LIBRARY OF 
 
 REV.F.B.CHERINGTON,D.D. 
 
 No.. 
 
 Qass_ % 
 
BROADCAST. 
 
 BY 
 
 NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 1865. 
 
'~2^ 
 
 
 6 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 
 
 NEHEMIAH ADAMS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the'District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 
 University Press: 
 
 Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
y1|l|ijip) HE author of these pages has been 
 in the habit of putting down, in 
 the briefest form, such of his own 
 reflections as might serve him for 
 hints in preaching. Having answered this 
 purpose, the thought occurred of making se- 
 lections from them and turning them into 
 their present shape and use. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 17, 1862. 
 
Broadcast. 
 
 IGHT is sown for the righteous." It 
 is the destiny of the good to be happy- 
 forever, with no mixed conditions, as 
 Imagine fields over which you are to 
 sown with light, which springs up in 
 countless forms of beauty, — an interminable 
 succession of bright visions. Such is the good 
 man's future. — " And gladness for the up- 
 right in heart." 
 
 SUCCESS in worldly affairs is not inconsist- 
 ent with eminent goodness and the appro- 
 bation of God. " And David went on and grew 
 great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him." 
 
8 BROADCAST. 
 
 "fTPVEEY came to the sepulchre bringing 
 JL the spices," to prepare the body of 
 Jesus for a longer sleep. Simple, affectionate, 
 and yet unbelieving women ! He was risen. 
 Some of our actions are of this mixed char- 
 acter. But those imperfect yet loving friends 
 were kindly treated. The tomb had angels in 
 it. These women were made the first heralds 
 to the world of Jesus and the resurrection. 
 Our labors may be erroneous, superserviceable, 
 and mixed with unbelief; yet nothing is lost 
 when done for Christ. 
 
 "X It TILL be your rereward." Be not 
 ▼ ¥ afraid of drawing back, of unex- 
 pected assaults, consequences of acts repented 
 of, forsaken, and forgiven. The "rereward" 
 is of special use by night. It is night with 
 us continually, as to unseen dangers. If you 
 press forward after God, he will not only " go 
 before you," but be "your rereward." 
 
BROADCAST. 9 
 
 "/^VBTAINED promises." This cannot 
 V^/ mean, obtained their fulfilment ; — 
 but they who are here spoken of, by their 
 faith in God led Him to make promises to 
 them. He was^ pleased with their spirit and 
 behavior, and in consequence promised them 
 surprising blessings. Witness Abraham, Jacob, 
 David, Solomon, Hannah, and others. 
 
 THE sight of a great procession, or 
 crowd, stirs up feelings of love, at times, 
 in every good mind. Each of this multitude 
 is as precious to God as I. Each has a his- 
 tory, a present experience, a destiny ; God 
 knows each, — his name, abode, calling, his 
 character. Each had a parentage, an infancy, 
 a home ; there are those to whom he is dear. 
 It is good to look on great companies of our 
 fellow-men. It makes us humble, benevo- 
 lent ; it makes us feel our need of the partic- 
 ular love and care of God. 
 l* 
 
10 BROADCAST. 
 
 IF heaven were apparent, desires for it 
 might be less pure. Its external glory 
 and beauty, its rest, its society, its pleasures, 
 might abate our pursuit of holiness, which we 
 now feel is the chief characteristic of the 
 place. It would also, perhaps, too much abate 
 the fear of death, which now has a controlling 
 influence upon us. " We walk by faith, not 
 by sight." 
 
 " ATTMIOU sowest not that body that shall 
 JL be." Strange that one who has seen 
 an ear of corn with its wrappings, its silk, its 
 rows of kernels on the large, hard cob, all 
 from one grain, which " cannot bear fruit 
 except it die," can be an unbeliever in the 
 resurrection. Moreover, such things in na- 
 ture should make us exult in the thought of 
 future bodies immeasurably in advance of the 
 present. " It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be." But "we shall be like Him." 
 
BROADCAST, 11 
 
 IT is greatly helpful, and encouraging too, 
 to read God's remonstrances and upbraid- 
 ings at Israel's departures from Him, his ear- 
 nest wishes that they had continued faithful, 
 and his promises if they will return, — all de- 
 signed to show us what it is which God de- 
 sires in us, these things being recorded not as 
 mere chronicles, but to instruct the world by 
 illustration rather than by a code of dry, ab- 
 stract rules. 
 
 TT^HOU wilt make all his bed in his 
 JL sickness." Some expressions of con- 
 descension on the part of God, like some 
 acts of the same kind on the part of the 
 Saviour, are beyond our conception. But let 
 ns not be faithless, but believing. We must 
 not take our own measures with us in judg- 
 ing of God. His ways are not as our ways 
 in showing kindness, nor his thoughts as our 
 thoughts. If they had been in times past, 
 how poorly had we fared. 
 
12 BROADCAST. 
 
 THERE was a seeming inconsistency be* 
 tween Noah's preaching and the size 
 of his ark. Suppose that multitudes had 
 been converted? Hence, did not God intend 
 that they should not repent ? Answer : So 
 men cavil about God's purposes and his invi- 
 tations. If multitudes had believed Noah, 
 they too could have built arks. Perhaps 
 they would have prevented the flood. 
 
 "QLEEP in Jesus." Beautiful words. 
 1<J They are not said to sleep in their 
 winding-sheet, in their shroud, in their coffin, 
 in their grave, but, first of all, they " sleep 
 in Jesus," and in the same sense they con- 
 tinue " asleep " in him, while they live with 
 him in heaven ; — for one characteristic of 
 the Bible is that it describes things as they 
 appear. The identification of believers with 
 Christ is brought to view in this Christian 
 synonyme for death, — "sleep in Jesus." 
 
BROADCAST. 13 
 
 MOST wonderful are the interpositions 
 of God for his wicked people when he 
 sees the heathen enemies proposing to destroy 
 them. He will punish his children, but if a 
 stranger interposes, he will take part with the 
 children. Moreover, he will employ strangers 
 to punish them, and then punish the perse- 
 cutors. This must have vexed the heathen 
 nations, and it must have softened the hearts 
 of rebellious Israel. All this is for our learn- 
 ing. God and his people and their enemies 
 are the same as of old. 
 
 " fT^HEY saw the man clothed and in his 
 JL right mind, and they were afraid. " 
 The change impressed them more than the 
 original possession. We see some who are 
 exceedingly wrought upon by beholding a 
 case of conversion in a relative or friend. 
 Nothing troubles a guilty, unbelieving heart 
 more than this. 
 
14 BROADCAST, 
 
 RIDING at anchor, in some uncertainty 
 as to the soundings and the reefs, I 
 thought of the Bible as anchorage amidst 
 doubts, and scepticism, and fears. Blessed 
 book, which recalls us from wondering, vague 
 feelings about God and futurity. It is, more- 
 over, like an island to escaped mariners, ■ — 
 solid rock, and stable earth, while all around 
 is sea and mist. 
 
 WE would be very careful how we im- 
 portuned certain men if we needed 
 a favor of them. We would state the case 
 clearly and fully, and leave it to their con- 
 sideration, trusting to their judgment and 
 fidelity, feeling sure of an answer in the 
 proper time. Is there any danger, by im- 
 portunity in prayer, of impropriety ? Let us 
 be clear and full in our supplication, also re- 
 membering what he " must believe " " that 
 cometh to God." 
 
BROADCAST. 15 
 
 JOHN discovered the Saviour before the 
 rest, on the sea-shore. His quick, dis- 
 cerning love helped him to say to Simon 
 Peter, " It is the Lord." Happy he who in 
 darkness and storms can exclaim thus to his 
 companions. 
 
 " 13 UT I have prayed for thee." Might 
 JL# we but hear this whispered in the 
 anticipation of trial and temptation ! In fore- 
 sight of specially needed grace, perhaps the 
 Advocate with the Father has made particular 
 mention of us before God. 
 
 "XT THEREFORE, let them that suffer 
 V ? according to the will of God," — 
 showing that sufferings are as really his will 
 as obedience. To suffer well is as acceptable 
 as to do well. 
 
16 BROADCAST. 
 
 ft TT was that Mary that anointed the Lord 
 A with ointment and wiped his feet with 
 her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick." 
 Yes, and he died. Dear Evangelist, you seem 
 to insinuate the tender thought that one so 
 kind and loving to Jesus might perhaps be 
 spared such trials. O how many such Marys 
 there are, and with the self-same griefs. But 
 when Christ has made one capable of loving 
 him greatly, He is fond of exercising that love. 
 We delight in using anything which performs 
 its office well. So when God has an excellent 
 case of faith, or of love, he uses it, puts it at 
 work ; and so we see why some of the very 
 best of people have great and strange afflic- 
 tions. 
 
 GOD should be our aim and end in 
 preaching, as well as to save souls. We 
 should seek to save souls not merely for their 
 sakes, but "that God in all things may be 
 glorified." 
 
BROADCAST. t 17 
 
 * \ CCEPTED in the beloved." One who 
 -Z \. brings an introduction to us from a 
 very dear friend, as his friend greatly beloved, 
 is sure of a cordial welcome. We for the 
 time transfer our love for our friend to him, 
 and when we come to love him for his own 
 sake also, our love has double strength. At 
 first he was accepted of us in our beloved. 
 The Saviour's acknowledgment of us before 
 God is an immediate and sure guaranty of 
 love on the part of God. 
 
 GOD can spare any man or angel who 
 chooses to sin. We are not essential 
 to his glory or happiness. Past privileges, 
 usefulness, attainments, position, are no defence, 
 if we forsake God. " The angels that kept 
 not their first estate he hath reserved in ever- 
 lasting chains." " Having saved the people 
 out of the land of Egypt," he "afterward 
 destroyed them that believed not." 
 
18 BROADCAST. 
 
 CONTINUED infancy in spiritual things 
 was owing to contention, in the case of 
 the Corinthians. So in any church, — a quar- 
 rel keeps people from spiritual growth. Few 
 things are worse than disturbances in a Christ- 
 ian church. Its meetings are a refuge, and a 
 covert, from public, domestic, private trials ; 
 but when the church is disturbed, we seem to 
 be homeless. Woe to him who disturbs the 
 peace of Christ's house. 
 
