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SEEMONS. 
 
 
 CHAKLES WADSWOKTH, 
 
 MINISTER OF CALYAKY CHUECJl, SAN FKANCISCO. 
 
 NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 A. ROMAN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 1869. 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1SC9, by 
 
 A. ROMAN & COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 ALVOKD, PRINTER. 
 
AD YERTISEMEN T. 
 
 This volume is published at the request of personal 
 friends who desire to possess, in permanent form, some of 
 the ordinary and miscellaneous discourses delivered from 
 their pulpit. The selection has been made with regard 
 simply to variety. And in furnishing the MSS., the 
 author has felt at liberty neither to recast their forms of 
 thought, nor remove such redundancy of style as all 
 speakers find necessary when writing for oral delivery. 
 It has seemed to him that the request contemplated an 
 exact reproduction of the spoken discourse, and beyond 
 a compliance with that request, he has, in this publica- 
 tion, no expectation. 
 
 Sax Francisco, Jan. 18G9. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 God's Thoughts 1 
 
 The One Idea 20 
 
 Prejudice 36 
 
 Insincere Unbelief 53 
 
 The Gospel Call 71 
 
 Development and Discipline 92 
 
 Self-Knowledge 112 
 
 Christian Influence 131 
 
 Grace and Works 152 
 
 The Division of Spoil 175 
 
 Eedemption 190 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Tiie Child-Teacher 200 
 
 Communion 221 
 
 The Mortal Immortalized 231 
 
 A Spectacle to Angels 241 
 
 TnANKFULNESS 254 
 
 The Feast of Harvest 27(3 
 
 The Young Man's Mission 305 
 
 The Mother's Sorrow 329 
 
 Progress in Decay 352 
 
SERMONS. 
 
 "GOD'S THOUGHTS." 
 
 "My thoughts are not your thoughts, soith the Lord." — Isaiah, Iv. 8. 
 
 The word " thought " is here used objectively. It ex- 
 presses a result and not a process. Essentially perhaps 
 all thought-power is alike. Certainly in all our attempts 
 to consider God, we must reason analogically from the 
 finite. We can form no idea of any divine attribute ex- 
 cept from its miniature in humanity. And we are to 
 regard it not as a mere figure of speech, that God made 
 man in his own image as well mental as moral. The 
 Divine intellect may be spoken of as the glorious arche- 
 type after which finite mind was cast. And although, 
 as bringing infinity into conditions of time and space, 
 all language must express falsehood when concerned 
 with Deity, yet when the Bible speaks of God as in 
 the exercise of volitions and emotions, we are not to 
 regard it as mere accommodation to a false tisus loquendi, 
 but as a true representation. The Godhead is not an 
 impassible composite of infinite wisdom and power. His 
 purposes are not immense icebergs floating downward 
 1 
 
2 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 in a fathomless inexorable gulf-stream of sovereignty. 
 lie is my Heavenly Father, and all his sovereignty is 
 love. "We do not dishonor God by likening him unto 
 man. We only honor man as God honored him when 
 made in his own image, when we say that in regard of 
 faculties in essence, and feelings in exercise, the human 
 mind was fashioned after the infinite Archetype. 
 
 The assertion of the text that " God's thoughts are not 
 man's thoughts'''' describes a result not a process, and 
 with this necessary and manifest limitation let us pro- 
 ceed to consider it. "We are first to illustrate and then 
 apply the truth, that God's thoughts are not our own 
 thoughts. 
 
 First, we are to illustrate it. And here we need only 
 contrast the human with the Divine style of thinking. 
 Observe some particulars : 1 . Creation — I mean the ma- 
 terial universe in its forms and phenomena. This is one 
 of God's thoughts. As every product of human skill is 
 but a human thought realized — inasmuch as painting, 
 sculpture, architecture, are but expressions in material- 
 ism of simple pre-existent ideas in the mind of the artist, 
 just so is it of God's handiwork. The visible creation 
 that surrounds us on every side and spreads away into 
 immensity beyond us, is only an embodied thought of 
 the infinite, uncreated Intelligence. 
 
 Or, dividing this vast whole into parts, and regarding 
 each part as a particular thought of the Eternal, you 
 may speak of this earth as one of God's thoughts, and 
 yonder sun as one of God's thoughts. 
 
 Or, still further descending, you may regard the. human 
 body, and the soul, and the ocean, and the cataract, and the 
 volcano, and the singing-bird, and the lily, and the dew- 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 3 
 
 drop, and the rainbow, find the lightning, and the murmur- 
 ing stream, and the roaring thunder — these, and indeed all 
 various material forms and phenomena, you may regard 
 as nothing else than God's goodful and glorious thoughts, 
 expressed physically, written radiantly on the tablets, or 
 uttered musically in the voices of the universe. 
 
 Creation, then, in all its grand complication, is only a 
 manifest thought of the Infinite Intelligence. 
 
 And tell me if it he at all like one of man's thoughts ! 
 Equip man with omnipotence, and set him to create a 
 universe — and would it resemble the universe as it is ? 
 By no means ! For, observe, 1st. That man's universe 
 "would be absolutely consolidated. Into one immense 
 continent would all these world-islands be cast, and all 
 tribes and types of life inhabit it as a common dwelling ! 
 And yet how unlike this is the divine work. You find 
 throughout it comparatively no grand consolidations, but 
 innumerable worlds, all immeasurably separated, each 
 hopelessly secluded. 
 
 And this is not after man's thought. For his agoniz- 
 ing regret this day is that he can not fling the line of a 
 mighty telegraph from star to star, and thus, even in face 
 of the immutable ordinances of heaven, gather these iso- 
 lated islands of life into one vast virtual consolidation ! 
 
 Observe, 2dly. That a universe pixrjected by man 
 would be motionless and steadfast. We build our homes, 
 not on the waters, that they may be locomotive, but on 
 the shore, that they may be fixed. But God's universe 
 is in everlasting motion. The earth whereon we dwell, 
 and the systems of worlds that surround it, are rushing 
 through space with inconceivable velocity. And all this 
 is assuredly not according to human wisdom. We may, 
 
4 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 • 
 indeed, upon reflection, learn the optimism of the arrange- 
 
 menl ; but confessedly, a priori, we should not so have 
 
 ordered it. 
 
 And so, without further argument, it appears manifest 
 that a universe so divided, and revolving, is not such a 
 material system as an almighty man would have con- 
 trived; and standing forth this day as one of God's 
 thoughts made manifest, it clearly demonstrates the text's 
 truth, That the thoughts of God are not like man's 
 thoughts. 
 
 Or, descending from the survey of a univei'se of worlds 
 to consider the economy of a single world, even with 
 greater force shall Ave feel the same truth. Set a man to 
 construct a single world, and would it be like this world? 
 Would man have spread over three-quarters of its entire 
 surface this waste of waters ? or have flung up these im- 
 mense mountain-ranges ? or spread out these desolate 
 sand-plains ? Would he have produced, after their kinds, 
 these tribes of brutal life, and filled the wilderness with 
 ravening beasts, and the ocean with monsters? Would 
 he, in short, have made such a world as this ? I am not, 
 indeed, intimating that any wise man really thinks he 
 could have contrived a better one. The man who hon- 
 est lv believes he can improve a divine work is no son of 
 Solomon. And true philosophy will ever confess that 
 what seemeth "the foolishness of God is wiser than 
 men." But I am insisting here that there is a broad 
 difference between a human and a divine ideal of world- 
 making. 
 
 And I repeat, that such a world .as this no wise man 
 would have created, lie would have filled up the ocean 
 with plow-ground, and sloped the mountains gently 
 
GOD'S TEOUOnTS. 5 
 
 for vineyards, and covered with rich verdure the sands 
 of the wilderness. And the waters would have brought 
 
 forth after their kind only beautiful things, and every 
 creature moving in the forests would have been musical 
 and fair ; and the sky would have been without cloud on 
 its rich blue, and the year without winter or storm in its 
 long summer of loveliness. So that a world fresh from 
 the hand of a human creator would have seemed, as well 
 in the economy of its life as of its materialism, altogether 
 unlike the world we inhabit. For this world is one of 
 God's thoughts, and such a world would be one of man's 
 thoughts ; and herein is the truth made manifest, that 
 God's thoughts are not like man's thoughts. 
 
 Now we might pursue this line of thought indefinitely, 
 but with this simple indication of our meaning, let us 
 pass to another general illustration, and observe, 
 
 Secondly, That Providence is one of God's peculiar 
 thoughts. I use the word here in its widest sense, as 
 expressing God's management of his universe after its 
 creation. And whether we regard the entire economy 
 of Providence as a stupendous whole, or each successive 
 development in its separation, the same truth will be 
 manifest. 
 
 Endow a wise man with omnipotence, and enthrone 
 him as sovereign of the universe, and would he govern 
 it as God has governed, and does yet govern, it ? Study 
 that economy of Providence as it had to do with our 
 world before man inhabited it. Read with o-eoloo-v 
 the record written on the planet's crust, and you will 
 perceive how, during innumerable ages, earth was the 
 home of successive races, each of a higher life and finer 
 organization than its predecessor; so that the grand 
 
P> GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 law of that Providence was an almost imperceptible 
 progress through incalculable ages of ages, — and would 
 a wise man so have ordered it? Why, so unphilosophic 
 does all this seem, that we can hardly persuade our- 
 selves to accept God's handwriting on these adamantine 
 tablets as true records of our doings? Man certainly 
 would have ordered the whole thing differently. Instead 
 of those mysterious periods of slowly ascending life, he 
 would have rounded earth into beauty at first as a home 
 for immortals, and breathed divine life into man made 
 in God's image. 
 
 Or if we confine our thoughts to the present economy 
 of Providence, the same truth will be apparent. Surely 
 a wise man would not order things as Jehovah orders 
 them. The history of a human administration would 
 not read like the world's history through the last sixty 
 centuries. That destruction of the primitive Eden ; 
 those ages of antediluvian abomination ; those wander- 
 ings and wars of God's chosen people ; those periodic 
 visitations of famine and pestilence, mantling earth with 
 sackcloth ; those barbaric battles, wherein eighteen times 
 the entire population of the globe has been swept away 
 in carnage ; these, and such as these, are God's provi- 
 dential thoughts ; and are they like man's thoughts ? 
 
 Nay, look at the providential aspect of things even 
 now on the face of the planet — how darkness covers 
 the earth and gross darkness the people ! — of the hun- 
 dreds of millions of living men, at least three quarters 
 degraded to the depths of ignorance and superstition! 
 Behold how righteousness is depressed, and iniquity 
 enthroned and triumphant ! How unequal the distri- 
 bution of the evil and the good ! how limited the dif- 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 7 
 
 fusion of Christianity and civilization ! Yea, behold 
 what oppressions, what violence, what boastful iniquity, 
 what throes of agony, what convulsions among kingdoms 
 and nations, as if the great heart of the race were break- 
 ing in the overstrain of its bondage, until all this air, 
 once musical with the song of the sons of God, is filled 
 with lamentation and requiem! 
 
 Now endow a wise and good man with divine sover- 
 eignty, and would he manage things in this way? I do 
 not ask if he could devise better things ? I know he 
 could not. I may not understand it, yet certain I am 
 that in the sublime purpose of bringing good out of evil, 
 there is manifest in the present providential economy 
 the most absolute omniscience. Our dissatisfaction with 
 God's doings is the result of our finitude. "We judge 
 prematurely — calling the fruit sour, because it hath not 
 ripened. We judge selfishly — bemoaning the pearly 
 shell as it breaks round the plumes of the imperial eagle. 
 We judge partially — observing only the one wheel 
 which seems aimlessly revolving in mire and dust, and 
 not the whole flaming chariot in its career of victory. 
 We judge from wrong stand-points — looking from the 
 footstool upward to the cloud's dark side, and not down- 
 ward from the throne of God upon its ineffable bright- 
 ness. Our judgments are false, because finite. And 
 yet swayed by such judgments, I repeat it, as Jehovah 
 governs the world to-day no wise man would govern 
 it. Surely on this point " God's thoughts are not our 
 thoughts." Place at the head of human affairs an 
 omnipotent philanthropist, and how soon would every 
 dark thing be swept from a groaning creation. How 
 the captive would leap from his chain, and the con- 
 
8 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 qucror lay oft* his mail, and the cries of violence cease, 
 and the rod of the oppressor be broken! How these 
 dark places of cruelty would be irradiated with heavenly 
 light, and Christianity, borne as on angel-wings, circle 
 the round world; and man in the glory of his primitive 
 creation, yea, in the higher glory of his redeemed and 
 regenerated nature would stand gloriously up on a 
 renewed earth to mate with the crowned children of 
 the skies, in the looking-for of destinies as high, in 
 the inspiration of energies as unabating ! 
 
 Surely we all must acknowledge this ! A world 
 under a human providence would be in all aspects 
 unlike the world as it is. For such a providence 
 would be a thought of man, and Providence as it is, 
 is a thought of God, and herein again is the text's truth 
 illustrated thus " Your thoughts are not my thoughts, 
 saith the Lord." 
 
 Now were there limits and a necessity, the same 
 train of illustration might be pursued in regard of 
 things spiritual; and quite as apparent would it be 
 that finite human wisdom would not have written such 
 a book as this Bible, nor devised such a plan of sal- 
 vation as it embodies. But we may not enlarge. And 
 indeed, as we may be addressing some disposed to 
 cavil at revelation on just this ground, what we 
 have to say on this point will best be said under our 
 other division. 
 
 Passing then from the text argument, let us attend, 
 Secondly, to its Application. 
 
 I. And our first remark is addressed to this very 
 class, who reject the Bible because to their finitude it 
 seems either unwise or incomprehensible. 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 9 
 
 You will not mistake the application. We are not 
 admitting- that there is in the Bible aught but a dis- 
 play of the very highest wisdom. On this point every 
 infidel cavil has been a thousand times answered, and 
 we need not here pause to review the advocacy. We 
 would simply bring upon the unbeliever's conscience 
 the truth we have in hand. We have shown you how 
 in creation and Providence there are many things hard 
 to be understood, and bearing, at first view, the seem- 
 ing of foolishness. So that had man been the architect 
 and administrator, there would have been a different 
 world and a different economy of government. And 
 so, mark you, from all this you must draw arguments 
 against creation and Providence as the manifest 
 " thoughts of God," ere, from the same things observ- 
 able in the Bible, you object to it as a divine revela- 
 tion. 
 
 Indeed, were there occasion, we might here exhibit 
 an analogy so wonderfully fine between nature and 
 revelation as to demonstrate their common origin and 
 inspiration. They are evidently "thoughts" of the 
 same supreme intellect. 
 
 Alas for the consistency of unbelief! Every argu- 
 ment against inspiration is an argument for atheism ! 
 You tell me of large portions of the Bible, such as its 
 long catalogues of barbaric names which seem utterly 
 useless. And I tell you that along the surface of our 
 globe there are vast regions of desert and rock as 
 apparently useless. 
 
 You tell me how God, in the Bible, allowed and 
 sanctioned bloody wars demonstrative of cruelty. And 
 I tell you that under God's providential rule, have been 
 l* 
 
10 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 permitted wars more terrible and destructive than 
 inspired men ever dreamed of! 
 
 You tell me that the Bible's grand central truth- 
 man's redemption by an Incarnate God — is an absurd- 
 ity; that the very thought of such infinite condescension 
 of the Divine nature is the egotism of human madness. 
 And I tell you that the great central truth of Creation 
 and Providence — that God hath condescended to create 
 and preserve man — is just as absurd. 
 
 Yes, and I might carry this comparison between the 
 hard things of nature and the hard things of revelation, 
 to any conceivable extent; and fast as you proved from 
 the one that there is no God in the Bible, I would prove 
 out of your own mouth, as well, that there is no God in 
 the universe. 
 
 In all these declamatory cavils against revelation, men 
 are forgetting the great truth, written as with sunbeams 
 on the very forefront of the universe, that, " As the heav- 
 ens are higher than the earth, so are God's thoughts 
 higher than man's thoughts !" 
 
 The poor erring creature of an hour, who can not build 
 a hovel that will not leak, nor weave a perfect garment 
 to cover him, he — wonderful man that he is — would lift 
 his thoughts into brotherhood with God's thoughts, and 
 adjust the complicate sublimities of revelation by the 
 square and the line of his insignificant faculties ! Why, 
 the sceptic should begin further back and earlier with 
 his scepticism ! As his arguments lie as strongly against 
 creation and Providence — upon them, as God's earliest 
 mistakes, he should lift up his logic. Go to, then, ye 
 despisers of this Bible ! Get ye to the councils of eter- 
 nity, and enlighten the Divine mind on the true philoso- 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 11 
 
 phy of -world-making and. world-managing ! Go level 
 yonder mountain ! Go subdue this raging ocean ! Go 
 free yonder sun from its spots ! Go bestud yonder fir- 
 mament with gems of greater glory ! Go roll those con- 
 stellations through the skies in more harmonious and 
 magnificent revolutions ! Go persuade the Eternal One 
 that your thoughts are best when worlds are to be cre- 
 ated and governed! And then you shall have full license 
 to lift up hammer and ax upon the carved work of our 
 sanctuary; and then will God delight to sit at your feet, 
 learning how to reveal himself as a God and a Saviour. 
 For then will our text be only a great falsehood — "And 
 your ways icill be God's ways, and your thoughts will be 
 God's thoughts, saith the Lord of Hosts." 
 
 II. But though I may not be addressing infidelity as 
 bold as this, yet I am surely addressing infidelity, if of a 
 milder type, yet as sadly disastrous. Within our own time 
 a new philosophy hath invaded the church of Christ, with 
 its watchwords "spiritual insight," and "the moral rea- 
 son," and "intuitional capacity," setting itself to over- 
 throw the indispensable condition of all true piety — the 
 entire, unquestioning, adoring submission alike of life, and 
 conscience, and intellect unto God. And while the church 
 receives not this philosophy formally — for this were 
 openly to deny the faith — yet, under its insidious and 
 malign influence, there has come to pass a setting up 
 within Zionof our own intellectual and moral judgments 
 as critic and arbiter of the great doctrines of revelation. 
 
 Doctrines that are profound or mysterious, if not 
 openly rejected, are at least modified to square with our 
 philosophy. And the positive declarations of God are 
 lowered to the comprehension of our natm-al reason. 
 
12 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 For example: The doctrine of the adorable Trinity in 
 unity, while clearly revealed in Scripture, is confessedly 
 altogether above our reason, which we are to accept in- 
 tellectually on the alone ground, that unquestioning 
 faith in God's word is the highest function and exhi- 
 bition of reason ; and yet men, thinking to subject the 
 infinite to the finite, ply this great truth with their logic 
 until, on the one hand, the Divine unity is lost in a three- 
 fold Godhead, or, on the other, the Divine Trinity sunk 
 with a threefold manifestation — the simple dramatis per- 
 sonce of a Divine revelation ! 
 
 And so of the doctrine of the two natures in Christ, 
 of the Divine sovereignty as it stands related to human 
 free-agency, of original sin, and imputation, and justifi- 
 cation by faith, and the regeneration of the spirit, and the 
 resurrection of the body; these doctrines, and others of 
 this type, are all subjected to our poor finite logic, to be 
 lowered to our comprehension or adjusted into the har- 
 mony of a philosophic creed. 
 
 And in all this we are practically and fearfully infidel. 
 We are putting this fair body of God's truth to the 
 torture, to compel a false \itterance ! We are claiming for 
 our reason a positive Omniscience ! We are ma/king our 
 thoughts God's thoughts, and Gods thoughts our thoughts. 
 
 Alas, foolish reasoner ! dare you carry the same canons 
 of cavil into God's world of nature? Are there no 
 mysteries, either in Creation or Providence, which you 
 can neither comprehend in their separation, nor compass 
 in their harmonious co-existence ? Is there no mystery 
 in this whole present march and management of things 
 beyond the line of your logic ? Is there no mystery in 
 this universal mingling of evil with good — this virtue 
 
GOD'S T710UGETS. 13 
 
 depressed — this vice enthroned and triumphant? Tn 
 that tear in the eye of faith, in that pang in the heart 
 of love ? Can you reconcile it with your Arcadian ideal 
 of infinite goodness — the barbarity of great national war- 
 fare — the baleful comet scattering terror through the 
 skies — the earthquake engulfing great cities — the vol- 
 cano destroying great provinces — this awful reign and 
 shadow of Death making earth one great sepulchre ? 
 Can you understand all these things and their mighty 
 God unto perfection ? Alas ! alas ! my hearers, we 
 have not yet become like gods ! The serpent-tempter 
 lied when he promised it ! We are, as yet learners in 
 God's school-room, not advisers in his council-cham- 
 ber ! We shall understand things better by and by, 
 when eternity flings its full light on the page of our 
 scholarship ! But until then humility is the apt temper 
 of a learner. And faith, not comprehension, the great 
 law of the scholarship! Till then ours must be the 
 submission of an infantile mind to an Infinite Intelligence 
 — the trust of a short-sighted child in an all-seeing 
 Father — receiving in unquestioning faith every truth of 
 God, in all its marvel and mystery. " For our thoughts 
 are not GocVs thoughts, saith the Lord of Hosts." 
 
 III. But the thought under consideration applies as 
 well to the phenomena of Christianity as to its facts. 
 Take, for example, its gradual increase and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 The characteristic of the age is impatience of any 
 thing but a demonstrative and headlong progress. In 
 the accumulation of wealth, in the diffusion of knowl- 
 edge, in the processes of locomotion, indeed in all the 
 march and movement of human life, the old standard of 
 
14 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 steady but slow advance satisfies no one. And, sad to 
 tell, this impatience goes with us into Christian faith and 
 experience. God's operation in converting the world 
 seems too slow to be real. And we are overborne with 
 doubt and despondency when we see how, after eighteen 
 long centuries of struggle, the Gospel hath no fuller 
 course and no greater glory. We are impatient for 
 moral miracles. We would have nations born to God in 
 a day, and every high thing that exalteth itself against 
 Heaven, cast down as a dead tree by a storm, in the 
 triumphant march of the Redeemer. And yet, in all 
 this, our desire is only — alas ! to have, " our thoughts 
 God's thoughts, and God's thoughts our thoughts." 
 
 For tell me where, either in creation or Providence, 
 God thus hurries to conclusions ? How many ages were 
 consumed in the slow progress whereby this planet 
 became fitted for human habitation? Why, the very 
 fuel consumed in your houses is the slow product of 
 countless years. And the tiny gem of your adornment 
 was crystallized only in an immensity of generations ! 
 Jehovah's great law of work is no hurrying and head- 
 long progress. He works slowly, and in circles of im- 
 mense sweep ! A thousand years are but as a day in 
 the majesty of his movements. And in all this quiet and 
 slow progress how truly Godlike he seems ! Man, 
 poor man, in the evolution of his purposes, may well be 
 impatient and restless, for he distrusts his own power 
 and the wisdom of his own devices — his whole life is a 
 hand's breadth, and he hath no space for delay. But in 
 regard of God working with infinite resources and eter- 
 nal duration, how glorious is the majestic quietude 
 wherewith he slowly evolves his stupendous purposes. 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 15 
 
 It is a wonderful manifestation of infinite power, and 
 wisdom, and changelessness. It is Godlike — God- 
 like ! 
 
 And as verily Godlike, mark you, in redemption as in 
 creation and Providence ! We ought to look for and 
 glory in the same great law in the spiritual as in the 
 natural, to find the history of grace written in the same 
 character and style as the history of creation. And 
 what is the style of God's natural history ? Why the 
 student of earth's progress, recorded in the hieroglyphs 
 of geology, finds that for immense periods this world was 
 peopled by monsters, and that innumerable genera- 
 tions of such terrible and gigantic forms of life constitu- 
 ted the very steps in its progress to its final glory as 
 man's dwelling-place. 
 
 And why then should we wonder, nay, why rather 
 should we not rejoice, to find an analogy to all this in 
 the records of the spiritual ? — that, so to speak, the 
 moral geology of the planet is but a counterpart, or 
 transcript, of the physical ; that in its spiritual strata, as 
 well, embosomed in the church's annals of successive 
 generations, there should be found just such monstrous 
 shapes, great heresies, gigantic apostasies, dark semi- 
 heathenisms, terrible infidelities, foul Christian abomina- 
 tions, the moral mammoths and mastodons of those 
 transition ages of the church wherein she went slowly 
 on to her glorious consummation ! 
 
 This is the way God works always. And if you 
 accept it in the natural, why complain of it in the 
 spiritual ? If you rejoice to know that the jewel set in 
 the frontlet of a king is the slow product of ages, how 
 can you look that he shall crystallize in the years of a 
 
16 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 generation the great brilliants that are to glorify the 
 diadem of a God ! 
 
 Indeed, so far from discouragements in this slow prog- 
 ress of Christianity, we have therein only fuller proof 
 of its Divine origin, nobler prophecy of its ultimate con- 
 summation. It is demonstrating its adaptation to every 
 stage of human society, every order of human mind, 
 every form of human government. " All other religious 
 systems have proved local and temporary; carried across 
 a few lines of longitude and latitude, they perish as 
 exotics ; perpetuated a few generations, they become su- 
 perannuated I" But in the slow, sure, steadfast march of 
 Christianity abroad over all lands, and adown the genera- 
 tions, it approves its divine life and origin. Indeed, had 
 the Gospel sprung into full glory at once, we should 
 mistrust it as a momentary triumph of the human and 
 the carnal. 
 
 It comes — sure as the Eternal One sitteth on the throne 
 of the universe, it comes — the glory of a Gospel triumph- 
 ant over all enemies, and established among all nations ! 
 But it comes not as man's work comes. It comes not 
 with observation. It comes in the slow, and quiet, and 
 resistless might wherewith Omnipotence ever works. 
 And alas for our feeble faith and our feeble reason, that 
 would have it otherwise ! We would have diamonds 
 frozen in a single hour like a winter rain drop ! We 
 would have oak-trees grown in a single night like the 
 gourd of the prophet ! We would have the great earth 
 shaken by miracle, and dead empires quickened in a 
 moment as at the trumpet of the Resurrection ! " We 
 would have our thoughts God's thoughts, and God's 
 thoughts our thoughts" 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 17 
 
 IV. Finally : There is a still more consoling applica- 
 tion of this truth to things unseen and eternal — Immor- 
 tality — Immortality ! The state of the redeemed and 
 risen spirit ! How we love to consider its conditions, 
 and ponder the realities of its " far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory !" And all this is well if we 
 think reverently and wisely, for it brightens the eye and 
 strengthens the nerve of the racer to catch the sparkle 
 of the crown-gems that glorify the goal ! But we should 
 advance in this high path, remembering how unlike 
 human thoughts are the thoughts of the Infinite One, 
 and not presuming to build heaven's great realities out 
 of our own imaginations ! 
 
 The grand characteristic and charm of the eternal 
 world is its utter unlikeliness to the temporal and earthly. 
 And therefore unto the human imagination, powerful 
 only to recombine images of its experience, all the reali- 
 ties of heaven must remain for the present, unspeakable, 
 inconceivable. 
 
 A Christian on earth is a king's child far away from 
 the royal palace, and kept under teachers — a poor 
 pilgrim in a desert making painful progress to an unseen 
 and unknown city and kingdom, with no experience, 
 and, therefore, no ideas of the splendors of royalty. 
 And suppose, that in respect of the earth, a king's child, 
 born in some province, and never leaving the sphere of 
 provincial instructors, should set himself to conceive of 
 the glorious realities of the paternal palace and kingdom. 
 Or that a pilgrim, born and bred amid the sands of the 
 wilderness, should think to paint for himself the splen- 
 dors of the imperial metropolis. Then how partial and 
 pitiful would be their loftiest ideal ! The boy's dream 
 
18 GOD'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 of the palace would be only a larger school-room, its 
 appointments perhaps lovelier, and its tasks less ! And 
 the pilgrim's picture of metropolitan glories would be 
 only a larger encampment, with perhaps gaudier tents 
 in the wilderness. 
 
 And just so is it of eternity. With an imagination 
 creative only in rebuilding things visible, man can 
 not even conceive of the unseen and eternal. Nor does 
 revelation attempt to supply the deficiency. It tells us, 
 indeed, what there is not in heaven ! And in a few figures 
 gathered from present experience, sets forth some acces- 
 sories of its physical realities. But it tells us no more. 
 And, alas, with this little the mind is not satisfied ! It 
 sets itself ambitiously to conceive of the whole grand 
 reality. It gathers together the fine metaphors of reve- 
 lation — the trees of life, and the rivers of gladness, and 
 the palms of victory, and the thrones of power ; and 
 taking what is at the most only figure for literal descrip- 
 tion, and what is at best an accessory for a grand 
 element, dresses up for itself a realm of fancy, whose 
 entire fashion and furniture are of " things seen " and 
 " things temporaV 
 
 Alas, foolish reasoner ! All as foolish as a tiny chrysalis 
 which should dream of the broad heaven into which it 
 was just bursting, as only its poor opaque shell expanded 
 a few feet in circumference ! As foolish as the poor 
 children of the Polar world fashioning the toys of their 
 holidays, in the likeness of sledge, and boat, and walrus- 
 spear, the very implements of their fathers' forlorn and 
 perilous labor ! 
 
 Oh, beware, how, in regard of the all-glorious future, 
 you make your thoughts God's thoughts! Gates of 
 
GOD'S THOUGHTS. 19 
 
 pearl, and rivers of bright water, and flowers of won- 
 drous hue, and skies of cloudless splendor. Yea, reunited 
 families dwelling in glorious mansions, and the flash of 
 angel-plumes, and the swell of angel voices. Why, all 
 these have been known and experienced in mortal lives! 
 They are all " of the earth, earthy !" They are only 
 the soiled and faded drapery of God's trampled foot- 
 stool ! And beware how you think to lift so coarse a 
 foot-cloth, and spread it as a true regalia of purple and 
 ermine over the blaze of God's throne ! 
 
 Beware how you work those poor earthly colors on the 
 eternal canvas — or model the many mansions of God's 
 House after a human architecture ! Heaven, as you are 
 wont think of it, is only the imperfect dream of a poor 
 finite imagination. Hut yonder heaven %tnto which we 
 aspire, is the realization of the loftiest conception of the 
 imagination of God. 
 
 " And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so 
 are my thoughts higher than your thoughts, saith the 
 Lord:' 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 
 
 " This one tiling I do." — Philippians, iii. 1?.. 
 
 This was Paul's great motto. He was a man of 
 one idea ; one master-passion moved upon all his life- 
 springs ; one great object he cared for ; one great thing- 
 he did. And though the phrase has fallen into dis- 
 repute through misapplication, yet the history of Paul 
 teaches that no man's mind is large enough to entertain 
 more than one idea; and no man's life long enough to 
 realize more than one idea. 
 
 "We shall see presently that there are, in certain minds, 
 notions often classified under the title of "The One 
 Idea," which have really no right to it. They are at 
 the most only imperfect and fragmentary notions or 
 thoughts, half ideas, or quarter ideas, and so not large 
 enough to fill a man's whole soul ; and the mind which 
 fastens on such a mutilated idea, either finds itself, in 
 its expansion, half-empty, or else, collapsing to embrace 
 it, becomes a very little soul. But Paul's experience 
 teaches us, that one unmutilated and entire idea, is as 
 much as a man can entertain in his soul, or actualize in 
 his lifetime. 
 
 Nor herein was Paul's experience anomalous. Such 
 has been the experience as well of all truly efficient 
 men. None of them ever entertained more than one 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 21 
 
 great aim or purpose of being. All truly good and 
 great men, in these sacred records, belong to the same 
 class. 
 
 Noah was a man of one idea. His idea was an ark ! 
 And though he did other things, took care of his house- 
 hold, educated his children, mingled in antediluvian 
 society, and took part in antediluvian politics, yet the 
 one great thought moving as a glorious dream through 
 all his chambers of imagery, was something that would 
 float upon stormy and shoreless seas! And this one 
 thing he did — he built. 
 
 Abraham was of this same class. His one idea was a 
 city ! He too did other things ; he trained his servants ; 
 he commanded his household after him ; he was a kind 
 father, a faithful friend ; a princely old patriarch in all 
 lands wherein he sojourned. But amid his fairest 
 di-eams by the ancestral waters, a great voice out of 
 heaven spake to him of " a city which had foundations 
 builded by God." And behold! ever afterward it 
 was haunting his soul ; a vision of unearthly splendor ; 
 and his eye was ever uplifted to the firmament, as if 
 in its far depths he could catch the flash of glorious 
 pinnacles. Of one great thing he thought — toward one 
 great thing he journeyed. U A city which had founda- 
 tions, whose builder was God? And in this purpose we 
 perceive only an illustration of the truth, that as the true 
 primitive man was made in God's image, so the truly 
 regenerate man resumes that imao-e. For in all this 
 man becomes Godlike. The divine nature is of the 
 same type of being. It lives and acts in realization 
 of one great idea, love ! love ! Differing, indeed, in 
 mode and manifestation, like the Theophany of the 
 
22 THE ORE IDEA. 
 
 Exodus, sometimes an overshadowing gloom, sometimes 
 a surpassing glory. Yet ever, amid the immensity 
 and multiplicity of its operations, from the enamel of a 
 flower and the feathering of an insect's wing to the 
 pomp of the starry heavens and the soaring wing of 
 the archangel, making the truth manifest that benev- 
 olence is the very essence of the Infinite — that omnip- 
 otence is only almighty love, omniscience only all- 
 wise love, and omnipresence only an immense love — 
 that God lives, and operates, and governs, only to 
 love. 
 
 Nor of regenerated men only is the thought true — 
 of all men who retain amid their moral ruins some 
 lines of the mutilated divine image — is this a char- 
 acteristic. A singleness of aim and effort ever hath 
 been — ever will be — the secret of all noble human 
 accomplishment. Napoleon was the most efficient man 
 of his own time, yea, of all time; not because gifted 
 above his fellows, either physically or intellectually, 
 but because universal empire was his single aim — he 
 lived only to conquer ! Demosthenes was the prince 
 of all earth's orators, not because God gave him a 
 splendid voice, and exquisite grace of motion, but 
 because eloquence was his one idea. He lived only 
 to sweep, as with a roused tempest, over all the iEolian 
 sympathies of the human heart. Newton was the king 
 of astronomers, not because his eye was keener as it 
 scanned the heavens, nor because God gave him mighty 
 wings to sweep through the empyrean, but because, 
 with the power of an omnipresent dream, the constella- 
 tions of heaven were flashing on his soul ! The stars 
 were in his heart. His life was in the stars. So is it 
 
TEE ONE IDEA. 23 
 
 ever: singleness of aim, oneness of effort — the gather- 
 ing of thought, feeling, heart, soul, life into one intense 
 absorbing passion — is the secret of all greatness. And 
 no wonder that Paul was the very chief of the apostles, 
 so that the earth shook at his tread, as when a giant 
 goes on pilgrimage; not because he had read Grecian 
 lore, in Cilician schools, and mastered the Hebrew law 
 at Gamaliel's feet, but because, with his heart all afire 
 within him, and his eye, as the eagle's on the sun, 
 fixed on one sublime purpose — in that one thing he 
 gloried — to that one thing he tended. And the secret 
 of his apostolic power and evangelical achievement was 
 in the text's motto and watchword, " This one thing 
 I do." 
 
 Paul — we repeat — was greatly efficient just because he 
 was pre-eminently a man of one idea. But then, be it ob- 
 served, his was a whole one ! and not a poor fragment of a 
 thought. We have seen that there are men, termed men 
 " of one idea," who have no claim to the title. In popular 
 language — an idea is the image, or form, of a thing in the 
 mind. A complete idea must therefore be the image of a 
 whole thing, and not merely of one of its parts. And so 
 we term those men, only men of half an idea — who in ar- 
 chitecture think only of the house's foundation — or in 
 education care for only one class of mental faculties — or 
 in politics labor for only one state, or section, or color, in 
 a great nation — or in theology look ever only on one as- 
 pect of a many-sided truth, as the Antinomiau seeing 
 only God's sovereignty in salvation, or the Arminian see- 
 ing only man's free-agency, both practically separating 
 faith and good works as they lie indissolubly wedded in 
 the Divine thought — or in practical morality regard 
 
24 TEE ONE IDEA. 
 
 some one of the great sisterhood of human virtues as 
 alone important, so that they become intemperate in their 
 advocacy of temperance, and licentious in their conflicts 
 with impurity, or Sabbath-breaking in their efforts to 
 sanctify the Sabbath. 
 
 All such men's notions of things are mutilations, and 
 therefore not ideas at all, but only fragments of ideas ; 
 and as half an idea is too small to fill a whole heart and 
 soul, they roll about in the mental vacuity, making the 
 poor man as noisy as a child's rattle, and for the sarne 
 reason — his mind is not half full ! 
 
 But differing from all such men, Paul's one idea was a 
 complete one, entire in all its parts, symmetrical in its 
 proportions. 
 
 Let us consider it carefully that we may learn what it 
 was. 
 
 "This one thing I do, forgetting the things that are be- 
 hind and reaching forth unto the things that are before, 
 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling 
 of God in Christ Jesusy 
 
 He uses here his favorite figure of the old race-course. 
 Before his faith-lit eye was flashing, at life's far goal, 
 heaven's unfading crown of righteousness, and like the 
 Grecian athlete, night and day, might and main, body 
 and soul, he strove and struggled onward and upward. 
 And the end of all his efforts, and the aim of all his 
 stragglings, was progress in holiness, progress toward 
 heaven ! This one thing he did, he pressed toward 
 glory! 
 
 Other things indeed he did, and did earnestly and 
 nobly. But then they were all subordinate things, or 
 rather they were only parts of this same great one thing \ 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 25 
 
 Paul made tents, and I doubt not was the most indus- 
 trious and faithful artisan in Corinth, and that his work- 
 manship was in great demand in the Corinthian market- 
 places. For his religion was the great inspiration of his 
 life, passing beyond sanctuaries and Sabbaths, and per- 
 vading the whole economy of the secular and the social, 
 rendering him not merely a flaming apostle, but in every 
 possible relation of life an earnest and honest man. 
 Paul wrought for his daily bread in the workshop of 
 Aquila. But his craft was part of his Christianity. "Ho- 
 liness to the Lord" was inscribed on the tent-shop! 
 " These are Christ's " was written on every tool of his 
 bench, and the cord, and the canvas. And when most 
 busy at his work he was still doing his one thing, adding 
 gems to his crown of righteousness — pressing toward 
 heaven ! 
 
 Paid, too, preached the Gospel ; and never since hath 
 human voice been lifted in such resistless eloquence to 
 save imperiled souls. But then his pulpit, like his tent- 
 shop, was in hi3 own way to glory. He preached as he 
 ran, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, his back to the multitude, his 
 face toward heaven. The Gospel he preached was a Gos- 
 pel he practiced. The cross he gloried in was a cross he 
 carried. And amid all his unwearying toil for others, his 
 most earnest care was " to keep his own body under, that 
 he himself shoidd not be at last a castaway /" Heaven — 
 heaven — as a great city of radiant pinnacles, seemed ever 
 the gi-eat reality of his being, and, as he cast away every 
 hinderance, and broke from every entanglement, and 
 pressed untiringly on to its enrapturing glories, the utter- 
 ance alike of his lip and his life was, " This one thing I do." 
 
 But, as recorded in the context, even in his religious 
 
 2 
 
26 THE ONE IDEA. 
 
 life lie seems to have been doing several things. There- 
 fore, let us consider how they were only essential parts 
 of this one thing. 
 
 I. And first, Paul cherished in his heart a constant 
 dissatisfaction with his present spiritual attainment. 
 These are his words : "JBrethren, I count not myself 
 to have apprehended.'''' Here, in his own behalf, is a posi- 
 tive disclaimer of all Christian perfection. High as seems 
 to us his spiritual stature, he repeatedly assures us that 
 to himself he seemed almost the least of saints — the 
 chief of sinners. And here he expresses profound dis- 
 satisfaction with his gracious attainments, and here we 
 find the great secret of his rapid Christian progress. 
 Yea, and here we find the secret of all progress, either 
 sacred or secular. Dissatisfaction is always the first 
 step in improvement. Dissatisfied with the pen, man in- 
 vented the printing-press. Dissatisfied with the chariot, 
 man careers on the locomotive. Dissatisfied with the 
 velocity even of steam, man links his thoughts to God's 
 thunderbolts ! This, in regard of all things, is the true 
 inspiration. A being fully contented with present at- 
 tainments, with no aspirations unto things above and 
 beyond him, should be either a god or an idiot ! Heav- 
 en's pity on the poor soul on this earth all restful and 
 satisfied ! Genius — high genius — the most Godlike of in- 
 tellectual gifts, is only this "restless creative agony, an 
 impulse driving the spirit to beat its wings like an impris- 
 oned eagle, till there be blood on the plumes and the 
 wires of the prison-house ! forcing the yearning heart 
 abroad, like an unblessed spirit, away from the actual 
 in search of the possible ; to dig in every desert for a 
 living spring ; to climb every mountain-top for a farther 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 27 
 
 look into heaven. Csesar was the very demi-god of his 
 generation, because a possessed world could not satisfy 
 him. Paul was the very chief of the apostles, because, 
 sick of all present attainments, he " counted liimself not 
 to have apprehended." Meanwhile, 
 
 II. Paul fastened his eye on farther and loftier Chris- 
 tian states and attainments, " forgetting the things that 
 are behind, and reaching forth unto the tilings that are 
 before /" 
 
 There are men, alas, how many ! in their self-examina- 
 tions, always either reviewing the past, or scrutinizing 
 the present, of their gracious experience. Ask them for 
 the evidences of regeneration, and they tell you how, 
 years ago, they found peace in believing, or that even 
 now they feel happy in Christ. But Paul's eye and 
 thought fastened neither on the things behind, nor the 
 things around him. Not of the glorious light in the way 
 to Damascus, not of the manifold labors of his apostle- 
 ship, does he speak. Far away, at the end of his course, 
 stood the great " Finisher of his faith," and to him alone 
 he looked. Far away from his low stand-point stretched, 
 in ever-ascending grandeur, peak upon peak, the mountain 
 ranges of godliness, and he reached forward, like an iron- 
 shod pilgrim, all eager to climb. And herein was an- 
 other secret of his progress, and of all progress. This 
 yearning ambition within the soul of man, which, goad- 
 ing him away from all heights of present attainment, 
 fastens the eye on vaster acquisitions of knowledge, 
 nobler forms of love, and hope, and joy, and faith — filling 
 the whole future with a perspective of grander prizes to 
 be struggled for, and filling the soul, which no present 
 gladness can satisfy, with those restless and irrepressible 
 
28 THE ONE IDEA. 
 
 desires for the glories that are far away and beyond 
 it. 
 
 Paul was dissatisfied with the present, and intensely 
 ambitions for great things in the future. Meanwhile, 
 
 III. His ambition was pre-eminently practical. These 
 gracious desires became the inspiration of his life. Reli- 
 gion in him was no frame and feeling of ecstasy and rap- 
 ture. It was sinewed with steel — sandaled with iron. The 
 New Jerusalem, with its flashing pinnacles, was no city 
 in the clouds, which a child sees at sunset in the purpling 
 west, and lies down to dream about. It was a city with 
 foundations, coming out to the eye of faith at the termi- 
 nus of his life-walk; and as its ever-haunting splendors fell 
 round him, he tightened the girdle of his loins, the latchet 
 of his sandals, and, like an earnest and strong man, pressed 
 toward the goal. " I press — I press toward the mark for 
 the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 
 " This one thing I do." Relying entirely on Christ, as 
 he did, for salvation, yet he felt that he had for himself 
 a great work to do in this progress toward glory. It 
 was a practical progress in every Christian grace ; and 
 those graces, miraculously implanted at regeneration, 
 follow afterward the law of all life, and thrive only with 
 culture. While God's power wrought inwardly "to will 
 and to do," his own power must work outwardly, " with 
 fear and trembling." Christ Jesus would no more relieve 
 him of all spiritual than of all secular labor ; no more 
 run the Christian race for him than make tents for him. 
 So Paul felt : " I — I press toward the prize of the high 
 calling in Christ." "This one thing I do !" 
 
 The accomplishment of salvation was a work — yea, 
 was his work. His theory of religion was not that of a 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 29 
 
 glad voyage over tranquil waters, clown stream and rest- 
 ful, lulled by murmuring wind and wave, until, anchored 
 for eternity, lie should go ashore in glory ! To him it 
 seemed a race-course, in which every step of progress 
 must be a labor — the limb strained, the eye steadfast. 
 Though resting, as the everlasting rock of his hope, on 
 the truth of God's sovereignty, yet he would trust to no 
 Divine purpose to bring him at last, safely sleeping, to 
 glory. The wearer of the crown must be winner of the 
 crown. The racer who triumphed must be the racer 
 who toiled. To attain to the sanctified state passively, 
 by meditations and raptures, or even by a miraculous de- 
 struction of sin in the members, in answer to prayer ! to 
 attain to entire sanctitication, save by bringing the body 
 under in a life of active labor for Christ — a labor life- 
 long and intense as the racer's struggling toward the 
 goal ! Why, Paul would as soon have expected to have 
 ascended in a silken balloon to the radiant heights of 
 the City of Holiness ! Christian life to him was a toil — 
 the concentration of all the powers of his ardent and 
 regenerated nature in one mighty struggle ; and quiver- 
 ing lip, and strained limb, and steadfast and earnest life, 
 gave utterance to the same motto and watch-word of his 
 life — "This one tiling I do!" 
 
 And thus all the several things Paul is said to do in the 
 context, are but essential parts of the same great " one 
 thing " — " Toward the prize of the high calling of God 
 he pressed," i. <?., "He made progress toward heaven!'''' 
 
 And a wise man he was, surely, in this choice of the 
 great end of his being. Many another thing he might 
 have done nobly. In him were combined, in wonderful 
 strength, the mental and moral qualities fitting man for 
 
30 TEE ONE IDEA. 
 
 great deeds. His was the temperament which produces 
 heroes. His, intellectually, the strong logical faculty, 
 and the splendid imagination characterizing great orators. 
 His, every way, the resistless, indomitable energy, render- 
 ing human life a success. He might have rivaled De- 
 mosthenes in the pomp of his eloquence ! He might have 
 flung abroad banners of battle glorious as Caesar's ! 
 But bring him back now from the skies, in the glory of 
 his white robe, and sceptre, and diadem, and bid him de- 
 clare frankly whether it was done well and wisely, this 
 doing but one thing ! 
 
 Ah me ! The tongue of the old orator is silent, and 
 the laurels of the great conqueror are withered and dead. 
 But brightening ever in its glory as eternity wears on, 
 new laurels in the chaplet, new gems in the crown, new 
 anthems to be sung, new heights to be soared — the prize 
 of that high calling in Christ Jesus flashes lustrously 
 still ! 
 
 Wise ? — wise ? Yes, he was wise. He went forth like 
 an old athlete to the great race-course for glory, and for a 
 while, calmly watching the girded runners, he counted the 
 cost and the toil. And then did this poor world do its 
 best to beguile him from the struggle. Pleasure smiled 
 on him in her wondrous beauty, and whispered her incan- 
 tations. And Honor waved an enchanter's wand, and to 
 his wrapt eye rose a far perspective of unbounded earthly 
 splendor. And Riches, and Power, and the Lusts of the 
 flesh, and the Pride of life, wrought upon his heart with 
 spells almost omnipotent. Yes;' and then in the con- 
 trast, such labors, and sacrifices, and sufferings, even 
 unto death, were to be endured for the Master. And 
 the narrow way upward to the skies looked so cold, and 
 
TEE ONE IDEA. 31 
 
 thorny, and desolate, that, it may be, for a little moment, 
 the heart of the persecutor faltered ere he tightened the 
 girdle of his garment and sprang toward the goal ! But 
 it was only for a moment ! Right out from the blue 
 heavens, as they bent over the far heights of the course, 
 flashed to his eye of faith the light from the towers of 
 the City of Holiness, and down from their shining seats 
 stole the voices, so soft, of that " great cloud of witnesses." 
 And it was enough ! As cords from the limbs of the 
 roused Samson, the poor entanglements of earth fell from 
 his spirit. Away ! away he is bounding ! Make way 
 for him, ye weaker runners ! A giant hath sprung to 
 the race, and is pressing toward glory ! And will he 
 falter now on the course ? Can the world tempt him to 
 falter ? Gold, pleasure, honor — can they hinder his swift 
 feet ? Paul pause ! Paul falter ! With Heaven open- 
 ing on his full soul, and Death and Hell following hard 
 after, and the cloud of witnesses surrounding, and the 
 ground under his feet sounding hollow, and stupendous 
 visions of eternal gloom and eternal glory breaking 
 round him, will he pause for mortal toys? 
 
 Ah, no, no ! As well tempt an angel from his throne 
 with a babe's poor plaything. " This one thing only he 
 would do /" 
 
 And methought I saw him at last, as the race was 
 ended and the crown was won. Like the ano-el standing: 
 in the sun, he stood colossal in outline at the radiant 
 goal ! There was a halo round his head, and uncreated 
 glories fell on him as a garment ! Then there seemed a 
 flash, as of gates of pearl moving to soft music, and the 
 outburst of seraphic voices in joyous welcome ! And, 
 alas for me ! I felt homesick for glory as I saw him no 
 
32 THE ONE IDEA. 
 
 more. His race for glory ended ! JIls one tiling 
 done ! 
 
 Now, of all this simple discourse, the one practical 
 lesson is to take Paul for our model. We, too, have but 
 one thing to do on this earth — to get ready for heaven. 
 In every scene and sphere of the secular and social, " to 
 be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the 
 Lord." And spite of all our fond notions, there is no 
 easier or other way than Paul's of progress in sanctifica- 
 tion ; and yet how little are we like him. Alas, my 
 brethren, if we toiled as listlessly for this world as for 
 heaven, the merchant would become bankrupt on ex- 
 change, and the artisan a beggar by the wayside. A 
 child, weaving for himself a chaplet of flowers, toils in 
 their gathering more earnestly than Ave in setting stars 
 in our crown of rejoicing. And do you think that God, 
 whose law of compensation is to make every good thing 
 the meed of earnest toil and a steadfast purpose, so that 
 the bee and the ant must starve if they work not, — do 
 you think that God, who brought prophets and apostles 
 to heaven through struggles and conflicts, and a great 
 fight of afflictions, will lower down the standard in our 
 behalf, and award us a crown of glory if we strain not 
 toward the goal ? Why, look ye ! — Far away over the 
 desert, up where the mountains are piercing the skies, 
 shine the palaces of immortality ! And if we attain to 
 them in triumph at all, these deserts must be traversed, 
 these stormy waters crossed, these mountains ascended ! 
 " This high calling of God in Christ Jesus " is not unto 
 passive and indolent raptures, but unto earnest warfare 
 and work. A Christian is a "servant" and he must 
 labor; a "pilgrim" and he must journey; a " soldier ," 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 33 
 
 and he must do battle; a "racer" for glory, and he 
 must press toward the goal. " This one thing ice must 
 do." 
 
 And I call on you and on myself, as immortal spirits, 
 girt about for the struggle, under whose feet the earth is 
 hollow with sepulchres — around whom, filling all the 
 sky, press unseen this great cloud of witnesses ; in whose 
 far perspective are magnificent things which would 
 kindle, as a guerdon, all the energies of the archangel. 
 Knowing, as I do, how heaven is attained only by 
 struggling, and how, amid the different rewards of 
 eternity, the loftiest are only unto the most earnest, 
 and how God hath filled the human soul with these 
 boundless and irrepressible desires, just that it might 
 fix heart and eye on the loftiest of the thrones, the 
 brightest of the diadems — ay, and knowing, too, how 
 the season of the great life-work is growing short, 
 the sands of the great hour-glass falling through, the 
 shadows leno;thenin<x, the sun o-oino- down, the night — 
 the night coming ! — knowing this, I call on you and on 
 myself to gird up the loins and tighten the sandal, " and 
 press toicard the mark for the prize of the high calling 
 of God r 
 
 And unto you, oh, ye impenitent and ungodly men, 
 what shall I say ? Alas, this one thing which gathers 
 into itself all the great interests of time and eternity — 
 a thing too immense to be done Avell in a life-time — 
 Paul's grand "one thing" — ye have not yet begun to 
 do. Ye will not even think about doing. Your lan- 
 guage to your preacher is — " Oh, do not talk about this 
 thing ! Do not speak about Death, and the Judgment, 
 and Eternity ! By and by, when life hath lost all its 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE ONE IDEA. 
 
 sparkle, and pleasure palls upon the senses, and the 
 world fades away as a fair vision, then we mean to be 
 Christians." Alas, foolish reasoners ! Where is eternity? 
 afar off? long years away in your history? Oh, no ! 
 Eternity is close to you — all around you — just behind 
 this thin veil of things visible, already lifting, dissolving. 
 Be a Christian by and by ! Alas, foolish reasoner ! 
 What is it to be a Christian ? Is it to weep a tear — 
 experience a remorse — breathe a prayer on a death-bed ? 
 Oh, no, no ! To be a Christian is to run a great race — to 
 fight a mighty battle. And how can a man fight well 
 when his right arm is palsied, and his eye dim in death ? 
 And who ever heard of an athlete coming forth from a 
 dying chamber, and wrapt in a shroud, that he might 
 strive for the mastery ? Oh, no ! It requires all the 
 best strength of the bravest manhood to do well Paul's 
 one thing! And so, as one that loves your souls, I plead 
 that here and now ye begin this great life-work. Know- 
 ing how this one thing is a good thing, and a blessed, 
 and a needful, how much fairer will seem even this 
 mortal life, if you have God for your father. And how 
 much, when the shadows are upon all its sunshine, every 
 cloud will be haloed with heavenly light in the smile of 
 the Comforter! and how even the cold waters of death 
 will seem bright as the sea of glass mingled with fire, if 
 the Divine Son come walking the billows ! and how, 
 beyond it, heaven will fling open its shining gate, and 
 you enter " to that glory, that weight of glory, that far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
 
 And that even then ye shall have but begun the 
 higher life of the immortal ; that when eternal ages 
 have rolled on their great course, still " things to come " 
 
THE ONE IDEA. 35 
 
 will be yours — still new treasures of knowledge, and 
 love, and joy, opening in your experience — new anthems 
 to be sung — new heights to be soared — tower above 
 tower — battlement above battlement — throne above 
 throne — still stretching away upward under that glo- 
 rious firmament, till lost in the immensities of the God- 
 head ! Knowing all this, I plead with you, that for one 
 passing hour you consider your immortality ! for then I 
 know that with this poor world seeming a vapor, and life 
 a dream, and eternity a stupendous reality — you, too, 
 will gird yourselves for this life-work, and press as a 
 giant on a high path, with these apostolic and exalting 
 words: — This one thing I do! This one thing I do ! 
 
PEEJUDICE. 
 
 " And Nathaniel said, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
 Philip saith unto him, Come and see." — Johk, i. 46. 
 
 The conversation here recorded occurred at the begin- 
 ning of our Lord's ministry. Philip, a disciple of John 
 the Baptist, having found the Christ, in the fullness of his 
 joy would lead others unto him. And finding Nathaniel, 
 an upright, though bigoted Israelite, thus earnestly ad- 
 dressed him, " We have found him of whom Moses in 
 the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth 
 the son of Joseph." But in reply, the prejudice of the 
 Hebrew was painfully manifest. " Of Nazareth do you 
 say ?" — " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" It 
 is difficult to determine the precise point of the question 
 as here put by Nathaniel. The words " any good thing " 
 may have here as elsewhere the force of " this good 
 thing," meaning the promised Messiah, the " sumrmim 
 bonum " of the Jew. And if so, the implied objection of 
 the question lay in this — that Bethlehem, and not Naz- 
 areth, was to be the birthplace of the Christ. And this 
 was just the objection, afterward so popular among the 
 Jews : " Shall the Christ come out of Galilee. Hath 
 not the Scripture said that he cometh of the seed of 
 David, and out of the town of Bethlehem?" But as the 
 text is here rendered, the objection lay in this — that 
 Nazareth, a town of lower Galilee, had become pro- 
 
PREJ UDIGE. 37 
 
 verbial for the wickedness of its inhabitants, and that 
 therefore no good man could be supposed to come out 
 of it. 
 
 But, for the practical instruction of the text, it matters 
 not which of these meanings be received. For they 
 alike exhibit the evil influence of prejudice on our intel- 
 lectual decisions. 
 
 If the first interpretation be taken, then the power of 
 Nathaniel's prejudice showed itself in his logic. He 
 heard Philip call Christ a Nazarene, and thei'efore 
 rejected him, because the prophecy was that Christ 
 should come out of Bethlehem. As if these two things 
 were incompatible ; both of which the simplest inquiry 
 would have proved true : that Christ was born in 
 Bethlehem, and dwelt afterward in Nazareth. 
 
 Or if the last interpretation be taken, then the power 
 of the prejudice showed itself in his philosophy, by 
 an unjust generalization, concluding that no Nazarene 
 could be good because some Nazarenes were evil. 
 
 We say, then, this question of Nathaniel finely illus- 
 trates — the direful power of prejudice / And the imme- 
 diate response of Philip as finely exhibits — the real 
 remedy for prejudice. 
 
 What answer does he give to this bigot of Israel ? 
 Does he sit down to reason the matter, proving, by the 
 terrible record of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, 
 that, though resident in Nazareth, Christ was born in 
 Bethlehem ? Or that while some wicked men had their 
 home in Nazareth, yet its very existence under Roman 
 rule was proof that many good citizens dwelt there? 
 Does he pause to reason with him at all ? No, indeed ! 
 At once, with a truer love and finer logic, he leads him 
 
38 PREJUDICE. 
 
 directly to the presence of the prejudged Bethlehemite, 
 saying — " Come and see." 
 
 Our text, then, teaches us most inrpressively — The evil 
 and remedy of prejudice. 
 
 Now, had we the limits we would consider these in a 
 general application. 
 
 There is nothing more common, and few things worse, 
 than prejudice. By it we mean any opinion formed with- 
 out sufficient examination of facts and arguments. And 
 its effect upon the mind is like that of colored glass upon 
 the eye, arraying objects in aspects unnatural and mon- 
 strous. Its injurious influence pervades all spheres of 
 human life — social, civil, religious. Sometimes it judges 
 a whole community from the character of a particular 
 member, and sometimes the individual from the character 
 of the community. The man is of a party whose prin- 
 ciples we do not accept, and therefore we think him 
 unworthy of confidence. Or he is of a religious sect 
 which we deem widely erroneous, and therefore we re- 
 gard him ignorant of true piety. Or some individual of 
 the party has proved himself unprincipled, and therefore 
 we pronounce the whole party dishonest. Or some mem- 
 ber of a religious sect has been manifestly a hypocrite, 
 and therefore the whole sect is included in iniquity. 
 
 Or sometimes, in regard of systems, or individuals, we 
 judge the whole character from a single act, and thus 
 think the evil good because there may be one good thing 
 in it — and the good, evil, because it has one fault. 
 
 And surely all this is monstrous. In the present system 
 of things, made up of good and evil, prejudgments are 
 almost necessarily wrong judgments. Prejudice is a 
 great injustice. And its cure is, as in the case of Na- 
 
PREJUDICE. 39 
 
 thaniel, a thorough examination of its object — to turn 
 away from the partial logic, and " come and see " — come 
 and look at the nation in all its great emporiums and 
 refined homes, before, from one coarse and brutal tourist, 
 you pronounce it half-civilized ! 
 
 Come, study the whole platform, and all the measures 
 of the party, ere, because of one unprincipled demagogue, 
 you judge it all evil. Come look at the religious sect in 
 all its broad charities, and earnest faith and love, ere, 
 from one hypocritical member, you pronounce it a fanati- 
 cism. Come, examine the system in the whole reach and 
 play of its complicate machinery, ere from a single disas- 
 ter you condemn it altogether. 
 
 Come, look upon the erring and sinful man, in all the 
 circumstances of his temptation — yea, come look on him 
 after he has sinned, — follow him to his retirement. See 
 how his eyes overflow, how his heart breaks, as he casts 
 himself at Jehovah's feet, asking for forgiveness. Come 
 and see all this ere, from one sin committed under some 
 terrible temptation, you turn away from him as a hypo- 
 crite. 
 
 Alas, this principle of prejudice is itself a most terrible 
 iniquity. It would impel us to cut down a precious vine, 
 because of one decayed cluster — to burn up the whole 
 earth, because some wild beasts inhabit it — to annihilate 
 all God's universe in its goodness and glory, because there 
 are comets amid its stars, and demons among its spirits. 
 And its remedy is simple : Go examine all matters of pre- 
 judice carefully, ingenuously, holding opinion in abey- 
 ance until evidence is thoroughly sifted, and whatever 
 may seem a priori plausible or presumptive — " Come 
 and see" — " Como and see" 
 
40 PREJUDICE. 
 
 But it is not with such generalities we arc at present 
 concerned. On this holy day and in this holy presence 
 we can have only to do with Prejudices against Christi- 
 anity. Such were Nathaniel's, and his case affords a fine 
 illustration of the folly and wrong of all such prejudices. 
 Consider it carefully. 
 
 I. If you suppose his objections to Christ arose from the 
 fact that the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem, while 
 Philip says this man had come from Nazareth. Then 
 alas for his logic ! All Jewish prophecy pointed to that 
 day as the time for Christ's coming ; so that all men 
 were expecting it. Yea, his predicted forerunner had 
 already appeared and proclaimed his advent. And 
 there, before the assembled multitudes that went out unto 
 John's baptism, a great voice out of heaven, and a de- 
 scending Theophany declared him to be the expected 
 Messiah. Yea, mortal man had resorted unto him, and 
 as they heard his blessed words, and saw his mighty 
 works, cast themselves adoringly at his feet, and came 
 forth to declare in confidence and rapture, " We have 
 found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write." 
 And what has this bigoted Hebrew to oppose to all this ? 
 Alas, nothing but a name taken from a temporary dwell- 
 ing-place ! " Ah ! a Nazarene did you say. And do you 
 think this great good can come out of Nazareth?" 
 " Shall Christ come out of Galilee ? Cometh he not 
 from Bethlehem of David ?" 
 
 And verily, I can not conceive of any finer parallel 
 than this affords to the present popular arguments 
 against Christianity. 
 
 The Bible comes to man with an amount of evidence 
 as great as, in consistence with man's probationary state 
 
PREJUDICE. 41 
 
 Divine wisdom can give it, the evidence of prophecy, 
 the evidence of miracles, the evidence of its own inherent 
 divinity, and the evidence of its mighty beneficent in- 
 fluences. 
 
 Is the Bible an inspired book? Is Christianity a 
 divine revelation ? This is the question. And hark ! 
 how the universe lifts all voices in attestation. " Yes," 
 cry all material things. For so wonderfully are nature and 
 revelation in analogy, so manifestly counterparts in one 
 great system, autographs of the same Divine hand, that 
 a child's wisdom accords them the same common Au- 
 thor ! " Yes," cries prophecy, pointing to manifold ever 
 fulfilling and fulfilled predictions ! " Yes," cries the 
 yearning soul of man, " for its blessed truths just befit my 
 wants, it instructs my ignorance, it reveals my immor- 
 tality, it purifies my nature, it dries my tears, it woos 
 me from the trifles of time, and wings me for the grand- 
 eurs of eternity ! " Yes," cry supernatural voices. And 
 behold ! stilled seas, and healed diseases, and the risen 
 dead, and revealed angels appear as its witnesses. 
 " Yes," cry the living nations of the earth, quickened by 
 its divine power into life and liberty and joy, "advan- 
 taged every way by the possession of these oracles of 
 God!" "Yes," cry all higher orders of immortal life — 
 angel and archangel, principality and power, singing 
 morning star and shouting Son of God ! " Yes," cries 
 God the Father, so guarding it by his Providence. 
 "Yes," cries God the Son, so magnifying it by his 
 miracles. "Yes," cries God the Holy Ghost, attending 
 it ever in omnipotence from conquering to conquer, 
 until verily there is no true voice in God's universe 
 that gives not glad testimony in behalf of our faith ! 
 
42 PREJUDICE. 
 
 And unto all this, what says the Infidel ? Alas, like 
 Nathaniel by the Jordan, he sets it all aside with a pitiful 
 cavil ! He gets him a glass and looks heavenward, and 
 finding that the sun and stars do not actually revolve 
 around the earth, looks wise, and says, "Aha, Moses 
 does not say any thing about this law of gravitation, 
 surely he was not an inspired man I 1 ' He explores the 
 strata of the earth, and finding a fish's tail in the rock 
 or a monster's vertebrae in sandstone, lays his hand 
 solemnly on his heart, saying, " Moses speaks not of these 
 old fossils. Really this is a tremendous fact against reve- 
 lation." 
 
 He draws a line from ear to nostril on an Ethiop's 
 face, or pulls a lock of hair from an Ethiop's skull, and, 
 wise with all ethnologic gifts and grace, cries, " Ah, me, 
 how many facts there are against revelation !" He runs 
 the line of his reason into the sphere of immensity and 
 eternity ; or flings himself from the rock of faith into 
 the infinite ocean of Godhead, and, finding himself 
 slightly beyond his depth, struggles back, half-drowned 
 but still buoyant in his self-conceit, and because the 
 revelations of God are too large for his logic, would 
 settle the question with portentous deliverance — "Verily 
 I can not comprehend all this, and my arithmetic and 
 logic are both against revelation !" 
 
 Now, before God, this is not caricature. It is a fair 
 representation of infidel objections to Christianity. And 
 I ask if Nathaniel's against Christ had a greater seeming 
 of prejudice? "Can the Christ come out of Nazareth, 
 cometh he not of the seed of David, and out of the 
 town of Bethlehem?" Alas, foolish Israelite! Why, 
 there is not a matronly mother in all the coasts of Beth- 
 
PREJUDICE. 43 
 
 lehem, that can not lead you to the grave of her 
 slaughtered babe, and prove to you by death's dread tes- 
 timony, that your objection is a poor cavil, — that this 
 very Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem. 
 
 And we say as well : Alas, foolish sceptic ! Why 
 there is not one of your sophisms against Christianity 
 which has not been answered so often that a Sunday- 
 school child can meet you for our God, and shame you, 
 if you have shame, of this pitiful dishonesty. 
 
 But you do not need argument. Your infidelity is of 
 the heart ! The poor creature of prejudice ! You cavil 
 at what you know not ! What you want is an honest 
 acquaintance with the Bible and Christianity ! And our 
 only answer to your cavils is that of Philip to Nathaniel, 
 " Come and see " — " Come and see." 
 
 Come as a creature of a glorious nature, feeling within 
 you immortal wants, and immortal aspirations. And 
 putting your shoes off, and bowing down your proud 
 head and heart, stand reverently in the presence of this 
 Book from eternity. Come and see, how God's provi- 
 dence guards it — how God's blessing attends it — how 
 God's great thoughts fill it ! Come ponder its stupen- 
 dous truths, beyond the imagination of angels ! Come 
 adore its heavenly purity, and share its heavenly conso- 
 lation ! Come away from your poor school of unbelief 
 into fellowship with its living actors ! Come walk with 
 Abraham as he walked with God ! Come mount with 
 Elijah in his chariot of fire ! Come stand with Moses 
 on the mount of God ! Come sit with Isaiah while 
 he sweeps his harp ! Come stand with John in his desert 
 isle ! 
 
 Come enter it as a great temple of truth. See how it 
 
44 PREJUDICE. 
 
 seems a divine dwelling ! — a house not made with hands. 
 "What a new world of softness, brightness, grandeur, 
 bursts upon the soul. What glorious pillars and arches of 
 truth ! What pictures of heavenly beauty ! What light 
 of ever-burning lamps ! What heavenly fragrance ! 
 What seraphic voices in the enchanted air ! How man 
 stands dwarfed, humbled. And all the seen, the present, 
 the temporal, seems belittled, passed away, forgotten in 
 the symbolic presence of eternity and God ! 
 
 Come and see it in the glory of its influences, — in the 
 power of its mission over a ruined world ! How chains 
 are broken, and tears dried, and wrongs redressed, and 
 homes made beautiful, and hearts made pure, and intel- 
 lect winged for its highest soarings, and the whole man 
 lifted from degradation to his true dignity, to stand in the 
 midst of a redeemed world, in the glorious freedom 
 which the truth makes free — in the immortal manhood 
 which the truth makes man ! Oh, lay aside for an hour 
 all these prejudices, and that you may understand the 
 Bible as it is — and Christianity as it is — and feel your 
 whole nature purified, and elevated, and blessed by a 
 heavenly fellowship. " Come and see/" — " Come and 
 see ! " 
 
 II. But we have said, this question may have arisen, 
 not from any false reasoning in regard to Christ's birth, 
 but from a popular notion of the wickedness of the 
 Nazarenes. 
 
 Galilee, lying on the boundaries of Gentile nations, was 
 partly inhabited by pagans. And Nazareth, situate in 
 a secluded valley west of Mount Tabor, was the resort 
 of the worthless characters of the province. And, 
 hence, may have arisen this prejudice against Jesus. 
 
PREJUDICE. 45 
 
 If so, alas for Nathaniel's philosophy ! Yielding with- 
 out examination to the power of popular misrepresenta- 
 tion, observe the pitiful character of the objection. Pre- 
 dicted by prophecy, approved by miracle, announced 
 by a heavenly harbinger — yea, even by the descending 
 Theophany, and a divine voice from heaven positively 
 declared to be the Messiah, Christ Jesus, abode by the 
 Jordan, and yet, without even the pretense of an argu- 
 ment, Nathaniel would reject him with the pitiful sneer 
 of the Jewish rabbi. " Ah ! a Nazarene, do you say ; 
 and can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" And 
 how exactly does this illustrate the treatment Chris- 
 tianity receives from the multitude. 
 
 We have seen the weakness of the argument of the 
 speculative unbeliever. But in this case of the practical 
 rejecter there is no pretense of argument. The whole 
 thing rests upon an irrational prejudice. 
 
 Christianity comes to man as a momentous message 
 from eternity, revealing overwhelming truths, involving 
 everlasting interests. It tells him of immortality, of 
 retribution, of a judgment to come, of a state of endless 
 despair, and a world of divine glory. It proclaims sal 
 vation, by sacrifice, and opens to the believing soul the 
 gates of the city and kingdom of God. It does all this 
 with an authority as awful as Jehovah's. It comes with 
 credentials, supernatural and overwhelming. It stauds 
 before men like a crowned creature of eternity, the eyes 
 flashing, the robe radiant, the voice like an angel's. At 
 its bidding, seas are stilled, diseases healed, the heavens 
 darkened at midday, the graves are opened, and the 
 dead arise. It appeals to the human spirit by motives 
 of overwhelming power, urging, beseeching, command- 
 
46 PREJUDICE. 
 
 mg, the imperiled men to give instant heed to the great 
 things of salvation, until verily the apostolic rhetoric is 
 realized. " An embassador from God stands on this 
 revolted world, as if God himself did beseech in Christ's 
 stead, beseeching impenitent men to be reconciled to 
 GodT 
 
 But unto all this what says the thoughtless immortal ? 
 Alas, like Nathaniel, he rejects the truth with a pitiful 
 cant of prejudice ! He says, " Oh ! the Bible is so fall 
 of mysteries?'' As if there were nothing in it beautifully 
 comprehensible ! As if a revelation without mysteries 
 were not a heaven without stars.' As if a poor outcast 
 would not accept the heirship of a kingdom, because 
 he understood not the mysterious crystallization of its' 
 crown-gems ! 
 
