is better for 
 thee,'' in a spiritual sense, to enter half into 
 heaven than to go with the whole body into 
 hell 
 
 These unholy things, we shall not need in 
 heaven 
 
 They will do us no good in the world of 
 woe 
 
VIII. 
 
 JOESSOIfS FHOM THE MANJ!fA. 
 And did all eat the same spiritual meat. 1 Corinthians x. 3. 
 
 FOR a purpose which will be brought to view 
 in the sequel, the Apostle reminds the Corin- 
 thians of several prominent particulars in the 
 remarkstble history of the ancient Israelites. 
 " Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should 
 be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under 
 the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and 
 were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in 
 the sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat." 
 In an early stage of our language the word meat 
 was used in a much more general sense than that 
 to which it is now usually limited ; like the word 
 which it is here employed to translate it meant 
 food in general. There can be no doubt that the 
 meat here spoken of was the manna with which 
 
 251 
 
252 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 the children of Israel were fed in the wilderness. 
 Why it is called spiritual meat is not so easily 
 determined ; as it was designed for the nourish- 
 ment of the body, we must depart at once from 
 the ordinary meaning of the word spiritual. Some 
 have understood it to mean refined, in opposition 
 to gross ; others have supposed it to be so called 
 because it typified spiritual things ; others, because 
 it was miraculously bestowed immediately from 
 God, without the intervention of physical agen- 
 cies. " SpirituaF' has various phases of ifteaning. 
 It is used in opposition to physical, to carnal, to 
 temporal ; it is used to denote that which belongs 
 to the spirit of man, or that which proceeds 
 directly from the Spirit of God. This last gene- 
 ral idea seems to have been the one which led the 
 Apostle to call the manna spiritual meat. 
 
 It may not be amiss, here, to refresh our me- 
 mories concerning the manna itself, and the his- 
 torical circumstances of its first appearance. When 
 the provisions which the children of Israel had 
 brought from the land of Egypt were consumed, 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 253 
 
 they at once became apprehensive of starvation, 
 and began to murmur. The Lord did not, at 
 that time, punish them for their sinful distrust 
 and complaints, but promised them, through 
 Moses, a speedy supply of their wants. The next 
 morning, "when the dew was gone up, behold, 
 upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small 
 round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon the 
 ground. '' There was a great profusion of these 
 whitish particles which are compared to coriander 
 seeds, aiid to pearls. "And when the children 
 of Israel saw it, they said one to another, it is 
 manna, for they knew not what it was." Or, 
 they said one to another, " man hu,'^ " what is 
 it?" That question, doubtless, ran throughout 
 the camp, man hu f man liu f and that seems to 
 have been the origin of the name manna. Or 
 the words " man hu," may be translated " this is 
 a portion." The Lord had previously said unto 
 them, " I will rain bread for you, and the people 
 shall go out and gather a certain rate every day." 
 Then when they saw it as they knew no specific 
 
 22 
 
254 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 name for it, they naturally exclaimed " this is a 
 portion/^ and hence it was called manna, that 
 which is given in prescribed portions. 
 
 In some parts of Arabia, and especially in the 
 neighborhood of Mount Sinai, there is a natural 
 substance, answering in some respects to the de- 
 scription which Moses has given of manna. 
 Indeed, it is called manna, undoubtedly on account 
 of that resemblance. It is a gum which oozes 
 from a kind of tamarisk tree during the month 
 of June. Modern rationalists have endeavored to 
 show, from that, that there was no miracle in the 
 case, and that the Israelites merely collected the 
 natural production of the region in which they 
 were sojourning. But it may be answered first, 
 that the natural manna is essentially different, in 
 several particulars, from that which fell upon the 
 camp of Israel. And secondly, supposing them 
 to have been precisely the same, it could not liave 
 been less than a miracle that furnished it in such 
 enormous quantities ; " for the entire produce of 
 manna found in the whole peninsula of Arabia in 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 255 
 
 a year would not be equal to a thousandth part of 
 what was necessary to supply the host of Israel 
 for one day ;" and if all the tamarisk trees in the 
 w^orld had been gathered together tliere they 
 would not have furnished manna enough for the 
 tenth part of the multitude, even while the yield 
 continued, and that would have been only one 
 month in the year. 
 
 The partial resemblance between the natural 
 and miraculous manna is not wholly uninstruc- 
 tive. It is a confirmation of the miracle ; it is in 
 accordance with what we know of the ways of 
 God. His miracles were not designed to startle 
 and astonish men, but partly to convince them of 
 his wisdom and power, and to show that he who 
 wrought them was at the same time the God of 
 nature. Hence there is in most of his miracles a 
 combination of the natural and supernatural, the 
 familiar and the extraordinary, which makes 
 them more convincing than if they were wholly 
 at variance with what we are accustomed to call 
 nature. So when Christ came to feed the hungry 
 
256 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 miiltitiifles who had gathered around him, he did 
 not create some unknown or rare article of food, 
 but inquired for what they had already, and in- 
 creased their own loaves and fishes to an adequate 
 supply. There was wisdom in that plan. The 
 effect w^as doubtless greater and better than if there 
 had been a much wider distinction apparent be- 
 tween the natural and the miraculous. So in the 
 case before us, the force of the miracle is by no 
 means diminished, but rather increased, by the 
 fact that a substance in some respects similar to 
 the manna is known to have existed, in a small 
 quantity, in the same region. 
 
 There are two classes of lessons which we may 
 learn from the manna in connection with its his- 
 torical circumstances. The former, it teaches 
 simply by way of illustrationy in regard to the 
 interests of the present life; the latter it teaches 
 by way of typical signification, in regard to the 
 higher interests of the soul. Let me simply 
 allude to some of the former, and then dwell 
 chiefly upon the latter. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 257 
 
 ♦ 
 
 In the eighth chapter of 2d Corinthians, Paul 
 refers to the distribution of the manna to enforce 
 the duty of Christian liberality. " For I mean 
 not/' said he, ^^ that other men be eased and ye 
 burdened; but by an equality, that now at this 
 time your abundance may be a supply for their 
 wants, that their abundance also may be a supply 
 for your want ; that there may be equality ; as it 
 is written, He that had gathered much had no- 
 thing over, and he that had gathered little had no 
 lack." In that disposal of the manna by which 
 wasteful excess was avoided on the one hand, and 
 suffering on the other, and the wants of all were 
 supplied, the Apostle perceived a plain lesson of 
 Christian charity. Lest we should overlook it, he 
 has pointed it out to us, and we shall do well to 
 reduce it to judicious practice. If under the 
 favor of Heaven, we have gathered much, let us 
 not turn away with cold hearts and closed hands, 
 from those who, in the providence of God, have 
 been able to gather but little and are suffering 
 from want. 
 
 22* 
 
258 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 The giving of the manna may be regarded as 
 illustrative of our dependence upon God for the 
 supply of our temporal wants. Even those who 
 acknowledge their dependence upon God for 
 spiritual good, are prone to attribute their physi- 
 cal support to their own industry and prudence. 
 Doubtless many of the childreli of Israel mani- 
 fested the same self-confidence, — but at last their 
 ordinary resources failed, and their self-trust was 
 put to shame by the very mode of their deliverance. 
 By thus teaching them, God has taught us confi- 
 dently and gratefully to acknowledge our depend- 
 ence upon him for temporal support, in prosperity 
 as well as in adversity ; to receive our worldly 
 possessions as almoners upon his bounty, even 
 though they do not come immediately from 
 heaven, and to use them as his stewards. 
 