 A TRULY converted man by his fall into 
 sin may in the lapse of years be found 
 to have been the means of vast good in keep- 
 ing others steadfast. But we are inclined to 
 think only of the scandal brought on religion 
 in such a case. The more prompt and vin- 
 dictive the detection and punishment of coun- 
 terfeiting, the greater the proof that there is 
 a sound currency, and that men value it as 
 they ought. 
 
BROADCAST. 19 
 
 MODESTY and humility should be in 
 proportion to gifts. Gabriel is proba- 
 bly most meek. Moses had a greater combina- 
 tion of talent than any other mortal, and he 
 was the meekest of men. Of others, take Sir 
 Isaac Newton, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady 
 Huntington, for examples. 
 
 ELISHA'S predicting to Hazael his reign 
 and wickedness, and Hazael's fulfilment 
 of the prediction, show that the clearest dis- 
 closures of future retribution by one from the 
 dead would not, of themselves, deter wicked 
 men from sin and its known consequences. 
 
 RELIGION is hostile only to that which 
 is hostile to religion. It is no enemy 
 to innocent pleasure, but its best friend. 
 
20 BROADCAST. 
 
 » 
 
 WHAT mysteriousness is there in moral 
 culture, development ? None at all. 
 Yet this with many is conversion. But Christ 
 represents regeneration as a mystery, and lik- 
 ens it to the mystery of the wind. Now what 
 have I ever experienced, what do I preach, 
 as to Regeneration, which makes me feel the 
 appropriateness of the Saviour's illustration, 
 " so is every one that is born of the Spirit " ? 
 — He experiences something more mysterious 
 than merely changing his views, fh^ does 
 not satisfy the illustration of Christ. 
 
 " y^HIEFLY that unto them were, commit- 
 V^>4 ted the oracles of God." This reason 
 assigned for the pre-eminent advantage of the 
 Jew over all others, namely, that he received 
 those communications from God of which the 
 Old Testament is a record, is a powerful con- 
 futation of modern cavils against the elder 
 Scripture. _,,._ , I ..;. :. - 
 
BROADCAST. 21 
 
 I CAN see no sufficient reason in myself why 
 I should be forgiven, says a sinner. True, 
 and therefore God says, "I, even I, am he 
 that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine 
 own sake." Are you not willing to be for- 
 given, if God may get honor by it ? Plead 
 that as the reason why you may look for par- 
 don and salvation. 
 
 THE condescending kindness of God, and 
 his care for his Church, are illustrated 
 in his first revealing his name, Jehovah, in 
 connection with the deliverance of Israel out 
 of Egypt. 
 
 NO one can long be a secret follower of 
 Christ. "He entered into an house, 
 and would have no man know it ; but he 
 could not be hid." If Christ be in you, it 
 will be known. 
 
22 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE fearlessness with which the Bible 
 asserts divine sovereignty, decrees, di- 
 vine agency, irrespective of cavils and philo- 
 sophical objections, should at least keep us 
 from dwelling wholly on the side of human 
 accountability. " For God hath put in their 
 hearts to fiilfil his will." The two things are 
 equally true, and they coexist. 
 
 WE may fear for the piety of one who 
 believes in Christian perfection in this 
 life. There are two reasons: he has probably 
 never seen the plague of his own heart; and 
 he does not seem to trtfst wholly to the right- 
 eousness of Christ. A man who feels that he 
 can be sinless, does not know the spirituality 
 of God's law ; and thinking so much of his 
 sinlessness, he does not, like Paul, have that 
 self-renunciation which they have who are 
 "found in him, not having their own right- 
 eousness." 
 
BROADCAST. 23 * 
 
 * 
 « TJVORBEAR thee from meddling with 
 
 X. God." This was good advice, though 
 from a heathen king, and it must have been 
 a great reproof to Josiah. We must learn 
 when to yield before the force of circum- 
 stances, and change our plan ; and when to 
 refrain from interposing, however kind our in- 
 tentions may be, in the affairs of others. 
 
 WHEN we speak against acting with a 
 view to reward, we are in danger of 
 being w T iser than God. We may trust him 
 with the morality of the motives which he 
 proposes. " Be not overmuch righteous ; why 
 shouldest thou destroy thyself? V There is no 
 danger in doing anything and 'everything with 
 a view to the Divine approbation. Think of 
 Moses : " For he had respect unto the rec- 
 ompense of the reward." Think of Christ, 
 "who, for the joy set before him, endured 
 the cross." 
 
24 BROADCAST. 
 
 " T/'E are as graves." Graves are sometimes 
 JL covered with Italian marble, beautiful 
 images repose upon them, green sods, flowers, 
 adorn them, the small bird builds her nest in 
 the grass ; the eye is charmed, the heart 
 touched ; we linger there. Then there are 
 graves where there are but slight signs of 
 interment, the mounds, if any, are sunken, and 
 men walk over them. In both, a disclosure 
 would fill us with horror. Ye are as graves ! 
 What an image have we here from Him who 
 spake as never man spake. 
 
 ^"TMIE Few. — There is "a few" in every 
 JL church who are the heart. — The few 
 save the many. - — The few do most of the 
 work. — Christ began with a few. " Many 
 are called, but few are chosen." Some for- 
 merly proposed to render this, " choice ones." 
 The truth would warrant this translation better 
 than the Greek, 
 
BROADCAST. 25 
 
 ON pleasing God. — If we live a good 
 life, we shall always be likely to dp 
 some special act which will greatly please God. 
 Abraham's offering of Isaac was not a solitary 
 act, but the result of a good state of heart. 
 But it secured for him the promises. God 
 will furnish us with opportunities for special 
 acts of obedience, if we live hear to Him. 
 
 OUR nature, it seems, is capable of a per- 
 sonal union with Deity. Strange that 
 this truth as set forth in the person of Christ 
 should meet with opposition. It opens to us 
 an inconceivable prospect as to the capacities 
 of the soul. Can Deity personally coexist 
 with our nature, act through it, retain it for- 
 ever, — not assuming it for a temporary pur- 
 pose, and then laying it aside, but through 
 eternity using it as a medium of manifestation ? 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
 " But — we shall be like Him." 
 2* 
 
26 BROADCAST. 
 
 THERE is an important difference be- 
 tween love and kindness. Some love 
 you who really are not kind. Again, we may 
 be kind where we may not love. The two 
 things go well together ; and loving-kindness 
 is most beautiful. God uses the word often 
 in speaking to us. 
 
 PAUL makes asseverations that he did not 
 " lie " in what he said. Were his friends 
 so untruthful when pagans that they now 
 needed strong assertions ? There are cases in 
 which we must not stand upon our dignity, 
 but deny, assert, assure, and use protestations 
 of truth and innocency. 
 
 OTHAT this could be said of us: "And 
 by their prayer for you which long after 
 you for the exceeding grace of God in you." 
 
BROADCAST. 27 
 
 THE power of present discouragement to 
 make us forego all our previous hopes 
 and expectations, and to practically annihilate 
 the promises of God, is illustrated in Elijah, 
 who seems to have had some intimation of his 
 future translation to heaven, but under the 
 juniper-tree offers to relinquish that distinction 
 and privilege, saying, " Take away my life, for 
 I am not better than my fathers " ; so let 
 me die as they died, only be it now. — God was 
 better to him than he and we would be to 
 ourselves, could we have our desires. 
 
 ONE frequent cure of religious despond- 
 ency, when it is not owing to bodily 
 distemper, is, a clear apprehension of the dis- 
 tinction between Faith and Hope. We are 
 not justified by Hope. That is not the ground 
 of pardon. Remember him " who against 
 hope believed." There may be faith where 
 hope seems to be out of the question. 
 
28 BROADCAST. 
 
 IF one will reflect upon the nature and 
 number of his religious opportunities, his 
 instructions, his liberty to be alone for reflec- 
 tion, his calls from the pulpit, from providence, 
 and in his conscience, his Sabbaths, his years 
 of Christian privileges, he cannot but see that 
 he might have saved his soul a thousand times, 
 and that there is no reason why eternal con- 
 sequences should not follow even this short 
 life. 
 
 •'XIKTE pray you in Christ's stead." A 
 y 1 high commission. And how would 
 Christ "pray you"? "Lord, teach us to 
 pray," in this sense also. 
 
 THEY who fear God need not be afraid 
 of him ; but they will be sure to be 
 afraid of him who do not fear him. 
 
BROADCAST. 29 
 
 WE all seem to take it for granted that 
 few comparatively will be lost. Some 
 say it to apologize for future punishment. But 
 the majority may be lost, and illustrate to other 
 beings what sin can do, seeing that only a mi- 
 nority of those for whom God became incarnate 
 accepted his redemption. By all calculations, 
 so many will perish as to make endless punish- 
 ment as great a mystery as though there were 
 a thousand times more. This world is not the 
 universe. 
 
 THERE is great power in a friendly visit, 
 a single call, at the right time, under 
 certain circumstances, and with benevolent mo- 
 tives. Gifts and alms are well, but your pres- 
 ence is the greatest attention. A call well 
 devised and properly made sometimes has in- 
 fluence for life. " When he was in Rome, he 
 sought me out very diligently and found me. 
 The Lord grant unto him that he may find 
 mercy of the Lord in that day." 
 
30 BROADCAST. 
 
 NO subsequent good conduct can restore 
 men to Christian society if they do cer- 
 tain evil things. He who yields to certain 
 temptations must know that it is for his life. 
 The rigor of public moral sentiment in this 
 direction is a safeguard to virtue. 
 
 THE design of Christ's death is to save 
 the elect, while it is sufficient for all. 
 The clear and full belief of this will exalt our 
 conceptions of his love to the Church, that is, 
 to the individuals composing it. "Christ also 
 loved the Church, and gave himself for it." 
 
 IF God uses others, and not us, to glorify 
 him in undesirable ways, we ought to be 
 grateful, and more zealous, and more useful, 
 and watch. 
 
BROADCAST. 31 
 
 SOMETIMES you question whether every- 
 thing is not an illusion, even the great 
 verities of the Christian faith. It is a vaporish 
 state of mind. Do not give utterance to it 
 except in prayer. Look into the Bible, turn 
 over the pages here and there, and something 
 will strike you with the force of reality. Some 
 feelings cannot be reasoned down, for they did 
 not come through reasoning. 
 