 Or, he says, " Oh, there are so many different sects and 
 denominations of Christians /" As if the different flow- 
 ers of the field were an argument against summer, or 
 the many stars of heaven were inconsistent with the 
 truths of astronomy ; as if a famishing garrison in a be- 
 sieged fortress would not accept deliverance at the hands 
 of a conquering host, because divided into battalions and 
 bearing various banners ! Or he says, " Oh, there are so 
 many hypocrites in the Church!" As if one erratic 
 comet in the sky destroyed all the glories of the firma- 
 ment. Or he says, " Oh, religion is such a gloomy sub- 
 ject." As if it could be sorrowful to have heaven for a 
 home, and God for a father ! As if a poor captive in a 
 deep dark dungeon, would recoil from the broad, bright, 
 free world of summer and sunshine ! 
 
 I need not pursue the thought. These, and such as 
 these, are the pleas urged every day against the claims 
 
PREJUDICE. 47 
 
 of the Gospel. And I ask again, if Nathaniel's objection 
 to Christ was more manifestly a mere prejudice? 
 
 " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" Alas, 
 foolish Israelite, " Come and see ! Come and see !" 
 Come and see the descending dove ! Come hear God's 
 loud voice out of heaven ! Come sit at Jesus' feet, and 
 listen to his adorable and heavenly words ! 
 
 Nay, rather, alas, foolish unbeliever! for your cavils 
 are as unfounded and fouler. Prejudiced against Christ 
 and his glorious Gospel ! Then it is because you have 
 not studied them, nor known them. 
 
 Prejudiced against the Christ, the Saviour of sinners, 
 the Son of God ! " Come and see." Come back into 
 eternity, before the world was ! Behold ! there is no 
 time, no material universe, no spiritual universe, no sun 
 shining, no angel singing ! But yet no infinite void ; 
 but an infinite fullness. Behold this Son of God there ! 
 " For the Word mas with God/" Look again. The uni- 
 verse is to be created ; sun and stars ; thrones . and 
 dominion ; angel and archangel. At an Omnific word 
 they spring into being ! And who created them ? This 
 Son of God again— for " The Word was God." Behold 
 again. There is apostasy in that universe. One poor 
 planet breaks from its moral moorings, and sweeps out- 
 ward-bound into darkness ! It must be saved ! How ? 
 Tell us, all ye angels ! Ye can not ! " Come and see." 
 Upon the face of that imperiled world appeax-s a Being 
 from Eternity ! " one traveling in the greatness of his 
 strength, mighty to save." This Son of God again. "For 
 the Word icas made flesh, and dwelt among us, and ice 
 beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the 
 Father, full of grace and truth." Mighty to save ! But 
 
48 PREJUDICE. 
 
 how ? Oh, by sacrifice — by suffering — bearing our sins for 
 us! "Come and see!" Behold a feeble babe in a man- 
 ger! a man forlorn and tempted in the wilderness ! And 
 now in the gloomy garden his sweat as great drops of 
 blood in that ineffable agony ! And now on that cross — 
 that dread mount of expiation ! And all this that the 
 world might be saved ; that you might be saved ! 
 " Come and see !" Ah me ! what love ! Beyond thought, 
 beyond degree ! " Herein is love." Any good thing 
 out of Nazareth? — " Come and see f" — " Come and 
 see /" 
 
 Or, if you are of those who pretend to admire the 
 Christ, yet personally reject his Gospel, as a worthless 
 thing, then come and look at Christianity as working 
 out man's happiness ! 
 
 Surely, while he dwelt with men on the earth, Christ's 
 ministry was blessed ! Come and see — That multitude fed 
 in the wilderness ! That stormy sea of Galilee calmed 
 into stillness as his divine feet walked it ! That funeral 
 train at the gate of Nain ! stopped by a glorious formj 
 and the beloved son pressed again to the mother's joyous 
 heart. Surely, all this was blessed ! And yet this but 
 imperfectly emblemizes the goodness unto the believer 
 of Christ's spiritual consolations. 
 
 " Any thing good out of Nazareth ?" " Come and 
 see." 
 
 Take me by the hand, and walk through the streets 
 of your city. Come into this poor court — into this for- 
 lorn chamber! Behold this sick old man, lying on his 
 hard pallet ; by his side a crust of bread, a cup of cold 
 water. Alas, he was comfortable once ! — a wife who 
 loved him, children who honored him ! But they have 
 
PREJUDICE. 49 
 
 gone to the grave, and lie seems forlorn and friendless! 
 But what is he doing? Reading his Bible! And when 
 I say, " My old friend, this is hard for yon !" his response 
 is, " Hard ! oh, no ; I do not suffer as my Saviour suffered. 
 I was just reading it: ' The foxes have holes, and the 
 birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not 
 where to lay his head.'' Oh, Jesus suffered every thing 
 for me; can not I suffer any thing for Jesus? Oh, I 
 have this blessed Bible, and whenever I open it, it is as 
 if a shining angel talked to me out of heaven. My poor 
 chamber seems heaven's gate, and I am happy — so 
 happy !" Yes, matchless comforting of the Redeemer. 
 " Come and see'''' — " Gome and see." 
 
 Behold, again, in yonder dwelling, a young mother 
 sits watching by the coffin of her first-born child ! See, 
 her cheek is stained with tears ! She has been pressing 
 her lip to that cold forehead, and twining her fingers in 
 that silken hair ! Alas ! who knoweth the power of a 
 bereaved mother's sorrow ? Her child will never smile 
 on her again ! — never say, " Mother," " mother," again. 
 And who can comfort her ? Who ? Why, Christ has 
 comforted her. Hark to her words : " Oh, he said it, my 
 gracious Saviour said it — ' /Suffer little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the king- 
 dom of heaven /' Yes, my babe has gone to heaven; 
 my lamb is in the Shepherd's bosom ! There, in the pas- 
 tures so green, by the waters so tranquil." Oh, precious 
 Gospel-comforting. " Come and see " — " Come and see." 
 
 Behold, again ! A home of sorrowing love — a fair 
 young girl passing away in agony, surrounded by all 
 that can make life blessed ; the idol of parents, and sis- 
 ters, and adoring friends ; like a bird pierced by the 
 
50 PREJUDICE. 
 
 archer's arrow, just as, with joyous wings and song, it 
 was mounting to the morning sun. So in the freshness 
 of life and love and joy, hath the destroyer's breath 
 fallen on its beautiful victim. Alas, alas ! She to die, in 
 the gladness of her youth, in the glory of her promise ! 
 She to turn aside from the green earth, and laughing 
 sky, and lie down with the winding-sheet and the worm 
 in the dark, pitiless sepulchre ! How can she bear it ? 
 How can she be comforted ? How ? " Come and see." 
 See how her eye sparkles ! Hark to her faith-inspired 
 words ! " Oh, sister, father, mother, do not weep for me. 
 It is sad to part from you ; but we shall meet again in 
 heaven. And I am going to be with Christ, to see the 
 divine glory, to walk the golden streets, to dwell in the 
 many mansions. Oh, do you not see them, these shining 
 ones ? And there, those gates of glory ! Oh, weep not. 
 Rather sing — sing : — 
 
 " ' The world recedes, it disappears, 
 Heaven opens on my eyes, my ears 
 
 With sounds seraphic ring. 
 Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly — 
 grave, where is thy victory I 
 O Death, where is thy sting 1' " 
 
 Oh, blessed comforting of Christ ! any thing good out 
 of Nazareth ? — " Come and see " — " Come and see.'''' 
 
 Oh, away with your prejudices ! This world, and 
 heaven, and time, and eternity, are filled with living wit- 
 nesses to the unspeakable goodness of " the truth as it is 
 in Jesus." God hath not given to a poor worm, the 
 power to speak fitly of such things, things unseen, un- 
 heard, unutterable, which are prepared in the Gospel for 
 those that love God. But if I could do it — if I could 
 
PREJUDICE. 51 
 
 show you how like visiting angels this Gospel comes to 
 comfort and gladden — how it dries every tear, and 
 assuages every anguish, and hangs a heavenly lamp at 
 the lowliest lintel — and hushes every storm on life's 
 troubled waters, and brings angels to the death-bed, and 
 makes radiant the grave ! Yea, more ! If I could tell 
 you how it prepares man for immortality ! How it 
 meets the soul, as it casts off the burden of the flesh, and 
 clothes it in heavenly robes, and indues it with heavenly 
 faculties, and bears it to heavenly places — through the 
 gates of pearl, along the streets of the golden city, 
 through the opening ranks of cherubim and seraphim, to 
 sit down in the midst of the Throne of God — a sharer 
 in Christ's triumph, as a sharer in his suffering — a 
 king and a priest unto God, amid all and over all the 
 high things of immensity and eternity ! 
 
 Oh, if I could do this, then never again would you turn 
 away in scorn from him who dwelt in Nazareth ! 
 
 But this I can not do. "We have this treasure in 
 earthen vessels ;" " we see through a glass darkly ;" we 
 can but point you to evidence, and tell you of experience. 
 And this, alas, is not enough. You hate the heavenly 
 light because your deeds are evil. Like dazed sea-birds 
 in a stormy night, you dash yourselves to death against 
 the very crystal through which streams the blessed 
 light of the beacon ! A thousand times as now have 
 you sat in heavenly places — here in God's house, 
 heaven's very gate — heard the joyous voices — seen 
 the radiant visions, and yet, gone away despising them. 
 Gone away as you will to-day, with the Jew's pitiful 
 question — "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" 
 — when God's whole universe utters the gracious invita- 
 
52 PREJUDICE. 
 
 tion ; the sun and stars uttering it — the living and 
 the dead uttering it — the mortal and immortal uttering it 
 — angel and archangel uttering it — God the Father, and 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost uttering it — uttering it 
 tenderly and terribly, gentle as the whisper of a seraph, 
 and loud as the sound of many waters, — God's great call 
 to his imperiled creature. " Come and See " — " Come 
 and See "' 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 " At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, and said 
 unto his servants, This is John the Baptist, he is risen from the dead; 
 and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him." — Matthew, 
 xiv. 1, 2. 
 
 Tins text is no part of revelation. It is only the 
 record of an infidel falsehood ; and inspiration is con- 
 cerned with it only as guiding aright the pen of the 
 historian, and giving ns assurance that the unbeliev- 
 ing Herod certainly uttered these words. But as an 
 infidel utterance it commends itself to all infidels, as 
 worthy their serious regard and full of practical in- 
 struction. 
 
 They should learn here, at least, these three things : — ■ 
 That practical unbelief distrusts itself, disavows itself 
 and punishes itself 
 
 First. All such unbelief like HerocVs, distrusts itself 
 Scepticism is never wholly satisfied with its own 
 creed ; never rests confidently on its own reasonings. 
 So it was with Herod. As a Saddncee he rejected 
 the doctrine of the Resurrection, whether of angel or 
 spirit. And yet, suddenly startled from his self-pos- 
 session by an alarm of conscience, he is seen in the 
 text to affirm strongly the truth whose denial was 
 
54 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 fundamental to his system ! And herein is illustrated 
 the usual, perhaps universal distrust of unbelief in its 
 own tenets. Being at best a system of negations, it 
 affords no ground of confidence. It does not even 
 attempt to disprove the great truths of the Resurrection 
 and Eternal Retribution, — and its denial evidently con- 
 sists with an apprehension that these doctrines may 
 be true. The simple fact that Infidelity, while silently 
 tolerating all forms of heathenism, is ever attacking 
 Christianity, is in proof that it fears its great truths. 
 And the ever-recurring fact has passed into a proverb — 
 that infidels are, of all men, most afraid of death, and most 
 superstitious, indeed, generally. Sincere faith is serene, 
 self-possessed, reliant. The traveler on the king's high- 
 way walks calmly and confidently, because he feels 
 that his feet are on adamant; while he, in a marsh or 
 a quicksand, is all restless and excited through his dis- 
 trust of the road. This very vaj)oring of unbelief in 
 behalf of its tenets is significant of insincerity. The 
 man who says, " all men will be saved," shows by his 
 eagerness for controversy that he feels not quite sure 
 of it. Call it what you will, and account for it as you 
 may, there is in every heart an instinct of retribution ; 
 and ever and anon it conjures from the unknown future 
 shadowy forms before which the heart recoils and the 
 knees smite together. And quite certain I am, that I 
 address no unbeliever so thoroughly persuaded of his 
 infidelity that he is never appalled by a misgiving. 
 
 The man may meet me with great swelling words 
 about priestcraft and superstition, and may utter elo- 
 quent declamations that the Bible is a lie, and death is 
 annihilation; yet, I know that he looks upon that Bible 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 55 
 
 with a fear, and passes that grave with misgivings; 
 that in many an hour of solitude and silence voices of 
 alarm are loud in his soul, and phantoms from eternity 
 move fearfully before him ! For all unbelief is of " the 
 leaven of Herod," and he stands before us in the text a 
 true type of his kind. Only yesterday the haughty 
 Tetrarch — that he might quiet his conscience in his ways 
 of iniquity, went forth as the chieftain of Sadducean 
 infidelity, loudly denying the fact, yea, even the possi- 
 bility of a Resurrection. And yet, to-day, we see him 
 startled out of his pretentious confidence by a story of 
 Christ's miracles — practically confessing the insincerity 
 of his words with pale face and trembling limbs and 
 quivering lip, proclaiming — "It is John the JJcfptist. 
 He is risen from the dead !" 
 
 Passing this, observe, secondly — That all unbelief, 
 like Herod's, not only distrusts itself, but often, and in 
 the end, almost always disavows itself! 
 
 It may clamor against the hard things of revelation, as 
 opposed to its instincts and its reason ; yet, will ever 
 and anon make practical confession that they seem not 
 unreasonable. This is strikingly exhibited in this 
 history of Herod. 
 
 Confessedly among all the things in revelation, hard 
 to understand, and hard to believe, this doctrine of the 
 Resurrection, even by the teaching of Christ, stands 
 first. It is certainly a doctrine not discoverable by 
 reason. Xature has nothing to suggest, nothing, indeed, 
 analogous to its marvels. The fair flower from the seed 
 — the winged insect from the crysalis — these common 
 illustrations of the Resurrection fail in one and the 
 essential point. They were not dead, though they 
 
56 INSINCERE UNBEIIEF. 
 
 seemed so. And before they have any power in the 
 argument, we must be shown some germ of vegetable 
 or animal life, ground into powder, and scattered by the 
 winds, unto which summer and sunshine return re- 
 sjatherimj the material, and recreating the life. 
 
 We have indeed no controversy with those who 
 maintain the mystery ; yea, the positive unnaturalness 
 of this great doctrine. It is wisest to regard it as a pure 
 doctrine of revelation. All we insist on, as illustrated 
 by the case of Herod, is, that when once revealed it is 
 reasonable to accept it. It is a marvelous truth, un- 
 questionably, this truth of the Resurrection ! For six 
 thousand yearti there has gone on this destruction of 
 our species. The babe, the mother, the gray-haired 
 man, have gone down in countless millions to the great 
 burial ! Dust, human dust it is, and that onee reddened 
 in the lip and sparkled in the eye and bounded in the 
 pulses, that to-day is blown about by the winds, and 
 washed away by the waters, and trampled under foot 
 of living men, until this fair world, rounded into 
 beauty and hung amid the stars, as the blessed home 
 of God's man-child, shows dark and appalling as his 
 Golgotha and his grave ! And yet over all this ruin 
 of dead generations, there is to break a life-giving 
 summons : and atom shall come to its fellow atom, and 
 bone to its fellow bone, and bursting the long bondage 
 of the grave, they shall come forth covering the sea, 
 and covering the land, all the millions of earth's 
 buried population. 
 
 It is a great and difficult conception in regard of the 
 race, nor scarcely less difficult in regard of the individual. 
 The beloved one may have died and been buried by 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 57 
 
 stranger-hands amid polar snows or tropic sands — or may 
 have gone down into the depth of seas, or been burned 
 in tierce fires, and the ashes scattered as the dust of a 
 furnace ! Nevertheless that dust shall live again ! The 
 hour comes when that eye again shall flash and that 
 heart bound, and just as it stood before us, face to face, 
 a mysterious creature — a spirit wedded to dead matter, 
 will the spoiled and conquered grave give it back to the 
 ministries of another and an endless life ! 
 
 Now these, we grant you, are strange and difficult 
 conceptions. Nevertheless they are not incredible. Nay, 
 they are altogether philosophic and rational when we 
 are once advised that such is God's great purpose 
 in regard of our race. " Why should it be thought 
 incredible that God should raise the dead ?" Is there 
 after all any thing more wonderful in the Resurrec- 
 tion than in the creation of the race ? I look around, 
 andlo! ten thousand marvelous organisms are filling 
 the landscape with exulting life ! I lift my eye to the 
 firmament, and behold ! its immensity is crowded with 
 stupenduous architecture ! And whose are all these 
 wonderful works? Who peopled all these fields of 
 space ? Who kindled these great fires of the firmament ? 
 Why, God — God ! And can this God then be baffled 
 and over-matched by this marvel. of the Resurrection? 
 Ah, no, no ! In ascribing the Resurrection alone to 
 Divine Wisdom and Power the Bible brings the " hard 
 thing" within the conditions of the rational, the logical. 
 It is only another marvel amid the great universe of 
 marvels that surround us and press upon us. And the 
 reason does not rightfully reject it, nor the instinct recoil 
 from it. 
 
 3* 
 
58 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 And I say this fact is most strikingly exhibited in the 
 text. As we see Herod, a man reared in unbelief, and 
 hardened in all iniquity, yet, brought face to face with 
 the divine workings in the person of the Divine Son, and 
 forced out of his pretentions cavils against things hard 
 to be understood — asserting, as something altogether 
 philosophic and probable, "This is John the Baptist — 
 he is risen from the dead." 
 
 Yea, and the text's illustration on this point goes 
 much further. It shows, not only that the Resurrection 
 is a reasonable doctrine, but that all the Bible teaches as 
 to the effects of that Resurrection upon its subjects is as 
 icell reasonable and philosophic. 
 
 These teachings may be embraced in two particulars — 
 the positive identity, and the greatly enlarged powers and 
 faculties of the Risen Immortal. 
 
 1st. The Bible affirms this identity. The creature 
 raised from the grave is to be the same creature who 
 goes down into it. Death has no power to destroy or 
 alter human nature. It can not annihilate a single fac- 
 ulty or function of the species. It can obliterate no 
 memory. It can weaken no affection ! Have I laid a 
 beloved one into the grave — a brother, a sister, a friend, 
 a child ? Why then, sister, and brother, and child, and 
 friend, must the grave give them back to me ! So Revela- 
 tion teaches. Said our Lord to the sisters of Bethany, 
 " Your brother shall rise again.'''' Not a stranger-spirit, 
 forgetful of the past, unsympathizing with the present, 
 unassociated in all the future, but a man to walk all the 
 great paths of immortality, bearing the same lineaments, 
 the same affections, yea, the same endeared name ; still 
 " a brother." 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 59 
 
 And whatever difficulties there may seem, a priori, in 
 this perpetuity of these mortal affections, God is surely 
 competent to their removal. And such perpetuity falls 
 in with our philosophic expectations, as we see in the 
 text. Herod heard of a being walking the world whom 
 he believed to have risen from the dead — to have under- 
 gone all the mysterious processes of death and the Resur- 
 rection. And he says, " It is " — what ? a spirit ? a phan- 
 tom ? a creature unlike the mortal John whom he had 
 beheaded? Oh, no. But as if the very man, with all 
 his memories of sufferings and persecutions, with the 
 same nature, yea, the same name, had returned as an 
 avenger. He says, " It is John. It is John the Baptist. 
 He is risen from the dead!" 
 
 2d. The Bible teaches, that along with this identity, 
 the raised body shall possess powers and faculties very 
 greatly enlarged. 
 
 To the question, " How are the dead raised, and xoith 
 what body do they come?'''' 
 
 It answers, — 
 
 "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption." 
 It shall have in it no principle of decay, but shall go 
 forth as the soul itself, immutable and immortal. 
 
 "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.' 1 '' — Xo 
 longer a degraded organism, to be kept under dust, cru- 
 cified, but of all God's visible works most beautiful and 
 stately — that redeemed body as it mounts to the skies ! 
 
 " It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power" — No 
 longer subject to infirmity or exhaustion, but sinewed to 
 walk with the angels the great paths of immortality, and 
 to bear unburdened even that " far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory." 
 
60 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual 
 body." — No longer a fetter and confinement of the in- 
 dwelling spirit, but the body itself so etherealized out of 
 mere natural conditions as to walk upon the waters, and 
 career upon the winds, in the fashion and with the 
 power of Christ's own glorious Body. 
 
 Thus speaks God's Word of the great marvel of the 
 Resurrection ; and surely in all this there is nothing un- 
 philosophic. Natural analogies go far to illustrate it. 
 We cast into the earth the unshapely seed, and it bursts 
 forth a flower, radiantly beautiful. The worm dies in its 
 winding-sheet, and, breaking its dark cerement, there 
 springs forth, on rainbow-colored wings, a joyous wan- 
 derer through the heavens ! 
 
 We expect, almost instinctively, that, if there be a 
 resurrection, its subject will become vastly more power- 
 ful and glorious, when " this mortal shall have put on 
 immortality. " 
 
 Thus even did Herod, with all his pretentious unbelief. 
 The living John did no miracle. His ministry on earth 
 was in the manifestation of no extraordinary powers. 
 And the Tetrarch looked scornfully upon his unpretend- 
 ing work, and slew him, without a fear, in his prison 
 But the moment he thinks of him as the subject of the 
 Resurrection, he is startled, as at the coming of one sa- 
 pernaturally gifted. They tell him of a mysterious visit- 
 ant, walking among men in the exercise of tremendous 
 miraculous powers, and his philosophic solution of the 
 marvel is — " These mighty works do show forth them- 
 selves in him." Why? Because he is John the Baptist ? 
 Surely not ; for the living John neither healed diseases, 
 nor cast out devils. But " these mighty works do show 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 61 
 
 themselves in him," because he is John the Baptist — 
 
 RISEN PROM THE DEAD ! 
 
 We say, therefore, that herein is strikingly exhibited 
 the not uncommon fact, that these men, ever clamoring 
 against " the hard things of revelation, are ever making 
 manifest their instinctive belief of them. Indeed, there 
 is in human nature something instantly responding to 
 the voices of revelation. The Bible does precisely what 
 we should expect it to do, as an oracle of Gotl. It appeals 
 to a faculty of our nature (which has properly been 
 termed "the spiritual, or faith-faculty), which accepts its 
 truth, not logically, but as by instinctive apprehension. 
 
 And it is by reason of this, that unlearned and weak- 
 minded Christians do maintain their faith so grandly 
 against all the assaults of philosophic infidelity. They 
 can not argue for the truth, but they can apprehend it. 
 And this natural moral sense exists originally in all men. 
 The Bible never came to a human spirit that did not at 
 some time respond to its felt truthfulness. The man may, 
 indeed, in his love of iniquity, harden himself against its 
 truths, and set himself to disprove them ; yea, lift up his 
 voice loudly and confidently in their denunciation, as 
 hard things, and unreasonable things, and positively ab- 
 surd things, until the world regards him as a thoroughly 
 confirmed and sincere unbeliever. Nevertheless, there are 
 chords in that man's moral nature that, like an iEolian's 
 to the winds of heaven, respond, ever and anon, to the 
 influences of inspiration. And, often consciously to him- 
 self, and sometimes obviously to others, his unbelief, like 
 the Tetrarclfs, first distrusts, and then disavows itself. 
 And, if I speak to such to-day — to men who have so 
 given themselves up to infidel arguments, and so com- 
 
02 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 niitted themselves to infidel companionships, as to be 
 regarded as absolutely rooted and grounded in unbelief, 
 and to have never a thought of God, or a care for eter- 
 nity ; yet, if they have ever read their Bibles at all, so 
 that its despised truths rise sometimes in the mind, linked 
 with the memory of the parent, or sister, or child, or 
 friend, who died, calmly relying on God's inspired prom- 
 ises, then sure I am that, under all this outward hardi- 
 hood, as a living well-spring amid the tangled growths 
 of a forest, faith yet keeps open a troubled fountain — 
 that those wayward feet recoil at times from the terrible 
 glooms, and would fain turn unto the transcendent glories 
 of eternity; and that all these truths of God's Word 
 which they ridicule as absurd things and foolish, do, in 
 their better moments, seem altogether probable, and ra- 
 tional, and wise. For I know that all these men are of 
 the type of this Tetrarch, whose rank was a very chief- 
 tain of practical and speculative unbelief, and yet whose 
 earnest disavowal of his own unbelief — yea, whose un- 
 bribed testimony to the rationality of the very truths 
 he denied, is recorded in his outcry in the text — " This 
 is John the Baptist, he is risen from the dead!" 
 
 Passing this, observe, thirdly — That all such unbelief 
 like Herod's positively punishes itself. 
 
 We have said that the Tetrarch rooted and grounded 
 himself in the Sadduceeans' infidelity in order that he might 
 quiet his conscience in ways of iniquity. » And yet by 
 that very violence done to his moral sense he was arming 
 it as a terrible avenger. Having rid himself of all fear 
 of God, and all principles of virtue, he gave himself 
 without restraint to all evil and cruel pleasures, and 
 when, commissioned of God, John broke in upon his 
 
IXSI.XCERE UNBELIEF. 63 
 
 ungodliness with his stern presence and awful voice, 
 Herod east him into prison and Blew him. And then 
 turned again to his evil courses with an exulting confi- 
 dence that no other voice would ever dare to raise itself 
 in his path of selfish and guilty gladness. But alas he 
 did not understand then, as at the last, God's great law 
 of retribution. 
 
 Conscience! Conscience! It was itself a Resurrection- 
 power within. him! — There came at last a season of re- 
 pose to his overwrought passions. Herod is feasting 
 with his train in imperial pavilions. They discourse of 
 the fame of Jesus. They tell him of a mysterious Man 
 walking amid the cities and villages of the land, gifted, 
 seemingly, with the powers of higher and immortal 
 beings ! Of stilled seas, and healed diseases, and the 
 dead raised unto life ! 
 
 And look at the Tetrarch now ! His cheek pale, his 
 lip quivering, his wild eye glaring upon vacancy ! He 
 starts from his couch ! The wine cup drops from his 
 hand ! as he whispers with white lips — " It is John the 
 Baptist — he is risen from the dead!'''' 
 
 Ah me ! "What aileth the Tetrarch there amid princes 
 and nobles ? John the Baptist sleeps still in his distant 
 grave. But a simple thought long buried within his 
 murderer's soul hath been unsepulchred ! He thought 
 to silence the living voice of God's prophet, but that 
 voice in the dark chambers of his soul will wake echoes 
 forever ! He thought to dismiss from his presence that 
 stern, reproachful face ! But he only rendered it omni- 
 present and immortal ! And it will come to him — it 
 will come — that whisper of the dead — that shape of the 
 departed ! Let him go forth amid life's bustle and hurri- 
 
64 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 cane. Let him surround himself with silken courtiers or 
 mailed men of war. Let him retire into the secret places 
 of his palace, and bar the door, and draw the thick 
 curtain! Nevertheless, within his own spirit he carries 
 the avenger! The tormentor of the guilty will he ever 
 beside him ! A cry as of a dying man will fill all the 
 air! A dissevered head upon a charger will rise before 
 him as if chiseled in adamant ! A bloodless face and 
 glazing eye will look upon him from curtain and canopy ! 
 And his own lip will quiver, and his knees smite to- 
 gether, and a voice like one of God's terrible oracles will 
 be crying ever in his ear — "It is John the Baptist — he is 
 risen from the dead!'''' 
 
 Here then we say is a striking illustration of the power 
 of a roused conscience, as God's avenger of sin. And 
 we commend it especially to that class of men who find 
 their representative in Herod. Against this doctrine of 
 Retribution the whole infidel and ungodly world has 
 ever arrayed itself. Nor is this a marvel ! " These 
 shall go away into everlasting punishment!" Ah, these 
 are terrible words. And at first view it does seem to the 
 carnal heart a disproportioned penalty — eternal punish- 
 ment for temporal transgression ! But this is a false 
 seeming. It is not endless sufl'ering for an ended sin. 
 The spirit goes on sinning into eternity, and so suffers 
 forever because it sins forever ! 
 
 I have no room nor necessity here for an argument for 
 Retribution. I have only to do with this natural illus- 
 tration. I am not prophesying what God will do, but 
 only showing what man himself does ! It is a favorite 
 postulate, even of the infidel philosophy, that no im- 
 pression once made on the thinking principle is ever 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 65 
 
 obliterated. And it lias doubtless happened unto you 
 all to observe, how some trifling thing — a remark in 
 conversation — the view of a familiar landscape — a strain 
 of some long forgotten harmony — yea, a thing so 
 slight as the rustle of a falling leaf, or the breath of 
 a flower's perfume — has awakened in the mind a long 
 train of recollections; — thoughts long forgotten move 
 again powerfully within us. We are borne away sud- 
 denly to other scenes, we live virtually in other times 
 and other conditions. The magic of memory has 
 summoned from the past, shadowy forms, faces, voices, 
 it may be of the dead ! They rise upon us, they move 
 before us, as life's great realities, and for the time we 
 are under their mysterious power, as our angels or 
 avengers ! 
 
 Now, whether or not conscience be but a modification 
 of memory, certain we are it follows the same great law. 
 Conscience, too, may be beguiled for a season of its 
 avenging power. You may sear it with hot passion or 
 drug it with ungodly indulgence. But this you can not 
 do — you can not destroy it — you can not permanently 
 dethrone it — you can not, in the end, weaken one of the 
 tremendous blows it is armed to strike, nor hush one 
 of the terrible oracles it is eloquent to utter ! The hour 
 and the scene of its sure vengeance is coming. There 
 are conditions wherein your control over the conscience 
 ceases forever ! 
 
 In that hour when shackle and scale fall together 
 from the immortalized-mortal, every mprisoned thought 
 within shall partake of the enfranchisement, and then 
 conscience, aroused from its slumber, with iron foot and 
 lash of scorpions, shall stalk in wierd power through the 
 
66 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 chambers of the soul, summoning back from the grave 
 the shapes and spectres of the past; 
 
 And this is the thought we would force upon the con- 
 sideration of these modern Ilerodians ! This is a sermon 
 preached, not by an inspired apostle, but by a progres- 
 sive infidel ! And if you will not listen to John the Bap- 
 tist as he preaches of " Repentance" listen at least to 
 Herod the Tetrarch as he preaches of the Resurrection ! 
 
 You may be of those who laugh at the idea of a hell, 
 and denounce as positively malignant all those inspired 
 oracles which speak of "the undying worm," and " the 
 smoke of the torment" — yet you are not accustomed 
 either to deny or ignore these laws of your own intellect- 
 ual and moral nature — this strange power of conscience. 
 You have sometimes felt its omnipotence ! It may have 
 been slightly, and but for a moment ! In some move- 
 ment of the dance, in some swell of the music, in spine 
 pouring of the wine, it may have startled you tran- 
 siently, and then slept again ! But know you not what 
 you felt ? A fitful thought ? a flitting emotion ? A 
 voice like an ./Eolian's, born and dying with the wind ? 
 Was that all ? Alas, no ! It was the germ of a terrible 
 and immortal life and growth. It was the first touch of 
 a fang that shall rend as a ravening lion's. It was the 
 first tongue of a devouring fire that shall flame out 
 intolerable forever ! 
 
 Mark me — (for on such a point, standing face to face 
 with the awful words in this Book of God, I will not be 
 misunderstood on a point so momentous) — mark me, 
 I do not say, that this conscience is all there is in retri- 
 bution. Even in the case of Herod, while he abode 
 among men, this was not all — for the awful, record is — 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 67 
 
 thus even as lac sat enthroned as a god in royal apparel, 
 " the angel of the Lord smote him, and he was eaten of 
 worms, and gave up the ghost." All this was in the 
 llosh ! And what his poor self destroyed spirit ex- 
 perienced as it sprang disembodied to eternity, no mor- 
 tal may know. 
 
 As there are on earth dungeons of thick gloom, and 
 nights of terrible darkness, so those things may have 
 beyond the grave their great antitypes. There may be 
 an extraneous ministry of torment in the dwellings of 
 Heaven's outcasts ! There may be Avails of fiery ada- 
 mant, and sackcloth of hair — and awful forms stalking 
 through the glooms of the " outer darkness !" These 
 denunciations of the wrath of God, which fill all those 
 pages of inspiration may have a positive and an over- 
 whelming significance. Of such things my text leads me 
 not to speak. But of this we may be sure that if there 
 were no room in God's fair universe for any of these 
 terrible things, yet there is room in that universe for 
 sin's fitting and fearful retribution ! 
 
 F^or this is even the teaching of your own infidelity. 
 It is not Moses, nor David, nor Paid, nor John ; but it 
 is Herod, the enthroned chieftain of your own mocking 
 unbelief, who to-day tells you — that if God should sweep 
 omnipotently away that great prison-house of despair, and 
 quench its consuming fires, and hush its mighty thunder- 
 ings — nevertheless, you, by the iniquities of your daily 
 lives, would rear again those walls, and light again the 
 fires, and launch again the thunders ! 
 
 Sin, sin it is, as an operative principle within you, 
 that, by arming conscience with an eye of fire and whip 
 of scorpions, gives to the "worm" its fang, and to the 
 
68 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 "fires" their fierceness. Believe, if you will, that God 
 is too merciful to make a hell. Yet you know, for you 
 have seen, that every sinful man is making it. You 
 have stood by the couch of the inebriate, when the wild 
 madness was on him ; or by the murderer, when he 
 moved and moaned in his fearful dream ! It may have 
 been in some beautiful home of love, in some pleasant 
 chamber filled with summer sunshine and the fragrance 
 of bright flowers. But the man of violence was con- 
 vulsed in his slumber, as if the pale face of his dead 
 victim rose ever before him ; and the drunkard sprang 
 up with glaring eye, to wrestle with the monsters that 
 pressed upon him to torture ! And yet, all these tor- 
 mentors were not creatures made by God, but the man's 
 own creations — the projections of his own evil thoughts 
 into great outward realities ! 
 
 This is the law of man's moral nature, and under it 
 you are all working out your own retribution. You are 
 doing it always, each one for himself. 
 
 Ye lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God ! — com- 
 pelling your immortal affections downward from the 
 bosom of Infinite Love to embrace the dead spectres of 
 sinful delights — alas ! you are drinking of the cup of a 
 dreadful delirium. You are sharpening the tooth of the 
 undying worm, and fanning the fires of the unquenchable 
 burning ! Ye men hastening to be rich in violation of 
 God's commandments, filling the chambers of the immor- 
 tal soul with corruptible silver and gold, so that there is 
 no room therein for the grander things of eternity, — alas ! 
 you are but filling your bosoms with a ponderous dust 
 that shall sink you in drowning agony when your immor- 
 tal bark founders ! 
 
INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 69 
 
 Ye men of sinful ambition, weaving out of these 
 earthly thorns chaplets that pierce the very brows made 
 to wear heaven's shining diadems, — alas ! ye are but 
 rearing out of the ruin of your immortal hopes a fiery 
 throne, whereon an infernal despot shall lift over you 
 forever a sceptre of torment! 
 
 This, tliis my text tells you. Oh, take its truths 
 home with you. If ye will not hear Moses and the 
 prophets, listen at least to Herod, the great infidel! 
 
 Oh, thou imperial ruler in that oriental palace — Herod 
 crowned and throned — who in that path of guilty glad- 
 ness hast driven your proud chariot over the headless 
 body of God's murdered servant, tell us ! tell these care- 
 less, impenitent souls — these dear children that in wicked 
 Avays are crucifying parental love ! — these exulting youth, 
 that madly freight these poor bubbles of pleasure with 
 their pearls of great price ! — these men and women, who 
 sport with life and soul and immortality, as babes with 
 the baubles they break ! Oh, tell us all, if it needs God's 
 arbitrary and avenging omnipotence to give to the worm 
 its sting, and to the fire its burning? Speak out fully, 
 here and now, the secret of the text's strange utterance ! 
 Tell us if your dreams were fair and bright on that im- 
 perial couch of sin ! Tell us if there came to your palace- 
 halls no avenging phantom from yonder prison-cell ! Tell 
 us if it rose not ever up at your board and your banquet, 
 that grim " head upon a charger !" Tell us if you heard 
 not, amid all the music of your royal minstrels, that 
 death-cry of the murdered John ! Tell us if you saw it 
 not ever in throne-room and banquet-hall, as if cut in 
 eternal marble — that headless body of God's prophet ! 
 
 Tell us if yours was an armed guard, or a marble wall, 
 
70 INSINCERE UNBELIEF. 
 
 or an iron portal, that could shut away from your inner 
 chamber that spectral and unbidden guest! Tell us if 
 you piled on the Baptist's lonely grave a weight of 
 mountains that could keep the dead man down when the 
 sorceress — conscience — waved her wand and muttered 
 her enchantments ! 
 
 Nay — you have told us. You do tell us this day — here 
 in this simple yet most solemn story ! 
 
 We see it — a palace opened for festival, flooded with 
 light, music, fragrance — bright forms crossing its thresh- 
 old, the gathering of prince and noble to joyous and 
 kingly revel. And now, as the wine sparkles, and the 
 music breathes, and the incense burns, we hear soft voices 
 speaking wonderingly of the glorious deeds of a mighty 
 stranger in Galilee — in words more enchanting than the 
 idyls of the harpers — telling of demons conquered, and 
 diseases healed, and the dead raised unto new life — of the 
 advent of a Divine One to redeem a lost race, and restore 
 the old Paradise. But while every other eye flashes, and 
 every other heart bounds in wondering delight, behold 
 the Tetrarch ! What aileth him in that hour of triumph ? 
 That brow, pale under its chaplets — those joints loosed 
 under the kingly purple — that eye strained, glaring as 
 upon some terrible phantom — those arms outstretched, as 
 if to repel some fiery shape from eternity ! 
 
 And what means it? Alas ! only this. What the un- 
 believer thought God could not do, he hath done for 
 himself. He hath wrought out retribution ! He hath 
 achieved a Resurrection ! The grave hath sent an unbid- 
 den guest to the murderer's banquet ! " It is John the 
 Baptist — he is risen from the dead." 
 
THE GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 " And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth 
 say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let 
 him take the water of life freely." — Eevelation, xxii. 17. 
 
 There is unquestionably such a thing as too much 
 exposition of the Sacred Scriptures. Addressed by 
 Jehovah to a race unused in the main to critical and 
 metajmysical investigations, the Bible is written in lan- 
 guage so simple and familiar, that the wayfaring man, 
 though a fool, need not err in its understanding. And 
 very much of its beauty and force is weakened by every 
 attempt to simplify and illustrate it. 
 
 This is true of our text. It is a scripture whereon 
 learned exposition might ingeniously be bestowed ; and 
 yet the result of such exposition be but an injury. Read 
 just as it stands in its connections, and the Sabbath- 
 school child understands it to be — Chris? s Gospel call 
 unto all men to come to him and he saved. 
 
 The metaphor is Oriental, yet its meaning is apparent 
 and most simple — Christ the Great Saviour is repre- 
 sented as a Fountain, opened in Life's wilderness, around 
 which rise innumerable voices of invitation : the " Spir- 
 its " (i. e. God's) voices, in the Bible, in Providence, in 
 Divine influences: the '■'■Bride's'''' (i. e. the Church's) 
 
72 THE GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 voices, from her ministers, her members, her ordinances; 
 the voices, moreover, of all creatures who have seen the 
 living water and the thirsting multitude — all these voices 
 rise in one loud and loving invitation " to take the water 
 of life freely." 
 
 The text assumes two things, and teaches two things. 
 
 First, it assumes — TJiat man by nature is in a perish- 
 iny condition. He is represented here as a traveler in a 
 desert, imperiled with deadly thirst. And in this it 
 only reiterates a truth taught abundantly by man's 
 natural conscience and the whole "Word of God. That 
 man is by nature a lost sinner, is indeed involved in the 
 very existence of the Bible — for what need of a revealed 
 plan of salvation, if the object of the revelation be not 
 utterly lost ? 
 
 And to this Bible truth man's natural conscience is 
 universally responsive. We are always sure on this 
 point, that we address no man who feels not at times 
 conscious of his depravity, and of his need of pardon 
 and salvation. No hardihood of infidelity is able to 
 silence the whispers of this instinct of guilt. And 
 never has the adventurous voyager over unknown seas 
 lighted upon solitary and secluded islands, whose in- 
 habitants were not found agonizing with this sense of 
 sin — this fever thirst for the waters of salvation. All 
 the false worship of the heathen world was, and is, only 
 the soul's practical expression of its earnest desire for a 
 redemption from the stings of a guilty conscience, and 
 the terrible agonies of eternal death. On this point 
 reason and revelation arc at one — That all men by 
 nature are condemned sinners ; poor pilgrims in a desert, 
 pining and perishing with an immortal thirst. 
 
TEE GOSPEL GALL. 73 
 
 Meanwhile, the text takes also for granted — That in 
 the Gospel of Christ, and in it alone, is there for sinful 
 man a way of salvation. 
 
 Christ Jesus is truly and only " the water of life?'' 
 He is the source and spring even of physical and natu- 
 ral life. All things that are, are parts of his media- 
 torial kingdom. The soul itself, which we term im- 
 mortal, has no inherent and essential immortality, and 
 would sink into non-existence but for his mediatorial 
 upholding. And all created objects surrounding the 
 soul, are kept in being only by Divine sustentation ; so 
 that should Jehovah-Jesus cease to be, the entire uni- 
 verse would sink at once into that nothingness whence 
 at his creating fiat it at first emerged. 
 
 But in a sense special and peculiar is Christ Jesus the 
 fountain of spiritual life. The great moral or spiritual 
 want of man's nature has a threefold element. 
 
 There is a want of Knowledge — a want of any thing 
 but conjecture, alike as to the fact and the fate of im- 
 mortality — so that living on this secluded isle of being, 
 and about to loose from thes_ mortal moorings, and 
 stand out for eternity, man's desire to know through 
 what regions of sunshine or storm may lie his broad 
 voyagings — to know what shall be his future — that 
 agonizing desire may be well called thirst. 
 
 Then there is a want of Power. For though Heaven, 
 in all its glory, should come out as a world visible to 
 the senses in the firmament ; still, unto the up-looking 
 mortal, possessed of no organs whereby to mount from 
 this lowly earth, and achieve entrance to its beatitudes, 
 the longing for stixmg wings to ascend those far heights 
 would be of a strength and intensity to be well called thirst. 
 
74 THE GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 Moreover, there is a want of Preparation. For if 
 you were to bear a human spirit, unsanctified, up at 
 once to that Paradise of Righteousness, and, with all 
 its humbling sense of its own un-meetness, usher it amid 
 the pomps and the purities of heaven, then verily, as a 
 blind man amid radiant landscapes, or a deaf man amid 
 ravishing harmonies, or a beggar in his rags amid the 
 purple and gold of a monarch's pavilion, would it pine 
 under a conscious want of preparation and adaptation. 
 So that soul would be tortured with an agonizing lone:- 
 ing for sanctification and holiness, which may well be 
 called thirst. 
 
 And we say, this whole threefold want of man's 
 nature is satisfied at once and forever in the redemp- 
 tion of Christ. Knoioledge is given in the revelation of 
 Immortality and Life brought to light in the Gospel — 
 Poicer is given, to ascend the skies, and achieve entrance 
 through a Mediator's merits into the City of Holiness. 
 And Preparation is given — for washed in the blood of 
 the Lamb, the robes which the ransomed spirit wears are 
 lustrous and pure as the robes of the archangel. And 
 supplying thus every want of the immortal nature, 
 Christ may well be spoken of as the '■'•Fountain of the 
 Water of Life" quenching forever in the stricken spirit 
 its immortal thirst. 
 
 Christ Jesus is to a sinful soul the alone ground of 
 salvation. In him are all our sources and springs of 
 blessedness. From him issue all the streams making 
 glad the sin-sick — the stream of Cleansing Blood — the 
 stream of Justifying Grace — the stream of Adopting 
 Love — the stream of Sanctifying Power — the stream of 
 Iloly Peace — the stream of Gospel Ordinances — the 
 
TUB GOSPEL CALL. 75 
 
 stream of Divine Fellowship — the stream of Heavenly 
 Consolation. Yea, and in those high realms of glory, 
 whercunto the ransomed soul ascends, all the raptures 
 of the Blest have their springs in him. " For the very 
 river of the water of life proceedeth out of the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb." So that whatever spiritual 
 blessedness is vouchsafed to the child of God — the 
 blessedness experienced in his earthly life, or the bless- 
 edness aspired to in the faith of a transepulchral immor- 
 tality — all this blessedness, represented in the text by 
 the figure of sweet water, has its springs and sources 
 only in Christ. 
 
 The Gospel of Christ meets the soul of man as a poor, 
 perishing wanderer in life's wilderness, and leads him at 
 once to the fountain of living waters. He drinks, and 
 is refreshed. He drinks, and is comforted. He drinks, 
 and is purified. He drinks, and is saved. And now, 
 with his sins forgiven, and his heart renewed, he walks, 
 even on earth, in Christ's righteousness a conqueror, and 
 more than a conqueror. He comes to the Jordan of 
 death, and its dark flood rolls backward, and he passes 
 over with songs of victory. Seraphs meet him on the 
 heavenly shore. They clothe him in white raiment. 
 The crown, the harp, the throne of immortality are his 
 in the city and paradise of God. His are forever " the 
 things to come" immeasurable, unutterable — " the far 
 more exceeding and eternal tceight of glory." And doing 
 all this for him, and much more, for which mortal man 
 hath no thought, and no utterance, oh, how fittingly and 
 how beautifully is this Gospel set forth, as unto pining 
 and perishing humanity — '•'•The Water of Life." 
 
 These two things the text takes for granted — That 
 
76 TUB GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 man is by nature athirst — and That Christ Jesus relieves 
 him. 
 
 Then there are two other things that the text mani- 
 festly teaches : — 
 
 First. Tlie universality of the Gospel offer. 
 
 " Let him that is athirst come" (i. e.) Let every one 
 come who is sinful and perishing. And, that no man 
 might limit the offer, by interpreting the word " thirst " 
 to mean a supernatural and spiritual desire, excited in 
 the soul by extraordinary grace, it is added — "And 
 whosoever will let him come" Yea, and as if to terrify 
 any bigoted soul from daring to put any limit to the 
 fullness of an offered salvation, it is added again, "If any 
 man shall take from the words of the booh of this 
 prophecy, God shcdl take away his part out of the book 
 of life." 
 
 And yet, alas ! in full face of this terrible anathema, 
 mortal men have dared to rear bulwarks of bigotry 
 round about this precious fountain of the living water. 
 Some men build them out of the mysterious attributes 
 and operations of the Divine nature. They tell us that 
 God is a sovereign, with eternal and immutable pur- 
 poses ; and that, therefore, the decree of election is a 
 reason why some men will be lost. But they say all 
 this falsely. To declare that God is a sovereign, with 
 eternal and immutable purposes, is indeed only to affirm 
 the bald truism, that God is a God. But, sovereign and 
 immutable as he is, and must be, yet God himself every- 
 where declares that there is no hinderance to any man's 
 salvation, save the man's own selfish and obstinate will. 
 
 AVhen, theologically, we predicate simplicity of the 
 Divine nature, it is implied that God's pleasure and God's 
 
THE GOSPEL GALL. 77 
 
 purpose are synonymous terms. And when God declares 
 that he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner, he de- 
 clares as well that he hath no purpose which involves 
 the death of that sinner. 
 
 We question not in all its fullness the doctrine of 
 God's sovereignty. We glory in that doctrine. "We 
 glory in the iron theology of John Calvin, because it was 
 Christ's theology, and because it was Paul's ; because, 
 indeed, it is the only philosophic stand-point between 
 Faith and blank Atheism. But then true Calvinism 
 takes no greater guard of the Divine sovereignty than 
 God himself takes of it. It leaves the great and mys- 
 terious truth of Divine decrees safe in the Divine and 
 Omnipotent keeping. And finding it written in the 
 record, as one of God's fixed and eternal purposes, — 
 that without restriction or limitation, "whosoever will 
 may take the water of life freely" — no true Calvinist 
 ever thinks to break in pieces the adamant of the Divine 
 nature, that he may rear, out of its fragments, muni- 
 tions of eternal rock round about the fountain of the life 
 everlasting. God says those living waters flow freely 
 unto all men. And the man who dares use any Divine 
 attribute as an obstacle to any man's salvation, perverts 
 God's own truth, and makes God a liar. 
 
 Meanwhile other men build these bulwarks round the 
 " living waters " out of their own wisdom and philoso- 
 phy. There is an exclusive and sectarian bigotry — not 
 confined to any one Christian denomination, but in a 
 measure, at least, common to them all — which talks 
 rather of " the Church," than of Christ crucified ; of 
 sacraments, rather than of the Sacrifice ; which prac- 
 tically regards the grace of God as flowing in the 
 
78 THE GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 channels of its own exclusive ordinances, and the healing 
 power of the living water, as abiding rather in the 
 earthen chalice than in the sparkling spring. To hear 
 these men talk of ordinations, and confessions, and suc- 
 cessions, and baptisms, one would think that this foun- 
 tain of salvation were, like a mineral spring at a watering 
 place, inclosed, and appropriated, and surrounded by 
 liveried water-dippers, so that the soul that will not 
 drink from these particular cups must needs perish in 
 agony. 
 
 And the abomination of this last thing is worse than 
 the first. Tell me that God's eternal decree shuts me 
 away from salvation, and I could better be reconciled to 
 it. The grandeur of the Eternal One, as with his majestic 
 sceptre he waves me back from the fountain, would give 
 dignity to destruction. But to be repulsed from the 
 sweet waters by a poor mortal gesture ; to lose the heal- 
 ing draught because a spider's web is spun by the well- 
 side ; to be driven backward upon God's uncovenanted 
 mercies by some fair-lipped champion of successions and 
 baptisms; to die of thirst in full view of the swelling 
 fountain, because the cup wherewith I would draw and 
 drink hath not the blazon of a shibboleth — oh, this is 
 intolerable ! 
 
 To be told that salvation is to be found only, or even 
 especially, in the Presbyterian communion, or the Meth- 
 odist communion, or the Episcopal communion, or the 
 Baptist communion, or especially or only in any or all of 
 them — this is intolerable blasphemy ! 
 
 Why, what is the Church ? The fountain of living 
 water ? No, sirs ! An inclosure round about that foun- 
 tain ? No, sirs ! The Church, all together, or in its 
 
THE GOSPEL GALL. 79 
 
 distinct denominations, is only a company of thirsty men, 
 -who have come to drink, each man for himself, of that 
 blessed fountain, and whose only office is that of the 
 " Bride," to say " Come — come.'''' Is Baptism salvation ? 
 No, sirs ! Is the Lord's Supper salvation ? No, sirs ! 
 Are Church ordinances salvation ? No, sirs ! Christ 
 crucified is salvatioti ! Let me meet a poor heathen 
 in the wilderness, who never heard of a church or of 
 a sacrament, and to whom in his circumstances a sacra- 
 ment were impossible, and as I tell him the story of 
 Christ crucified for sinners, I say, " Repent and believe, 
 and thou shalt be saved forever." 
 
 Ah, ye troublers of men's consciences, about the poor 
 mint and anise of rites and ceremonies, go up to Mount 
 Calvary, and shut away if you can, if you dare, that 
 dying malefactor, unto God's uncovenanted mercies, be- 
 cause he sat not at your board, and went not forth to 
 your baptism, and the forgiving look of your glorious 
 Redeemer will palsy the tongue that utters the blas- 
 phemy ! Church ordinances may be indeed channels for 
 the flowing of God's grace, but Christ crucified is the 
 fountain, "and whosoever will may take the icater of 
 life freely.'''' 
 
 " Whosoever will" No matter how unlovely ; no mat- 
 ter how lost. Wherever, amid Gospel ordinances, or in 
 lonely and heathen separation from all church privileges 
 — wherever there is a human body wrapt round a human 
 spirit — wherever there is a pulse to bound, and a lip to 
 thirst, and an ear to hear the voice of the Spirit — limit- 
 less as the undying love of the Saviour that opened it, 
 there flows the priceless fountain of salvation unto the 
 thirst of the world. And woe, woe be unto him — who, 
 
80 THE GOSPEL GALL. 
 
 to magnify falsely a Divine attribute, or to glorify the 
 bulwarks of a creed, or to guard with factitious sanctity 
 the sepulchres of a Pharisaic church — woe be unto him; 
 ;i woe written in the blood of souls, and breathed in 
 dread anathema by heavenly voices; yea, the woe of 
 having his part taken from the book of life, and of hav- 
 ing added unto him the plagues written in the book of 
 this prophecy — so terrible a woe be unto him who dares, 
 with a human bigotry, to come between any sin-sick soul 
 and a crucified Saviour, or to take any thing from the 
 absolute fullness of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 Having opened a living fountain for a thirsting world, 
 the Spirit utters the cry, and the Bride echoes it, and 
 every one that hears afar off the glad sound takes up the 
 invitation, and extends it further. And it circles the 
 round world, and is borne along the waters, and wafted 
 by the winds, through the gates of great cities, and 
 athwart wide continents, and into the hamlets of the 
 hills, and the lone cabins of the wilderness — and it rings 
 out in every chamber as an angel's voice, and startles 
 every heart as an alarm-cry from eternity — that same 
 blessed deliverance, everywhere and only, "Let him that 
 is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the 
 water of life freely.'''' 
 
 Meanwhile — secondly, the text teaches the absolute 
 freexess of the Gospel offer. 
 
 Free, we mean, as to its reception by the creature — not 
 free in the sense of resulting from God's natural attribute 
 of benevolence. Though it may not be for us to under- 
 stand why God could not pardon sin without an atone- 
 ment, yet this fact is a simple and explicit revelation — 
 there is no salvation for a guilty soul but in Christ's 
 
THE GOSPEL GALL. 81 
 
 great sacrifice. God can not be to us in this sense freely 
 benevolent as he is to unfallen angels. Love to man as 
 a condemned sinner, flows only through the channels of 
 an appointed Mediatorship. The covenant blessings for 
 his Church are unto Christ, not free favors, but a pur- 
 chased possession. By his sorrows we are comforted ! 
 By his stripes we are healed ! The Bock whence the 
 life-stream bursts, is a smitten and a shivered Bock ! 
 Our salvation cost Christ Jesus a heavenly crown and 
 kingdom — a descent from an eternal enthronement — a 
 humiliation unto death, even the death of the cross. But 
 to man it is offered freely, " without money and without 
 price." 
 
 God asks no man to make an atonement for his own 
 sins. That atonement is made already. God requires 
 no austerities, no penances, no pilgrimages, to secure his 
 favor. Salvation is brought to our very door, and offered 
 free as the waters of earth and the air of heaven. The 
 fountain hath been opened by a Divine hand, and the 
 streams gush forth brightly, and fair forms stand by the 
 well-side, and unto every poor wanderer in life's hot 
 desert sounds out the glad cry, " Come, take the water of 
 life freely.' 1 '' 
 
 Yes, and if taken at all, it must be taken freely. And 
 here all false religions, and all human perversions of 
 the true religion, are fearfully at fault. They send 
 their disciples to the Divine fountain of grace, in one 
 way or another, to purchase the living water. To the 
 carnal heart, in its pride and vainglory, it is distasteful to 
 receive as a free gift the soul's salvation ; and seeking 
 to commingle its own merits with the righteousness 
 of Christ, it perverts Christianity into " another gospel." 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE GOSPEL GALL. 
 
 There is a religion of forms, and there is a religion 
 of faith — a religion of piety, and a religion of Pharisa- 
 ism — a religion of penitence, and a religion of penances 
 — a religion of ritualism, and a religion of righteous- 
 ness — a religion of the crucifix, and a religion of the 
 cross. And these are not one. And in this 'they differ 
 — the one is a religion of free gift and grace / the other 
 is a religion of merit and purchase-money . 
 
 All false worship is the offering of some poor human 
 equivalent for the living water. The monster-myste- 
 ries of heathenism — the smoke of altars, the clouds of 
 burnt incense, the blood of tortured victims ; the pomps 
 of the old Pharisaism — the phylacteries, and the tithes 
 of cummin and anise, and the street-prayers ; the 
 masses and mummeries of cowled and cloistered priests, 
 that make up the haggard superstition of the Tiber ; 
 the vaunting self-righteousness, that in the true Church 
 of God thinks complacently of its own good works, as 
 antecedents of justification — are each and all but the 
 poor devices of the carnal heart to merit salvation ; the 
 false coin of a spiritual currency wherewith unhumbled 
 man would buy of the great God the living water. 
 
 But away with them! away with them! God will 
 have none of it. Jesus Christ will not allow human 
 copartnership in the work of his sacrifice. My poor 
 tears and blood can not commingle meritoriously with 
 the blood and tears of the great Lamb of Eternity. If 
 I come to drink of the living water, it must be with no 
 price in my hand to purchase the blessing. Jehovah 
 will be, to the end, a glorious Sovereign in salvation. 
 
 AVhat he giveth, he givethf All thought of human 
 merit dies at once and forever amid the shadows of 
 
THE GOSPEL CALL. 83 
 
 Calvary. To stay away from Christ till you have done 
 something to secure his regards, and prepare yourself 
 for salvation, is to reject Christ forever. You may sell 
 your Lord for thirty pieces of silver! but buy him, oh, 
 you can not with the treasures of a universe ! " Who- 
 soever is athirst may take, nay, must take the water of 
 life freely." 
 
 These, then, are the simple and obvious lessons which 
 the text teaches. Such, my hearers, is the Gospel call — 
 universal in its offer — free in its conditions — glorious in 
 its ineffable and everlasting blessedness. Here flows 
 from the smitten Rock a fountain of peace, and joy, and 
 salvation, and life everlasting. And who wonders, that, 
 standing by its heavenly streams, and beholding the 
 multitudes of a thirsting race perishing in the wilder- 
 ness — who wonders that the Spirit lifts up the voice, 
 and the Bride lifts up the voice, and he that heareth 
 lifts up the voice, till the earth resounds with the enrap- 
 turing invitation — "Come, take the water of 'life freely /" 
 
 Now, in conclusion, let me press two points of per- 
 sonal application. The first is to the heart and con- 
 science of the professing Christian. Hark ! "And let 
 him that heareth say, come.'''' Let him say, come. This 
 text makes you all heralds of salvation. Ah ! this work 
 of calling sinners to repentance is not the work alone of 
 an ordained ministry. Under the Gospel every saved 
 soul becomes, by the great law of influences, a centre 
 of salvation. Every light kindled by God must radiate 
 light through the surrounding darkness. The simple 
 fact, that you have drawn water in joy from the wells 
 of salvation must constrain you, by a very law of you. 
 nature, to lead others in their thirst to the blessed fountain 
 
84 THE GOSPEL CALL. 
 
 It is so even in natural things. Behold that company 
 of Israelites, thirsting in the Exodus. See, amid the 
 burning sands of the desert the fainting thousands of 
 the tribes ! Note the glassy hut fierce eye — the sunken 
 cheek — the quivering limb ! Hark to the sob — the moan 
 — the wild cry — the gasping breath ! But look again ! 
 The great Lawgiver hath smitten the rock — and forth 
 in living streams foams and sparkles the cool, bright 
 water ! Ah now, how they spring from their agony, 
 and rush to the stream-side ! 
 
 See that mother ! With the strength of a giant she 
 cleaves her way to the fountain — she revives her fainting 
 life with one full, deep draught, and then back, swifter 
 than she came, to bear the life-cup to her dying child ! 
 
 And there again, behold that Hebrew girl ! Timid 
 in her shrinking beauty in all the past marchings of the 
 tribes — but now, rushing in the might of a mailed war- 
 rior to the sparkling spring, that she may bear back to 
 her fainting mother's lip the life-giving draught of that 
 bright, cool water ! 
 
 Such is human nature — so unselfish and noble even in 
 its sinful ruins. And shall that nature regenerate and 
 redeemed, show itself more selfish in its joys of salvation ? 
 Can you, oh, can you, ye ransomed ones, can you taste 
 the blessed water from the eternal Rock, and strive not, 
 with all the might that is in you, to bring the imperiled 
 and beloved to the fountain, that they may drink and 
 live ? 
 
 Ah me ! you were dying of immortal thirst in life's 
 great desert, when upon your ear fell a heavenly voice, 
 telling of living water; and you rose from the death- 
 spell, and struggled to the fountain, and drank, and live 
 
THE GOSPEL CALL. 85 
 
 And now to yon comes the commandment — -" Let him 
 that hear eth say, Come.'''' Oh, beloved members of this 
 Church, awake to your high ministry ! Tell me not 
 that you can not speak to impenitent men about Christ 
 and salvation. Methinks, if you are saved sinners you 
 can not keep silence. Methinks your grateful heart will 
 " sing to the well," exultingly and ever, as the freed bird 
 sin^s to the air and sunshine. You have heard the olad 
 sound, and believed it, and live in it — " and let him that 
 heareth say, Come, and take the water of life freely.'" 
 
 The other point of personal appeal is to the impenitent 
 sinner. 
 
 This is to-day my commission. Hark ! hark ! I hear 
 it ! The Spirit's voice and the Bride's saying — "Let him 
 that heareth say, Come.'''' And as one that heareth, I 
 take up the loving call, and cry — " Whosoever will, let 
 him take the water of life freely." 
 
 Oh, my message to you is a sweet message. We have 
 to-day no terrors. We speak not of the wrath of God 
 poured out without mixture into your cup of trembling. 
 We speak only of bright water from a heavenly spring. 
 " Come, take the water of life freely.'*'' 
 
 Come ! Come ! What say you to this gracious call ? 
 Do you answer — " Oh no, I am not athirst. I do not 
 need the living water. I have no unquenched desire ; 
 no agonizing yearning." Ah, but I know better. The 
 very haste with which you rush to earth's unsatisfying 
 things — as poor pilgrims to the mocking ■mirage of the 
 desert — disproves all your boasting. You are athirst. 
 In the depths of your own natures you are conscious of a 
 mighty want. The world does not satisfy. The im- 
 mortal spirit within pleads piteously for better things. 
 
86 TEE GOSPEL GALL. 
 
 That is thirst. Your heart faints under earthly bereave- 
 ments. You long- for pleasures that do not fade — for 
 riches that are incorruptible — for friendships that deceive 
 not. That is thirst ! You are afraid of death — of the 
 judgment — of eternity. That is thirst ! Alas, I know 
 it, for I have stood in the green places, where life's wa- 
 ter sparkled brightliest to mortal lips, and found the cup 
 dashed with wormwood, and longed the while for water 
 from a purer spring. And I know — spite of all your 
 songs and seemings of gladness — that you are parched 
 and pining with an immortal thirst. Come, then, oh, 
 come to the living water ! 
 
 Or do you say — " Oh no, thirsty as I am, I do not be- 
 lieve Christ Jesus can satisfy me. Mount Calvary with 
 its darkness, and its cross, and its expiring victim — ah, 
 this does not look to me like a green spot in the desert, 
 with palms and bright water !" But I answer — You do 
 not know, for you have not tasted, that the Lord is gra- 
 cious. Take testimony unto the preciousness of the 
 Saviour. Ask the dying thief! Ask Stephen, amid his 
 martyr-visions of glory ! Ask John, amid the magnifi- 
 cent revelations of Patmos ! Ask Paul, in the rapture 
 of his exodus to the eternal ! Nay, just try it for your- 
 selves! Just come to the fountain ! Stand here under 
 the cross of my dying Lord, and drink one full, deep 
 draught of the water of salvation ; and then if it seem 
 bitter to the soul, dash the heavenly cup to the dust, 
 and go back to your sins again ! 
 
 But do you say — " Well, give me the cup, then. I 
 am ready to drink it. I am willing to be a Christian. 
 I really wish I was a Christian. Bring me the living 
 water!" But I answer, No. You must come to the 
 
TEE GOSPEL GALL. 87 
 
 fountain. To come to Christ is to turn from your sins 
 in penitence, and cast yourselves in faith on the merits 
 of your Redeemer. And this you must do for your- 
 selves. This no creature can do for you. God has 
 opened the fountain, and issued the invitation ; and you 
 must rise up from the dust, and struggle to the water. 
 Come, come to Christ Jesus ! 
 
 But you say — " Must I not be born again, in order to 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven ?" And I answer — 
 certainly you must. But regeneration is not your work. 
 Faith is your work — regeneration is God's work. Be- 
 lieving is something to be done — the new birth is some- 
 thing to be experienced. Believing and repenting is 
 coming to the water — but regeneration and sanctifica- 
 tion are streams from the fountain ; parts of God's free 
 and glorious gift of the living water. Your part is to 
 believe — God's part is to regenerate. Do your part, and 
 you will find his is done already. Come, then, oh, come 
 to the living water ! 
 
 Oh, this blessed invitation! Why this shrinking from 
 the Gospel call, as if it were a summons unto agony and 
 conflict ? It is only the offer, unto a thirsting spirit, of 
 the cup of salvation — only a call to cast away the poor 
 rags of self-righteousness, and be clothed in Christ's 
 spotless and lustrous garments. Only to turn from 
 the beggarly elements of this world, and receive, without 
 money and without price, "a far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory." Then come, oh, come, to 
 the living water ! 
 
 Hark how this invitation comes breathed in blessed 
 voices — " The Spirit and the Bride say come." The 
 Spirit. The God. The great and glorious One who 
 
88 THE GOSPEL GALL. 
 
 inhabitcth eternity. The gracious Father— the atoning 
 Son — the applying Spirit. The mighty God speaks. 
 Not in a voice of terror. Not words of wrathful doom 
 and abandonment. But in that loving tone, that sweet 
 and gentle word, wherewith a watchful mother calls her 
 wearied, wayward child — " Come ! Come ! Come !" 
 
 " And the Bride says, Come." Ah, the Bride ! The 
 Lamb's wife. The Church triumphal and glorified. 
 You find fault often with the earthly Church ; and some- 
 times justly. Our ways are unequal, our gai-ments are 
 not white, our voices woo not mightily with their sad 
 discords. But the Bride calls ! The triumphant Church 
 in glory — the redeemed who have put on their immor- 
 tality. That sainted father — that ransomed mother — 
 that blessed sister — that redeemed child! Those risen 
 and raptured spirits call you. Oh, look up from these 
 lowly graves, poor mourner ! They are yonder in the 
 green fields, by the stream of life in heaven. And as 
 they go forth along the river-side, and drink of its living 
 water, they are thinking of you — they are waiting for 
 you. And their blessed voices come down lovingly 
 on these earthly airs — " Come, come, come, take the wa- 
 ter of life freely." 
 
 Oh, what a call is this ! The Spirit and the Bride 
 call, and he that heareth calls. The voices of all God's 
 bright and blessed things take up the utterance. The 
 dear ones in your earthly homes — -mother, and sister, 
 and brother, and child — whose names are written in the 
 Lamb's book of life, cry, " Come, come !" And the 
 Church below, Christ's witness unto the world, in all 
 her ordinances and utterances, cries, " Come, come !" 
 And the Church above, with the rustling of white robes, 
 
THE GOSPEL CALL. 89 
 
 and the sweeping of golden harps, cries, " Come, come !" 
 And the angels of heaven, lo ! rank above rank, the im- 
 mortal Principalities, as they circle the eternal throne, 
 they have caught up the sound, and cry, " Come, come !" 
 And the Triune and Everlasting God — the Father, the 
 elder Brother, the almighty Comforter — says, " Come, 
 come !" And, behold, the battlements of the fair city 
 are thronged with a great crowd of witnesses ; and upon 
 the ear of every fainting, dying soul in this earthly 
 wilderness, breaks the glad call of the rejoicing universe, 
 " Come, come, come !" " And the /Spirit and the Bride 
 say, Come ; and let him that heareth say, Come ; and let 
 him that is athirst come, and tohosoever will, let him take 
 the water of life freely 1 " 
 
 Would to God I could make this matter of the fullness 
 and freeness of salvation clear to you ! "We often meet 
 men, in these times of revival, who, agonizing under 
 convictions of sin, ask the prayers of God's people in 
 their behalf, while they persistently refuse to believe in 
 Christ Jesus. And what is it they wish us to pray for ? 
 What is it they would have God do for them ? Why, 
 look ! There is a gushing fountain in the wilderness. 
 And close by the well-side kneels a poor, thirsting pil- 
 grim, doing what ? Drinking ? No, indeed. But 
 praying Almighty Grace to quench his death-thirst ! 
 " Oh," he says, " men and brethren, pray for me that 
 God will take away my great anguish !" But what says 
 his God ? " Come, come, come, take the water of life 
 freely." 
 
 And then other convicted sinners come to us saying — ■ 
 " Oh, sir, I can not understand these doctrines of the 
 Atonement, of Faith, of Repentance. Explain them. 
 
90 TEE GOSPEL GALL. 
 
 Explain them." As if a poor thirst-stricken man, by a 
 sparkling spring should say, " Oh, tell me, tell me, what 
 this water is made of, and how it came here in the hot 
 wilderness, and why it is offered to me, and how can it 
 quench my intolerable agony?" Alas, poor foolish 
 questioner ! let the philosophy of salvation alone. Come, 
 drink — drink — drink of the living water. 
 
 " Come, take the water of life freely." Oh, what a 
 precious and glorious call this ! " The water of life /" 
 "Who can tell us all its meaning ? " Water — water !" 
 How sweet the sound to a fainting pilgrim ! " Water — 
 water !" How 
 
 "It cooleth the lip, it cooleth the brain, 
 It maketh the sick one well again." 
 
 A fountain of water ! Not a poor reservoir, stag- 
 nant and hot — but a living fountain, with its green banks 
 and bright palms. How sweet to the sun-struck wan- 
 derer, as it bursts in sparkling freshness in the midst of 
 the desert ! 
 
 A fountain of the water of Life — Life. Life physi- 
 cal, spiritual, immortal, eternal. Oh, that glorious vision 
 of John ! — " A pure river of the water of life, clear as 
 crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 
 Lamb. And on either side of the river, the tree of life, 
 which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit 
 every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the 
 healing of the nations !" 
 
 Oh, what means it?—" The Water of Life!" Tell us, 
 ye bright ones ! Ye risen spirits before the throne ! Ye 
 ransomed, out of every tongue, and tribe, and kindred, 
 and people! Ye that walk the green pastures, beside 
 
THE GOSPEL CALL. 91 
 
 the still waters ! Tell us what it means — "The Water of 
 Lifer 
 
 Dear, dying fellow-sinners, why stay ye from the 
 fountain ? Why do you talk of future times, and con- 
 venient seasons ? How marvelous to procrastinate the 
 thirst-quenching ! To say, " I am in love with my 
 agony ; let me pant and pine a little longer !" 
 
 Oh no, no, no ! Come to-day — come this moment — 
 come just as you are ! Oh, for an angel's voice to utter 
 the call fittingly ! You ai-e poor prodigals in a far 
 country — come home ! come home ! 
 