 Again, the manna became a mass of living, 
 corruption when it was unnecessarily hoarded up ; 
 we need not look to that fact for any authorita- 
 tive teaching, but we may see in it an illustration 
 of the folly of heaping up possessions, with an 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. - 259 
 
 avaricious spirit, which instead of answering 
 profitable uses, to the glory of God, will engender 
 temptations and sorrows. Such instructions may 
 be legitimately drawn from the occurrence in 
 question considered as a part of Scripture history. 
 But considered as a part of the preparatory dis- 
 pensation it was intended to teach lessons of a 
 higher kind, and not merely to illustrate, but to 
 typify more specific Gospel truths. On one occa- 
 sion when the Jews were plying Jesus for some 
 special sign, they enforced their plea by this 
 reference, — "Our fathers did eat manna in the 
 desert, as it is written he gave them bread from 
 heaven to eat." Instead of complying with their 
 unreasonable request for a sign, the Saviour 
 seized that opportunity to instruct them in regard 
 to the significancy of the event to which they had 
 alluded. He replied, " Moses gave you not that 
 bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the 
 true bread from heaven. For the bread of God 
 is he who cometh down from heaven and giveth 
 life unto the world." The meaning of which is 
 
260 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 manifestly this ; that was not the true spiritual 
 bread from heaven, it was only a type of that ; it 
 prefigured me ; " I am the bread of life.'^ The 
 history of the giving and receiving of the manna 
 assumes a new importance when we come to re- 
 gard it as a type of Christ. With this view of it, 
 let us select a few points of instruction. 
 
 I. The manna was in a peculiar sense, and most 
 manifestly the gift of God. It was the product 
 of no sanctioned means, or blessed endeavors upon 
 the part of the needy. " When the dew fell 
 upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon 
 it." It came directly from the bountiful hand of 
 Him wlio controls the operations of nature. In 
 this it was fitly representative of Christ. As the 
 Saviour, he is the gift of God, completely out of 
 analogy with all his ordinary bestowments. He 
 is emphatically " the gift by grace." They who 
 would be saved must receive him as such. 
 Imagine a self-willed company of Israelites 
 ploughing the sterile soil of the desert, and solv- 
 ing the dust to raise manna. There is a fit repre- 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. • 261 
 
 sentation of sinners laboring to obtain salvation 
 without accepting Christ ; upon the gracious terms 
 of the gospel. Would the one have been pitiably 
 absurd and futile? How then does the other 
 appear? The bread of life comes down from 
 heaven ; no earthly toil, no natural process can 
 produce it. Are there any who reject it, or 
 hesitate to accept it because it is a gift, placing 
 the stigma of helplessness upon human nature, 
 and of worthlessness upon human merits ? Let 
 them picture to themselves a high-minded Israel^ 
 ite disdaining to stoop and pick up the manna 
 because it did not grow upon trees which he 
 himself had planted and nurtured. Let them 
 follow the wandering host, till they stumble over 
 the proud man's bleaching bones, lying where star- 
 vation left them. They who are saved are saved 
 by grace. Let the righteous sing for ever, " Thanks 
 be unto God for his unspeakable gift/' Let not 
 our gratitude be checked by a 'single emotion of 
 self-complacency; the praise belongs unto God. 
 Give unto him the glory due unto his name. 
 
262 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 II. The manna was abundant as well as free. 
 There was enough for all ; even he who Iiad gath- 
 ered least had no lack. So is it with the bread 
 of life ; the grace of God in Christ is an ample 
 supply for all the wants of all sinners. In him 
 personally dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead ; 
 in his work were included all the requisites to 
 complete and universal redemption. We know 
 not that his sacrifice with any abatement, or any 
 less suffering would have sufficed for the salvation 
 of a single sinner ; but this we know, that the 
 sacrifice was adequate for all ; — that Christ as he 
 is, ^' is able to save to the uttermost, all that come 
 unto God through him." Convicted sinners, 
 while they assent to this, are sometimes disposed 
 to modify their assent in regard to their own case. 
 They say " Yes, he is able to save all, but I can- 
 not believe that he is willing to save me." 
 
 The point of analogy we are now considering 
 is the abundance of the supply. It is adequate 
 for every case and every peculiarity of destitu- 
 tion. The bread of life is inexhaustible. There 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 263 
 
 is a mystery here, a blessed, glorious mystery ; it 
 is enough for us to know that each of us may re- 
 ceive Christ, and all the blessings that attend 
 him, and yet the bread of life will be left undi- 
 minished for other famishing souls, now and 
 hereafter. 
 
 III. The manna scattered in profusion round 
 about the camps was within the reach of all. So 
 is the bread of life. Suppose one of the Israelites 
 had died of starvation while his fellows were 
 living luxuriantly upon the heaven-sent food, 
 free alike to all ; how much sympathy for him 
 could you awaken in your heart ? He would not 
 receive the means of sustenance that lay at his 
 feet, and so he died ; he was to be. blamed more 
 than pitied, you would say. Therefore, thou art 
 inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that 
 judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou 
 condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest 
 the same thing. The bread of life is just as really 
 within the reach of each of us as the manna was 
 within their reach. If we reject it, or neglect it : 
 
264 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 if we do not want it, and will not have it, then 
 we shall die with the stifling consciousness of 
 self-destruction, and our only complaints at last 
 will be self-reproaches. 
 
 ly . Although the manna was within the reach 
 of all, still it was worthless for their purposes 
 until it was voluntarily received and appropriated. 
 Jehovah might have sustained them by his im- 
 mediate agency ; it would have required no greater 
 expenditure of power to sustain them without 
 food, than to supply food by a miracle. He chose 
 the latter ; it was more in accordance with the 
 flsual economy of his works, and it served to 
 teach a valuable lesson in connection with the 
 type of Christ. The bread of life must be volun- 
 tarily received and appropriated ; we must accept 
 and live upon Christ by faith. How long - could 
 the Israelites have nourished and sustained them- 
 selves by gazing at and admiring the manna as it 
 lay like pearls sprinkled on the ground? Just 
 long enough to starve. Think what you may of 
 Christ ; treat him as you may ; it will be of no 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 265 
 
 avail, unless you receive him by an appropriating 
 faith as the only bread of life. 
 
 Y. The manna was given daily. There must 
 needs have been a constant exercise of faith in the 
 providence of God. The people were left to be- 
 lieve, from day to day, that Jehovah would con- 
 tinue to renew the supply as long as it was needed. 
 They were left to look for it with a trusting spirit. 
 So the child of God must look for new measures 
 of spiritual nourishment and strength day by day. 
 He can lay up no supply of grace for the future. 
 With a spiritual, as well as a physical reference, 
 he must use this seasonable prayer, "Give me 
 this day my daily bread.' If they attempted to 
 hoard up manna for the morrow, their store soon 
 became a mass of corruption; and so if the 
 Christian abandon the divinely-appointed method 
 of continual seeking for new supplies ; if he 
 think that in his past or present experiences there 
 is a superabundance of nourishment, and endeavor 
 to live, for awhile, upon that, he will soon find 
 that his very mercies in their fulness have be- 
 
 23 
 
266 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 come sources of trouble, and temptation and 
 crimination. Peter found it so ; he was satisfied 
 with the strength he had acquired; he deemed it 
 sufficient to meet his future trials, and confidently 
 exclaimed " Though all men forsake thee, yet will 
 not I ;'^ but, afterwards, he found that the store 
 of strength upon which he had reckoned not only 
 failed, but through his undue reliance upon it, 
 even proved to have been the means of aggravat- 
 ing his sin. O, let us never imagine that we have 
 grace enough for another day, but ever seek new 
 supplies as new wants repeatedly occur. 
 