 BEGIN with Love. Anything which 
 makes you love will make you penitent 
 and believing. Instead of trying to excite grief 
 for sin, and faith, fix your grateful love on the 
 Saviour, and everything else will flow in upon 
 your heart. " Her sins, which are many, are 
 forgiven, for she loved much." She loved be- 
 fore she was aware that she had saving faith, 
 or true repentance. Love involves them. Love 
 is not only the fulfilling of the Law, it is the 
 fulfilling of the Gospel. 
 
32 BROADCAST. 
 
 " f^\ OD was manifest in the flesh." Fear- 
 V^J lessly spoken. Let us dwell upon it 
 more, in its literal acceptation. The Supreme 
 Deity of Jesus Christ is the corner-stone of 
 Christianity. It is infinitely grand, ennobling. 
 It shapes our whole belief. All our views of 
 God depend upon this. The union of God in 
 Christ, — - the God-man, — is the all-important 
 truth. 
 
 ASSURANCE of faith, and joy, are no. 
 the chief evidences of acceptance with 
 God, as we incline to make them. Self-loath- 
 ing, and humility, are as good signs of grace 
 as they. 
 
 JEHOSHAPHAT'S weakness was, alliance 
 w^ith bad characters. How foolishly he 
 went into it, in the case of Ahab, and of Ahaziah, 
 2 Chron. xviii. and xx. 
 
BROADCAST. 3a 
 
 TO leave men free, yet accountable, is in- 
 finite wisdom, God does not govern 
 men as he governs planets. To govern them 
 while they are at the same time wholly re- 
 sponsible, is the great mystery and the divine 
 glory of his administration. 
 
 WE carry our disposition, temper, and 
 manners even into our treatment of 
 our God. How do we behave ourselves to- 
 ward him? Are we agreeable companions 
 for those heavenly visitors who say, " We will 
 come unto him and make our abode with him" ? 
 
 IN vain do I urge against God's mercy, — 
 I am a sinner. That is provided for. 
 " When we were yet without strength, — 
 Christ died for the ungodly." . 
 
 2* c 
 
34 BROADCAST. 
 
 IT is a great and good thing for God to give 
 us a heart for any duty or event. With 
 the heart in it, a labor, or sacrifice, or an event, 
 Jbecomes changed. Difficulties disappear, the 
 complexion of things is altered. We become 
 qualified at once for a difficult situation to which 
 we are called, by having another heart given us. 
 King Saul was thus favored. He shrunk from 
 promotion. God gave him another heart, a 
 spirit and frame of mind congenial with his 
 new duties. It was not " a new heart," but it 
 was good, and it was an unspeakable help. 
 
 THE sublimest truths are familiarly em- 
 ployed in the Bible for personal applica- 
 tion. " Let this mind be in you which was 
 also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form 
 of God, thought it not robbery to be equal 
 with God," &c. — Notice the exhortations to 
 "servants," leading directly to the grandest 
 propositions concerning the Christian system. 
 
BROADCAST. 35 
 
 TWO things are essential if a man would 
 preach any considerable time to the same 
 people, viz. " Long-suffering and Doctrine.'* 
 Without long-suffering, he will be wearied by 
 want of success and by his various trials ; and 
 without doctrine he will be vapid, a mere ex- 
 horter, draw from an empty well, drive away 
 the thinking portion of his hearers, or make 
 them turn him away for one who will feed 
 them with knowledge as well as emotion. Paul, 
 the preacher, knew what he did when he was 
 led to use those words, "long-suffering and 
 doctrine." 
 
 "T^XERCISE thyself unto godliness." 
 I J The word in the original refers to 
 Gymnastics. Practise in being good. Use 
 means, arts, self-denial, labor, be ingenious 
 in seeking to be godly. It is not a matter 
 of course to be godly. It requires practice, 
 training, exercise. The exhortation was to 
 Timothy, a minister, from the great Apostle. 
 
,36 BROADCAST. 
 
 CHRISTIANS should make a study of 
 Christian morals, and seek to be exem- 
 plary in morality. The world appreciates that, 
 and cannot understand spirituality. But if 
 men see Christians made better in that which 
 is the world's religion, that is, morality, it leads 
 them to think that there is a reality in Chris- 
 tian experience. 
 
 i 
 
 KNOW how well my heart hath earned 
 
 A chastisement like this, 
 In trifling many a grace away 
 
 In self-complacent bliss." 
 
 Great penetration and self-knowledge are in 
 these words. There is a spiritual luxury, and 
 spiritual pride. Work is one antidote and cure. 
 Some Christians are like sponges on the rocks 
 at Corfu, now dry, now filled with water, then 
 dry, to be saturated again. And there they 
 cleave and cling to one spot, and do no good. 
 The ocean of divine truth only fills them, while 
 they ought to be emptying their gains on others- 
 
BROADCAST. 37 
 
 THERE is misanthropy sometimes among 
 those who profess to love God and 
 their brother also. They avoid intercourse 
 and contact with others. The cure is, to mix 
 with others in order to give pleasure, not to 
 get it ; " not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister." To shun society, and shut one's 
 self up in himself, is less than human. " Then 
 the beasts go into dens, and remain in their 
 places." It is the cold which makes them 
 do so. 
 
 TAKE example from Christ, sitting on 
 the well, and talking with one person, 
 no matter whom. How she spread his words. 
 And what words they were ! The doctrine 
 of the universality of acceptable worship was 
 propounded there, and the axe laid at the 
 root of prescription and formalism in religion. 
 We must not be penurious of our thoughts, 
 nor refuse to preach our best sermons on rainy 
 days to a few hearers. 
 
38 BROADCAST. 
 
 « 1 1 "VHERE is that for bashfulness promiseth 
 JL his friend, and maketh him his enemy 
 for nothing." (Ecclesiasticus xx.) A too 
 ready way of assenting and agreeing with an- 
 other, from fear of saying No, and then finding 
 that the engagement is impracticable, and thence 
 an affront given by seeming indifference or 
 want of faithfulness, are referred to in this wise 
 observation of human conduct. Lasting aliena- 
 tions have grown up in this way, and all " for 
 nothing." 
 
 NEVER make a mistake, meet with a 
 disappointment, suffer, lose anything 
 which you prized, or go through any sorrow, 
 without causing it to be a source of instruc- 
 tion. " Who, passing through the valley of 
 Baca, make it a well." True wisdom this, in- 
 stead of abandoning ourselves to grief. Rather 
 say, What am I to learn, be, do, as the result 
 of this trial ? So dig in the valley of sorrow ; 
 it is full of springs not far below the surface. 
 
BROADCAST. 39 
 
 IT must be a great satisfaction to a good 
 man, after the day of judgment, to feel that 
 he has had his heart and his life ransacked, 
 turned inside out, everything explained, defined, 
 acknowledged, confessed, forgiven, settled ; and 
 thenceforth no more need, with him, of judg- 
 ment days. 
 
 SOME people suffer long and bitterly, and 
 do not concern themselves to know the 
 cause. " Then there was a famine — three 
 years, — and David inquired of the Lord," and 
 he said, "It is for Saul and for his bloody 
 house, because he slew the Gibeonites." 
 
 " II THERE also our Lord was crucified." 
 v ▼ Earth seen from other worlds is 
 perhaps designated by this event, irrespective 
 of latitude and longitude upon its surface. 
 
40 BROADCAST. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES with the truth are in 
 danger of making us part company with 
 Christ. " This is an hard saying, who can 
 hear it? — From that time many of his disci- 
 ples went back and walked no more with him. 
 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also 
 go away?" So a personal attachment to the 
 Saviour helps us to understand, or at least to 
 receive with meekness, many difficult things in 
 religion. 
 
 WHAT a glorious creation Christ is, as 
 God -man. "He is the beginning 
 (stands at the head) of the creation of God." 
 So he is the goal for which our nature is to run. 
 
 IF one can bring himself to admit the God- 
 head of Jesus Christ, it will prove a solvent 
 for a great many difficulties in religion. 
 
BROADCAST. 41 
 
 TALKING plainly, patiently, and to your 
 utmost satisfaction, with argument and 
 illustration, to ofie who differs from you, but is 
 willing to hear, you are perhaps surprised to 
 find how little impression you have made upon 
 him. So one who had tried to give a blind 
 man an idea of the distinction between colors 
 was affected when the poor man quietly re- 
 marked at the close, " I have an idea that red 
 is something like the sound of a trumpet." 
 " The natural man receiveth not the things of 
 the Spirit of God." "Nicodemus answered and 
 said unto him, How can these things be?" 
 
 THE Psalms of David are true theology. 
 Poetry, in its true sense, is the highest 
 effort of the human soul. Religion expressed 
 in the Psalms is the vital action of the 
 renewed heart. The distinction is a very nice 
 and critical one between the theology of the 
 intellect and the theology of the feelings. 
 
42 BROADCAST. 
 
 " T EST if thou be silent unto me, I be- 
 1 J come like them that go down into the 
 pit." How indispensable communion with God 
 had become to this man! It should be painful, 
 nay, distressing to us, not to have God make 
 us feel that he regards and hears us. 
 
 IT would be good to live through a week 
 with the Sabbath in anticipation* It would 
 be likely to be a good Sabbath to us. It would 
 shed its light forward into the next week, and 
 meet the coming Lord's day. 
 
 APPLY those sublime words to perished 
 hopes, lost fortunes, departed joys, cloud- 
 ed prospects, ill success, —-"I am the Resur- 
 rection and the Life." They are as true of 
 these as they are of our dead bodies. 
 
BROADCAST. 43 
 
 « T)REPARE a place for you." — Then 
 JL everything is not already fixed and 
 settled, with monotonous uniformity, like the 
 twenty or thirty tenements in a block of 
 buildings. But there will be adaptedness to 
 our tastes, our characters, our conduct, our 
 connections, our future occupation. "I — 
 prepare a place for you," I, who, as man, 
 know and appreciate all your feelings and 
 wishes. His eye is on us while he is prepar- 
 ing our place. He may be influenced in his 
 preparation by his observation of us. 
 
 " He lives, my mansion to prepare ; 
 He lives to bring me safely there." 
 