 You are wanderers in a desert — athirst, imperiled, 
 doomed, death-struck ! And here, behold ! — the palms 
 wave — the rock is smitten — the bright streams mur- 
 mur and sparkle. Come, then, this moment, just as you 
 are ! Come, come, come — " Come take the water of 
 ijfe feeely !" 
 
DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 
 
 " The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to 
 humble thee, arid to prove thee, to know what ivas in thine heart." — Deu- 
 teronomy, viii. 2. 
 
 You are already, I doubt not, quite prepared to re- 
 gard the Israelites as a typical people ; and the history 
 of that nation as a figurative, or prophetic, record, 
 sketching in parable much that does and will befall the 
 Church in general, and its individual members in partic- 
 ular — and are thus prepared to consider the words of 
 the text as having a practical application to ourselves. 
 But in the use of all such scriptures we are to bear in mind 
 these rules of symbolic interpretation — that frequently 
 there is more in the type than in its antitype — and that 
 in the study of parables and symbols, we are not to look 
 for too minute an accommodation of their every part to 
 the spiritual truth they inculcate. The Hebrew Exodus 
 is undoubtedly an emblem of a Christian's condition in 
 this world in progress toward heaven. And yet, if ex- 
 amined too curiously, a thousand incongruities will appear, 
 which must not be insisted on. Here, as elsewhere, the 
 figure is designed to illustrate some particular truth, 
 and there are many things in the type which will not be 
 
DISCIPLINE. 93 
 
 found in the antitype, and as well, many things in the 
 antitype which are not set forth in the type. 
 
 Now the point of comparison brought to view in the 
 text, is between God's treatment of the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, and his treatment of his peculiar people — or 
 if you please of all mankind — in this world of probation. 
 And keeping in mind the principles of interpretation 
 just adverted to, let us consider the record of the text 
 as containing truth for our own personal and practical 
 application. 
 
 It is confessedly a strange and unexpected narrative, 
 which Moses gives of the wanderings of the Israelites. 
 From the land of Goshen to the promised Canaan there 
 was, through Kir, a direct way of journeying. But in- 
 stead of pursuing it, they were commanded to turn and 
 go through the wilderness of Paran. Nor this the whole 
 wonder, for even following this circuitous route, it was 
 not so protracted au Exodus from the Nile to the Jor- 
 dan. Studying the journals of later Oriental tourists 
 who have crossed the desert in the way of the Israelites, 
 you find them leaving the Red Sea in the middle of 
 March, and though traveling with scholarly leisure and 
 research, yet in the middle of April — only a single month 
 from their departure, they have set foot in the Garden 
 of Gethsemane and the streets of Jerusalem. And yet 
 you find these Israelites, under the Divine direction, in- 
 stead of proceeding steadily, if slowly, toward Canaan, 
 frequently retracing their steps, and revisiting the same 
 places, and wandering about in the wilderness for full 
 forty years. And it is a strange record ; to be under- 
 stood only on the supposition that on their departure 
 from Egypt, the people were not prepared for the inhab- 
 
94 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 itation of Canaan, and that therefore God kept them in 
 the Exodus, as in a condition of pupilage and discipline, 
 for the civil and ecclesiastical state to which he had des- 
 tined them. 
 
 The Israelites, while in bondage in Egypt, wire 
 largely at least barbarian and idolatrous. And from 
 the miraculous plagues by the Nile, to the miraculous 
 passage of the Jordan, God was constantly teaching 
 them those theological and moral truths, without 
 which they could not have entered fittingly upon 
 either the civil, or ecclesiastical, immunities of Canaan. 
 And these wanderings in the wilderness were pro- 
 longed, not because Canaan was so distant, but only 
 as a discipline preparatory to its citizenship. In the 
 expressive language of the text, " The Lord led them 
 forty years in the wilderness to humble them, and 
 prove them, and know what was in their heart." 
 
 Now in fine parallel to this, is God's treatment 
 of all Christians, as the true Spiritual Israel. When 
 called by omnipotent and renewing grace from the 
 Egypt of sinful bondage, they have at once a sure 
 promise of a glorious inheritance in the heavenly 
 Canaan. But, instead of being translated at first to 
 its beatitudes, they are left wanderers for long years 
 in this earthly wilderness. And although- this seems 
 to us, at first, a strange dispensation ; and we should, 
 a priori, expect, that the justified one, having by 
 reason of his union with Christ a perfect title to 
 heaven, would, as soon as he is justified, be trans- 
 lated to blessedness and instantly glorified : yet here, 
 as in the case of Israel, the arrangement is explained 
 in the text. God keeps the soul in this wilderness- 
 
DISCIPLINE. 95 
 
 state, "to humble it, and to prove it, and to faiow what 
 is in the heart.'''' 
 
 This, then, is the simple thought with which we 
 would engage your attention. There are, you per- 
 ceive, two distinct moral processes indicated in the 
 text. A process of Discovery, and a process of Disci- 
 pline. Let us consider them in their order. 
 
 First. — We have here, God's providential treatment 
 of men in this world set forth, as a 2^'ocess of Dis- 
 covery. " God led them forty years in the wilderness to 
 prove them, and to know tchat teas in their heart." 
 
 And here the reference of the text is to all men in 
 this state of probation. Of the Israelites, all were not 
 God's true children, and millions were proved by the 
 trial unworthy Canaan, and perished in the wilderness. 
 And so now is it true of every man, whether Christian, 
 or infidel, that God leads him in this wilderness-state 
 " to know ichat is in him." Not, indeed, that God 
 himself has need of the manifestation. But that the 
 development of the man's secret character, may either 
 convince him of sin, and so lead him to repentance ; 
 or make manifest to a universe the justice of his final 
 condemnation. To the eye of Omniscience, that latent 
 and hidden principle of evil, which in the human 
 heart lies back of all action, yea, back of all volition, 
 is sin, most positive and deserving of punishment. 
 But that this principle may appear unto finite com- 
 prehension in all its actual enormity ; or in apostolic 
 language, " that sin by the law may become exceeding 
 sinful," — the man is brought into circumstances, quick- 
 ening the dormant principle into action, and making 
 manifest its true nature. 
 
96 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Before trial, men do not suspect the evil that is in 
 others, nay, do not suspect even the evil that is in 
 themselves. Ilazael uttered only the honest indigna- 
 tion of his heart, when to the man of God, foreseeing 
 his future iniquity, he returned the question in sorrow 
 and scorn, — "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this 
 great thing?''' 1 The evil principle sleeps in the spirit, as 
 the Egyptian monster in the placid waters of the Nile. 
 And it is only the hot sun, or the sweep of the fierce 
 tempest that can draw, or drive, it forth in its malig- 
 nant manifestations to the eyes of creation. So it was 
 with the Israelites. God tried them with mercies and 
 tried them with afflictions. He led them to the bitter 
 waters of Marah, and Jeshuran murmured. He made 
 them to ride on the high places of the earth, and eat the 
 increase of the fields, and drink the blood of Eschol's 
 grapes, — and Jeshuran waxed fat and kicked. And 
 so it is ever. God is trying every human heart, that 
 the world may know what forms of evil abide in its 
 chambers. And the variety of trials is as great as the 
 variety of our circumstances. He tries with blessings. 
 The poor man, who by board and hearth in his lowly 
 cottage, seems such a godly despiser of the pomps 
 and vanities of this evil world ; him, God raises 
 suddenly into the possession of great riches : and lo ! 
 out of that dwelling of poverty, stalks, at the Divine 
 summons, the biggest and most unblushing demon of 
 pride and worldliness ! He tries with affliction. He 
 comes to the man rich and prosperous, and happy, and 
 surrounded by a household which death has never 
 entered, and whose heart seems full of grateful love to 
 Jehovah, and with one breath of disastrous provi- 
 
DISCIPLINE. 97 
 
 dence, drives the bark of earthly joy shattered and 
 shipwrecked on the wild Mater, — and lo ! forth from 
 that heart where Angel Piety seemed to dwell, stalks 
 now a mighty fiend of ingratitude and rebellion. 
 
 Under God's providential economy, earthly and 
 practical life is but practical development. Man's 
 business on this sublunary platform, is to work out his 
 hidden character in the face of the universe, — to make 
 manifest his secret thoughts even in forms of ma- 
 terialism. The fashion of the man's garments; the 
 furniture of his dwelling ; the pictures he hangs upon 
 his walls ; the volumes he places in his library ; the 
 places of his favorite recreation; the style of men 
 with whom he delights to associate ; yea, his very 
 port and bearing as he mingles with men, and walks 
 in the market-place, — are all but the development, — the 
 visible expression, of the quality of the thoughts and 
 intents of the heart. And this practical manifestation 
 of character in life, is with a great Divine purpose. 
 In the case of the Israelites, it was to show who, of 
 the wanderers in the Exodus, were proper men to go 
 over to Canaan. And in our case, it is to show, who 
 of these dwellers upon earth, are becoming meet for 
 the heavenly inheritance. Not that God needs to 
 learn this, but that he would have his universe know, 
 that he is just when he judges, and clear when he 
 condemns. 
 
 And this, this is life ! The development in actual forms 
 of the hidden things of the spirit ! This making known 
 to a universe what there is iu the heart ! Oh, then, how 
 awfully solemn a thing it is to live, — just to live ! Why, 
 sirs, what were you doing yesterday ? " Busy with the 
 
98 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 merchantmen in the market-place," you say. No, but 
 you were exhibiting your principles of honor, or dishon- 
 esty, to a great cloud of witnesses, in preparation for the 
 
 judgment! "Furnishing a house," you say. No, but 
 you were filling your chambers and ornamenting your 
 walls with outward expressions of your inner moral na- 
 ture ! '• Chiseling the marble," or " coloring the can- 
 vas," you say. No, you wei*e carving your own moral 
 statue, and painting your own moral portrait, for exhibi- 
 tion at the judgment. " Adorning your person for some 
 fashionable assembly," you say, or " sweeping sounds of 
 rich music from the chords of an instrument." No, no, 
 you were flaunting your immortal drapery on life's plat- 
 form, a spectacle to angels — or sounding forth the har- 
 monies or discords of your moral life, in the audience- 
 room of Eternity. 
 
 Ah, life — earthly life is a thing fearfully solemn ! What 
 were these Israelites doing, in these long years of Exodus 
 in the wilderness ? Eating, and drinking, and marching 
 backward and forward, and pitching the tent for rest, 
 and the tabernacle for worship ? Yes, indeed ; but the 
 while, doing all this for the great purpose of develop- 
 ment ! Working out, in manifest forms and expressions, 
 those inner iniquities of the heart that unfitted them 
 for Canaan. And, alas ! alas ! the million graves that 
 marked the march of the Exodus, made manifest how 
 fearfully all this development was unto condemnation : 
 and to what multitudes God swore in his wrath that they 
 should not enter in, because they believed not. Yes, that 
 Exodus was a solemn journey. Nor is our life less sol- 
 emn. Think of it ! "A spectacle to angels ! Compassed 
 about with a great cloud of wittiesses /" And so upon 
 
DISCIPLINE. 99 
 
 earth, as a platform flung up in the midst of creation, 
 man walks to exhibit himself in the eyes of the universe. 
 And as each feature of his character is displayed, the 
 pencil of the Eternal Limner transfers it to the immortal 
 canvas, and clearer at every moment of life grows the 
 expression, and stronger the resemblance ; till finished 
 at last, and perfect, as the portraiture of the hidden char- 
 acter, it receives the judgment of the universe, whether, 
 in its resemblance to God and the angels, it deserves a 
 place on the lustrous walls of the Eternal Temple — or, in 
 its dark coloring, and distorted and demoniac expression, 
 it beseem rather the prison of despair, and should be 
 shadowed with the blackness of darkness for ever and 
 ever ! 
 
 Now this is the first thought — God' 's providential 
 treatment of man in this world, a process of development 
 and discovery. — " He leads them in the wilderness to 
 prove them, and to know what is in the heart." 
 
 And it brings us to consider, Secondly — This other 
 providential design — A 2^'ocess of Discipline — " The 
 Lord God led them forty years in the wilderness to 
 humble them." 
 
 Here by a common scriptural figure, the great grace of 
 humility, is put metonymically for all the distinguish- 
 ing graces of Christian character. And the meaning is : 
 that God led them about in the wilderness, as in a state of 
 pupilage and preparation, for the civil and ecclesiastical 
 immunities of Canaan. This was true, indeed, in regard 
 to the very multitude that perished in the wilderness. 
 The grand purpose even in that process of development, 
 was to show each man's character to himself, that he 
 might seek, by repentance, pardon and sanctification. 
 
100 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 But it was especially true of them who, prepared by 
 long wanderings, crossed at last, the Jordan and entered 
 the land of promise. And so in its spiritual reference, 
 the application of this thought is specially to the case of 
 the real believer, who by daily sanctification is becom- 
 ing more and more meet for heaven. 
 
 As before observed, it seems, a priori, a strange dis- 
 pensation, that the soul of the justified man is not taken 
 ' at its repentance immediately, and directly to the celes- 
 tial world. Nor is the mysteriousness of these earthly 
 trials diminished by the answer — that the Christian must 
 remain in this world for the sake of other men, as " the 
 light," and " the salt," of lost and dying generations. If 
 Israel must pass forty years in seclusion and pupilage 
 for a citizenship in Canaan, still, we should so have 
 ordered it, that, instead of repeatedly traversing those 
 plains, with their burning sands and their fiery serpents, 
 they should have pitched their tents for permanent en- 
 campment in some of those fertile valleys — green with 
 pastures, and shadowy and sweet with palm groves and 
 fountains, — which lay at not remote intervals between 
 the Nile and the Jordan. And just so in the case of the 
 believer. If the justified man in Christ must remain 
 still in this world as a benefit to others ; we should yet 
 so have ordered it, that his life had been all peaceful 
 and rapturous in the smiles of his God. But not thus 
 Jehovah. God led Israel almost constantly amid the 
 dry and desolate tracts of the wilderness. And God, 
 in his analogous treatment of believers, subjects the 
 justified soul to a constant vicissitude of temptation and 
 affliction. 
 
 And the reason of this arrangement is set forth in the 
 
DISCIPLINE. 101 
 
 text. He docs it to work in the soul a meetness for the 
 heavenly Canaan. And in illustrating this thought, we 
 only ask you to observe, — how earthly trials and afflic- 
 tion are the finest mi ans of sanctification. You pei - - 
 ceive, at once, in the ease of the Israelites, that if God 
 had allowed them to pitch a permanent encampment, 
 in some fair oasis of the desert, then, instead of becom- 
 ing more humble, they would have waxed worse and 
 worse in arrogance and carnality. And it needed the 
 burning sun, and the hot sand, and the fiery serpents, 
 and the constant assaults of the fierce men of Amalek 
 and Moab, to humble them before God, and make them 
 meet for a citizenship in the Theocracy of Canaan. 
 And so of Christians on earth, — a moment's considera- 
 tion will show you, how afflictions are after all the 
 finest discipline of sanctification. For consider, in 
 illustration, the influence of earthly trials on a few 
 separate Christian graces. 
 
 Take, first. As a principle lying at the foundation 
 of all Christian character, — That filial faith, or implicit 
 trust in God, — which must become perfect in the soul 
 before it enters heaven. And tell me how such a grace 
 can thrive well in a condition of uninterrupted pros- 
 perity ? Here is my rich brother, whose coffers are 
 full of gold, and whose mansion is crowded with all 
 luxuriant things ; and can he trust strongly in God 
 for food and raiment? Can he gather his children 
 round his family altar, and utter sincerely and trust- 
 fully that filial prayer, " Give us this day our daily 
 bread?" Ah, no, indeed! Bread is already his for a 
 long life-time ; and raiment, and shelter, and all things. 
 He trusts to his stocks, and mortgages, and houses on 
 
102 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 rent, and money on interest ! But there lives a poor 
 widow in yonder desolate chamber, rich only in faith 
 and God's magnificent promises. Yesternight she gave 
 her last poor morsel — and blanket, to her suffering child! 
 and forgot her own hunger and cold over her worn and 
 tear-blotted Bible ; and when a visitor crossed her thresh- 
 old, and dropped a coin into her trembling hand — as 
 if an angel had been sent directly from God, to answer 
 her prayer — she lifted her streaming eyes to heaven 
 and cried, " Thanks, thanks, to my heavenly Father ; 
 he hath heard ; he hath answered ; oh, my child will 
 not die now. My Father, my Father gives me daily 
 bread !" Ah me ! This beautiful trust in God grows 
 not like the palm-tree, in green valleys, and by sweet 
 waters. It needs, like God's cedars, the icy rocks of the 
 mountain-top, and the fierce rush of the storm ! 
 
 Or, take, secondly, — That supreme love to God, — ■ 
 which constitutes the very essence of holiness, and the 
 very element of heaven. And observe, how it thrives 
 best under a discipline of affliction. It would seem, 
 indeed, a priori, that prosperity, and untroubled happi- 
 ness, were the finest circumstances for this grace's de- 
 velopment. And so they would be were man an un- 
 fallen being. For then, love would have a direct 
 tendency to beget love ; and the more fair and un- 
 clouded our path, the more intense would be our 
 affection to the beneficent Father, whose strong hand 
 was guiding us. But, alas ! man is not unfallen. And 
 amid the principles of his accursed nature, grow the 
 rank tares of supreme selfishness. And, as a superin- 
 duced grace of miraculous implantation, supreme love 
 of God — born of bright skies and balmy seasons — which 
 
DISCIPLINE. 103 
 
 even the most selfish heart cherishes ; for it is only self- 
 love under heavenly disguises. We love ourselves, and 
 so think we love all things that tend to our own happi- 
 ness ; and so long as God, with all his great attributes, 
 seems busy only for our good, we perhaps think we love 
 him. But do we though ? Yonder sits a mother sur- 
 rounded by her children. God has dealt with her most 
 gently. Death has made no vacant place in her house- 
 hold, and her heart swells in maternal pride of her fair 
 daughters, and her stately sons. And amid the sweet 
 ministries of her home, maternal affection seems almost 
 sanctified into religion ; and with an exuberant thank- 
 fulness to that Almighty One, who hath so preserved 
 her idols, she would rej)el you in anger, should you dare 
 to question her true love to God. She would say — " I 
 not love God ! Oh, how can I do otherwise than love 
 him ? So good ; so abundantly merciful he is to me 
 and my beloved ones !" But does she love God though ? 
 Alas ! go down to the last analysis of those affections, 
 till you understand them in their true character ; as they 
 seem to the creatures of eternity, and what will you 
 find there ? Love to God ? Ah, no ! Nothing loftier 
 or holier than the veriest idolatry. A lifting the crea- 
 ture into the place of the Creator. For just let the 
 great God come as a sovereign into that glad household ; 
 let him breathe witheringly upon those beloved ones ; 
 let him bring the shadow upon that bright eye, and the 
 palsy upon that bounding heart ; and lay that child from 
 her bosom to the dark and pitiless grave, and then, ah 
 me ! how soon that mother's love will rise up in rebel- 
 lion. " Oil, unkind Providence !" she will cry — " Oh, 
 ruthless, heartless, malignant monster, Death !" And in 
 
104 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 all this she pours forth anathemas against the glorious 
 Jehovah. Ah, no ; true lore to God is of a different cul- 
 ture, and a diiferent manifestation. 
 
 Sec thai Christian mother by her dead child. She, too, 
 has in all its depth and tenderness a mother's Love. And 
 that child's sweet voice and winning ways were all that 
 made life blest in her lone and desolate dwelling. Alas, 
 he to die ! That child, whose smile was as the smile of 
 nn angel on her path to eternity ! He to turn away from 
 her clasping arms, and lie down in the cold, dark, unpity- 
 ing sepulchre! But he hath died! Alas, he will never 
 smile on her again! Never say, "Mother," — "mother," 
 again! Yet see the mother now ! Weeping? Yes, in- 
 deed — why should she not weep? Her glorious and di- 
 vine Saviour wept at the beloved grave ! But with all 
 a mother's love, there is all a Christian's faith. With 
 her tearful eyes lifted heavenward, hark to her trustful 
 words ! — " Oh, he said it — the blessed Master said it — 
 ' Suffer little children to come unto me? Yes, my child 
 has gone to heaven. My lamb is on the Shepherd's 
 bosom — the Lord gave and the Lord taketh away — 
 blessed, blessed, blessed be the name of the Lord !" And 
 this is true love to God. A love swallowing up every 
 earthly emotion, as the rivers are swallowed up by the 
 sea. A heavenly plant of grace, that grows not well 
 amid jieaceful encampments, in valleys of sweet water: 
 but needs for its highest culture, the barren plains of the 
 .desert, with sands and serpents — the wild sweep of the 
 storm, and the fierce assault of armed enemies ! 
 
 Or take, thirdly ', — That gracious deadness to the world, 
 and patient longing for heaven, — which, in apostolic ex- 
 perience, and indeed in all true Christian experience, is 
 
DISCIPLINE. 105 
 
 the last and crowning rneetness for the heavenly dwell- 
 ing ; and, observe, how it can scarcely be wrought at all 
 in the soul, save by the discipline of affliction. In the 
 case of the Israelites, at their first entrance upou the 
 Exodus ; and indeed afterward, and far on in their jour- 
 neys, we find them looking back with strong desire to 
 the carnal joys of Egypt. And had God allowed them 
 to pitch permanent encampment in some bright valley 
 of palm-trees, then, still more and more, had they shrunk 
 from the dread swellings of the Jordan, and the unknown 
 and undiscovered land beyond; and it was only at the 
 close of forty years of pilgrim wanderings, amid the pri- 
 vations and dangers of that wild and howling wilder- 
 ness, that the tried hearts of the people yearned with a 
 mighty homesickness, for an establishment in the civil 
 and ecclesiastical economy of a Canaan of rest. And so 
 it is with the Christian. Faith, however vigorous its 
 exercise in the heart of a believer, is yet not the positive 
 reality, but only the philosophic evidence, of things un- 
 seen and but hoped for ; and against it, things seen and 
 temporal are arrayed in a sensible and present power, 
 antagonistic and overwhelming. And God's method of 
 strengthening the faith, till the unseen becomes more 
 than an equipoise for the sensible — is not, by bringing 
 out the things of eternity in positive and visible splen- 
 dor in heaven ; but by beclouding, and so weakening, 
 the rival glories of time. Just as in the material uni- 
 verse, it is not by making the heavenly really more lus- 
 trous, but only by bringing night over the earthly, that 
 God brings out the stars. 
 
 Here is a man — it may be truly a Christian — whose 
 earthly life is full of gladness and glory : his dwelling is 
 5* 
 
106 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 a palace ; his name is a power in the land's language ; 
 fair and fond children love him ; honorable men honor 
 him ; no corroding sorrow tortures his heart ; no insal ial e 
 ambition embitters his life-spring ; a happy and a joyous 
 man he is on the earth. Now, though this man may be 
 truly a Christian, he is not ready to die. So rich and fair 
 in its coloring, falls round him this massive curtain of 
 things temporal, that even the revealed lustres of 
 Eternity shine but faintly through ; and if the fire- 
 car, that came for Enoch, and Elijah, should descend 
 visibly to his portal, oh ! it would be almost with the 
 recoil of a breaking heart, that he looked the last on his 
 princely possessions, and said "farewell" to his beloved 
 household; and flung the reins loose on the winged 
 coursers ; turning his face forever from the earthly, 
 and rushing up to the skies. 
 
 But now, in the contrast, look yonder. In that 
 cold and comfortless hovel lives a poor and friendless 
 man. Poor and friendless through no fault of his own ; 
 for, to the eye of God's angels, that hoary head is a 
 crown of glory. But from plenty and gladness God's 
 mysterious Providence has stricken him as with a thun- 
 derbolt. His, too, were once a princely home, and 
 stately children, that would have shed their heart's 
 blood as water ere a father so honored should have 
 been left thus in want. But, alas ! they are now in 
 the grave. And with no hand to guard, and no eye to 
 watch, he is friendless and alone. But, come near and 
 talk with him, if you would learn the mighty power of 
 sorrow to sanctify. "Ah, my old friend, this is a hard 
 lot of yours, is it not ?" " Hard ! hard ! Oh, no, no !" 
 he says. " It is enough for the disciple that he be as 
 
DISCIPLINE. 107 
 
 his Master, and my blessed Redeemer had not where to 
 lay his head. Yes, and it will be over soon. A little 
 longer, and the desert will be crossed, and then the 
 Canaan !" " And so you are thinking of heaven, and 
 are willing to depart ?" " Willing !" he says, " willing ! 
 willing to be with the beloved dead, and the more 
 beloved Jesus ! Willing ! Why there is not a thing 
 now between me and my Saviour ! I am athirst for the 
 living water ! I am homesick for glory ! Come, come, 
 come, Lord Jesns, come quickly !" Yes, yes, my breth- 
 ren, it is thus God sanctifies — he takes away the earthly 
 that the heart may rise to the heavenly. He tears the 
 bark from its mortal moorings, that it may launch forth 
 toward the eternal haven. He stirs up the nest of the 
 slumberous eagle, that with exulting pinion, it may soar 
 to the sun ! 
 
 This, this is the gracious mystery of true heavenly- 
 mindedness ! It was when surrounded by enemies, 
 thirsting for his blood, that Stephen saw heaven open ! 
 It was in the depth of the ^Egean poverty and exile, 
 that John beheld the glory of the sweeping trains along 
 the golden streets of the City of Holiness ! It was upon 
 the red sands of the Roman arena, when weighed down 
 with fettei's, and faint from lonely imprisonment, and 
 surrounded by infuriated heathen, and wild beasts of the 
 amphitheatre, that the voice of Paul rang out, with the 
 exultation of more than a conqueror — enraptured with 
 the good fight he had fought, and the crown of glory 
 thenceforth laid up for him. 
 
 Yes, my brethren — this desire to depart, and be with 
 Christ, is a crowning grace, that grows not, like the 
 palm-tree, in the green valleys, where rejoicing pilgrims 
 
108 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 pitch tont in the wilderness, but rather like God's great 
 
 cedars, it needs the sweep of the hurricane, and the icy 
 rocks of Mount Lebanon. Like the rainbow round the 
 head of the mighty angel, it comes not forth in its 
 brightness along the heaven's pure azure, but needs 
 for its more lustrous glory a background of cloud ! 
 
 Now, this is the other thought of the text. GocVs 
 Providential treatment of men in this world, a process 
 of Discipline. '•'■lie led them forty years in the wilder- 
 ness to humble them.''' 1 And how rich the lesson in its 
 consolation to the real believer ! Those Israelites under- 
 stood it at last, when, as conquerors and more than con- 
 querors, they went over Jordan — how much they had 
 needed the stern pupilage of the Exodus, to prepare 
 them for the civil and ecclesiastical beatitudes unto 
 which God was leading them. And though at first it 
 seemed strange that, instead of advancing by rapid 
 and direct marches to the promised land, they should 
 thus wander for long years amid the sands of the desert, 
 yet, from the green fields and glorious cities of Canaan, 
 they looked back with rapture and love, " remembering 
 all the way the Lord their God had led them.'''' 
 
 And just so of the Christian. It seems strange in- 
 deed sometimes, that, at the first moment of repentance 
 and pardon, the justified soul is not taken to glory. 
 But we shall see it by and by, and we ought to see it 
 presently — that, as spirits under discipline for the dif- 
 ferent allotments of heaven, more precious to us is this 
 pilgrimage, with its poor scrip and its worn sandal, than 
 the instant fire-car of the prophet to translate us to the 
 skies. There are distinctions in the conditions of the 
 redeemed in eternity — harps of a more amazing power 
 
DISCIPLINE. 109 
 
 — and sceptres of a wider sway — and stations nearer in 
 honor to the throne of our God! And this weari- 
 some pilgrimage on earth is hut a continuance on that 
 wrestling arena, where every successful struggle adds 
 to the fair and goodly things that make up eternity. 
 These tears wrung from the weeping eye, and these 
 blossoms torn from the heart, are to be set as rare gems, 
 and woven as rich flowers, in our heavenly crowns of 
 rejoicing. And who wonders longer at the triumph of 
 the great apostle in view of afflictions ? From the 
 midst of persecutions, and conflict, and agonies, such as 
 had been borne by no other mortal, he had been caught 
 away to stand for a moment amid the great realities of 
 heaven — to hear the unspeakable words— to compass the 
 amazing issues of present sufferings, in the ineffable 
 glories of eternity ! And borne back again to the 
 scenes of his earthly trial ; so very a trifle seemed it 
 all, in contrast with the eternal triumph, that upon all 
 these persecutions, and agonies, and deaths, he looked 
 calmly down, saying, as if they were unworthy the 
 reckoning — as if they were nothing — " These light afflic- 
 tions, which are but for a moment" — and then lifting his 
 flashing eyes upward, cried in exulting gladness — " The 
 glory!" — '■''The weight of glory /" — '■'•The exceeding 
 weight of glory /" — '•'•The fae more exceeding weight of 
 glory /" — " The far more exceeding and eternal, xoeight 
 of glory /" — ay — ay — and those amazing triumphs, the 
 result of these trials ! In the beneficent process of God's 
 gracious economy, " These light afflictions, which are but 
 for a moment, working out for us the far more exceed- 
 ing and eternal weight of glory /" 
 
 Oh, I understand it now — what the apostle meant 
 
110 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 when, exultingly, "he counted all things as loss that he 
 might attain unto the fellowship of Christ's sufferings," 
 — mark you ! — not the fellowship of his triumph ; but 
 the fellowship of — his sufferings. And understanding 
 this — in these few years of earthly preparation, I would 
 not barter this framework, with its aching head and bur- 
 dened heart, for the form of immortality and power that 
 shall spring from the Resurrection. And I would not 
 exchange my mortal right to share my Master's sorrows 
 — to bear his heavy cross — to wear his piercing thorn 
 crown — to drink of his cup, and be baptized with his 
 baptism — not for all the pomps and powers of the 
 archangel ! Yes — yes — from those high hills of glory — 
 whereon, with the palm and white robe, the earthly pil- 
 grim rests from his labor — blessed, oh ! how unspeakably 
 blessed ! it will be to look back along the path of the 
 Exodus, " and remember all the toay that the Lord our 
 God led us in the wilderness, to humble us, and to prove 
 us, and to know what was in the hearV 
 
 And wonder not, then, my impenitent hearer, that, 
 though our way lies through a wilderness, we should 
 still urge you, with many tears, to take scrip and staff 
 and go with us on pilgrimage ! If this spiritual Exodus 
 were as joyless and terrible as your sinful fears make it, 
 still we tell you, that the bright lands of eternity lie across 
 this desert, and can only be reached by him that girdeth 
 strongly the loins, and goes forth on the jrilgrimage. But 
 then, as of the Hebrew Exodus, so of the spiritual — there 
 is no wider mistake than to suppose that the wilderness 
 is only a barren plain, covered with sand, and swarming 
 with serpents — no, thanks be to God ! thickly bestudding 
 both, are fair and fertile spots in the desert, where the 
 
DISCIPLINE. HI 
 
 grass is soft and green around sunny fountains, and 
 the birds warble, and the palm-trees wave ! — and alike in 
 both, there rise along the pilgrim's pathway, landscapes 
 of surpassing grandeur, where the flashing torrents wind 
 through the passes, and the mountains pierce the heavens 
 with their cloud-crowned summits. Yea, and in those 
 tracts where the pathway is most wild — where the sands 
 are hot, and the serpent hisses, and the sun pours his 
 fierce beams on the weary pilgrim — even there, our 
 march is not comfortless. For along the desert sand 
 falls the heavenly manna — and fast by our side flows 
 the living water — and steadfast in the van abides the 
 Shechinah of glory — and then beyond ! — ah, beyond ! 
 Canaan! Canaan, with its royal cities, and its thrones 
 of power, and its diadems of glory ! Canaan ! Canaan 
 as it burst upon the eye of Moses, making his dying hour 
 a triumphal rapture from the heights of Pisgah ! Ca- 
 naan ! Canaan ! — that house of many mansions ! — that 
 home of the beloved dead ! — that dwelling-place of 
 Jesus! — that glorious kingdom of God! Oh, Canaan, 
 Canaan ! lies fair and bright before us — and this path 
 through the desert is the only path that leads to its 
 enrapturing inheritance. " Come with us, then> come 
 with us, and we will do you good /" 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "Know ye not your own selves." — II. Corinthians, xiii. 5. 
 
 This question is exceedingly impressive as addressed to 
 the Corinthians. They prided themselves in the Greek 
 philosophy, and the very wisest of the precepts of that 
 philosophy was — " Know thyself." Pnt to them, there- 
 fore, the question expressed both irony and astonishment 
 — astonishment, in view of their real self-ignorance — 
 irony, in view of their pretentious philosophic self- 
 knowledge. 
 
 Put to ourselves, the question may have less of irony, 
 for we have little of the Greek pretension, but is express- 
 ive of no less astonishment, for we have even more than 
 Grecian self-ignorance. We do not know our own selves! 
 A marvelous assertion, yet a true one. Physically, intel- 
 lectually, morally, spiritually, most of men are to them- 
 selves profound strangers. 
 
 Physically, we are ignorant of ourselves. The lmman 
 body is a living machine constructed for the use of a 
 spiritual being. It is the most complex, and wonderful, 
 and invaluable of all machines. And yet how little do 
 most men know of it ! How ignorant oft-times are they 
 of the simplest functions of the animal economy ! And 
 in this ignorance it is not strange that they violate the 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 113 
 
 laws of health every day, and fall victims to self-induced 
 disease, which is suicide. If men thoroughly understood, 
 and perfectly obeyed those laws of physical life, probably 
 most of the race would attain to the full threescore and 
 ten, or the fourscore years. 
 
 How strange, then, nay, how sinful is this ignorance ! 
 If a man think to keep time-pieces in order, or musical 
 instruments in tune, he must spend years in a careful 
 study of their mechanism. But parents pretend to take 
 care of children, knowing no more of the laws of food, 
 digestion, respiration, exercise — no more, indeed, of the 
 child's simplest animal functions, than the infant itself 
 knows of the wheels of a watch, or the stops of an organ. 
 And what marvel that so many children die in the first 
 years of their being ? 
 
 And so too of our maturer self-management, how sadly 
 are we unprepared for a work so important. There is 
 probably no man who hears me who would attempt the 
 navigation of a steamship across the ocean. But the 
 mechanism of that steamship is not half so wonderful, 
 nor its management half so difficult, as of these human 
 bodies floating on the seas of life. 
 
 And if a hundred of these youths should attempt, each 
 the navigation of such a vessel, probably fewer would be 
 shipwrecked than will perish prematurely through self- 
 ignorance ; and more would reach trans-atlantic shores 
 than Avill attain to the fourscore of a vigorous and 
 healthy old age. 
 
 True it is, we excuse our ignorance here by our well- 
 grounded reliance on professional medical science. And 
 the excuse would be good if we employed physicians to 
 ktep us in health, rather than to aid us in sickness. But, 
 
114 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 alas, we run the noble vessel into wild currents, and 
 amid rocks and quicksands ; and then hoist signal-flag 
 for the pilot, to work the poor imperiled bark into the 
 open sea again ! Verily this wide-spread ignorance of 
 common physiological truth, as it has to do with the 
 conditions and functions of bodily health, is both shame- 
 ful and sinful. 
 
 Every being to whom God has kindly given a body, 
 should know enough of the laws of food, exercise, respi- 
 ration, digestion — enough, in a word, of the general prin- 
 ciples of physiology — to preserve that body in its highest 
 conditions of health and strength, till the machine is 
 worn out in the fourscore years of a regulated and well- 
 spent life. 
 
 Nor less common and lamentable is our intellectual 
 self-ignorance. Many men practically ignore their in- 
 tellectual faculties. While only a few propound it phil- 
 osophically, very many act on the theory, that bones, 
 nerves, muscles, blood-vessels, brains, all make up a 
 thinking and feeling machine, working only on chemical 
 or mechanical principles. And their only self-culture 
 consists in taking care of the body. Like the rich fool 
 in the parable they think only of the stomach, even 
 when they address words to the soul. 
 
 Some men never think at all. All elaborate art, all 
 abstruse and difficult science, all literature that exercises 
 the higher faculties, yea, even the blessed Gospel, in its 
 mission to the intellect, all seem to them burdensome. 
 They live not amid thoughts, but amid feelings. Not 
 only not cultivating mind, but almost unconscious of its 
 possession. 
 
 And even among those who recognize their intellectual 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 115 
 
 nature, how strangely is it treated ! N"o two minds are 
 alike, and therefore no two minds should receive the 
 same treatment. 
 
 Here self-knowledge is essential to self-culture. We 
 must discern the grand master-faculty of the soul, and 
 give it adjustment as the central and controlling force in 
 the system. As God designed every man to fill a par- 
 ticular sphere, and do a particular work, so hath he 
 equipped him with forces and faculties for that work and 
 sphere. In all the prodigality of his fullness God never 
 wastes implements or energies. He gives not wings to 
 fishes that swim in water, nor fins to birds that fly in air. 
 Nor the more hath he vouchsafed a sensitive and soaring 
 genius to a man designed to break stones on the road, 
 nor a stolid and insensible patience to one formed for a 
 great orator or poet. 
 
 Every man has his special intellectual gift, which often 
 he does not discover till too late to develop and em- 
 ploy to profit. And so he goes to the grave, instinct- 
 ively dissatisfied with himself, as a mal-adjustment in 
 the social system — not doing the great work God de- 
 signed for him, because he has not perceived where his 
 great strength lies, and is working altogether with his 
 weaker and secondary faculties. And surely all this is 
 shameful and sinful. Every man to whom God hath 
 given an intellect, should have enough self-knowledge to 
 understand thoroughly its peculiar powers, that, seeking 
 intelligently those spheres and works for which God has 
 equipped him, he may so live therein and labor, that mor- 
 tal life shall not be a gloomy failure, but a glorious success. 
 
 Meanwhile, quite as common, and even more lamenta- 
 ble, is our moral self-ignorance. Our intellect may be 
 
116 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 symmetrically developed, and in vigorous exercise, while 
 we have little knowledge or feeling- of our moral condi- 
 tion. And yet the desires, the affections, the will, the 
 conscience — those principles which make up our moral 
 constitution — should be, even more carefully than our 
 bodily functions, objects of self-management. The evils 
 of ignorance here are manifest both upon our comfort 
 and our character. 
 
 Self-knowledge on this point tends greatly to increase 
 even our comfort. Of the passions and emotions which 
 belong to our moral nature, some are naturally painful, 
 and some pleasurable in their exercise, and our earthly 
 happiness depends upon quickening the play of those 
 which give pleasure, and diminishing the power of those 
 that give pain. Malice, envy, covetousness, injustice, 
 cruelty, anger — these, and all that great class of feelings 
 which we term the malevolent, are, in their very exer- 
 cise, sources of wretchedness. Whereas, on the contrary, 
 gentleness, forgiveness, charity, long-suffering, love — and 
 that whole class of benevolent emotions to which they 
 belong, do, by their very exercise, fill the spirit with 
 gladness. And yet these simple cardinal facts of moral 
 science how few men ever consider ! 
 
 The soul of man has been compared to a dwelling of 
 many apartments, and the man himself has been repre- 
 sented as occupying mostly the rooms corresponding 
 with his most exercised emotions. Now, in such a 
 bouse, love may be supposed to have a fair banqueting 
 hall — anger a cell dark and prison-like ; — faith and hope 
 to have glorified chambers looking heavenward, and the 
 lower passions to rage and raven like unblessed spirits 
 in dungeons of gloom. And possessed of such a house, 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 117 
 
 how foolish were the man who should seldom enter, or 
 positively and practically ignore those loftier and love- 
 lier pavilions of gladness — deliberately choosing to abide 
 in the cell of envy, or the dungeon of anger, or the dark 
 chamber cf impurity, rather than to sit at love's great 
 banquet, or to recline in the pavilion where benevolence 
 makes sweet music, or to ascend to the bright chamber 
 of faith and hope, and look forth upon sun and star in 
 heaven from their open casements. Surely, our happi- 
 ness greatly depends upon understanding and rightly 
 treating our moral nature. 
 
 Meantime, of course, our character depends upon it. 
 And verily, it is marvelous how little most men know 
 morally of themselves ! Not that herein we have not 
 adequate standards and powers to achieve a right judg- 
 ment, for on these very points we judge other men cor- 
 rectly. Probably in most cases the moral reputation a 
 man sustains in a community gives the truth in regard 
 of his moral character. If the world unite in calling 
 him a good man, he probably is good. If it call him a 
 bad man, he probably is bad. Even a wide-spread sus- 
 picion of a man's dishonesty, or impurity, or untruthful- 
 ness, is in most cases a shadow of some positive salient 
 angle in his character. The eagle-eyed world looks 
 keenly through all the hypocrisies and disguises of pre- 
 tense, and reads aright the real elements of character. 
 
 And yet, strange to say, few men understand rightly 
 their own. And this, not because they can not, but be- 
 cause they will not. They do not look carefully after 
 those favorite, or easily besetting sins which color, yea, 
 constitute character. In their superficial self-examination 
 they do not carry God's lamp into the haunts and fast- 
 
118 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 nesses of their ruling propensities. The proud man 
 looks after his covetousness — and the envious man looks 
 after his dishonesty — and the impure man looks after 
 his insincerity — each carefully perceiving, perhaps hon- 
 estly confessing, some evil thing about him, which yet 
 is not the controlling principle — the elementary evil of 
 his character. And thus reading himself wrongly, he 
 manages himself also wrongly. He is busy in destroying 
 evil insects, while the serpent-sin grows strong — cutting 
 down thistles, and brambles, and thorns, while the oaks 
 and cedars of iniquity shoot deep their strong roots, and 
 spread wide their mighty branches. 
 
 And surely all this is shameful and sinful. Every 
 man, possessed of a moral nature, whose development 
 must be into immense growths either of good or evil, 
 should understand it thoroughly, that the flowers and 
 fruits of its culture may be goodful and glorious. 
 
 But beyond all this, and that which our text refers to 
 especially, there is among men a lamentable spiritual self- 
 ignorance. And on this point we wish particularly to 
 dwell. We have just come from the sacramental com- 
 munion, and are therefore in circumstances demanding 
 special self-examination. Doubtless some of us were at 
 that table who had no right to be there, and some of us 
 were not at that table for whom the gracious Saviour 
 kept a place in love. 
 
 There are probably some here who think themselves 
 Christians, but are not — and as probably there are others 
 who are truly Christians, while they do not think them- 
 selves such. Let us consider these two classes separately. 
 
 First. — There are 2^erso)is who think themselves Chris- 
 tians, but are not. Many men are really self-deceived. 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 119 
 
 Either encouraged and urged by injudicious friends, or 
 relying on insufficient evidences, they have united 
 with the people of God, although still unregenerate. 
 Nevertheless such self-deception is altogether unneces- 
 sary. Surely if there be any thing made plain in the 
 Bible, it is the evidence of true Christian character. On 
 this point the apostles express themselves most con- 
 fidently. "I know" says Paul, "in whom I have 
 believed." " We know" says John, "that -we have passed 
 from death unto life." " We know that we are in the 
 truth." " We know that we dwell in him." Surely we 
 may know ourselves here as certainly as on any ques- 
 tion of moral character. The evidences of regenera- 
 tion are abundantly revealed, and so plainly that a child 
 can understand and apply them. 
 
 A true Christian loves God — loves the moral character 
 of God — loves the very holiness of God — loves the very 
 justice of God which condemns his iniquity. This love 
 of God is something more than a natural gratitude for 
 God's many mercies. It is a changed emotion toward 
 God — new, filial, delightful. 
 
 A true Christian believes in Christ — not merely with 
 a speculative faith that he was a divine person, and 
 died to save men ; but with a sweet and loving trust, 
 seeing in him a beauty and preciousness as his Saviour, 
 and casting himself um-eservedly for salvation upon his 
 glorious grace. 
 
 A true Christian sincerely repents of sin. He enter- 
 tains for it not merely a selfish legal soitow, caused by 
 a fear of its punishment, but he hates sin, self-con- 
 sidered, on account of its own odious and evil nature. 
 
 A true Christian loves the duties of religion. He does 
 
120 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 not indeed always enjoy them to the same degree. His 
 Bible sometimes seems to him a sealed book, and prayer 
 a barren ordinance. But that on the whole he finds 
 pleasure in these things is as certain to himself as the 
 gladness to his senses from the fair sights and sounds of 
 the glorious creation. 
 
 A true Christian loves his brethren. He loves them 
 not so much for what they are in their station or them- 
 selves, as because they are Christians. Because Christ 
 loves them, and they love Christ. He delights in their 
 company. He seeks to do them good. And he knows 
 that he hath passed from death unto life because he 
 loves the brethren. 
 
 Now these are some of the more obvious evidences of 
 regeneration. They might be greatly multiplied, but 
 these are sufficient. If a man be certain that he has 
 one positive Christian grace, he may be certain that he 
 is a Christian, for the graces are not separable. How 
 strange, then, is it that men should be self-deceived ! 
 What marvel that Paul, in the text, treats this self- 
 ignorance with solemn irony ! Surely a man may know, 
 indeed must know, whether he love his parents, his 
 wife, his children. And why may he not know as 
 assuredly whether he loves God ! Yea — know more 
 assuredly. For if he love God at all, it is a new love — 
 a love taking the place of an old hatred — a love not 
 natural but divinely implanted — a heavenly grace, as a 
 fruit of the Spirit. 
 
 Here, then, there seems indeed scarcely need of any 
 moral analysis. In the winter time, it may require 
 careful scrutiny to decide as to the life of a tree in your 
 garden. But go forth in the warm, genial summer, and 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 121 
 
 the veriest child beholding either its bare branches or its 
 golden fruit can decide at once, and unhesitatingly. And 
 so it is of Christian character. Are you bringing forth 
 fruit meet for repentance — fruits unto godliness ? If so, 
 you need not go down to the buried roots of grace 
 in the heart, for by these fruits you may know your- 
 selves? 
 
 Surely on this point there need be no self-deception. 
 If instead of ever feeling the spiritual pulse, to discern 
 mayhap, some feeble, fitful heart-beat — we spent our 
 days in a vigorous culture of that spiritual life, making 
 it luxuriant and fragrant with the bloom and aroma of 
 all Christian graces, then there could remain no ground 
 of question, for the difference between the converted 
 and unconverted man would be as marked and marvel- 
 ous, as between the living and the dead! Then no 
 man could journey to eternity in fearful self-ignorance. 
 No man, in the inspiration of a false hope, could lie 
 down on a death-bed- dreaming of heaven, and wake up 
 in eternity outcast and lost. No man could realize 
 in his own experience this fearful picture of revelation — 
 of a spirit approaching with a bounding foot and a joy- 
 ous heart the heavenly banqueting-house, — knocking 
 hopefully at its glorious portal, and crying as if denial 
 were impossible, " Lord, Lord, open unto us /" and yet 
 be driven away with the fearful denunciation, " Depart ! 
 Depart! I never knew you /" 
 
 Surely men may know themselves. Surely they 
 should. And yet alas, alas ! there are self-deceived pro- 
 fessors in the Church of Christ. Dead corpses, wearing 
 heavenly flowers and white raiment, at the board in the 
 guest-chamber ! neither giving, nor having any true 
 
122 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 evidences of piety, though they may think themselves 
 Christians. 
 
 Meanwhile, secondly, there are doubtless some in the 
 world, not members of the Church, nor thinking them- 
 selves Christians, who are yet truly regenerate, and real 
 children of God. The occasions and causes of this 
 strange self-distrust are manifold. 
 
 Sometimes it arises from -a temperament constitution- 
 ally gloomy. The man looks habitually on the dark 
 side of every thing. Of course he may be expected to 
 look on the dark side of his own religious character. 
 Even in regard of mortal and earthly conditions, he 
 turns away from sunshine to dwell in shadows, and of 
 course his souVs tabernacle is ever pitched, not on the 
 sunny hill-side, but in valleys of gloom. 
 
 Then, sometimes this self-distrust is but a temporary 
 result of bodily infirmity. A shattered nervous system, 
 imperfect digestion, secretion, circulation — these things, 
 and such as these, perform the functions, and assume the 
 very character of an accusing conscience. And what 
 the man wants to make him a hopeful and joyous Chris- 
 tian, is bodily regimen and exercise, and not theological 
 casuistry. You might as well exercise your logic upon 
 dyspepsia, or rheumatism, or the toothache, as to reason 
 such a spirit out of its religious despondency. The 
 gloom results from physical condition ; and to physical 
 condition, and not conscience, must the remedy be ap- 
 plied. 
 
 Sometimes, again, this self-distrust arises from an over- 
 estimate of the particular maimer, or circumstances of 
 conversion. Having heard or read of some men's pecu- 
 liar exercises in regeneration, wherein deep distress was 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 123 
 
 followed by instantaneous and extravagant rapture, they 
 will rest satisfied with nothing but just such an expe- 
 rience. So they go heavily burdened and without hope. 
 They can not tell the day nor the hour of a demonstrative 
 regeneration. They can not even tell of any sermon, or 
 text of Scripture, or special providence of God, which 
 the Holy Ghost employed to arouse their attention to 
 spiritual things. They can indeed perceive a decided, 
 yea, a radical change in their own feelings and conduct. 
 Things they once loved they now hate. Things they 
 once did, they now shrink from. Herein " old things 
 have passed away, and behold all things have become 
 new." But the manner and manifestation of the change 
 does not satisfy their conscience. As if it mattered how 
 a blind man's eyes were opened, if he perfectly see ! or 
 with what instrumentality of rope or life-boat the drown- 
 ing man was saved, when he stands safe upon the shore ! 
 Then, again, men sometimes are led into this self-dis- 
 trust by assuming false tests and standards of Christian 
 character. They entertain extravagant notions of the 
 effects even of regeneration. They have read the reli- 
 gious biographies of distinguished Christians — perhaps 
 their own journals and diaries written in secret, but yet 
 written to be published — pitiful skeleton-abridgments of 
 the man's real history — minced and meagre epitomes of 
 his veritable experience — wherein mention is often made 
 of frames of deep humility, and strong faith, and ardent 
 love — of exercises of repentance, and consolation, and 
 rapture — of days of fasting and nights of prayer, as if 
 life were uninterrupted in its wrapt communion with 
 God. But wherein there is no mention at all of expe- 
 riences as real and positive, of sinful thoughts and carnal 
 
124 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 desires, and perhaps even of deeds flagrantly evil. And 
 thus the humble man, finding in his own personal expe- 
 rience so much of remaining corruption, and in this 
 recorded experience of others, so little of any thing but 
 high frames of godliness, turns away in despair, beguiled 
 of all comforting hope by these men's pretentious dis- 
 honesty in concealing their own manifold short-comings. 
 I say their dishonesty — for while they may not have 
 exaggerated their frames of piety, they have carefully 
 suppressed all record of their carnal frames — giving only 
 half a truth, which in effect and reality is a whole false- 
 hood, leading men to believe that regeneration makes a 
 man at once and positively an angel, and therefore to be 
 satisfied with no evidences of piety short of an angel's 
 flaming heart and up-soaring pinion ! 
 
 Now, these are but specimens (and we have no limits 
 for others) of the causes or occasions of self-distrust, 
 whereby men genuinely converted to God are kept in 
 despondency, and hindered from professing Christ before 
 men. These, and all such causes, are included in one 
 general one — not a want of sufficient evidence, but a 
 wrong standard of judgment. The man does not go 
 directly to the Bible to learn what, as exhibited either 
 in its positive precepts, or its sainted biographies, are 
 the true evidences of conversion. He takes counsel, 
 rather, sometimes of his own morbidly sensitive con- 
 science, and sometimes of men who live mainly in 
 emotions. And he will often urge as reasons why he 
 can not believe himself a Christian, those very feelings 
 and frames of mind which the Bible sets forth as the 
 "fruits of the Spirit," 
 
 These, then, are the two classes which the text con- 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 125 
 
 templates, as men who " know not their own selves;" — 
 men self-deceived, "who are not Christians — men self- 
 distrustful, who are. 
 
 And now, interrupting for the present this train of 
 thought, let me close with some words of personal ex- 
 hortation. 
 
 First. — To the self-deceived, how earnestly does the 
 text appeal ! Beloved hearers, to be in the Church 
 without piety is perhaps of all conditions on earth the 
 most dreadful. Not because false professors are more 
 sinful than other men — though even this may be true, 
 for the common human conscience will regard the sin 
 of Judas as greater than that of Pilate — but because 
 there is less hope of their conviction of sin, and, conse- 
 quently, of their conversion, than if they had not found 
 rest for a guilty conscience in a fair, though false, 
 refuge. 
 
 Let us, then, be willing " to know our own selves /" — 
 to know the very worst of our character and condition ! 
 Surely we maybe undeceived. The man who consciously 
 delights even in secret iniquities — who feels in his heart 
 that he is a dishonest man, or an untruthful man, or an 
 impure man — who hath no delight in God's service and 
 ordinances — who exhibits in his daily life none of the 
 gracious fruits of the Spirit — that man may surely know 
 that, however excited at times may be his emotions, 
 " he is yet in the gall of bitterness and in the bond 
 of iniquity." 
 
 The whole Bible represents the visible Church as 
 embracing many members who will finall} r be lost. 
 We may really think ourselves Christians, and yet not 
 be Christians. And here, as elsewhere, honesty of 
 
126 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 opinion neither excuses its falseness, nor averts its fatal 
 issues. Mistaken and misguided sincerity can not con- 
 trol the mighty workings of God's government that are 
 bearing him to destruction. If a man drink a poison- 
 cup, thinking the draught living- water, still the hemlock 
 will destroy him. If a man, really believing he can fly, 
 fling himself from a precipice, he will yet none the less be 
 dashed in pieces. A mistake as to the reality of per- 
 sonal religion is absolutely fatal. It is the immortal spirit 
 that drinks the deadly drug, and springs a suicide from 
 the precipice. O God ! give us the wisdom that is 
 willing to know the worst, so that if this day w T e are 
 counted with the foolish virgins, we may at once flee 
 unto the Redeemer for regenerating grace, and have oil 
 for our lamps, ere the self-deceived soul be startled from 
 dreams of heaven into everlasting despair by the mid- 
 night cry that heralds the Bridegroom. 
 
 Secondly. — The text speaks as earnestly to the self- 
 distrustful — those who have been truly converted, and 
 have neither the confidence nor the comfort of the chil- 
 dren of God, — those who really hate sin and love the 
 Saviour, and yet, because they find a remaining carnality, 
 a law of sin, in the members, warring with holiness ; or 
 because they can not tell when or how they were con- 
 verted, or do not experience the peculiar raptures which 
 they have heard or read of in the lives of professing 
 Christians, will see in themselves no evidence of con- 
 version. These men the text exhorts unto hopeful self- 
 knowledge. It sets forth faith, and not feeling, as the 
 evidence of piety. 
 
 Dear friends, your trust for salvation is not in what 
 you are, but what Christ is. If, with a penitent, and 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 127 
 
 believing, and loving heart, you cast yourselves upon 
 the Redeemer, then you /enow you are Christians ! 
 For he says you shall " in no wise be cast out," and 
 " shall never perish !" And thus " knowing your own 
 selves," your place should be in Christ's visible Church. 
 He commands you to enter it. His words to you are 
 personal and explicit — a Do this in remembrance of me.'''' 
 And as these sacramental seasons go by, and you turn 
 even sadly away from them — ah, me ! how you slight 
 and grieve your gracious Redeemer ! You say practi- 
 cally — and heaven, and earth, and hell give heed to the 
 utterance, — you say, " I will not remember thee! Those 
 tears — those blood-drops — those wounded hands, and head, 
 and heart — those mighty dying agonies — oh, let their 
 record perish ! Oh, let them be blotted forever from my 
 memory !" 
 
 And treating Jesus thus — though it be in honest self- 
 distrust, yet a distrust that dishonors his loving-kindness 
 — what marvel that he hides his face from you — that 
 your hearts do not rise into rapture with the full hope 
 of salvation ! 
 
 Thirdly. — The text speaks most earnestly to the openly 
 impenitent; men neither professing nor p>ossessing Chris- 
 tianity. In one sense, indeed, these men do "know their 
 own selves." They know that they are unconverted; 
 that they have neither part nor lot in the great salva- 
 tion. They are not hypocrites, for they do not make 
 false professions. Nevertheless, they do make pjublic and 
 most fearful professions! They profess to be the ene- 
 mies of God ! They stand boldly in the ranks of rebel- 
 lion against Jehovah. Alas, beloved and misguided 
 hearers, in this great matter there is no neutrality ! He 
 
128 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 that is not with Christ is against him. You turn away 
 from, you renounce, you scorn our sacraments. But you 
 have your own! You are baptized unto death. Your 
 communion is with hell! 
 
 Pause, then, this day in your dark and dreadful ini- 
 quity ! Take account of your doings ! " Know ye not 
 your own selves?" — that you are not beasts that perish, 
 but creatures instinct with immortality ! Two eternal 
 worlds watch you and strive for you. 
 
 "Hell moves beneath to work your death, 
 Heaven stoops to give you life." 
 
 And are you willing to be lost ? To be lost for these 
 poor phantasms of time, that recede as you pursue, and 
 vanish as you touch them ? Oh ! pause in your mad 
 career ! Pause ere it be too late ! ere the blood be all 
 gone from the cross ! Oh, come to Christ Jesus for life 
 —for life ! 
 
 FoitrtJdy, and finally. — The text speaks earnestly to 
 the Church, There is, as we have already said, a terri- 
 ble irony in its question. It intimates that between the 
 professing people of God and the world there is so little 
 visible difference that it is difficult to distinguish them. 
 That in the husbandry of God there is so little fruit of 
 the Spirit, that it is a hard matter to find out even what 
 trees are good. Now, although this is not true in all 
 cases, yet alas ! in many cases it is. So little do some 
 professing Christians live like the children of God, that 
 only on sacramental sabbaths, — only four tunes a year, 
 — do they even look like Christians! On all other days 
 of the week, sacred or secular, they are in no respect a 
 peculiar people. 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 129 
 
 Surely, then, O beloved children of God, it is time 
 for us to rise into higher frames and spheres of religions 
 life. 
 
 We have come from the communion. We are there- 
 fore re-consecrate ! And we feel to-day that such re- 
 consecration was due unto our Saviour. Oh, " he was 
 bruised for our iniquity !" We saw it. We felt it ! 
 That "body" — the body of the Incarnate God, — was 
 "broken'''' for our iniquity. That "blood,' 1 '' that mysteri- 
 ous blood of an Incarnate God, Avas "shed" for our 
 iniquity ! Here, here, were unto us the memorials of a 
 divine consecration ! All the works of God, all the 
 riches of God, all the attributes of God, all the persons 
 of God, consecrated unto us/ "All things present" — 
 this universal range and power of the economy of Provi- 
 dence ; " all things to come " — all that higher economy 
 of the eternal world — thrones, crowns, white robes, heav- 
 enly mansions — all — all consecrate to us ! God having 
 given them to be ours, and using them henceforth for 
 our good and glory. 
 
 And surely, then, our consecration should be perfect ! 
 Such was our profession. We did bring them all — talents, 
 possessions, influence, time, all we have, all we are, — we 
 brought them all and laid them on God's altar in holy 
 consecration, taking them into our hands again as things 
 of a stewardship, to be used for God's glory ! Let us 
 then respect the consecration. Let us live as becomes 
 lis ; live as if a Christian was separate from the world ; 
 as if the children of God were "a peculiar people." Let 
 us so live that all men must perceive and acknowledge 
 our piety. 
 
 Let us so grow in grace that hereafter we shall not 
 6* 
 
130 SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 need to self- examine ourselves with, the sensitive finger 
 carefully on the pulse to detect, haply, a fitful beating of 
 life. But, as wisely "knowing our own selves," we shall 
 be joyously confident that we are strong men in Christ 
 Jesus, because our eyes flash, and our hearts beat, and 
 our feet bound in the high courses of a heavenly and 
 obedient life ! 
 
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 " Now the man, out of whom the devils were departed, besought him 
 ffiat he might be with him : but Jesus sent him away, saijing, Return to 
 thine own house, and show how great things God hoih done unto thee." — 
 Luke, viii, 38, 39. 
 
 In - our study of tneology, whether natural or revealed, 
 we should never lose sight of the great truth — that God's 
 thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are God's ways 
 our ways. Our chief difficulties in pondering God's 
 providential and gracious economies, arise from our fool- 
 ish endeavors to lift human reason from its true place of 
 scholarship to its false place of criticism, in forgetfulness 
 of the truth, that as the heavens are higher than the 
 earth, so are God's thoughts higher than our thoughts, 
 and his ways than our ways. We do not say that man 
 should not reason about Divine truth, whether natural or 
 revealed. On the contrary, we know that reason is the 
 only faculty whereby truth can be apprehended ; and so, 
 every presentation of truth is a Divine appeal unto rea- 
 son — and he that can not reason is an idiot, and he that 
 dare not reason is a slave. And yet, in approaching 
 truth as it has to do with Divine things, sound reason 
 would lead us to expect much that is mysterious and in- 
 comprehensible, and to be received simply on Divine au- 
 thority — -faith, and not science being the law of our 
 scholarship. 
 
132 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 Quito manifest it is that, alike in nature and revela- 
 tion, God neither thinks nor acts according to man's 
 standard of wisdom. God did not make the world as a 
 wise man would have made it ; God does not govern the 
 world as a wise man would govern it ; God has not writ- 
 ten the Bible as a wise man would have written it. To 
 this truth we must all come at last ; and the sooner the 
 better, for our profit and consolation — for we shall in- 
 crease in the true knowledge of God only when, and 
 precisely as, our finite and imperfect reason sinks from 
 its false place of criticism of God's doings, into its true 
 place of scholarship at God's feet. 
 
 God's ways are not our ways — God does not do things 
 as we would do them. This is the first thing we must 
 thoroughly understand as students of theology. Of this 
 important truth we have an illustration in the text. It 
 is part of the record of Christ's miracle in the country of 
 the Gadarenes. Having stilled the storm on Tiberias, 
 he went forth from the ship with his disciples, and 
 " there met him out of the city a certain man, which had 
 devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in 
 any house, but in the tombs." A man so fearfully pos- 
 sessed, that he brake in pieces the fetters and chains 
 wherewith he was bound, and was driven of the devil 
 into the wilderness, a torture unto himself, and a terror 
 unto all men. Out of this poor demoniac, Christ com- 
 manded the unclean spirit to depart ; and he sat clothed 
 and in his right mind, trustful and loving at his Saviour's 
 feet. And then and there he uttered the prayer re- 
 corded in the text — "lie besought Jesus that he might 
 be with him." 
 
 Now we say, had God's thoughts been as man's 
 
CHRISTIAN' INFLUENCE. 133 
 
 thoughts, this prayer would have been answered. We 
 can hardly imagine a more acceptable prayer than this. 
 Whatever may have been the motive that inspired it — 
 whether love for the Saviour's person, or gratitude for 
 his deliverance, or consecration to his service, it must 
 seem to us commendable. Meanwhile, we can perceive 
 great benefits likely to result from his following Jesus, 
 which, according to man's wisdom, would have secured 
 the prayer's answer. 
 
 How good, seemingly, it would have been for the man 
 himself, to be ever with the Saviour, listening to his 
 gracious instructions, and living in the sanctifying power 
 of his presence ! How good, as well, for others ! Oh, 
 what a witness for Christ he might have been, in the 
 midst of the multitudes that followed his footsteps ! 
 What sermons he could have preached of Christ's power 
 and grace before Scribe and Pharisee in the streets of 
 Jerusalem ! Surely, had man been the arbiter, this 
 earnest prayer of the restored man to be with his Lord 
 would have been graciously answered. But man's 
 thoughts are not God's thoughts. The prayer was not 
 answered. " Jesus sent him away /" 
 
 Now, from this record we may learn some simple les- 
 sons of practical instruction. As we have often shown 
 you, these miracles of Christ are to be regarded as prac- 
 tical parables, beautifully illustrating the working of 
 Divine grace in salvation, and imparting important in- 
 struction as to spiritual duties. And regarding Christ's 
 treatment of this restored man, as in entire analogy with 
 his treatment of true Christians, let us learn 
 
 First — A lesson in regard to GocVs answering of 
 pi-ayer. 
 
134 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 As we have said, here was a prayer which was seem- 
 ingly proper, and right, and good, and yet seemingly 
 unanswered. And how are we to explain this ? Does 
 not God positively px-omise to hear and answer prayers, 
 that are proper and good? And are God's promises 
 conditional ? Are they not all " yea and amen in Christ 
 Jesus ?" Is it, after all, amid uncertainties and contin- 
 gencies, pressed down with doubts and sadly distrust- 
 ful, that we are to approach the mercy-seat ? If our 
 prayers are proper and right, both in their spirit and 
 their objects, may we not come to the throne of grace 
 assured that they will be answered ? To which I an- 
 swer, first — That according to the principle just insisted 
 on, that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, no man is 
 competent to decide positively whether the prayer he 
 offers is in the right spirit. The petition of this Gada- 
 rene may have originated in a selfish desire to be happy 
 in Christ's presence, rather than useful in his service. 
 And if so, it was self-considered, an improper prayer, 
 and not to be answered. And so of other prayers. We 
 must be more than finite ; we must rise actually into the 
 infinite, so that God's thoughts become our thoughts, 
 before we can sufficiently analyze our motives, and 
 frames, and feelings in prayer, to decide, in any given 
 case, that it is proper and acceptable. 
 
 But we remark, secondly — That, even were we certain 
 that the pi-ayer is such as God promises to answer, there 
 remains still a more important point to be considered, 
 viz., the best way of answering it. If the Gadarene 
 prayed properly, desiring only his own greatest good 
 and God's greatest glory, then Christ may have seen 
 that he would grow more rapidly in grace, and bring 
 
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 135 
 
 move honor to his Saviour, by remaining among his own 
 countrymen ; and thus really answered his petition by 
 sending him away. And so it is always. God will 
 assuredly answer all prayers that are proper and good ; 
 but then he answers them in his own way, and according 
 to his own higher wisdom. We can indeed cast our- 
 selves, in entire confidence, upon God's faithful promises, 
 relying on his absolute omnipotence as pledged to the 
 prayer-answering. But, meanwhile, we must equally 
 cast ourselves upon his absolute omniscience, as to the 
 time, and form, and manner of the specific answer. 
 Here, again, God's ways are not our ways. The Chris- 
 tian prays to be sanctified ; and this is a good prayer, 
 and if offered in a right spirit is sure to be answered. 
 But how? Ah, not according to the man's thouo-hts! 
 God hiys his strong hand upon the man's idols. He 
 takes away his property ; he takes away his health ; he 
 takes away his comforts; he lays the beloved of his 
 home and heart into the unpitying grave — thus weaken- 
 ing his affections for the earthly and the carnal. " Ah," 
 but says the Christian, " this is not what I meant !" Be 
 it so; yet if you prayed sincerely to be sanctified, this is 
 precisely what you asked for — for this is sanctification ! 
 The nestling eaglet looks up to the majestic flight of the 
 soaring eagle through heaven, and says, "Oh, that I 
 could soar as bravely ! teach me, teach me to fly !" 
 And, as if in answer to the wish, the parent-bird de- 
 scends, and tears the soft nesj; in pieces, forcing the rest- 
 ful brood forth to the sweeping winds. And though to 
 the young bird it may seem almost cruel, yet it is just 
 what it longed for — this is teaching it to fly ! And so is 
 it always in God's treatment of his children. He an- 
 
136 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 swers their prayers, but in his own way — for his thoughts 
 are not our thoughts. 
 
 But passing now from this great lesson of prayer, and 
 considering the text as containing important parabolic 
 instruction, we learn here several lessons as to practical 
 Christian influence. 
 
 We leaxxXyflrst, the importance of such Christian influ- 
 ence. 
 
 The text most impressively teaches us that the law of 
 Christian life is not spiritual enjoyment, but usefulness. 
 Had Christ regarded the mere comfort of the restored 
 Gadarene, he would have granted his request, and taken 
 him with him to Galilee. But he sends him away, to be 
 a blessing to his countrymen. And so it is with the 
 Christian. If the end of his conversion were his own 
 spiritual enjoyment, then, as soon as he is converted, he 
 would be translated to Christ's presence in glory. The 
 moment a man believes, that moment he is justified; 
 and, as a justified man, has a clear and sure title to the 
 heavenly inheritance. And, although we can perceive 
 much in this earthly life that renders it a fine economy 
 of spiritual discipline, so that the longer we struggle in 
 the flesh the better we shall be fitted for heaven ; yet, 
 inasmuch as sanctification is always perfected at death, 
 it must seem to us, on the whole, as to Paul, better to 
 depart and be with Jesus. Sure we are, a year spent in 
 celestial glory is better for a soul than a year spent in 
 terrestrial grace. And so we may be certain, that, were 
 a man's own enjoyment the grand end of his conversion, 
 then the great change of regeneration would be followed 
 instantly by his translation to Paradise. But this is not 
 the grand end, and therefore he is not thus translated. 
 
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 137 
 
 If you can separate in your thought things that belong 
 philosophically together, and are therefore inseparable, 
 we might declare, that a man is not converted that he 
 may be happy, but rather that he may be useful — " that 
 others may see his good works, and glorify his Father 
 who is in heaven.'''' 
 
 There is nothing falser and fouler, than that low, nar- 
 row, selfish idea of conversion which regards it only as 
 the condition whereby the man escapes from hell and 
 gets into heaven. If such conversion makes a man good, 
 it is a goodness out of harmony with all other good 
 things. God's great law of goodness is not absorption, 
 but diffusion. All God's glorious things, from a flower 
 of the field to a star in the firmament, are not receptacles, 
 but fountains. No man ever thought of one of God's 
 angels as sitting selfishly on a heavenly throne, contem- 
 plating in indolent rapture the sceptre he is wielding, 
 and the diadem he weai*s. And if one of those profess- 
 ing Christians, who think that all God requires of them 
 is just to get themselves to glory, is a true child of God, 
 then he lacks at least one evidence of sonship — he does 
 not resemble his great Father. He is begotten in the 
 very image of the infidel's God — that abstract and indo- 
 lent omnipotence, that reposes in contemplative majesty 
 behind the elements of Nature, that do all his work for 
 him — and has no likeness unto Jehovah, that immense 
 and omni-operative Spirit, pervading all space with an 
 active and beneficent energy. 
 