 That was not a mere arbitrary arrangement by 
 which the manna was bestowed in daily portions. 
 It was full of typical significance. The true 
 bread of life was to be sought in daily portions 
 for daily necessities. Alas, for those who fail to 
 apply the instruction ! They will find sad days 
 of hungering and weakness ! 
 
 Such are the points of analogy between' the 
 typical food of the Israelites and the true bread that 
 Cometh down from heaven. But a just view of 
 
% 
 
 LESSONS FROM' THE MANNA. 267 
 
 the comparison requires, at least, au adtlitioiuil 
 glance at the vast diversities, between the type 
 and the antitype. The one was for the body, 
 and the other for the soul ; the one for a brief 
 sojourn in the wilderness, the other for all time 
 and eternity ; the one was confined to a few, the 
 other is offered to the world; the one was to 
 maintain and prolong life, the other to impart it ; 
 the life maintained by the one was a mere natural 
 life, that imparted by the other is spiritual and 
 eternal life. Said Christ, '' Your fathers did eat 
 manna in the wilderness, and are dead ; this is 
 the bread which cometh down from heaven, that 
 a man may eat thereof and not die." Let us 
 confine our attention, for a moment, to this one 
 phase of the contrast. It is particularly suggested 
 by the connection in which we find the text. 
 The enjoyment of the manna is here classed among 
 the external advantages and distinctions of the 
 ancient Jews; the inadecpiacy of those outward 
 advantages alone, for the purposes of salvation, is 
 what the Apostle aims to set before as. " More- 
 
268 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 over, brethren; I would not that ye should be 
 ignorant how that all our fathers were under the 
 cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were 
 all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the 
 sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; 
 and did all drink the same spiritual drink : (for 
 they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed 
 them : and that Rock was Christ.) But with 
 many of them God was not well pleased : for they 
 were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these 
 things were our examples, to the intent we should 
 not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.^^ 
 The sum and substance of those admonitions, the 
 great lesson to be learned from those examples, is 
 that it is dangerous, it is fatal to rely upon mere 
 external privileges, however numerous and distin- 
 guished. In addition to all their other peculiar 
 favors, they were fed with that bread from heaven 
 which was the type of the blessed Saviour ; for 
 those who rested there, it was all of no avail. 
 And now, since the type has been fulfilled, it is 
 no less true, that the outward privileges of the 
 
LESSONS FROM THE MANNA. 269 
 
 Christian dispensation, with all their number and 
 magnitude, are in themselves of no avail. Gos- 
 pel hearers are in danger of this false trust. . . . 
 
 Professing Christians have need to take ad- 
 vantage of the same admonitions. " Let him that 
 thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." We 
 may eat the bread of the sacrament and yet share 
 the fate of the children of Israel, against whom 
 the Apostle warns us. We must feed by faith 
 upon the Son of God. It is an inward exercise. 
 Let us give diligence to assure ourselves that we 
 are living upon this spiritual participation of the 
 true bread of life. '^"'* " 
 
 And, in regard to others, let us not Pest satis- 
 fied because they have free access to the means of 
 grace. ... 
 
 23 * 
 
 ^ 
 
IX. 
 
 THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PItAYEB. 
 
 What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee ? Luke xviii. 41. 
 
 rriHESE are the words of the Lord Jesus. Then, 
 whether we regard him as divine, or only as 
 the commissioned, faithful, and unerring repre- 
 sentative of God, sent to manifest his character, 
 this may be understood as the language of God. 
 Or, more definitely, it may and must be under- 
 stood as characteristic of the compassion and 
 mercy of God. The question was addressed to a 
 suppliant. It was not the expression of a sud- 
 den and temporary emotion of pity, but was a 
 manifestation of that sympathizing and compas- 
 sionate spirit wMch belonged to the very nature, 
 and pervaded the whole life of the Saviour. We 
 need not regard it, therefore, by any means, as 
 confined to the circumstances in which it was ut- 
 
 270 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PBAYEE. 271 
 
 tered. Here speaks the tender mercy of God; — 
 the imfailing and unchanging mercy of God, for 
 all ages, and for all persons. The poor blind 
 man at Jericho was a sort of type of humanity. 
 He is lost to view in the midst of the poverty- 
 stricken, helpless, groping race. When Christ 
 spoke to him, God in Christ was speaking to us 
 all, — and this address we may appropriate with- 
 out presumption, as the language of our heavenly 
 Father to each of us, " What wilt thou that I 
 shall do unto thee?^' 
 
 In its most general sense, this is an invitation 
 to pray. As such, it opens before us a theme too 
 vast to be explored in a few minutes, at which we 
 shall simply glance before proceeding to examine 
 the peculiar and most striking feature of the text. 
 In this heavenly invitation to pray, there is im- 
 plied : 
 
 First, our dependence upon God. A sense of 
 dependence belongs to the very nature of man as 
 a self-conscious creature. Fellow-mortal, — are you 
 accustomed to deem yourself independent? Then 
 
272 KIBKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 take care of yourself ; — supply your own wants ; 
 hold your circumstances at your own disposal; 
 carry out your own plans ; baffle disappointment ; 
 never fail ; replenish the wasting fountain of your 
 life ; never die ; — or if you must die, — then, when 
 your earthly instruments of support are taken 
 away, when your grasp is wrested from the things 
 of sense, then buoy up your naked spirit in the 
 boundless ocean of immaterial existence. You 
 cannot do all this, — you feel that you cannot. 
 
 One great misery of the heathen is this ; — that 
 while he feels his dependence, and cannot banish 
 that feeling, yet he knows not upon what, or upon 
 whom, he must depend. One of the most pre- 
 cious felicities of our lot is that we know upon 
 whom we must depend. And yet that would be 
 but little more of a blessing than a calamity, if, 
 with all our felt dependence, we could not ap- 
 proach nor address him with confidence ; — or, if 
 with all his control over us and our interests, he 
 were known to us only as some distant personifi- 
 cation of fate. 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 27S 
 
 Secondly. There is implied a willingness upon 
 the part of God to secure our welfare. An unin- 
 telligent sense of dependence is, in itself, hum- 
 bling and distressing ; but a sense of dependence 
 upon the eternal God is ennobling to a creature 
 and a sense of dependence upon our heavenly 
 Father is soothing and cheering to a filial spirit. 
 He is kind, he is merciful, he is gracious, he is 
 willing to make our true and highest interests se- 
 cure. The Bible is fraught with assurances of 
 this, and God is faithful and true. Then, let it 
 be said that we are helpless creatures, incapable 
 of self-support ; be it so, — yet our minds are re- 
 lieved from torturing uncertainty, because we 
 know Him in whom we live and move and have 
 our being ; and we may be as effectually relieved 
 from fear as from uncertainty, because we know 
 that he is our Father, as truly as our God. 
 