 WE have never had a true conception of 
 grandeur, we shall say, when we see 
 the second coming of Christ. " He shall come 
 in his own glory, and in the glory of the Father, 
 and of the holy angels." Distinguish between 
 these, and then combine them. 
 
44 BROADCAST. 
 
 WHAT " change " did Job refer to ? " If 
 a man die, shall he live again ? All the 
 days of my appointed time will I wait till my 
 change come." Was not resurrection in his 
 thoughts ? He had been speaking of living 
 again. Moreover, see the next verse : " Thou 
 shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt 
 have a desire to the work of thy hands." A 
 believer in the Resurrection feels that there is 
 something in these words which a cold-heart- 
 ed, sceptical neologist will prove, perhaps to 
 demonstration, can by no possibility be derived 
 from it. 
 
 THAT festoon made by the Aurora Bo- 
 realis, August 28, 1859, seemed to be 
 directly over your dwelling. A million of 
 people probably thought the same, each of his 
 dwelling. So the Bible is all yours, all its 
 promises, its God, its Saviour, all yours, as 
 though there were not millions to share them 
 with you, and think the same. 
 
BROADCAST. 45 
 
 BECAUSE "Billingsgate" became wjiat it 
 is, say only one hundred and fifty years 
 ago, therefore there was no vituperative lan- 
 guage previous to that time ! Such is the argu- 
 ment?, translated, of those who say that, because 
 Gehenna became such as it was about such a 
 year, therefore there was no hell previously. 
 Moreover, inasmuch as Jerusalem rose only 
 with the kings of Israel, there was no heaven 
 before, because a familiar name of heaven is 
 " Jerusalem." 
 
 REWARDS from God are mercy. " Also 
 unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy ; for 
 thou renderest to every man according to his 
 works." We should call this justice. Not so 
 to a sinner who has forfeited everything. It is 
 infinite mercy to reward the works of one who 
 can do nothing meritorious in the way of justi- 
 fication. This is an indirect assertion, in the 
 Old Testament, of the great idea of salvation 
 by grace. 
 
46 BROADCAST. 
 
 DAVID with some seems to be less confi- 
 dent in hope after his fall than before, 
 judging from his Psalms. See the ineffaceable 
 influence upon the soul, of transgression ! 
 
 THEOLOGY is not mere knowing for 
 the sake of knowing ; but to live nearer 
 to God. A theologian ought to have fervent 
 piety, unction. Otherwise, he is mere lead- 
 pipe or water-log. 
 
 THERE are exquisite touches of beautiful 
 social feelings in Paul's Epistles. Here 
 is one : " For he longed after you all, and was 
 full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that 
 he had been sick." It is a refinement of love, 
 indeed, to yearn after those who had had solici- 
 tude for our affliction. Such refinement the 
 religion of Jesus produces in pagan bosoms. 
 
BROADCAST. 47 
 
 WE do well to conceive, if we can, what 
 a change of affairs there will be when 
 this whole mediatorial kingdom comes to an end. 
 The principles of it now run through all our 
 social existence, enter into all the dealings of 
 God with us, both in his common providence 
 and in his grace. To withdraw this mediato- 
 rial element is like withdrawing caloric or oxy- 
 gen from nature. " Who shall live when God 
 doeth this ? " " Then cometh the end, when 
 He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even 
 the Father." 
 
 JOB tells us (ch. xxx.) how, as a magistrate, 
 he had dealt with the w r retched scum of 
 society, the pestilent fellows, the plunderers, 
 the villains of his day. But now, he says, in his 
 adversity, they return upon him. His descrip- 
 tion of them, and of the indignities which he 
 suffered from them, is a vivid picture of future 
 misery in the next world from a similar source. 
 " Gather not my soul with sinners." 
 
48 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE pleasures of sin are very sweet ; let 
 us not deny it. But " the pleasures of 
 sin for a season," — this expression warns us of 
 the bitter end. The everlasting loss of pleas- 
 ure will be aggravated by the recollections of it. 
 Suppose the desires of sinners to be eternal. 
 Dante pictures this like no one else. Some 
 dear young friends, with everything to tempt 
 them, wisely say, We wish to be happy forever, 
 and our bliss will begin when that of the devo- 
 tee of the world ends. Besides, we are hap- 
 pier now than he. 
 
 DOES Job now curse the day of his 
 birth ? Far different would his lan- 
 guage be could he now return and suffer. 
 The book of which he was the occasion is 
 worth to him a thousand times all his tribu- 
 lation. When we are plunged into great and 
 strange trials, let us look forward a thousand 
 years ; let us imagine what fruit God may be 
 purposing to raise out of our affliction. 
 
BROADCAST. 49 
 
 THE silent influence of a pious home is 
 illustrated by the Prodigal Son. Had 
 that home been repulsive to him, or had his 
 father been a stern, forbidding man, that re- 
 covering thought about home would not have 
 visited him. Take courage, parents of prodi- 
 gals, if you were faithful with God and your 
 family altars. Persevere, parents, in family re- 
 ligion. It may be like the fabulous song of 
 the sea in the shell, to the ear of a child when 
 far from home and from God. 
 
 CONSIDERING the Incarnation, the Sac- 
 rifice, the Resurrection, Ascension, Me- 
 diatorship of our Lord, not to obey from the 
 heart his commands in the Gospel, is justly 
 declared a crime, subjecting us to the wrath of 
 God. Substitute an earthly parent, husband, 
 master, for Christ, and suppose all to be done 
 which Christ has done, and how would we re- 
 gard a corresponding neglect and disobedience ? 
 
50 BROADCAST. 
 
 NATIONS losing the knowledge of the 
 true God, have not at once had it re- 
 stored to them. They who dwell exclusively 
 on the paternal character of God cannot ex- 
 plain this. Were the relation of father the 
 only type of God's relation to man, he would 
 have hastened to restore his worship to the 
 descendants of those who once knew but for- 
 sook him. " Who in times past suffered all 
 nations to walk in their own ways." And 
 how did they walk ! See here the retributive 
 and vindictive element in the Divine adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 COUNT up special instances of Divine 
 interposition in your history, cases in 
 which God signally appeared for your relief. 
 How many do you find yourself able to 
 recall ? Then read, — " And the Lord was 
 angry with Solomon because his heart was- 
 turned from the Lord God of Israel, which 
 had appeared unto him twice," 
 
BROADCAST, 51 
 
 " T% >TINE hand shall not be upon thee." 
 ItX Conscious of receiving a great wrong, 
 it has wonderful power to forbear retaliation. 
 We are thereby made superior to the evil-doer. 
 We leave the case with God. Soon the thought 
 of God as an avenger makes us pity, and even 
 love, the adversary. 
 
 " T T UMBLE yourselves, therefore." You 
 Ml Jl have met with a great blow. The 
 first thing to be done is to bow down before 
 God. Wait for no explanation, consolation. 
 Your place is in the dust at once. 
 
 THERE are four different ways by which 
 men expect and propose to be saved. 
 One is Fate. Another is Chance. A third 
 is Self. The fourth is Christ. 
 
52 BROADCAST. 
 
 REPENTANCE and faith may be included 
 in some one act when the soul is uncon- 
 scious of repenting or believing. The publican 
 in the temple probably was not aware that he 
 was complying with the terms of salvation. 
 The woman that was a sinner probably made 
 no analysis of her feelings when she wept at 
 the feet of Christ. Her love was repentance, 
 faith, submission, consecration, all together. 
 
 IT brings tears to think how kind God is to 
 reward our poor efforts for him, represent- 
 ing himself as laid under obligation. " God is 
 not unrighteous to forget your work and labor 
 of love." The intimation seems to be that 
 God would esteem it " unrighteous " in him 
 not to reward us, — instead of reminding us 
 that we are unprofitable servants, and that we 
 never do more than our duty. What a God 
 we serve ! 
 
BROADCAST. 53 
 
 "y^ALL the poor, the maimed, &c. Do- 
 V^>4 ing good to such serves to prevent 
 wrong motives in charitable acts, and excites a 
 pure, disinterested love, which is most like the 
 love of ministering angels, who get no reward 
 from us. It is also kindred with the love of 
 God toward us and the pure compassion of 
 Christ. 
 
 a /k ND Judas also knew the place." There 
 -Z JL is a history in that line which the mind 
 of John might portray with divine pathos. 
 That place is portrayed in the thoughts of Ju- 
 das, in "his own place." He went there from 
 Gethsemane. Shall we? 
 
 ONE is interceding for us in heaven: — 
 " Sit ye here while I go and pray 
 yonder." Let us watch with him. 
 
54 BROADCAST. 
 
 WHILE we must give no directions ta 
 a sinner which he might be using 
 and yet perish, there are undoubtedly means 
 of conversion which are profitably employed. 
 Put yourself in the way of the Holy Spirit. 
 Go where you think he is. Avoid things 
 which you know hinder conversion. " And 
 ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall 
 search for me with all your heart." 
 
 NO doubt some lost sinners will be exas- 
 perated when they see how God spares 
 their companions in guilt, and saves them 
 though as deserving of perdition as themselves. 
 What partiality!, they might say. No doubt 
 they resolve that such a being is not fit to reign. 
 Perhaps they declare that they would rather 
 suffer, than love and serve him. But there 
 were instances in which others were cut off, 
 and these complainers were left. 
 
BROADCAST. 55 
 
 a ^ST^ET all this availeth me nothing so long 
 JL as I see Mordecai the' Jew sitting at the 
 king's gate." The folly of cherishing animos- 
 ity against a fellow-creature, brooding over your 
 prejudice, conversing about it. Rather go and 
 see him, and find something in him, as you will, 
 to qualify your feelings. Shall one worm of 
 the dust make you wretched? spoil every pleas- 
 ure? cover even the face of God? 
 
 TO see beauty is to love it. Hence all 
 who do not love God do not know him. 
 No matter whether prejudice, or antipathy, or 
 consciousness of sin, be the cause, the man 
 who does not love God does not know him. 
 All such are " Gentiles that know not God." 
 Yet all beauty dwells in him as its source. 
 The conception of every beautiful thing was 
 w T ith him. Not to love God, then, is entire 
 depravity. 
 
oQ BROADCAST. 
 