 Of one thing are we certain, that every converted 
 soul is designed by Jehovah to be " the light of the 
 world." And its use, like other light, is not to keep 
 itself safe and warm under a bushel, but to burn itself 
 
138 CHRISTIAN' INFLUENCE. 
 
 out on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that 
 are in the house. Alas, how fearful the exclamation of 
 our Lord in regard of all selfish and inefficient piety — 
 "If the light that is in thee be darkness, hoiv great is that 
 darkness /" There is no image more terrible than this — 
 an eclipsed luminary ! A star in the night, or a sun at 
 noonday, ceasing suddenly to shine ! Nay, an orb that 
 should be radiating light, absolutely radiating darkness / 
 Oh, careless and inactive and slumbering professor of 
 religion, regarding your Christian hope as a fragment of 
 the mortal wreck whereon you are to be floated to glory, 
 and not a buoyant life-boat, with which you are to save 
 your fellow-castaways from the raging water, would I 
 could bring this truth home fittingly to your heart and 
 mind ! " Ye are the light of the world!'''' and a light is 
 kindled to shine. See that keeper of the beacon, on a 
 rocky promontory in a stormy midnight ! We look 
 forth upon the raging sea, and lo, by the flashes of light- 
 ning, we behold laboring barks driving fiercely before 
 the tempest. We look upward to the watch-towei', and 
 the beacon shines not. In wild alarm for the imperiled 
 seamen, we hurry to the keeper's chamber. We find 
 him sitting at his ease, by a loaded board and a blazing 
 hearth. We cry out, " What are you doing ?" And he 
 answers, " Oh, I am taking care of myself; there is a 
 wild night outside, and I have sheltered me from the 
 storm, and am making myself comfortable." And your 
 cry in indignant response is, " Hut ioho sent you here to 
 be comfortable ? Why, this very watch-tower, these very 
 walls, these very fagots and oil, have been gathered 
 round you, not for your own comfort, but for your busi- 
 ness of light-keeping ! Up from your pleasure ! away 
 
CHRISTIAN' INFLUENCE. 139 
 
 from your board and hearth ! kindle the beacon ! let the 
 light shine !" 
 
 And think you the Divine cry is less indignant unto 
 a professing Christian at ease in Zion ? The law of all 
 holy life is, not enjoyment, but usefulness. An angel 
 in heaven, who should choose rather to repose in his 
 glorious palace than to rush abroad at the Divine com- 
 mandment, even through the outer darkness of the uni- 
 verse, would be cast down from his throne as a rebel- 
 lious spirit. And if Jesus Christ should descend again 
 to the earth, dwelling as of old time with mortals, and 
 one of these very happy and indolent Christians should 
 come to him, saying, " O Lord Jesus, precious Saviour, 
 let me ever sit at thy feet in love, and rapture, and 
 worship !" then, sure I am Christ would frown on him 
 as a slumbering and selfish disciple, and, like the re- 
 stored man of Gadara, " would send him away.'''' 
 
 Passing this, we learn from the text, secondly, The 
 secret, or element, of all true Christian influence. 
 
 Our Lord sent this restored man away, that he might 
 bear witness for God unto his kinsfolk and countrymen. 
 But how Avas he to bear witness? Why, simply by 
 making it manifest that the devil had gone out of him. 
 Had he returned, seemingly, in disposition and charac- 
 ter, an unchanged man to his kinsfolk, then, though he 
 had talked as eloquently as an angel about Christ, the 
 Wonder-worker, they had laughed him to scora. He 
 did indeed talk of Christ, for his tongue could not keep 
 silent. But the power of his witness was not in his lips, 
 but his life. They saw that he was a changed man. 
 He, that in times past had walked in lone places in the 
 wilderness, a terror to his race ; whom fetters could not 
 
140 CHRISTIAN' INFLUENCE. 
 
 bind, nor dungeons restrain ; whose dwelling was in the 
 tombs, and whose life was self-torture ; he, now clothed 
 and in his right mind, came a gentle, peaceful, loving 
 man of God, to the streets of the city, and the home of 
 his children. And men saw it, and marveled. Here 
 Avas a miracle ! Something too merciful to be believed, 
 save on the evidence of their own senses. A hundred 
 men might have come from Galilee, telling these Gada- 
 renes of Christ, the Worker of Miracles, and yet all 
 their arguments and eloquence would have been as 
 nothing, to one hour's converse with this restored man 
 — yesterday known to all as a raging demoniac, to-day 
 a gentle and loving companion, in his right mind. 
 His power of testimony for Jesus was the power of his 
 life. 
 
 And in this lies the secret of all true Christian influ- 
 ence. It is the easiest thing in the world to talk about 
 religion. But mere talk about religion is the poorest 
 thing in the world. Every true Christian will indeed 
 talk about his Saviour. Out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh. And if the voice does not 
 speak for Christ, sure you may be the soul is not filled 
 with Christ. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, the utter- 
 ance of the lips is as nothing to the influence of the 
 life. In the Divine economy all grand forces are com- 
 paratively gentle and silent. The shallow rill, that is 
 dry on the mountain-side half the year, brawls more 
 noisily at times than yon mighty river. The boy's 
 sparkling rocket makes a louder demonstration in the 
 night air than all God's starry constellations. And yet, 
 in the silence of their sublime manifestations, how elo- 
 quently do these great forces of the universe bear wit- 
 
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 141 
 
 ness for God ! And so it is of moral forces. The gentle 
 movement of this restored man, amid his wondering 
 countrymen, did more to convince them of Christ's 
 saving power, than a thousand noisy utterances. And so 
 is it with the convincing power of a Christian life. The 
 converted man is left in this world a Avitness for Jesus 
 — a living illustration of the power and blessedness of 
 a religious life. He is to the theologic truth of the 
 Bible what practical experiments are to scientific truths 
 in Nature. As the chemist talks technically of ele- 
 ments in analysis and synthesis, and exhibits in illus- 
 tration, free gases and ponderous compounds; and as 
 the botanist discourses scientifically of the structure of 
 plants, and the functions of their parts, and shows you 
 his meaning by producing the petals of a lily, or a 
 spike of lavender — so is it with spiritual science, in the 
 hands of the Great Teacher. The Bible explains, and 
 Christian life illustrates, (e. g.) 
 
 Faith, by definition, is " the snibstance of things hoped 
 for." But, in order to make men understand it, I must 
 be able to point to some man who, under its power, lives, 
 as did Abraham, ever looking for a city whose maker is 
 God. Trust in God is, by definition, an unswerving 
 resting of the mind on Divine veracity and benevolence. 
 But, to make a man comprehend it, it must be in my 
 power to point to men Avho, under its influence, sit calmly, 
 like Daniel, in the lion's den ; or go resolutely, like the 
 young Hebrews, into a fiery furnace. 
 
 And so of all graces. In the Bible they are described, 
 as in a written epistle — in Christian life they are illus- 
 trated, as in a " living epistle." And in this sense are 
 we, mainly, witnesses for Christ. As the Gadarenes saw 
 
142 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 that the demoniac was restored, so must the world see 
 that the sinner is converted. He must speak for Christ, 
 as the flower and the star speak for God, in the beauty 
 and glory of their physical manifestations. Without 
 this abiding savor of a holy life, all else will prove but a 
 mockery. 
 
 When the blind man came from Christ, saying, "Jesus 
 of Nazareth restored me to sight," men trusted not to 
 his words — they examined his eyes. When the lame 
 man cried, "Oh, Jesus has healed me," men did not 
 inquire whether he was eloquent — but only whether he 
 could walk ! And so is it of salvation. A man may talk 
 eloquently as an apostle about the purity and peace of 
 a regenerated nature, but if, in the intervals of his 
 religious orations, men find him slandering his neigh- 
 bors ; or defrauding his customers ; or manifesting a rash 
 and imprudent temperament ; or walking the streets of 
 the city a proud, self-conceited, pleasure-loving, worldly- 
 minded man, not letting "his spiritual light shine at all, 
 or letting it so shine that men shall see it and glorify not 
 his Heavenly Father, but himself — then, alas, all his 
 testimony for Christ will seem a poor trumpet sounded 
 in the street. The voice is Jacob's, but the hands are 
 Esau's ; the tongue is of Paul, but the heart is a 
 Pharisee's. 
 
 The power of the savor of a holy life. This is the 
 power of a converted man to bring others to Jesus. Not 
 so much to tell what Christ has done for us, as to show 
 what he has done for us — so to walk before men that 
 they shall see, and seeing, believe, that religion makes 
 its subjects alike happy and holy. To take these grand 
 truths of the Bible, which, as they lie embodied in creeds 
 
CHRIHTIAN INFLUENCE. 143 
 
 and confessions, are as inoperative upon the popular con- 
 science as mammoth fossils in rock, or dead insects in 
 amber, and so exhibit them in the power of a daily life, 
 that they seem creatures of mighty strength, shaking the 
 earth — creatures of joyous heart, singing in the sunshine. 
 To walk before the men of the world, in the exhibition 
 of such superinduced graces of godliness — so humble, so 
 gentle, so loving, so merciful, so manifestly subjects of a 
 Divine change into light out of darkness, from death 
 unto life — that no man can confound the true piety with 
 a mock pharisaism; but, as in the case, of the restored 
 Gadarene, beholding one that, from a tortured demoniac, 
 hath become a gentle follower of Jesus, all men shall be 
 constrained to acknowledge that there is a reality in 
 religion — that he that is in Christ Jesus is a new crea- 
 ture. This, I say, is the true secret, or element, of all 
 Christian influence. 
 
 Meanwhile, the text teaches us, thirdly — The true 
 sphere of this Christian influence. 
 
 This is most strikingly set forth in Christ's words to 
 the restored man. Filled with a love of Jesus, he prayed 
 that he might go with him, as a witness, giving testi- 
 mony unto his gracious power, through the villages of 
 Galilee, and to the city of Jerusalem. But the command 
 of the Saviour is, " Return to thine own house, and show 
 how great things God hath done unto thee." 
 
 We may not be able to understand all the reasons of 
 this command. It is, however, quite evident, first, that 
 his home would be the field of his most powerful influ- 
 ence — since those who had best known him in his demo- 
 niacal state, would be the most thoroughly convinced of 
 Christ's power of miraculous restoration. And, secondly, 
 
144 CHRISTIAN I2TFLUEXCE. 
 
 that his homo would be the most appropriate field of his 
 influence, since his kinsfolk had the first claim upon his 
 sympathy and labors. And, were there no reasons but 
 these, this direction of Christ teaches us this important 
 lesson in regard of Christian influence — that its truest 
 field, and its mightiest power, are alike always at home. 
 
 Its mightiest power is at home, because the members 
 of a man's own household, and the familiar friends of his 
 own social circle, are the best judges of the genuineness 
 of his conversion. It is very easy to put on seemings of 
 godliness that shall deceive strangers ; but that must be 
 a true piety, which, amid the daily vexations of life, and 
 the unrestrained intercourse of the home-circle, bears the 
 image of Jesus. The testimony of a man's parents, or 
 wife, or children, or servants, or customers, or employ- 
 ers, to his sincere piety, is worth all the certificates of 
 church courts and sessions the world ever saw. As the 
 kinsfolk of the Gadarene were the best judges of his res- 
 toration, so are kinsfolk always the best judges of con- 
 version. And it is, at once, a finer proof, and a higher 
 manifestation of vital godliness, to live every day in the 
 family-circle, in the commandments and ordinances of 
 the Lord blameless, than to sing songs, like Paul in the 
 dungeon of Philippi, or see visions, like John on the lone 
 rock of Patmos. 
 
 Meanwhile, a man's home is the fittest field for the ex- 
 ercise of his Christian influence. Religion, like charity, 
 should begin at home. Here, emphatically, "he that 
 pi'ovides not for his own, denies the faith, and is worse 
 than an infidel." It is right to have an expansive benev- 
 olence ; a Christian love that takes in a race and a 
 world. Nevertheless, all true expansion presupposes a 
 
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 145 
 
 fixed and vigorous central power. Expansion is not 
 locomotion, but enlargement ; a growth, and not a jour- 
 ney. And that Christian benevolence, which neglects 
 religion at home for the sake of carrying it abroad, is 
 at best but a locomotive, and not an enlarged benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 Many men, when first converted, feel, like this Gada- 
 rene, an earnest desire to go forth into new fields, bear- 
 ing witness for Jesus. But, though this may be the dic- 
 tate and desire of true piety, Divine wisdom directs 
 otherwise. Go first to the field where God hath cast 
 your lot — to your family, to your social circle, to the 
 companions of your own sinful life. Here, at least, is 
 your first work. See that your own field is well tilled, 
 ere you go abroad to other fields. Your own heart 
 first; then your own family; then your own church; 
 then your own country; and then the whole world. 
 This is God's great law of influence. The heart must be 
 in strong health, if the circulation be vigorous and 
 healthful in the extremities. The roots and trunk of a 
 tree must thrive, if it would fling forth new branches. 
 
 No matter, indeed, how largely a man expands — the 
 larger his benevolence the better — if he expand har- 
 moniously, from a healthy and permanent centre. Let 
 him not mistake diffusion for expansion, nor a change 
 of scene for an enlargement of influence. Let him go 
 forth, like the apostles, over all the world ; only, like the 
 same apostles, let his ministry for Christ begin at Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 Would that all Christians, and all Christian churches, 
 would learn this simple lesson, which Christ taught to 
 the restored man of Gadara. One fixed and steadfast 
 1 
 
1^6 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 sun, standing earnestly in its appointed place, and dif- 
 fusing constant light and life over the small circle of 
 worlds God has committed to its keeping, is worth more 
 than a hundred erratic comets, flaming out in the heav- 
 ens, and casting a fiery and locomotive glare on a 
 thousand constellations. " Let me go," said the restoied 
 man, "let me go with thee, Master. Let me walk 
 through broad Galilee, and stand up as a living witness 
 for God before Greek and Jew ; before ruler and Phari- 
 see." And though this request falls in with the dictate 
 of human reason, yet, oh, deeper wisdom of the blessed 
 Saviour ! Christ sent him unto his own kinsfolk, saying, 
 " Go home ! Go home /" 
 
 Moreover, the text teaches us, finally, the motives of 
 this Christian influence. " Return to thine own house," 
 said the Saviour. And though the command was not 
 according to his prayers, the man obeyed it instantly. 
 And the reasons of his obedience are obvious. Doubtless, 
 there was in his heart a natural desire to visit again, in 
 his restored state, his own household. The text tells us 
 he had " a home ;" and faithful hearts, long agonized in 
 his behalf, were to be comforted and blessed by his 
 presence. And though, for his own sake, he preferred to 
 be with Jesus, yet, for the sake of beloved kindred, he 
 was willing to depart. Here was one motive, and a 
 strong one. 
 
 But the text gives us a stronger. The Divine com- 
 mandment — " Christ sent Jam away." He may not have 
 had the intellect to understand why Christ thus ordered 
 it ; but he surely had the heart, that, in its supreme love 
 to his great Deliverer, rejoiced above all things to do 
 his bidding. And though that command bade him away 
 
CHRISTIAN' INFLUENCE. 147 
 
 from his Master's presence, into those very scenes where 
 the terrible demon had aforetime found him, yet he 
 obeyed it at once, unquestioning and joyful. 
 
 And here are the types of Christian motives, in labors 
 for the Saviour. Here is, first, philanthropy — the love 
 of our human kindred ; a desire to save the sons and 
 daughters of our one great Father. The man feels what 
 it is to be saved himself; and instinctively and earnestly 
 desires to save others. As a mariner, taken from the 
 fragments of a wreck, will spring into the stormy sea to 
 save imperiled shipmates — as a mother, borne forth 
 from a burning house, will rush again into the flames, to 
 bring forth her perishing children — so a saved soul longs 
 and labors to save other men. Like the Gadarene, he 
 can depart even from the Saviour's presence, for the sake 
 of his beloved ones. Like Paul, he " could icish that 
 himself icere accursed from Christ for his brethren, his 
 kinsmen according to the fiesh.'''' And every strong 
 motive, whose spring is in the better and gracious im- 
 pulses of a generous nature, urges him resistlessly on- 
 ward to bring sinful men to Christ. 
 
 But yet, strong as this motive is, it is as nothing to that 
 second and mightier one — the command of his Master. 
 Christ, his great and gracious Saviour, hath commanded 
 him, as the grand end of his earthly being, to labor to 
 bring impenitent men under the power of the Gospel. 
 And this motive is omnipotent. "The love of Christ 
 constraineth him." Other motives might fail — philan- 
 thropy, benevolence, love for kind or for kindred — these 
 might appeal to him in vain. He might think of the 
 dark places of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty ; 
 of the Indian's babe on a heathen altar ; of a Hindoo 
 
148 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 widow on the terrible death-pyre — he might think of 
 the home of his familiar friend, made desolate and de- 
 spairing by reason of unbelief and iniquity — yea, perhaps 
 he might think even of an immortal soul as abiding 
 under the curse of a violated law ; and so, exposed every 
 moment to a death that is eternal — he might think of all 
 these things, I say, and yet, under the dread power of 
 his remaining carnality, remain comparatively indolent 
 and at ease in Zion. But, meanwhile, there is one motive 
 that will not, can not fail — his intense love for Jesus. 
 He knows that the salvation of men is the desire lying 
 nearest to the heart that was pierced on Calvary — a 
 desire with which that heart is burdened — a desire with 
 which it travails. And before that one thought every 
 selfish consideration of ease, or honor, or pleasure, passes 
 away, as sere leaves before a tempest. " Oh," he says, 
 " I can do my Lord's bidding ! I can gladden my Sa- 
 viour's heart ! I can add jewels of immense price to 
 Emmanuel's many crowns ! And what care 1 now for 
 the world's prizes ? Why shrink I now from the world's 
 frown ? Oh, for a thousand hearts to love Jesus ! Oh, 
 for a thousand tongues to praise Jesus ! Oh, for a thou- 
 sand lives to spend and be spent in the service of Jesus ! 
 The love of my kindred might fail — but the love of Christ 
 constraineth me!" 
 
 The text then sets forth the importance, the elements, 
 the sphere, and the motives of true Christian influence. 
 Let us study the record, and lake home its lessons. 
 How it speaks to prof essing Christians! Alas, for our 
 feeble faith, and feeble obedience ! How this poor man 
 of Gadara shames our fitful and hesitating testimonies 
 for Jesus ! Behold him there in the streets of Decapolis, 
 
CHE IS TIA N IN F L VE N GE. 149 
 
 among the friends and companions of his early years of 
 iniquity and anguish ! See how his eyes flash — how his 
 heart hounds ! Hark, how in simple, yet earnest elo- 
 quence he tells them of that gracious Redeemer, who 
 met him in his wretched wanderings, and succored and 
 saved him. 
 
 Brethren and sisters, let us do likewise. Ah, we have 
 a more touching story to tell than this man of Gadara, 
 for we were bowed with a more terrible curse, and have 
 been redeemed with a more wonderful salvation. Lost 
 — lost — lost, Ave were ! hopelessly lost ! eternally lost ! 
 And as we wandered in darkness unto death, Jesus met 
 us in mercy. He looked on us tenderly ; he approached 
 us ; he saved us — saved us from eternal death ; put our 
 feet upon a rock, and a new song into our mouth ; filled 
 our hearts with the joys of salvation ; lifted us to the 
 raptures of everlasting life ! And now, raised — ran- 
 somed — redeemed, around us a world of spiritual death, 
 before us a world of eternal life, what have we to do but 
 to proclaim Christ's great grace ? To tell the story of 
 redeeming power — to sing the song of redeeming love ? 
 u To return to our homes, and shoio how great things 
 God hath, done unto us . ? " 
 
 But the text speaks, as well, to the impenitent. These 
 miracles of our Lord were designed to illustrate the 
 greater and gracious miracle of regeneration. This 
 case of the demoniac is God's own chosen emblem of 
 the unregenerate spirit. If not precisely in the old 
 Hebrew sense, yet in a sense most mysteriously and 
 fearfully true — every impenitent man is possessed of 
 devils. Of him, revelation declares that the god of this 
 world blindeth the eye and ruleth in the heart. Were 
 
150 CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 it not for this, insensibility to eternal things would he 
 impossible. To the eye of sane wisdom, these pleasures 
 of sin seem terrible. They are like the rainbows that 
 flit along the death-curve of a cataract. Like crystals 
 that sometimes sparkle down in the hot crater of a 
 rocking volcano. 
 
 The glorious idols of a sinful life are, at best, but 
 phantoms — there is nothing real in them. And they 
 seem substantial, and beautiful, and good, only because 
 the great Sorcerer hath waved his wand and muttered 
 his incantation. Alas, impenitent men, ye are demon- 
 ized! Seeming to yourselves clothed in fair robes, and 
 surrounded by joyous companions, and living in palaces, 
 ye are yet, in the sight of God's loyal universe, poor 
 outcasts from all holy fellowship — self-torturing, self-de- 
 stroying — cutting yourselves with stones, and dwelling 
 in sepulchres. 
 
 Study, then, carefully this record, and learn the un- 
 speakable blessedness of that change which makes man a 
 Christian. Behold this man of Gadara, as he comes to 
 Jesus. A raging demoniac, escaped from dungeons. 
 His eyes wild with fiendish passion — his limbs loaded 
 with links of broken fetters — his flesh scarred with self- 
 tortui'e — a fierce, raging, despairing demoniac ! So he 
 comes. But the gracious Saviour hath compassion. He 
 speaks, and the torturing demons flee — the fiendish spell 
 is broken ! See ! Clothed and in his right mind, — gentle, 
 loving, blessed — his heart bounding with a higher and 
 holy life — his eyes soft with the light of a heavenly and 
 unutterable rapture — he sits at Christ's feet, and hears 
 his words ! 
 
 And now, go a little on in his history. He hath obeyed 
 
CHRISTIAN' INFLTJEX CE. 151 
 
 the voice of his Master, and departed to his home. 
 Imagine that return — that approach to his household — 
 that crossing the threshold — that welcome of the he- 
 loved ones — those bounding feet — those clasping arms — 
 those sobbing utterances of overwhelming rapture, too 
 deep for words ! See ! Yesterday, he dwelt in sepul- 
 chres — the decay of the grave-cavern ; the scent of cor- 
 ruption ; the solitude; the silence ; the chill damps ; the 
 appalling shadows ; the phosphorescence of death — ■ 
 these, and such as these, were with him and around 
 him ! 
 
 Now, he is with the living, in his own fair dwelling — 
 the fragrance of dewy flowers — the light of the land's 
 glad summer — the ministries of gentle hands — the bright- 
 ness of loving eyes — the music of loving voices — all the 
 peace, the triumph, the rapture of holy and exultant life 
 — within him and around him ! Oh, change ! Oh, 
 wondrous change ! Yesterday with the dead, in the 
 cold, unpitying tomb — to-day with the living, in a fair 
 and blessed home ! And yet, only faintly an emblem of 
 that change in regeneration, whereby an immortal spirit 
 is freed from its tormentors, and a soul dead in sins is 
 made alive in Christ Jesus ! 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is 
 God which worketh in you both to will and to do." — Philippians, 
 ii. 12, 13. 
 
 O.XE of the most important attainments of specula- 
 tive wisdom is — to know when to stop. One of the finest 
 exhibitions of practical wisdom is — to stop at the right 
 time, and in the right place. Unto man, in his fini- 
 tude, there are set bounds that he can not pass. There 
 are physical regions, into which he can not carry one of 
 his senses. There are intellectual regions, into Avhich 
 he can not carry one of his perceptions. As a creature, 
 finite in faculties and powers, he is hemmed in by bar- 
 riers, Avhereon, unto all his yearning and headlong prog- 
 ress, God has written the ordinance — " thus far shalt 
 thou go, and no farther." And to attempt to force these 
 barriers is foolishness. To stop, when we can go no 
 farther safely, is true wisdom. A wise child might 
 ascend a mountain top, to get clearer views of the starry 
 heavens ; but if, while standing there, enamored of some 
 fair planet, he should spring from the dizzy height, with 
 a wild hope of being drawn within its sphere, and thus 
 learning more of its mysterious loveliness — this were 
 midsummer madness. 
 
 And just as self-destructive is the folly of a man, 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 153 
 
 who, in regard of the great mysteries of revelation, 
 attempts to be wise above what is written. To the very 
 loftiest heights of revealed doctrine he may advance 
 with a firm footstep, knowing that he walks on the 
 everlasting rock of Divine truth ; but to adventure be- 
 yond this, is to fling himself from an adamantine plat- 
 form, into the tremendous depths of error that yawn 
 around him. 
 
 God tells us all that it is necessary to know ; and 
 with this we must be satisfied. But, alas, with it, too 
 often, we are not satisfied ! God gives the facts — we 
 want their explanation. And so, much of our specula- 
 tive theology is like the fluttering 
 
 " Of tho adventurous bird, that hath outflown 
 Its strength upon the sea — ambition-wrecked — 
 A thing the thrush might pity, as she sita 
 Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest." 
 
 And in nothing is this more manifest, than in regard 
 of the truth brought to view in the text — the union of 
 Divine and human agencies in the teork of salvation. 
 You are all of you aware how much of controversial 
 theology there is on this point ; how the Church of 
 Christ has, in all time, been divided on the great truths 
 of GofTs sovereignty and mail's free agency. No man 
 can read the Bible with a teachable spirit, and not per- 
 ceive how both these truths are abundantly and expli- 
 citly set forth in its revelations. God is a sovereign. 
 God does foreordain whatsoever comes to pass. There 
 is a decree of election. The names of the elect are 
 from eternity in the Lamb's book of life. But, mean- 
 while, man is a free agent — as verily free to choose sal- 
 T* 
 
154 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 vation — as honestly invited to find justification in 
 Christ, and final glory in heaven — as if there were no 
 decree of election, and God were not a sovereign in sal- 
 vation. These are both great truths, on which we can 
 stand, as on everlasting mountains. But, then, how to 
 reconcile them is man's difficulty. Not satisfied with 
 receiving them both, as distinct oracles of God, we must 
 philosophize about their practical consistency and har- 
 mony. And here arise our antagonistic schools of the- 
 ology ; all alike, either stretching or mutilating, with 
 Procrustean logic, some Divine member, till the whole 
 glorious body of truth lies in tortured adjustment unto 
 their own favorite system — the one, abating the fullness 
 of God's sovereignty ; the other, abating the fullness of 
 man's free-agency — the one, wresting God's sceptre from 
 his hand, lest man should seem a slave ; the other, bind- 
 ing man with an iron fetter, lest God should not seem 
 a sovereign. 
 
 Now, in attempting to reconcile these truths, we fling 
 ourselves from the adamantine paths of revelation, sheer 
 over the fearful precipices of unhallowed conjecture. 
 We know, indeed, that they are reconcilable, because 
 they are both truths ; and all truth is, and must be, 
 beautifully consistent. But man can not reconcile them. 
 Nay, with his present imperfect faculties, man can not 
 understand their reconciliation; and so God gives him 
 no explanation of their consistency. But God does most 
 distinctly affirm, not only that they are both truths, but 
 that they are truths beautifully and harmoniously coex- 
 istent in his great plan of salvation. 
 
 This is precisely what the apostle does in the text. 
 Here, in the fewest and simplest words possible, he 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 155 
 
 affirms God's sovereignty in salvation, and man's free- 
 agency in salvation ; and meanwhile, asserts their 
 philosophic connection — not reasoning, as we reason, 
 that, because God is a sovereign, man has nothing to do 
 nor, that because man has something to do, God is not 
 a sovereign — but, on the contrary, that man is a free 
 agent, just because God is a sovereign ; calling upon 
 the Philippians, with the earnestness of the broadest 
 Arminianism, " to work out their own salvation with fear 
 and trembling" — and urging, as a motive this stanch- 
 est Calvinism, " that God worketh in them both to will 
 and to do his own good pleasure." 
 
 Now, this is our text. And, in its consideration, let 
 us follow exactly the lead of the apostolic thought ; not 
 attempting to explain the connection of these two 
 truths, but assuming their consistency, and receiving 
 them both, in their order and fullness, without cavil or 
 questioning. 
 
 The apostle then asserts in the text — First, the abso- 
 lute sovereignty of God in human salvation. " It is God 
 that worketh in you both to will and to do." 
 
 And here the reference is, manifestly, not to Christ's' 
 work in purchasing salvation, but to the Spirit's work in 
 applying salvation — not God working for us, but God 
 working in us. There is indeed a great work which 
 God must do, and so has done for man. Sinners as we 
 are against the Divine law, that law must be satisfied, 
 or salvation is impossible. And so, " God did give his 
 only-begotten Son, that ichosoever believeth on him should 
 not perish." All this God does /'or man. But, over and 
 above all this, there is a work to be done upon the sinful 
 heart — a regenerating and sanctifying work — as abso- 
 
156 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 lately essential to salvation as Christ's great sacrifice. 
 And this is what is referred to in the text, as "God's 
 working in us."' And this Divine work in the sonl is 
 here accurately denned. 
 
 " God worketh in you both to will and to do "— -first, 
 God worketh in man "to will." The word here is well 
 rendered. It means just this in the original — "to wish" 
 — "to desire" — "to choose." These are its synonyms. 
 And however philosophers may be allowed to differ in 
 their metaphysical speculations, yet that theologians, 
 who go to God's word for truth, can, after this assertion, 
 maintain their theories of a self-deter mining power in the 
 will, is verily a marvel. 
 
 Call tins "will" what you please — a distinct faculty 
 of the soul, or only one of its exercises or actions — yet 
 of it the text expressly asserts, that in the choice of sal- 
 vation its volitions are absolutely determined by the 
 influences of God's Spirit — not merely that God assists 
 all who are willing to be saved — but that this very will- 
 ingness to be saved must itself be wrought in the soul by 
 God. 
 
 • It may, indeed, be urged, that it is inconceivable that 
 a man should be free, and yet Divinely determined to 
 certain courses. But to this we answer, first, that liberty 
 consists in doing what Ave do with knowledge, and from 
 choice. And the Divine influence upon our will, myste- 
 rious as it is, is so entirely accordant with our mental 
 constitution, that it leaves all untouched this liberty — 
 God makes us willing, and that very willingness is our 
 free choice. To say that a man must, of himself, consent 
 to co-operate with the Holy Spirit, before — either in the 
 order of nature or of time — the Holy Ghost sovereignly 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 157 
 
 operates, is, therefore, simply to say that an effect pre- 
 cedes its cause. And this whole vaunted proposition, of 
 the freedom of the will — i. e., the will's sovereign, self- 
 moving, or self-determining power — means simply and 
 absurdly just this, That a man must be willing that the 
 Holy Ghost should work in him to will, i. e., that a man 
 must be willing, before he can be willing. 
 
 But to this we answer, secondly, That whether or not 
 it be beyond our comprehension, how a man can be free 
 and yet graciously determined to certain courses, yet, 
 here in the text and elsewhere, it is expressly asserted, 
 that a man's will is thus graciously determined, and yet 
 that he is free. And he is here urged to work out earn- 
 estly his own salvation, just because it is God that work- 
 eth in him, not only "to do" but "to will.'''' 
 
 Nor does the Divine influence end here. " God worJc- 
 eth in us both to will and to do" — i. e., not only does the 
 man will (i. e., choose, or resolve, or determine to do what 
 God requires of him), under the Divine influences, but 
 this influence causes him, as well, to perform or accom- 
 plish his resolves and purposes. 
 
 If this language means any thing, it must mean that 
 a mail's ability to comply with the conditions of salva- 
 tion is absolutely and entirely a Divine gift — a Divine 
 gift in the will to do; a Divine gift in the power to do. 
 It asserts, what is everywhere else asserted in the Scrip- 
 tures, that salvation, from beginning to end, is altogether 
 of grace — that Christ Jesus came into the world, not 
 merely to render men salvable, i. e., to place them in cir- 
 cumstances where they can save themselves, but posi- 
 tively to save them. 
 
 Paul, certainly, never shrinks from this assertion. He 
 
158 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 never softens down this great truth of God's sovereignty 
 in salvation, to square with any philosophic notion of a 
 partial self-righteousness. lie, at least, ascribes the whole 
 work, from foundation to top-stone, to God's omnipotent 
 grace — grace, not manifested merely in the purchase of 
 salvation by the Son's sacrifice, but manifested, as well, 
 in the application of salvation by the Spirit's influences. 
 Paul's theology Avas out-and-out and aboveboard as to 
 man's inability to do any good thing. His account of the 
 carnal heart is, not that it is somewhat, indeed, set toward 
 evil, and yet capable, somehow, of self-transformation to 
 good — but, on the contrary, that it is absolutely "enmity 
 toward God, not subject to his law, neither indeed can be." 
 And his theory of the Spirit's influence in salvation is, 
 not that of a mere presentation of persuasive motives, 
 but, the rather, that of an omnipotent energy upon the 
 soul, "working in it both to will and to do of God's own 
 good pleasure." 
 
 This, then, is Paul's theology, as it has to do with 
 God's work in salvation. He asserts here, as distinctly 
 as is possible for human language, that the whole gra- 
 cious experience in the soul, from the first choice or voli- 
 tion — that state of the will that lies back of all moral 
 action — on through all the successive acts, inward or 
 outward, of practical obedience, is alike and altogether 
 the work of Divine grace in the heart. But then, having 
 asserted this great truth in all its absolute fullness, he 
 goes on to assert as unqualifiedly, and unhesitatingly, and 
 absolutely, 
 
 Secondly, The entire free-agency of r nan in this work 
 of salvation. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 159 
 
 bling. n Here, right in the seeming face of this doctrine 
 of Divine sovereignty, he calls npon men to exert them- 
 selves for the salvation of the soul, precisely as in regard 
 of any other great interest, confessedly dependent upon 
 human choice and activity. 
 
 And herein is Paul's wisdom. He attempts not to har- 
 monize these truths to human comprehension; he does 
 better, he assumes their entire harmony. He takes that 
 very sovereignty of God, which the Arminian tells us in- 
 fringes man's free-agency, and sets it forth as the very 
 foundation of such free-agency. He urges men to seek 
 salvation, not because they have any power to save 
 themselves, but, positively, because they can do nothing 
 without God. Mark the force of the word "for" here. 
 " Work out your own salvation, for God worJceth in 
 you.'''' Seemingly a false logic, you say. Be it so. It 
 is Paul's logic ; or, rather, the logic of the Holy Ghost, 
 that inspired Paul's deliverances. Let it therefore be 
 ours. Whether we can understand it or not, the sover- 
 eignty of Divine grace is the only encoui'agement to 
 human efforts for salvation. Let us take the truth at 
 God's hand, and believe it, and rely on it. Let us stand 
 on the eternal adamant of God's word, and not fling 
 ourselves over the awful precipices of philosophic con- 
 jecture. 
 
 One thing is certain. Every man that is saved must 
 work out his own salvation. There is nothing in God's 
 sovereignty which weakens this necessity. Nay, rather 
 is that immutable sovereignty the very ground of the 
 necessity. We may not be idle because God is busy. 
 On the contrary, we must work, just because God works. 
 
 So it is, even in the analogies of nature. The fact, 
 
160 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 that throughout all visible materialism God's operations 
 are manifestations of absolute and inflexible sovereignty; 
 that the known laws of his universe allow no infringe- 
 ments ; that its properties are immutably inherent, and 
 its processes perpetual and everlasting — this sublime 
 fact is man's strongest encouragement to effort. Because 
 God's winds blow, man spreads his adventurous canvas. 
 Because God's planets revolve in undeviating constancy, 
 man sows in spring-time and reaps in autumn. In all 
 his manifold activities man proceeds in faith of the unde- 
 viating uniformity of visible nature. And to fling a 
 doubt on that uniformity — to awaken a suspicion in the 
 human mind, that, in his grand physical economy, God 
 works without the steadfastness of an everlasting pur- 
 pose — this were to destroy at a blow man's last motive 
 to energy, and leave him a despairing idler amid the 
 wild chances of the universe. 
 
 So it is in nature. Man is encouraged to work, be- 
 cause, in his resistless sovereignty, God works within and 
 around him. And so, according to apostolic logic, is it 
 in the economy of grace. God's sovereignty is the veiy 
 ground of man's free-agency — the very encouragement to 
 human effort. " Work out your own salvation with fear 
 and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to 
 will and to do." 
 
 Now, Avith this simple setting-forth of the apostolic ar- 
 gument, let us pass to consider the apostolic exhortation. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
 bling." 
 
 The nature of this " working-out" is explained in the 
 other clause of the text — it is the very " willing and 
 doing" to r hich God excites us. 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 161 
 
 First — We must "will." The word means much 
 more than a simple wish, or desire. It denotes that 
 act of the mind, or state of the mind, in which, after the 
 understanding has compared different things, and the 
 judgment has decided which is preferable, then it deter- 
 mines, or is determined, to pursue the favorite one. 
 
 Without this, all other emotions or exercises are use- 
 less. I may believe there is a heaven ; I may understand 
 something of its glories; I may even desire earnestly its 
 beatitudes; but without this will — this fixed and stead- 
 fast resolution to break away from my sins and take 
 heaven by violence — all else will be unavailing. 
 
 Meanwhile, you will observe, this act of will has re- 
 spect to the present moment. The instant a man wills 
 to do a thing, that instant he sets about it. To resolve 
 to do a thing to-morrow, is not "to will" to do it; but 
 is, rather, to will not to do it at present. The act of 
 " willing " is simultaneous with, or at least followed in- 
 stantly by, the act of " doing." " To will," then, in the 
 sense of the text, is, at once and without delay, resolutely 
 and earnestly, to set about the great work of salvation. 
 
 But the text goes further. " We must icill and must 
 do." To will has regard to the instant beginning ; to do 
 has regard to the persevering accomplishment. Those 
 acts of repentance and faith, which God commands, and 
 unto which the Spirit strengthens us, are at once to be- 
 come, and constantly continue, the grand business of 
 life. A life of prayer, of self-denial, of watchfulness, of 
 active and persevering well-doing in all the divine ordi- 
 nances — such a life is to be instantly chosen, and earn- 
 estly pursued, under the influences of the strengthening 
 and sanctifying Spirit — taking Christ to be our Saviour, 
 
162 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 and the word of God to be our rule of life, we are hence- 
 forth, in the active and entire consecration of all our 
 powers and faculties, " to will and to do of God's good 
 pleasure." And thus, in the sense of the text, " we work 
 out our salvation.'''' 
 
 This is the matter of the commandment ; but, for the 
 sake of practical instruction, let us consider more care- 
 fully the manner of its obedience. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation.'''' Paul does not com- 
 mand these Philippians to save themselves. There was 
 no thought in his mind of any meritorious self-righteous- 
 ness. Man can, by no work of his own, either procure 
 salvation or merit salvation. As the Philippian jailer 
 did not ask, "What shall I do to save myself?" but, 
 "What shall I do to be saved?" so, in the text, the whole 
 efficiency and ground of salvation are ascribed absolutely 
 to the omnipotent working of God. God worketh the 
 salvation within the soul — man only worketh that salva- 
 tion out in the Christian life. To break off from known 
 sin ; to renounce all self-righteousness ; to cast ourselves 
 in loving faith on the merits of Christ crucified ; to com- 
 mence at once a life of self-denial, of prayer, of obedi- 
 ence ; to turn from all that God forbids, resolutely and 
 earnestly unto all that God requires — this is what the 
 text implies. But then this is not salvation. Oh, no ! 
 Salvation is of God — of grace — of free grace. From the 
 germ to the fruit, from foundation to top-stone — of grace, 
 free grace, altogether and only. The sacrifice of the 
 Son, the sanctification of the Spirit — all this is a Divine 
 work, in which God will allow no copartnership of 
 man's poor merits, man's miserable self-righteousness. 
 
 But though not salvation, it is the " working out of 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 163 
 
 salvation " — it is man's part in the work of salvation. 
 And this he must do, or perish. This is his own work. 
 God will not repent for the man ; nor believe for the 
 man ; nor lead a holy life for the man. God worketh 
 inwardly — man worketh outwardly. And this outward 
 human work is as necessary as the inward Divine work. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation." There is a strong 
 emphasis here, on the words " your own.'''' Here is some- 
 thing to be done, which no one can do for you. No be- 
 loved friend can save you — no teaching minister; no 
 praying Christian ; no visiting or guardian angel ; not 
 even God himself, save as you fall in with his gracious 
 operations, working out your own salvation as he work- 
 eth in you. Here is something for you to do, without 
 which, as God lives and your soul lives, that poor soul 
 will perish. This is " your own " work. Not something 
 you are to pray God to do for you, but to do for your- 
 selves. And if you wait for God to do it, you will wait 
 forever. 
 
 Alas, for the madness of the soul, that, living under 
 Gospel ordinances, sits quietly down in its sins, waiting 
 for God to convert it ! As if a husbandman should sit 
 idly in his dwelling, expecting God to fill his garner 
 with golden harvests ! As if a sailor should lie at an- 
 chor by the shore, expecting God to tear his bark from 
 its moorings, and drive him, a compelled voyager, to the 
 blessed isles of ocean ! 
 
 God's time hath already come. God's work is done 
 already. God's only Son hath died. God's only Spirit 
 hath descended. And what more are you looking for ? 
 Ah ! it is himself — God's own gracious and glorious self 
 — that cries, " What more could I do for my vineyard 
 
104 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 that I have not done?" "As I live, I— I— have no 
 pleasure in the death of the sinner /" Turn ye — turn ye 
 — why w ill ye die? What remains, then, is your work 
 — to be done by yourselves, if it is ever clone. Work 
 out your own salvation — for it is your own — your own ! 
 Yea, more — " Work out your own salvation with fear 
 
 AND TREMBLING." 
 
 If you examine the original, you will perceive that 
 several distinct thoughts are involved in these words. 
 They express deep humility and self -distrust, as well as 
 profound concern and anxiety. 
 
 First — They express humility and self-distrust. They 
 are precisely the words Paul uses when he speaks of 
 himself, among the Corinthians, as being " in weakness, 
 and in fear, and in much trembling." And in this sense 
 the thought is — that while we work out our own salva- 
 tion, it is to be with no thought of self-righteousness — 
 feeling that, after all our working, salvation is wholly of 
 that Divine grace that worketh in us. This gives a good 
 sense, and an important sense. Alas, this is what, seem- 
 ingly, the Church greatly wants just now — this " fear 
 and trembling /" this deep and unfeigned humility in the 
 work of salvation. Alas, for our glorying ! — this sacri- 
 ficing unto our own drag and net, in our lauding of 
 means and measures! If there is any thing that will 
 grieve God's Spirit to depart, it is this proud self-suffi- 
 ciency. God is a jealous God. His own glory he will 
 not see given to another. Means of grace become bin- 
 derances, become curses, the moment we substitute them 
 for grace itself — as the brazen serpent, whereby Israel 
 had been healed, became Israel's curse, when they 
 burned incense unto it as an idol. The power that 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 165 
 
 brings sinners to the Saviour is altogether of God ; and 
 our work, as his fellow-laborers, must be in the deep hu- 
 mility and self-abasement of unprofitable servants. 
 
 This is, moreover, what the individual soul wants. 
 The man who boldly and confidently, as if he were doing 
 some brave and noble thing for Christ, resolves to be a 
 Christian, lacks the first evidence of genuine conversion. 
 The truly regenerate heart trusts solely and forever in 
 a Saviour's merits. He makes no mention of what he 
 has done, or can do ; but talks ever and only of what 
 his Lord hath done. He works, not with a proud self- 
 righteousness, as if the work were his work, but " with 
 fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in him." 
 
 Meanwhile, these words express, as well, profound 
 concern and anxiety. That anxiety and concern with 
 which a work of such awful importance is ever per- 
 formed. This anxiety arises from several considerations. 
 
 First — From the thought, that this work of salvation 
 is the work to which God has set us. 
 
 This direction of the apostle is a divine command- 
 ment. Alas, for our common mistake — that these Gospel 
 offers are simple invitations. They are, as well, the 
 solemn utterances of a Divine law, which the man is 
 bound to obey as instantly and unhesitatingly as any 
 commandment thundered on Sinai. Think, then, of the 
 attitude of one who delays the work of salvation, on the 
 pitiful plea that he is willing, and waiting for God to 
 convert him — he is refusing obedience to a Divine com- 
 mandment. He is acting precisely as Noah would have 
 done, if, when directed by God to build an ark, he had 
 waited idly from year to year in his house, saying, 
 " When the Almighty builds the ark, I am ready to go 
 
166 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 into it." Verily, fearfulness becomes such a man. He is 
 not merely slighting an invitation — he is trampling on a 
 law ! And " it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of 
 the living God." We are to work out, in our salvation, 
 a Divine commandment ; therefore, we should give our- 
 selves to that work " with fear and trembling." 
 
 Meanwhile, secondly — This anxiety arises from the 
 thought of the immense importance of the wor/c, self-con- 
 sidered. 
 
 It is a working out — what ? Our comfort ? Our 
 prosperity ? Our happiness ? Yes, indeed, but more, 
 oh, how much more ! It is the working out our salva- 
 tion/ The salvation of the soul! In one sense the 
 impenitent man is lost already ; and it is a fearful prob- 
 lem whether he will be saved. In every sense he is 
 in dreadful peril, and there is unspeakable danger that 
 he will finally be lost ! This work, to Avhich we are 
 called, is to escape from impending and evei'lasting de- 
 struction. And such a work, of self-preservation, though 
 it may be done with the earnest self-possession of true 
 courage, is always done, must always be done, " with 
 fear and trembling.'''' 
 
 See that man in a burning house ! Roused at mid- 
 night by the alarm-cry, he rushes from his chamber to 
 find all avenues of escape cut off by the advancing 
 flames. See, now, how the whole man is instinct with 
 self- preserving energy ! He ascends to the roof — he 
 cries aloud for help — he fastens a rope to the tottering 
 wall, and lets himself down through smoke and flame 
 in the very strength of despair ! Now, you may admire 
 his stanch courage ; but the man will tell you that his 
 work for life was " with fear and trembling." 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 167 
 
 See that bark upon the waters, on a lee-shore, in a 
 night of storm, as the fierce hurricane drives it upon 
 breakers! Behold the imperiled mariner! How he 
 rouses himself in mighty energies, with rudder and sail, 
 and anchor, to escape for his life ! Fearlessly resolute 
 he may seem to you ; but to his own heart, at least, he 
 is working with " fear and trembling." 
 
 And so is it always when great interests are at stake. 
 It is no time for sentimental or philosophic thought, 
 when a precipice is crumbling at our feet, or an earth- 
 quake is rocking the dwellings around us. Then, at 
 least, it is time for those tremendous efforts which men 
 put forth when the grave yawns in our path and death 
 overshadows us. 
 
 How, then, ought a man to labor, " when he works out 
 his salvation!" When his immortal soul is in jeopardy ! 
 When the fearful problem he is working out in the face 
 of the universe is — whether he shall be saved, or lost, for- 
 ever! When the heaven of blessedness is receding, as 
 he gazes, farther and farther away, with its eternal 
 weight of glory ! When the hell of despair is opening 
 at his feet, and he seems tottering on its awful brink, 
 and going down into it ! Verily, it becomes a man to 
 work " with fear and trembling'''' when he " icorks out his 
 salvation.'''' It becomes a man to be anxious, to be 
 alarmed, to be all in earnest, to be waking affrighted 
 from his sinful dreams, when the flames that encircle 
 his pillow are — eternal burnings ! To be putting forth 
 the strength and the skill of his seamanship, when the 
 tempest of God's wrath is dark on the waters, and to be 
 shipwrecked in the storm is to be — " a castaway for- 
 ever /" 
 
168 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 Moreover, thirdly — This anxiety arises from the 
 thought, that tins work of salvation is a work of great 
 difficulty. 
 
 To measure energies by exigencies, is the great law 
 of life. The man who walks calm and tranquil on a 
 plain, becomes powerfully excited when he climbs a 
 precipice. Now, we say, it is a mighty and difficult 
 work to be saved. I am aware that, in asserting this, 
 I am probably contradicting a popular impression. We 
 hear so much, in modern times, about the ease of salva- 
 tion, that one is almost persuaded that " the offense of 
 the cross" hath ceased; and that a man goes to glory 
 now, not walking as a pilgrim, but carried softly as a 
 passenger. " To be saved is only to repent and be- 
 lieve," say these men. And they say truly — it is only 
 to repent and believe. But, then, where have they 
 learned that this " repentance " and " faith " are such 
 easy exercises ? 
 
 Repentance is breaking off from sin, with a resolute 
 set of the affections heavenward — and is this easy? 
 For the proud man to become humble ; the licentious 
 man to become pure ; the worldly-minded man to be- 
 come heavenly ; the man covetous, cruel, faithless, god- 
 less, to become faithful, and gentle, and holy, a follower 
 of Jesus, a worshiper of the true God, in spirit and in 
 truth — is this easy? To conquer those passions that 
 since the world began have defied all the reasonings of 
 philosophy, all the rewards and punishments of human 
 tribunals — is this easy ? To cut off a right hand ; to 
 pluck out a right eye ; to crucify the whole body of a 
 carnal nature, as a mortified and dying thing, on the 
 cross — is this easy? Did Paul find it easy, when, as 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 169 
 
 one almost overborne in the wild tides of battle, he 
 cried out, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this death?" 
 
 Or is Faith easy? "Faith" is tru^t for salvation in an 
 unseen Christ. Is this easy? To feel ourselves to be 
 nothing; to sink from all our self-righteousness; to see 
 what is invisible; to hear what is inaudible; to turn from 
 all surrounding and sensible glories, and long for, and 
 love only, the far away and eternal — is this easy? No, 
 alas, oh, no ! It may seem so, indeed, to speculating and 
 inexperienced philosophy. The prophet said unto Naa- 
 man, " Go wash seven times in the Jordan, and thou 
 shalt be healed." " Oh, how easy," say these men. But 
 we say, No ! This was the very hardest thing in the 
 world for that proud heart to do. He could have fought 
 a hundred battles, and carried by storm a hundred walled 
 cities, with less of struggle than it cost him to humble 
 his haughty nature, to do the prophet's bidding. He 
 could have conquered ten thousand mailed Israelites, 
 with less of agonizing conflict than it cost him to conquer 
 — himself! 
 
 And so it is of salvation. It is an easy thing to feel a 
 sentimental sadness over past errors; it is easy to join a 
 church ; it is easy to imagine we feel very happy ; it is 
 easy to utter eloquent prayers, and sing exulting hallelu- 
 jahs. But to become a humble, penitent, faithful, de- 
 voted, holy child of God, this is a hard thing. It is a 
 race — a battle — a crucifixion of the flesh — a taking heaven 
 by violence ! 
 
 But, then, methinks I hear you say, " Though all this 
 be hard, nay, impossible, without Divine assistance, yet, 
 through the strengthening grace of God, it becomes alto- 
 8 
 
170 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 gether easy." But what says ray text ? How stands the 
 argument in the apostolic thought ? " God worketh in 
 you to will and to do." This the grand fact as to God's 
 gracious assistance — but what the apostolic inference? 
 Therefore, be unconcerned? be at ease in Zion? leave 
 the whole earnest work of salvation to God, and only 
 sing hallelujahs ? Does Paul reason thus ? Listen ! 
 " God worketh in you, therefore work out your salvation 
 
 WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING !" 
 
 Oh, be instructed, ye wise men ! Paul's free grace 
 had no tendency to licentiousness. The fact that salva- 
 tion is all of grace — a work so immense that we can not 
 take a step heavenward, save in the strength of Jehovah 
 — this is the very reason why we should set about it, and 
 continue in it, with mighty earnestness. This almighty 
 agency within and around us, is a tremendous excitement 
 to exertion. See the roused Lot fleeing from Sodom to 
 Zoar ! Does he reason that, because the angels are draw- 
 ing him by the hand, he need not exert himself? Ah, no, 
 just the opposite. He says, "It must surely be an im- 
 mense necessity that brings this heavenly ministry around 
 me ; therefore, with all the power that is in me will I flee 
 to the mountains !" 
 
 And thus is it in salvation. If God worketh in me, 
 then I see and know that all heaven is concerned for me. 
 If God bend from his own throne to strengthen me, then 
 it must be a fearful battle my poor arm is fighting — a 
 tremendous tempest ray frail bark is weathering ! And 
 I must bestir myself. I must rouse myself to the utter-, 
 most. I must fling away the scabbard, as I spring to 
 the conflict. I must gird myself in my mightiest seaman- 
 ship, to bring my imperiled bark to the everlasting har- 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 171 
 
 bor. This is the true argument. This is Paul's argument. 
 Not finding, in the aid of Divine grace, an encouragement 
 to idleness, but the rather an incitement to more earnest 
 and anxious struggles — "working out my salvation with 
 fear and trembling — for — foe — it is God that worketh 
 in me both to will and to do.'''' 
 
 This, then, is the matter and the manner of the apos- 
 tolic exhortation. Let us close with its shortest and 
 simplest application. 
 
 First — It is an exhortation to Christians. The text 
 was addressed, originally, to believers in Philippi; and 
 to professing Christians, in all time, it most solemnly 
 appeals. A firm believer, as Paul was, in the great doc- 
 trine of " the saints' perseverance," yet in his mind it had 
 no tendency to lull into security. Though he could say, 
 u I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded tin it 
 he is able to keep that ichich I have committed to him" 
 nevertheless, to the very end of his life we find him, with 
 all his intensest energies, stemming the flood, and fighting 
 the battle, under the abiding and awful thought that, 
 after all, he himself might be a castaway. 
 
 And if Paul was thus anxious, who of mortal men 
 should be over-confident, and at ease in Zion. This very 
 argument, wherewith we sometimes rock ourselves to 
 slumber — " "We have an almighty Saviour, and the Holy 
 Ghost dwells in us," — this is just Paul's argument for 
 mightier exertion. " Work out your own salvation with 
 fear and trembling, for God worketh in you." 
 
 Yes, my brethren, it is yet an unsolved problem — 
 whether any of us will be saved ! To us, with all its ter- 
 rible meaning, comes this Divine commandment — " Work 
 out your own salvation." Perhaps we have been greatly 
 
172 OR ACE AND WORKS. 
 
 concerned about other men. Let us begin to be as greatly 
 concerned for ourselves. Let us see that we are not, like 
 Moses, leading others to a Canaan we ourselves shall only- 
 die in sight of, and never, never enter. Alas, how many 
 professing Christians have made shipwreck of the faith ! 
 And from the fragments of ten thousand immortal argo- 
 sies, that bestrew the whole shore of time, the awful warn- 
 ing rises — " Work out, oh, work out, tour own salvation!" 
 Yes, "work out your own salvation, with fear and 
 tcemblixg" — earnestly — anxiously! Christian life is a 
 voyage across an ocean arched by dark skies and swept 
 by fierce storms. And ofttimes "we behold, by the 
 flashes of lightning, the tempest-tossed bark laboring 
 fearfully with the rolling seas, and the roaring hurricane. 
 And never, till across the raging flood, and within shel- 
 ter of the everlasting hills, it hath cast anchor for eter- 
 nity, do we feel certain, in any given case, that the soul 
 hath escaped shipwreck. Oh, then, professing Chris- 
 tians, rouse yourselves from this false and fatal security ! 
 Fight — struggle — agonize ! Be anxious for yourselves ! 
 
 " Oh, watch, and fight, and pray, 
 The battle ne'er give o'er; 
 Renew it boldly every day, 
 And help Diviue implore. 
 
 " Ne'er think the victory won, 
 Nor once at ease sit down ; 
 Thy arduous work will not be done, 
 Till thou hast got thy crown." 
 
 "While God worketh in you to will and to do, of his 
 own good pleasure, work out your own salvation with fear 
 and trembling.'''' 
 
GRACE AND WORKS. 173 
 
 Meanwhile, secondly — T/i e text appeals to impenitent 
 Sinners. And how fearful the point of the a fortiori 
 application — "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where 
 shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?'''' 
 
 Alas for the madness of the infatuation that, regarding 
 salvation as a very easy work, puts it oft', with all its 
 tremendous interests, and infinite issues, to a sick-bed 
 and a dying hour ! Alas, for the soul-destroying logic— 
 that because' the Son of God saves us, and the Spirit of 
 God sanctities us, therefore man has nothing to do but to 
 wait for salvation ! Oh, no, no ! Salvation is a work — 
 a mighty work— your own mighty work! And because 
 " God worketh in you," therefore it is to be wrought out 
 by yourselves the more instantly and earnestly, " with 
 fear and trembling" 
 
 "Faith in Christ'''' is not an idle sentiment. "Repent- 
 ance " is not a passing spasm of sorrow, nor a poor, pal- 
 try, superficial reformation. Salvation is a work, so big, 
 so overwhelming, that, even while God works in the soul, 
 that soul must work it out with fear and trembling. It 
 is high time, then, you should be alarmed. Your immor- 
 tal soul is in jeopardy ! Your feet are on slippery places ! 
 You sleep and dream of heaven on a yawning precipice! 
 
 Oh, the folly, the unutterable madness of a soul that is 
 not working out its salvation ! That casts all the great 
 interests of eternity upon the fearful chance of a future 
 repentance ! That can bear to look upward, and behold 
 yonder blessed home of heaven, with all its far more ex- 
 ceeding and eternal weight of glory, fading, slowly and 
 surely, away forever ! That can venture to gaze down- 
 ward, into that estate of wrath, and tribulation, and an- 
 guish — drawing nearer, nearer — rising closer to the un- 
 
174 GRACE AND WORKS. 
 
 steady feet, with all its wild realities — moving beneath 
 to meet its fearful coming — and yet sport on the brink, as 
 if enamored of damnation ! 
 
 Oh, what mean yon ! Men, men, immortal men, 
 awake from your slumbers ! This very day — this very 
 hour — this very moment — ere the spirit that moves even 
 now upon your hearts, grieved by your resistance, leaves 
 yon forever ! Now — now — just as you are — begin for 
 your lives this great work of salvation ! 
 
 Oh, we warn you, we beseech you, we entreat you — 
 with all the strength God gives us — by all the motives 
 God presses on your conscience — by the shortness and 
 uncertainty of life — by the near approach of death — by 
 the tremendous realities that make up eternity — all the 
 shadows that make up its glooms— all the splendors that 
 make up its glories — by all the vast interests that are at 
 stake — your soul — your immortal self, tossed like a 
 breaking bubble on a sea of storms — by all the mighty 
 influences that are at work for your salvation — that 
 father, that mother, that sister, that wife, that child, 
 these praying, weeping Christians — yea, these shining 
 angels, that all unseen hover over you — yea, the eternal 
 God that worketh within yon — the Father, with his love 
 — the Son, with his precious blood — the Spirit, with his 
 gentle influences — by the stupendous realities of all God's 
 universe, which hem you in, and move around you, as if 
 working only to save you — oh, by all these things, we 
 pray you, we plead with you, Ave beseech you, that, 
 " while God toorketh in you to will and to do, you work 
 
 OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING." 
 
"THE DIVISION OF SPOIL.' 
 
 "And divideth his spoils.'" — Luke xi. 22. 
 
 I separate these words from their connections, as 
 containing a complete thought sufficient for present 
 meditation. They occur in the winding up of our 
 Lord's parable of " The strong man armed." That 
 parable contains three great divisions ; and, as you 
 read it, three distinct scenes seem passing before you. 
 
 First — There is a noble palace, or stronghold, in- 
 disputably in possession of its armed master ; and 
 this represents the sad condition of that man over 
 whose moral nature Satan maintains un weakened as- 
 cendency. 
 
 Secondly — There is the approach of a great con- 
 queror to this stronghold, lifting his challenge at the 
 portal — yea, storming it, and carrying it by assault, 
 and taking captive its owner. And this represents 
 the triumph of Christ over Satan, either in a regener- 
 ated spirit or a redeemed world. 
 
 Thirdly — There is a despoiling the conquered strong 
 man of his armor, and a public distribution of all the 
 stores and treasures taken in the fortress — as it is 
 termed in the text, "A division of the spoil." 
 
 Now, leaving for the present the first two pictures, 
 
176 THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 we will consider this last and least pondered part of 
 the record — "lie divideth his spoil.' 1 '' 
 
 These words at first surprise us. We are expressly 
 told that the design of Christ's mission was " to destroy 
 the works of the devil ;" and, regarding this parable as 
 illustrating this conflict, we should expect the recoi*d to 
 be, that, having conquered a satanic fastness, Christ at 
 once destroyed all its accumulated treasures. But not so. 
 The Divine conqueror is here represented as not destroy- 
 ing, but "dividing the spoil," i.e., employing for his 
 own cause and glory every thing that, before the con- 
 quest, Satan had been using for his own evil purposes. 
 Just as in natural warfare, when military stores are 
 taken, the conqueror makes use of them for his own 
 further success. 
 
 Now, this is the overlooked and apparently unim- 
 portant point in the parable we wish practically to 
 consider as setting forth this simple proposition — That 
 Christ Jesus, in the victories of his grace, whether in- 
 dividual or universal, turns to his own advantage, and 
 employs for his own glory all those physical powers and 
 intellectual endowments — that whole array of influence 
 and engine which previously the great adversary had 
 perverted and made powerful for evil. 
 
 And for this thought we claim a twofold application, 
 according to the view we take of the individual or uni- 
 versal sense of the parable. 
 
 First — We begin with the individual, as certainly the 
 most obvious reference of the lesson — the case of a sinful 
 soul conquered by Christ in the process of i*egeneration. 
 
 And thus it serves to rectify some wrong conceptions 
 often entertained of the nature of regeneration. Setting 
 
THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 177 
 
 out with the Bible representation, of man by nature as 
 totally depraved, and the new birth as making him a 
 new creature, and ignoring the while the whole analogy 
 of faith, wherein many of his natural virtues are com- 
 mended in God's Word, we make often such rejire- 
 sentations of the unregenerate man as he himself knows 
 to be false and unscriptural. 
 
 lie knows that he daily experiences many feelings and 
 performs many acts that are both approved by an en- 
 lightened conscience and enjoined in God's word. He 
 provides for his household — he honors his parents — he 
 hallows the Sabbath-day — he gives bread to the hungry 
 — he feels within him great impulses of patriotism and 
 philanthropy, and proves himself, by the facts of a well- 
 tried life, a man of unsullied and uncompromising in- 
 tegrity. And if you tell such a man that, self-considered 
 (apart from the fact that his morality is not godliness), 
 all these virtues are sinful, he will laugh you to scorn as 
 a slanderer of your species, and a filsifier of the very 
 principles and precepts of God's revealed law. And all 
 this justly. When the Bible speaks of men as dead in 
 sin and totally depraved, it refers to his entire alienation 
 from God — to his absolute want of supreme love to his 
 Maker. 
 
 We are not concerned here with the argument, but 
 only with our text's illustration of its truth. Here the 
 representation of the great change wrought in the re- 
 generated soul, is only a change in the sovereignty that 
 overrules it. A change not in the house's furniture and 
 appointments, but in their uses and ownership. The 
 stronger man has not come to destroy what was in 
 the fortress, but to rescue it all from the hands of the 
 
 8* 
 
178 THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 strong man, and turn it to his own purposes. Those 
 very endowments of reason, imagination, wit, wealth, 
 power — acquirements which before were exercised sin- 
 fully, because, without godliness, Christ would now 
 employ for man's good and God's glory — not destroying, 
 but only " dividing the spoil." And this is the very idea 
 w T e would have you entertain, because, the very idea the 
 Bible gives you of regeneration. It does not make the 
 man another creature, but only a new creature. And 
 not even a new creature, in the sense of jDossessing new 
 natural faculties, but only in the sense of their conse- 
 cration unto a new service. The Gospel invitation is, 
 that men come just as they are, with all their strong im- 
 pulses and emotions within them, if they be only amove 
 for God's glory and consecrate to Christ. We do not 
 want the covetous man to abate in one tittle his desire 
 for accumulation ; but rather to give a wider range and 
 mightier power to that prostituted faculty, as, sanctified 
 from its sinfulness, it impels, "to lay up treasure in 
 heaven," and " become rich toward God." We do not 
 expect the man seeking pleasure to annihilate the princi- 
 ple implanted by God for great uses ; but, rather, to fill 
 his soul with intenser longings, as he aspires unto those 
 everlasting pleasures that are at God's right hand. We 
 do not want the ambitious man to bow down his aspir- 
 ing spirit to the low ends and aims of the multitude ; but 
 would rather bid his soul God-speed in its bravest 
 marchings — out-weeping Caesar for new worlds to con- 
 quer for Jesus ; and reaching forth a sanctified hand to 
 grasp the sceptre over the whole ten cities in the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 We want the man of genius to repress no immortal 
 
THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 179 
 
 pulse now bounding within him, l>ut rather give them 
 all nobler play ; coming with all the fire in his eye and all 
 the fervors of his spirit — iirst, casting them at Christ's 
 feet in living consecration ; and then out-soaring the 
 wing of all earthly inspiration in flight through the 
 skies ! 
 
 We want, in short, the very adornments of unsanctified 
 life, wherewith Satan has beautified ev T cn his iron des- 
 potism, only changed by regenerating grace from glory 
 to glory, to furnish forth even loftier adornments for the 
 blessed reign of Christ. 
 
 We would not apply fagot or torch to a solitary 
 one of the hoarded treasures of the "strong man;" but 
 rather, Avhen the " stronger man " has carried the for- 
 tress, would have them all consecrated to the display of 
 his own great glory, as a victorious conqueror, " divid- 
 ing his spoil." 
 
 Ah, God does not demand merely the heart's love, but 
 as well that of the mind, and the soul, and the strength ! 
 God wants not merely the offerings of the tender af- 
 fections ; he claims as fully all the loftiest intellectual 
 gifts and attainments — science with its profoundest dis- 
 coveries ; eloquence with its grandest utterances ; poetry 
 with its most glorious visions ; ambition with its kin- 
 dling eye ; and genius with divinest power — all earn- 
 estly busy in Jehovah's service — all flashing in adorn- 
 ment of the doctrines of Christ. For, surely, there is no 
 faculty natural to man, which at creation God did not set 
 as a brilliant in Humanity's diadem. And though, alas! 
 by a sorrowful perversion, they have become servants 
 unto uncleanness ; yet, if only once the strong man be 
 mastered by the sti'onger, then as treasures consecrated 
 
ISO TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 unto his own high purposes, tliey shall be borne aloft 
 in his final triumph, as the trophies of a returning con- 
 queror, "dividing his spoils." 
 
 Such, according to the theology of God's own book, 
 is Gospel regeneration. And, here, ere we pass to the 
 text's larger application, let me press this thought upon 
 your conscience as a motive unto repentance. 
 
 What is it to repent and believe, and thus to become 
 Christians? Surely it is not, as on the one hand the bigot, 
 and on the other the blasphemer, would teach, to yield to 
 the power of a poor driveling fanaticism, in the self-sacri- 
 fice and denial of all grand human impulses ! 
 
 To be a Christian, is simply and truly to be the high- 
 est style of man ! To have all the faculties and impulses 
 of your nature lifted from the perishing things of earth, 
 and accelerated in their movement toward the immense 
 realities of eternity. In the very figure of the text, Christ 
 represents himself as standing at the door of your closed 
 hearts — i. e., at the barred portal of the strong man's pal- 
 ace. And his purpose in demanding admission is, not that 
 he may work destruction and desolation amid the famil- 
 iar things that adorn its chambers. Oh, no ; he would 
 enter only to conquer and bind the despot that enslaves 
 you — to unshutter the darkened windows, and let in 
 heavenly airs, and odors, and sunshine ; and, reviving in 
 all their original beauty, and replacing in all their origi- 
 nal glory, its magnificent adornments, transform it from 
 the haunt of a demon to the home of a God ! 
 
 But now let us pass from the individual to consider — 
 
 Secondly — The text's wider and universal application. 
 This Satanic despotism over the human heart is in ex- 
 act analogy with his despotism over the earth as man's 
 
TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 181 
 
 dwelling-place. The Bible everywhere represents this 
 fallen spirit as practically " the god of this world." 
 And this revelation, observation everywhere proves true. 
 So far as the practical life of the race is concerned — so 
 fir as regards any universal sense of his infinite presence 
 — so far as manifest in any popular acknowledgment of 
 his right to rule over the world, Jehovah might as well 
 have yielded his throne to his great adversary, and re- 
 tired, as a deposed sovereign, to some unrevoked realm 
 of his immense empire. And, therefore, the text-figure 
 fitly represents this world as a grand fortress, or 
 strongly guarded palace, wherein Satan, as a strong 
 man, keeps his treasures at peace ! 
 
 But if there be truth in other Bible revelations, all this 
 is to cease. Presently there shall rise at the portal a 
 heavenly challenge, and "the strong man" shall be mas- 
 tered by " one stronger than he." This earth is not 
 always to be garrisoned by Infernals ! God did not 
 round it into beauty, and hang it amid the stars, and 
 lavish such cost and skill in its architecture and adorn- 
 ments, that it should forever be at peace under a despot- 
 ism of demons ! No ! the time of change cometh — a 
 deliverance draweth nigh ! "Lift up your heads, ye 
 gates y and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
 King of glory shall come in." The kingdoms and 
 dominions under the whole heavens are to become Im- 
 manuel's, and this world become manifestly again the 
 abode of a universally acknowledged Jehovah. All this 
 we are assured of. All this we believe. But then, we do 
 not believe that, as a result of this, earth is suddenly to be 
 transfigured, as into another planet. Here, in the uni- 
 versal as in the individual, we look for this oreat law of 
 
182 THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 conquest — that, having hound the strong man and taken 
 away his armor, our glorious Redeemer will not destroy 
 the spoil, but will only " divide the spoiV 
 
 We judge that the world, under Messiah's reign, will 
 be the world as it is, only redeemed from sin and re- 
 established in, and filled with, all righteousness. 
 
 Physically it will be the same world, but instead of 
 working disobedience to the precepts of the Divine law, 
 all natural agents and processes shall be consecrated to 
 Christ ; and holiness to the Lord " shall be written on 
 the bells of the horses." 
 
 Intellectually it will be the same world, and all sciences 
 and arts flourish, and poetry see visions, and eloquence 
 utter prophecies; but literature shall embalm with sweet 
 spices the name of the Crucified, and science shall go 
 forth along all its broad journey ings, only searching 
 for God. 
 
 Socially and politically, it will be the same ; and though 
 all despotisms shall cease, and every oppressor's rod be 
 broken, yet, as under the old Hebrew theocracy different 
 civil polities successively obtained, so then there may be 
 all present forms of government. But, high above finite 
 magistracy shall rise one omnipotent enthronement, 
 and monarchs, and princes, and presidents, and mighty 
 men, shall be mighty men, and presidents, and kings unto 
 God. 
 
 Perhaps, ecclesiastically it will be the same. All sys- 
 tems of false worship and corrupt faith will, of course, 
 pass away; because, even as represented in this parable, 
 they are not so much the enemy's spoil, to be divided, as 
 his armor to be destroyed. And, therefore, we will not 
 be misunderstood as hoping that any such false system 
 
THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 183 
 
 (as, for example, the papacy) can be so regenerated as 
 to become part of Christ's true Church. For, disguised, 
 and modified, and humanized as it may be, in its very 
 claim to infallibility it gives assurance that it will to the 
 end remain the same monster that in centuries agone 
 warmed its wan hands by the fires of martyrdom, and 
 reeled frantic and drunken with the blood of God's mur- 
 dered saints ! There are in it elements utterly incompat- 
 ible with the true faith in Christ ; and notwithstanding 
 all disguises, all crosses on battlements, and blazon of Di- 
 vine names on lintel and threshold, it is yet a true fortress 
 of the adversary. And as the great Captain of Salvation 
 makes no compromises with the strong man, so surely 
 will he carry his fortress by storm, and bind the adver- 
 sary, and break in pieces his armor. 
 
 And yet, even in respect of a system so false, we are 
 not sui*e that there may not be spoil to be divided, as 
 well as armor to be destroyed ! The very things which 
 have made popery so mighty in old times — the zeal, and 
 perseverance, and self-sacrificing devotion, and indomita- 
 ble daring, and grand old Roman world-grasping ambi- 
 tion — in a word, that whole matchless machinery, so 
 wonderful in its contrivances, so mighty in its work, 
 which belongs to it, beyond all Protestant rivalry, as 
 aggressively missionary, may remain to bless the true 
 Church when its own doom is sealed. 
 