 But thirdly ; this is by no means the limit of 
 our privilege ; these familiar thoughts have been 
 suggested rather to prepare us for the contempla- 
 tion of our highest privilege. We are permitted 
 
274 KIRKPATllWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 to draw near to his throne of grace, and implore 
 his blessings; we are permitted to present our 
 wants and ask for their supply. This, in itself, 
 apart from its results, is the highest honor which 
 a mortal can enjoy. For, let us remember, it is 
 not merely to approach God, it is not merely to 
 address him ; it is not merely to approach and ad- 
 dress him by permission and with acceptance ; but 
 it is confidently to ask favors at his hand. In 
 this there is implied a much closer intimacy. In 
 this there is implied a much greater condescension 
 upon the part of God, and consequently much 
 greater distinction upon our part ; yea, in this there 
 is implied, if it may be so expressed without ir- 
 reverence, a kind of influence exerted by us upon 
 the ever-blessed Father of mercies. True, God is 
 unchangeable ; his purposes are no less so than his 
 nature ; our petitions can not avail to alter the 
 determinations of his will. No matter; let us 
 arrest that captious thought ; we will not be led 
 away by the questionings of half-skeptical reason 
 to discuss the doctrine of decrees. 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 275 
 
 The point for consideration now is simply the 
 honor of the suppliant. God invites us to pray, 
 he is sincere. The invitation is not mockery nor 
 irony. To imagine that prayer is an unmeaning 
 or useless ceremony is virtually to charge God 
 with the cruelty of heaping sarcasm upon the 
 needy and wretched. Since he is sincere prayer 
 must be effectual. Therefore confining our atten- 
 tion to the suppliant, we are brought right upon 
 the conclusion that he is blessed with the same 
 honor, the same in substance, as if his petitions 
 did, in the most literal sense, exert a controlling 
 influence upon the Dispenser of all good. 
 
 ^ This leads me to remark, in the same general 
 way, upon the benefit of prayer. One simple 
 proof that it is of real advantage has already 
 been suggested. It is that God has invited us to 
 pray, and therefore prayer is effectual, because 
 God cannot be the author of deception. No train 
 of argumentation could add certainty or stability 
 to that conclusion. But we are not left to rely 
 upon that infallible inference alone ; we may 
 
276 KIRKPATRWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 amass around it, in adamantine combination, 
 promise upon promise, all direct, unmistakable, 
 and confirmed by the seal of eternal truth. 
 
 How strange and dishonoring to God, that 
 creatures, who are so entirely dependent, should 
 live so much as if they were self-dependent ! God 
 graciously asks '^ What wilt thou that I shall do 
 unto thee ?" and they virtually answer, " We will 
 provide for ourselves." How strange and dis- 
 honoring to God, that needy creatures who are so 
 kindly invited to present their wants before the 
 throne of grace, should treat that privilege with 
 scorn or cold neglect ! God graciously asks them 
 "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" and 
 they virtually answer, "It makes no difference, 
 we will take what we can get, without thanks- 
 giving, — and do without that which we cannot 
 get without asking." This is no caricature; it 
 may be fairly said of those who will not pray, 
 even when the Hearer of prayer invites them. 
 
 But let us pass from the general privilege and 
 duty of prayer, to a particular characteristic of 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 277 
 
 prayer suggested by the text. We are not only 
 invited to pray, but we are invited to specify our 
 wants. " What wilt thou that I shall do unto 
 thee?'^ It is a remark frequently made, and 
 with much justice, concerning the prayers which 
 we are accustomed to offer in public, — that they 
 are made up too largely of generalities. It might 
 be said, often, of those which we do not offer in 
 public. Particularly of petition, and thanksgiv- 
 ing, and confession is a most desirable feature of 
 prayer. Indeed the proper design of prayer is 
 not fully answered without it. It is supposed to 
 be the expression of our wants, — and when men 
 express their wants naturally, they express them 
 definitely. When we desire a favor from a friend 
 we do not go and simply ask him to accommo- 
 date us, but we tell him precisely what we want, 
 we are specific ; so we should be in our su2:)plica- 
 tions to God. So we shall be if we are sincere 
 and earnest, — except in so far as we are under 
 the influence of bad habits of prayer acquired in 
 times of coldness and indifference ; — habits from 
 
 24 
 
278 KIRKPATBICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 which it will be well if the ardor of genuine, 
 lively emotion release us. If we oifer the same 
 prayer in different states of mind, the conclusion 
 is inevitable that our prayers do not express otn 
 state of mind, as they ought, — and as they will, 
 if we are honest and earnest, and untrammelled 
 by burdensome forms. 
 
 It is a valid argument — against prescribed 
 forms of prayer that they do not meet with suffi- 
 cient precision, the peculiarities and changes of 
 our conditions and wants ; but the same becomes 
 an argument of equal force, against extempora- 
 neous prayers, when they are habitually the same 
 in all circumstances. We ought to be specific in 
 our prayers ; not only when we meet together to 
 pray for some distinctly specified object, but in 
 our more private and ordinary supplications. If 
 this is unimportant, then we might make one pe- 
 tition answer for ourselves, and one more for all 
 the race besides, and the business of prayer would 
 soon be completed. We might simply ask the 
 Tiord to grant us all needed good for this life and 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYEE. 279 
 
 the life to come, and to adapt his mercies to the 
 wants of all classes of men, and rest satisfied with 
 that. Bnt who does not feel that more is re- 
 quired. The very dissatisfaction that we feel in 
 regard to grouping our desires under a few such 
 comprehensive requests, is an acknowledgement 
 of the importance of this rule, — that we should 
 be definite in our petitions. ^' What wilt thou 
 that I should do unto thee ?" 
 
 If we have special wants, let us give them spe- 
 cial mention. -- Nothing is detracted from the im- 
 portance of tliis rule by the fact that God is per- 
 fectly acquainted with all our peculiar circum- 
 stances and wants. This objection would lie 
 equally against all prayer. If he is acquainted 
 with our w^ants in particular, so he is acquainted 
 with them in general. Why then express our 
 w^ants in comprehensive terms, if not in detail ? 
 The Saviour well knew the condition of the blind 
 beggar who sat by the way-side, and he intended 
 to go and give him relief, but he did not see fit 
 to do so until the sufferer had prayed. The blind 
 
280 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 man heard the noise of the multitude passing by, 
 and asked what it meant, and they told him that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was passing, and then he be- 
 gan to cry out, — " Jesus, thou Son of David, have 
 mercy on me ;" Jesus well knew what he needed, 
 and what he sought, but he demanded more than 
 such an indefinite petition. Instead of granting 
 the boon at once, he asked him as though he had 
 been wholly ignorant, " What wilt thou that I 
 shall do unto thee?" The application of this has 
 been anticipated ; the lesson is that of specific 
 prayer. 
 
 These considerations may serve to exhibit in a 
 clearer light the advantages of secret prayer. In 
 the closet that pointed question of the text can be 
 more fully and freely answered than in the pre- 
 sence of others, however intimate. In the closet, 
 there can be made explicit confessions of particu- 
 lar sins, which in the presence of others would be 
 timidly hidden in the bosom of some general ac- 
 knowledgement. There free utterance can be 
 given to anxieties and fears which would be pent 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 281 
 
 up by the restraints of any society. There we 
 can pour forth, through the simple forms of un- 
 affected supplication, peculiar wants and cherished 
 desires, which in the presence of others would be 
 lost to view in some comprehensive phrase, or 
 vain repetitions. There, in short, there is a far 
 more intimate, and satisfactory, and profitable 
 communion between the suppliant spirit and the 
 Hearer of prayer. Great indeed is the loss they 
 suffer who neglect frequent, secret prayer, however 
 often or long, or earnestly they may pray, in the 
 family or social circle ; there they cannot be free 
 or minute enough to secure the greatest good. 
 " What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" 
 asks the Saviour. To answer to the best advan- 
 tage, we must tell him secretly, and there tell 
 him all. 
 