 " T> EF0RE Abraham was, I am." "Then 
 JLJ the Jews took up stones again to stone 
 him." The human heart has strong repugnance 
 to the superhuman nature of Christ. It requires 
 the submission of our reason to faith. It is such 
 an infinite privilege to have such a Saviour and 
 friend as Christ, the God-man, must be, the 
 wonder is that all are not prejudiced in favor 
 of his deity. 
 
 WE do not feel at liberty to praise a 
 distinguished man to his face. But 
 we can tell God all our feelings toward him, 
 and offer praises to him continually. " O thou 
 that inhabitest the praises of Israel." 
 
 SUPPOSE that Christ interceded as we 
 pray. * How can we expect him to do 
 better than we ? If the client is not in ear- 
 nest, can he blame his advocate ? 
 
BROADCAST. 57 
 
 " 1\ /TORE than twelve legions of angels." 
 ItI We should have them at our side, 
 " presently," if we needed them. Perhaps we 
 have them now. " And behold the mountain 
 was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
 about Elisha." 
 
 DANIEL showed his wisdom in simply- 
 doing " as he did aforetime," when the 
 decree was signed forbidding prayer except to 
 the king. He did not increase his seasons of 
 devotion, so defying the law ; he did not lift 
 up holy hands with wrath. 
 
 " \ "^^ Jonah rose up to flee from the 
 jL Jl presence of the Lord." It is easy to do 
 so without going to Tarshish. Avoid prayer. 
 Live in a known sin. Neglect known duty. 
 Be worldly-minded. Desecrate the Sabbath. 
 
 3* 
 
58 BROADCAST. 
 
 WHEN we have prayed for direction, 
 God leaves us in perplexity, exhaust- 
 ing our strength, till at last we hit upon a 
 plan, seemingly by accident. God thus hides 
 himself, while really at work for us, to conceal 
 his agency, and exalt the duty of effort, and to 
 preserve and honor human responsibility. 
 
 THERE are very many instances in the 
 Bible, plainly right, in which our in- 
 stincts would surely have been at fault. For 
 example, Christ's washing his disciples' feet; 
 giving them that repast on the sea-shore, — 
 the fire being kindled by him, and the fish 
 laid thereon ; sitting on the ass in his entrance 
 to Jerusalem ; several directions of a personal 
 nature to the prophets ; Moses shut out of Ca- 
 naan, &c, &c. Our moral sentiments, then, 
 are not the standard for God's administration. 
 We must correct our moral sentiments, as we 
 do our chronometers, by a standard. 
 
BROADCAST. 59 
 
 CHRIST, apprehended by the affections, 
 and making himself an inmate of the 
 soul, shortens distances, lightens labor, turns 
 despondency to cheerfulness, relieves us of 
 burdensome responsibility, making us feel that 
 he is working in us, by us, and for us. " Then 
 they willingly received him into the ship, and 
 immediately the ship was at the land whither 
 they went." 
 
 IN the stillness of Sabbath mornings, the 
 prevailing frame of mind, thought, subject 
 on which we dwell, is apt to show what our 
 prevailing frame has been during the week. 
 It rises to the top. 
 
 THERE is a remarkable frequency, in the 
 Bible, of the expression " love mercy," 
 as applied to man. 
 
60 BROADCAST. 
 
 THINK of the law of God being en- 
 tirely satisfied, for Christ's sake, with 
 a good man, in his life and conversation, who 
 truly believes in the justifying righteousness 
 of Christ. " That the righteousness of the 
 law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not 
 after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
 
 THE soul will forever have its deliberate 
 choice, formed here, and persisted in. 
 " The fruit of his doings," " the reward of 
 his hands," will characterize every man's fu- 
 ture condition. 
 
 " \ "^-^ ^ e P r i soners heard them." Chris- 
 jljL tian joy sometimes has a deep effect 
 on a sinner, by the contrast between his sad 
 and wicked heart and a singing, light-hearted 
 Christian. 
 
BROADCAST. 61 
 
 * T ENTERED into thine house ; thou gavest 
 JL me no water for my feet." When 'may 
 Christ be said to have been in our dwellings ? 
 How was it at the time of those special bless- 
 ings, happy returns, great sorrows and joys ? 
 And how did we treat him ? Was it thus ? 
 " My head with oil thou didst not anoint." 
 "Thou gavest me no kiss." It seems that 
 the Saviour looks for tokens of our love, ap- 
 preciates them, misses them. 
 
 ARE we in danger of forgetting the Fa- 
 ther, in the work of redemption, in our 
 gratitude and love to the suffering Saviour ? 
 Read the " ascriptions " at the end of Dr. 
 Watts 's Book III. of Hymns. They instruct 
 us on this point. " Giving thanks unto the 
 Father, which hath made us meet to be par- 
 takers of the inheritance with the saints in 
 light." u Giving thanks unto God and the 
 Father by him." 
 
62 BROADCAST. 
 
 THAT cannot be healthful piety wnere 
 there is no activity in doing good. 
 There is danger of luxuriously enjoying relig- 
 ious ordinances. We are in danger of spiritual 
 sloth. Solomon seems to have great antipathy 
 to sluggards, and we need to apply his words 
 chiefly to spiritual things. He is wise who 
 mixes reflective and meditative piety with ef- 
 forts to do good and to communicate. 
 
 " \y LESSED are they that keep judgment, 
 JLJ and he that doeth righteousness at all 
 times." (Ps. cvi. 8.) For the first and only 
 delinquency may be fatal. Departing once 
 from a good rule has often led to a fire, or 
 bankruptcy, or an accident. It is not safe to 
 do wrong in a single instance. The critical 
 moment, the test, may now be upon us. How 
 little you thought that that one act, so con- 
 trary to your habit, would come to light, and 
 give a wrong and an injurious impr*w»on. 
 
BROADCAST. 63 
 
 SOME things in the manner of the New- 
 Testament writers, in speaking of the 
 coming of Christ and the end of the world, 
 greatly resemble the prophetic way of the old 
 seers. Prophecy was ceasing, but those things 
 are lingering streaks of it in the sky. 
 
 THERE is calmness in Divine justice. 
 How slow ; how long it waits ; how 
 many different things it suffers to mature for 
 one purpose ; how quietly it inflicts its sen- 
 tence. " Fury is not in me.'' 
 
 WHEN Christ says, " He that is not 
 against us is on our part," it is a 
 reflection on human nature, — as though it 
 were generally against him, and if not so, it 
 is an exception. 
 
64 ' BROADCAST. 
 
 SEE the great billows assailing the "small 
 ship " with Jesus in it. Would that the 
 disciples had had faith to rebuke the winds and 
 seas without awaking him. Would that we 
 could always do that which it seems so desira- 
 ble for them to have done. 
 
 "TF any man's work shall be burned, he shall 
 A suffer loss." And a great loss it will 
 be, to behold one's life a failure. Perhaps a 
 minister here and there may find that, by some 
 great misconception of the truth, he did no 
 good, though he himself is saved; yet so as 
 by fire. 
 
 HOW we anticipate an engagement with 
 an important personage. We prepare 
 ourselves. — We are soon to meet God. "Pre- 
 pare to meet thy God." 
 
BROADCAST. 65 
 
 CONSCIENCE is capable of being edu- 
 cated, and greatly needs it. Sometimes 
 it is morbid, needlessly sensitive, leads us to be 
 over righteous, painfully and uselessly scrupu- 
 lous. Our instincts are not the supreme law. 
 The word of God is the rule. " A good con- 
 science," in the wide sense of that term, is an 
 inestimable blessing. Good sense is insepara- 
 ble from it. It is in itself common sense. 
 
 DISTINGUISH between David's con- 
 sciousness of rectitude (Ps. xviii.) and 
 spiritual pride, or self-righteousness. We hon- 
 or a suitable self-esteem, and we despise that 
 derogatory way which some have in speaking 
 of themselves. While we must not think too 
 highly of ourselves, and are commanded " to 
 think soberly," there is a way in which "we 
 ought to think." Self-respect is essential to 
 comfort, and without it we forfeit esteem. 
 
66 BROADCAST. 
 
 THERE is power in candidly stating an 
 objection to our side of the question, 
 without undue anxiety to answer it. " But the 
 Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through 
 Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." No re- 
 ply. The allegation is left to gandor. There 
 is moral sublimity in this. 
 
 WE must "labor to enter into that rest." 
 We are not going thither as a matter 
 of course. The means of being saved are as 
 much decreed as our salvation. If we use no 
 means, we may not expect the desired end. 
 
 DEATH should not seem to us like the 
 breaking down of a carriage in an un- 
 finished journey, but the orderly end of a plan. 
 " I have finished my course," says Paul. 
 
BROADCAST. 67 
 
 NO part of sacred history better illustrates 
 the subject of Divine decrees and free 
 agency, than the history of King Saul. With 
 Samuel for his constant adviser and friend, with 
 the promises of God sealing the selection of 
 him from the whole people, coming as it were 
 into the place of God as immediate ruler of the 
 nation, not only was he free, but he enjoyed 
 marvellous helps in being good. Upon his 
 transgression, Samuel said to him, " Thou hast 
 done foolishly ; — for now would the Lord have 
 established thy kingdom upon Israel forever." 
 To us it is the same as though God had no 
 secret purposes. Yet shall we disallow in him 
 that which merchants and statesmen covet, — 
 prescience? Must God have no purposes and 
 plans, lest that should seem to control the crea- 
 ture's freedom ? 
 
 PETER and Judas in their repentance. — 
 One " went out and wept bitterly " ; the 
 other " went out, and it was night." 
 
68 BROADCAST. 
 
 ONE reason why we enjoy no more in 
 religion may be that we think only of 
 our feelings toward God, and not of his feel- 
 ings toward us. But " we love him because 
 he first loved us." This should be our ex- 
 pectation, — To receive from God, not merely 
 to give ; and therefore we are to seek him 
 with our wants, even more than with our 
 offerings. 
 