 And this is what in that regard, as of all false systems, 
 reconciles us to their progress. They are like the mon- 
 strous flora and fauna of the old geologic eras — parts of 
 a progress toward intellectual life. They are all gather- 
 ing treasures as a spoil for the Redeemer; and while, 
 sometimes, the heart is sad as we see them laying deep 
 
184 TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 and broad foundations even in this Western world, yet 
 we remember our parable and are comforted. And we 
 say, "Go build great cathedrals, and strengthen mighty 
 systems. You yet work and build for the Church of 
 Christ. For there cometh presently a conqueror who 
 ' divideth the spoiV " 
 
 But all this by the way. Speaking now of the redeemed 
 world as to remain ecclesiastically like the present, we 
 mean that the true Church of Christ will probably con- 
 tinue formally very much what it is. We have no belief, 
 indeed no desire, that the millennial Church shall take the 
 form of one mighty denomination. Even John's glori- 
 ous vision of that Church was not of one immense gate 
 through which all the tribes passed into the Celestial 
 City ; but of twelve separate gates, each inscribed with 
 its own name, and kept by its own angel. Talk as we 
 will of organic church unions, these denominational differ- 
 ences are the Church's elements of strength ; and a wise 
 man would no more do away with them, if he could, 
 than he would consolidate all the companies of one army 
 into one band, uniform in equipment and armor. 
 
 Even in the millennial Church, there may be all the dis- 
 tinct creeds and ceremonies the Church knows to-day. 
 The Baptist may still go down to " many waters," and 
 the Churchman delight in his beautiful liturgy, and the 
 Arminian look fondly on man's free-will in salvation, 
 and the Calvinist magnify God's glorious sovereignty; 
 itineracy may marshal the Church's light troops in waste 
 places, and Church establishments stand as grand for- 
 tresses in great cities and kingdoms. All such things 
 may be — probably will be. 
 
 But then, blessed be God ! all creeds and ceremonies 
 
THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 185 
 
 shall bo consecrate to Christ — the strong man shall be 
 bound ! — there will be no devil in them ! There may- 
 be Christian sects. There will be no unchristian secta- 
 rianism. And the only strife between the fellow-soldiers 
 of Christ, will be the generous rivalry in the old crusades, 
 between the Lions of England and the Lilies of France, 
 as to which should be placed first and highest on the 
 sepulchre of Jesus ! 
 
 We m:iy not enlarge — enough has been said to illus- 
 trate this universal application of the text. That the 
 Gospel conquest of the world is to consist simply, in sub- 
 duing its evil — that a division of the spoil, and not the 
 destruction of the spoil, will be the law of the victory. 
 
 And this is what fills us with joy, even amid its 
 seeming strengthening of unbelief. Of this marvelous 
 human progress, Satan does indeed seem, sometimes, 
 the very leader of the hosts. And the march seems 
 only away from Christ and from God. All the ener- 
 gies of science and literature and philosophy are united 
 in an effort to disprove the Bible. And the earth 
 to-day, from its geologic foundation up to its astronomic 
 arches, looks like the brave " palace of the strong man 
 whose goods are at peace." To the eye of sense all this 
 progress is toward infidelity. But blessed be God — the 
 eye of faith, reading this parable as a prophecy, sees how 
 all this gathered treasure of the " strong man," is only 
 for " the spoil of the stronger." And therefore, unto all 
 these despisers of God — unto mocking scribe and scorn- 
 ful philosopher — every infidel explorer of the strata of 
 earth, and every atheistic observer of the stai-s of heaven, 
 do we say boldly, exultingly — while the inspiration is 
 evil all your work is unto good ! You are only casting 
 
186 THE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 up in the desert a highway for Immanuel ! You are 
 only gathering, from the stones beneath, and the stars 
 above, gems of great price for the crown of the Re- 
 deemer I You ai - e only accumulating in " the strong 
 man's palace," " goods " — paintings, statuary, treasure; 
 sumptuous furniture and adornment — all good and glo- 
 rious things for his triumphal coming who " divideth the 
 spoil!" 
 
 "Divideth the spoil/" What a precious truth it is ! 
 Precious in reference to the things seen, which are tem- 
 poral ; immeasurably precious in reference to things as 
 yet unseen and eternal. 
 
 There is evident allusion here to the winding-up of 
 the present system of things at Christ's second coming. 
 The language is metaphorical of the public triumphs 
 accorded to old conquerors when returning from battle. 
 It is prophetic of that coming day, when, all gracious 
 purposes being accomplished, God's elect ones all 
 gathered, God's enemies all subdued — the earth full of 
 the goods of the strong man, shall appear rich in " spoils" 
 for the triumph of its conqueror. And surely, then, 
 when ascending from a burning world with the countless 
 millions of the risen dead, and death and hell dragged 
 after him as mighty captives, the Son of Man shall sit 
 on his throne of judgment, and pronounce every doom, 
 and distribute every trophy, then I say, will the text be 
 fulfilled in all its blessed meaning, " He bindeth the strong 
 man, and divideth his sjyoils /" 
 
 " The Spoils !" i. e., the trophies taken in battle, to 
 be publicly displayed in the face of the universe ! 
 Just as in the old Roman "triumphs," following the 
 golden chariot of the conqueror, came the kings and 
 
TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 18T 
 
 princes, and tlie long train of noble captives, taken in 
 battle ; and, borne in display, came the " spoils " of 
 cities and kingdoms — gold and jewels and costly array ; 
 old banners ; brave chariots ; thrones of power and 
 diadems of glory: so in that day of Christ's manifesta- 
 tion, " he having spoiled principalities and potoers, shall 
 make a show of them, triumphing openhj over them.'''' 
 And then when, as loyal subjects recaptured from stern 
 bondage, shall come the great company of the redeemed, 
 and as the spoil of spiritual cities and kingdoms, shall 
 be seen, all the old satanic treasure and armor, reconse- 
 crate unto godliness, and when in the awful imagery of 
 revelation, " Death and hell as bound captives shall be 
 themselves cast into hell," then verily unto Christ, 
 shall there be " made a show of them " — a triumph with 
 trophies ! — a display of the spoils ! 
 
 But not a display only. — "He divideth his spoils!" 
 We can not tell what it means — that distribution 
 of all the trophies of redeeming power and grace, when 
 " having put all enemies under his feet," Christ " shall 
 deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father." 
 Imagination trembles as it lifts wing to the thought of 
 some such distribution, even among the persons of the 
 adorable God-head, of the glories of a consummated 
 Gospel ! 
 
 But a simpler thought to us is — that all who have 
 shared in Gospel toil shall share as well in its tri- 
 umphs. Unto the angels sent to minister unto the 
 heirs of salvation shall be glorious recompense. And 
 richer and nobler the reward as unto risen spirits 
 sitting on thrones — to all " who have followed the Son 
 of Man in the regeneration." 
 
188 TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 
 
 And though we can not understand these scriptural 
 intimations now, — yet we shall understand it all at 
 last. And when, in our high places before the throne, 
 we perceive how even the eternal Persons of the God- 
 head were all glorified by the Gospel, and how all 
 unfallen angels as they shared in the ministry shall 
 share in the manifestation — and how every child of God, 
 according to his work, shall reign over the "one city," 
 or the "ten cities " of God's kingdom — then will the 
 redeemed and risen man feel all the blessed meaning 
 of the announcement " He divideth his spoil" " lie di- 
 videth his spoil." 
 
 Meanwhile, one present practical lesson has the text 
 to us all to-day, and although of all its truths the 
 smallest and simplest, it is to us, individually, the most 
 solemn. 
 
 In one sense all mankind may be regarded as thus the 
 spoil of this great Conqueror. Even now as spirits 
 unto whom salvation is offered on the ground of Christ's 
 victory — and more strictly in the end, as all alike de- 
 livei-ed by the general resurrection from the destroyer's 
 stronghold, all are, in a sense, trophies of Christ's 
 mediatorial triumph. 
 
 And think of it, then ! oh, ye immortal creatures of 
 God, that will not have Christ to reign over you ! 
 think of this awful oracle, u IIe divideth the sjyoiV 
 
 As in the public triumph of the old Roman conqueror, 
 the long train of captives following his chariot, marched 
 to widely different destinies — and some were doomed 
 to death — and some were admitted to noble Roman 
 citizenship when the pageant was ended. 
 
 So the Bible declares it shall be in Christ's great 
 
TEE DIVISION OF SPOIL. 189 
 
 day of manifestation. And oh, in that solemn hour, 
 when that multitude of the redeemed ascend, with palm 
 and white rohe and exulting hallelujah, with the Lord 
 unto the kingdom of God, even the Father ; and alas ! 
 alas ! they whose names were not written in the Lamb's 
 book of life, part from that glorious throng forever; 
 passing mournfully away unto their destiny of darkness — 
 then shall we understand another and an awful meaning 
 in the words, " He divideth his spoils." "He divideth 
 his sjjoils." 
 
EEDEMPTION. 
 
 " To redeem them that were under the law." — Galatians, iv. 5. 
 
 These words in their connections, set forth both the 
 design and result of our Saviour's incarnation and sacri- 
 fice. Separate from the context they exhibit in a striking 
 aspect the great truth of human redemption. The word 
 "redeem" had, in apostolic times, a most impressive 
 meaning. It denoted the buying back from captivity a 
 bondman or slave. And, therefore, in apostolic rhetoric, 
 man by nature is here represented as a being confined in 
 a strong dungeon. God's law is spoken of as a fetter or 
 chain, binding a condemned spirit unto sure and speedy 
 punishment. And Christ Jesus is set forth as a gracious 
 Saviour, coming with both price and power to ransom 
 and deliver. These two parts of the figure should be 
 considered in order. 
 
 First — Sere is the Divine laic as a honclage or im- 
 prisonment. A principle, or power, hemming the sinful 
 soul in and insuring its destruction. And this simple, 
 but startling thought underlies, as a foundation, all apos- 
 tolic theology. Of the immaculate holiness of that 
 Divine law, and the necessity of its triumphant vindi- 
 cation, they were ever thinking. Of this we think too 
 little, or think only practically to deny it. Why, we 
 ask, should an immortal creature perish for violating a 
 
REDEMPTION. 191 
 
 Divine precept ? Is not God infinitely good, infinitely 
 glorious ; and can a thought, word, deed, of a poor finite 
 creature either injure or incense him? Surely these 
 Divine threatenings will never be executed ! This law 
 is no more than a cloud-belt round about the creature, 
 appealing to his fears, as a present restraint, but pres- 
 ently to dissolve, leaving the forgiven spirit all bathed in 
 the glorious brightness of the loving kindness of God ! 
 Bat alas for our misconception ! Law — that substantial 
 and sublime thing. Law, a cloud, presently to vanish ! 
 Ah me ! it is any thing else ! The very word " law " 
 means something fixed, established, immutable. And 
 as everywhere seen in the Divine government, the thing 
 " law " is the most permanent and immutable of all 
 things. 
 
 We observe this in regard even of the lowest physical 
 
 laws of the universe. Take the law of germination — 
 
 the transmission of vegetable life through the earthly 
 
 flora — that Divine ordinance at creation : " That grass 
 
 and herb and tree should yield seed after their kind, 
 
 whose seed is in itself after its kind ;" and observe 
 
 with what immutable power it reigns over its broad 
 
 domain. All the physical changes since creation have 
 
 not abated jot or tittle of its meaning. The oak and 
 
 the cedar are now in form, in development, yea, in 
 
 the color and fibre of spray and leaf, precisely the oak 
 
 and the cedar of the primal Eden-woodlands. And the 
 
 odors we breathe in spring-time are from the same 
 
 flowers that made fair and fragrant the garden when 
 
 the first man walked with his Maker. And upon our 
 
 thousand hills the cattle feed upon the self-same grasses 
 
 that fattened the living creatures to which Adam gave 
 
192 REDEMPTION. 
 
 names. Around every seed as it came from the creative 
 hand Avas bound as an iron fetter that thing we call 
 "law." And if we find a solitary one that has, since 
 the time of the Pharaohs, lain still and sere in a 
 mummy's Bhroud, we know that, if placed in conditions 
 of growth, it will yield to the resistless ordinance and 
 hurst into exactly the leaf and flower that made the old 
 Nile beautiful four thousand years agone. All the men 
 of the world, with all their power and skill of chemistry 
 and magic, can not produce a rose from a lily seed, nor 
 a pomegranate from a fig-tree. Nor is this natural 
 law without a mighty and merciful meaning. On its 
 steadfastness rests the hope of creation. Let the 
 principle of specific life, shut up in the husk of a 
 grass-seed, escape out of its adamantine prison-house, 
 and no more by Divine compulsion produce after 
 its kind — and the husbandman stands aghast and 
 despairing in his labor, for he may find to-morrow his 
 corn ripening into tares, and the fruit of his pleasant 
 orchards bitter and deadly as the clusters of Sodom. 
 And so the iron law that closes round that vegetable life 
 is a monition of Divine love rising between our race and 
 despair and annihilation ! 
 
 Or take the law of gravitation — that mysterious prin- 
 ciple by which all matter attracts and is attracted 
 directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the 
 distance — and observe with how absolute and immu- 
 table a power it reigns over the universe. Brooding 
 over the old chaos, the Divine Spirit imparted the 
 power, or rather promulgated the law, to remain to 
 the end of time, inviolable and universal; and, yielding 
 to its influence, that old chaos was radiantly transfigured. 
 
REDEMPTION. 193 
 
 The nebular five-mist consolidated and rounded into 
 stars and systems and clusters, and, the while, every 
 separate world grew shapely and beautiful. The moun- 
 tains rose up in their majesty, and the waters sparkled 
 and murmured, and, instead of the old waste, emptiness, 
 confusion, there appeared fair bright homes for living 
 and joyous creatures, and over all as a glorious universe, 
 " the morning stars sang together, and all the Sons 
 of God shouted for joy." Nor have all subsequent ages 
 weakened in one jot or tittle that great primal ordi- 
 nance. To-day yonder mountains stand on their founda- 
 tions, and the old sea tosses itself, and all the stars of 
 heaven traverse their great paths under the resistless rule 
 of this mysterious gravitation. Every particle of matter 
 as it came from the Creator's hand was bound by it as 
 with an iron fetter. And there is no power, nor wisdom, 
 nor device of man that can for a solitary moment free the 
 smallest material atom from that grand physical law. 
 Some dew-drop that sparkled in some flower's fair bell in 
 the old Paradise, may have been changed into a thousand 
 shapes, and passed into a thousand combinations. It fell 
 perhaps into the earth, and was taken up by vegetable 
 absorbents, and became part of a mighty tree. Then, as 
 with long centuries, the living organism moldered, it may 
 have been liberated, and gone up as vapor to the clouds, 
 and been driven away by winds, and dashed about the 
 stormy oceans, and for a thousand years, perhaps, been 
 frozen in the heart of some ice-field, in the great polar 
 night. Nevertheless, if you bring that water-drop 
 again into its primal conditions, it will round itself and 
 poise itself and sparkle precisely as in the first hour 
 when it bedewed the fair flower of Paradise. And 
 9 
 
194 REDEMPTION. 
 
 so of all matter that makes up the universe. Never has 
 the minutest atom failed of obedience to the law of its 
 being. And though we may never have considered the 
 beneficence of this unwavering loyalty, yet upon it mani- 
 festly depend all the order and beauty and life of the uni- 
 verse. For, let it be seen and understood that the tiniest 
 mote in the sunbeam has broken that fetter and escaped 
 out of that prison-house ; let the wind shake a single dew- 
 drop from a flower, and that drop not fall to the earth, 
 but float away in thin air unsupported; and what then? 
 Alas, then, a palpable suspension, or destruction, of the 
 great law of gravitation ! And then the rivers will cease 
 to murmur, and the mountains will shake on their deep 
 foundations, and the roused ocean burst its chain and its 
 prison-house, and rush in a devouring flood over earth's 
 islands and continents, and the stars of heaven will 
 dash wildly from their courses, and all the lights of the 
 universe go out in great darkness, and all created life 
 perish forever ! 
 
 And so again that iron law, that binds this dead 
 matter as an omnipotent fetter, rises as an adamantine 
 bulwark between a living universe and the awful gulf 
 of despair and annihilation. So that, however unimport- 
 ant it may at first seem, whether a rain-drop falls to the 
 earth, or floats unsupported in air; yet, upon reflection, 
 the issues involved seem momentous, and you lift heart 
 and voice in thanksgiving, that even all the material 
 things God hath created are inexorably under law ! 
 
 And from this principle in the natural, how plain the 
 a fortiori argument for the supremacy and vindication of 
 those laws which make up God's moral administration. 
 A sin committed and not punished would be, in that 
 
REDEMPTION. 195 
 
 regard, just what the imporiderous rain-drop or the 
 growth of tares from seed-corn would be in a natural 
 world — a demonstration of the mutable and unrighteous 
 character, both of the universal laws and their Omnipotent 
 Lawgiver. One evil act, or word, or thought, pei*- 
 mitted unpunished ; and then all such iniquities would 
 have Divine license and sanction. Sin, the great de- 
 stroyer, would spread as a deadly pestilence throughout 
 all worlds. The mighty spirits of evil would cast off every 
 chain and escape all imprisonment, free to work their 
 abominations amid all those bright worlds which con- 
 stitute the many mansions in the House of our Great 
 Father — and those white robes would be exchanged for 
 sackcloth, and those hallelujahs for blasphemies. Wild 
 anarchy would take the place of God's beneficent sov 
 ereignty, and every bright angel become a devil, and 
 every fair world a hell ! 
 
 Yes, my hearers, law is no insignificant thing, to be 
 broken with impunity. It is an immutable, adamantine, 
 omnipotent ordinance, set to guard all great and uni- 
 versal interests — lifting itself as an impassable barrier 
 between the domains of sin and holiness, disloyalty and 
 love. And therefore, go long as Jehovah reigns, is never 
 to be relaxed in one tittle of its righteous requirements, 
 or defrauded of its full and triumphant vindication. 
 
 All things made by God, from the atom in the air to 
 the glorious archangel, were placed, at the first, and will 
 remain to the end, inexorably " under law." And 
 therefore the apostle, in the strong metaphor of the text, 
 represents the condition of an ungodly man, as one 
 around whom this immutable and everlasting law is 
 bound as an iron fetter, and built as an adamantine 
 
196 REDEMPTION. 
 
 prison-house, from which he can not escape, unless by 
 some Divine and Omnipotent deliverance. 
 
 " Under 'law /" " under lawP* Verily language hath no 
 more startling image than this! For "law" is seen 
 here to be only a manifestation ; only another form of 
 that Omnipotence that holds the universe in equipoise. 
 And if in one jot or tittle its requirements have been 
 violated, then all that Omnipotence is pledged, yea, is 
 already at work in its vindication. And the heart re- 
 coils at the thought of a finite violater thus "under 
 the laic.'''' 
 
 And this brings us to consider the other part of this 
 apostolic figure, wherein unto the soul thus hopelessly 
 imprisoned, Christ Jesus is represented as a deliverer, 
 coming both with price and power to work out salva- 
 tion — " to redeem ! — to redeem them that were under the 
 law?'' 
 
 And the figure illustrates strikingly the meaning of 
 redemption. It is something more than deliverance. 
 Our Saviour is not represented as coming in arbitrary 
 omnipotence to open the prison-door and preach liberty 
 to the captive. For this were an abrogation of law, and 
 not its vindication. But he comes to redeem men. 
 The word is " redemption " — i. e., a buying back — not a 
 wresting by power, but a release by purchase. It is not 
 the advent of an armed champion to lift up his challenge 
 at the prison-door, and carry the stronghold by assault ; 
 but the advent of a Mediator, t*o satisfy every claim, and 
 fulfill every condition of the law which is violated, exten- 
 uating nothing of the captive's guilt — disputing none of 
 the law's demands — prepared to meet those demands in 
 every jot and tittle, so that if it were possible to dis- 
 
REDEMPTION. 197 
 
 tinguish between the Divine attributes, it would be rather 
 the justice of God than liis merry, which loosens the 
 fetter and unbars the dungeon. 
 
 "Redemption!" "Redemption /" This is the word! 
 Such a vindication of the law in the face of the universe 
 as strengthens the universal faith in its steadfastness ! 
 Mediation! Substitution! This is the mighty truth! 
 Xot a breaking of the law, but a fufillurc; it in behalf of 
 ns ! Making manifest its tremendous power even in the 
 very act of deliverance — as in a beneficent rescue from 
 some great natural law. Take the law of gravitation. 
 Imagine a child, abroad on a holiday in some Alpine val- 
 ley, joyously watching summer-birds, or gathering wild 
 flowers ; when suddenly, far above, some elemental 
 agency loosens the avalanche, and downward in awful 
 momentum, it rushes toward the imperiled child! Now, 
 suppose that infant could stand up in the path of that de- 
 stroyer, and, putting forth its feeble hand, stop it, and 
 roll it backward ! Then, though the fond mother would 
 exult in the deliverance, yet all human faith would be 
 shaken in the steadfastness of the great law, and this 
 world, and all worlds, be flung back into chaos. But 
 instead of this, suppose, at the first sound of that de- 
 scending destruction, the father, thoughtful of his child, 
 had sprung to the rescue — bounding from rock to rock, 
 reckless of precipices and chasms— reaching the imperil- 
 ed not a moment too soon, snatching it from the very 
 jaws of death, and springing backward, bleeding, breath- 
 less, into the shelter of some adamantine cavern, had 
 come forth when the mighty terror had gone by, bearing 
 the beloved and saved one — then the cry of gladness fill- 
 ing all that stormy air, would be no more in praise of 
 
198 REDEMPTION. 
 
 human love than of the might and majesty of that glori- 
 ous thing — law ! 
 
 And thus is it in salvation. The claim of God's holy- 
 law is in no sense set aside or weakened ! Christ Jesus, 
 for us, bears all its penalty — fulfills all its requirements. 
 And the universe beholds the amazing fact of substitu- 
 tion, assured that the righteousness of God is absolute 
 and immutable, and exults that, even in the deliverance 
 of the sinner, the law is magnified in the punishment of 
 sin. 
 
 " Redemption /" " Redemption !" This is the over- 
 whelming thought! We were "under the law" — "sold 
 under sin " — conquered and carried away captive ! Bound 
 in iron fetters ! Cast into adamantine dungeons ! Around 
 us, as bulwarks which no finite power could shake or scale, 
 rose the infinite attributes of God, hemming us in unto 
 destruction. And when the Infinite Deliverer came, it was 
 not with almighty power to rock the dungeon into ruins, 
 but it was in omnipotent and self-sacrificing love, to ran- 
 som us, as a monarch might ransom a beloved child, with 
 the full price of his kingdom. 
 
 "He was wounded for our transgressions.'''' "He was 
 bruised for our iniquities.'''' " He bore the sins of tnany?'' 
 " The Lord laid on him the iniquity of 'us alV " We are 
 redeemed/ redeemed, not loitJi corruptible things, as silver 
 and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." And 
 looking on the immensity of that Divine offering, In- 
 finite Justice said " It is enough." And the iron fet- 
 ters were loosed, and the gates opened, and we walked 
 forth redeemed ones ; and that tremendous thing — 
 Law — stood, not defrauded, not dishonored, but vindi- 
 cated ! And the universe exulted not more that man 
 
REDEMPTION. 199 
 
 was saved, than that God was glorified in his salvation. 
 And there was a new song heard in heaven, more trans- 
 porting in its splendor and power than all its old choral 
 symphonies — a song of praise "unto him that teas slain, 
 that he might redeem with his blood y" and on earth, in- 
 stead of the anguish of despair, there was the rapture of 
 deliverance, when in the fullness of time God sent forth 
 his Son, not to destroy the law, but, by fulfilling it, glo- 
 riously "to redeem them that xoere under the law.'''' 
 
 These, then, are the two truths which the text's meta- 
 jmor illustrates: The law an imprisonment ! Christ Jesus 
 a Itedeemer! 
 
 Yet each should receive at our hands its just personal 
 application: 1. If we are impenitent and unj^ardoned men, 
 let us at least consider seriously our true estate of dark 
 and unsheltered condemnation. "You are under the 
 law !" and as the most necessary and certain of all things, 
 that law must be vindicated. If you will not accept of 
 redemption as offered in Christ, yours is no part in salva- 
 tion. For if God should conform to the popular theology, 
 saving sinful man otherwise, it would be not according 
 to law, but against law! Now law is the very life, yea, 
 the very substance of the universe. Remitted or relaxed, 
 it goes back to chaos. And so it stands as an adamantine 
 bulwark around all spheres and forms and processes of 
 life! And never since creation has an iota of its require- 
 ments been remitted ; and there is not a mote floating in 
 the sunshine, nor a dew-drop sparkling in a flower's cup, 
 that hath not, through all earth's long years, carefully as 
 if all creation's interests hinged on its obedience, been 
 omnipotently, divinely hemmed in — " under law." 
 
 And surely, then, that moral law which condemns the 
 
200 REDEMPTION. 
 
 ungodly, guarding as it does all the spiritual interests of 
 all creatures, shall not fail in one jot or tittle, till all be 
 fulfilled ! And so we warn you of your terrible condition ! 
 
 Law — Laic. What a fearful thing it is in its aspects 
 toward transgression! Even human law, weak, uncer- 
 tain, mutable, imperfect — yet how its violator recoils, if 
 it hem him in to destruction ! See yonder ! through the 
 dark night hurries a trembling fugitive! That man's 
 hands are stained with blood. In silence and solitude, 
 with no human eye to see, he struck the fatal blow, and 
 now on swift foot turns from the face of the dead man ! 
 But, alas for him, the avenger of blood is on his track! 
 Laio! Law! that inexorable power of retribution — with 
 an eye that gathers evidence from a footprint in earth, 
 or a stain in water, or a whisper in air — is following his 
 footsteps, and will find him and lay a mighty hand on 
 him, and bind him in iron fetters which no power can 
 break, and consign him to dungeons whence no skill can 
 deliver. 
 
 And if human law is terrible, what think ye of Divine 
 law ? God's natural laws are fearful ! You see a fair 
 child gathering flowers on the brink of a precipice ; sing- 
 ing its glad songs and weaving its dewy garlands, it 
 approaches the dizzy verge ! Far out, in a cleft of a rock, 
 grows a tempting violet; the child sees it, longs for it — 
 reaches for it — reaches too far! See, its little feet slip! 
 and you shudder, recoil, cry out with terror! Why? Is 
 not God merciful? Are not God's providences gracious? 
 Yes, indeed; but even God's merciful providences are 
 according to immutable ordinances. That child is una\ r 
 law. The law, that holds the universe together, and is 
 as inexorable as its Maker, hems it in, and presses on it, 
 
REDEMPTION. 201 
 
 and will dash it to destruction. And do you think 
 God's moral laws are narrower in their play, or 
 ■weaker in their pressure? O, ungodly man ! be alarmed 
 for yourself! You are pursuing your chosen courses 
 under law — " -under law!" You are gathering flowers 
 of sin upon precipices, and below are unfathomed depths 
 of indignation and anguish ; and the moral law that 
 binds into one rejoicing universe all sinless ranks of life, 
 is over you, and around you, and pressing you down to 
 destruction, and at the next footstep your feet may slide, 
 and there be none to deliver! Oh, the overwhelming 
 thought ! Beings passing to immortality under law — 
 "under law." 
 
 2. Meantime, unto the believing and penitent soul the 
 text is full of consolation. We icere under the laio, but 
 Christ hath redeemed us! Redeemed! Redeemed! Oh, 
 what a word it is ! Saved ! Saved ! How the very 
 thought thrills us ! A child saved from a burning 
 house ! From foundation to roof swept the red surges 
 hemming him in unto destruction ! But right through 
 the encircling fire rushed a strong deliverer, reckless of 
 danger, to restore it in joyous life to the mother's loving 
 heart ! Saved ! Saved ! A man overboard, in a night 
 of storm, lifting one despairing cry upon the rushing 
 wind, and sinking, in despairing anguish, in the devour- 
 ing sea ! But, behold ! a life-boat lowered, manned, 
 darting like a sea-bird through the blinding spray, and 
 strong arms outstretched to snatch the victim from the 
 very jaws of death! Saved! saved! saved! Oh, what 
 a word it is ! And yet thus, O children of God, are you 
 saved from the unfathomed ocean and the unquenchable 
 
 fire ! Saved, saved forever ! Oh, what gratitude be- 
 9* 
 
202 REDEMPTION. 
 
 comes us ! "What consecration ! What deep, adoring 
 love ! We lay in that awful dungeon ! there was no bright- 
 ening ray ; no whispering voice in the thick darkness ; the 
 cankering iron ate into the shrinking flesh; the adaman- 
 tine bulwarks shut us in unto despairing anguish. Law 
 — Law ! God's great, righteous, inexorable, condemning 
 law overshadowed us, closed round us, pressed upon us. 
 " We were under the law." 
 
 But Ave are saved ! " Redeemed !" Bought back ! A 
 glorious light flashed through the prison-house ! The 
 heavy chains fell off ! The awful portals opened ! And 
 wherefore? Whence the marvel of this great deliver- 
 ance ? Behold ! Behold ! A glorious Form stands with- 
 out ! In his hands a precious ransom — all the riches, 
 all the raptures, all the glories that were his with 
 the Father, before the world was, lavished on our re- 
 demption. " He that was so rich, now so poor, that 
 through, his poverty we might be rich.'''' See ! where the 
 eternal diadem glittered, there is a crown of thorns ! See, 
 the hand that made the world and wielded heaven's 
 sceptre, bleeds with the piercing nail ! He — he — hath 
 redeemed us by his blood — his own precious blood ! Oh, 
 this picture, this overwhelming picture ! An eternal dun- 
 geon and a Divine Redeemer ! Oh, weep, these eyes of 
 mine! Break, break this cold heart ! Send heavenward 
 your exulting hallelujahs, O dumb lips! Rise, expand, 
 exult, soar, triumph, O ransomed spirit! "For Christ 
 hath redeemed them that were under the law/" 
 
THE CHILD-TEACHER. 
 
 " At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the 
 greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 " And Jjsus call'd a Utile child unto him, and set him in the midst of 
 them, 
 
 "And sail, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become 
 as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Mat- 
 THE\y, xviii. 1, 2, 3. 
 
 This passage illustrates the beautiful simplicity of our 
 Saviour's teaching. It could have occurred in no history 
 but his own. No prophet, no apostle, no inspired man, 
 no uninspired preacher, would so have answered the 
 great question propounded by the disciples. 
 
 Whatever be our notion of what is here meant by 
 " the kingdom of heaven," whether Christ's temj3oral 
 reign on the earth, or the Gospel dispensation, or the 
 true glories of the eternal world, had the question been 
 put to another, the answer would have involved the 
 metaphysics of a regenerated nature. A modern preacher 
 certainly would have sought out what seemed to him 
 the loftier excellencies of apostles and apostolic men — 
 Peter's boldness, and John's love, and Paul's ardor — 
 the confessor's steadfastness, and the martyr's daring — 
 saying, these are the elements of true Christian greatness. 
 He would have summoned, in imagination, from eternity 
 
204 TEE CEILD-TEACEER. 
 
 the spirits of just men made perfect; and as in vision 
 they moved before the eye — Abraham and Moses, and 
 Elijah and Daniel — lie would have pointed to the glorious 
 procession, and cried : " Behold ! such are the great ones 
 in the kingdom of God." 
 
 But not so Jesus. The disciples asked him the ques- 
 tion, and instead, as we should have expected, of recall- 
 ing to their minds Moses and Elias, who, in the Mount 
 of Transfiguration, had just passed before them as great 
 chieftains of Immortality, he looked around upon his 
 audience, and seeing a little child, lifted it gently in his 
 arms, and said to the amazed disciples: "Behold! such 
 are the great ones in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Now, it is this simple act of the great Teacher we 
 would at present consider. We would let a little child 
 teach you about the kingdom of God. Of course, we 
 would not be misunderstood to intimate that a little 
 child, if unregenerated, is in any sense fitted for that 
 kingdom. "We do indeed believe that all who die in 
 infancy are at once translated to heaven. And yet this 
 we are assured is a result of Divine grace through the 
 Son's sacrifice and the Spirit's sanctification ; because 
 the great Shepherd came traveling in the greatness of 
 his strength to bear the tender lambs in his arms from 
 life's wilderness into green pastures and beside still 
 waters. 
 
 Though there be unquestionably a religious training 
 for children, so that, instead of being left to grow up in 
 wickedness, with the hope that by and by God will re- 
 generate them, children ought from their birth to be 
 brought up " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ;" 
 nevertheless, train them as you will, without the miracle 
 
THE CHILD- TEA CHER. 205 
 
 of converting grace, just because they are born with a 
 sinful nature, they will always and inevitably grow up 
 sinners. 
 
 Therefore, in what may be said hereafter, we shall not 
 be understood as intimating that a child unconverted is 
 either a great or a little one in the kingdom of heaven. 
 We are only using such a child after the example of our 
 Divine Master, as illustrating, in its natural exercises 
 and emotions, the graces of such as are literally " great 
 in the kingdom of God." Let us then select a few prom- 
 inent Christian excellencies and illustrate their nature 
 and power by the analogical emotions so manifest in 
 childhood. 
 
 First. Let us begin with Faith — the grand foundation 
 of all Christian character. And whether you regard 
 saving or speculative faith, let a little child illusti'ate the 
 true nature and excellence of the principle. 
 
 1st. Begin with speculative or intellectual faith, and 
 what is it as manifested in a child ? Why, simply, a 
 firm reliance on parental testimony. Let a father tell a 
 child that there is a God, and spite of a thousand learned 
 infidels, he will believe it. Let a mother declare that 
 there is a heaven, and the child never questions it. Let 
 a father teach that the earth is round, and the child 
 believes, though he can not comprehend it. Let the 
 mother say that the sun only seems to move, while it 
 really stands still, and the child accepts the truth, though 
 it contradict his senses. Feeling assured of parental 
 knowledge and veracity, and conscious of his own ignor- 
 ance, he holds his judgment in abeyance to that higher 
 wisdom. This, we say, is speculative, or doctrinal, faith 
 in a child — Believing what a father says just because he 
 
206 THE GEILD-TEAGEER. 
 
 ~ays it. And such, as a Christian grace, is that doctrinal 
 faith which makes a man great in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 A Christian is God's little child, and the Bible is the 
 word of his heavenly Father. And if he have great 
 faith, he believes to the full all it reveals to him. lie 
 must indeed assure himself that it is a revelation. God 
 asks no man — yea, allows no man — to accept as a revela- 
 tion any thing without evidence. He commands us even 
 "to try the spirits." And if a seeming archangel should 
 bring me a letter, apparently from heaven, still, before I 
 receive it, I must demand proof that it is a true angel 
 and a veritable revelation. 
 
 But once satisfied that the Bible is God's "Word, a 
 Christian has nothing more to do than to understand 
 and believe it. He may not be able to comprehend its 
 truths, either separate or in combination, yet he will 
 believe them all unhesitatingly on the Divine assurance ; 
 just as a child believes, on his father's word, that the earth 
 is a globe, though, for his life, he can not understand Avhy 
 the men and the cities do not fall off at the antipodes. 
 
 Such is the essence and exhibition of a child's specula- 
 tive faith. Let us learn the great lesson ! Let this little 
 child preach to all men about the kingdom of heaven ! 
 Would that we could gather together all the proud and 
 philosophic champions of the Church's theologic antago- 
 nisms — men that set up their own judgments as the meas- 
 ure of their faith, determined to believe no truth in itself 
 and no system of truth in its connections which they can 
 not understand ; doubtful of the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 and the Incarnation, and the Resurrection, because they 
 can not comprehend them ; or going about to modify 
 Scripture antagonisms; the doctrine of Divine sover- 
 
TEE GEILD-TEACEER. 207 
 
 eignty, on the one hand, lest it should infringe man's 
 free agency ; or, on the other, the doctrine of free agency, 
 lest it should limit Divine sovereignty ; magnifying jus- 
 tification by faith, on the one hand, till there be no room 
 for good works ; or, on the other, good works, till simple 
 faith without works seem a fanaticism. Men, in short, 
 thus virtually putting God's glorious Word to the tor- 
 ture, that its utterances may be forced to square with 
 their carnal philosophies ; Avhose theological position is 
 rather that of Rabbis teaching Christ, than of disciples 
 sitting at his feet and receiving his words trustfully. 
 Would, I say, I could gather all such men into one 
 great assembly and let this little child preach to them 
 about this true Christian faith ! Ah ! how that young 
 lip would be curled in holy scorn, and that hand be 
 clinched in holy wrath, as he cried : " Shame, shame 
 upon you, you grown-up children of the Omniscient Je- 
 hovah, thus wanting implicit faith in the Divine oracles ! 
 Why, I believe my mortal father, whether I understand 
 all his words or not, yet I fully believe him, and can not 
 you believe your great and glorious and eternal Father ?" 
 Such is a child's faith. And just this unquestioning, 
 rejoicing belief in our heavenly Father's oracles is the 
 faith that makes a man a chief in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 2d. Or take saving faith — that gracious exercise in 
 which the soul rests solely and entirely on Christ for 
 salvation ; and let a little child illustrate it. 
 
 Now, you are all awai'e how many sermons have been 
 preached and volumes written on this subject of justify- 
 ing faith. How much learned disputation has gone on 
 in the Church about the philosophy of the Atonement, 
 whereon such faith rests, and what ponderous tomes of 
 
208 TTIE CHILD-TEACII ER. 
 
 metaphysics have been written concerning the various 
 mental exercises which make up this grand composite of 
 faith. And yet, so truly has all this proved only a dark- 
 ening of counsel by words without knowledge, that when 
 the awakened soul, conscious of its need of a great Sa- 
 viour, comes to these Rabbis of theology, asking ear- 
 nestly : " What it is to believe unto salvation ?" It re- 
 ceives responses so Delphian in ambitious metaphysics, 
 that it turns away in despair of apprehending the simple 
 nature of faith. 
 
 But come away, O desponding soul ! to the child- 
 preacher. Behold, a fire has broken out in a street of 
 your city ! A house is enveloped in flames ; and see, a 
 little boy, forgotten for a moment in the confusion of 
 escape, stands at the lofty casement imploring aid. 
 And now, through the excited crowd rushes the tender 
 father, he cries : — " My child, do not be afraid ! I have 
 come to save you ; let yourself down from the casement, 
 and then drop without fear into my arms." 
 
 And now what does this boy do? Does he pause 
 with idle questionings about the nature of fire in general, 
 or the origin of this fire in particular, or the reason why 
 his father would save him in this way, or indeed with 
 any foolish questions at all ? Oh, no ; the boy does one 
 thing only. lie obeys simply his father. He drops into 
 those outstretched arms, and the next moment is safe on 
 the paternal bosom. This is saving faith in a child ; and 
 like it, is the faith that justifies the believer. To the 
 wrath-environed soul, around which the eternal flames 
 are already kindling, comes the gracious Redeemer, and 
 he cries : " O, helpless immortal ! I have come to save 
 you, to satisfy Divine justice, to cleanse you from sin, to 
 
THE CniLD-TEACIIER. 209 
 
 bear you safely to glory; but from all your struggling 
 self-righteousness you must east yourself at once and 
 entirely upon me for salvation. Drop from all other 
 dependence into my outstretched arms." And with this 
 direction, so simple that a child comprehends it, the 
 poor soul goes about with its anxious questionings, 
 about the metaphysics of belief and the philosophy of 
 the atonement — analyzing the water of life, when it 
 ought to be drinking it ; speculating about the make 
 of the manna, when it ought to be eating it ! 
 
 Alas, poor foolish soul ! what can you know about the 
 atonement more than this — that by it, in some way, God 
 is reconciled to the sinner ? What need you more than 
 God's simple assurance, that by it he is satisfied ? Oh, 
 away from these metaphysical masters in Israel, to the 
 feet of the child-preacher ! Hark ! he cries : " Ye per- 
 ishing immortals, drop into your Saviour's loving and 
 almighty arms, and be saved as I was saved by my 
 weaker father !" Such is a child's saving faith — and 
 such is the justifying belief that makes a Christian great 
 in the kingdom of God. 
 
 Secondly. Take Repextaxce, as the next Christian 
 grace, for a like illustration. And here, as before, you 
 all know what volumes have been written and uttered 
 about the true godly sorrow which God demands of the 
 sinner. "Repent, repent !" says the preacher ; "repent, 
 or you will all surely perish !" " But tell me, oh, tell 
 me," responds the convicted soul, "what true repentance 
 is ! Practically and simply, what can I do ? — what 
 must I do ?" And in answer, we hear so much about 
 various elements and exercises — apprehensions of the 
 righteousness of the law that condemns, and approvals 
 
210 TEE GEILD-TEACEER. 
 
 of the Divine justice that destroys — so much, in short, 
 ahout the metaphysical simples that make tip the spirit- 
 ual composite of repentance, that the poor, trembling, 
 self-condemned soul, instead of looking trustfully up- 
 ward into the face of the loving and forgiving 
 Father, is ever looking, in doubt and despondency, 
 inward, upon its subjective frames and feelings, to 
 ascertain if haply it have enough of some mysterious 
 emotions to justify it in taking God at his word, at 
 once and rejoicingly — till, indeed, the very word " Re- 
 penV — so simple in its significance, that a child under- 
 stands it — seems rather a Delphian enigma for our 
 logic, than a Divine entreaty for our love. 
 
 But come away to this child-teacher, O troubled 
 spirit ! See that little girl ! She has disobeyed her 
 mother, and expects to be punished, and feels that she 
 deserves it. But it is not the chastisement that troubles 
 her. She is thinking of that mother's soiTOwful heart 
 and tearful eye ! That kind, gentle, loving mother — 
 she has grieved her, and her own heart breaks at the 
 thought! But now what does she? Does she wait till 
 she has made herself better — till she feels more deeply 
 her wickedness- — till by some earnest ohedience she 
 softens parental indignation? Oh, no! She comes just 
 as she is, to her mother's feet ; she casts herself into those 
 outstretched arms ; she lays her aching head on that 
 loving bosom, and looks up through raining tears into 
 that beloved face, and cries : " Oh, mother, I have been 
 very wicked ! — I am very sorry ! Dear mother, forgive 
 me ; forgive me, and I will do so no more !" 
 
 And just this is repentance, O troubled soul ! to come 
 just as you are — waiting for nothing, inquiring about 
 
THE CHILD-TEACHER. 211 
 
 nothing — from your sins and your shortcomings to your 
 heavenly Father; looking up tearfully into his face, and 
 crying: "Father, I have sinned — I am heartbroken; 
 punish me if it please thee, but forgive — oh, forgive !" 
 This is repentance in the heart of a little child — and the 
 repentance as well which makes the Christian a great 
 one in the kingdom of God. 
 
 Thirdly. Take the grace of Love for the child's illus- 
 tration — a grace which, in its full development, is the 
 well-rounded composite of all Christian excellencies — and 
 let a little child exhibit its essence and exercise. 
 
 1st. Take love to God, as the great law of life. And 
 here as before, you all know how ambitiously men have 
 sought out and classified the various evidences of such 
 love in a believer's experience. And as we have come 
 to our spiritual teachers for assistance on this great 
 point of self-examination, we have heard so much about 
 the distinctions between the selfish and the unselfish 
 affections — so much about the spirituality of the Di- 
 vine nature, and the necessity of sinking all thought 
 of self-interest in an overpowering concern for the Divine 
 glory — so much, in a word, about the elements of crys- 
 tallization making up this crown-gem of a Christian 
 character — that Ave have retired from the pulpit, or 
 risen from the book, more than ever in doubt, whether 
 or not we really did exercise any genuine love to our 
 heavenly Father. 
 
 But in regard of filial love, how teaches the young 
 child ? See that little boy, sitting wearied at eventide 
 by the cottage lintel ! The day has been long and hot ; 
 toys and flowers are scattered at his feet neglected and 
 forgotten — his head droops — his eyes are closing ! 
 
212 TEE CEILD-TEAGEER. 
 
 But hark, now ! There is a quick, strong step on the 
 gravel-walk, and a clear, cheery voice in the outer air ! 
 And see the child now ! How his howed head lifts 
 itself! How his dull eyes flash again ! How he springs 
 from his half-sleep ! He cries : " Father is coming ! — 
 father is coming !" and with hounding step hastens to 
 welcome him. And do you need further proof that the 
 hoy loves his father ? 
 
 And a Christian should learn of this child what are 
 love's evidences and experiences ! There are hours and 
 occasions when our heavenly Father comes home to his 
 children. God comes to the closet, the family altar, the 
 social prayer-meeting, the sanctuary ; God speaks to us 
 hy his word ; God communes with us in his Spirit ; and if 
 these occasions of intercourse are precious to us, and like 
 the child from its tasks and toys, we turn joyously from all 
 life's work or play to the Divine Presence, crying : " Oh, 
 my Father, my heavenly Father comes to meet his chil- 
 dren," then we do not need an angel's eye to analyze 
 our emotions ; for this is the love of a little child for its 
 father, and this is the love that makes us great ones in 
 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 2d. Or take love in its other aspect — love to our 
 brethren — and let a little child illustrate it. Oh, how 
 beautiful, how unselfish, how heavenly is the love of a 
 little child for its brother, or sister, or playmate ! It 
 does not ask about the child's antecedents or surround- 
 ings — whether he lives in a cottage or a palace — whether 
 he respond with a liturgy or was sprinkled in baptism — 
 ere he share with him his toys or help bear on his 
 burden ! 
 
 Thanks be unto God, in these days of strife, and 
 
TEE GEILD-TEAGEER. 213 
 
 selfishness, and sectarianism; turning God's one golden 
 city, with its twelve gates of pearl, into twelve frowning 
 fortresses, each with its iron portal —thanks unto God 
 for the illustration put upon true brotherly love by the 
 unselfish and joyous affection of a little child for his 
 fellows ! And may God teach us all the sweet lesson, 
 that this unselfish love is the true Christian affection; 
 that a brotherly love that is bounded by a particular 
 creed or communion; that does not love the image of 
 Christ always and everywhere, is a love that, burn 
 highly as it may, burns only as a beacon — it will never en- 
 dure the tremendous trial of a judgment; for it lacks the 
 grand element of a child's love for his fellows, and such is 
 the only love that makes great in the kingdom of heaven ! 
 
 Fourthly. Take filial Tbust or Confidence, for a 
 child's illustration — that sweet submission to the Divine 
 will, and calm reliance on Divine love, which make life a 
 land of Beulah, and seem almost the fullness of sanctiti- 
 cation. 
 
 And on this point most of all does a little child seem 
 eloquent. Oh, happy, happy heart of gentle, trustful 
 childhood! With a flower, or a bright shell, or the 
 song of a wild bird in the sunshine, and a father's hand 
 to feed, and a mother's eye to watch, it asks no more to 
 make earth a paradise ! 
 
 And such surely should be a Christian's trust in his 
 heavenly Father. Oh, ye faithless and disquieted chil- 
 dren of God ! full of fears and forebodings about the 
 things of the morrow, when the whole future is ordered 
 for you in God's covenant love ; always striving to cross 
 rivers before you come to them, and to climb the dark 
 mountains that seem to rise in your path before you reach 
 
214 THE GEILB-TEAGEER. 
 
 them, when, in all likelihood, you will find in your way 
 neither river nor mountain ; forgetting that God's dis- 
 pensation of grace and love is : that as your day, so shall 
 your strength be. Oh, ye trustless children of God, let a 
 little child preach to you ! " What did you do ?" said a 
 mother to her young boy, who had wandered away from 
 her Western home and spent a whole night in the wilder- 
 ness — " What did you do, my child, when the twilight 
 deepened, and the woods grew dark with the coming- 
 night '?" " Oh," said the child, " I gathered some berries 
 and nuts, and drank of a little brook, and then found a 
 bank where the grass was soft and green, and then I said 
 my prayer' that God would take care of you and little 
 sister, and then I went to sleep." Such is the trustful 
 faith of childhood — and such the trust that makes great 
 in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Now, these are only particulars of a great general prin- 
 ciple. Had we limits, we might use the same illustration 
 in regard of all the graces which make up the character 
 of one who is pre-eminent in the kingdom of heaven ! 
 Indeed, we might go much further, and show how the 
 same principle applies as well to the purely intellectual, 
 as to the emotional. We think that the opinions and 
 judgments little children entertain of theological truths 
 are better than their teachers. 
 
 I go to one of these Rabbis of theology and ask : " What 
 is God?' n and am answered, "God is the Great First 
 Cause of things — an Eternal and Infinite Spirit." But 
 alas, for me, I can not compass it — that mysterious word 
 " spirit !" I marvel not that the disciples on the Sea of 
 Tiberias trembled in the wild night when a phantom-form 
 walked the waters, and "they thought it was a spirit." 
 
THE GEILD-TEAGHER. 215 
 
 And when I look forth upon the immensity of the uni- 
 verse, and behold, as it were, the outline of an infinite 
 and absolute Spirit, and am told that it is God, I startle 
 and recoil, as the mighty seas roar around me, as from 
 some awful phantom of a dream ! 
 
 Then I turn from the school of the Rabbi, that I may 
 find a little child happy and trustful in its heavenly in- 
 stincts, and I say : " My child, tell me, what is God ?" 
 And he answers : " God is my heavenly Father !" Ah, 
 that is it ! I know it all now ! God is my heavenly 
 Father I 
 
 I go to the theologian and say: "Sir, what is heaven?" 
 And he discourses learnedly about " spheres," and " elim- 
 inations," and " developments," and " adaptations," — 
 about physical, and intellectual, and moral theories of 
 the higher life — until the heaven to which I so fondly 
 looked as some enrapturing reality, seems to me, in its 
 etherial refinements and unexperienced modes of life, 
 such a region of cold and unsubstantial spirituality, that 
 I recoil from those very gates of pearl which open only 
 to such shadowy though sublime phantasms. 
 
 And again I turn to my child-teacher, and ask: "What 
 is heaven ?" And the child answers : " Heaven is my 
 Father's house of many mansions ! Heaven is my home ! 
 Mother died and went to heaven, and little sister died 
 and went to heaven ; and when I die I shall go to heav- 
 en, and be at home again, with mother and sister, and 
 Jesus, and God !" 
 
 Such are a child's answers. God is my Father! 
 Heaven is my eternal home! And I know it all now! 
 The simple instinct of childhood has taught me what no 
 ambitious thought could have reached. 
 
21G TEE CE1LD-TEACEER. 
 
 And so in all things and always, whether in its thoughts 
 or its emotions, the happy, joyous, trustful, believing in- 
 tellect of a little child is, in this fallen world, the most 
 beautiful and fitting type of the spiritual life that peo- 
 ples immortality. And marvelous alike in its wisdom 
 and its. love, was the act of the great Master when the 
 discrples questioned him about true Christian greatness. 
 He might have answered them differently. As in their 
 ambition, they thought about the princes and nobles in 
 Christ's earthly kingdom, and longed for temporal scej)- 
 tres, and diadems, and thrones, and came selfishly ques- 
 tioning him about the qualities and exploits entitling to 
 distinctions in the heavenly kingdom, he might have 
 summoned again, as just before on the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration, Moses and Elias, from the celestial spheres. 
 And as, lustrous with white robe and diadem, those 
 crowned creatures of eternity floated above them in a 
 sea of glory, he might have pointed to the gorgeous 
 apparition, and cried, with overwhelming impressiveness : 
 Behold ! Such are the great ones in the kingdom of 
 heaven. But with a deeper manifestation of wisdom and 
 love, he took a little child and set him in the midst of 
 them; and as they gazed upon that childish humility, 
 and gentleness, and faith, he said: '•'■Except ye be con- 
 verted and become as little children, ye can not see the 
 kingdom of God!" 
 
 And so, doubtless, would he do again were he to 
 descend and walk in the midst of the churches ; and, ah 
 me ! how we should all be startled, more than at the ad- 
 vent of a preaching angel, as, led by the Saviour's hand, 
 that little child came, in humble, simple, loving faith, into 
 our Sabbath assemblies ! We should all be terrified :- - 
 
THE CHILD-TEACHER. 217 
 
 that ambitious theologian, searching with unholy eye the 
 deep mysteries of God's hidden counsels, determined to 
 believe nothing whose philosophy is beyond him — that 
 bigot sectary quarreling with Christians of every other 
 name about forms and dogmas, as if to contend earnestly 
 for the faith were to pick a quarrel with Christ's friends 
 just for the sake of a battle — that self-seeking Diotraphes 
 ever struggling for pre-eminence, as if the race for glory 
 were an envious strife for Olympian laurels — that proud 
 Pharisee making long prayers for a pretense, while devour- 
 ing widows' houses ; wearing broad phylacteries in the 
 chief seats in the synagogues, as if God could not but be 
 honored by such aristocracy of discipleship — that gloomy 
 and sorrowful believer, walking tearfully to glory, as if 
 he were completing Christ's sacrifice in his own self- 
 rigrhteous agonies ; as if it were a sad thins: to have 
 heaven for a home and God for a father — how, in short, 
 we should all be startled and appalled, as, lifting that 
 fair child before us, in all its humility, and gentleness, 
 and faith, the glorious Master should utter again, with 
 his earnest voice, the text's solemn truth: " Except ye be 
 converted and become as little children, ye can not see the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 Let us take to our hearts and our homes the solemn les- 
 son : 1st. Let God's professing children consider it care- 
 fully. Alas for the solemn question, " Lord, are there 
 few that be saved?" " When the Son of Man cometh, 
 will he find faith on earth?" as if the glory of the sec- 
 ond advent would fall on a world and a Church all grace- 
 less and abandoned, whence faith had been swept away 
 in the flood-tides of Pharisaism ! 
 
 For where, tell me, where are the little children of God 
 10 
 
218 THE CHILD-TEACHER. 
 
 in the churches ? We have great men and women 
 enough, beyond question — disciples who can speculate 
 about mysterious doctrines, as if God's awful oracles 
 were curious enigmas for the exercise of our logic — who 
 vapor in the championship of sect or school, as if " the 
 good fight of faith" were an everlasting battle "with 
 wild beasts at Ephesus" — who can flash and roar for 
 Christ in public places and on great occasions, as if the 
 savor of Christian life were not the soft, sweet light, but 
 the terrible lightning. Surely, we have great men enough 
 in the Church, until, one would think, that every mother of 
 Israel had wedded a Manoah and brought forth a Samson ! 
 But the children, the little children, humble, trustful, 
 docile, obedient, full of faith and good works, forgetful 
 of self in their toil for man's good and God's glory. Oh ! 
 I see not the little children in the kingdom of heaven! 
 
 God bring the great truth home to us : " We must be 
 converted and become as little children.'''' A religion that 
 makes a man proud, and self-righteous, and pretentious, 
 and sectarian, is not Christ's religion. A piety that does 
 not make him humble, affectionate, loving, happy, is a 
 false principle altogether. For Christ himself being the 
 teacher, a little child is the pattern of true greatness in 
 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 2d. Meanwhile let the impenitent as well receive the 
 great lesson. You see here what it is to become a true 
 Christian. Alas, what strange notions the world forms 
 of the effect upon life of practical religion ! But, as set 
 forth in the Saviour's illustration, what is it to be a 
 Christian ? Is it to give up all that is bright and joyous 
 in the present world, and become melancholy and martyr- 
 like, and walk to the grave with wrinkled brow and 
 
THE CHILD-TEACHER. 219 
 
 wounded spirit ? Is this practical piety ? Ah, no ! As 
 
 set forth by our Saviour, to be a Christian is not to be a 
 sorrowful specimen of monstrous manhood, but simply 
 and only to become a little child! To turn away from 
 the cares and controversies of the grown-up world, and 
 to become a fair, young, laughing child again, with a 
 pure, trustful, loving, happy heart. It is to become the 
 subject of the miracle for which the genius of the elder 
 world yearned in its wrapt dreams — to be bathed in the 
 mystic fountains of immortal youth ! To be made young 
 again ! To be born again ! To become little children 
 again ! To go back, as it were, from the stern battle and 
 bivouac of manhood to the peacefulness and gladness of 
 life's bright morning — to the serene pastoral holiday of 
 the child, with the unclouded brow and the happy heart ! 
 
 Yes, and more: to be God's little child again ! and so 
 to have the infinite Jehovah for a father, and heaven for 
 a home, and all bright spirits the sisters of the house- 
 hold ! To be God's little child, and so, in filial love and 
 trust, to sit at his mighty feet, and look up into his 
 glorious face, ami though the coals burn and the light- 
 nings play, and the very pillars of the universe rock as 
 with an earthquake, still to cry, in joyous trust: "My 
 Father, my Father !" To take hold of the almighty hand 
 that moves the constellations, walking joyously the ap- 
 pointed path, knowing that through the cloud, and the 
 storm, and the starless midnight a loving Father is lead- 
 ing us to a blessed home in heaven. 
 
 This is it, simply and only, to be a Christian on earth, 
 and what it shall be to be a Christian in heaven, no 
 mortal can tell. Oh, that mysterious and paradoxical 
 mingling of imagery in the revelation of eternity ! To 
 
220 THE CHILD-TEACHER. 
 
 be a little child, and yet a crowned immortal — a king 
 and a priest unto Clod for ever and ever. Heaven, God's 
 Blighty throne — God's glorious mansion — yet my familiar 
 home ! God, the infinite and everlasting Jehovah, yet 
 my heavenly Father ! Ah, we know not what it means ! 
 Yet, be the meaning what it may, this is what you are 
 called to in this Gospel invitation. 
 
 We stand here to-day, not urging you to give up any 
 good thing for Christ, nor to take up any load or burden 
 for Christ. But as unto prodigals in a far country, who 
 have wandered from their father's house, and wasted 
 their substance, and are sad-hearted and squalid, and 
 overborne in vile labor, our cry is ever and only: "Oh, 
 your home is open, and your Father with welcome and 
 white robes await you. Poor prodigal children — come 
 home ! come home !" And what a home it is, and what 
 a blessed home-going ! Joyous is it ever to turn from 
 the cold and wearying world to the loving household. 
 The child, lost in the woods and found at last, and borne 
 by strong arms from the roaring forest and the wild 
 night to the mother's gentle arms, and the father's board 
 and hearth, was unutterably blessed. But happier, far 
 happier, the heavenward return of the redeemed spirit. 
 In the golden evening of time — from all the storms and 
 darkness of this troublous world — along yonder high- 
 ways of sapphires, through all the glowing lustres of the 
 firmament, to the uncreated glories and enrapturing wel- 
 comes of heaven — going home! going home! 
 
COMMUNION". 
 
 "My beloved has gone down info his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed 
 in the garden, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved 's, and my beloved 
 is mine." — Solomox's Song, vi. 2, 3. 
 
 The exquisite pastoral from which our text is taken 
 is peculiarly fitted for sacramental meditation — be- 
 cause its design is to set forth the mutual love of 
 Christ and his disciples ; and because his disciples in ap- 
 proaching the sacrament should be in frames of mind 
 fitted to appreciate its exquisite imagery. It is a 
 book which no profane hand should ever be permitted 
 to open, and which no profane hand should be per- 
 mitted to close. To the carnal heart it may afford 
 ground of cavil. To a heart knowing experimentally 
 Christ's loveliness and the believer's love, it is full of 
 precious truth and consolation. We may say of it, as 
 has been said of " Pilgrim's Progress," that it is like " a 
 painting meant to be exhibited by fire-light. The com- 
 mon reader, seeing it only by day, regards it only as a 
 sensuous picture. While to the loving child of God it is 
 a glorious transparency, and the light which shines 
 through, giving to its incidents such life, to its colors 
 such depth, to its whole scenery such surpassing beauty, 
 is light from eternity — the meaning of heaven." 
 
222 COMMUNION. 
 
 Opening the book in frames which befit the sacrament 
 our text needs no exposition. It exhibits the mutual 
 love of Christ and his people. The pleasure Christ has 
 in communing with the believer, and the believer's 
 pleasure in communing with Christ. 
 
 The picture is of an Oriental garden, wherein walk 
 two loving spirits, joyously conversing, while they par- 
 take of its delicious fruits; and it sets forth, as appli- 
 cable to the sacramental communion, two things : — 
 
 I. Christian Duty. 
 
 II. Christian Privilege — i. e. What at this sacrament 
 Christ expects of his people. And what at this sacra- 
 ment his people may expect of Christ. 
 
 We have here first — Christian duty. Regarding 
 Christ as the subject, it represents him as greatly 
 rejoicing in the graces of his people. The Church 
 is here represented as Christ's garden into which 
 he then descends to delight himself with the gra- 
 cious fruits of the believer's spiritual life. And our 
 lesson of duty is that at the sacrament we should 
 experience and exhibit such spiritual affections as 
 seem unto Christ precious — fruits to be eaten — lilies 
 to be gathered ! Consider these graces : — 1. Faith 
 — That saving grace whereby we receive and rest on 
 him alone for salvation. This is the foundation of 
 all religious life. In its implantation a purely divine 
 work — in its development the efflorescence and fruitage 
 of an earnest Christian life ; — and so depending for its 
 vigor on our own diligence in well doing. Now this 
 grace Christ delights in, for it greatly honors and glori- 
 fies him. In its ascription of salvation to him alone it 
 virtually places the mediatorial crown upon his head. 
 
COMMUNION. 223 
 
 And so he is everywhere represented as greatly rejoicing 
 in the strong faith of his disciples. 
 
 Behold him at Nazareth. Having begun his miracu- 
 lous work elsewhere, we imagine him returning to the 
 village wherein he had so long dwelt, earnestly desiring 
 to Leal the diseases and relieve the distresses of his own 
 familiar friends. And yet we find him hindered in that 
 work of mercy, offended, amazed, grieved, — not able to 
 do miracles there because of their unbelief! 
 
 See him at Bethany ! Having returned in love to the 
 bereaved sisters, about to give back the beloved brother 
 to their home and heart, — yet, in that very hour of 
 seeming rapture, pausing, troubled, groaning in spirit, 
 weeping because of their unbelief. See him after his own 
 resurrection, on the very eve of his ascension to glory, 
 in the act of sending forth his disciples to evangelize all 
 nations, — yet pausing sadly, reproachfully, to upbraid 
 them for their unbelief. And so always. Oh, how he 
 delighted in the strong faith of his disciples ! How he 
 ever grieved at their unbelief! For unbelief seemed to 
 him the foundation of other sins, and so the greatest of 
 all sins. And so in regard of ourselves. He wants us 
 to trust in him fully for all things — in his love to devise, 
 in his power to perform. Our distrust dishonors and 
 grieves him, just as a child's distrust grieves and dis- 
 honors a parent. We may be in circumstances of distress, 
 of temptation, of deep and sore trial; but what, then? 
 Oh, let us cast our whole burden on Christ ! He delights 
 to bear it ; he is honored in bearing it. Faith — strong, 
 unfaltering, triumphant faith — is that glorious fruit of the 
 Spirit with which he is so well pleased. He delights in 
 it — especially when his people sit at his table. Then he 
 
22i COMMUNION. 
 
 comes into his garden to rejoice in its gracious growth ; 
 he searches the heds of spices for the bright flower of 
 faith; he stands under the growing trees, looking for 
 the ripe fruit of faith : and, alas, if he find only a poor 
 withered flower, or unripened fruit, when he should 
 find the hanks all a-bloom, and the branches all bend- 
 ing for the refreshment of his soul ! Away with all un- 
 belief from Christ's table to-day ! O troubled soul ! 
 trust on your Saviour, exult in your Saviour ! Let faith 
 as a flower fill all the air of the garden ; let faith as a 
 fruit of the Spirit cover all the grace-tree, for " Behold 
 my Beloved hath come to his beds of spices to feed in his 
 garden and to gather lilies." 
 
 And as of this foundation-grace, so of all graces. 
 Consider, 2d. Love, — which is the soul's crowning grace, 
 or, a grand composite of all graces. For, in strict speech, 
 they are all modifications of love — penitence is love 
 grieving — faith is love resting — obedience is love work- 
 ing — hope is love waiting. So that love toward man 
 and toward God is at once the law fulfilled, and holi- 
 ness perfected. 
 
 And in this Christ delights. He looks here for strong 
 brotherly love. This is a communion of saints — the 
 return of brothers and sisters, from the ruder wprld with- 
 out, to the home-board and banquet. And, alas, if he 
 find animosity, or alienation, among those sitting at his 
 side — resting on his bosom ! He looks for love toward 
 himself. It is marvelous that he should desire it. For 
 behold all the heavenly orders — thrones and dominions 
 ami principalities and powers — are bowed in adoration 
 before the Lamb that was slain ! And why should he 
 desire our poor offerings of affection? But he does 
 
COMMUNION. 225 
 
 desire them. This love, as embracing all other graces, 
 is the essence of all holiness — thai very condition of sal- 
 vation which sets the believing soul as a priceless gem in 
 the Saviour's crown. Without love, Christ's travailing 
 soul could not he satisfied. And he comes looking for it 
 to-day ; and here he should find it. Love, penitential 
 love, trusting love, consecrating love, exulting love, 
 should be the ruling emotion as we sit here with the 
 Master. Surely he deserves it ! The mighty Shepherd 
 who, rushing to my rescue, tore my bleeding soul from 
 the ravening monster's fang — the Omnipotent Champion 
 who stormed the stronghold of death, and with bleeding- 
 hand opened the prison-door, loosed the iron fetter, and 
 on his bleeding bosom bore me forth to the living world 
 to be his disciple here, and his joint heir forever of 
 heaven's crown and kingdom — surely he deserves our 
 love ! And he delights in it. As the heart of a father is 
 grieved at the want of love in a child, so Christ grieves 
 over our lifeless affections. And now, as represented in 
 the text, he has come into his garden to refresh himself 
 with this grace. He bends down over the beds of spices 
 to gather love's blossoms — he looks up into the trees of 
 the garden to gather the fruits of love — and alas ! alas ! 
 if he finds only the fruits unripened and the flowers 
 dead ! 
 
 Such is the text's simple figure. The lesson of duty is, 
 that in approaching the communion we should not only 
 desire refreshment ourselves, but afford it to our Re- 
 deemer ! Here to cast at his feet the flower and fruit of 
 grace, as we shall cast at his feet jn heaven our crowns 
 of glory ! The Church is Christ's garden — a field which 
 he hath redeemed from wilderness, and inclosed and 
 
 10* 
 
226 COMMUNION. 
 
 planted with germs of a heavenly growth; whose spirit- 
 ual fruits are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith. And now in the time of fruit — when the 
 whole garden should be as paradise, its banks soft and 
 green, its airs fragrant with precious odors, its flowers in 
 their full splendor, its trees and vines bending with richest 
 fruit — now the adored one descends to delight himself 
 with our graces, and woe, woe ! if he find the air without 
 fragrance, and the flower-beds without beauty, and the 
 trees without fruit. Oh, touching picture ! God impress 
 it on our hearts that we may come aright to thy table. 
 "Eehold the beloved hath gone down into Jus garden to 
 the beds of sjnees, to feed in the garden and to gather 
 lilies." 
 
 This is the text's first thought. But it has another 
 one. It represents not only the pleasure Christ takes 
 in his people, but the pleasure they take in Christ. " I 
 am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine.'''' We have 
 here secondly — The Christianas privilege. Regarding 
 the believer as the subject, it represents his soul as 
 greatly rejoicing in the sacrament, gathering in Christ's 
 garden the heavenly fruit. These fruits are the gra- 
 cious gifts imparted by the Saviour. Consider a few 
 of them. Take them as they are presented in Christ's 
 discourse in that guest-chamber. 1st. Peace. — Peace ! 
 What a sweet word it is ! Its sound is like the cadence 
 of an angel's voice from heaven. '•'•Peace I leave you, 
 my peace I give unto you.'''' Oh, enrapturing gift ! 
 And as a grace springing from reconciliation to God, 
 and maintained by faith in Christ, felt in its fullest 
 power at this precious sacrament. "Peace! Peace, not 
 as the world giveth." Truly hath God said, "There is 
 
COMMUNION. 227 
 
 no peace for the wicked." "They are like the troubled 
 sea." Sometimes for a moment tranquil ; but alas, how 
 treacherous ! The more terrible in its tranquillity, as 
 the harbinger of the tempest, that will open a thousand 
 yawning gulfs around the poor laboring, staggering 
 bark ! Not such the Christian's peace. " That shall 
 be as a river.'''' The bright, full, joyous, ever widening, 
 deepening stream, that under sheltering banks rolls its 
 silver tide by his cottage-door ! Peace ! Heavenly 
 peace ! What a blessed thought ! Quiet, tranquillity, 
 spiritual, and immortal rest ! And for this we come to 
 •Christ in the sacrament. Elsewhere even the believer's 
 soul may be troubled, like the same bride in the con- 
 text, forlorn in life's broad ways, seeking the Beloved. 
 Perplexed, tempted, tribulated, overweighted in the 
 race, overmatched in the battle. But not here. Be- 
 hold a garden walled up to heaven ! And through its 
 open portal the soid passes, leaning on the beloved, to 
 bathe heart and spirit in the everlasting fullness of 
 God's glorious peace ! O child of God ! away with 
 all doubt, all fear, all despondency! What should 
 trouble you now ? Here is assurance of salvation ! 
 Look on these emblems ! Here is a divine work begun, 
 and God leaves no work unfinished. Here is a divine 
 price paid down, and God's purchase is always with 
 assured title. Look at these emblems ! Why, if here 
 lay — brought by angels out of heaven — the white robe, 
 the sceptre, t\\e diadem, that are reserved for you in 
 glory; and you could approach and look upon them, 
 and lift them up, — all this were less, as assurance of 
 your heavenly Father's love, than these precious me- 
 morials. Cast away, then, all anxious care as you 
 
228 COMMUXIOF. 
 
 walk with your loving Redeemer through these bowers 
 of heavenly peace ! 
 
 But more than this, Christ in this sacrament promises, 
 2dly. Joy. — "These things have I spoken unto you, thai 
 my joy might remain with yon, and that your joy might 
 he fulV And what glorious, joy-imparting words they 
 m were ! About the love of the Father, the grace of the 
 Comforter, the place prepared in the many mansions, 
 the coming again to take the redeemed one home. No 
 marvel that they gave joy, a joy that sent them out 
 even into the wild night and Gethsemane and Calvary, 
 filling all the cold air with the glad song of the Pass- 
 over ! And what wonderful joy it was. My Joy ! 
 Christ's own joy. The same sacred bliss that thrills the 
 heart of the ascended Saviour as he rests this hour on the 
 bosom of Infinite Love ! As if one of those Divine pulses 
 Avere beating rapturously in the believer's life and soul ! 
 And this is better than peace ; for that is but a pas- 
 sive rest, this is a reigning rapture ! "We enter God's 
 garden to-day for more than shelter; we look for 
 more than this wall of adamant that resists the tem- 
 pest. We seek here the rai'est flowers and the richest 
 fruits of a king's garden of spices ! From the cold, 
 troublous, torturing world we turn to this gracious 
 inclosure. We pass the portal — and behold what a 
 new and fairer world is above and around us ! What 
 banks of living green ! What bright clear waters ! 
 How sweet the air with sunbeams and song of birds ! 
 What resplendent blossoms ! What glorious fruits ! 
 Oli, what adorable and enrapturing truths flame 
 out as in letters of light from these sacred emblems ! 
 Justification — adoption — sanctification — immutability — 
 
COMMUNION. 229 
 
 eternal life! Christ, my Divine Shepherd! God, 
 my heavenly Father ! Here, a Providence work- 
 ing omnipotently all things together for my good. 
 Yonder a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory ! And standing here what shall trouble me ! O 
 garden of God ! pour round us all thy treasures ! O 
 child of God! do not tell me of troubles. Have God's 
 providences seemed disquieting ? Hath God disappoint- 
 ed your hopes ; taken away your possessions ? But 
 hearken to the Saviour's words, " Every branch that 
 beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more 
 fruit." That is what trial is — the husbandman's prun- 
 ing-knife used in love of his growing things. 
 