 There is expressed in these words of the Saviour 
 a sublime consciousness of power and willingness 
 to meet the requirements of any and every case. 
 In this view, it is replete with consolation. " The 
 heart knoweth its own bitterness." Every man 
 
 24 * 
 
282 KiRKPATRtCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 has his own peculiarities of character and condi- 
 tion ; and it is in regard to them that he is always 
 most solicitous. The question with him is not 
 chiefly whether there is an adequate supply for the 
 wants which are common to all, but whether any 
 provision has been made for the particular exi- 
 gency of his own case. All his ordinary wants 
 combined sink into insignificance often, in com- 
 parison with some one pressing necessity; and 
 then it matters little what abundance of other 
 blessings may be accessible, so long as that indis- 
 pensable one is beyond his reach. What great 
 diiference did it make to the blind wayfarer at 
 Jericho, how skilfully Jesus of Nazareth could 
 unstop the ears of the deaf, or how he could give 
 faculties of speech to the dumb, or how he could 
 raise the dead ? He was not dead, nor dumb, 
 nor deaf, but he was blind. The object of his 
 longing was sight, he wanted some one who could 
 open his eyes, and pour light into the dark 
 chambers of his soul ; nothing else would have 
 sufficed. If they had made him king, he would 
 
THE DVTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 288 
 
 still have been blindo What was any doer of 
 mighty deeds to him, unless he could dissipate 
 the suffocating darkness that had not only gath- 
 ered densely around him, but had gone down into 
 the very depths of his being ? " What wilt thou 
 that I should do unto thee," said Jesus, and out 
 of the excessive abundance of his heart, he 
 abruptly answered, " Lord that I may receive my 
 sight/' 
 
 An Arab had lost his way in the desert and was 
 in danger of dying from hunger and thirst. 
 After wandering long, he found one of the 
 cisterns or water-pits out of which the pilgrims 
 water their camels, and found a little leathern sack 
 lying near it upon the sands. " God be praised," 
 said he, as he raised it up, and felt of it ; " thesp 
 are certainly dates or nuts, how I will quicken 
 and refresh myself with these !'' In this sweet 
 hope he quickly opened the sack, saw what it 
 contained, and then cried out with the utmost 
 sadness, " Alas, it is nothing but pearls !" Have 
 not your ardent longings been disappointed, 
 
284 KIBKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 many a time, in some way similar to that ? Have 
 you not some insatiable hungerings in the midst 
 of the greatest abundance ? Have you not some 
 individual wants which pearls cannot satisfy, 
 which the world cannot satisfy, which all the quick- 
 eyed ingenuity, and faithful devotion of earthly 
 friendship leave empty still? Even when our 
 wants are but the common wants of humanity, 
 yet we know our own so much more fully, and 
 we feel them so much more sensibly, that they 
 seem to be peculiar. Is there not, then a large 
 store of consolation in this pointed question of 
 the Saviour ? It is like saying to each of us, " If 
 you have some special desire ; if you are giving 
 way before the pressure of some particular neces- 
 sity, if some peculiar emergency has overtaken 
 you, come unto me ; what wilt thou that I shall 
 do unto thee ?" 
 
 Let us regard this question as addressed to each 
 of us. If we ask bread he will not give us a 
 stone. If, indeed, under some worldly delusion, 
 we ask a stone, he may give us bread ; if we be 
 
THE DUTY OF SPECIFIC PRAYER. 285 
 
 deceived about our wants, he may, indeed, disajp- 
 point us, but by that very disappointment he will 
 mercifully correct our error. But if we go to 
 him with our real wants, whatever they may be, 
 we shall find him able and willing to supply 
 them. Here, however, we must not forget that 
 the Lord's compassion does not overrule his 
 wisdom ; that his condescension does not take the 
 place of his sovereignty. Hence it follows that 
 this question is to be subjected to some modifica- 
 tion in our understanding of it. The Lord has 
 no where promised to make any human will 
 the standard of his providential government. 
 He has no where promised directly, nor by im- 
 plication, to grant us every temporal good, real or 
 imaginary, which we are disposed to ask. When 
 he said to the blind man, " What wilt thou that 1 
 shall do unto thee ?'' he did not thereby pledge 
 himself to comply with his request, whatever it 
 might be, or however it might be presented. 
 Suppose the man had simply asked for alms, the 
 Saviour might, without insincerity, have refused 
 
286 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 him. His omniscience might have seen an error 
 in that, and he might according to his sovereign 
 choice, have passed by and left him as he was, or 
 have transcended his request by enriching him 
 still with the blessing of sight. AYe must not 
 only ask aright, we must not only ask in sincerity, 
 and in earnestness, and in faith, but we must ask 
 for things agreeable to his will. 
 
 There is a two-fold distinction here between 
 temporal and spiritual things. (1.) In regard to 
 temporal things we cannot know in advance, what 
 is the will of God. It may be his will that we 
 shall suffer adversity, or enjoy prosperity, that we 
 shall lose or that we shall gain, etc. . . . There- 
 fore our prayers for temporal good must be 
 brought within narrow limits, and subjected 
 to strict restraints. But in regard to spiritual 
 things the case is somewhat different; God 
 will have all men to pray. What wilt thou, 
 fellow-sinner, that he should do for thee? 
 (2.) God gives many temporal blessings with- 
 out prayer. He sends the rain. . . . Not so 
 
THE DUTY OF SPEVIFIQ PRAYER. 287 
 
 with spiritual good. . . . He saves no man, till he 
 desires it and seeks it. . . . 
 
 He is willing to save, but we must ask him. 
 
 The prayer of the blind man did not make 
 Jesus willing to give sight, for the willingness 
 preceded the request. But the prayer secured the 
 gift of sight. 
 
 To be let alone, when Jesus is passing by! 
 Think what that would be ! . . . 
 
X. 
 
 THE FUTUME SATISFACTION, 
 
 I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. Ps. xvii. 15. 
 
 TT is a well-established rule in the interpreta- 
 -■- tion of the word of God, — that the sense of 
 Scripture, is in general, one — and that our ob- 
 ject, in interpreting any passage, should be to 
 bring out the very thought which the sacred writer 
 intended to express. This is a canon of funda- 
 mental importance ; the neglect or abuse of it has 
 led to a multitude of extravagancies, and perver- 
 sions, and vagaries. Whenever men depart from 
 it, in their pretended explanations of the word of 
 God, they assume the bold and dangerous pre- 
 rogative of assigning whatever meaning they 
 please to " the words which the Holy Ghost teach - 
 eth." But while it is true that every passage has 
 one specific meaning, and strictly speaking, only 
 
 288 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 289 
 
 one ; and while it i.s true that it is the business 
 of the professed interpreter to find that one mean- 
 ing, and not to devise others ; still, it is not only 
 allowable, but may be highly profitable, to make 
 various applications of that meaning, and to fol- 
 low out the ideas which are merely suggested by 
 it ; provided we do not go beyond the analogy of 
 Scripture, and provided we confine ourselves to 
 truths which are elsewhere taught, and conclu- 
 sions elsewhere reached by inspired reasoning. 
 
 It is designed to make use of the text before 
 us upon this general principle. The ambiguity 
 of construction in the original, as well as in the 
 translation, is such as to leave us in some uncer- 
 tainty concerning the precise idea which the 
 Psalmist intended to express. This affords no 
 ground of objection or suspicion as to the ade- 
 quacy of inspiration, nor should it start a momen- 
 tary tremor in our confidence, because either of 
 the senses in which the words may be understood 
 is natural, consistent with other truths, and highly 
 valuable. Besides, this very ambiguity furnishes 
 
 25 
 
290 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL, 
 
 an occasion of giving greater variety to our medi- 
 tations. 
 