 PERHAPS God's love of our devotional 
 acts is like our love of microscopic beauty 
 in flowers. At least, their minuteness, com- 
 pared with the exercises of higher orders of 
 beings, may no more be a reason for his dis- 
 regard of us, than minuteness is a cause for 
 neglect on the part of a philosopher. There 
 are few optical pleasures greater than the ex- 
 amination of flowers by the aid of an ordinary 
 magnifying-glass. The surface of a common 
 red pink exceeds the glory of Solomon. Fear 
 not "though thou be little," 
 
BROADCAST. 69 
 
 €i \ ^^ ^ e seven an g e l s came out of the 
 JL jL temple, having the seven plagues, clothed 
 in pure and white linen, and having their 
 breasts girded with golden girdles." Men gen- 
 erally associate angels with birds and flowers. 
 They are executors of God's judgments, as 
 well as ministering spirits. One angel slew a 
 hundred and eighty-five thousand men in one 
 night. Another directed a pestilence in Da- 
 vid's time. But more, an angel slew all the 
 first-born of Egypt. God's angels are not 
 after the pattern of our effeminate conceptions. 
 There is no weakness in holiness. " Strength 
 and beauty are in his tabernacle." 
 
 THE quiet prayer-meeting at the river's 
 side led to the conversion of Lydia, the 
 imprisonment and release of Paul and Silas, 
 the conversion of the jailer. Never say, "It 
 is only a prayer-meeting." 
 
70 " BROADCAST. 
 
 DO Christians become less zealous as they 
 grow old ? They may not be so strong 
 to labor, but it would be one of the most 
 powerful -allegations against Christianity, if 
 those who had had longest experience of it 
 should feel and act as though it were a delu- 
 sion, or did not make good its promises. We 
 must conclude that, while there is the same 
 variety of character among the old as among 
 the younger in the Church of Christ, it is true 
 
 that 
 
 " His grace will to the end 
 
 Stronger and brighter shine." 
 
 We may suppose that the unfeigned faith dwelt 
 as largely in the grandmother Lois as in the 
 mother Eunice. Our observation surely veri- 
 ties this. 
 
 " 1 f AST thou not made an hedge about 
 JL X him ? " — Satan's observation and re- 
 flection with regard to a good man and God's 
 care of him. 
 
BROADCAST. 71 
 
 INDEPENDENT of parentage, marriage, 
 relationships of any and every kind, the 
 soul has a relation to God which we see and 
 feel when death draws nigh. It asserts -itself 
 against father, mother, husband, wife, child. 
 Hence, make most of that relation to God. It 
 was prior to every other ; it absorbs them all. 
 
 EP H R A I M Syrus quaintly represents 
 lambs all ove£ the earth as praising 
 Christ, the Lamb of God, who terminated 
 their appointment for sacrifice. — Hence learn 
 how " the whole creation " will one day par- 
 take in the benefits of redemption. 
 
 TO be kept from certain sins is a proof 
 of God's love. "Whoso pleaseth God 
 shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be 
 taken by her." 
 
72 BROADCAST. 
 
 LET us be happy in contributing to the 
 sum of human happiness, without os- 
 tentation or hope of reward. A teamster has 
 dropped a billet of logwood from his load in 
 the highway. You get no reward for telling 
 him, but you add so much to the welfare of 
 the unknown proprietor ; you cheer a laboring 
 man with a gleam of satisfaction. 
 
 THOUGH Jesse was blameless, and Da- 
 vid's mother is called " thy hand-maid," 
 yet David says, " Behold, I was shapen in 
 iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
 me." 
 
 "rpHEEE is a sin not unto death." 
 JL Then, of course, there is one unto 
 death, or such an exceptional declaration would 
 not have been made. Hence, endless retri- 
 bution. 
 
BROADCAST. 73 
 
 THE converse of that passage is true, "As 
 many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." 
 To rebuke and chasten a child makes a parent 
 love him, and in proportion to the good effect of 
 the discipline. So again, God says of Ephraim, 
 " Since 1 spake against him, I do earnestly re- 
 member him still, — I will surely have mercy 
 upon him." Every parent can understand this. 
 
 FIFTY-TWO Sabbaths come at the close 
 
 of a year, stand about you, and say, 
 
 We are going to the bar of God. We will 
 meet you there. Farewell. 
 
 T 
 
 HERE is assimilation of character to the 
 favorite object and chosen good : — 
 
 " Whate'er thou lovest, man, that too become thou must ; 
 God, if thou lovest God, dust, if thou lovest dust." 
 4 
 
74 BROADCAST. 
 
 BLOOD must be satisfied. The blood of 
 Christ must be satisfied, by the salvation 
 or punishment of us who shed it. " The voice 
 of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the 
 ground." So the blood of Christ has a cry. 
 It has cried for eighteen hundred years, and 
 is crying still. It will be satisfied by the 
 travail of his soul. It must be avenged on 
 those who count it an unholy thing. 
 
 a T fE wakeneth morning by morning." — 
 JL X May God wake us up every day in 
 a right frame. How it cheers and strengthens 
 us for the day to awake in a good frame. 
 Morning thoughts are regarded by us with no 
 little interest. If we begin the night with 
 God, we may hope to say, " When I awake I 
 am still with thee." God will wake us up at 
 the last day. May he now do it, " morning 
 by morning." 
 
BROADCAST. 75 
 
 OTHAT we could have a daily thought 
 of a suffering, dying Saviour ! It would 
 keep our hearts tender, our spirits gentle, our 
 words mild, our tempers patient, and make us 
 more loving. 
 
 " Well he remembers Calvary : 
 Nor let his saints forget/' 
 
 " A ND they spake against the God of 
 A. JL Jerusalem as against the gods of the 
 people of the earth w T hich were the work of 
 the hands of men." Childlike indignation and 
 reasoning at the affront put upon the Most 
 High. 
 
 N 
 
 OW the man out of whom the devil? 
 were departed, besought him that he 
 might be with him." O that we might thus 
 cling to Jesus ! How safe at his side ! Nor 
 will " Satan dare my soul invade." 
 
76 BROADCAST. 
 
 i EOAUSE he could swear by no greater, 
 he sware by himself," — as though He 
 would if He could. And all this effort of 
 protestation to confirm this promise to a be- 
 liever, — " Surely, blessing I will bless thee, 
 and multiplying I will multiply thee." 
 
 " in\OTH not ne see m y wa y s > an( i count 
 JL^ all my steps ? " Sometimes how good 
 it is to think of this. As though no one else 
 engaged his attention, God has constant and 
 perfect cognizance of each of us. 
 
 OBSERVE this change : " In me, that 
 is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." 
 Now the man who said this was once the 
 straitest of the Pharisees. Self-knowledge is a 
 beautiful and wonderful fruit of regeneration. 
 
BROADCAST. 77 
 
 * t I "\HAT ye may grow thereby." What 
 A is a growing Christian ? He brings 
 his feelings and conduct more and more to a 
 likeness with those of Christ. He strengthens 
 that in himself which is weak, he jDuts on 
 certain things which he has not, his aim is 
 increasingly to be like God. He loves the 
 preceptive parts of Scripture. Anything which 
 helps him to know himself, to increase in 
 goodness, is the object of his desire. 
 
 IT is doubtful if we feel anything very 
 deeply about which we do not speak to 
 others, unless it be unsuitable ; and of such 
 things there are very few which we do not 
 find some one to whom we may communicate 
 them. So if we feel much on religious sub- 
 jects, we shall be ready to talk about them. 
 " I believed, therefore have I spoken ; we also 
 believe, and therefore speak." 
 
78 BROADCAST. 
 
 « T PRAY for them ; I pray not for the 
 JL world, but for those whom thou hast 
 given me." There is a sense -in which Christ 
 intercedes for his people as he does not for 
 the world. He must have died for his people 
 with different feelings from those which he had 
 toward others. Christians do not sufficiently 
 think of this. It would increase their sense of 
 obligation to Christ, and awaken confidence 
 and love toward him, to admit this truth. 
 " Particular redemption," as some state it, is 
 not true ; yet redemption is particular. 
 
 HERE is demonstration that the Old Tes- 
 tament dispensation was preparatory to 
 the New, instead of the New being an entirely 
 original institution : u I sent you to reap that 
 whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men la- 
 bored, and ye are entered into their labors." 
 Who were these " other men," if not the 
 Old Testament prophets ? 
 
BROADCAST. 79 
 
 THE expostulations of God (for example, 
 in Amos iv.) show his sincere good- 
 will toward all men. Whatever is true as 
 to his secret purposes, it is equally true that 
 he is sincere in his invitations and promises. 
 These are our rule of duty, not his decrees. 
 
 THAT the moral superiority of all Chris- 
 tians over the heathen is not equal to 
 their intellectual and social superiority, is a 
 proof of the irreparable debasement of human 
 nature. Very many, also, are far better as 
 men and women than they are as Christians. 
 
 THE prosperity of King Uzziah is a won- 
 derful story, 2 Chron. xxvi. The causes 
 which led to it, by the favor of God, are full 
 of admonition and encouragement. 
 
80 BROADCAST. 
 
 SOME professors of religion seem to subsist 
 on the phenomena of religion. There 
 must be something unusual astir to satisfy them 
 that anything is doing. The Gospel is preached, 
 the lives of men are affected by it, children are 
 taught, cases of conviction and conversion ripen 
 into confirmed hope, one by one, but these 
 Christians must have something new. Sun, 
 moon, and stars are of no account ; the comet 
 is all in all. Eyes are turned toward it which 
 never regard the sunrise nor sunset. These 
 Christians are generally less spiritually-minded 
 than others, judging from their prayers. 
 
 INTELLIGENT men come from their pur- 
 suits of ingenuity and industry, and sit 
 and witness the manner in which ministers do 
 their work. With all the acquisitions which 
 they can make of piety and zeal, the ministry 
 must also remember that word to one of their 
 number, " Let no man despise thee." 
 
BROADCAST. 81 
 
 • t I ^HE seed of evil-doers shall never be 
 JL renowned." Here we have that fear- 
 ful law of God's administration which connects 
 parent and child through the moral character 
 of the parent. The associations which men 
 have with the memory of an evil-doer invol- 
 untarily attach to his child, even where there 
 is no prejudice against the child. Thus God 
 would bring the strongest motives to bear on 
 a parent, seeing that he depends so much for 
 the right ordering of human affairs on the 
 transmitted influence of family religion. 
 
 U \ ^^ m *^ e daytime he was teaching in 
 -ZjL the temple, and at night he went out 
 and abode in the mount that is called the 
 Mount of Olives." Here w r as the mixing of 
 retirement and meditation with public service. 
 Continued, uninterrupted reflection and musing 
 for a season, and that frequently, nurtures 
 thought, and gives it strength and freshness. 
 