 Have you lost beloved ones? O mother of dead 
 children ! are faith's wings heavy amid the cypresses ? 
 Hark to the Bride's sweet words, " My beloved hath gone 
 down into his garden to gather lilies.'''' Oh, that is what 
 death is ! The gathering, by the Divine hand, flowers 
 from the earthly garden, to pour forth their fragrance and 
 beauty in the heavenly palace ! Even our trials seem 
 blessed as we sit at Christ's table ! And for the rest it 
 is all rapture! What heart can be troubled, walking 
 side by side with Immanuel ! Who can forbear the 
 triumph, or repress the rapture ! Here ! shut in from 
 life's storms, how like a very paradise seems the Chris- 
 tian Church. Oh, these glorious attributes of God, how 
 like adamantine bulwarks they rise between us and 
 life's stonns ! Oh, this peace of God ! how it bathes 
 my panting heart as in the stormless atmosphere of 
 heaven ! Oh, this faith in Christ ! how it illumes all 
 these skies as with sparklings of the things hoped for, 
 the palaces and pinnacles of the city of God! Oh, this 
 
230 COMMUNION. 
 
 love of the Father! how it fills the whole garden as 
 with the odor of deathless flowers and the music of 
 singing creatures from eternity ! Oh, this joy in the 
 Holy Ghost ! how it bends to my thirsty lip the very 
 clusters of the fruit from the living trees of heaven ! 
 O troubled heart ! enter into thy rest, exult in thy rap- 
 ture ! O garden of God ! refresh us with thy living 
 waters, breathe round us thy sweet odors, strengthen 
 us with thy blessed fruits. O thou Incarnate One ! 
 our King, our Shepherd, our Saviour, who hast set us 
 as a seal upon thy right arm and upon thy heart, 
 make haste, like a hart upon the mountain of spices, 
 that we may walk in thy garden and feast in thy ban- 
 quet ing-house, thy heavenly voice filling all the soul, 
 and thy banner over us Love — Love ! 
 
THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 " This mortal must put on immortality." — I. Corinthians, xv. 53. 
 
 Osr other occasions we have considered the great apos- 
 tolic argument of the context. At present, we propose 
 no more than by a single implied truth of the text, to 
 correct some false impressions of man's condition after 
 death. Among the few who take thought at all for im- 
 mortality, there are two distinct and antagonistic schools, 
 which we may term characteristically the Sensuous and 
 the Spiritual. 
 
 The one, on the presumption that death affects not 
 personal identity, nor, indeed, any of the true elements 
 of character, and that immortal scenes and conditions 
 must be adjusted to that character, picture to themselves 
 a heaven of physical blessedness, differing from earth 
 only in the absence of all that can annoy, and the full- 
 ness and fruition of all that can enrapture. To them, 
 heaven is only a glorified earth — immortality only the 
 state of the well-developed mortal ! 
 
 While the other class, magnifying above what is 
 written, the effects of death and the Resurrection, regard 
 heaven as a state utterly unlike all that the mortal has 
 seen and experienced — where the soul, in conditions alto- 
 gether etherealized, shall exist in the transcendental 
 
232 TEE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 majesty of a risen spirit, rather than as a redeemed and 
 yet veritable man in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Now of both these classes of expectants of immortal- 
 ity are the notions alike unphilosophic and unscripturaL 
 Heaven and its higher life are more than this earthly, 
 purified and perfected, and yet the redeemed creatures 
 that are to people heaven will be in all constitutional 
 faculties as truly men as these earthly races. And all 
 this our text plainly teaches. 
 
 " This mortal must put on immortality.'''' 
 
 This language implies, not transubstantiation, but 
 transfiguration — a change not of an essence but only of 
 aspects. It is the self-same nature we have here — these 
 very attributes and energies which constitute our human- 
 ity — that is to emerge uneffected from the dark flood, 
 and wear on the far shore the splendors of immortality. 
 
 The text gives us twofold data for solving the prob- 
 lem of the after state. It predicts the man's sameness 
 and yet the while the man's transfiguration. It speaks 
 of the "mortal" that shall not be injured by death, and 
 yet of the " immortality'''' that shall be put on it as a 
 glorious gai'ment. 
 
 Treating these two thoughts in their order, we are 
 concerned : — First, With the affirmed identity of the 
 immortal creature with the mortal. 
 
 Though at death we are unquestionably to lose what- 
 ever can be shown to belong only to this rudimental life 
 — as the chrysalis drops the exuviae in developing the 
 wings — yet all faculties and functions essentialy human 
 are to be ours forever. Even in regard of the body is this 
 strictly the truth. Whatever may be the bliss of the 
 state into which the redeemed soul passes at its separa- 
 
THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 033 
 
 tion from the flesh — yet reason and revelation alike 
 declare it to be unnatural, and so imperfect. Speculate as 
 we will, death, self-considered, can not be made to appear 
 a benefit. It is not a step in a progress — it is an inter- 
 ruption — a judicial infliction — God's curse upon sin — and, 
 but for the sin, a cruelty. Indeed, how the soul can act 
 in the future world, when divested of this body, we can 
 not understand. But even if, as Paul seems to intimate, 
 it is immediately furnished with a suitable abode or 
 organism — not altogether " unclothed, but clothed upon, 1 '' 
 still we know that in the intermediate state between 
 death and the Resurrection, it enjoys but part of " the 
 eternal weight of glory" which shall rest upon the perfect 
 man in the Resurrection body. And therefore we do not 
 marvel that from the dust of the sepulchre is, at last, as 
 a trophy of the mediatorship, to be reconstructed a new 
 body like Christ's, to ascend with the triumphing Imman- 
 uel, and go forth as part of the redeemed man along the 
 bright paths of immortality. 
 
 But if this identity seem necessarily true in regard of 
 the body, how more manifestly true is it in regard to the 
 mind. I mean the attributes and activities of our 
 purely intellectual nature. Even as a philosophic in- 
 quiry there appears no reason why death should work 
 any change in our rational nature. Accepting as a 
 simple matter of faith, the truth of the soul's immortality, 
 we should, a priori, expect that, as the last enemy rocked 
 its dwelling into dust, it would emerge from the ruins to 
 enter the paths of the higher life with all its peculiar habits 
 of thought, and at precisely its attained point of progress 
 — no more truly a man amid these earthly scenes, than 
 amid the glorious scholarship and fellowship of eternity. 
 
234 THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 And if you accept the popular distinction between the 
 rational and emotional in our nature, still the text's 
 thought must be true of it. There is surely no stranger 
 mistake than that which regards these strong natural 
 affections as the specialties of the present life — moral 
 exuviae cast off when the spirit wings its way to 
 eternity. 
 
 What we are wont to term " the heart " — that system 
 of sympathies and affections — whereby in all narrower 
 or broader senses, " God setteth the solitary in families" 
 — is among the most indestructible elements of our 
 being. And it is widely to mistake the truth and 
 greatly to degrade our conceptions of immortality to 
 speak of the risen spirit, as soaring out of the sphere of 
 these earthly and mortal loves in its ascent to the fellow- 
 ship with God and his angels. Pure intellect, uu- 
 softened by affection, is simply monstrous. Entering 
 heaven with our logic intensified and our love gone, 
 our sympathies would be fiendish. Affection is, even 
 metaphysically considered, man's noblest attribute. 
 And the more you equip him for the higher spheres of 
 pure intellect, the more fearful and phantom-like you 
 make him, if his ascent is to be out of the power and 
 memory of these beautiful affections of the earthly ho ne 
 and heart. 
 
 In this respect emphatically the mortal falls not away 
 as the dead shroud of the chrysalis — but " the mortal 
 does put on immortality." Said our Saviour (when 
 asserting his right to the Divine titles, " the Resurrection 
 and the Life," standing by the beloved dead with the 
 sistei-s of Bethany), "He shall rise again." — But how? 
 Changed, transfigured, glorified in an elevation above 
 
TEE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 235 
 
 all earthly tics and mortal affections ? No ! Blessed be 
 God, No. "Your Brother shall rise again." Notwith- 
 standing all the mysterious processes of death and the 
 Resurrection, in the fullness of his beautiful and earnest 
 love, he shall rise again truly " your brother'''' still. And 
 so is it ever! Death annihilates no pure affection wherein 
 a Christian heart rejoices. The waves of the dark river 
 obliterate no dear name from the memory. " The water 
 of life " is no Lethe of forgetfulness. The very names 
 God's children bear on earth are written in the Lamb's 
 Book of Life, and shall be theirs as well in "the many 
 mansions " forever. And all the influences of that 
 higher life, strengthening the soul for a fellowship with 
 the crowned creatures of eternity, shall only deepen 
 within its chambers of imagery these earthly and mortal 
 pictures of the heart. 
 
 This, then, in short, in its application to the whole com- 
 plex human nature, is the text's first truth — Death does 
 not destroy nor mutilate the mortal. The creature, 
 emerging from the death-ruin, and at last perfected in the 
 Resurrection, will enter heaven, no new creation, no 
 stranger-spirit — but the self-same being with whom 
 on earth and in time we took sweet counsel. Man with 
 a human body ; man with a human intellect ; man with 
 a human heart. 
 
 But the text has another lesson, and if its first 
 truth contradict the spiritual notion which regards 
 the risen man as not merely a new creature, but posi- 
 tively another creature, its second truth as plainly con- 
 tradicts that sensuous notion which regards the heavenly 
 state as no more than the earthly state perfected and 
 glorified. 
 
236 THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 This mortal must not merely become perfect after its 
 kind, but, positively, " this mortal must put on immor- 
 tality." 
 
 And, if these words do beyond question teach the en- 
 tire identity of the nature, they do as surely set forth 
 the marvelous and all-glorious transfiguration of that 
 nature. 
 
 The word "immortality," in the original as in the trans- 
 lation, is a simple negative. -Though the inspired penman 
 had in his celestial rapture gazed upon the realities of 
 the eternal world — yet, he had no power to describe 
 them. He says they were " unspeakable.'''' They were 
 things for which in this earthly life human thought can 
 have no image — human language no name. The risen 
 man, though essentially the same, yet is to be 
 marvelously strengthened in all the old capacities and 
 faculties, and miraculously gifted with new. Of such 
 things we can here form no conception. 
 
 We have in the mortal five bodily senses. We know 
 that God might have given us a hundred. But of a new 
 sense we can have no idea ; as a man born blind can not 
 even conceive of the power of vision. And so is it 
 of the new faculties which come with immortality. 
 And while we remain mortal, inspiration can only de- 
 scribe the future in negatives. 
 
 Immortality — Oh, the glorious word ! The same, yet 
 how changed ! The body. It shall be the same body 
 with the eye to see, and the tongue to speak, but as the 
 sere and shapeless seed we cast into the earth is trans- 
 figured into the queenly flower, so great shall the 
 change be. With what new senses and new organs it 
 may be furnished God hath not told us. In this very 
 
TEE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 237 
 
 chapter Paul seems struggling under the burden of the 
 magnificent description : — " It is sown in corruption — it 
 is raised in incorruption" And what notion can we 
 form of incorruptible matter, — of an organism positively- 
 immaculate ; no more liable to disease or decay — immu- 
 table, as if pervaded with the Divine Essence. 
 
 "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.'''' The 
 body which we here were taught to regard as a house of 
 leprosy, and all its senses instruments of temptation, to be 
 reconstructed into a palace of the higher life — positively 
 fashioned like Christ's glorious body ! " It is sown in 
 weakness it is raised in power" This poor, imperfect 
 instrument of the intellect, requiring constant care lest it 
 be injured by the using, itself changed into a mighty and 
 imperishable engine wherewith to work out unwearied 
 the grand ministries of eternity ! Yea — and as of Paul, 
 gave in a single word the explanation of the whole mar- 
 vel — he adds — "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a 
 spiritual body." Its material elements so etherealized 
 and refined that it passes out of mere physical condi- 
 tions — no longer controlled by material inertia and im- 
 penetrability and attraction, but (like Christ's raised 
 body, which could pass closed doors and float up to the 
 firmament) itself the veiy equipment of the soul when it 
 would explore the mysteries of creation and traverse im- 
 mensity in adoring contemplation. Thus marvelous the 
 transfiguration even of our physical nature. This poor 
 mortal body clothed upon with immortality ! 
 
 And, when we ascend to the higher human functions, 
 how feeble seem all present conceptions of the reality. 
 If the dwelling-place be thus glorified, what a transfig- 
 uration must await the spirit-inhabitant. This intellect 
 
238 THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 of man, how it sometimes towers and triumphs even as 
 mortal. What discoveries it hath made ! What obsta- 
 cles it hath overcome ! Along what great paths it has 
 traveled ! What wonderful works it hath done ! Mil- 
 ton's song ! Why, it seemed almost an angelic harp he 
 swept ! Newton's march through the universe — it did 
 seem like the old prophet's in a chariot of fire. Yet all 
 this was the mortal. The doings of the cradled child 
 with its playthings. And who shall tell us, then, of the 
 child's manhood — of that coming transfiguration when 
 " the mortal mind shall put on immortality ;" of the great 
 thoughts we shall think, and the raptures we shall feel, 
 and wondrous works we shall perform, when, with facul- 
 ties for knowledge and capacities for happiness immensely 
 surpassing any thing of which we can now conceive, we 
 shall ascend into that brighter and eternal life ? Verily, 
 it is a transcendent and enrapturing thought — that this 
 mortal mind shall put on immortality. 
 
 But beyond it, and even more precious and glorious, is 
 the truth in its application to our emotional nature. For 
 herein, after all, consists man's true grandeur. And unto 
 his heart rather than to his head shall be accorded the 
 loftiest prizes of eternity ! And to think of the human 
 heart (while unchanged in all its gentle, blessed, earthly 
 affections) putting on immortality, is the highest concep- 
 tion we can form of man's kingship and priesthood in the 
 city of God. 
 
 And yet this last great bliss shall be ours ! While it 
 is a gross error to think of the affections as left behind 
 us at death, and love's memories as lost in an impersonal 
 and purely spiritual being — and while we are not to sup- 
 pose that in heaven even the supreme love to God is so 
 
THE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 239 
 
 to absorb all our affections that other relationships will 
 be ignored; yet it is a grosser error to suppose that 
 aught of the imperfect or carnal goes with the human 
 heart to its immortal sphere. Our love even for each 
 other -will not be what it is here. Very much of the 
 present form and fashion of social life will fall off — as 
 the exuviae of insects rising from the dust to purer and 
 brighter fellowship on wings and in sunshine. 
 
 We shall not be selfish nor sensuous in heaven. We 
 shall not distrust nor deceive one another in heaven. 
 We shall not think unkindly nor speak slanderously 
 of each other in heaven ! and those will be social 
 circles gloriously transformed, where a love pure as the 
 angel's and unselfish as God's shall bind heart to heart 
 with ties which death can not breathe upon. And it will 
 be a rapturous experience that baptism of the human 
 heart with the living water — that induement of these 
 mortal loves with the pomp of immortality. 
 
 But the text teaches more than this. There is intima- 
 tion here of the soul's introduction to higher companion- 
 ship. We shall understand then how God's great uni- 
 verse, with all its systems and constellations and clus- 
 ters, is indeed only one great family mansion ; and all 
 orders of the higher life, only one blessed social circle ; 
 and all eternal realities only spheres and scenes for the 
 purified affections ; and heaven itself only the palace 
 and throne-room for the mortal love that hath put on 
 immortality ! 
 
 And this is our highest conception of the true heaven- 
 ly blessedness. For fair as will be the risen body when 
 fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body ; and won- 
 drous as may be the attributes of the risen spirit en- 
 
240 TEE MORTAL IMMORTALIZED. 
 
 throned amid the high things of immensity and eternity, 
 yet better than all is this thought of these earthly affec- 
 tions lifted unto the heavenly! — the pomp and power of 
 immortality round the human heart ! 
 
 For such an experience we are looking. We are 
 " mortal " now ; we shall " put on the immortality !" and 
 how grand and solemn things earth and time should seem 
 to us — and how, as through dissolving vapor, should flash 
 ever on faith's eye the great prizes of the after-life ! 
 
 We stand this hour on the border line of these tremen- 
 dous transformations ! The wings are already stirring 
 under the film of the chrysalis ! 
 
 The imprisoned bird is waxing strong to rend the 
 wires and soar to the sunshine ! 
 
 The great earthquake is rolling back the stone and 
 loosing the seal from the grave of the redeemed mortal. 
 And presently shall the things that eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived — be 
 around us and upon us, as a rapturous life and experi- 
 ence. "This corruption shall have put on ineorruption" 
 — " this mortal shall have put on immortality.' 1 '' 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 " We are a spectacle to angels." — I. Corinthians,- iv. 9. 
 
 "We separate these words from their connection, as 
 teaching an independent and important truth. Although 
 referring specially to apostolic life, they imply that all 
 human life is watched by the angels. Our version gives 
 us hardly the full force of the passage. In the original it 
 is dearpov — rendered rightly in the margin — " a The- 
 atre." The reference being to the ancient amphitheatre 
 — the floor of which, called the arena, was surrounded 
 by circular seats capable of containing many thousands 
 of spectators. Here the trained athlete contended for 
 the prize in the ancient games. On such an arena Paul 
 repx-esents himself as acting, while the angelic host look 
 down from their seats as " a great cloud of witnesses." 
 In its widest reference the text teaches, that in this 
 sense, our world is a theatre or arena, whereon men 
 act their various parts, as in a drama, " a spectacle to 
 angels." And this thought is at one with all Bible testi- 
 mony. It teaches that from the first our planet has been 
 an object of absorbing interest to all spiritual beings. 
 It was so, perhaps, before the creation of man. The 
 fancy of the scientist may involve a great truth. 
 He supposed that, when there had been revolt in 
 11 
 
242 A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 heaven, in the old geologic eras, this world, in a half-cha- 
 otic state, received Lucifer and his angels as a prison- 
 house — that here they were witnesses to its slow progress 
 into a human dwelling-place, watching with malignant 
 hate man's first happiness, achieving with malignant joy 
 his apostasy, and overwhelmed at last with malignant 
 anguish by his triumphant redemption. 
 
 There seems intimation of something like this in the 
 first prophecy of the Bible, where, in the curse pro- 
 nounced upon the old serpent, — " Dust shalt thou eat all 
 the days of thy life," — it would seem that Satan was no 
 longer permitted to wander through the universe, but 
 was restrained to the poor planet he had attempted to 
 ruin, compelled to witness the progress of redemption, 
 and to undergo final defeat — his head utterly bruised 
 under the heel of the seed of the woman. There is 
 surely nothing improbable in the thought that the holy 
 angels watched the evolution of Divine Wisdom in cre- 
 ation — matter wedded to life, and life rising into intellect, 
 until over the glorious consummation "the morning stars 
 sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 
 
 But imagination apart, it is a matter of revelation, 
 that since the creation of man earth has been, in the full 
 meaning of the text, " a spectacle to angels.'''' And a spec- 
 tacle every way worthy their consideration. God seems 
 to have intended this planet as an arena for exhibiting 
 moral character in all its varieties. The drama of 
 human life has been cast in three great moral acts. 
 
 1. A race unfallen and sinless. 
 
 2. A race apostate and accursed. 
 
 3. A race redeemed and regenerate — and in transition 
 to glory. 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 243 
 
 And as displaying the Divine attributes, the angels 
 are represented as bending down to study all of them. 
 The first scene was one of blissful and holy human life. 
 And endowed, as the first man was, with every power of 
 perseverance in holiness, and plied with every motive to 
 retain it, and radiant as the earth was with all material 
 loveliness, and the positive glory of the revealed and com- 
 muning Godhead ; that first blessed act in the drama of 
 human life was fittingly "a spectacle to angels" 
 
 But the drama changed — the second scene is a world 
 apostate and accursed. An exhibition is now to be made 
 of the terrible nature of sin, as seen alike in the malice 
 of the tempter, and the misery of the tempted. And 
 behold ! over a world blasted and blackened, and beneath 
 skies gathered as a thick curtain over the face of Divine 
 Love, man walked a sinner on a befitting stage. And 
 when you consider the whole plot and progress of the 
 drama — all the exhibitions of moral character under this 
 fearful inspiration of sin — man with no light but nature's 
 — man with the uncertain light of tradition — man amid 
 the abominations of false worship — man under the cloud- 
 ed glories of the dispensations of patriarch and Levite — 
 man amid the full Gospel light of the risen sun of right- 
 eousness — the whole wondrous development of redemp- 
 tion, from the first promise at the gate of a lost para- 
 dise, down through those ages of antediluvian depravity, 
 down through all those slowly evolving ritualisms to the 
 tragic scene of Calvary, down through all the Gospel's 
 subsequent triumphs — when, I say, you consider all this 
 progress and development of redemption — justification by 
 the Divine Son — sanctification by the Divine Spirit — man, 
 a willing captive to the great destroyer — man, a straggler 
 
244 A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 in the armor of God against all the powers of darkness — 
 then this second act in the drama of human life seems not 
 unworthily " a spectacle to angels.'''' But even upon this 
 scene of sinfulness and suffering is the curtain to fall. 
 And when it rises again, it will be upon an arena and an 
 act even worthier angelic regard. Earth is not always 
 to remain a theatre of conflict with evil. Even now the 
 creature groans for deliverance from this unwilling bond- 
 age. And it shall be delivered. Out of the wreck and 
 ruin of the present system of things, as a platform fitted 
 for the manifestation of triumphant holiness, shall come 
 forth the " new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 And then shall the moral be even fairer than the mate- 
 rial — for the race, re-established in holiness, shall walk 
 the earth in the development and exhibition of excel- 
 lencies hitherto undreamed of; and then, at least, the 
 ever-varying scenes of a drama wherein a redeemed race 
 act upon a redeemed world will seem worthily " a specta- 
 cle to angels" 
 
 Now this is the general truth which the text sets forth. 
 But it is with its special and practical application to our- 
 selves as individuals Ave are at present concerned. Not 
 more true was it of the apostle than of every one of us, 
 that in all the acts of mortal life we are moving on this 
 earth " a spectacle to angels." It is a plain truth of rev- 
 elation, that these glorious beings are ever around us. 
 They are represented not only as "ministering unto the 
 heirs of salvation," but as watchful of even their seem- 
 ingly most trivial interests, "bearing them up, lest they 
 dash their foot against a stone." So they walk with us 
 by the way ; they sit with us in the dwelling they over- 
 shadow us with their wings in the busy day, and keep 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 245 
 
 watch over us in the still chamber, through the solemn 
 night. And assuming this truth as no poetic fancy, but 
 as plainly revealed in God's Word, let us consider its 
 practical application. And 
 
 First — For encouragement and consolation amid the 
 trials of life. This is the application Paul gives it in 
 the context. Terribly ironical as the description is, it 
 has yet evidently the meaning of a contrast between his 
 own condition and that of the Corinthians. While they 
 were "strong" and "honorable," "and reigned as kings," 
 he was appointed of God, for wise purposes, to "hunger" 
 and " thirst," and "nakedness," and "trials," and "perse- 
 cutions," to end only in death. And it is as enduring 
 all these sufferings, he here speaks of himself as a spec- 
 tacle to angels ! And while this is not his chief thought, 
 it is surely implied here that by the faith, and patience, 
 and fortitude wherewith he was enduring "his great 
 fight of affliction," he was "adorning the Gospel" in the 
 sight of men and angels— And a most consoling thought 
 it is. To comparatively few does God afford opportu- 
 nity of actively doing great things for Christ, but unto 
 all come abundant occasions of exhibiting the power 
 of grace in suffering ; And, as set forth in the text, in 
 its tendency to honor God, the quiet virtue seems to 
 have the advantage over the splendid achievement. 
 For it is not in any of his own heroic acts, of oratory or 
 miracle working, that Paul represents himself as especially 
 observed by the angels, but in those hours of meekness 
 and lowliness, when he was persecuted, and defamed, 
 and made the offscouring of all things, and appointed 
 unto death. And so it is always. 
 
 The especial blessing of our Lord in his sermon on the 
 
216 A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 Mount was upon the gentler, and not the grander vir- 
 tues. The meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit, the 
 patient Tinder persecution — upon these, rather than 
 kings and conquerors, and mighty men, fell those beati- 
 tudes. And even in his own life, more truly Divine does 
 he seem in his hours of humiliation, enduring the Cross, 
 despising the shame, than in those kingly acts, when 
 purifying the Temple and transfigured on Tabor ! And 
 so we can all do as much for God and the Gospel by 
 patient suffering as by active obedience. To the man 
 laid aside from public Christian duty — the rich man sunk 
 into poverty — the eloquent man struck into silence — to 
 the sick-bed of the poor, forgotten Christian — to the 
 retreat of the forsaken and persecuted believer, come in 
 their invisible glory these heavenly spirits; and if there 
 they behold a human heart abiding in patient faith the 
 chastisement of the Father — a human soul, submissively 
 as the Master, enduring the Cross, despising the shame; 
 then, as exhibiting the power of the Gospel, greater good 
 may be done unto men, and greater glory come unto 
 God, than by the most splenlid achievement. And a 
 precious truth it is. In a life wherein so few occasions 
 are ours to do great things for God, and whose great law 
 is suffering, it is blessed to think that it is especially 
 when in sorrow, and agony, and death, we are "a spec- 
 tacle to angels." They come on their bright wings to 
 our desolate homes, our darkened chambers, our sick-beds, 
 and death-beds, and every whisper of submissive Chris- 
 tian love sounds out as a grand hallelujah to the Infinite 
 Glory, and every gentle tear in the eye of faith flashes as 
 a gem of immense price in the diadem of their God. 
 Passing this, consider this truth. Secondly — As a 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 247 
 
 ground of exhortation. As herein represented, we are all 
 
 awalking earth as a theatre — actors in a drama — "a specta- 
 cle to angels." And how are we acting ? You may be 
 this day an impenitent man ; and, if so, the part you are 
 acting is one solemn beyond all description or conception 
 — the part of an imperiled man with an immortal sold to 
 save! For just such acting is this life-stage fitted. A 
 dark and disquieting world it is at the best. And though 
 beautiful forms of temptation have come forth to beguile 
 you, yet, the while, things to terrify from evil have been 
 with and around you, even nature alarms you — thunders, 
 utter their voices, and the earth quakes, and graves open 
 at your feet— And then revelation adds to these terrors. 
 Oh, what solemn scenery it arranges around you. Here 
 Sinai with its fire, and there Calvary with its Cross, and 
 beyond, as seen in solemn perspective, a death-bed — a 
 resurrection — a judgment-seat — eternity, now dark with 
 nameless gloom, now bright with wondrous glory ! And 
 on a stage like this, with all heaven gazing earnestly and 
 ever, ai - e you thinking, speaking, acting for eternity ! 
 And now tell me, you that live as if this earth were to 
 remain forever your abiding-place, and put away fear, and 
 restrain prayer as verily as if there were no God, and no 
 judgment, and no immortality — sporting with life and 
 soul and salvation as a child with the baubles it breaks 
 — and tell me if yoii are acting well your part before 
 this great cloud of witnesses ! Have you won the ap- 
 plauses of that glorious audience ? Hath it not been 
 rather with gestures of disproval — with whispers of 
 astonishment and indignation, they have watched you 
 as acting the part of a man with an imperiled soul to 
 save, you have walked this darkened world " a specta- 
 
248 A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 cle to angels." Or you may be to-day a true child of 
 God ; and then the part you are acting, if less terrible, 
 is scarcely less solemn : for it is that of a redeemed man 
 in the service of the Redeemer. In reference to this very 
 thought, the writer of the text repeatedly speaks of the 
 believer as having "put on Christ,'''' %. e., in language 
 figurative of the drama — assumed his character — as a 
 tragedian assumes that of the hero he personates. Thus, 
 to " put on " or personate the Lord Jesus is the part you 
 are to act on this theatre of life, as " a spectacle to 
 angels.'''' 
 
 And for such acting, also, is the world-stage fitted. For 
 it is the self-same world wherein he personally acted. 
 The same earth lies at your feet, and the same skies bend 
 over you. The same sinful and suffering humanity is 
 ever around you. The same realities of eternity rise in 
 transparencies beyond you ; and the same audience of 
 angels who watched him in the garden, and on the cross, 
 are always observing you. And tell me, if you seem unto 
 yourselves, acting your magnificent part well? As you 
 remember your past life, and think of your slothfulness 
 and sin, and your conformity to the world, and how few 
 words you have spoken, and how few works you have 
 done for the salvation of lost men ; and how little you 
 have sacrificed and suffei*ed for your Master ; how, in 
 short, the seeming law of your daily life has been a 
 search and a struggle for the wealth and pleasure and 
 honor of this perishing world ! And then, in the con- 
 trast, think of the daily life of your great pattern — how 
 it was all a service of God and man, living ever as if 
 earth were a stranger-land, and heaven the eternal home, 
 -how meek he was, how forgiving, how humble, how 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 249 
 
 gentle; how he counted not his life dear unto him that 
 he might do the will of him that sent him, but bowed 
 himself uncomplainingly to the betrayal and the bruising, 
 and the crown of thorns, and the cross; yea, to the hiding 
 of his loving Father's face, and the death of mysterious 
 and immeasurable anguish, for the salvation of sinners 
 and the redemption of a world — as you think thus of 
 the whole style of his earthly life, tell me if these same 
 angels, watching you as they watched him, have fixed on 
 you admiring eyes, and lifted up applauding voices, saying 
 in regard to every act of this great life-drama, " Well 
 done good and faithful, — that is just like Christ.'''' 
 
 Ah, my hearers, whether penitent or impenitent — infi- 
 del or believer, your past lives have been parts of a great 
 drama, thus witnessed by all the crowned creatures of 
 eternity. And have you acted it well, as a " spectacle to 
 angels ? " Surely our lives should henceforth be better 
 representations of the solemn parts set before us. 
 
 Meanwhile, there is another aspect in which the text 
 is exhortatory. As thus a spectacle to angels, it may be 
 said, in one sense, we can choose the parts we are to act 
 in their presence. All unknown as, in the main, is the 
 future history of us all, and kindly hidden as are the 
 scenes wherein, even on the morrow, we shall individu- 
 ally appear in this drama of life, yet there are some 
 things common and certain to us all, and in regard of 
 them we can choose at least our own style of acting. 
 And it becomes us to consider them well ere the curtain 
 rise, and we stand in their midst. Take them in their 
 order : — 
 
 1. A death-scene! — A darkened chamber. A couch 
 shaken convulsively. A company of heart-broken rela- 
 11* 
 
250 A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 
 
 tives keeping watch by the beloved and departing one. 
 Such the scene. And for an actor — behold! A poor 
 lover of pleasure, who put his eternity carefully away 
 from him, living only for this world. Now witness his 
 acting as it seems unto angels. Behold ! That wan face ; 
 that wild and faded eye ; that convulsed framework ; 
 those feeble hands, lifted as to repel some shape of ter- 
 ror. Listen ! That sob ; that cry of anguish : " Oh, do 
 not let me die !" " I can not die !" " I rejected the 
 Saviour !" " I am lost, lost, lost !" 
 
 2. The next is a judgment-scene ! — The heavens and 
 the earth have passed away from the awful face of God. 
 The great white throne is set. The books are opened ; 
 and the risen dead, small and great, stand before God ; 
 and around, in solemn witness, are gathered all spiritual 
 creatures. And again this poor worldling appears upon 
 the stage, " a spectacle to angels." And see it, that look 
 of hopeless anguish ; that convulsion ; that glance above, 
 before, around, as if for some avenue of escape, as there 
 falls on the shrinking sense the appalling sentence — 
 " Depart ! — depart /" 
 
 3. Tlie last scene is in eternity ! — Go ponder it as pic- 
 tured in God's solemn book. I know not what it means 
 — " the smoke of the torment, the blackness of darkness 
 for ever and ever." Thanks unto God that the curtain 
 lifts not yet from the immortality of ungodliness ! But 
 to one standing close to that curtain, as the light of rev- 
 elation shines through as a transparency, there are seen 
 strange and shadowy things, there are heard strange 
 and startling sounds, giving assurance to us at least, that 
 the drama darkens in that last eternal act, and becomes 
 terribly tragic as " a spectacle to angels." 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 251 
 
 This is one style of acting. Consider, in contrast, tlie 
 other ! The same stage — the same scenery — but all else 
 different ! 
 
 1. Again the death-scene! — The same darkened cham- 
 ber. The same group of weeping friends. But how 
 changed the action ! True, the poor body is wasted and 
 wan in the sore conflict. And yet, as if the pinnacles of 
 the celestial city were bursting on the sight ! See the 
 radiant fire in the eye! the rapturous smile, on the lip I 
 Hear those words, feeble, yet joyous in faith and love : 
 " Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me !" Behold 
 that fixed look heavenward, as the ransomed spirit 
 spreads wing for its place in the many mansions ! 
 
 2. The same scene of judgment ! — The same great 
 white throne — with the open books — the assembled uni- 
 verse — the glorified Immanuel ! And again a man walk- 
 ing that sublime stage, " a spectacle to angels." But 
 the action different ! See how joyously that lifted eye 
 drinks in the glory of the Redeemer's face. Note that 
 look of triumph, that cry of rapture, at the approving 
 sentence : " Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter into 
 the joy of thy Lord I" 
 
 3. Again, a scene laid in eternity. — But here, stage, 
 scenery, acting, all different. We have no thought to 
 depict them. Even inspired imagination could only 
 labor, overborne, when speaking of the shapes of sur- 
 passing loveliness, and the sounds of surpassing har- 
 mony, the thrones of power, the diadems of glory, the 
 palaces and temples and triumphs of heaven! The cur- 
 tain lifts not yet from the platform whereon the redeemed 
 and risen mau walks in the presence of God. But to one 
 
252 A SPECTACLE TO AiVGELS. 
 
 approaching that concealing veil there will flash a lustre 
 as of uncreated glory, and sound cadences as of seraphic 
 voices in rapturous hallelujah to fill the deadest soul with 
 aspiration to have part in so sublime a drama. 
 
 Such, shortly, are the two styles of human action on 
 the great theatre of life. And for each of us, just behind 
 this massive curtain, are stage and scenery being pre- 
 pared ! And we are here to choose, each for himself, the 
 style of his performance. And now, tell me how you 
 will act your solemn part — O immortal man ! as — •" a 
 spectacle to angels.''' 1 
 
 Oh, that God would give power to this picture of the 
 text — "« theatre unto the angels.'''' Oh, that some spirit, 
 with a pencil dipped in heaven's own light, would work 
 the scene fittingly on the canvas, — a fire-doomed earth, 
 canopied by a darkened heaven, and as on a great stage 
 — the mortal-immortal man acting his solemn part — a 
 spectacle to angels ; and we could hang that picture up in 
 our places of business and pleasure, in counting-room, and 
 workshop, and social circle, and sanctuary ; and through it 
 should ever blaze eternal light with a meaning of heaven ; 
 and all things visible and earthly be colored by the sol- 
 emn illumination ; then we should all go forth to act our 
 parts differently. While here in the flesh we should seem 
 scarcely of the world, and presently when the mortal act 
 is ended, and this gay drapery of life falls off, and the 
 world stands revealed a cold skeleton, then ascending to 
 the higher and trans-sepnlchral life, to act nobler parts in 
 the service of the Master, with the palms we here 
 gathered for his mediatorial triumph, and the stars we 
 have set in our crowns of rejoicing, standing in our 
 places near the eternal throne, we shall look up adoringly 
 
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS. 253 
 
 into his beloved face, and lay trophy and diadem at his 
 burning feet, in glory and rapture and love, " a spec- 
 tacle unto angels!" 
 
THANKFULNESS. 
 
 " Be thankful." — Psalm c. 4. 
 
 "We have just read in your hearing the proclamation 
 of the executive, enjoining upon this commonwealth 
 the observance of its accustomed day of annual thanks- 
 giving. But, much as we like the custom, we are yet 
 disposed to doubt, whether the mere appointment of the 
 day, with all its ancestral prestige and executive sanc- 
 tion, will render it to us individually, a truly religious 
 festival ; unless by solemn meditation we are prepared 
 for its observance. It is rather an easy thing to omit for 
 half a day our ordinary business ; to assemble, in God's 
 house for rather a long service ; and then retire to the 
 enjoyment of rather an elaborate dinner. But this, we 
 think, is not performing precisely the religious duty of 
 thankfulness and thanksgiving. And, as preparatory to 
 that service, we propose, at present, some very plain and 
 practical observations on the duty in general. 
 
 The exhortation in our text — " to be thankful " — in- 
 cludes, of course, both the inner emotion and its outward 
 expression, — 
 
 A Subjective Thankfulness, and 
 
 An Objective Thanksgiving. 
 
 Now, I need hardly define the word " Thankfulness." 
 
THANKFULNESS. 255 
 
 It is already in its last analysis. It denotes a composite 
 emotion, whose elements are, joy for a gift, and love for 
 the giver. Differing from gratitude, not essentially, but 
 only in form. The one being necessarily, a feeling only; 
 the other that feeling both existent and expressed. 
 
 Passing then at once to its practical and personal con- 
 sideration. What we have to say may be embraced, if 
 not very logically, yet we trust somewhat profitably, 
 under these three divisions : — 
 
 The Hinclerances. 
 
 The Helps, and 
 
 The Reasons of Thanlfulness. 
 
 Beginning with the Hinclerances, which practically 
 interfere with this great moral and Christian duty, we 
 are struck with surprise that there should be any such 
 hinderances. This experience and expression of grati- 
 tude for Divine favors, has its foundation, as a duty, in 
 the very nature of things. For, as we can by no equiva- 
 lent recompense God for his mercies, it seems positively 
 unnatural, not to cherish a lively sense of his goodness, 
 and give utterance to the feeling on appropriate occa- 
 sions. Nevertheless, in this as in many another good 
 thing, we are manifestly hindered. And setting ourselves 
 to understand this strange thing, unthank fulness, we 
 find, to our surprise, that the vice, like its opposite vir- 
 tue, has its foundation in a very principle of our nature. 
 
 The old Saxon word, " Grrymetan" whence comes our 
 Anglo-Saxon, " to grumble," expresses only an original 
 law of the human constitution. For analyzed carefully, 
 and hope, or expectation of future good, will be found 
 the grand element of the exercise. A happy feeling, 
 indeed, in an unfallen spirit. But in a fallen, resulting 
 
256 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 in dissatisfaction with the present — and thus in grum- 
 bling. And so we find that this dissatisfaction began 
 even in Eden. Eve fretting, fault-finding, grumbling, 
 about the forbidden tree in the midst of the garden. 
 And thence as a true lineal exercise it has been manifest 
 in all her descendants. The infant in its mother's arms 
 — the school-boy on his way to school — the husband- 
 man at the weather — the doctor at the night-call — the 
 merchant about the markets — the lawyer about retain- 
 ing-fees — the parson about his salary. Indeed the whole 
 human race imitate their first mother, and complain- 
 ingly grumble. It is a law of our nature, and like other 
 laws has its uses. It will be found, upon careful exami- 
 nation, that even the bodily exercises of crying and 
 groaning, are grand operations whereby nature mitigates 
 and allays anguish. A physician will tell you, that a 
 patient who gives free course to these natural feelings, 
 will recover sooner from accidents and operations, than 
 another, who, thinking it unmanly to cry and groan, 
 represses resolutely all such manifestations. He will 
 relate cases, Avhere violent cryings and roarings have 
 greatly reduced excited pulses, and soothed the nervous 
 system, thus preventing or allaying fever, and insuring 
 in many diseases a favorable termination. And so he 
 rather encourages these tears and groanings in patients 
 while undergoing violent surgical operations. And, in 
 regard of restless and hypochondriacal subjects, who 
 will always be under medical treatment, he knows that 
 they can do nothing better for themselves, than groan 
 all the day, and cry all the night. 
 
 In this point of view grumbling is medicinal ; — an 
 ojjeration whereby nature relieves sorrow. And as we 
 
THANKFULNESS. 257 
 
 do not find fault with tears, no more should we find 
 fault with querulous words, spoken shortly and seasona- 
 bly. They are escape-valves of anguish, they relieve 
 sensibilities, and so do good as a medicine. Indeed, he 
 that has nothing to grumble about can not be comforta- 
 ble, because he has nothing to complain of, and therefore 
 nothing to desire, and having nothing to anticipate, can 
 never be happy. 
 
 But then this genial, good-natured, medicinal, and so 
 beneficial grumbling, degenerates almost universally 
 into downright, malignant, everlasting fault-finding ; 
 and then — like all medicine taken as a daily aliment — it 
 becomes positively hurtful. It impairs the freshness 
 and healthfulness of the mind ; induces morbid, rheu- 
 matic, neuralgic moods of thought ; makes the man a 
 torture to himself, and a curse to the neighborhood ; 
 weakens his influence ; destroys his character ; renders 
 him a wretch here, and tends inevitably to render him 
 Avretched forever. And so, although we find this root of 
 thanklessness in a primal law of our nature, yet its mani- 
 festations result from various things which we have 
 termed obstacles to thankfulness. Of these I mention — 
 
 First — The habit of looking too much at other people, 
 and too little at ourselves. Quite manifest is it, that very 
 much of our discontent arises from a consideration of 
 our neighbors. Others are richer, or more honorable, 
 or beautiful, or successful than ourselves — others treat 
 us with neglect, or injustice — others are guilty of mani- 
 fest short-comings or overt iniquities ; and so, our poor 
 life-bark, overladen with other men's wares, labors pain- 
 fully on the seas, signals of distress flying from its every 
 mast, and the sound of its minute-guns making night a 
 
258 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 burden. Whereas, if the poor man would go into his 
 own heart, and fling overboard all but his own peculiar 
 cares and troubles, and sit down to feast on the rich 
 viands God has gathered as his sea-stores, then his light- 
 ened and relieved bark would float buoyantly on the 
 waters, and answer readily her helm, and with glad 
 songs and bright skies go on her way rejoicing. But, 
 then, this looking too much at the things of others is 
 not our only difliculty, and we remark, therefore, 
 
 Secondly — That in looking to ourselves we are accus- 
 tomed to let the mind dwell too much on the dark side of 
 our experience. Rather upon what toe have not, than 
 upon ichat toe have. Rather upon the Divine chastise- 
 ment than the Divine benefaction. It is the spots upon 
 the sun that the astronomer talks of. It is when under 
 an eclipse, that the moon and stars are most carefully 
 observed. It is the one river with the cataract, and not 
 the thousand rivers with their unbroken water-courses 
 that tourists throng to. 
 
 In contemplating the history of a year, it is impossible 
 in a probationary life, that it should have brought only 
 uninterrupted gladness ; and so, the thought fastens on 
 the fairer things that might have been, rather than the 
 fair things that have been. The ten thousand daily 
 blessings wherewith God has been rounding our lives, 
 are lost sight of in the occasional clouds of difficulty that 
 may have checkered our pathway. We think more of 
 the one thousand dollars lost, than of the twenty thou- 
 sand left us. More of the one month of sickness, than 
 the eleven months of health. More of the one beloved 
 friend dead, than of the many beloved yet living. More 
 of the mournful silence in the one sepulchre, than of all 
 
THANKFULNESS. 259 
 
 the sweet voices of our happy households. Whereas, if 
 just reversing this process, we would look more at the 
 bright side of things — at the stars that are not eclipsed ; 
 at the bright streams that are not broken by cataracts ; 
 at the profits of our business, and not at its losses ; at 
 the seats filled at the board and hearth, and not at the 
 seats vacant ; then these earthly homes, which we are 
 filling with mourning, and over whose portals we have 
 written in black capitals, " Rooms to let to the /Sorrows," 
 would flash again with festal lustres, and resound with 
 festal songs ; and seem to all who go by, the sweet and 
 fair homes of God's happy, thankful children. Nor is 
 this indeed the whole of it, for observe — 
 
 Thirdly — That even while considering our mercies, 
 there is a habit of thought which hinders our thankful- 
 ness. I mean that — of regarding the first gift of a good 
 thing as alone demanding gratitude, and its subsequent 
 preservation as a natural sequence. Now nature is 
 not a power but a process. Preservation is positively a 
 constant creation. And so, as truly as if it were done 
 sensibly and immediately, God gives us a new sun every 
 morning, and hangs new stars every night in the firma- 
 ment ; and gives us, by an Almighty act, put forth 
 every moment, each process of a new life, and each adapta- 
 tion and blessedness of a new home and world. In other 
 words, we think only of the added, and not of the pre- 
 served mercy — looking upon the continued possession 
 of old blessings as resulting from the stability of the 
 sequences of nature, and only upon the new and su- 
 peradded blessing, as the positive and direct gift of 
 God. And what we want, is that true philosophic faith 
 which sees God putting forth creative power in every 
 
260 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 hour's preservation; so that when we go into life's 
 tabernacle, and see how carefully it has been builded, 
 and how exquisitely furnished, till it looks like the 
 dwelling in the wilderness of a heavenly monarch's 
 children, — it shall seem to us an immediate gift of God, 
 as if just at the present moment, with all its goodful 
 and joyous things, it had — like the Apocalyptic vision 
 of the New Jerusalem — descended, by a great miracle, 
 out of heaven. 
 
 Now, although I have but just entered upon a consid- 
 eration of these obstacles of thankfulness, yet the re- 
 mainder of our subject compels me to leave other things 
 unsaid, and go on to consider — 
 
 Secondly — The Helps to Thankfulness. Of course, 
 the first thing is to get rid of these obstacles. But 
 having considered this already in passing, let us advance 
 to some practical and general rules for strengthening 
 our thankfulness. And — 
 
 First — We mast entertain just and philosophic views 
 of life's nature and mission. We are here in this world 
 only as in a pupilage — or transition state — for states 
 higher and better, and must learn to judge things 
 and value them only for their uses. A man, cross- 
 ing an ocean on shipboard, is not discontented be- 
 cause he can not carry with him his sumptuous furniture 
 and equipage ; and grumbles not that his state-room 
 hath not the breadth and brilliancy of his palatial pavil- 
 ions. His very gladness is, that he is in a structure so 
 modeled and circumscribed, that it can have speed upon 
 the waters. And just so it is with a man in progress to 
 immortality. What he wants is rather a tent, that can 
 be pitched and struck at pleasure ; and provisions of a 
 
THANKFULNESS. 261 
 
 style and kind that can be carried in journeys ; than a 
 splendid palace, and ponderous luxuries, incapable of 
 transportation. And so a true appreciation of the real 
 uses of things, "will go far to render us thankful for the 
 peculiar size and shape of the blessings God gives us. 
 Then, as before intimated, 
 
 Secondly — ~\Ve must dwell much in thought upon these 
 Divine mercies, present and: actual. We are too much 
 given to day-dreams and reveries amid things possible 
 and future. We lift the glass of imagination to the far 
 hills, that, mellowed by distance and haloed with the 
 purple and gold of the setting sun, look like lands of 
 fairy, and grow impatient and dissatisfied with the 
 present and possessed. And yet, there is no one in 
 whose present experience there is not mingled very much 
 — enough at least for constant thankfulness — of comfort 
 and blessedness. And what we want, is a disposition to 
 sit down and count and acknowledge our mercies. 
 
 Perhaps you do not all know the origin on this conti- 
 nent of these annual thanksgiving days. It was on 
 this wise, and on the point under review is altogether 
 instructive. When the New England colonies were 
 first planted, the settlers endured many privations and 
 difficulties. Being piously disposed they laid their dis- 
 tresses before God in frequent days of fasting and 
 prayer. Constant meditation on such topics kept their 
 minds gloomy and discontented, and made them dis- 
 posed even to return to their father-land, with all its 
 persecutions. At length when it was again proposed to 
 appoint a day of fasting and prayer, a plain, common- 
 sense old colonist rose in the meeting, and remarked, 
 that he thought they had brooded long enough over 
 
262 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 their misfortunes ; and that it seemed high time they 
 should consider some of their mercies. That the colony- 
 was growing strong — the fields increasing in harvests — 
 the rivers full of fish, and the woods of game — the air 
 sweet — the climate salubrious — their wives obedient — and 
 their children dutiful. Above all that they possessed, what 
 they came for, full civil and religious liberty. And 
 therefore, on the whole, he would amend their resolution 
 for a Fast, and propose, in its stead, a day of Thanks- 
 giving. His advice was taken, and from that day to 
 this, whatever may have been the disastrous experience 
 of New England, the old stock of the Puritans have 
 ever found enough of good in their cup to warrant them 
 in appointing this great annual festival. Passing this 
 we observe, 
 
 Thirdly — Tliat in order to be thankful, we must 
 make the best of our misfortunes. What the Germans 
 tell us as a parable, we have, all of us — who have 
 gone afield with nature in observant moods — witnessed 
 not unfrequently. Standing by some autumnal, and 
 over-matured flower, we have seen the laborious bee come 
 hurrying and humming, and plunging into the flower's 
 cup, where there was not a particle of honey. But what 
 does the bee do ? Why, after sucking, and sucking, and 
 finding no nectar, does it come up from the flower's heart 
 with a disappointed air, as if departing to some other 
 field of labor ? Ah no ! If there be no sweets at the 
 flower's red core, yet its stamens are full of golden 
 farina, and out of the farina the bee builds its cells ; and 
 so it rolls its little legs against these stamens, till they 
 look large and loaded as golden hose, and thanking the 
 flower as sweetly as if it had been full of honey, gladly 
 
THANKFULNESS. 263 
 
 humming it flies home with its wax. Yes, and herein 
 lies God's moral — If our flowers have no honey ^ let us 
 be glad of the wax/ 
 
 And this reminds me of another incident connected 
 with the appointment of thanksgiving days. When our 
 national independence had been triumphantly achieved, 
 the Colonics, of Course, held great general jubilee. And 
 good King George, who had been sadly worsted in the 
 conflict, thinking himself quite as pious as his disloyal 
 subjects — and not to be outdone in godliness by such 
 rebels against the Divine right — appointed also a day of 
 thanksgiving for the restoration of peace to his long 
 disturbed empire. In the vicinity of the monarch's resi- 
 dence, then Windsor Castle, dwelt a most estimable 
 minister of the Church, who shared his sovereign's 
 intimacy, and conversed with him freely. On this oc- 
 casion the worthy divine ventured to say : — 
 
 " Your majesty has sent out a proclamation for a day 
 of thanksgiving. For what are we to give thanks ? Is 
 it because your majesty has lost thirteen of the fairest 
 jewels from your crown ?" 
 
 " No, no," replied the monarch, " not for that !" 
 
 "Well, then, shall we give thanks because so many 
 millions of treasure have been spent in this war, and so 
 many millions added to the public debt ?" 
 
 " No, no," again replied the king, " not for that !" 
 
 " Shall we, then, give thanks that so many thousands 
 of our fellow-men have poured out their life-blood in this 
 unhappy and unnatural struggle, between those of the 
 same race and religion?" 
 
 " No, no," exclaimed George, for the third time ; " not 
 that !" 
 
264 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 "For what, then, may it please your majesty, are we 
 to give thanks ?" asked again the pious divine. 
 
 " Thank God !" cried the king most energetically ; 
 " Thank God that it is not any worse !" 
 
 Yes, and here is a reason for thankfulness in all circum- 
 stances, since it is never so bad with us as it might be. 
 And. even if God be pouring out the vials of his anger, 
 yet blessed be his name ! He never empties them to the 
 uttermost. 
 
 But then this making the best of trials and disappoint- 
 ments involves much more than simply enduring them, 
 in view of their accompanying mercies. — And we 
 observe, 
 
 Fourthly — That toe must, meaniohile, learn to look 
 xipon these very evils as God's disguised blessings. 
 To every true Christian they are so, positively, and be- 
 yond controversy. As part of the special Providence 
 of a wise and loving Father, they can not be otherwise. 
 It is God that determines the bounds of our habitation ; 
 the stations we are to fill ; the comforts we are to enjoy ; 
 and the trials we are to suffer. And if we have not much 
 of the present world, it is not because our heavenly 
 Father is not able to give us more. It is all to be re- 
 solved into the wisdom and kindness of the Divine ad- 
 ministration — God's wisdom discerning how much is 
 best for us — and his love determining to allow us no 
 more. As a truth alike of experience and revelation, 
 these present afflictions are salutary. They produce in 
 the soul, by a most philosophic process, the peaceable 
 fruits of righteousness. And as grace is the measure, 
 and very element, of glory ; so, by enlarging heavenly 
 exercises in the soul, " do these light afflictions which are 
 
THANKFULNESS. 265 
 
 for a moment, icorJc out for us afar more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory.'''' They are but the storms on 
 the water driving the bark toward the haven ! but the 
 darkness of the midnight making glorious heaven's stars ! 
 And therefore as real, though disguised, mercies, are 
 afflictions to be regarded as they relate to God's true 
 children. And this leads us, as a direction including all 
 others, to remark, 
 
 Fifthly — That to become truly thankful, we must be- 
 come Christians — and Christians growing in grace and 
 advancing in knowledge. We have no limits for an en- 
 larged consideration of the philosophic tendency of 
 earnest piety to produce gratitude and gladness — but 
 must confine ourselves to a few points of its illustration. 
 
 Religion makes a man humble — and humility, as a 
 grace, lies at the foundation of contentment. If the 
 Christian's lot be low, he thinks more meanly of himself 
 than others can think of him, and is in no way disquieted 
 at other men's opinions. If his daily mercies seem small, 
 he feels, that, being unworthy of anything, by every 
 elevation of his condition above death and hell, he fares 
 better than he deserves, and gives thanks for that eleva- 
 tion, with true love and rejoicing. And, contrasting his 
 condition at its worst with that of his Saviour, feels that 
 a universe would cry, " Shame !" if he should not be 
 thankful, while faring better -than the Master, he has " a 
 place to lay his head !" 
 
 Meanwhile, religion gives him just views of present 
 things, and of the true relation he sustains to them, in 
 this earthly economy. They never seem to him ends, but 
 only means unto ends. He understands how his present 
 life is a sojourn; an exodus. And as a true-hearted 
 
 12 
 
266 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 traveler, he expects not home-comforts on a journey ; 
 but is content with rude fare and humble hostelries, and 
 can thank God even for rough roads and foul weather, 
 if they hinder not his progress. 
 
 Moreover, religion, as it is essentially a principle of 
 self-denial, moderates a marts wishes, and so creates 
 happiness. Diogenes was haj)pier in his tub, than 
 Alexander on the throne of his empire. And for a good 
 reason — because the tub held the wishes of the philoso- 
 pher ; but the world was too small for those of the 
 conqueror. The real necessities of our nature are few 
 and simple and easily satisfied. And all beyond this 
 is the tyranny of fancy. The water drank by the beg- 
 gar, from the wayside spring, is as sweet as when lifted 
 to a king's lip in a golden chalice. The true want is 
 relieved by the draught, but the fancied want not even 
 by the goblet. And so the grand secret of content- 
 ment is found, not in increasing our supplies, — but in 
 diminishing our necessities. Not in revealing new 
 worlds to satisfy Alexander ; but in transforming Alex- 
 ander into Diogenes satisfied with his tub. 
 
 Meanwhile, religion produces trustfulness, and so 
 brings contentment. After all, the great secret of dis- 
 content, is born of anticipation. These reveries and 
 day-dreams are full of tormenting phantoms. Even 
 if we are hoping for better things in the future, this 
 very expectation begets dissatisfaction with the present. 
 It places the heart in attitudes as unfavorable to pres- 
 ent enjoyment, as that of a racer for observing the 
 beautiful landscapes he is crossing. The butterfly we 
 pursue is grasped at last, all bruised and shattered, 
 just because we pursued it, — whereas, to him that sits 
 
THANKFULNESS. 267 
 
 contentedly down, there comes one flitting to his very 
 hand, in all its wonderful and unmarred beauty. 
 
 But, then, the staple of our anticipations is fear and 
 foreboding ; we are always conjuring evil for the mor- 
 row. In the present, things may be well enough. But 
 not satisfied to enjoy the present, we are always, and at 
 awful rates of interest, borrowing trouble from the 
 future. Climbing mountains that are yet in the dis- 
 tance ! Crossing bridges before we come to them. 
 And so this whole habit of living in the future is 
 fatal to all thankfulness, both for the past and the pres- 
 ent ; and this, religion overcomes by making the man 
 trustful. It makes him trustful for the present. With 
 his sins forgiven, and his conscience at peace, he carries 
 the celestial elements within his own bosom. And 
 with wings of love and faith is ever soaring, eagle- 
 like, in the sunshine of God's smile ; and abiding far 
 above the serpents of discontent, that sting the dwellers 
 in the dust, and the clouds of despair, that fling shad- 
 ows on the tents of the ungodly. But, more than all, 
 religion makes the man trustful of the future. Even 
 the earthly and mortal future he trusts gladly in God's 
 hand. There may come to him trials, but he is sure of 
 heavenly strength and consolation. With every cloud 
 in the sky, God's rainbows to span it ! With every 
 storm on the sea, the Divine Redeemer to still it ! And 
 the more steep and rugged the pathway, only the 
 straighter and nearer it lies toward his home ! 
 
 Meanwhile, in regard to the immortal and heavenly 
 future, does religion make the man trustful and thank- 
 ful ? His faith is the veritable substance of things un- 
 seen and hoped for; and he is mounting ever on its 
 
268 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 strong wings above all these poor clouds of the mortal, 
 until he can catch through the lustrous gates of the 
 Eternal City, its songs of gladness — its shapes of glory. 
 He stands with John in his blessed exile ; he beholds 
 those radiant trains go by — from their palms, their 
 plumes, their robes, their diadems, flinging light that 
 bathes the poor Patmos in a sea of heavenly splendor. 
 He mounts with Paul in his strange rapture, higher 
 and higher, till this poor world fades away in the dis- 
 tance, and those loftier firmaments are ablaze with 
 the ineffable lustres of the city of God ! Yea, he 
 enters in! — he stands in the golden street! — he 
 walks by the river of life ! — he numbers " the hun- 
 dred and forty-and-four thousand !" — he takes in 
 that overwhelming perspective, rising tower above 
 tower ! pinnacle above pinnacle ! throne above throne ! 
 higher! higher! higher! " Things to comeP'' " Things 
 to come!' 1 '' He catches glimpses of those transcendent 
 and unrevealed realities with whose unutterable mag- 
 nificence Paul labored vainly when he cried, " The far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory /" And 
 though the immensity of the beatitude overwhelms 
 him, as he thinks of his own insignificance and un- 
 worthiness — and it seems too much to believe that 
 such things can lie along the future of his experience — 
 yet, he remembers the faith-strengthening argument, 
 that "He who hath given his Son, will with him freely 
 give us all things" And in wondering and adoring 
 love, grasps the great promise of "All things /" Paul, 
 and Apollos, and Cephas, and the world, and life, and 
 death, and things present, and things to come.'''' "All 
 things!" — absolutely, "All things!" And a wise 
 
THANKFULNESS. 269 
 
 and sensible man, as he is, he says — "This is enough 
 for me, — surely this is enough for me." And so, con- 
 tented with the present, and trustful for the future, 
 he becomes, as he ought, a happy man, and a thankful. 
 
 And iioav, leaving this point, as the first, most im- 
 perfectly illustrated, let us pass to consider — 
 
 Thirdly — The Reasons of Than/fulness, or why toe 
 ought to be thankful? 
 
 Of course, the first reason is, that our circumstances 
 demand it. We have positively, every one of us, very 
 much to be thankful for. Methinks it were enough to 
 shame any man out of his miserable mood of grumbling, 
 just to sit honestly down for an hour, and count over his 
 blessings. Just contrast your own condition this day, 
 with that of the exulting pilgrims, when they kept their 
 first thanksgiving festival. See them, amid the soli- 
 tudes of that great wilderness — the cry of the wild 
 beast, and the roar of the strong wind rising around them 
 — the loved homes of their childhood, and the precious 
 temples of their fathers, far away over the waters — a 
 barren soil beneath their feet ; and above, the cold and 
 cheerless azure of a stranger-heaven ! And yet singing 
 triumphantly unto God their Thanksgiving Anthem ! — 
 
 "The breaking waves dashed high 
 On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
 And the woods, against a stormy sky, 
 Their giant branches tossed ; 
 
 " And the heavy night hung dark 
 The hills and waters o'er, 
 "When a band of exiles moored their bark 
 On the wild New England shore. 
 
270 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 " The ocean-eagle soared 
 
 From his nest by the white wave's foam, 
 And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 
 This was their welcome home 1 
 
 "There were men with hoary hair, 
 Amidst that pilgrim-band — 
 "Who had come as exiles to wither there 
 Away from their childhood's land! 
 
 " There was woman's fearless eye, 
 Lit by her deep love's truth ; 
 There was manhood's brow serenely high, 
 And the fiery heart of youth. 
 
 " Yet not as the sorrowing come, 
 In silence and in fear — 
 They shook the depths of the desert's gloom, 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer. 
 
 "Amidst the storms they sang, 
 
 And the stars heard, and the sea ! 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang 
 To the anthem of the free !" 
 
 Thus — thus, did our forefathers make manifest their 
 thankfulness to God for his mercies ! And shall we be less 
 thankful ? Why, you will keep this festival in homes, 
 and amid luxuries such as old monarchs never dreamed 
 of ! Upon your boards will be viands and spicery from 
 all earth's islands and continents. In your wardrobes, 
 the wools of Saxony, the linens of Ireland, the silks of 
 Italy, and the furs of the frozen zones. And crowding 
 your chambers, furniture and bijoutry, wrought of woods 
 from the forests of Ceylon and Domingo ; and of metals 
 from the mines of Potosi and the Ural ; and of gems 
 
THANKFULNESS. 271 
 
 from Brazilian caverns and Indian streams ; and of costly 
 stuffs from the looms of Manchester and Lyons; and of 
 plumes from the groves of Araby the blest ; and of the 
 magnificent marbles of Egypt and Italy. And if, in such 
 homes, you can not be thankful, it must be as the sated 
 Sybarite, pained with his displaced rose-leaf. Meanwhile, 
 in your homes, are better things than these. Those be- 
 loved forms that sit by its board. Those gentle voices, 
 sweeter to your soul than the voices of angels, that make 
 blessed its chambers. Yes, and more. That precious 
 Bible that shines there as a heaA-enly lamp. That 
 family altar, at whose side there lifts a new ladder, from 
 Bethel to the skies, with its descending seraphim. And 
 then, all those unnumbered social and civil and national 
 and religious beatitudes which surround that mortal taber- 
 nacle, as shekinah-lustres round the tents of the Exodus. 
 All these means of grace ! All these hopes of glory ! 
 
 Living here in America — in this nineteenth century — 
 free men — free Christians — so that your lot seems the 
 veritable realization of the golden dreams of the old 
 Hebrew projDhets — those gleaming and distant millennial 
 glories, that colored the page of Isaiah, and made lus- 
 trous the clouds of the Apocalypse ! Verily, you have 
 cause for gratitude. Verily, in view of what God has 
 done for you, you ought to be thankful ! But passing 
 this, I remark, 
 
 Secondly — That for your own sake, for the sake of 
 your oion souls, you ought to be thankful. We tell you 
 again, and again, that this exercise of fault-finding and 
 grumbling is altogether unprofitable. If some great 
 affliction befalls you — why, give it one grand outburst of 
 relieving tears, and have done with it. Bury the bless- 
 
272 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 ing God takes from you with befitting rites of lamen- 
 tation, but do not embalm the dead thing as a memorial- 
 mummy, and keep it, as an everlasting spectre of 
 misery, in the midst of your dwelling. This habit of 
 mournful sadness destroys, alike, happiness and influence, 
 and usefulness and character. I am disposed to believe 
 — though naturalists will differ from me — that the owls 
 were, originally, as clear-sighted and joyous creatures as 
 the eagles. But, getting into a bad habit of living in 
 caves, and going abroad only to mourn over the night- 
 side of nature, they, by the great law of adaptations, 
 have degenerated into the wretched and blind of God's 
 winged and plumed creation. And the habit works as 
 disastrously in human experience. It blinds the eye, and 
 dwarfs the pinions of the soul ; renders the heart a 
 nervous and neuralgic thing ; eats out a man's piety ; 
 weakens every Christian grace ; and makes the creature 
 a torture to himself, and a curse to his neighborhood. 
 And this leads me to remark, 
 
 Thirdly — That, as Christians, ice ought, for the sake 
 of others, to manifest this abiding spirit of joy and 
 thanksgiving. I speak now to professing Christians. 
 And, as exemplified in the lives of such, this religion 
 of Christ ought to appear the loveliest and most attract- 
 ive of all things. But how does it appear as exhibited 
 in the life of a sad-faced and sad-hearted professor ? The 
 man walks abroad with his sighs, like the wind in a 
 cedar-bush ; his step, as the grinding of a hearse over 
 unbroken gravel-stones ; and the impenitent man looks 
 on with a recoil, and says, "Well, if that man is walking 
 to glory, it must be a hard road to travel !" " If that is 
 religion, it is a poor thing, make the best of it !" Sup- 
 
THANKFULNESS. 273 
 
 pose an angel should come clown from the skies, and 
 walk up and down among men, with his brow wrinkled 
 with sadness and his eyes dim with tears ! Why, then, 
 even if God's fire-car, with its flaming coursers, stood 
 all lustrous at your threshold — where is the man among 
 you that would mount it gladly, and with a loosened 
 rein and a bounding heart, spring exultingly toward a 
 heaven, whose very angels seem wretched ? And there- 
 fore we remark — 
 
 .Finally — That for your heavenly Father's sake, you 
 ought to cherish and display this spirit of thanksgiving. 
 I do not mean merely that he deserves your praises — 
 this I have already insisted on. Nor do I mean merely 
 that he commands you to be thankful. Although 
 coming, as my text does, as the precept of a Divine law, 
 I might say that the man ever grumbling does as ex- 
 pressly disobey God as the man ever uttering false- 
 witness or blasphemy. But I do mean, in this connection, 
 that by this exhibition of sorrowful unthankfulness, you 
 positively and powerfully dishonor Jehovah ! A mon- 
 arch, whose subjects are always complaining of their lot, 
 is set down by the Avorld as a hard and selfish tyrant. 
 A father, whose children walk abroad ever in sadness 
 and tears, is anathematized by all people as a heartless 
 and cruel parent. And so the world judges of your 
 eternal Sovereign, and your heavenly Father, when 
 you, his professed subjects and children, go murmuring 
 and complaining about the earth, as if Christian life 
 
 "Were but a cloud 
 Brooding in nameless sorrow on the soul. 
 A sadness — a sick-heartedness — a tear I" 
 12* 
 
274 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 No — no — no. Shame on us, if, surrounded by such 
 blessings, and hastening onward to such revelations of 
 glory, we go ever with the bowed head, and the mournful 
 footsteps, saying to the world by our pitiful complainings 
 — " See how the eternal God is maltreating his loyal 
 subjects!" "See how our heavenly Father is torturing 
 his children !" 
 
 And now, if you gather into one, all these reasons for 
 cherished and expressed gratitude, you will perceive the 
 wisdom and excellence of the text's great law, " Be 
 
 THANKFUL !" " Be THANKFUL !" 
 
 And, therefore, as individuals, and as a people, let 
 us see if we can not keep this great national festival 
 in the true spirit of the requirement. If we will not 
 obey the governor, let us at least obey God ; and, 
 leaving all our dead sorrows in the grave, and all our 
 complainings at home, come up with bright eyes and 
 happy hearts to God's temple, and with voices of praise, 
 wherein is blent no undertone of sadness, sing to our 
 heavenly Father some such anthems as this : — 
 
 " Come, thou fount of every blessing, 
 
 Tune my heart to sing thy grace ; 
 Streams of mercy never ceasing, 
 
 Call for songs of loudest praise ; 
 Teach me some melodious sonnet, 
 
 Sung by flaming tongues above, 
 Praise the Mount — Oh, fix me on it, 
 
 Mount of God's unchanging love. 
 
 ' Here I raise my Ebenezer, 
 
 Hither by thy help I'm come ; 
 And I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
 Safely to arrive at home. 
 
THANKFULNESS. 275 
 
 Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 
 "Wandering from the fold of God ; 
 He, to rescue me from danger, 
 
 Interposed with precious blood. 
 
 " Oh, to grace how great a debtor 
 
 Daily I'm constrained to be> 
 Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, 
 
 Bind my wandering heart to thee. 
 Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it ; 
 
 Prone to leave the God I love ; 
 Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, 
 
 Seal it for thy courts above." 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 " The feast of harvest." — Exodus, xxiii. 16. 
 
 We have assembled again in God's house upon, what 
 may be called, the great religious festival of the Ameri- 
 can year. These "Thanksgivings" of the separate States 
 are taking more and more the character of a grand 
 national jubilee. Originally puritanical institutions, they 
 have become a part of our common and ceremonial law, 
 until all the families of the land look for and enjoy them. 
 
 We have selected for this occasion a text, which, to 
 the executive proclamation calling us together, adds the 
 solemnity of a Divine sanction. It is historic of festivals 
 not dissimilar among God's ancient covenant people. 
 Perhaps we have been accustomed to regard the Hebrew 
 religion as especially wanting in the joyous element ; 
 doubting almost the possibility of religious gladness, 
 amid its sternly sacrificial rites, and its august doctrinal 
 Theism. But, if so, we have erred widely. Under every 
 dispensation alike has religion, as set forth by God, been 
 essentially joyous. u T/ie icays of tcisdom, whether 
 trodden by the old patriarchs pitching tents ; or by the 
 Levites bearing the Tabernacle ; or by the tribes estab- 
 lished in Canaan and going up to the worship of Zion ; 
 
TEE FEAST OF HARVEST. 277 
 
 or by Christians under the fuller light of the Gospel 
 ascending to glory; have been always and altogether 
 " icays of pleasantness." 
 
 The pervading spirit of the Hebrew economy was jubi- 
 lant. Its ritual solemnity was hopeful and triumphant. 
 The later Pharisaism, with its face disfigured, was a mon- 
 strous degeneration from the exulting faith of those ear- 
 lier and palmier days of old Israel, when the harp and 
 the viol, the tabret and cymbal, stringed instruments 
 and organs, were their accessories of worship. Over and 
 above the solemn joy of the daily temple service, there 
 were several great occasions every year, when the whole 
 Jewish people kept religious festival by Divine appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 The design of these anniversaries is apparent. They 
 served as perpetual memorials of grand historic events in 
 their national experience ; they counteracted the unsocial 
 tendencies of their tribal divisions, and, by bringing the 
 males of the people periodically together in their great 
 central city, repressed local and sectional jealousies, and 
 consolidated different tribes into one composite nation ; 
 they moreover afforded the whole people stated seasons 
 of recreation, so necessary to the development of man's 
 physical and moral nature. 
 