 I. We may read the text in this way ; " When 
 I awake, I shall be satisfied with thy likeness/' 
 This word, '^likeness/' does not necessarily 
 mean abstract resemblance. It is the same word 
 which is used in the law, — ' Thou shalt not make 
 unto thec-any graven image, nor any likeness of 
 anything that is in the heaven above or that is in 
 the earth beneath.'^ It signifies the visible form, 
 the image, — the appearance. When I awake, I 
 shall be satisfied with thine appearance. This re- 
 fers us to the manifestations of God. There are 
 clear manifestations of God which are just as ac- 
 cessible and perceptible to the unconverted as to 
 the Christian. Any man who is surrounded with 
 the light of the Gospel, can behold in the works 
 of creation, on every hand, displays of Divine 
 power, and wisdom, and goodness. Any man, who 
 reads the word of God, can find represented there 
 those attributes which characterize Jehovah as a 
 moral Being, as the central object of all true re- 
 
THJ^ FUTURE SATISFACTION. 291 
 
 ligion. Any man, who traces the character of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, can discover, in all its fea- 
 tures of unblemished loveliness, the glory of the 
 Godhead, Still, in all these, the unregenerate see 
 but little. What is dim and vague to them is 
 clear and sun-bright to the enlightened believer. 
 He may be unskilled in natural science; he 
 may know but little about the wondei*s of the 
 heavens: the technicalities of philosophy may be 
 unknown or unmeaning to him ; he may know 
 but little of the multitudinous phenomena which 
 arrange themselves in accordance with the sub- 
 lime laws of the universe ; he may be acquainted 
 with only those instances of wise formation, pro- 
 vision, and adaptation which have fallen within 
 the range of his own observation, and yet he may 
 be far better pleased and more profited by the ap- 
 pearance of God in the world than the most suc- 
 cessful votary of science, who is destitute of his 
 spiritual vision. And so, although he may have 
 but little critical knowledge, and no more than an 
 ordinary faculty of discovering character in truth- 
 
292 KIRKPATRICK 3IE MORTAL. 
 
 fill biography, yet he may see far more of the 
 glory of God in his word and in his Son than the 
 ripest scholar, and the acutest discerner, whose 
 eyes are still covered by the film of natural de- 
 pravity. While the one looks at the Bible only 
 as a remarkable book, the other gazes at it 
 as a luminous revelation of Deity. AYhile the 
 one glances at God manifest in the flesh, and turns 
 away, with ill-concealed indifference, as from ''a 
 root out of dry ground without form or comeli- 
 ness," the other, with reverential admiration, 
 gazes upon him as ^^ the chief among ten thou- 
 sand, and altogether lovely." While the one may 
 indeed be said to have only indistinct imagina- 
 tions as incorrect as they are indistinct, — the other 
 has views of him, actual and clear. While the 
 one either ignores His existence, and is insanely 
 content with a blind ignorance, — or vainly specu- 
 lates about His un discoverable nature, and Avith 
 a complaining spirit, wonders at His hidden ma- 
 jesty, — the other is satisfied with his appearance. 
 But those which have been alluded to are, by 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFAf'TIOK. 293 
 
 no means, the only manifestations of God. He 
 presents himself to our view in the dispensations 
 of Providence. There the wicked, perhaps do 
 not see him, unless it be in some time of sore 
 trouble, and then he seems to stand before them 
 as a stern ruler with the lifted rod of justice, and 
 the stern frown of righteous indignation, and 
 from that sight they shrink away with trembling 
 dread, or muttered displeasure. The true believer 
 never loses sight of Him in the sphere of provi- 
 dence. In prosperity he sees Him smile and re- 
 joices ; in adversity he peers through the gloom 
 and finds that, even in his aspect of parental 
 severity there is enough of the warm light of 
 compassion first to beautify, and then to dry up 
 his tears ; and distinguishing between the fearful 
 glances of judicial anger, and the reproving gaze 
 of fatherly displeasure, he is still satisfied with his 
 appearance. 
 
 There is still another sense in which God in 
 Christ is visible to the Christian. The aggregate 
 of spiritual blessings on earth is expressed by the 
 
 25* 
 
294 KIRKFATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 Saviour as a manifestation of himself. In that 
 cheering valedictory address to his disciples, by 
 which he quieted the grief he had excited by the 
 mournful prophecy of his death, he said, '' He 
 that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and 
 I will love him and will manifest myself to him. 
 Judas said unto him, Lord, how is it that thou 
 wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the 
 world ? Jesus answered. If a man love me, he 
 will keep my words, and my Fath"fer will love him, 
 and we will come unto him and make our abode 
 with him." In this sense he is hidden from the 
 view of the world ; but to his own people he is ^ 
 graciously present; he dwells with them. The 
 inward assurance of this favorable presence is the 
 source of their peace and conscious security, and 
 joy and hope ; he is with them, in their going out, 
 and in their coming in, as " a friend that sticketh 
 closer than a brother.'' While they walk Avith 
 him, and hold communion with him, and behold 
 these special manifestations of himself in the 
 midst of the ungodly world and yet beyond their 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 295 
 
 sight, they themselves being shut up with Him, as 
 it were, in a little sphere of light inaccessible to 
 others, they are satisfied with his appearance. 
 
 IL ^^AVhen I awake," said the Psalmist. 
 From this it has been inferred that this was com- 
 posed and designed as an evening song, and that 
 these joyful words were uttered in anticipation of 
 a tranquil, happy rising from the rest of night. 
 By some it has been understood to signify " when- 
 ever I awake.'' - As if he had said, after having 
 spoken in the last verse of the prosperity of the 
 men of the world, and having described them as 
 seeking their portion in this life, 'Svhile they 
 think, day and night, of their possessions and 
 their pleasures, I sleep in the quietude of safety 
 beneath the shield of God's protection, and rejoice, 
 whenever I awake, in the sight of his- reconciled 
 countenance, and the consciousness of friendship 
 with him." This satisfaction is not confined to 
 any occasion, nor to any season. It is the grand 
 peculiarity of the Christian's earthly portion, the 
 distinguishing characteristic of his daily expe- 
 
296 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 rieiice, the solace of his waking hours. If, indeed, 
 through spiritual declension, he be deprived of it 
 for a while, as long as that privation lasts it is 
 night with him, and though he seem to be awake, 
 he is still asleep. When the day again breaks in 
 upon him, and startles him from his slumber, then 
 he beholds the face of God in righteousness, and 
 is satisfied with his appearance. 
 
 Still, our views of God in this life are partial 
 at the most, and vague at the best. ^' The heavens 
 declare his glory," in a measure, but his full glory 
 is displayed only above the heavens. Here all 
 his manifestations are distant, or incomplete, or 
 occasional through defects of our vision ; here, 
 we cannot even behold him as he is revealed, nor 
 can we appreciate what we do behold. Though 
 our views of him are not delusions ; though he 
 does manifest himself unto us as he does not 
 unto the world ; though he does come and make 
 his abode with us ; though we are richly blessed 
 in the enjoyment of his presence and communion, 
 yet, after all, we are but partially satisfied with 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION, 297 
 
 his appearance here. But there is to be another 
 awakening, an awakening from the sleep of death ^ 
 an awakening upon the morning of the eternal 
 day. Then we shall see God. Then we shall 
 see him upon his throne ; then we shall see him 
 in the midst of the heavenly host ; then we shall 
 see him in his own dwelling-place where he dis- 
 plays the brightest effulgence of his glory ; then 
 we shall see no longer " through a glass^ darkly/' 
 but ^' face to face ;" then we shall look with unbe- 
 clouded eyes upon his unshaded splendor; then 
 we shall be satisfied, completely and forever 
 satisfied with his appearance. 
 