 4* F 
 
82 BROADCAST. 
 
 THAT the only sin which is unpardon- 
 able is one committed against the Holy- 
 Spirit, should affect us with profound awe 
 toward him. While words are necessary in 
 order to commit that sin, and while no one 
 who has a trembling fear lest he may have 
 committed it can possibly have done so, it 
 must follow, from what is said of the unpar- 
 donable sin, that all sins against the Holy 
 Spirit are peculiarly heinous. 
 
 DANIEL'S advice to Nebuchadnezzar de- 
 serves to be pondered : " Wherefore, O 
 king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, 
 and break off thy sins by righteousness, and 
 thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor." 
 That which was good for the king is good 
 for all. We do well to notice the very fre- 
 quent connection in the Bible of alms-giving 
 with being accepted of God. 
 
BROADCAST. 83 
 
 " \ ^^ ^ e s P eecn pleased the Lord that 
 .XV. Solomon had asked this thing." — God 
 is a silent observer of our acts. Some of them 
 give him as true pleasure as they do to a 
 good man who should witness them. To please 
 God is worth constant circumspection and 
 effort. 
 
 IT is wonderful how a full acceptance of 
 Christ's righteousness by a very wicked 
 man removes his sense of shame. Human 
 society could not do it, even should it heap its 
 honors upon him. But " the blood of Jesus 
 Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
 
 GOD'S ways of treating us are, some of 
 them, a rule and help in our treatment 
 of others. For example, he covers our sins, 
 and does not expose us ; is long-suffering ; and 
 he is kind to the unthankful. 
 
84 BROADCAST. 
 
 WE must expend more labor on the 
 Church. Paul worked for it, wrote, 
 prayed for it. It is good soil, it yields returns ; 
 it furnishes the instruments by which God will 
 convert the world. 
 
 I 
 
 F thou cast us out, suffer us to go away 
 
 evil spirits once holy beings ? Since God may 
 not be supposed to create demons, these evil 
 spirits had been upright. Behold the change ! 
 What end is there to the degradation made 
 by sin ? When we fall from God, the pit is 
 bottomless which receives us. 
 
 « \ ND men for thy life." The fall of one 
 JljL and another in the church and minis- 
 try is one means of saving us. " And some 
 of them of understanding shall fall, to try and 
 purify and make them white." 
 
BROADCAST. 85 
 
 u F I AHE old man." Old age is honorable, 
 JL but " the old man " of whom Paul 
 speaks is an object of aversion. He has the 
 disagreeable peculiarities of age without its 
 beauty and honor. He is obstinate, and pee- 
 vish, and passionate, and unreasonable, and 
 childish, doting, irresolute, and invincibly at- 
 tached to his errors and follies, and to his 
 sins. We each have " an old man " in us. 
 With some he is their only nature. Others 
 have also in them " the new man which 
 after God is created in righteousness and true 
 holiness." 
 
 "13 ^^ Hezekiah rendered not again ac- 
 XJ cording to the benefit done unto him, 
 for his heart was lifted up." We blame him, 
 we wonder at him, we mourn over him, and 
 perhaps go and do likewise. Let us recall 
 past benefits, dwell upon them before God, 
 rehearse his goodness, be as grateful as though 
 these benefits were fresh and new. 
 
86 BROADCAST. 
 
 " \ ^"^ ^ e King °^ Sodom said to Abram, 
 JL JL. 4 Give me the persons, and take the 
 goods to thyself.' " This is also Satan's wish 
 and proposal. He will give us " the goods," 
 provided he may have " the persons." 
 
 THE Bible is beautifully miscellaneous, 
 like the woods. No methodized, syn- 
 tactic, prim order, and borders. Every part 
 is perfect, but the connection of the parts has 
 all the lifelike variety of nature. 
 
 a t I "\HE iniquity of the Amorites is not 
 JL yet full." God thus seems to keep a 
 measure near a wicked man, and the man is 
 filling it. Hence his life is prolonged. So 
 said the Saviour : " Fill ye up, therefore, the 
 measure of your iniquities." 
 
BROADCAST. 87 
 
 SEEMING success is not real, without 
 God. It may lead to disaster. " For 
 though ye had smitten the whole army of the 
 Chaldeans that fight against you, and there 
 remained but wounded men among them, yet 
 they should rise up every man in his tent, and 
 burn this city with fire." — So failure and dis- 
 appointment, in God's hands, are frequently 
 doors to great success. 
 
 u /^\ THOU that hearest prayer, unto thee 
 V^/ shall all flesh come " ; — for every 
 one, whatever his present feelings, will see a 
 time when he must pray. 
 
 JOHN mistook a glorified prophet for an 
 angel, Rev. xxii. 8. If departed friends 
 should reappear to us in their heavenly state, 
 we should do the same. 
 
88 BROADCAST. 
 
 IF we repent, God hereafter makes our sins 
 change to sources of blessing. Judas nev- 
 er can know this. But if we are saved, God 
 will make even our sins turn to good account. 
 They will widen our sympathies with the re- 
 deemed, make us appreciate redemption, qualify 
 us for service. 
 
 IT is the same as though in heaven the rocks 
 were rending, the sun were darkened, the 
 graves were opened, the Son of God were dy- 
 ing, rising again. The atonement is having 
 effect. Christ is making intercession for us. 
 
 NOTICE the coincidence between Cor- 
 nelius's and Peter's visions. They had 
 the same object, — to bring the two men to- 
 gether. So God is at work for us in different 
 places at the same time. " How precious, also, 
 are thy thoughts unto me, O God." 
 
BROADCAST. ^ 89 
 
 EVERY Communion Sabbath the same re- 
 proach may be laid against the Saviour 
 at his table, as when he was on earth, — " This 
 man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." 
 But are they who now utter this reproach 
 Pharisees, as formerly? 
 
 # 
 
 "1 JE that made him can make his sword 
 JL X to approach unto him." These words, 
 spoken of Behemoth, we may apply to a seem- 
 ingly incorrigible sinner, to a cruel enemy, to 
 an unfeeling creditor, to an unnatural relative. 
 
 THE book of the Law was sprinkled with 
 blood, showing two things; — 1. God's 
 justice is satisfied by the atonement ; 2. Our 
 obedience is accepted only through the sacrifice 
 of Christ. 
 
90 BROADCAST. 
 
 % 
 
 HOW little do we feel that we have been 
 pardoned. We rather fepl that once 
 we were unhappy, and .now have hope. But 
 we are released convicts, escaped criminals, 
 ransomed captives, who had sold themselves. 
 Should we sin so easily, if we remembered 
 that we have had a just, eternal punishment 
 remitted ? 
 
 u |7M3R they cannot recompense thee." On 
 JL doing good for its own sake, selecting 
 cases where it seems impossible that we should 
 get any returns for it in this world. Yet how 
 rare that a good deed is not discovered. " But 
 thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection 
 of the just." We are tempted to say, Would 
 that we might be allowed to do some good 
 without being recompensed. Yet we must be. 
 It is a law of the moral universe. It cannot 
 be prevented, for those helpless ones whom we 
 benefit here will blazon it in heaven. And 
 what can we do ? 
 
iWldDCAST. 91 
 
 * ^i "^H ; S is the message which we have 
 JL hvi.^rJ v>f Him," — but what can it 
 be, announced with such emphasis ? Sim- 
 ply this, — " tl\ it God is light, and in him 
 is no darKiiess at all." It seems, at first, 
 almost a truism ; but reflect, and ponder it. 
 Things seem dark to us, but not to Him. 
 Were there no darkness in us, there would 
 be no unbelief, no jealousies, hatred, no se- 
 cret sins. 
 
 THERE surely is that in God which in 
 man we should ?all Humility; as, for 
 example, in his being willing to institute a 
 comparison between hLaself and idols. We 
 can hardly speak of them and of him together 
 without some sense of impropriety. But the 
 Most High frequently enters into an argument 
 with Israel as to his superiority to blocks of 
 w r ood and stone. 
 
92 BROADCAST. 
 
 AM AN and the horse, — this almost 
 silly choice among offered royal gifts. 
 He verifies that common name of a sinner in 
 the Bible, — fool. Perhaps when every sinner 
 and his choice are made public, the term will 
 be seen to be equally just. Some young men 
 will do well to think of this, especially in 
 their Sabbath recreations. 
 
 " A -^^ now men see not ^ e bright light 
 jljL which is in the clouds ; but the wind 
 passeth and cleanseth them"; — that is, Afflict- 
 ive dispensations are inwardly bright, and are 
 easily removed by a word from God. 
 
 TRUTHFULNESS must pervade the 
 whole character. " Behold, thou de- 
 sirest truth in the inward parts." 
 
BROADCAST. 93 
 
 Tx\KE a cheerful view of these words : 
 " Let your moderation be known unto 
 all men ; the Lord is at hand." Not merely- 
 coming to judgment ; but, at hand to help, to 
 avenge you ; hence be not disquieted ; mod- 
 erate your resentments, your fears, your de- 
 spondency. 
 
 " ir T may be God will requite me good for 
 
 A Ins cursing." We take part with an 
 
 injured person, and the weaker side. God 
 
 acts on every good principle which prevails 
 
 among men. 
 
 " \ ^^ s ^ e ^ are him Aaron and Moses." 
 Xjl What a father and mother ! Why were 
 two such sons conferred on one family ! God 
 is sometimes affluent in gifts of one and the 
 same kind. He is " able to do exceeding 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think." 
 
94 . BROADCAST. 
 
 " /\ ^^ ^eing^ * n an a g on y' h e prayed more? 
 JL Jl. earnestly"; "And lie said, Abba, Fa- 
 ther." — Agony made him more filial, more 
 loving, more conscious of the Father's relatior 
 to him. 
 
 THINK of Christ as having common, 
 practical views of things ; not as a 
 sentimentalist and pietist. He cannot be de- 
 ceived, nor be satisfied with our frames and 
 professions, when our principles and conduct 
 are not good. 
 
 WE are apt to think and speak of good 
 men in the Bible as though they were 
 not sinners like us ; whereas they had the 
 same frailties ; and their confessions of sin 
 exceed ours. We know their evil deeds, but 
 suppose that the private histories of those who 
 speak against them were known. 
 