 With such evident purposes of good did God appoint 
 them, and the old Jews kept them fittingly. Probably 
 the world has never witnessed the parallel of these He- 
 brew anniversaries. At their approach, the whole nation 
 woke to holiday: every heart bounded, every eye flashed. 
 From valley to mountain-top, the land broke forth into 
 singing ; and cottage, and palace, and hamlet, and city, 
 with harp and song and festal procession, were joyous 
 
278 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 before God. Jerusalem, then the glory of the whole 
 earth, the city of the great King, was thronged with 
 exulting thousands. Not only the chiefs and nobles of 
 the ti"ibes, but the mighty men of the whole earth, phi- 
 losophers, and sages, and conquerors, and kings — prose- 
 lytes from farthest lands — came up in their pomp and 
 power, to keep exulting festival before God in the grand 
 central city of their faith. 
 
 Now, of one of these national holidays we have record 
 in the text — " The Feast of Harvest. "This was their 
 Pentecost ; so called from a Greek word signifying 
 "fifty" — because it occurred on the fiftieth day from the 
 feast of unleavened bread. It was, properly, a harvest 
 festival, in which the Jew offered thanksgiving unto God 
 for the ripened fruits of the earth. 
 
 To understand the peculiar interest the Jew took iu 
 this holiday, you must remember that the Israelites, after 
 their establishment in Canaan, were almost entirely a 
 nation of farmers. The peasant and the noble, in their 
 respective spheres, were alike husbandmen. While a 
 small portion of the tribes on the eastern side of Jordan 
 led a purely pastoral life, the great body of the people 
 were engaged mainly in the cultivation of the soil. And 
 they were encouraged in agriculture, as no other people 
 have ever been, by their peculiar civil economy. By 
 Divine direction, not only did every tribe have the own- 
 ership of its particular province, but each family in the 
 tribe had as well its specified inheritance, which could 
 never be wholly alienated. No great landholding aris- 
 tocracy could arise among them. The poorest Jew was 
 by law a full proprietor of the soil. His homestead was 
 a freehold by irrevocable title. If for a time alienated 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 079 
 
 by debt or misfortune, it returned to him again unencum- 
 bered at the year of Jubilee. Every husbandman felt, 
 therefore, that all improvements in bis freehold were for 
 the benefit of himself, and bis children. And, under this 
 encouragement to labor, the whole land of Israel was in 
 the highest state of cultivation. Probably, in this re- 
 spect, no country on earth ever equaled it. Naturally a 
 land of rare productiveness, it was well described as " a 
 good land of brooks, of water, of fountains, and depths 
 that spring out of the valleys and hills / a land of wheat, 
 and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; 
 a land of oil-olive and honey ; wherein they should eat 
 bread without scarceness, and should not lack any good 
 t/iing''' 1 — a land, in a word, altogether unrivaled in its exu- 
 berant productiveness. And possessed of such a freehold, 
 encouraged to its culture and improvement by such im- 
 munities, it is not wonderful that the Land of Promise 
 becomes the garden of tbe world. 
 
 The peculiar productions of all zones were native to its 
 widely diversified soil and climate. Grains of all species 
 grew richly on tbe plains ; plantations of olives covered 
 its sandy bills ; its low clay soils nourished groves of 
 stately palms; its sharp mountain sides were hung with 
 vineyards. Even tbe rocks, in precipitous places, were 
 made fertile by artificial embankments ; so that, in the 
 autumn time, corn-fields, and vineyards, and orange 
 groves, and orchards, and forests, rose in ascending cir- 
 cles from valley to hill-top, covering the whole landscape 
 with lavish beauty, till the old Canaan seemed fittingly 
 a very emblem of heaven. 
 
 Now, we say, that unto such a people, inhabiting such 
 a country, this Feast of Harvest was necessarily a grand 
 
280 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 festival. Its annual return could not but wake the 
 nation to gladness. Fair and befitting were the exulting 
 rites of that old holiday, when from every hamlet and 
 home, from glens of the vine and olive, and from valleys 
 golden with corn, the thousands of Israel went up to 
 appear before God in Zion, filling the land, as they 
 passed, with those old choral harmonies: "Praise the 
 Lord, O Jerusalem ; praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath 
 strengthened the bars of thy gates ; he hath blessed thy 
 children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, 
 and filleth thee with the finest of the Avheat. He hath 
 not dealt so with any nation. Praise ye the Lord. 
 Praise God in his sanctuary ; praise liim in the firmament 
 of his power. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. 
 Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Kings of the 
 earth, and all people : princes and all judges of the 
 earth : both young men and maidens, old men and 
 children. Let every thing that hath breath praise the 
 Lord. Praise ye the Lord." 
 
 Such was the Harvest-feast of God's covenant people. 
 And herein have we warrant for such feasts among our- 
 selves. Without pressing again the analogy between 
 this American people and the old Hebrew nation, we 
 find in our circumstances this day, precisely the tilings 
 which rendered these festivals personally, and politically, 
 and religiously, a necessity in their history. 
 
 We, too, want great national and religious holidays, 
 to keep in mind great national providences. Our history 
 as a people has been as manifestly distinguished as theirs 
 by Divine interposals of mercy ; and we, too, should have 
 great annual gatherings, to make grateful acknowledg- 
 ment of God's wonderful deliverances ; thus setting up 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 281 
 
 in the hearts even of children's children, memorial-pillars 
 — our Ebenezers of Divine help unto all generations. 
 
 We need them, moreover, as verily as the Jews, for 
 their conservative political influence — to counteract the 
 sectional and unsocial tendencies of our great tribal 
 divisions. As the old memories of Moses and Joshua, 
 and the triumph at the Red Sea, and the mighty victo- 
 ries of the Exodus — revived and perpetuated by their 
 yearly festivals — bound the several tribes together in 
 loving brotherhood ; so would it be with us. And if we 
 could have, like them, a grand national Pentecost — some- 
 thing like our Fourth of July, as it lay in the thought of 
 old John Adams and George Washington — as it ought 
 to be, and would be, without its gas and gunpowder — a 
 sublime national tribe-gathering ! — reviving strongly in 
 the American heart the memories of Plymouth Rock, 
 and Jamestown, and Bunker Hill, and Mount Vernon — 
 memories of our old deliverances and triumphs — deepen- 
 ing, as with the chisel of an Old Mortality, the inscrip- 
 tions which the lapse of time and the ruthless storms of 
 party and fanaticism are so sadly defacing on our old 
 monuments of a common and glorious Past — hanging 
 new garlands, woven by loving hands, and fragrant with 
 the dew of old memories, upon the tombs of men, that, 
 like Israel's champions, led us in our Exodus, and estab- 
 lished us in our Canaan. I say, if Ave could come, up nation- 
 ally to such Pentecosts, then no living man would ever 
 again dare breathe of discord and disunion — for chords, 
 tender as our loves and stronger than our lives, woven 
 of religion and holy with old memories, as the memorial 
 festivals uniting Judah and Ephraim, would bind us to- 
 gether and bind us to God ! 
 
2S2 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 Meanwhile we need such pentecostal holidays for 
 those personal advantages which they brought to the 
 Hebrews. They furnish that harmless relaxation so 
 constitutionally necessary to our highest well-being. 
 Real pleasure, as well physical as moral, is always the 
 true law of life. Even " at God's right hand," " fullness 
 of joy" is the proposed end of our being. Not, indeed, 
 lawless and frivolous gratifications, but pleasures of that 
 serene and celestial quality, which invigorates the body 
 and ennobles the soul. And such pleasures demand for 
 their exercise seasonable relaxations. 
 
 Now if there is any thing the American people need it 
 is recreation. Perhaps we have enough of an enervating 
 dissipation. But true pleasure re-creates, and we need 
 re-creating. We want great, noble, national holidays, 
 such as God appointed to the Jews in their annual 
 festivals. 
 
 Our physical nature needs them. We do not live out 
 half our days, because the bow is ever bent — the sinew 
 ever strained — the brain ever scheming. Men that ought 
 to be young at sixty, are superannuate at thirty. Boy- 
 hood is bald-headed, and middle age hobbles on crutches. 
 Our life-chords are broken by over-tension : there is no 
 brake upon the car, no escape-valve for the vapor, and the 
 physical man is shattered by the very speed of its flight. 
 
 Our moral nature needs them. Human virtues are 
 like flowers that thrive best in the sunshine. Plato, the 
 philosophic moralist, encouraged in his disciples moods 
 of exuberant gayety, checking their joyous imjmlses only 
 at the approach of some grave formalist ; saying : 
 "Silence now, my friends, let us be wise — there is a fool 
 coming /" Stupid gravity is not virtue, else the ass and the 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 283 
 
 owl, the most portentously grave of all animals, were our 
 models of manhood. True virtue is genial, and joyous; 
 walking earth in bright raiment, and with hounding foot- 
 steps. And the nervous, restless, unreposing, devouring 
 intensity of purpose wherewith our men follow their busi- 
 ness, is as disastrous to the nobler moral bloom and 
 aroma of the heart, as a roaring hurricane to a garden of 
 roses. 
 
 Above all, our religious nature needs them. The true 
 joy of the Lord is the Christian's strength. Cheerfulness 
 is a very element of godliness. Religion is not the 
 stern heroism of the soul clothed in sackcloth and 
 marching to martyrdom. It is rather the j>erfect har- 
 mony of all the soul's faculties moving together in that 
 music of joy and love in which the whole man marches 
 heavenward. To come to Christ, is not to abide in 
 tombs, cutting ourselves with stones, and terrifying with 
 our self-torturing cries every passing traveler — but it is 
 rather to come abroad from these Gadarene graves, 
 having the sorrowful devil cast out of us, that we may 
 return to our loving homes, jubilant and exulting. Piety 
 is not a poisonous mushroom, growing best in the night, 
 but a fragrant rose of Sharon, needing: the sunshine. 
 True religion asks, and will have, recreations; if denied 
 the pure, it will seek the perverted. The old Puritans 
 strove hard to render religion a torment, and, in their 
 dread of recreations, having abandoned all true amuse- 
 ment to Satan, were forced to seek satanic amusement, 
 hunting Quakers as wild beasts, and making bonfires of 
 witches. 
 
 The old Jews did this thing better with their joyous 
 holidays, when with harp and viol they went up to 
 
284 TEE FEAST OF EAR VEST. 
 
 Zion. Jehovah was not mistaken in the religions regi- 
 men of his children. He knew, ami provided for, a great 
 want of their natures, when lie appointed their festivals. 
 The American church sorely needs a like baptism of 
 gladness, that shall send her to her Zion with hounding 
 feet and shining garments, making manifest to the world 
 that the service of God is not a sore bondage, hut that 
 the ways of pleasantness are her pathways to glory. 
 It is right, therefore, on all these grounds, and on others ; 
 it is right, it is fitting, it heseems our higher frames 
 and moods of true piety, that, on occasions like the pres- 
 ent, we should dismiss from our minds all sorrowful emo- 
 tions, and " worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." 
 
 This is our Pentecost — our feast of harvest. And even 
 in its lowest aspect, as a grateful acknowledgment of 
 GocVs goodness, in preserving for our use the kindly 
 fruits of the earth, it is a fitting occasion of thankfulness. 
 
 We have come to the close of a year of great plenty ; 
 our fields have yielded their increase, and our garners 
 groan with supplies for the famine of a world. And for 
 this we should keep joyous festival before God. 
 
 We, indeed, who live in great cities, ofttimes overlook 
 this. In considering the evidences of our national pros- 
 perity, we ignore the agricultural. Arts, manufactures, 
 commerce — in those we rejoice. Is the stock-market buoy- 
 ant ? Do the banks discount freely ? Are our empori- 
 ums crowded with stuffs and merchantmen ? Is the hum 
 of industry loud in our workshops ? Is the canvas of 
 commerce white on our waters ? These are the questions 
 wherewith Ave seek evidences of our national prosper- 
 ity. But herein we forget the greater interest whereon 
 these things hinge — the interests of agriculture — the sirn- 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 285 
 
 pier thrift, and surer, if slower, gains of the husband- 
 man. True it is, the princely manufacturer or merchant 
 sometimes casts a kindly eye over the cheering records 
 of the corn-trade, and says, " Well, breadstuff's are 
 cheaper, and the poor man should be thankful." As 
 if the fruits of the earth were to the poor man, more 
 than the rich, God's noble benefaction. Alas, foolish 
 reasoner! Let the labor of the husbandman fail — let 
 God shut up the heavens, that they rain not, and parch 
 the plow-ground into barrenness, and what becomes of the 
 rich man? Can he grind his gold with millstones? or 
 leaven his bank-stock into bread ? With all his hoarded 
 wealth, will he not starve side by side with the beggar in 
 the midst of the famine ? Ah, these ears of ripened corn 
 are the true germs of life for the great human household ! 
 
 The wheels of our workshops, the sails of our com- 
 merce, the implements of science, the pen of genius, the 
 pencil and chisel of artists, the eloquent tongue of the 
 orator, the scheming brain of the statesman, the equi- 
 pages of wealth, the banquetings of pleasure, all — all that 
 render earth, in its tides of life, any thing but a great 
 sepulchre — move, and have being and power, only be- 
 cause the fields yield their fruits to the patient toil 
 of the husbandman. We might manage to live wHffi- 
 out merchants, without manufacturers, without mariners, 
 without orators, without politicians, without poets — per- 
 haps we might possibly survive the loss of demagogues 
 and opera-singers, and prize-fighters and congressmen. 
 To read some of the newspapers, one would think we 
 might live without a President; but sure lam tee could 
 not live without plowmen ! 
 
 Suspend for a single twelvemonth the world's practical 
 
286 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 agriculture, and death's shadow is over it. Our harvests 
 are our sustenance; and in their prodigal abundance 
 should be gathered joyfully. Life for you, and for me, 
 and for all of us, — life, with all its energies and aims 
 and ambitions, its love and hope and joy, — life in the 
 heart, the household, the home ; that grand and glorious 
 thing, Life, hath ripened for us in these golden sheaves, 
 and gone unto the garner. And our feast of harvest 
 should be kept like the Jews, as a grand religious 
 holiday. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to overestimate the importance 
 of agriculture. It surpasses commerce and manufacture, 
 as a cause is superior to its eflects — as an inner life is of 
 more moment than its various outward functions. We 
 talk of the immense commerce of England — when, in 
 fact, she pays more annually for fertilizers of her lands 
 than the entire gains of her commerce ; and the total 
 value of her year's ci'op, animal and vegetable, was some- 
 time ago reported to Parliament to be three thousand 
 millions of dollars. 
 
 Meanwhile, the reflex influences of industrial agricul- 
 ture on our physical and social well-being are as well 
 incalculable. After all, the finest products of our farm- 
 lands are found in our farm-houses. Things better than 
 corn and cabbages are grown on plow-ground — bone, 
 muscle, sinew, nerve, brain, heart ; these all thrive and 
 strengthen by agriculture. The specimens of strong, 
 hale, common-sense manhood seen at our annual fairs are 
 a finer show than all the fat cattle and sheep and noble 
 horses, and the brave array of farm-fruits and imple- 
 ments. Agriculture purifies morals, chastens taste, deep- 
 ens the religious element, develops the individual man. 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 287 
 
 And it were a giant's stride in human progress if the 
 whole multitude of non-producing drones that swarm in 
 our market-places (politicians, speculators, fast men, rich 
 idlers), were driven into the rural districts, to cultivate 
 at the same time cabbages and themselves. 
 
 Then, too, the genius of American agriculture is polit- 
 ically democratic. It allows no aristocratic monopoly 
 of the soil. The one-man power, or the few-men power, 
 gives place here of necessity to the every-raan power in 
 the proprietorship of small freeholds. 
 
 Most easy were it to show, had we time, how incalcu- 
 lable are the benefits of agriculture to all classes ; and to 
 make manifest the dependence of our modern civilization, 
 social and political, upon the agricultural interest. 
 
 No wonder, then, that the Jew kept his Pentecost ! 
 No wonder that in brave old Scotland men went afield 
 with sickle and bagpipe, reaping the ripened corn to the 
 sounds of sweet music ! No wonder that the fairest of 
 festivals was the sweet old " Harvest home " of merry 
 England ! No wonder that, in view of what God has clone 
 for us, as Lord of the harvest, we, looking forth upon the 
 wealth of fruitful fields outside our pent-up cities — that 
 grander world, beyond the narrow world of trade, the 
 shallow world of fashion, that world of dew, and sun- 
 shine, and bursting buds, and bending fruits, where every 
 hill breathes a benison, and every valley is odorous with 
 blessing — at the close of a year whose wealth of golden 
 spoil might spread luxuriously the boards of famishing 
 nations ; no marvel, I say, that we, a blessed people in all 
 our borders, should gather in these temples where our 
 fathers worshiped, with our offering of first-fruits to the 
 God of the haiwest. 
 
288 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 This, then, is the first and lowest aspect of our annual 
 Thanksgiving — a tune of praise to God for the ripened 
 fruits of the earth. But then it has higher aspects. It 
 had even to the Jews. When first brought forth from 
 Egyptian servitude, they knew little truly of God ; they 
 thought of him as of the dead idols of the Nile ; and 
 these feasts of harvest taught them to recognize the 
 Divine agency in life's common blessings. But, as they 
 advanced in intellectual theology, these festivals took a 
 wider and loftier range and meaning. The feast of the 
 Passover, at first commemorative of the deliverance from 
 Egypt, came to be regarded as prophetic of Christ's 
 coming sacrifice. And the feast of Pentecost, originally 
 a simple expression of thankfulness for harvests, became 
 successively a memorial : First, of the giving of the Law 
 at Sinai, and Secondly, of the descent of the Holy Ghost 
 at Jerusalem. So that, in their later history, this feast 
 of harvest was an occasion of thanksgiving, not merely 
 for annual physical blessings, but for all their distin- 
 guishing mercies, both civil and religious. 
 
 And so should it be with us. Our thanksgiving is 
 partly in view of the ripened fruits of the earth ; but 
 mainly in view of other and higher blessings. And in 
 this regard, as well, it is properly — a feast of harvest. 
 In respect of all things, — not merely the natural fruits of 
 the earth, but all great human interests, political, intel- 
 lectual, religious, — we may be said to live in the world's 
 great harvest-time. We have reaped, and are reaping, 
 the ripened and ripening fruits of all earth's past gener- 
 ations. Consider this a little. 
 
 First : This is true — politically. Philosophically con- 
 sidered, the grand end and aim of all civil progress is 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 289 
 
 human freedom — the highest development and culture 
 of the individual and free manhood. Monarchy the one- 
 man-power, oligarchy the few-men-power, are but the 
 successive stages of the growing life, up to the ripened 
 product of the true democracy — the all-men-power. To 
 this end hath tendered all political progress ; and beyond 
 this there is no progress. This is the harvest of earth's 
 long political husbandry ; and we are reaping it. Till 
 the great American development, the world had known 
 no true democracy. The old republicans, falsely so 
 called, were not forms of self-government, but things 
 rudimental and embryonic; the mind's abortive and 
 premature struggles to bring forth freedom. And our 
 American nationality is the " first fruits " of true liberty. 
 It is, indeed, but the first fruits. In one respect this 
 nationality is only a <yerm — the first sowing of a true 
 seed for a great harvest of republics, which we know 
 not of as yet — a handful of corn on the mountains, that, in 
 its diffusion of enlightened liberty and universal self-gov- 
 ernment, shall yet wave like Lebanon in the grand har- 
 vest of the world. " The world will be either Cossack 
 or Republican," said Napoleon, and we say, not Cossack, 
 for the world in God's husbandry, not for tares but for 
 wheat. 
 
 Ours is but the first fruits, but then they are ripe 
 fruits ! The great human aloe hath shot foi*th one glo- 
 rious spike, and brought forth one blossom ! For centu- 
 ries the race made its slow progress from the gnarled 
 roots of the elder despotisms. On the transatlantic 
 continents, empires rose, and flourished, and fell ; Rome, 
 Greece, Persia, Assyria, Egypt, — in each human nature 
 struggled into great forms and developments of life. 
 13 
 
290 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 There were buds, and green leaves, and early blossoms 
 amid the mighty branches; but, alas, the unripened 
 fruit was shaken by convulsions, and fell as the fig-tree 
 casteth her untimely figs ! But at last, in this western 
 world, the fruits of true liberty seem ripening in the 
 sunshine. No man can read our past history, and not 
 cry out in faith, " this is God's husbandry !" The care- 
 ful keeping of this virgin soil for a new product — the 
 winnowing, amid wild convulsions, as with fire and 
 flame, of the old humanity, for a new seed to scatter on 
 this glorious plow-ground — the germination, the strong 
 rooting, the slow growth, amid seething rains and whis- 
 tling storms of our struggling colonial life. These are 
 the manifestations of a grand Divine husbandry ! 
 
 Who questions it longer? Verily, it is a story of 
 marvels ! That feeble folk, like seed by the wayside, on 
 Plymouth Rock, and the peninsula of Jamestown — that 
 struggle for existence, as of untimely buds for life, amid 
 the chill blasts and rank growths of the wilderness — but, 
 as the germs rooted and shot upward, that miraculous 
 progress, as the green vine of Nineveh — hamlet after 
 hamlet, city after city, State after State, — the stupendous 
 growth of a virgin world — rising up in their strength ; 
 shooting downward strong roots, and upward great 
 branches ; and yet, not according to the old vegetable 
 law — each the germ of a separate and independent life — 
 but rather like the mighty Indian tree, the lengthening 
 branch bending downward to the ground, forming for 
 itself new roots, and becoming a new trunk, till the 
 whole land is covered with the growth of a single tree, 
 with the seeming of a forest — so, all these sovereign 
 States, covering a continent, and yet all bound by the 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 291 
 
 common law and life of freedom, into one grand com- 
 posite nation ! Verily here is Divine working \ 
 
 Look at America as she stands before you this day. 
 Her agriculture, her arts, her commerce, her happy homes, 
 her great cities, her matchless civil franchises, her insti- 
 tutions of knowledge and charity, her broad boundaries, 
 her vast resources, her magic progress in the inspiration 
 of her youthful and exulting life, her present beatitude, 
 her boundless and magnificent future, as she stands the 
 living embodiment of civil and religious freedom — the 
 shooting of the civil life of all generations into one grand 
 century-flower of humanity ! Look at all this, I say, 
 and then tell me if this seems not a harvest-field in man's 
 golden autumn ? And whether your thought be of the 
 struggles of old nations to bring forth freedom : or of 
 our own historic struggles for colonial life; tell me, if the 
 ripened grain waves not in the fields around us, and our 
 thanksgiving this day for civil and national blessings be 
 not unto our God — a great feast of harvests ? 
 
 Then passing from the political^ the same thought is 
 true in regard of the intellectual. It is a thought well 
 worthy onr pondering, on an occasion like this — that toe 
 live in the harvest-time of mind and thought ! Carefully 
 considered, the development of the " mental," follows the 
 law of material development. " First, the blade, then the 
 ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Genius is first 
 poetical ; then practical. First, the flaunting blossom ; 
 then the substantial fruit. From the beginning, man's 
 law of intellectual progress has been, from the abstract 
 to the practical— from ideas to facts. The practical, 
 being the fruit of the imaginative, as the ripened corn is 
 the fruit of the plant's inner life. And as the plant-germ 
 
292 TEE FEAST OF EARVEST. 
 
 must experience its successive vegetable transformations 
 before it ripens into fruit, so it would seem necessary for 
 every great thought to pass through a series of embry- 
 onic changes, before it can attain to a perfect and practi- 
 cal development. And in this respect we seem to live 
 in man's intellectual harvest-time. The generations 
 agone have been times of preparation — the seasons of 
 thought-germ, and thought-blossom, rather than of 
 thought-fruit. 
 
 We can not enlarge here, but must content ourselves 
 with a few illustrations of the truth — that in our time 
 the old speculative and sentimental "Ideas" have be- 
 come great practical " Facts." 
 
 The old Astrology, which, looking upon the stars as 
 prophetic hieroglyphics, and reading therein the fate of 
 men and empires, burst into radiant but poisonous 
 blossoms of superstition on the plains of Assyria and 
 beneath the blue Egyptian heavens, hath ripened into a 
 grand practical science, till our Astronomy elevated the 
 race into the regions of most useful philosophy and lofti- 
 est knowledge of God. 
 
 The splendid yet disastrous dreams of the old Alche- 
 my, have showered their false blooms and ripened into a 
 grand science, until the wild visions of the philosopher's 
 stone, the universal solvent, the universal medicine, are 
 more than realized in the immeasurable benefits unto 
 agriculture and manufactures and the arts of true practi- 
 cal Chemistry. 
 
 The old Magnetism^ whose highest aim was to furnish 
 playthings for children, was the toy-blossom which has 
 ripened now into substantial fruit ; and, in the mariner's 
 compass, furnished a key to the gates of ocean, and a 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 293 
 
 guide through the mighty paths of the sen, and given 
 unto man the islands and continents of a world. 
 
 The idle fancy of the old Hollander, carving rude let- 
 ters in beech bark, for sport, was the thought-germ, whose 
 perfected fruit is the Printing Press — that gigantic 
 power on the earth, before which, the old despotisms 
 and superstitions of the world are passing away as mists 
 from a sunburst — whose earthly results are all the won- 
 ders of progressive civilization, and whose heavenly 
 utterances are the leaves of the Tree of Life for the 
 healing of the nations. 
 
 Steam — that fantastic shape that played aerial and 
 useless before the eyes of old dreamers — hath as- 
 sumed a personality of glory and power. And the 
 thought-germ, that seemed a vanishing vapor, is to-day 
 the mightiest reality of life — man's Titanic servant every- 
 where ; chained in the dark caverns of the earth ; fet- 
 tered to the Avheels of great machinery ; harnessed on the 
 thoroughfares of traffic ; rushing through the valleys ; 
 leaping on the mountains ; marching on the seas — God's 
 own winged wind unto man's chariot, bearing him over 
 all the brute forces and forms of nature, in imperial do- 
 minion conquering and to conquer ! 
 
 Then, latest and most wonderful of all — the Tele- 
 graph! — thought's most glorious harvest ! The elec- 
 tric element on which it depends had slept latent for 
 centuries in all material forms, too minute for detection, 
 too subtile for analysis. Then, all unsubstantial and shape- 
 less, it knocked for admission into man's palaces of fancy, 
 and the old Philistines of philosophy made sport with 
 the Samson — Muschenbroek's Leyden-jar — Franklin's 
 wandering kite — those were the thought-germs of a 
 
294: THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 glorious harvest. The power that at the close of the last 
 century, by means of a pith-ball electronometer, carried 
 signals for amusement to an adjoining room, now flashes 
 in the real business of life, through more than a hundred 
 thousand miles of Electric Telegraph. Verily the em- 
 bryonic germ hath ripened into fruit ! 
 
 And the past year has witnessed its most marvelous 
 development. We are indeed told that the Atlantic 
 Telegraph is a failure ; that our rejoicings over it were 
 childish ; that all this clamorous congratulation was the 
 cock-crowing before morning, that the less we say about 
 that cable the better, — till it speaks for itself. But we 
 answer — It has spoken for itself! It has demonstrated 
 the grand possibility. And to Anglo-Saxon thought 
 a great possibility is a great certainty. And now the 
 splendid dream that seemed fancy, hath become a great 
 fact. Henceforth, we reckon as verities, all possible 
 results of this matchless achievement. I have no limits 
 to enumerate them — they have perhaps been already 
 sufficiently glorified in the American pulpit. The effects 
 upon the breadth of commerce, and the steadfastness of 
 trade ; upon the uniformity of stock markets, and prices 
 current, at the Bourse, on the Royal Exchange, in Third 
 Street, and Wall Street ; upon the perfecting of an inter- 
 national police, upon politics, and literature, and news, 
 and the fashions ; in a word — upon all the great physi- 
 cal interests of life, have been eloquently expounded. 
 But, great as these are, they are not the greatest. They 
 are indeed only the radiant petals of a seed-infolding 
 flower, whose ripened fruit is in the moral. 
 
 A great transformation in the conditions of national 
 life — a breaking down of the barriers of national preju- 
 
TEE FEAST OF EAR VEST. 295 
 
 dice — a virtual union of all races by the ties of amity 
 and common interest — these, and such as these, are to 
 be the nobler results of this achievement ! These magic 
 wires, stretching over all lands, through all waters, are 
 earth's strong hearth-cords ! — making the dead planet a 
 living creature, sensitive, through every fibre of its 
 gigantic frame, to a rude touch anywhere — along whose 
 quivering nerves and throbbing pulses, the great human 
 Heart shall beat, and the great human Mixd think ! 
 And were our congratulations, over an event like this, 
 ill-timed and extravagant ? What though the lamps 
 of illumination have burnt out ; and the huckstered stock 
 is at a discount ; and the " time and space " which our 
 orators and poets so eloquently "annihilated," yet stub- 
 bornly remain ; and the ocean, which for a short hour 
 seemed man's great whispering gallery, rolls again sul- 
 lenly voiceless above its hidden secrets — nevertheless 
 we say, it did become the world to exult over this new 
 and magnificent development — this ripening into fruit of 
 one of God's great thought-flowers! — this progress from 
 a weak germ into waving harvest, of one of those stu- 
 pendous purposes whereby God, " dividing the water 
 courses for a way for his lightnings," is lifting the race 
 from the ancient thraldom into his own glorious liberty, 
 and setting up, on the ruins of old empires, the throne of 
 his Son in triumph and foi'ever! 
 
 Now we might multiply our illustrations indefinitely, 
 but our limits forbid. The thought is — That, in the 
 historic progress of the race, every great philosophic dis- 
 covery passes slowly, like the germination and growth 
 of a plant, from the embryonic of speculative or senti- 
 mental thought, to the practical and useful of life's great 
 
296 THE FEAST OF EAR VEST. 
 
 realities. And that in this regard, it is our high privi- 
 lege to live in the harvest-time. In past generations, 
 intellect has been busy in a rudimental husbandry — 
 felling the great forests ; draining the low marshes ; sub- 
 duing the rugged soil ; scattering the seed ; and watch- 
 ing and waiting for the increase. The old philosophy ; the 
 old civilization ; the old polities, civil and ecclesiastical ; 
 the old chivalry ; the old poetry — these were the thought- 
 germs, the thought-leaves, the thought-blossoms, which 
 have ripened, and are ripening around us into God's 
 glorious fruit ! 
 
 We live in earth's prodigal and luxuriant autumn — in 
 times when marvelous things are the rule, and mean 
 things the exception — in an economy of prodigies, each 
 one a seeming miracle to men's earlier comprehension, 
 and yet all, only the ripened development of their own 
 thought-germs. And if the law of all husbandry be "to 
 sow in tears and reap in joy " — then our thanksgiving, 
 that we live in these eventful times, should be unto God, 
 this day, a great feast of harvest ! 
 
 Passing this, Ave observe once more and finally — 
 That this same law of development, we have been 
 tracing through the Political and Intellectual, will be 
 found to rule in the Spiritual — and in this regard 
 should we mainly rejoice that we live in life's harvest- 
 time. 
 
 From the first rude altar at the gate of Paradise to 
 the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, the religious de- 
 velopment under the old dispensation was — like vege- 
 table, life — from the shooting germ to the splendid 
 blossom. But even then it was but a blossom ! That 
 Levitical economy, even in its perfection, was only pre- 
 
TEE FEAST OF EAR VEST. 297 
 
 paratory to the evangelical, — a cumbrous scaffolding to 
 an inner spiritual building ! — types and shadows, that 
 found antitype and substance in Christ the Redeemer ! 
 Nor even with the coming of Christ did the religious 
 progress end. Hope, rather than fruition, was the law 
 even of apostolic service. From the hour of Christ's 
 ascension to heaven, the future — the magnificent future ; 
 the unimagined, mysterious, transcendant, latter-day 
 glory — was that for which faithful men waited and 
 labored and prayed. These men lived in the GospeVs 
 great seed time. 
 
 True, indeed, there was even from the first a perpetual 
 gathering of scattered bundles on the earth for the 
 heavenly garner. But the great harvest of the race 
 delayed its coming. And yet that harvest must come, 
 yea, alike from prophecy and the signs of the times, we 
 judge that even now it is ripening around us. 
 
 No thoughtful man can have failed to perceive, as a 
 peculiarity of this generation, a grand awakening of the 
 human mind unto what we may call the Spiritual. 
 True, indeed, the set thitherward of the popular thought 
 seems ofttimes in false directions. Our spiritualized 
 philosophy is aeronautical, losing itself in the clouds, — 
 borne heavenward by unsavory and inflammable gases. 
 Our poetry, under the spiritual afflatus, has become 
 mystically spasmodic — uttering transcendental nothings, 
 very wild and very watery. Even our popular Spiritual- 
 ism, as a religion, sits at the feet of tipping, rapping, 
 trans-speaking, psychologized imposture ; its man- 
 prophets clairvoyant and celestial, with a very weak and 
 unwholesome inspiration, — its woman-prophets strong- 
 minded and seraphic, as witches in Endor. 
 13* 
 
298 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 And yet, all these things, ludicrous and lamentable as 
 they are, self-considered, nevertheless, as indications of 
 the movement of the popular mind, ai'e, to a thoughtful 
 man, full of moment. They are like refuse-wood on the 
 waters, indicating the great tide-currents of thought to- 
 ward a higher spirituality, — like sere leaves, falling in 
 a forest, signifying with their sad voices that the au- 
 tumn-time is near, with its grand gathering of harvest. 
 
 Nor are these signs false. For, in the midst of these 
 manifestations, the true Church of God hath been wonder- 
 fully roused to a new life of spirituality ! Let us look 
 as suspiciously as we will upon the great revival of the 
 present year ; and make what abatements we may, in 
 view of false elements and accessories. Nevertheless, no 
 man can fail to perceive a movement, unique and uni- 
 versal in the Church, of a power that seems like a new 
 advent of the Comfortei'. Nor will the true student of 
 history be likely to question its permanency. 
 
 Since Christ came, there have been but three revival 
 seasons comparable with the present ; the old Pen- 
 tecost, in the first century, the Reformation in the 
 sixteenth, and the great Awakening in the eighteenth ; 
 and each of these was an epoch of change in the 
 Church, not only general, but permanent. Each lifted 
 the Church to, and left her in, a higher spiritual con- 
 dition. 
 
 Now, if this be the law of the present, then Ave seem 
 to be drawing nigh to the great millennial day-spring. 
 Hitherto we have enjoyed partial and periodic revi- 
 vals ; but to-day the movement seems world-wide. The 
 old religious forces have been Divinely quickened. 
 Through the old channels Divine grace is flowing 
 
TEE FEAST OF EAR VEST. 299 
 
 as a spring-time flood, till the banks arc overflowed 
 with the waters of salvation ; and sectarianism, that 
 ■went forth of old to dig separate rills for its own 
 feeble vine, sits now exulting in the great wave of 
 salvation that waters into strength the whole glorious 
 vineyard. 
 
 A new law of Christian progress has come. The 
 silent power of this revival, its signal permanency, its 
 seemingly universality ; the desire, the hope, the fixed 
 purpose, under God, that it shall remain permanent 
 and universal; all these give it the seeming of the 
 dawn of the world's great harvest. 
 
 Let a man walk through the husbandry of a land, 
 and find, here and there, a small field, wherein are a 
 few ripened and scattered ears, and he regards them 
 as the premature fruits of a shallow soil, or an untem- 
 pered sun, and reads therein no sure sign of the golden 
 autumn. But if, on the contrary, as he walks abroad, 
 he finds the whole land roused by a common impulse 
 — if every hamlet is noisy with men who sharpen the 
 sickle and drive the wain afield — if all the sunny 
 mountain slopes are vocal with the song of the grape- 
 gatherers, and the mower's scythe gleams in every val- 
 ley, and reapers bind the yellow sheaves in all the great 
 corn-fields — then he feels sure that no inconsiderable 
 and untimely growth is being gathered, but that truly 
 the latter rains have fallen, and autumnal suns have 
 warmed the broad earth, and that this song of girded 
 men is the great hymn of harvest.* 
 
 And just so do the signs of the present times — this 
 
 * Preached in 1858. 
 
300 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 universal expectancy — this universal preparation — 
 this universal labor — this unwonted activity of earnest 
 men, in every village and hamlet in the land to gather 
 fruit unto salvation — this mingling together in the 
 toil, of all Christian sects in harmonious brotherhood 
 — this opening of new fields of labor; new channels 
 of labor; new agencies of labor — this expectation, in 
 all hearts ; sometimes indeed faint ; sometimes strong 
 and exultant; yet felt everywhere, that this Revival- 
 state is to become the permanent condition of the 
 Church's life — these arguments, and purposes, and 
 prayers, and humble, yet God-relying and steadfast 
 determinations, that Christianity shall not sink again 
 from this quickened vitality to the old frames of 
 formal and dead Pharisaism — all these things, I say, 
 seem, must seem, the results of no local and accidental 
 causes, but the direct inspiration of the Divine Spirit, 
 pouring a new life through the old ecclesiastical 
 being — quickening the steady, onward, majestic march 
 of God's redeemed people, to gather into one great 
 garner the harvests of the world ! 
 
 In respects, then, like these, political, intellectual, reli- 
 gious, we live in times of unexampled blessedness. "We 
 have come up to Zion from hills purple with vintage, and 
 valleys golden with corn, in the rapturous harvest-home 
 of the mortal! And it becomes us to keep festival be- 
 fore God as the old Jew kept his Pentecost. As men, as 
 patriots, as philanthropists, as Christians, our cup of joy 
 mantles brightly. What more could God have done for 
 us that he hath not done ? What people can be happy 
 before God, if we are not happy ? The spirit of itn- 
 thankfulness, that, in an hour like this, presents itself 
 
TITE FEAST OF HARVEST. 301 
 
 before the Lord, must have come from wandering up and 
 down in the earth, like Job's Satan. It is the monstrous 
 demon of discontent that drove the poor Gadarene from 
 the fair face of nature, and the loving voices of his home, 
 to cut his flesh with stones, and abide in the tombs ; and 
 it ought to be cast out into the wandering swine and 
 the roaring waters. 
 
 Oh, how happy we ought to be before the Lord to- 
 day ! The man who complains now, must be that very 
 Goliath of unrest, Avhose discontent feeds upon God's 
 mercies — whose eyes are like the owls', pained only by 
 life's brightness — and who grumbles the most grandly, 
 just and only because he hath nothing to grumble at ! 
 
 We do not say that there may not be troubled hearts 
 here. Oh, no indeed ! For we know too well how life's 
 roses have thorns, and life's music its undertones ! We 
 know how some of you have come up to God's house from 
 homes made sad by bereavements. Your stream in the 
 desert hath been embittered like Marah ! Your garden 
 of life darkened like Gethsemane! And yet we know as 
 well, that even unto you, God hath not forgotten to be 
 gracious. There was a sweetening branch by the desert 
 spring ; and a strengthening angel in the garden's 
 shadow ! And the pulses of your stricken hearts bound 
 in grateful love unto your sustaining and comforting 
 Redeemer ! 
 
 Sure I am, there should be no thankless hearts to-day 
 in the assembly of God's people. Unto no creatures out 
 of heaven, hath there ever been accorded a lot like our 
 lot. Living here, in this nineteenth century, free men, 
 free Christians — we seem to stand on the very mount of 
 God, flung up in the waste of ages, for the enthronement 
 
302 TEE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 of his great man-child ! We look backward^ and lo ! all 
 the past has been working together for our national and 
 individual beatitude. 
 
 Patriarchs, prophets, bards, sages, mighty men, con- 
 querors, have all been our servants. Generation after 
 generation, that have lived and died — great empires, that 
 have risen and flourished, and trod imperial paths, and 
 passed away forever, seem to rise from their old death- 
 dust, and march in vision before us, laying down all 
 their accumulated thoughts, and arts, and honors — all 
 the trophies of their mighty triumphs in homage at our 
 feet ! We look forward^ and the eye is dazzled with the 
 vision of the glory about to be accorded to God's kingly 
 creature, Man ! when standing upon this redeemed 
 world, he shall assert his birthright — a child of God 
 here ! an hew of God forever ! 
 
 Verily, we have cause for thanksgiving. " Tlie Lord 
 hath done great things for us, ichereof we are glad.'''' 
 
 Let us give, then, free course to our grateful emotions ! 
 Thankful for the present, trustful for the future ; let us 
 rejoice before God "with the joy of harvest." As the 
 old Hebrew husbandman came with his offering of first- 
 fruits, forgetting, in his present moods of joy, all past 
 disquietudes — the weary toil of the seed-time, and watch- 
 ing time — the wild storm ; the seething rain ; the chill- 
 ing blight ; the devouring insect — forgetting these, or 
 remembering them only to deepen his sense of that 
 Divine goodness which, in spite of them all, had brought 
 the full corn to the earing. So let us, forgetful of all 
 past trials and disquietudes — all shadows that darkened 
 our sunshine — all storms that troubled our waters — 
 all financial reverses — all political and partisan jealousies 
 
THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 303 
 
 — all ecclesiastical and sectarian strife — forgetting all 
 these, or remembering them only as new reasons for 
 present thankfulness — turning from all shadows of old 
 griefs ; from all valleys of sadness, if thitherward have 
 wandered our pilgrim feet ; and coming up, this morn- 
 ing, to the serene mountain-top, where the sun shines, 
 and the dews of heaven lie fair and sweet ; only mindful 
 of, and thankful for, the present hours of joy ! Like the 
 mariner, that, with his bark anchored for a brief day, goes 
 ashore to his children's cottage on the hills ! Like the 
 warrior, that, released for an hour from the stern bivouac 
 and battle, unbraces his cumbrous mail and pitches his 
 tent with the husbandman ! — thus standing together on 
 earth's high places, let us be strong and rejoice in the 
 loving kindness of God ! And when here in our chosen 
 sanctuary, as the Jew on Mount Zion, we have paid our 
 solemn vows, and rendered our first fruits of love to God 
 in a living consecration — then, as that same Jew returned 
 to his distant heritage, filling the soft airs of Palestine 
 with glad songs, and waking the echoes of its landscapes 
 with bounding feet ; so let us get us again to our homes — 
 these earthly dwellings as truly God's gift as those pos- 
 sessions in Canaan — these homes hallowed by Divine 
 goodness ; by the voices, the ministries, the gentle looks 
 of love; by memorials, tenderly sad it may be, but cher- 
 ished and heavenly, of the beloved dead — to these fire- 
 sides where children play ; these boards where kinsfolk 
 gather; driving out every reptile of discontent, every 
 bird of evil omen from our bowers of peace ; hanging the 
 heavenly lamp of Hope from our lowly lintel — our hearts, 
 like the lark that, having first soared to the sky to war- 
 ble its praise around the portals of the temple of heaven, 
 
304 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 sinks again, softly and gladly, to its nest of love in the 
 dewy grass ! So let us go down from our Zion," as the 
 Jew from the mount of God to his own humbler dwell- 
 ing, in glens of vine and olive, or valleys golden with 
 corn — peaceful, joyous, thankful for the present • and for 
 the future, full of faith, of hope; looking forward to that 
 hour — to some of us bo near — when, in the great Autumn 
 of Time, gathered by angel-reapers, borne by God's flam- 
 ing chariot to such a harvest-home as no husbandman 
 ever knew ! we shall take our joyous way up through 
 these lustrous heavens, along yon starry paths, through 
 those gates of pearl, through those golden streets, 
 through those portals of the many mansions — that there 
 — in that Eternal Temple ; in those blissful homes where 
 this mortal love puts on immortality — there, with the 
 beloved dead ; with the countless midtitude bearing 
 palms and white robes ; with angel and archangel before 
 the throne ; we may keep unto God — 
 
 A Great Feast of Harvest. 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 " Bun, speak to this young man. 1 '' — Zechariah, ii. 4. 
 
 Zechariah is, of all the prophets, most remarkable for 
 the simple, practical purpose with which he employs the 
 grandest prophetic symbols. The supernatural ma- 
 chinery of his book is magnificent, but its movement is 
 all for manifest earthly uses. The red horses, the four 
 chariots, the four horns, the stone with seven eyes, the 
 flying roll, the mighty angels among the myrtle-trees ; 
 all these marvelous things, as directly as the four cai'pen- 
 ters with their implements of homely toil, have a work 
 to do for man on the earth ; and thus the grandeur of 
 his imagery gives impressiveness to the prophet's sim- 
 plest language. 
 
 Thus it is with the text. It is the speech of one angel 
 to another angel in regard of a young man who, in sym- 
 bolic action significant of Israel's redemption and en- 
 largement, was going forth with a measuring line to take 
 the length and breadth of Jerusalem. With its original 
 application we are not at present concerned. We refer 
 to its connections only to give impressiveness to the 
 exhortation. 
 
 It was an angel that uttered it — probably the Jehovah- 
 angel. Certainly it was a heavenly voice, in all solemn, 
 
30G THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 loving, earnest exhortation, that cried unto another angel, 
 " Bun, speak to this young man." 
 
 Using this text as simply an accommodation, it may- 
 have a twofold direction : — 
 
 First, to myself, as preaching to young men. 
 
 Secondly, to you, as young men and Christians. 
 
 First : As addressed to myself, it is an earnest exhor- 
 tation unto the Christian minister to labor especially with 
 young men. 
 
 On this point I shall not enlarge. Of the vast import- 
 ance of the conversion of young men, there is no possible 
 overestimate. It is important every way. 
 
 1st. Because, in most cases, if not converted while 
 they are young, they will never be converted. Divine 
 grace, in its very sovereignty, operates according to the 
 laws of our moral and intellectual nature. And as, phi- 
 losophically considered, religion demands in its reception 
 an open heart, a believing mind, a tender conscience and 
 glowing affection — and as these are the prerogatives of 
 youth — so the whole history of the Church proves that 
 youth is the most favorable period for religious impres- 
 sion ; and that, following the law of the dispensation of 
 the Spirit, our most earnest efforts should be for the con- 
 version of the young. 
 
 Meanwhile this is important — 
 
 2dly. Because of the peculiar power of young men 
 to accomplish great things for God and their genera- 
 tion. 
 
 Young men are hopeful ; young men are brave ; young 
 men are fertile in invention : and thus young men are 
 strong in all qualities that secure earthly success. Han 
 nibal at the age of twenty-five led to victory the great 
 
TEE YOEECr MAN'S MISSION. 307 
 
 armies of Carthage. Alexander had conquered the world 
 and died at the age of thirty-eight. Charlemagne at the 
 age of thirty had made himself master of the whole 
 French and German empires. Napoleon led his brilliant 
 Italian campaign at twenty-seven, and at thirty-three 
 was emperor of France. William Pitt at twenty-two 
 was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Edmund Burke at. 
 twenty-five was First Lord of the Treasury. Byron at 
 twenty-three was the first poet of the time and the idol 
 of all England. 
 
 And, with occasional exceptions, such is the great law. 
 Certainly the foundations of all true greatness must be 
 laid in early life. The energy of youth is the world's 
 mightiest influence ; and that influence is especially need- 
 ful in the Church. Early religion renders the Christian 
 character alike beautiful and powerful; quickening all 
 spiritual affections, and rendering permanent all gracious 
 habits. And therefore has God ever been pleased to 
 pour his Spirit upon the young, and to assign to young 
 men, in all dispensations of the Church, most responsible 
 stations and important ministries. 
 
 For these reasons, the text's first application may be to 
 myself. 
 
 " Run, sj)ea/c to these young men.'''' The exhortation 
 is to directness and earnestness. Bo not waste this 
 precious Sabbath evening in philosophic discourse and 
 idle declamation. Speak as if sent by this Jehovah- 
 angel — solemnly, as if for eternity and in the presence 
 of God. And so I would speak to you. You are associ- 
 ated for the grandest of all possible objects. Laboring 
 for the moral and religious well-being of young men, 
 you are at once laying the foundations of your State 
 
308 TEE 7 UN a MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 in the immovable principles of virtue, and advancing 
 the Gospel to its consummation in the conquest of the 
 world. 
 
 A glorious work is before you ; there fore do it glori- 
 ously. Let all your powers, in the noblest sense of the 
 solemn word, be devoted, consecrated unto God. Aim 
 religiously as high as the world's young men aim car- 
 nally. Oh, if Napoleon and Byron had been young 
 Christians, with their intensely earnest life consecrated 
 to Jehovah, and their ambition sanctified into zeal for 
 Christ Jesus ; then what harmonies like the song of 
 angels had been heard on the earth ; and what conquests 
 of kingdoms and continents for Immanuel had been 
 recorded in heaven! And such should be your aim and 
 and "it ion. Let the blazon on your banner be, "Ex- 
 celsior " — " Excelsior " — higher, higher ! No matter how 
 high ; even if its flashing folds hide the stars. To save 
 immortal souls ; to bless a ruined world ; to glorify 
 Jehovah : such is your glorious work. And therefore, as 
 unto a ministry nobler than a king's or a conqueror's, it 
 was fittingly a solemn voice out of heaven — the voice of 
 one angel crying unto another angel — which the prophet 
 heard and which the preacher would obey : " Run ! 
 run, speak to these young men /" 
 
 But I have already intimated that this application of 
 the text is only introductory to another we would now 
 more at length attempt. 
 
 Let us then consider it — 
 
 Secondly: As an exhortation addressed directly to 
 you, as a Young Mai's Christian Association, and indi- 
 cating one of your most important duties — u liu?i, speak 
 to this young man /" 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 309 
 
 Those words set forth : The means, objects, and man- 
 ner of a great Christ in a duty, 
 
 1st. You have here the means. " SjyeaJt to the young 
 man." Use that, grand power of articulate utterance. 
 Jt is assumed here that you will do good in other ways 
 and in all ways — nevertheless your most efficient power 
 over the young men with whom you labor will be this 
 power of speech. Perhaps you have not considered this 
 point sufficiently. Articulate utterance is almost man's 
 finest gift. Justly has it been termed " that which pre- 
 eminently distinguishes man from all other creatures; 
 the instincts of lower animals have a closer resemblance 
 to human reason than their inarticulate sounds have to 
 human language." Language is that without which 
 reason were but a dead power. It is not the mind but 
 the tongue that persuades most directly unto good or 
 evil. Language is reason, not shut up in secret cham- 
 bers, but walking forth with tremendous energy amid 
 the vital interests of the race. 
 
 Consider for a moment the wonderful title of the 
 Divine Son — " The Word ! " And so the relation be- 
 tween the absolute and revealed Godhead is just that 
 between thought in the mind and the word that ex- 
 presses it. And as " no man knoweth the Father save 
 he to whom the Son shall reveal him," so no man can 
 know the reason save by the revelation of speech. Verily 
 speech is a glorious gift. It makes dead thoughts quick 
 and powerful ; they rise up ; they come forth as from a 
 sepulchre; they look upon us with earnest eyes; they 
 breathe over us their weird and wondrous magnetism ; 
 they rouse us as visiting angels in glory and strength ! 
 The man you address becomes for the time, as it were, a 
 
310 THE 70 UN a MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 part of you ; your spirit is wedded to his spirit ; your 
 thoughts abide in his immortal chambers of imagery, 
 pervading, controlling, either for good or for evil, his 
 very being. 
 
 And therefore it is that God has given his Gospel to 
 be proclaimed, not so much by written as by spoken lan- 
 guage; and thus your noblest eiforts as a Christian 
 association must be made by speech. " Run, speak to 
 this young man." This is your first and most important 
 work. Your very title implies this — " An Association " 
 — an organization depending on and calling into play 
 the finest social qualities of your nature. Its design is to 
 bring all the young men you meet under that mightiest 
 of all moral influences, the power of direct religious 
 conversation. You have hardly begun your Christian 
 work when you have considered their wants and opened 
 reading-rooms and lecture-rooms, and felt for them, and 
 prayed for them ; you must speak to them. 
 
 As we shall see more fully presently, your especial 
 mission is unto the beloved and imperiled youth in the 
 midst of us. Many young men come yearly to our great 
 cities with pure morals and fair prospects; yet released 
 from their accustomed social restraints ; surrounded by 
 no domestic influences ; compelled in their various 
 spheres of business into companionship with all classes 
 of men ; perhaps in room or at board, brought into com- 
 panionship with evil "men, they thus, by a very law of 
 their nature, become benumbed in their moral sensibilities, 
 degraded in their tastes, deadened in all their religious 
 sentiments and affections. At first, it may be, they ap- 
 pear in some honored sanctuary on the Sabbath, but no 
 one speaks to them ; they appear in another, and still no 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 311 
 
 one speaks to them. They remember the kind greetings 
 and social Christian life of the church they left at home ; 
 and then sick at heart and discouraged, desert the house 
 of God. Their Sabbath-days become profitless or worse. 
 The infidel lecture, the spiritual circle, the gambling 
 house, the theatre, allure them. Presently you find them 
 in all places of evil concourse, and then in a prison cell, 
 or in a drunkard's grave. 
 
 Now to preserve or rescue such young men from the 
 perils of this destructive social intercourse is a great, 
 indeed, the greatest work of this Christian Association, 
 and it is to be done thoroughly and efficiently only by this 
 power of association and conversation. " By running 
 and speaking to them." This is your means — speech; 
 human speech ; the immeasurable grace and power of 
 appropriate language. These young men are with you, 
 before you, all around you. " Hun, speak to them;" 
 " speak to them." 
 
 And this leads me more carefully and at length to 
 consider — 
 
 2dly. The objects of your labor. 
 
 As we have already said, they are young men in 
 general. But the language of the text, you will observe, 
 is exceedingly particular. " Run, speak to this young 
 man." And enlarging on this thought, let me direct 
 your attention to some distinct classes of young men with 
 whom you, as an Association, are called earnestly to 
 labor. 
 
 1. And partly repeating what I have just said, let me 
 mention in general that whole class of young men who 
 have just come among you. The simple fact that they 
 are strangers recommends them to your warmest sympa- 
 
312 TUB YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 thies. In most cases fresh from the shelter of it father's 
 house and the watch of a mother's love, with their hearts, 
 like a bursting flower, open to all surrounding influences, 
 they are peculiarly exposed to the arts of the destroyer. 
 And with such young men you should begin instantly to 
 labor. Gather around them at once a strong Christian 
 influence. No longer does a father's prayer strengthen 
 them in the morning to brave the day's temptations ; no 
 longer do mother and sister watch to welcome them from 
 their labor as day declines ; and God has called you to 
 fling a brother's shield of proof between those open 
 hearts and the fiery arrows of the enemy — to speak to 
 these young men, gently, earnestly, lovingly. Become 
 acquainted with them. Invite them to your Association ; 
 its reading-room ; its lectures ; its evening assemblies. 
 Take them with you to some circle of refined social life. 
 And above all, lead them to your place of prayer in the 
 sanctuary. Do it earnestly ; do it instantly. u Mun ! 
 run, speak to them /" , . 
 
 Do not wait for a future time and a more convenient 
 season. Already the tempter is laying snares for his 
 victims. The wine-cup, the card-table, the theatre ; these 
 things and worse are around them. Alas ! alas, for the 
 power wherewith sin allures the unwary. At first the 
 young heart shrinks from sin as from degradation and 
 defilement. To break deliberately a great law of God 
 seems as terrible as to rush into destruction amid the 
 awful forces of nature — to brave a volcano or a cataract ! 
 But alike in the moral and the physical, familiarity with 
 the danger weakens the dread. 
 
 Years ago a young civil engineer surveying a great 
 national road, came upon the Niagara River some miles 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 313 
 
 below the cataract. Carefully he approached the pre- 
 cipitous bank and looked over; and as he saw, hundreds 
 of feet below, the wild torrent, rushing and roaring 
 through the mighty chasm, dashing its breakers twenty 
 feet high against its adamantine barriers, he recoiled 
 disheartened, affrighted. Here seemed a physical ordi- 
 nance of Heaven, that he could not — dare not pass. But 
 as he considered he grew bolder. He might cross it ; 
 he would cross it. Presently you find him pledging 
 himself to the company concerned in the road that, on 
 certain conditions, he would at the expiration of a twelve- 
 month drive a harnessed horse right over the abyss. 
 The conditions were agreed to. Then he approached the 
 precipice. With a child's kite he bore a small cord to 
 the far side ; with that a stronger cord was carried over ; 
 then a rope ; then a great cable ; and then granite piers 
 were raised, supporting iron cables, whereon to lay tim- 
 bers. 
 
 The twelvemonth passed ; and though the work was 
 unfinished, yet the man's fears were gone. He was 
 bound to keep his promise. A single row of planks lay 
 along the half appointed wires, without guard or balus- 
 trade. He appeared with his harnessed horse on the 
 brink, and though the creature trembled in every limb, 
 and the planks shook at the tread, and the frail road- 
 way swayed in the strong wind, yet with an iron will 
 and hand the fearless driver forced it on, and over that 
 terrible path. And to-day, behold ! how the immense 
 commerce of two nations, and the wealth and fashion of 
 all lands, rush thoughtlessly, fearlessly over that grand 
 barrier of nature, filling all the air with the hum of 
 industry, and the joyous songs of pleasure. 
 14 
 
314 THE YOUNG VAX'S MISSION. 
 
 And not unlike this is the moral experience of the 
 young in the progress of evil. To-day, fresh from the 
 influences of a Christian home, yonder youth recoils from 
 an open violation of a Divine law as from certain de- 
 struction. Sabbath-breaking, intemperance, gambling, 
 profaneness, impurity ; these forms of evil lie at his feet, 
 as deep, broad caverns, through which the flood of 
 God's consuming indignation rolls terribly. But alas ! 
 familiarity with a danger beguiles it of its terrors. To- 
 night that youth may be gazing with strange fascination 
 on the wild torrent. To-morrow a silken thread of 
 desire may span the abyss ; and then with the whole 
 noisy and profane crowd he may be lashing his passions 
 over it in mad career ! And surely with one so fearfully 
 imperiled you have no time to waste. Be instant, there- 
 fore, with every young stranger who appears among you. 
 Obey the text literally. "Run! run! run! speak to 
 these young men /" 
 
 Here your work should begin. Yet it should not end 
 here. You are associated not only that you may preserve 
 the virtuous, but that you may reclaim the vicious. 
 Descending therefore more particularly to the objects of 
 your labor, I mention — 
 
 2. Tlie young man beginning to associate with evil 
 companions. 
 
 The town is full of such. No sooner does a youth 
 appear among you than he is like an inexperienced insect 
 moving amid the invisible meshes of a destroyer. The 
 friendships that chance, or promiscuous boarding-houses, 
 or even business circles, throw in his way, are oftenest 
 evil. There is the pitiful idler, who would allure him 
 from diligent labor. The fashionable young man, teach- 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 315 
 
 ing him to waste money on finery. The spendthrift, 
 encouraging him to live beyond his means — thus compel- 
 ling him to resort to false entries and robbery. The 
 dishonest employer, constraining him to violate his con- 
 science in the miserable tricks of worldly competition. 
 The openly profane and impure man, leading him to 
 darker dens of intemperance and infamy. There, in 
 short, is the whole fearful legion of "corrupters of 
 youth" whose delight is, by the infernal magnetism of 
 ruin, to draw the young heart into vice. Alas ! alas ! 
 how thickly cluster these fiends around the paths of the 
 unwary ! How soon the infection takes, and virtue melts 
 in the chemistries of iniquity ! And with young men 
 beginning to yield to the evil, is your especial ministry. 
 Go, speak to them. Tell them the history of iniquity in 
 these cities. Point them to the wrecks of character 
 which whiten all the shores of this mighty stream of 
 life. Tell them of a father's prayer ; a mother's love. 
 "Speak to them." Hun, speak to them ! Instantly, 
 earnestly. Now, now is your opportunity. The white- 
 winged bird is already settling into the fowler's snare. 
 To-morrow the lustrous plumes will be soiled — the strong 
 wing broken — the glorious immortality corrupted and 
 lost ! 
 
 Passing this, I mention — 
 
 3. The skeptical young man. 
 
 Perhaps you yourselves are hardly aware of the pow- 
 erful temptations to infidelity that surround the youth 
 of this generation. This trashy literature, with its sense- 
 less sensations ; this pretentious science, with its prema- 
 ture inductions — reek with the infection. Even the 
 popular theology, desiring only to be popular, and so, 
 
316 TEE TO UNO MAN S MISSION. 
 
 ignoring God's grandest and most solemn truths, that it 
 may commend itself to carnal instincts, is destroying the 
 young heart and conscience. This very custom of sepa- 
 rating young men from their families to attend courses 
 of Sabbath lectures, has at least this evil : it induces 
 habits of wandering, which lead ofttimes into places 
 where the truth is not taught ; where, perhaps, cavils 
 against the Bible are urged, and infidel doubts insin- 
 uated. 
 
 And thus, in one form or another, breathing for the 
 whole seven days of the week the sickening malaria, 
 many a young man's religious nature deteriorates. 
 Presently you miss him from God's sanctuary ; he 
 substitutes for his mother's Bible these vile Sunday 
 newspapers. Then you hear him insinuating his own 
 infidel theories ; uttering his own unbelief. 
 
 Now with such young men you should earnestly labor. 
 If you find them troubled with honest doubts on religious 
 questions which you can not remove, then lead them to 
 the thousand men around you, who, having made these 
 cavils their study, and perhaps come up themselves from 
 the terrible darkness of unbelief into the clear and ever- 
 brightening light that shines in the face of a revealed 
 God, can show them that even the profoundest scientific 
 infidelity is a thing of false inductions, and that all this 
 noisy and arrogant infidelity, paraded in popular litera- 
 ture and infidel stances, has been answered so fully and 
 so often that to advance its objections again is only to 
 parade a man's ignorance or stupidity. 
 
 Or, if you find them, like the great multitude of infi- 
 dels, swayed only by low, mean, carnal instincts, and 
 struggling in face of their own convictions to grow 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 317 
 
 strong in unbelief, that they may walk fearlessly in evil 
 Mays, still do not give these men up. Plead with them. 
 Pray with them. Lead them back to the holy sanc- 
 tuary; to their mother's Bible; to their lather's God! 
 As if you saw them lifting a poison-cup — rushing upon 
 a precipice ! Speak to them ! "Hun ! run, and speak to 
 them ! " 
 
 Leaving these, consider — 
 
 4. Tliose young men whose lives are already practically 
 immoral. 
 
 I have no limits for details here. In every style and 
 strength of iniquity such characters abound here. And 
 although our language in regard of them often is, "Let 
 such young men alone, you can do litem no good" yet it 
 is very foolish — yea, very sinful language. You, as 
 Christian young men, have no right to let any sinful 
 man alone, whose probation God hath not ended. Unto 
 Buch young men is your especial ministry. In this, 
 Christ himself is your pattern : " Not sent to call the 
 righteous but sinners to repentance.'''' Whatever be the 
 man's dangerous or even sinful habit, "Run, speak to 
 him." 
 
 He is a profane man. Then speak to him kindly, gen- 
 tly, earnestly. Ask him if he has considered who that 
 great and glorious God is whose awful name he is blas- 
 pheming. 
 
 He is a Sabbath-breaker — losing all the inestimable 
 moral and intellectual benefits which God has connected 
 with a right observance of his hallowed day, under the 
 plea of " needful recreation,'''' — as if a rest from bodily 
 labor were all the refreshment a man needs ! As if a 
 true Sabbath had not its highest mission to his moral 
 
3 1 S TUB Y UN M A N ' 8 JUS SIO N. 
 
 nature! As if God made a mistake at the first in not 
 creating him cither a beast or a butterfly ! 
 
 lie is a dishonest man — overreaching in his business; 
 unscrupulous in his statements ; unreliable in his engage- 
 ments ; and. rapidly losing among men all reputation for 
 integrity. 
 
 He is an impure man. He curls his lip when men talk 
 of goodness and virtue, and all life's social and domestic 
 affections. 
 
 Or, if he be not thus or otherwise openly and notori- 
 ously evil, he is yet manifestly entering those courses 
 which are likely to make him so. 
 
 He may be becoming intemperate. Perhaps he thinks 
 himself in no danger. " Oh," he says, " I am not such a 
 fool as to become an inebriate ; I have too much self- 
 respect, too true a pride of personal character." Never- 
 theless the fell symptoms are upon him. He loves that 
 gilded saloon. He rejoices in pretexts for temperate 
 drinking. He seeks occasions of social conviviality. In- 
 sensibly, it may be, to himself, but quite obviously to 
 you, he is yielding to the insidious power of that terrible 
 habit ; he is on the outer circle of the dread whirlpool. 
 Unwarned now, and in all likelihood he will perish. 
 Some men, indeed, do not. Said an honored man to his 
 friend, "I have drunk wine freely every day for fifty 
 years, and am to-day both temperate and healthy." 
 " But," said his friend, " where are your companions ?" 
 " Oh," replied he, " that is another thing ; I have outlived 
 two o-enerations of them !" I am not here delivering a 
 temperance lecture. There is a vast amount of cant — 
 of declamation worse than wasted, about the wickedness 
 of wine-drinking, and the prevention of grape-culture. 
 
THE YOViYG MAN'S MISSION'. 319 
 
 That our blessed Saviour made wine for a marriage feast, 
 should settle that controversy. But I am speaking of 
 young men seeking the perilous excitement of strong 
 drink. And I say there is danger. Already is the im- 
 mortal bark yielding to the power of the terrible vortex ! 
 And unto them you have a mission. Speak to them 
 gently, lovingly. Tell them of their need in business of 
 a healthy body and a clear intellect. Explain to them 
 the law of growth in any unnatural pleasure. Or, if 
 need be, lift up your voice like a trumpet. Cry : 
 " Awake ! awake ! Spread the sail ! Ply the oar ! Escape 
 for your life !" " Run, speak to them. Run, speak to 
 them." 
 
 Or, perhaps the young man is beginning to spend his 
 leisure hours at such places of amusement as the theatre, 
 the circus, the race-course, the card-table. Now, I am 
 not here either puritanically to denounce such things, or 
 philosophically to oppose them. Unquestionably many 
 good men go to them — unquestionably many foolish 
 things are uttered against them. I am only speaking 
 now of their tendency to lead young men into evil ; a 
 tendency compensated by no possible good. It is said, 
 indeed, that " the race-course improves the breed of 
 horses" — and so the bull-fight improves the breed of 
 neat-cattle ; but neither tends very powerfully to improve 
 the character of their patrons. Even granting, what is 
 at least questionable, that simple speed adds to the use- 
 fulness of the horse, yet the grand objection yet remains, 
 that the race-course, so powerful in making fast horses, 
 is, alas ! quite as powerful in making fast men. 
 
 But even more is popularly said in favor of the theatre/ 
 and yet every such argument is a simple sophistry. 
 
320 THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 " The drama cultivates the taste" says one. Yes, but 
 what kind of taste? A taste for rant, extravagance, 
 affectation. A relish for worthless, sensational, impure 
 literature; for unnatural, monstrous, execrahle elocution; 
 for a style of words and speech never tolerated in real 
 life, except occasionally in a Fourth of July oration, a 
 sensation sermon, and an academic exhibition where a 
 boy "speaks a piece." Let a lawyer address judge and 
 jury ; let a physician prescribe for a patient ; let a mer- 
 chant salute his customers ; let a husband speak to his 
 wife, or a father to his children — let any man, in short, in 
 common life, speak or read in this stately, artificial, the- 
 atrical style: — in these exquisitely modulated and pro- 
 longed tones, with these carefully studied and imitative 
 gestures, which constitute what theatre-goers and teach- 
 ers of elocution pronounce " fine speaking," and the world 
 would laugh at them as lunatics or fools. Among all 
 sensible men the whole thing died out with the -dandyism 
 of the last generation. Certainly no employer of young 
 men desires either petit maitre or stage player in his 
 counting-room or workshop. Indeed, I know of few 
 things more distressing than to see one of these inno- 
 cent young men with poetry on the brain and ridden of 
 rhetorical nightmare, striving to get the better of the 
 honest voice God gave him amid the pauses and inflec- 
 tions of this excruciating elocution. 
 
 " But," says another, " at the theatre, and, indeed, in all 
 these places of amusement, we can study human nature.'''' 
 
 Yes, and so you might on a slaver's deck or in a rob- 
 ber's den ; just as we might study botany in a lion- 
 haunted jungle and chemistry in the smoking crater of 
 a volcano. 
 
THE YOUNG MAR'S MISSION. 321 
 
 But I have no room for the argument. Enough for 
 my purpose now that all such amusements waste time 
 and money, and unfit for life's honest and every-day 
 business. Let it be known that a young man spends his 
 evenings at the theatre and his afternoons at the race- 
 course, and all avenues of business success will be closed 
 against him. The lawyer will not have him in his office, 
 nor the merchant in his counting-room; the banker will 
 not trust him with his gold, nor the druggist with his 
 medicines. I do not say he will inevitably be ruined. 
 Dr. Kane survived an Arctic winter, and Pliny a vol- 
 canic eruption ; yea, Noah escaped the flood, and Lot 
 the fire-storm — and some very good men are patrons and 
 champions of all these popular amusements. But this I 
 do know, that where one young man escapes unharmed, 
 twenty are injured, ten are destroyed. Surely such 
 young men are in peril. They recline amid flowers 
 where the serpent glides; they breathe an air loaded 
 with pestilence. And as unto a youth floating above 
 Niagara — standing on Vesuvius when the crater cracks 
 and glows — Run, speak to them. Run, speak to them. 
 
 But I may not enlarge. These are only a few of many 
 classes of young men with whom it is your high calling 
 to labor. In general to be ranked under two great divi- 
 sions: 1st. Virtuous young men, whom you are called to 
 guard. 2d. Vicious young men, whom you are called 
 to reclaim. Alike all of them, immortal barks for which 
 you are to watch ; some stanch and well manned yet 
 outside the Heads and needing the pilot boat ; some 
 driven already from their courses — tempest tossed amid 
 breakers and needing the life-boat. All alike having 
 heaven's high claim on your Christian sympathies; and 
 14* 
 
322 THE YOLTUG MAR'S MISSION. 
 
 in regard of all alike the angel's cry comes to you this 
 night — Run, speak to them. Run, speak to them. 
 Now 1 have limits only very briefly to consider — 
 Thirdly : The manner of this labor, as set forth in 
 the text — "Run! speak to this young man • Run / run, 
 speak to 1dm." The very language implies haste and 
 earnestness ; hut the connection of the language implies 
 much more. Who was it that was thus earnestly to 
 address this youth? It was an angel! And you can 
 not imagine an angel speaking even earnest warning 
 words save in gentleness and love. And surely your 
 work with young men should be ever with the profound- 
 est wisdom and in the most Christian spirit. The extent 
 of your influence over others will depend not so much 
 upon your talents as your discretion. There is a way of 
 speaking, even about good, which is altogether evil. It 
 is not every word spoken, but " the word spoken fitly" 
 which inspiration magnifies. Earnest consideration, 
 exquisite delicacy, are especially necessary in doing good 
 with the tongue. So wide are the differences, moral, 
 sesthetical, passional, intellectual, among men, that to ap- 
 proach them all alike is to do more evil than good. To 
 a man asleep in a burning house we cry, "Au-uke, 
 awake! the flames are around you!'" To a somnambu- 
 list walking in a dream along a house-top, we draw nigh 
 with a silent, stealthy step, not daring even to whisper 
 till we have drawn him back from destruction. So the 
 apostle Jude puts this very duty — " Of some have com- 
 passion, making a difference ; and others save toith fear, 
 putting them out of the fire." 
 