 To wake up from a refreshing sleep and look 
 out upon a dazzling winter scene, where thousands 
 of snow-wreaths sparkling and flashing in the 
 morning light, hang in festoons upon the bending 
 branches, and in graceful drapery around the 
 leafless shrubs, and deck every unsightly thing in 
 charming attire, and illude the eye with the 
 mimicry of all that is beautiful ; that is exhil- 
 arating indeed. To wake up from a refreshing 
 
298 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 sleep and look out at once upon the sun as he 
 rises above the horizon, in gorgeous sheen, and 
 scatters his gems upon the hill tops until in their 
 profusion they roll down into the grassy vales, 
 and pours his treasures of rosy light into the 
 bosoms of the sentinel clouds that have lingered 
 around the place of his appearing ; that is enough 
 to fill the sensitive soul with refined delight. But 
 who taking advantage of those emotions of the 
 hip-hest grade to which human experience has 
 attained, who can, for a moment, imagine the 
 rapture that will vibrate through and through the 
 sons of immortality, when they awake from the 
 sleep of death to behold the Son of God coming 
 in the gilded clouds of heaven, in a chariot of 
 fire, with the glory of his Father, and with all 
 the holy angels in their majestic flight and dazzling 
 array ? O, when we awake at last, we shall be 
 satisfied indeed with the appearance of God. 
 
 My unconverted friend, you too must awake ! 
 for the trumpet sliall sound, and the slumber of 
 every victim of death shall be broken. At that 
 
THE FVTVllE SATISFACTION. 299 
 
 awakening will you be satisfied with his appear- 
 ance ? If you die as you now are, will you exult 
 in the sight when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed 
 from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming 
 iire, taking vengeance on them that know not 
 God and that obey not the Gospel ? Will you 
 be satisfied wdth his appearance when he sits 
 upon his great white throne and the heavens and 
 the earth are fleeing away from before his face and 
 you yourself, though longing to escape even by 
 joining in that rush, are spell-bound with dismay 
 in the very blaze of his holy wrath? Will not 
 the very sight of the offended God upon his 
 awful tribunal of justice and judgment, be 
 enough to blast the guilty soul into a shrunken 
 victim of eternal death ? Would you avoid that 
 view, would you stand upon his right hand, would 
 you catch his gracious smile of recognition that 
 shall send an everlasting thrill of pleasure through 
 the immortal spirit ? Then hasten to be reconciled 
 unto him, as he is now willing to be reconciled 
 unto you through the death of his Son. Hasten 
 
300 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 to seek his favor now ; hasten to secure your final 
 acceptance ; abandon your course of rebellion, and 
 make your peace with God. Then you may re- 
 joice in every manifestation of his presence here, 
 and admire and adore in the beatific vision for 
 ever. 
 
 III. The Christian is not only to awake to be- 
 hold the appearance of God, but to awaken in the 
 likeness of the incarnate Son. " It doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be ; but we know that when 
 he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall 
 see him as he is." The words of the text may be 
 appropriately regarded as pointing to that glorious 
 assimilation, and the believer may look forward 
 to the resurrection morning and exclaim, " I shall 
 be satisfied, when I awake in thy likeness." 
 
 IV. Now in what will this satisfaction consist? 
 1. He will be satisfied with himself. If there 
 
 be a man on earth who is satisfied with himself 
 now, he is one to be singled out as the miserable 
 object of universal pity. He does not know him- 
 self; he is the victim of a pleasing but most dan- 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 301 
 
 gerous delusion. When we look with an impar- 
 tial eye upon ourselves as we are, our minds de- 
 praved, our hearts corrupt, our bodies frail, the 
 sport of pains, and diseases which are but the 
 harbingers of death, how can we be satisfied with 
 ourselves? As mortals we are well called 'Svorms 
 of the dust ;" — as moral beings we are by nature 
 polluted, and at the very best mournfully imper- 
 fect. Although it is not needful nor well, for 
 any man to cherish a morbid disgust of himself, — 
 yet our only appropriate egotism is the language 
 of deep humility and self-condemnation. It is a 
 thousand pities that a sinful dying man should be 
 satisfied with himself. But if we awake in the 
 likeness of Christ, we shall have abundant reason 
 to be satisfied ; for we shall be pure as he is pure ; 
 we shall be perfect as he is perfect ; immortal as 
 he is immortal ; all-glorious as he is all-glorious. 
 There will be no pride in heaven, but as the ran- 
 somed look with adoring wonder upon the Lord 
 Jesus, in whose image they have been immortal- 
 ized, every soul will be sweetly soothed by a 
 
 26 
 
302 KIRKPATnWK MEMORIAL. 
 
 holy self-complacency : self-complacency, without 
 pride. 
 
 2. He will be satisfied with his residence. Now 
 he is ready to exclaim, 
 
 " I would not live alway ; I ask not to stay, 
 Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way." 
 
 True, when God cursed the earth, he did not de- 
 face all the beauty of the world ; he left oases in 
 the deserts, flowers among the thorns; fruits 
 hanging on the very briers ; he sent spring and 
 summer to repair the wastes of winter. There 
 are many things to admire, many things to love, 
 many things to enjoy ; yet we see, on every hand 
 plain proofs of the fall, unsightly indications 
 of ruin, diligent ministers of suffering and deep 
 sources of misery. This world is a far better 
 place than sinful man deserves, but it is not a 
 suitable home for the happy. Even with our 
 partly developed susceptibilities, we are not satis- 
 fied with it. But in heaven there will be no 
 complaint ; there are no imperfections nor marks 
 of ruin nor signs of decay in the architecture or 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 303 
 
 decorations of the holy city. Not only are the 
 mansions in our Father's house beautiful beyond 
 description, with lavish richness ministering to 
 the taste in its celestial refinement, but that house 
 is the believer's home ; there all the comforts of 
 home abound ; all the conceivable delights of 
 redeemed spirit's home are there in rich profusion, 
 and there is no outward occasion of momentary 
 disquietude. As the believer walks the golden 
 streets of the holy Jerusalem, and looks upon its 
 gem-built walls as they glitter in the light of the 
 glory of God, and glances from one to another of 
 the uncounted beauties and splendor that surround 
 him, he will be satisfied with his abode. 
 
 3. He will be satisfied with his company. 
 There will be no contention there, no bickerings, 
 no jealousy, no censure, no scorn, no contempt, 
 no cold indifference ; but love, sacred love in its 
 gentleness and strength, will sway all hearts in 
 perfect unison of feeling. The fellowship will 
 be intimate, unselfish, ennobling. In that ex- 
 change of lofty thoughts, and holy sympathies, no 
 
 ^ 
 
304 KtRKPATPJCK MEMORIAL. 
 
 inquiry of the Christian's mind, nor longing of 
 his heart will be left to seek in vain for its full, 
 and appropriate pleasure. 
 
 4. He will be satisfied with his employment. 
 To worship and praise Jehovah will be his high- 
 est delight. There is no weariness in heaven. 
 The service is rest ; the duties are rapturous en- 
 joyments ; the songs of adoration will be mingled 
 with outbursts of sanctified gladness. Yes, he 
 will be satisfied, in all respects ; completely and 
 for ever satisfied. Ye who have had so many 
 wishes denied ; so many desires left to devour 
 themselves by their own unavailing ardor : so 
 many hopes disappointed ; imagine if you can, 
 what it is to be satisfied ; in all things satisfied^ 
 Would you know what it is, by blissful and ever- 
 lasting experience? Then prepare to awake in 
 the likeness of Christ. As you fall asleep so you 
 will awake. If you die in your sins, and under 
 the frown of God, you will awake to shame and 
 everlasting contempt ; you will awake never to 
 rest again; you will awake in some distorted 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 305 
 
 form ; the victim of insatiable despair. If you 
 fall asleep in Jesus, you will awake in his like- 
 ness, and be for ever satisfied. And now, lest you 
 should fall asleep unexpectedly, speedily, and 
 awake to weep when it is too late, seek at once to 
 be united to Christ by a saving faith. . . . 
 
 Let us consider some . of the circumstances in 
 which the Christian, in view of the ordinary term 
 of human life, may innocently say, and with 
 earnest emphasis, ^^I would not live always." 
 The afflictions of this world ; all forms of suffer- 
 ing and privation and toil are such circumstances. 
 Although they afford no sufficient excuse for impa- 
 ^ tience and restlessness under the burden of life, 
 still, in the light in which we are now viewing 
 the subject, they do furnish a strong reason why 
 the Christian may use these words. True, ^^ chast- 
 ening afterward yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
 righteousness;" true, "Our light affliction which 
 is for a moment, worketh for us a far more ex- 
 ceeding and eternal weight of glory f true, " the 
 
 26* 
 
306 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 sufferings of this present time are not worthy to 
 be compared with the glory which shall be re- 
 vealed in us/' but these very consolations all point 
 to another and a better world, and thus furnish a 
 reason why we should not wish to linger for ever 
 in this. Separated from their grand, eternal re- 
 sults, and perpetuated here, they would become an 
 intolerable burden. Linked, as they are, with 
 those results, they direct our loftiest aspirations to 
 the world of perfect bliss, and thus in either view, 
 on the one hand repelling, and on the other at- 
 tracting, they prompt us to say, ^^I would not live 
 always." 
 
 We have reason to desire not only deliverance 
 from the ills of this life, but the actual possessioij 
 of far greater good than this world can afford. 
 Heaven is before us. Who, then, would desire to 
 live always upon earth? The crown is before us; 
 who, then, would desire to bear the cross for ever? 
 The palm of victory is before us; who, then, 
 would wish the conflict to be everlasting? The 
 prize of our high calling is held up in view ; who. 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 307 
 
 then, would wish to run for ever in the earthly 
 race? Live always among the shadows of this 
 world, with the unclouded glories of heaven re- 
 ceding in the prospect ! Live always with the 
 stains and corruption of sin cleaving to us, and 
 forego the purity of the sanctified ! Live always 
 this dying life, while we catch but the echoes of 
 those songs which break forth from the sons of a 
 blissful immortality above! Live always this 
 lonely life, away from God ; away from our ran- 
 somed friends, who have gone to glory; away 
 from the Saviour whose presence irradiates the 
 city of God ! 
 
 Ah, no, to depart, to depart and be with Christ 
 is far better. The contrast is too great to leave 
 us indifferent. We would not live always. But 
 it must not be forgotten here that the deliberate 
 and the honest expression of this preference can 
 spring only from a well-grounded and satisfactory 
 hope of a happy immortality. It were better to 
 continue a tired pilgrim journeying on for ever, 
 than to hasten to the door of our Father's house 
 
308 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 and be met there by a stern rebuke and denial, 
 and the decree of everlasting banishment. It 
 were better to retain this world, if it were possi- 
 ble, with all its sorrows, than to leave it, and then 
 fail of heaven. It were better to live always 
 even here, than to die always in hell. With the 
 fear of such an alternative ; with the apprehension 
 of such an exchange, we cannot sincerely wish 
 not to live always. Just in proportion as our 
 faith wavers and our fears gather strength and 
 prevail we shall be less disposed to use this lan- 
 guage. We may properly say, " I would not live 
 always," when we thereby express a willingness 
 to leave this vale of tears as soon as the sweet 
 voice of heaven shall call us to the scenes above; 
 or as an expression of rejoicing that this is not 
 our everlasting home; but we may not employ 
 such words in a spirit of complaint that we are 
 obliged to live at all in this stormy world. On 
 the contrary, we should be ready to say even in 
 the saddest hour as Job said, at a time of calm 
 resignation, " All the days of ffiy appointed time 
 
TBB FUTURE SATISFACTION. 309 
 
 will I wait until my change come/^ O, then let 
 us "give all diligence to make our calling and 
 election sure/^ Let us labordiligently and prayer- 
 fully to gain the full assurance of faith, such a 
 confidence in the Saviour that we need not fear 
 to die. 
 
 ¥v^e cannot live always if we would. We may 
 express a cordial and perfect acquiescence in the 
 decree of God, but in no other sense is it really a 
 matter of choice, after all. " There is no man 
 that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, 
 neither hath he power in the day of death ; and 
 there is no discharge in that war.'^ No truth is 
 more certain, none more momentous, and yet none 
 perhaps is less appreciated. Multitudes live as 
 though they were never to die ; and they die, at 
 last, with the bitter, burning wish that they had 
 never lived. We need something frequently to 
 startle us into the practical conviction of our mor- 
 tality. It is related of Philip of Macedon, that 
 he kept one servant whose business it was to come 
 into his room every morning and solemnly re- 
 
310 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 peat these words, — " Remember, Philip, thou art 
 mortah" That was a mark of wisdom, and it 
 doubtless produced an effect ; still it soon became 
 a familiar story, and doubtless lost much of its 
 power. Ever and anon the messenger of death 
 comes into the midst of us and strikes down a 
 relative, or friend, or acquaintance, and as he 
 passes along he whispers to each of us, ^' Remem- 
 ber thou too art mortal," but we go to bury the 
 dead and return with little more of salutary medi- 
 tation than may be prompted by the thought that 
 all men are mortal but ourselves. Different and 
 less frequent occurrences, bringing similar sug- 
 gestions, may be more effective. There is no 
 event, perhaps, better adapted to this end, than 
 the closing of one year, and the beginning of an- 
 other. Our life is limited ; its end is appointed. 
 In that respect we are like criminals in prison 
 awaiting their execution, only we know not when 
 that appointed time will come; our years are like 
 their hours. 
 
 Again the great clock of time is striking. 
 
THE FUTURE SATISFACTION. 311 
 
 Listen to it; this may be the last. The summons 
 may be on its way. At most but few such hours 
 can be left ; at all events there is now one less to 
 come than when we last recorded the number. 
 We shall soon hear the footsteps of the messenger. 
 We cannot live always ; we may not live an- 
 other year. Are we prepared to die ? Ah, it is 
 the mournful answer to this question, that forbids 
 the ungodly to use the words of the text. They 
 dare not sincerely repeat them, unless it be under 
 the spell of some desperate indifference. Go stand 
 by the bed of the dying, and see the light of life 
 flickering and going out, and the feverish flush 
 fading into the pallor of death, and think of the 
 spirit on its rapid, trackless flight to the judgment 
 throne, and say, if you can, '' I would not live al- 
 ways." Go, stand in the silent graveyard and 
 think of the great white throne, and think of the 
 books that shall be opened, and think of the 
 words that will be spoken, and think of the door 
 that will be shut, and think of ih^ blackness of 
 darkness for ever, and say, if you can, " I would 
 
312 KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL. 
 
 not live always !" And yet, if you repent not, 
 the time will come, when these words will spring 
 up irrepressibly from the depth of your tortured 
 soul ; for it shall come to pass that in those days 
 men shall seek death and shall not find it ; and 
 shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.'^ 
 Did you ever see a poor man dying reluctantly, 
 gathering all his failing strength and wrestling 
 and struggling with the last enemy, declaring in 
 agony, he would not die? feebly defying the ir- 
 resistible relentless monster. . . . Oh, it is a fear- 
 ful sight, the conflict of life and death ! . . . 
 
 THE END. 
 
DATE DUE