 A great orator was addressing a great crowd, when, 
 in the midst of an impassioned sentence, he suddenly 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 323 
 
 paused. He pressed his hand upon his forehead, as if 
 
 faint. lie said very quietly, "I must pause for a mo- 
 ment — this air is too close; indeed the crowd is so great 
 that we will adjourn to the open air; I will sit down 
 and rest, while, as quietly as possible, you withdraw — 
 and, to prevent confusion and at the same time give me 
 moi'e air, let the audience first remove from the right- 
 hand gallery." What did the man mean ? In the midst 
 of his speech he saw that the pillars under that gallery 
 were yielding to the crushing weight, and that a multi- 
 tude were about to be swallowed up in death ! But his 
 thoughtful gentleness saved them. An alarming outcry 
 would have been destruction. 
 
 Verily, in this whole matter of speech " wisdom is 
 profitable to direct." There are young men, and, alas ! 
 as well old ones, thinking themselves called of God to 
 be great moral reformers, who go forth like old knights- 
 errant in iron armor, to pick quarrel and break lance 
 with every evil they may meet in the highways of the 
 land— bent on making a vast fuss generally, and caring 
 little whether it be in a battle with a giant or a wind- 
 mill ! Of course I am not advocating such work when I 
 urge you to speak to men. To take your stand amid 
 the noisy crowd in the street, and tell every drunkard 
 he is going to destruction, and every Sabbath-breaker 
 that he will sui-ely be damned, will be more likely to 
 cause you a broken head than another a broken heart. 
 Christ calls a man striving to win souls " a fisher of 
 men" but it is only a poor inferior kind of fish that will 
 bite at a hook bated with a scorpion, or lie still in the 
 bright sunshine to be transfixed with a spear. A rod 
 colorless and pliant as a reed — a line exquisitely taper- 
 
324 THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 ing to an invisible hair — a fly imitating life and falling 
 like thistle-down — a reel playing like finest clock-work 
 — an arm like a steel spring — a foot noiseless as a fairy's, 
 and an eye like the eagle's — all these are needful to one 
 emulous in angling; and surely no less skill and care 
 should be his who would fulfill his mission as " a fisher 
 of men." Enough on this point just to remember that 
 the model presented you in the text is the exquisite and 
 loving speech of an angel. 
 
 But then it was an angel thoroughly in earnest, and 
 as we have said, the language implies anxious haste — 
 " ~Rxm,run, speak to them " — go forth to your self-deny- 
 ing and glorious work with all the power God has given 
 you. Be instantly, thoroughly in earnest — 
 
 1st. Because these young men are in imminent and 
 deadly peril. 
 
 That young stranger sitting at your side to-night may 
 before another sunrise be tempted to destruction. There 
 is no earthly thing of so rapid growth as the principle 
 of evil in the heart of youth. With terrible rhetoric did 
 the apostle write : " Lust conceiving bringeth forth Sin, 
 and Sin finished bringeth forth Death." Here the 
 word "lust" denotes any natural desire inordinately ex- 
 cited. And only three short, sharp steps in the prog- 
 ress: Desire — Sin — Death. This moral passage from a 
 grand but perverted impulse to destruction, like the pas- 
 sage of a fated bark on Niagara — first the smooth bright 
 stream sweetly glassing heaven's magnificent azure ; 
 then the rushing, roaring rapids ; then the tremendous 
 plunge into the yawning abyss. Desire — Delirium — 
 Death! So rapid the progress. To-night that immor- 
 tal bark floats at your side — to-morrow it may be ship- 
 
THE Y0U2TG MAX'S MISSION. 325 
 
 wrecked forever; therefore he in earnest — "Run, run, 
 speak to him" 
 
 2d. Be in earnest because the work itself is all-im- 
 portant. 
 
 There is no possible overestimate of the value, in a 
 community like this, of such a Christian Association. Go 
 forth to-night into your great city and look around you. 
 Alas ! what multitudes of young men — ay, and of ma- 
 ture men and little children — as verily without the Gospel 
 as the millions of the heathen ; and no ordinary means 
 of grace will ever reach them. Build a hundred free 
 churches and they will never enter them. There is not 
 here, as in the older States, a pervading Christian in- 
 fluence constraining to the sanctuary ; and, apart from 
 the few thousand regular or irregular church-goers, 
 scarcely an individual of all this earnest and intelligent 
 multitude ever hear a Gospel-sermon. 
 
 We are losing all hope of saving this city and this 
 State from irreligion and infidelity, unless the Christian 
 young men of these different churches go forth together 
 to carry the Gospel to these masses, like the primitive 
 disciples, " going everywhere preaching (i. e. speaking) 
 the Word." 
 
 And for such work God has formed you and furnished 
 you. Yours is the open heart, the glowing affection, the 
 sanguine spirit, the boundless aspiration, the indomitable 
 courage, and soldiership, and hope — the very energies, in 
 short wherewith Hannibal and Alexander and Napoleon 
 conquered mighty armies — the heroism and strength of 
 exulting youth ! Mingling daily with this excited multi- 
 tude, in the resistless gentleness of a Christian influence 
 — in the matchless eloquence of simple Christian speech, 
 
326 THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 you, and you alono, can leaven the mass with godliness. 
 What all Christian ministers are utterly powerless to do 
 — what these older Christians have no heart to do — our 
 religious young men, if united in loving labor, could do 
 — roll back this fearful tide of unbelief and ungodliness, 
 and save our city and our State to humanity and God. 
 
 I have no words to express my sense of the importance 
 of your ministry. Surely, it is a work second to none 
 under heaven. Oh, truthful vision of the text — one 
 angel crying to another angel ! and this the burden of 
 the heavenly eloquence: " Run, speak to this young 
 man." 
 
 Would that the angel were here to utter again the 
 angelic exhortation; how earnest would be the heavenly 
 words in behalf of our churches, our city, our world. 
 We want you all thoroughly aroused to your high call- 
 ing, as Christ's own chosen co-laborers in seeking the 
 wandering and saving the lost. Moderation is good in 
 its place, and patience and conservatism are beautiful in 
 their season ; but the times in which we live have too 
 much of a miserable counterfeit conservatism, made up 
 of timidity and selfishness. Our 2">opular Christianity has 
 too many anchors and brakes. We want more wind in 
 the sails, more steam at the engine. Apostolic modera- 
 tion was a flaming ministry unto men that drove the in- 
 spired man forth through shipwrecks and imprisonments 
 and deaths, seemingly beside himself under the con- 
 straining love of Jesus; and our age calls for that old 
 apostolic life, that old fiery b;iptism. The angel bids us 
 speak to you in behalf of this great city, which, accord- 
 ing as you labor for it, may become beautiful as Zion, 
 beloved of angels, or terrible as Edom, the city of Death. 
 
THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 327 
 
 In behalf of this marvelous land, goodly as the old hind 
 of promise, yet beneath which lie powers that, if roused 
 
 by Divine indignation, may open for it another Asphal- 
 tites; in behalf of a great nation; in behalf of a ruined 
 world — the angel bids us speak to you of a coming 
 judgment, of a glorious eternity, where every soul 
 saved by your work for Christ shall be as a gem of im- 
 mense price in your crowns of rejoicing— of that Saviour 
 who for you left his own eternal Throne and the bosom 
 of his Father and all heaven's ineftable raptures, and just 
 that you might be saved, shrunk from no load, no sacri- 
 fice, no suffering; and our cry is, "liise, go forth, work 
 for your (rod and your generation?"* 
 
 Look around you on the Christian Church this day, 
 against which even now rises the wildest, mightiest 
 array of unbelief and ungodliness the world ever saw; 
 and yet in behalf of dying men doing what? Alas! 
 reposing with folded hands and a placid brow, soothed by 
 sweet music, dreaming about the glorious millennium — 
 the second coming of Christ. 
 
 How the Church of God must look in the midst of a 
 lost world — " a spectacle to angels." 
 
 You have all read the fairy tale : A great Eastern city, 
 beleaguered by fierce foemen, was arming in resistless 
 strength, to issue from her gates and sweep away, as a 
 driving tempest the chaff, the insolent invader. But 
 from the camp of the foe came forth a mighty magician, 
 and with the breath of his sorcery changed the whole 
 city into stone. Every thing wherein life had been became 
 a cold, dead statue. There stood the pawing war-horse, 
 with nostril distended, caparisoned for battle. There 
 stood the mailed champion, ready to spring to his seat 
 
328 THE YOUNG MAN'S MISSION. 
 
 and lay lance in rest for the onset. But, alas ! the 
 strong arm was cold stone on the neck of the petrified 
 charger. There stood the serried infantry, with armor, 
 and plumes, and uqfloating banners, but each man cold, 
 breathless, lifeless. The eye had a stony glare. Hand, 
 brow, lip, were frozen to marble. All still — silent — 
 death-struck! Alas! picture sadly truthful of Christ's 
 slumbering Church to-day. 
 
 But exult not against us, oh, o\\v enemy ! Hark ! 
 Along the stony street comes a swiftly gliding footstep. 
 A youthful stranger has crossed the barrier, and stands 
 amid the dead. See; he lifts a golden trumpet — he 
 peals one long, loud blast on the icy air. And now the 
 sorcerer's spell is loosened. Life beats and bounds again. 
 The champion springs to his seat ; the war-horse neighs 
 for the battle ; the plumes wave ; the banners stream in 
 air ; the dead men are alive again, and rush forth to vic- 
 tory. And such, in our generation, is the young man's 
 mission. Put God's glorious trumpet to your lip and 
 blow one loud blast that shall waken all these dead 
 forms into mighty life, and lead forth the army of God 
 to the victory of the world ! 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 "A foolish Son is the heaviness of his Mother." — Pro.v. x. 1. 
 
 I should hardly have chosen this simple text — sug- 
 gestive only of homely thought — but for the fact, that, 
 simultaneous almost with your request to address the 
 Young Men's Christian Association, came another request, 
 from an unknown mother in an Eastern State, that her 
 son, now residing in this city, might become a special 
 object of my watch and prayer. In her letter, which is 
 but a sample of many which the ministers of this city 
 are continually receiving from distant parents, she says : 
 
 " My dear child is away from home, among strangers, exposed to 
 the peculiar temptations of a large city and your new social life; and 
 though I have great confidence in his moral principles, yet I know 
 the strength of the evil influences that surround him, and should he 
 fall a prey to the spoiler, the heart of a widowed mother would be utterly 
 broken." 
 
 Coming as these two requests did together, I could 
 not separate them in thought. They at once suggest- 
 ed both theme and text. And while they may not be 
 promising of profound and eloquent thought, yet are 
 they surely appropriate to the occasion, and will not, we 
 trust, be found altogether unprofitable. Perhaps I am 
 addressing that very son to-night. I am surely address- 
 
330 TEE MOTEER'S SORROW. 
 
 ing sons in exactly his circumstances. I am speaking 
 
 especially to young men. Every one of yon has a moth- 
 er somewhere — it may be in a distant home — it may be 
 in the grave. You are all sons! Yon have all mothers ! 
 And I know — for in all these faces there looks up to me 
 no soul that has been brutalized into shame or scorn of a 
 mother's gentle love — I know that my simple text will 
 come to your hearts tenderly as 1 speak of "that foolish 
 son that is a heaviness to his mother" 
 
 The word "heaviness" means, in this connection, 
 sadness — sorrow — dejection of mind— a wounded spirit — 
 a broken heart. The word " foolishness" is used here in 
 a sense peculiar to Solomon, denoting, not merely an in- 
 tellectual weakness, nor merely a religious want, but in 
 general, any grand moral deficiency in the whole com- 
 plex economy of character. The field opened before us 
 is therefore exceedingly broad, over which our present 
 limits allow us only cursorily to glance, as Ave consider a 
 few of those more common classes of young men who, in 
 Solomon's words, are a heaviness to maternal love. 
 
 Now, as particularly indicated by the word " foolish- 
 ness" in its more popular sense of mental deficiency, 
 consider, 
 
 First — Tlie young man neglectful of his intellectual 
 culture. 
 
 I need not pause to show that in a day like this, every 
 man should be educated, and that his progress in educa- 
 tion should end only with his being, so that if the being 
 be immortal, the progress should be immortal. And it is 
 indeed immortal. A finite being never becomes — never 
 can become complete. Paul, risen and glorified spirit as 
 he is, intellectually even yet " counts himself not to have 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 331 
 
 apprehended." Still, before his lifted eye and advancing 
 foot, rise the receding mountain ranges of "things to 
 come" — still "to come!" In all the infinite range of 
 being, after you leave the irrational, until you reach the 
 divine, there is none whose " education is finished." 
 
 Surely, then, yours is not finished. And every young 
 man ought to be giving diligent heed to his intellectual 
 development and discipline. Of course, I do not mean 
 that all young men should aim to become profoundly 
 learned. The word "foolishness" in the text is the 
 antithesis not of " learning" but of " wisdom" — two very 
 different things. And, although learning is greatly to 
 be desired, yet in its profoundness it is not possible to all 
 young men, nor necessary to our present idea. We are 
 speaking of " education'''' — and the word defines itself. It 
 means " E-ducation" ( i. e. ) eduction — a drawing forth 
 — a development — not a mind infused with erudition, but 
 a mind led forth to think — educed into practical and 
 profitable activity. 
 
 And here lies the grand popular difficulty. As think- 
 ing is hard work, and most men are lazy, few willingly 
 think. They prefer to buy thought as they buy groceries, 
 second-hand and diluted, and so deal only with the 
 hucksters. I am not here to speak in disparagement 
 either of the popular press, or the platform. They fur- 
 nish what is called for. They meet the demands of the 
 market. If profound thought were popular, it could be 
 furnished for a consideration. But as diluted thought 
 pays best, they utter it diluted. So the popular press 
 roars and foams — a irrand Niagara of sentiment and 
 water. And the platform swarms with lecturers who 
 throw rainbows by the hour over old nonsense vaporized 
 
332 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 into the seeming of now truth. And all this answers the 
 purpose of the uttcrer. It supplies the popular demand. 
 It puts money into the purse. But as for all purposes 
 
 of education — developing and strengthening the intellect 
 — training the mind to think for itself — to perform 
 successfully life's great ministries — to understand man's 
 nature as it is, and God's world as it is, and to achieve 
 upon that world and in behalf of that nature, the great 
 ends of its creation — for all such purposes, the whole 
 thing is a failure. It is like a physical regimen of sweet- 
 meats and sleep — the edification of wild asses that snuff 
 the east wind ! 
 
 Now, I hardly need say that a young man, who amid 
 the active business of life, sinks into this popular mental 
 indolence and imbecility, fulfills the condition of the 
 text. A true mother's first^ and favorite thought is her 
 child's education. It may be a very foolish style of 
 thought. It not unfrequently is. Indeed, in its effort 
 to secure a child's premature culture, parental solicitude 
 1 ecomes sometimes cruel and monstrous. We see small 
 children whose great want is muscular development, set 
 to master intellectual school-tasks of science or language, 
 the sure results of which will be permanent physical 
 infirmity, and a precocious development of the intellect 
 and its prematured decay. We find faithful and compe- 
 tent teachers blamed or changed because they can not 
 supply the child's natural deficiencies — creating brains 
 where there are none, or, where there are, insureing their 
 unnatural growth. We find children blamed and pun- 
 ished because they will be, what indeed they ought to 
 be, what God intended they should bo, not linguists, and 
 mathematicians, and philosophers, and oratcrs, but 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 333 
 
 simply little children, unstudious, and noisy, and riotous, 
 fond of holidays and play. 
 
 Confessedly, this parental anxiety for a child's educa- 
 tion errs oftentimes sadly, and yet these mistakes only 
 manifest the strength of the anxiety. Sure vre are that 
 from the earliest dawn of the child's reason, the true 
 mother's chief care is to fit him intellectually for the 
 great tasks of life. She well knows that all his earthly 
 successes, his respectability and usefulness among men ; 
 yea, the very permanency and strength of his moral 
 principles of character, all depend on the styde of his 
 intellectual culture. And when, instead of strengthening 
 its immortal wings to ascend the great firmaments of 
 thought, her boy gives his nature the regimen of a para- 
 sitic vine, seeking trellises for its tendrils, sinking from 
 the true rank of a thoughtful man into that lower life 
 whose law is amusement, pursuing no thorough and 
 comprehensive course of reading, ignoring all the philo- 
 sophic and scientific discoveries of the age, becoming at 
 most a critic of light literature and lectures, a great 
 scholar of newspapers and small novels, then surely, in 
 his sphere of intellectual inefficiency and insignificance, 
 does he become " a foolish son, the heaviness of his 
 mother.'''' 
 
 But now passing all this, for the text's more important 
 references to styles and distinctions of moral character, 
 consider 
 
 Secondly — The indolent young man. Of this class 
 there are two distinct species: — The man who has no 
 regular business • and the man who has no energy in it. 
 
 1st. In all communities there are found young men 
 who have no regular business. If moving at the top of 
 
334 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 society, inherited wealth, or parental indulgence place 
 the youth above all necessity of personal toil or thrift, 
 
 and so he has nothing to do but to rise late, and dress care- 
 fully, and ride out, and dine, and visit, and amuse himself 
 generally, and go to sleep again. Or, if moving at the bot- 
 tom of society, lie has neither energy nor ambition t<> rise. 
 Regarding himself predestinated to continue haggard, 
 and squalid, and misanthropic, he yields to his destiny, 
 as a shell-fish settles in the sand, and contents himself 
 with the house and heritage of poverty. lie walks 
 abroad at noonday to inspect the streets ; loiters of pleas- 
 ant evenings on public corners to take care of the weath- 
 er; and eats, if he have any to eat ; and drinks at any 
 rate ; and goes to sleep again. These are specimens of 
 young men found everywhere, from foundation to top- 
 stone, in the great social edifice — growths indigenous 
 and without culture in all savage life : but in our bargain- 
 and-barter civilization, the result of that poetic progress 
 whereby a man escapes all human cares, and attains to 
 the serene dignity of a vegetable ! 
 
 2d. In all communities there are other young men 
 who, having some ostensible business, do not regularly 
 and resolutely attend to it. The world is full of men 
 who embark on the troubled w T aters of industrial life 
 only to founder in the great deep, or to drive ashore 
 shipwrecked. Various causes produce this : — 
 
 (a) In some cases it results from sheer indolence. The 
 man has no bone or sinew in him — no instinct of effort — 
 no adaptation for work. Probably some anxious and 
 thrifty friend chose his business for him. But as it was 
 a business which would not do itself, but required some- 
 body to do it, the work is not done. The man might 
 
THE M TITER' S SORROW. 335 
 
 have succeeded, and perhaps somewhat distinguished 
 himself, as a zoophite fastened to a rock and twirling 
 tentacala. Bui among men of strong hands and brave 
 hearts, he is simply a mistake — a maladjustment — his 
 success is impossible. 
 
 {!>) In other cases this results from a wrong choice of 
 business. The man got into a sphere for which he had 
 no adaptation either mental or physical. We see these 
 things daily — giants twisting threads, and dwarfs carry- 
 ing burdens ; Shakespeares making shoes, and Tuppers 
 making poetry ; statesmen keeping flocks, and herdsmen 
 gone to Congress. Men are everywhere out of place, 
 maladjusted, and of course they fail. And by this first 
 failure some men are hopelessly discouraged. Not per- 
 ceiving that failure in a wrong path is a real part of suc- 
 cess, by turning the feet into other and right paths, they 
 have no energy to put their bark about on the stormy 
 waters of life — and so continue in the mistaken business, 
 sailing on the shoreward course, until becalmed in some 
 quiet bay ; thinking of no future progress, they roll lazily 
 with the tide, waiting resignedly for decay to tear in 
 pieces their sails and take apart their timbers. 
 
 (c) In other cases this results from false theories of 
 success. The man is a believer in good luck and grand 
 chances. He trusts to fortune, and waits for opportuni- 
 ties. The sky is cloudy and the husbandman will not 
 plow. The wind is contrary and the mariner will not 
 weigh anchor. The man is waiting for miracles and will 
 not use means — always getting ready to do great things 
 and meanwhile doing nothing. 
 
 (d) In other cases, still, the failure results from divided 
 application and energy. The man attempts too much. 
 
336 THE .MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 Ignoring the principle of a division of labor, as the grand 
 law of civilization, he affects the practical barbarism of 
 attempting to do every thing. Now, one business is as 
 much as any man can do well at a time. This is the 
 patent law of the \miverse. Every efficient thing God 
 ever made, does its own work always and its own work 
 only. The bee attempts not to sing, nor the bird to 
 make honey ; the vine does not essay to bear apples, nor 
 the fig-tree to bear grapes. The sun is contented to take 
 care of the day, and the moon is earnestly busy taking 
 care of the night. Such is God's ordinance — and the 
 successful man conforms to it. Life is too short for the 
 accomplishment of great tasks with divided energies. 
 One prize must allure — one business engross him. And 
 the blazon on the banner he hears to the battle of life is 
 Paul's glorious motto — " this one thing I do /" 
 
 But, be the reason of the failure what it may, the world 
 is full of men who, with a business to do, never succeed 
 in it. Life swarms with indolent and inefficient men — 
 poor, passionless, stolid, statuesque dreamers of dreams 
 in a waking world— maladjustments in the moving 
 mechanism of the universe — living discords in the in- 
 dustrial harmonies of creation going on around them ! 
 And, surely, all such sons are a heaviness to mothers. 
 Women's nature is proverbially aspiring. Ambition for 
 her child is an element of her affection. When she bore 
 him on her bosom and rocked him to gentle dreams, 
 it was that he rnitrht become strong for life's work : 
 that he might be something and do sunn thin;/. 
 
 And if I speak to a young man indolently disappoint- 
 ing parental hopes, then I speak to a son unworthy of 
 his mother. Rouse yourself even now. Go forth to the 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 337 
 
 battle of life with a strong hand and a brave heart; 
 laughing to scorn all obstacles; scattering- all enemies; 
 understanding that energy creates its own success; that 
 circumstances do not make men, but that men make cir- 
 cumstances ; that obstacles are only steps in the ladder 
 which energy climbs ; that opposition is only a wind on 
 the bow whereby a drifting bark weathers a headland, 
 and works itself into harbor. Those that love you are 
 looking for your success in life. They have equipped the 
 bark and sent it forth to the seas ; and if, through any in- 
 dolence or false seamanship of your own, you make ship- 
 wreck of your manhood — then, alas! you are " a foolish 
 so?2, a heaviness to your mother." 
 
 But passing now this large class of indolent young 
 men, consider — 
 
 Thirdly — The young man who selects a wrong busi- 
 ness, or pursues it xoith a wrong spirit. 
 
 The grand aim of men to-day is to get rich speedily ; 
 and their practical theory is, that all business is honorable 
 in proportion to its revenues. But never was a theory 
 more false. All* honest business is equally honorable. 
 The man who, Avith shovel and pick, toils on a railroad, 
 is nature's nobleman, in contrast with the swindling offi- 
 cial of the concern who thrives upon villainies. The 
 drayman, who hauls boxes from the cellar, is a prince 
 royal in the presence of the master merchant who sits 
 above in the counting-room, projecting dishonest gains 
 or proud of fraudulent successes. The plowman — the 
 mechanic — the merchant — the professional man — are all 
 fellow-workers, and if alike honest, are all alike honora- 
 ble. But the false theory is the popular one. And so 
 the aim of young men of energy is, an occupation prom- 
 
 15 
 
338 TffE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 ising the earliest and largest success ; and this is well if 
 it involve no compromise of mural principles. But if it 
 do, let the work be what it may, the young man should 
 shrink from it as from contamination. He should engage 
 in no work requiring the slightest violation of a dictate 
 of conscience. He should consider that the benefit of an 
 acquired fortune is not objective, but subjective — i. e., 
 consisting not in the value of the possession, but in the 
 moral character acquired in its pursuit — just as in a 
 gymnasium the good to the athlete is not the weight 
 lifted, but the muscular strength acquired. Evil work 
 may have large revenues. A theatrical actor — a charla- 
 tan showman — a fraudulent speculator — may roll in 
 wealth, while honest labor is in want. But such success 
 is simply infamous ; such a man is a disgrace to his gen- 
 eration — " he is a foolish son, a heaviness to his mother.'''' 
 
 Woman's nature is alive with lofty and chivalrous 
 sentiments. A son's spotless honor is his mother's glory. 
 And if from that high path wherein she trained his early 
 feet to walk, he descend to an infamous calling, or even 
 in a reputable business to seek success by dishonorable 
 artifice, then does he purchase success at the price of her 
 tears who bore him. And every item added to his 
 wealth gathers but another monstrous weight to the 
 already crushing heavings of his mother's wounded 
 spirit. 
 
 O young men ! just unmooring from a home of peace- 
 ful love to the treacherous seas of a stormy life, take that 
 mother's holy memory with you — a star to guide into all 
 noble courses — remembering that a son's spotless name 
 shall be, while life lasts, a father's truest glory and a 
 mother's greatest joy ! 
 
THE M OTHER' S SORROW. 339 
 
 But passing now from this whole matter of business, 
 consider — 
 
 Fourthly — The young man icho makes choice of un- 
 principled, immoral, irreligious companions. 
 
 This is perhaps the first anxiety of parental love, as a 
 child passes the charmed circle of household affection. 
 For such a child seems like an inexperienced insect 
 moving amid the gossamer meshes of a watchful de- 
 stroyer. His friendships are to be such as chance or 
 business associations may fling in his way. And it is a 
 favorite artifice of the great spirit of evil, to seduce 
 through these fine social instincts the young heart to de- 
 struction. Beware then, O young men ! as for your 
 life, of the friendships you form ! Choose your compan- 
 ions as you would if they were to go in daily to your 
 mother's fireside ! Beware, as for your soul's welfare, of 
 all companionships like these : 
 
 JBeware of the young man of fashion/ I need not 
 describe him. He is of a large class, found everywhere, 
 whose life is summed in rising, dressing, dining, visiting, 
 and sleeping. He differs from the indolent man in that 
 he is always busy about trifles. A pitiful butterfly spe- 
 cies — flitting from flower to flower, and dying like au- 
 tumnal insects, despised and forgotten. And we say 
 avoid such men. You are here to fit yourselves for the 
 great duties of an earnest life. Possibly your honest 
 earnings are too small to enable you to array yourself in 
 the purple and fine linen of his fashionable attire. Cer- 
 tain I am your head has too much brain to be a hatter's 
 show-block, and your heart too much brave blood to 
 serve as a tailor' s lay-figure. You are here to become 
 men, not manikins. And if one of these poor ephemera 
 
340 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 of fashion, who eat their father's bread and use their sis- 
 ter's perfumes, should cast on you a glance of patronizing 
 friendship, just tell him you were created an immortal 
 being, and not a zoophite — that you live by work, and 
 do not vegetate by suction. But take not to your bosom 
 such a friendship as a heaviness to a mother/ 
 
 Beware of the sceptical young man ! There are two 
 classes of freethinkers in the midst of us. There are 
 those who think freely and speak freely of human nature. 
 Their creed on this point is Calvin's total depravity ma- 
 lignantly intensified. They maintain that all outward mo- 
 rality is the specious disguise of some covert wickedness. 
 " Honesty " — " purity " — " benevolence " — these, they 
 tell us, are all shams — the stalking-horses of villainy 
 lying in wait for victim:;. And their aim is to under- 
 mine all generous faith in man — to plant the fatal Upas 
 of suspicion in the fresh gardens of the soul. These men 
 are the croaking ravens — the screaming vultures of 
 humanity — whose taste is for dead flesh, and not for 
 nature's purple fruitage, and are to be avoided as the 
 very apostles of pollution. 
 
 But worse even than these are the men that think 
 freely and speak freely of religion. With them, a Chris- 
 tian profession is regarded as simple hypocrisy. To them 
 the Bible is a falsehood — the Church an association of 
 evilly-designing men — the priesthood a privileged and un- 
 principled caste, and retribution but a dream of mediaeval 
 credulity. In the main, they are men of impure lives. The 
 Bible condemns their evil practices, and they set them- 
 selves to discredit it. So they call to their aid Hume, and 
 Paine, and Volney, and Voltaire, and Wright, and Owen — 
 and the whole motley crew. From one they gather a 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 341 
 
 low jost ; from another, a malignant cavil; from another, 
 a specious sophism; and, thus crammed with blasphemy, 
 
 go fortli to set their feel upon all that is pure, and their 
 face against the heavens; and having got rid of all fear 
 of God, and all principles of virtue, and all respect of 
 honest men, and all decencies of personal character, they 
 exult in the triumph of reason over superstition and 
 priestcraft, and call themselves "Freethinkers!" 
 
 And, verily, they are "free!" — as a reptile is free to 
 wallow in pollution! Free as unseemly satyrs, to dance 
 and howl amid grand immortal ruins ! Free to follow 
 the trail of a serpent in the mire rather than a seraph's 
 shining path through the firmament ! Free to slaver 
 with their venom the radiant purities of this hook of 
 God, and to adore as a new evangel the hlasphemous 
 and idiotic ravings of these abandoned and outcast lepers 
 of humanity ! Free to brutalize all their noble moral in- 
 stincts — to dwarf all their gifts of intellect and genius — 
 to demonstrate their brotherhood with cattle and creep- 
 ing things — to exult in their brute-hood, and do after 
 their kind ! 
 
 Now, such men as these are around you — lying in wait 
 for you — and our warning is, beware <>f them. Believe 
 us, there is not an infidel objection these men urge 
 against the Bible, which has not been so triumphantly 
 answered a thousand times, that just to urge it again as 
 an argument, is to parade a man's ignorance — is to show 
 himself a weak, credulous Philistine, setting up again the 
 poor shattered Dagon before the Ark of our God ! If an 
 honest doubt arise in your heart as to any great truth of 
 religion, go, for its solution, to some one who has at least 
 read the Bible carefully. But these "free-thinkers !" — 
 
342 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 these men and women delighting to sneer at holy things! 
 — oh, avoid them as creatures that would fain poison 
 within you all the springs of peace, and purity, and 
 immortality ! 
 
 Your parents, alas ! — that father, with his pleading 
 prayer! — that mother, with her yearning heart! — rather 
 would they see you coffined and sepulchred; that proud 
 hrow cold; that bright eye sightless — -rather thus, a 
 thousand times, than to see you fall a prey to the ma- 
 lignant spoiler, whose delight is in the ruins of a soul — 
 a soul ! 
 
 Beware, above all, of the young man of practical im- 
 morality. I can not enlarge here. The name of this 
 class is legion ; and on all sides do they surround you. 
 They are of every type and form of iniquity ; but avoid 
 them all as lepers in the market-place ! 
 
 That man, is a sharper in his business! He over- 
 reaches the ignorant, and drives hard bargains with men 
 in trouble; his conscience is concerned with lawdionesty ; 
 his integrity is intrenched amid statutes of limitation ; 
 his type is a spider entrapping thoughtless insects ! 
 Avoid him ! Avoid him ! 
 
 That man is untruthful/ You can not trust to his 
 statements, nor rely on his promises. He is wanting in 
 the grand substratum of all noble moral character. Avoid 
 him ! 
 
 That man is a Sabbath-breaker, a profane swearer. lie 
 refrains his feet from the sanctuary ; and lingers long 
 over the wine! Avoid him ! 
 
 That man is a quarreler ! He wears much hair, and 
 carries a weapon, and looks fierce, and talks of his honor ! 
 Avoid him ! 
 
THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 343 
 
 That mail's associations are with "fast men /" He 
 gets behind the scenes at a theatre; and holds a watch 
 at a race-course; and is critical of curds and wine in a 
 club-room! Avoid him! 
 
 That man has no reputation for purity ! He curls his 
 lip and looks wise when men speak of goodness and vir- 
 tue. Perhaps he boasts of vile deeds and vile associates; 
 and makes a mock of domestic love, and woman's truth, 
 and all life's gentler and holier affections ! Avoid him ! 
 oh, avoid him as you would a malignant fiend ! 
 
 Avoid, in short, every man whom you would not see 
 seated in your own home-shadow — sharing the unsus- 
 pecting confidence of a father's, a mother's, a sister's 
 gentle love ! Alas ! alas ! for the direful contagion of 
 these evil companionships ! Deep seated amid the puri- 
 ties of your own better nature, are the germs of latent 
 evil, which the rank breath of these corrupters of youth 
 "will nurture into broods of gigantic scorpions ! Have, 
 therefore, nothing to do with them. And if one of these 
 men of questionable reputation seeks your friendship, tell 
 him — you were made for better things than to feed the 
 screaming vultures of passion ; that you have not, as yet, 
 got entirely rid of such old-fashioned things as a heart, 
 and a conscience, and regard for a father's honor and a 
 mother's love. That if he choose to go down to the asp's 
 hole, and the cockatrice's den, and the serpent's dust — 
 there need be no disputing about taste — but for your- 
 self, you find in your bosom a winged and immortal 
 spirit, and bending above you a firmament of glory ; and, 
 on the whole, prefer to fling abroad your pinion, and soar 
 to the sun ! 
 
 I repeat it: Avoid eoil companions I I warn you 
 
3U THE MO TUBE'S SO BROW. 
 
 with nil the power of my solemn text ! I plead with 
 you by all the tenderness of a mother's deathless love ! 
 If you would not fill her gentle eyes with tears, and her 
 dreams with fearful phantoms, oh, take not to your life 
 such fellowships, to be as lead, as rock, as a mountain, in 
 their crushing "heaviness to that mother's heart." 
 
 But passing now the case of the young man who 
 chooses evil companions, consider — 
 
 Fifthly — The young man who has become evil him- 
 self. 
 
 And surely such a son is a mother's heaviness. 
 
 It seems, indeed, almost impossible that, coming from 
 a happy Christian home, any young man should ever go 
 so widely astray. But, alas ! the strange thing happens. 
 We see it every day. The youth crosses the threshold 
 of affection, recoiling from all paths of open sin and 
 shame, as a white-winged bird fr m a ravening vulture's 
 nest. But, alas ! to that young h art the guileful tempter 
 comes — he points — he whispers — he smiles — he smooths 
 the path down gently for the feet. His first words are 
 all gentle and of good fellowship ; he would improve the 
 youth's manners; beguile his lonely hours ; increase his 
 knowledge of the world. Presently he takes a bolder 
 tone ; insensibly he paints vice in radiant colors. The 
 youth at first recoils. It is hard work to force that im- 
 mortal bai'k into the outer circle of the moral maelstrom ! 
 Conscience moves ! Memory whispers ! In visions of 
 the night the father's gray locks seem to move ! the 
 mother's eye to watch and weep ! But the tempter is 
 not foiled. He comes again and again. The youth 
 yields little by little to his honeyed words ! I need not 
 picture him further. He has cut from his moral moor- 
 
THE HO THER'S SORROW. 345 
 
 ings, and the bark, on a wild, deep river, is carried 
 mightily downward ! 
 
 And what is that young man now? Ah me! a fearful 
 "heaviness" to that father's life — to that mother's heart! 
 Into that distant home have been borne rumors of that 
 child's evil courses — of vile companions — of desecrated 
 Sabbaths — of unseemly revels. And see that father and 
 that mother now ! Ah ! those tear-stained cheeks ! those 
 sobbing, wrestling prayers ! Had the news come that 
 that dear child was only sick — only dying, this might 
 be borne ; for close, close to that dying pillow would 
 parental love have pressed, and the bitterness of the 
 hour been sweetened by the fond hope of meeting in 
 gladness beyond the grave ! But, alas ! a son upon whose 
 soul the pestilence has fallen ! this is a burden that 
 presses, oh, how heavily ! 
 
 I can not enlarge here. I speak not to describe the 
 downward road, but only to warn you against entering 
 it ! We have small hope of reclaiming the abandoned. 
 We speak chiefly with a hope to preserve the unfallen. 
 Nevertheless, if it should happen, as indeed it may, that 
 I speak this night to one young man who has yielded 
 to temptation and is rushing to ruin, then I fling my- 
 self in that young man's path with my text's strong 
 motive, and I say to him now : " Remember tour 
 mother !" Ah ! I care not for that smile ! I know that 
 conscience works and stings beneath it ! You are not 
 yet a fiend; and the last angel that deserts your soul 
 will be your mother's memory ! So I look into that 
 scornful face and cry, " Remember your mother !" 
 Do you say, " she is dead?'''' Thank God in her behalf, 
 then ! She is saved from the living agony of beholding 
 
 15* 
 
346 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 a son's ruin ! But for you my motive is as strong ! 
 Dead! is she? And does this wild autumnal wind 
 make melancholy music over her distant grave ? "Well, 
 then, I tell you that every step you take in your present 
 sinful courses, tramples the dust of her broken heart 
 deeper in the shadows of that sepulchre ! Or if she live, 
 then I tell you that that faithful, gentle heart lives with 
 you, dies with you. See ! see ! right in your downward 
 path it rises ! A phantom with a pale forehead and 
 weeping eyes ! Oh, pause, young man ! Your feet ! 
 your feet ! Behold, they are trampling on a mother's 
 broken heart ! 
 
 But I turn from this picture. I speak now to the un- 
 fallen, whose life is beautiful with purity and filial love, 
 and I seek only to warn you against the first beginnings 
 of evil. Young man, you have yonder in your room, 
 your mother 's picture ! Or if you have not, go get one ! 
 And carry it ever with you ! Bind it to your bosom ; 
 and when tempted to any evil, consult that silent monitor. 
 Draw forth and look upon that speechless face ! Oh, 
 what tremendous power to keep back from all evil there 
 would be in the simple vision of a mother 's face ! 
 
 Imagine a young man sitting in some place of evil con- 
 course — -in a gambling house — an infidel club-room — at 
 the sumptuous board of an inebriate revel, or in some 
 place of darker, deeper infamy ! And, now, in some 
 scene like this, let divine power work me a simple mir- 
 acle. Behold a shadow rises as along the fabled mirror 
 of Agrippa ! It grows denser! It takes shape and 
 lineaments! And now a human face looks out, a calm 
 pale brow, and eyes of earnest love ! A Mother's face ! 
 And see this young man now ! How his cheek grows 
 
TEE MOTHER'S SORROW. 347 
 
 pale! How his knees smite tog-other! How he springs 
 from his repose, and rushes from that haunt of iniquity 
 as if pursued by an avenging spectre from eternity ! 
 
 Believe me, dear hearer, parental love becomes agony 
 when a child turns into evil courses ! To save you from 
 this dire moral pestilence a parent would gladly lay 
 down life. When the plague broke out in Italy, and all 
 who wore exposed to it inevitably died, there lived a 
 mother with three small children in an infected district. 
 Presently she felt in her own person symptoms of the 
 disease. In the morning were the chills and heat of 
 fever; at noon the fatal plague-spot showed itself. She 
 knew that she must die. But she could not bear the 
 thought of communicating death to her darlings. With 
 her first suspicion of her own attack she had sent her 
 children away from her to an upper chamber, and when 
 that suspicion was confirmed she rose in her great agony, 
 locked her little ones into the chamber, denied herself 
 the last embrace, the last look of those dear faces, the 
 last accents of those beloved voices, turned in speech- 
 less agony away, dragged herself across the threshold, 
 along the deserted street to the public dead-house, and 
 then lying down amid the uncoffined corpses, died alone ! 
 Such is a mother's anxious care to save a child's body from 
 the pestilence ! But then, from this moral contagion— 
 this plague that falls upon the immortal spirit — who can 
 tell what a mother's heart would not endure to save 
 the child of her bosom ? 
 
 I can not enlarge. I speak to generous and ingenuous 
 men to-night. And I say to them that, in crossing the 
 threshold of these sinful courses, they ai - e bringing a 
 mountain weight of heaviness on hearts that love them. 
 
348 THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 
 
 Just let there be whispered in your childhood's home a 
 story of your dissipation — your dishonesty — your intem- 
 perance — your impurity — and then better, a thousand 
 times better, more generous, more merciful, the hand 
 that should drive an assassin's dagger into that mother's 
 gentle heart ! 
 
 Now, there are other classes of character we had de- 
 signed to exhibit here, but our limits forbid, and we 
 conclude by considering, 
 
 Sixthly — The young man who lives in neglect of 
 person al reliy ion. 
 
 This is unquestionably the main thought of the text. 
 In its last analysis Solomon always uses " wisdom " in 
 the sense of personal piety, and " foolishness " as a syno- 
 nym of practical irreligion. 
 
 And it does not matter for our argument whether or 
 not you so regard it. You may be of the class of young 
 men who sneer at religion, and think it noble and wise 
 to call themselves infidels. But then your mother does 
 not. And to her heart the very thought of your infidel- 
 ity is a painful burden. To her, religion is no weak and 
 driveling fanaticism, but a life — a power — a heavenly 
 and eternal glory — an influence that makes and can alone 
 make this earthly life peaceful, and calm, and pure, and 
 prosperous, and ennobled — which heightens all its glad- 
 ness and makes all its loads less — which hangs a heavenly 
 lamp of hope at the lowliest lintel, and flings light as 
 from the plumes of an angel, over the loneliest grave — 
 which prepares, and alone can prepare, the soul of man 
 to pass hopefully away from this scene of mortal cares, 
 and to cross the threshold of an eternal door, and move 
 fittingly among those higher spheres of the glorious life 
 
TEE MOTHER'S SORROW. 349 
 
 that peoples eternity, and to wear diadems, and to wield 
 sceptres, and to grasp destinies of unbounded splendor, 
 and be kings and priests unto God for ever and ever. 
 
 To that believing mother's soul this Bible appeals 
 with a weight of evidence that is demonstrative — over 
 whelming. And the shallow cavils of an infidel libertine, 
 and the blasphemous rhapsodies of a social outcast have 
 no power to weaken her assured faith in God's glorious 
 oracles. Religion seems to her no poetic dream nor 
 philosophic dogma — but a momentous message from 
 eternity. It is the revelation of overwhelming truths. 
 It is a call to secure eternal interests. It tells of immor- 
 tality — of probation — of retribution — of an eternity of 
 gloom — of an eternity of glory ! It stands before her in 
 the pomp of a crowned creature of eternity ! the robes 
 radiant — the eyes lustrous — the voice majestic — the dia- 
 dem ablaze ! And with all tremendous, resistless elo- 
 quence, warns, pleads, entreats that mortal men will rise 
 from the vanities of time, and aspire and ascend to ever- 
 lasting realities. 
 
 Thus to that mother's holy thought seems the religion 
 of the Bible. And, bound, as she believes herself to be 
 unto a land of heavenly rest, she can not bear to think 
 that her child may not be with her amid those glorious 
 mansions ! Whatever may be your unbelief, she is per- 
 suaded, that without personal religion there is no eternal 
 life ! and without eternal life what seems all the world 
 beside ? — [wealth, honor, usefulness, a conqueror's laurel, 
 a monarch's throne !] Alas, they are the fair flowers 
 and perfumes that only make more terrible a martyr's 
 death-pyre ! A son aspiring to earthly things, yet de- 
 spising the Gospel! Alas, it seems to her, as if her boy 
 
350 THE MOTEER'S SORROW. 
 
 were floating above Niagara — now amid the rapids — 
 now on the glass}'' death-curve, reaching for those gleam- 
 ing rainbows! Her child's hopeless eternity/ Oh, a 
 thought of this breaks a mother's heart ! 
 
 Ah, young men, who perhaps this very clay have 
 thought it little that you turned away from the sanctuary 
 and broke God's holy day — and perhaps to-night will 
 reject this Gospel call, and go forth to evil courses and 
 companionships — pause a moment! think a moment! 
 Where is that mother now ! this holy Sabbath night in 
 that distant home ! Ah, this day she has been thinking 
 solemnly, sadly of her absent and beloved child ! And 
 see her now, bowed down before the mercy-seat praying ! 
 But for what — for whom? For herself? Ah, no! 
 Self is forgotten now — her own feeble strength — her 
 declining years — her many cares — these are all forgot- 
 ten ! Only of her child she is thinking — only for her 
 child she prays ! And what asks she for her child ? 
 Health? happiness ? long life? honor? Oh, no! Not 
 now. Not on this holy Sabbath night ! She has been 
 reading about heaven ! She has been thinking of the 
 possible parting of parent and child at the coming Judg- 
 ment ! And now all earthly things seem vanishing 
 vapors ! Her heart is burdened with a mightier want. 
 She prays for better things : that her child's heart may 
 be broken in penitence — that her child's feet may be 
 turned into paths of salvation ! Ah me ! those pleading 
 prayers of wrestling agony, those quivering lips, those 
 pillows bathed in tears, prove that an impenitent son is 
 a heaviness to his mother! 
 
 And this is the text's thought. This is the motive 
 with which we would fain arrest your feet in their evil 
 
, THE MOTHER' S SORROW. 351 
 
 courses! men! young men! think of your mother/ 
 That mother that watched over you in childhood, and 
 prayed for you in youth ; who, when earth was beautiful and 
 life Avas young, made the world fairer with her smile of 
 trustful love and faith. And when misfortune came, and 
 friends deserted, and the world frowned, and there was 
 no rainbow for the clay's storm, and no star for the mid- 
 night gloom — who then, only the closer for the tempest, 
 took you in holy fondness to her tender heart. And 
 there was no tear that she did not wipe, and no sorrow 
 that she did not share, and no howl of infamy that could 
 shake her faith ; and no shadow that could send a chill 
 into the depths of that mighty and immortal love. Oh, 
 that mother — think of that mother / and remember sim- 
 ply this : That if you are walking in sinful and forbidden 
 ways ; yea, if you are only living " without God and 
 without hope" — if you do no more than turn away this 
 night in impenitence, rejecting your Saviour — if from 
 your father's glorious God, and your mother's blessed 
 heaven, you go forth this solemn Sabbath hour, obstinate, 
 rebellious, then you go forth to trample under foot the 
 tears and the love of the breaking heart of her who bore 
 you, and are this very hour a burden that may not be 
 imagined — lead ! adamant ! a mountain ! a ponderous 
 world ! a crushing universe ! an impenitent and ungodly 
 child ! "A foolish son, the heaviness of his mother /" 
 
PKOGRESS IN DECAY. 
 
 " The flower fadeth." — Isaiah, xl. 7. 
 
 There are at least two sides to every thing. To every- 
 thing in morals there is a dark and a bright side. Every 
 truth is a revelation of God — a Theophany — a Shechinah. 
 And, as the divine pillar in the Exodus had sometimes an 
 aspect of cloud, and sometimes of fire, so is it with all 
 truth. Its appearance alters with our own changes of 
 character or condition ; to the eye of sense it may be a 
 Shechinah of gloom, to the eye -of faith a Shechinah of 
 glory. Thus is it with our text. 
 
 " The flower fadeth." — It is a prophetic illustration of 
 the evanescence of human life. And to the hearing of 
 sense it is touchingly mournful — the very refrain of a 
 dirge ! It is common in the rhetoric of the Bible to com- 
 pare human life to a flower. And here its decline is 
 emblemized by a flower's decay. The whole scope of the 
 context is the brevity of man's sojourn on earth. "All 
 flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower 
 of the field: the grass loithereth: because the spirit of the 
 Lord bloweth upon it : surely the people is grass?'' 
 
 " The flower fadeth?' 1 — I. Let us contemplate it first by 
 the eye of sense. Let us sit solemnly together in the 
 shadow of the Shechinah. How depressing seems the 
 thought ! How sad the emblem ! What a tender and 
 
P li OGRESS IK DECAY. 353 
 
 fragile growth is " the grass !" How short-lived all the 
 goodliness of "the flower of the field!" The hardiest 
 lives hut a few days; the frailest hut a few moments! 
 And yet such is human life ! Its whole history is written 
 on the flower's fading leaf. And the truth is especially 
 befitting the closing meditation of the year. 
 
 " The flower fadeth /" — How impressive the truth when 
 toe think of others — the beloved of home and life! How 
 hath every year of our past been, like a day whose hours 
 should be indicated by the Linnsean flower-dial — the 
 opening and folding of different blossoms in their order — 
 marked and remembered by the passing away of beloved 
 ones to return no more ! Go hack into childhood ! You 
 may have only just passed its bright morning, neverthe- 
 less you too have your dead ! There are graves over 
 which even your young heart breaks. The father whose 
 strong arm upheld your faltering steps ! the mother whose 
 soft voice lulled you to slumber ! the young brother or 
 sister who shared your childish sports and toys ! these 
 may have passed from you ! And your short life hath 
 been measured, as by the opening and shut of blossoms 
 on " a dial of flowers ! " And if you are older, more 
 touching still is the emblem. Where are the happy 
 children who sat with you in the school, and went forth 
 in your holiday? the youthful hand that walked beside 
 you in life's green and sunny paths ? the men and women 
 who shared with you life's heavier tasks and strangely 
 saddened joys ? How many of them do you meet to- 
 day ? Alas, most truly is your life's horologe " a dial of 
 flowers." 
 
 "The flower fadethf" — Hoav impressive the truth vjhen 
 you think of yourselves ! Where now is the bounding 
 
354 PROGRESS IN DECAY. 
 
 heart of your childhood ? Where the unclouded hope- 
 fulness of youth? Life seems to you no longer a rapt- 
 urous holiday — the freshness, the brightness, the lavish 
 aroma, the glorious bloom are gone forever ! The flower 
 — the flower fadeth ! 
 
 And verily the thought saddens us. We are in the 
 shadow of the Shechinah ! You do not utter the text 
 cheerily. The voice sinks instinctively into mournful 
 cadence ! Even the glad heart of childhood bemoans the 
 bloom of its withered garlands ! There is something so 
 inexpressibly beautiful in the flowers themselves: so 
 much of eloquence in their ministries and language, that 
 the decay of even the commonest and smallest depresses 
 the spirit. 
 
 And the moral truth is more solemn than its emblem. 
 The evanescence of human life ; the passing away of our 
 years ; the decay of whatsoever makes those years bliss- 
 ful — all this has ever been a theme of melancholy musing. 
 As the tide of time rolls on, first, youthful beauty fades 
 like a flower ! watch it as you will, guard it as you may, 
 yet the cheek will lose its color and the eye its fire ! 
 Then activity declines, the airy step of childhood flags 
 into the slow measures of weary feet! Then strength 
 decays, the right arm loses its cunning, the form bends 
 under its load! Meanwhile even the moral man seems to 
 share the infirmities of the physical, the tender affections 
 are chilled and torpid, the glorious intellect unhinged or 
 exhausted, as under the spells of on-coming winter. And 
 it is all saddening — this withering of the human blossom, 
 and the heart recoils from its emblem — a fading flower ! 
 
 And therefore it is a fitting theme for our meditation in 
 this last Sabbath of the year. Indeed, to the eye of sense, 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 355 
 
 these gay holidays seem untimely — as if we were rejoicing 
 over decay ! Another period of probation is ended. An- 
 other stage accomplished in our journey to the grave. 
 And even if it has been a year filled with divine mercies, 
 yet they sadden us as things taking flight! 
 
 Surely solemn thoughts and emotions become us to- 
 day ; ours should be hearts regretful for the past, resolved 
 for the future. Warned by these memorials of decay we 
 should redeem the time that remains ! 
 
 This, as we sit in its shadow, is the text's lesson. Let 
 us so live that it may be said of us truly, " His glorious 
 beauty was a Aiding flower." For the fading flower hath 
 fulfilled well its ministry ! Was its life long or short ; 
 was its beauty great or little ; was its sphere wide or 
 narrow, the flower spoken of in the text had done well 
 the special work God gave it to do. It may have been 
 the rose of Sharon in the imperial gardens; it may have 
 been the queenly lily in some fair valley of Galilee ; it 
 may have been some brilliant pomegranate in a rich old 
 orchard ; it may have been some humble flower of the 
 fragile grasses that crowned the Syrian hills as with a 
 diadem. 
 
 Richly varied and full of splendor was the flora of 
 the now barren and desolate Palestine in the days when 
 Isaiah swept from his harp this requiem to the withering 
 flower ! And we know not on which of them all his in- 
 spired vision rested. But we do know that it was upon 
 one which had both blessed man and glorified God in its 
 life! 
 
 In nothing, perhaps, are there more notable differences 
 than in the spheres and services of flowers. In the wild 
 howling desert, where the fell simoom breathes, and the 
 
356 PROGRESS I IT DECAY. 
 
 fierce sun burns, the stalely palm waves its radiant 
 flower-tuft, and many a lowly plant and shrub open fra- 
 grant blossoms. And amid Polar ice-fields and in the 
 fissured lava of volcanoes come forth these sweet chil- 
 dren of the summer in their ministry of beauty and of 
 love. Meanwhile, earth's fairer fields are beautified, like 
 old Eden, with their blessed omnipresence. They are 
 all of different classes and uses ; but each, in its own sea- 
 son and sphere, makes its little life a blessing — and the 
 air of heaven is sweeter, and insect-life is fed, and the heart 
 of childhood is thrilled with joy, and the soul of wearied 
 manhood is made happier and holier, because of the 
 silent, yet earnest ministries of the fading flower ! And 
 blessed shall we be if thoughts like these come with this 
 consciousness of our own fading being ! If we too, in 
 our own spheres and seasons — seasons, it may be, short 
 as that of the primrose amid melting snows, and spheres 
 humble as the violet's in some lonely vale — are, as well, 
 fulfilling our appointed tasks, doing some good unto 
 men, bringing some glory unto God ; so that, as at the 
 departure of something whose life was beneficent, and 
 whose memory will be fragrant, men watch our declining 
 days and strength, saying sadly and regretfully — " The 
 flower fadetii !" — " The flower fadeth /" 
 
 II. But we may not linger longer on this sad lesson of 
 the text — this shadow of our truth — this eloud-side of our 
 Shechinah. For, as we said at first, it has a bitter and 
 a bright side. To the eye of faith the Shechinah is 
 glorious. If you will remember that flowers faded annu- 
 ally in the old Eden ; and that, if the Apocalyptic " tree 
 of life " be a reality, there must be an opening and dying 
 of {lowers even in heaven, then you will feel that, self- 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 357 
 
 considered, there is nothing really to sadden in these 
 phenomena of vegetation. 
 
 Indeed, did these tides of time roll over a sinless 
 world, every premonition even of our mortal decay 
 would awaken only joyful anticipations and emotions. 
 And, instead of uttering it with a dirge-like cadence, it 
 would be with exulting look and voice he cried — " The 
 flower fadeth"— " Look ! Behold ! Blessed be God— the 
 flower fadeth !" 
 
 For what, after all, is a flower ? Is it in itself a per- 
 fection — a consummation ? — ah no ! — far from it ! It is, at 
 most, a phenomenon of progress ! And its decay is only 
 the passing away of a good thing, giving place to a better ! 
 The great end and purpose of all vegetable life is the per- 
 fected seed! Buds, flowers, fruity pulps, rinds, husks, 
 shells, are all only parts of the same process. And thus, 
 when the flower in its mysterious function has produced 
 and given form to the embryon fruit, it falls away, as 
 something no longer useful. And, as the better thing 
 takes its place on the stem, the philosophic thought 
 should be in gladness — " the flower fadeth" — and now 
 we shall have fruit! 
 
 And analogous to this, is the progress and develop- 
 ment of man's mortal life. Its earthly oflices and uses 
 are only for the strengthening within of the spiritual 
 and immortal! — i. e., our present life, with all its ac- 
 tivities and enjoyments, is but the flower-form of a being 
 whose fruit-form, or seed-form, is in an after and higher 
 life ! And death itself is no more than the falling of the 
 petals from the well-set fruit. And therefore, as the 
 wise husbandman grieves not when his orchards shower 
 their gay blossoms, but rejoices, rather, because this is 
 
358 PROGRESS IN DECAY. 
 
 but a prophecy and promise of the golden wealth of 
 autumn, so we should not grieve when, in the devel- 
 opment of man, the mortal flower-leaves fall away from 
 the swelling fruit of immortality ! 
 
 Had we the limits, it would not be tmprofitablc to 
 consider the analogy between vegetable and human life 
 in regard simply of the earthly. It applies to individ- 
 uals. Fruit is always of greater value than flowers. 
 And, therefore, the trained intellect ; the calm judg- 
 ment ; the sanctified affections ; the subdued passions ; 
 the strong, regnant conscience of the mature man, are 
 worth incalculably more than the fiery impulses, the hot 
 and headlong passions, and all the prodigal bloom and 
 aroma of his younger and fairer life. It applies as well to 
 communities or nations — to that organic life of the race 
 which constitutes its oneness. Here, too, the fruit is 
 worth more than the flowers. 
 
 The world has had its radiant spring-time and its gor- 
 geous flora. In Rome, Greece, Persia, Egypt, Assyria, 
 Judea, human nature put forth splendid blossoms until 
 the whole air was fragrant with intoxicating aroma. 
 The old philosophy, the old mythology, the old arts and 
 eloquence and poetry — the whole power and passion of 
 the young imperial genius of old time gave to earth the 
 seeming of a fairy palace filled with shapes and sounds 
 of surpassing splendor. 
 
 And verily that weird glory hath passed away ! The 
 rainbow hath left the cloud ! " The flower fadeth /" 
 But have Ave lost by the decay ? Are earth and life 
 sadder than in those heroic times ? Would you exchange 
 your printing-press for all the pencils of old artists and 
 the tongues of old orators, and the harps of old min- 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 359 
 
 Btrels? Would you barter railroad and telegraph and 
 steamship for all the radiant dreams of the old idealists? 
 "Would you give up your simple Christian faith for the 
 old gorgeous mythology — your unadorned sanctuary for 
 the glorious Pantheon — your liumble missionary in 
 heathen lands for the old crusading chivalry on march to 
 Christ's sepulchre? "Will you bid the substantial fruit 
 go back into the splendid blossom? Ah! no indeed! 
 Fair as flowers are in their season, glorifying forest and 
 field with their bloom and odor, yet more precious unto 
 men are the golden grains and ripe fruits of the sombre- 
 tinted autumn ! And as phenomenal of simple mortal 
 life, we can say exultingly — " The flower fadeth ! '" 
 
 i ut in our present meditation we are considering the 
 whole of earthly life as the flower-form, rudimental to the 
 heavenly fruit-form, and the analogy between flower-life 
 and man-life is manifold. 
 
 1. Flowers differ widely in their beauty and glory. 
 And, among species ranking as equals, how the lily dif- 
 fers from the rose, and both from the violet ! 
 
 Yea, even of species, what a wide and wondrous va- 
 riety ! The aloe shoots forth one mighty flower in a cen- 
 tury, and a thousand spectators delight to watch its 
 development and decay. But myriads of myriads of 
 grasses and grains burst every hour into blossom, unseen, 
 perhaps, save by God's omniscient eye ! And so is it of 
 humanity. It has its roses and lilies and violets; and 
 now and then a magnificent or monstrous aloe, and always 
 its countless myriads of flowers of the grass. And al- 
 though to the eye of sense the value of flowers is accord- 
 ing to their outward manifestations ; yet true wisdom 
 regards color and aroma as only phenomenal of progress. 
 
360 PRO G RE 8 8 IF DE OA Y. 
 
 Pi'esently the petals, alike of the grant! flower and the 
 tiny blossom, will wither, and of both the value seems 
 only in the accomplishment of their Maker's purpose with 
 the fruit or the seed. 
 
 And so God accounts of his children. The king, the 
 conqueror, the man of imperial gifts and genius will die 
 as lades the great aloe, and the mean man and the humble 
 pass away as the flower of grass. And then the search, 
 as material for the Judgment, will be for the fruit or seed 
 of the developed character. And, as one more true to 
 his spiritual mission, the reward of the peasant may out- 
 weigh immeasurably the prince's ! The obscure flower 
 of the dusty wayside may have ripened more carefully 
 the inner seed than the rose of the royal gardens ; and so, 
 " the first shall be last and the last first ! " Meanwhile, 
 
 2. Flowers differ widely in their seasons and s/Jieres of 
 influence. Some blossoms open only for a moment amid 
 the chill airs of the lingering winter. When the north 
 wind howls through the unclad forest, and no bird sings 
 on the rocking boughs, then the snow-drop shoots through 
 surrounding ice, and lifts its exquisite cup to the lip of 
 fainting faith. Then comes the gentle primrose. Sweet 
 emblem of childhood and day-star of the spring. And 
 fast following, as on airy wings, troop the brighter and 
 prouder creations of summer until earth seems glorified 
 like the old Eden in our delicious June. Nor even when 
 the summer hath died royally in purple and gold have 
 the flowers all withered. Autumn, too, hath its flora, 
 September robes herself in beauty ; and brown October 
 and sere November bind their brows with garlands, 
 wherein the passion-flower and the tuberose are woven 
 with the leaves of the corn and the vine. 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 361 
 
 And like these are the spheres and seasons of human 
 life. Fair children die like snow-drops in the early spring. 
 And although, at first thought, their brief mortal life 
 seems without purpose, yet we may see, if we will, how 
 in the heart and household their few days of blessed 
 visitation wrought as wisely and mightily as the ministry 
 of angels ! Oh, thank God for the faith-strengthening, 
 world-conquering, heart-sanctifying influence of these pre- 
 cious blossoms of the world's spring-time, even as they 
 wither and die ! 
 
 Then comes the summer flora. Men in the meridian 
 splendor of their powers passing away as vineyards and 
 orchards and meadows shower their prodigal blossoms. 
 Nor is the human winter without its flowers of exquisite 
 fragrance and beauty. We have them in our midst, men 
 whose gray heads are our crowns of glory — spirits ele- 
 vated and chastened as they stand on the boundary of 
 two worlds, and therefore more reverently honored; more 
 tenderly loved than Eden's youth's glorious beauty — like 
 the lingering flowers of autumn, more fair and fragrant 
 because of the disrobed fields and forests they beautify 
 and bless ! 
 
 And, as in their seasons, so in their spheres, men, like 
 flowers, differ. At the foot of the awful arctic glacier 
 did our heroic Kane find blossoms of delicate beauty ; 
 and in the dreariest waste of Sahara the eye of the faint- 
 ing explorer grew bright as it fell on a bursting flower; 
 and, in their living witness for God, quickening the faith 
 of those troubled spirits, those frail things in their soli- 
 tary spheres wrought, it may be, a nobler work than all 
 the roses and lilies in the gardens of kings ! And so have 
 we all found lilies blooming far out on the bosom of 
 
 1G 
 
362 PROGRESS IX DECAY. 
 
 wild mountain lakes; or, fairer still, night-blooming flow- 
 ers, on whose marvelous loveliness no sunbeam ever fell, 
 and thereby on the stormy water or in the deep night 
 felt our hearts more truly blessed than by all the crowded 
 flora of the summer fields and woods. And so is it of 
 human influence. In the loneliness of obscurity ; in the 
 humiliation of poverty ; in the dark chamber of patient, 
 unpretending suffering, have saintly spirits wrought a 
 gracious work which, in the reckonings of the coming 
 Judgment, shall seem of greater worth than the eloquence 
 of apostolic men in the palaces of princes, or the heroism 
 of old martyrs dying bravely for Christ. 
 
 3. Meantime human life and flower life are alike, 
 mainly because both are phenomenal of progress. This 
 we have already spoken of as the bright side of our 
 Shechinah, changing the seeming of our text from a sound 
 of requiem into a song of triumph. The flower fadeth. 
 But what is a flower? Only a temporary protection of 
 the inner fruit or seed ! So that when its petals fall 
 away, it is only as the removal of the scaffolding from a 
 perfected temple ! 
 
 And such is man's earthly life. And, therefore, it is 
 short — as the flower-form of an immortal growth under 
 development for grander forms and uses. Verily, our 
 words are false when we speak of old men and old 
 women on the earth ! We might better term a plant 
 " old " because its early flowers had withered ! Even the 
 nine hundred and ninety years of the antediluvian life 
 left the spiritual man only the young infant of immor- 
 tality ! There is no such thing as an old soul in the uni- 
 v _> ! The fires of passion may die; the vigor of youth 
 ful hope decay; the frame-work become decrepit; even 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 363 
 
 the heart deaden in its fervent love, and the mind lessen 
 its imperial range of thought ; and yet all this be no 
 more than phenomenal of progress — the withering of the 
 petals around seed and fruit maturing for the immortal ! 
 And, as the fruit is ever only just set on the spray when 
 the flower fades, so the man dying at fourscore is only 
 the young germ passing into a higher form of the endless 
 life ! 
 
 Earthly life is short, and we woidd not have it longer. 
 The season of flowers is full of peril to the tender germ of 
 fruit. As the variable spring-time passes into the sun- 
 nier and serener summer, the husbandman rejoices more 
 and more over the ever-ripening harvest. And so would 
 true wisdom rejoice over even man's outward decay. And 
 it should not be regretfully, but with accents of joyous 
 hope, as, sitting in the bright side of this solemn truth, 
 we cry, " The flower fadeth." 
 
 We can not trace the analogy farther. Indeed it 
 scarcely goes farther. Of man's future world and work, 
 even with all the light revelation casts on them, Ave 
 know very little. Having no experience of such things, 
 a language which appeals only to experience can have no 
 power to describe them. But even in that direction 
 these earthly analogies may be suggestive. Having per- 
 fected the seed, nature's next care is to disperse or dis- 
 tribute them. Some are borne away on their own airy 
 wings, and as they float up in the sunshine, freed of their 
 heavy earthy beauty, the perfected seed, as a spiritual- 
 ized blossom, seems fairer than all flowers ! Some are 
 borne across oceans, and take root in other continents. 
 Some find spheres in new islands, making what was, be- 
 fore, a desert beautiful with the rich gaa niture of summer. 
 
3fi-i PROGRESS IX DECAY. 
 
 Ami what a development some of them have in the after- 
 life ! An acorn, which a singing-bird might bear across 
 a continent, becomes a giant oak, and a thousand beasts 
 and birds for generations rejoice in its shadow ! The 
 Indian fig-seed germinates and takes root, and lo ! the 
 stately banyan-tree rises and spreads itself, each branch 
 bending to the ground, and forming a new stock, until 
 an empire's armies are sheltered by its magnificent 
 growth ! Such is the progress and development of that 
 whose young life was born of a fading flower ! Oh, to 
 a prescient eye what possibilities, what colors of beauty, 
 what forms of majesty, what felicities, what glorious 
 hopes, what ineffable fruitions, are embosomed in a 
 seed ! And analogous to this — but immeasurably more 
 wonderful — are the embryonic powers, and shall be the 
 development, of the human soul in the after-state ! The 
 babe, whose fair form we laid yesterday into the grave, 
 will become a creature, in wisdom and power and love 
 transcending all our present conceptions of what Gabriel 
 is — yea, of what God himself is! Of such things we are 
 not thinking to speak. Of the immortal man changed 
 and glorified we could not perhaps bear the blinding 
 vision ! And if, responsive to our yearning love, one 
 should come back for an hour to move visibly before us 
 — revealed in the realities of that transepulchral life — ■ 
 instinct with its new powers, clothed upon with its new 
 organs, speaking with heavenly tongue, wearing the 
 heavenly diadem — oh, then, instead of a joyous up- 
 spring to that blessed bosom, uttering the old familiar 
 names— "friend," "father;' "mother," "sister," "child" 
 — methinks we should shrink abashed from the blinding 
 splendor of that new creature of God ! Best for us is it 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 305 
 
 that heaven's wonders are unseen, and heaven's words 
 
 are unspeakable. Enough for us till our own change 
 come; ami ours too are the eagle-wings that can lieafloat 
 far up on the azure ocean, and soar highest toward the 
 sun, just to know the great fact of immortality — that 
 death is not destruction, but development — the earthly 
 flower-form just passing into the higher fruit-form — " the 
 mortal," not destroyed, hut " putting on the immortal- 
 ity; 1 ' so that, perceiving by faith how the blossom falls 
 away, just to give a freer sphere and a fuller measure 
 of God's air and sunshine to the growing fruit, we can 
 change the old requiem into a triumph-song; crying out 
 regretfully, but rejoicingly — " Tlie flower — the flotccr 
 fadeth ! " 
 
 These are the two aspects of our simple text — aspects 
 differing like the dark and bright side of a cloud in 
 heaven, and yet both needful for our instruction. This 
 truth has a side of sorrow; and we need it that we may 
 not fasten our affections too strongly on the things of 
 earth. 
 
 Ah me ! how foolish were a child so lavishing its love 
 on a lil} r or rose that the heart must break forever when 
 the fragile blossom dies ! And how surpassing, then, 
 the madness of an immortal spirit loving supremely these 
 earthly things — wealth, pleasure, power, glory ! Alas for 
 them ! The flower fadeth ! Where are the wise, the re- 
 nowned, the mighty of the past ?— the kings, the conquer- 
 ors, the statesmen, the orators, the bards, whose names are 
 yet powers on the earth ; whose tread and voice shook 
 the world V Where are thoy? Gone! gone, to the land 
 of darkness and dust and oblivion. " The flower fadeth /" 
 It must fade, for it is a flower only. Let us look, there- 
 
366 PROGRESS IY DECAY. 
 
 fore, upon earthly life as it is, and accept the text's lesson 
 of the evanescence of all that is mortal. Behold that 
 fair blossom ! How like a crowned queen it lifts itself 
 amid growing things ! How the sun loves to shine on 
 it, and the air to fan it ! It looks like a creature fash- 
 ioned in heaven for some precious purpose, and an end- 
 less life. But see ! ere the set of sun the radiant vision 
 passes; the bright leaves wither, fall, perish ! The beauty- 
 decays — " The flower fadeth ! '" Truly sad as a requiem 
 over all earthly things is the text's first utterance. 
 
 But blessed be God it hath another meaning, and may 
 be chanted in other and exalting cadences. The flower is 
 not a perfection. It is not the most of a thing, nor the 
 best of it. Within and behind the sere petals behold the 
 expanding fruit ! And so it is of life and time. There- 
 fore, ye children of God, dwell more and more in the 
 bright side of truth. See how the wings are growing 
 strong under the breaking shell ! Behold the glistening 
 plumes of the angel in Gethsemane's night ! Why sit for- 
 lorn under the cypresses where the beloved dead repose ? 
 They overshadow only the withered garlands of the ban- 
 quet whence the glorious guest hath gone ! 
 
 Why bemoan these signals of your own decay — these 
 growing infirmities, these multiplying pains, this dulling 
 of the senses, this weakening of the thought-wings, these 
 chills upon the heart ? They are but the relaxing of 
 iEolian cords in the dews of the day-spring ; but the in- 
 termitting of the eagle's wing-beat in self-poise as he 
 floats nearer to the sun. They are phenomenal of ap- 
 proach to spheres of seraph and archangel. 
 
 Thank God, when vernal woods shower their prodigal- 
 blossoms: they are but the drooping of banners in gor- 
 
PROGRESS IN DECAY. 367 
 
 geous heralding of autumnal kings ! Thank God that 
 our years, even by reason of strength, can be only four- 
 score ! Thank God that another stroke hath fallen on 
 the great bell of time ! Thank God that the mighty 
 train hath accomplished another stage toward eternity ! 
 Thank God for the deepening earthly night, dusking the 
 sheen of our grasses, but brightening our stars! Thank 
 God for a faith that changes from requiem into triumph- 
 song this old j^rophetic dirge — " The flower fadeth" — 
 "The flower fapeth '" 
 
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