BROADCAST. 95 
 
 CHRIST'S reply to one who invoked a 
 blessing on his mother, shows that there 
 is no prescriptive claim to eminence in his 
 kingdom, not even by being mother to Jesus. 
 Goodness alone opens the way, and that is 
 sure, and is in no danger of being superseded, 
 or turned aside by accident of birth. 
 
 A DEAR Christian friend said to me, "I 
 never overhear one praying without 
 feeling impelled to pray for him, that his 
 prayer may be answered." Blessed Inter- 
 cessor and Advocate ! this is the case with 
 Thee, whenever our voice in prayer reaches 
 thine ear. 
 
 "QURELY he hath borne our griefs." — 
 kj Christ saw this trouble before I felt it. 
 His heart was pierced by it before it pierced 
 mine. 
 
96 BROADCAST. 
 
 JOB'S scorn (ch. xxx.). Paul and Silas's 
 spirited reply to the rulers who had im- 
 prisoned them. John's detestation of heretics. 
 Jude's denunciation of false teachers, and his 
 description of their end. — But it is easier to 
 imitate these right things in good men, than 
 their humility and meekness. 
 
 ANGELS met Jacob, not at the moment 
 of need, but to prepare him for it. 
 Our religious opportunities, in times of health 
 and strength, are like these angels. Let us 
 know the day of our visitation. 
 
 WHEN baffled in our meditations upon 
 the being of God, it is good to know 
 that it was a truly devout man who said, 
 " Touching the Almighty, we cannot find 
 him out." 
 
T 
 
 BROADCAST. 97 
 
 HE first ear of corn, bunch of grapes, 
 and early fruit of any kind, awakens a 
 strange delight. " That we should be a kind 
 of first-fruits of his creatures." James i. 18. 
 It looks as though redeemed men would be 
 such, in the view of other beings, owing to the 
 infinite cost at which we have been produced in 
 this most unpromising and once accursed field. 
 
 THE Holy Spirit looked down through 
 time to this very morning, and saw you 
 in need of a word to instruct, comfort, or guide 
 you. He caused Jabez, or Manasseh, or Ho- 
 sea, or Paul, to say something, so many cen- 
 turies ago, which should serve you to-day. So 
 of every Christian, through time. 
 
 I 
 
 N Christ, we are as safe at the bar of God 
 as Christ would be. 
 
 5 o 
 
98 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE place and use of Fear in religion. — 
 It is a rebuke to those who make fond- 
 ness the principal element in piety, that the 
 chief exponent of religion is " the fear of the 
 Lord." One whose piety is in danger of being 
 too soft and flaccid will do well to read Cru- 
 den's Concordance, under the word Fear, and 
 its various connected uses. 
 
 THINKING of dying, it seems unspeak- 
 ably desirable to have begun in child- 
 hood to fear and serve the glorious Lord God. 
 "Remember now thy Creator, in the days of 
 thy youth." 
 
 u IT^OLLOW peace with all men, and holi- 
 JL. ness," &c. Is a connection intimated 
 here between these things ? Surely one is a 
 means to the other, and indispensable to it. 
 
BROADCAST. 99 
 
 " t I ^HEY came to the iron gate, which 
 JL opened to them of his own accord." 
 Beautiful fiction, as though a celestial hand 
 were not moving it. And yet, things being 
 described in the Bible as they appear, it is 
 strictly true. So do inflexible circumstances 
 change, and insuperable hinderances move out 
 of the way, when God is at work for us. 
 
 GREAT and awful judgments were in- 
 flicted at the opening of the Gospel, on 
 Ananias and Sapphira, Elymas, &c, with a 
 view, no doubt, to give the impression that 
 the Gospel was not intended as a truce to sin. 
 
 " T WILL be a God to thee." What must 
 A this be ? He is not a Q-od to the wicked, 
 any more than lightning is nature. 
 
100 BROADCAST. 
 
 u TW TOW, therefore, put away Ashtaroth," 
 JL ^1 &c. Some favored sin is the cause 
 of every departure from God, and lies at the 
 foundation of an impenitent state. In every 
 case of impenitence, the renunciation of some 
 particular sin would powerfully help toward 
 regeneration. 
 
 INSTEAD of David being peculiar in the 
 use of imprecations, as we might be led 
 to suppose from common remarks about him, 
 what sacred writer does not use them, or 
 quote them ? 
 
 ISRAEL could not drive out the inhabitants 
 of the plain (Judges i.) because they had 
 " chariots of iron." Yet God was w T ith Judah. 
 True, but He would not always work miracles. 
 Here is an instance of Divine power regarding 
 the natural force of circumstances. 
 
BROADCAST. 101 
 
 WHY was Paul translated? Did Christ 
 long to have him with him in heaven, 
 and so anticipate his decease? Did Paul need 
 it to confirm his faith, and so to insure him, by 
 the help of means, which God always honors, 
 against apostasy ? Was it needful to place this 
 buttress against the great Apostle's faith in the 
 Gospel and his confidence in Christ under his 
 unparalleled trials? 
 
 GOD is often called " a Rock," and " my 
 Rock," by David, no doubt because he 
 had had such experience of Rocks for refuge 
 and defence. He does not mean a block of 
 stone, but a natural fortress. 
 
 H 
 
 OW do " others, which have no hope,' 
 " sorrow " ? 
 
102 BROADCAST. 
 
 " t | "\HOU hast bought me no sweet cane 
 JL with money." Sweet cane, of course, 
 is nothing to God. How condescending in 
 Him to specify such a thing, intimating its 
 acceptableness as a token of our love. Hence, 
 whatever offering we consecrate to him, he 
 recognizes it ; and he misses our gifts if we 
 bring him nothing. 
 
 THE prophet Zechariah's two staves with 
 which he fed the flock were named by 
 him " Beauty and Bands," teaching us that, 
 while enforcing obligation, reproving, rebuking, 
 and exhorting, (all which >is "Bands,") we 
 must have love, and goodness, and consistency, 
 and due ornament and grace, be tasteful and 
 not rough, complaisant and not rude, adapt 
 ourselves to the sensibilities of man as well as 
 to his understanding and conscience. All this 
 is Beauty. "With these," said he, U I fed 
 the flock." 
 
BROADCAST. 103 
 
 THE connection between secret prayer 
 and the right kind of popularity: — 
 " And in the morning, rising up a great 
 while before day, he went out and departed 
 into a solitary place, and there prayed. And 
 Simon and they that were with him followed 
 after him. And when they had found him, 
 they said unto him, All men seek for thee." 
 — While you are praying, God may be at 
 work for you even in distant parts of the 
 earth, or near at hand, preparing events and 
 the hearts of men for your good, and for your 
 greater usefulness ; and will " reward thee 
 openly." 
 
 THE purpose of Christ to keep and save 
 every soul intrusted to him, breaks out 
 even in the incidental danger of his disciples 
 at his arrest : " If ye seek me, let these go 
 their way; — that the saying might be fulfilled, 
 " Of all which thou gavest me, I have lost 
 none." 
 
104 BROADCAST. 
 
 a \ ^^ ^ e was ^ ere w hen Jerusalem was 
 jLjL taken"; — that weeping- prophet who 
 had expostulated, and stood in the breach to 
 turn away the people from ruin, — he was 
 there when the ruin came. So faithful minis- 
 ters of Christ will be present when the final 
 ruin which they have depicted comes upon 
 some of their hearers. It was hard for Jeru- 
 salem to look on Jeremiah as she fell before 
 the enemy. 
 
 T 
 
 HERE are hinderances to conversion. 
 
 Unfaithfulness in secular things is named 
 as one, in Luke xvi. 11. " If ye have not 
 been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who 
 shall commit to your trust the true riches ?" 
 We wonder at the continued ill-success of 
 preaching in certain cases. There is in each 
 of these cases a secret cause which nullifies 
 the effect of our labors, and that cause is some 
 form of sin, obstinate rebellion against known 
 duty, cleaving to some idol. 
 
BROADCAST. 105 
 
 ON having an adversary, Ps. cix. 6. God 
 can raise us up one, who will never 
 hear or see our name but with implacable 
 hatred. We should avoid this. No one 
 should be defied. Yet he may be a blessing 
 in disguise, to make us watchful over our 
 words and conduct, " lest mine enemy rejoice 
 over me, and they that hate me be glad 
 when I am moved." — Let no one of us be 
 an adversary to any one. — " Let mine adver- 
 sary be as the wicked " ; that is, if I must have 
 one, .let him not be a good man, but a bad 
 man. Then, if we are right, the end of his 
 chain will be in the hand of Christ. 
 
 SUPPOSE that two thirds of our sun 
 should be constantly eclipsed. Health, 
 the arts, vegetation, life, would suffer. If we 
 do not receive Christ and the Holy Spirit as 
 revealed in the Bible, two thirds of the God- 
 head are eclipsed to us. 
 
 5* 
 
106 BROADCAST. 
 
 A CERTAIN joyful though humble con- 
 fidence becomes us when we pray in 
 the Mediator's name. It is due to him; when 
 we pray in his name it should be " without 
 wavering." Remember his merits, and how 
 prevalent they must be. " Let us therefore 
 come boldly unto the throne of grace." 
 "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to en- 
 ter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, — 
 let us draw near." 
 
 THE Holy Spirit is as distinctively the 
 author of the Bible, as Christ is iden- 
 tified with the Cross. Let us think of the 
 Book as his design and production, framed as 
 his instrument in his official work. He made 
 the Psalms, and the books of Esther and 
 Ruth, and the Proverbs, and every book of 
 the canon, to answer particular purposes, and 
 all to make up a volume sufficient for every 
 object which he ever meant to accomplish* 
 
BROADCAST. 107 
 
 PERHAPS the inhabitants ot this world 
 are the only fallen race except fallen 
 angels. If so, see the infinite importance of 
 everything relating to this world. How sol- 
 emn to live here, to be one of this race, to 
 exert an influence upon it, to be an ambassador 
 for Christ. 
 
 ON sinning against the Preserver of men, 
 — the God who has given us so 
 many happy returns, preserved us in long 
 journeys and voyages, as well as in great 
 snares of temptation. " I have sinned, what 
 shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of 
 men ? " 
 
 SCRIPTURAL way to prosperity: "By 
 humility and the fear of the Lord are 
 riches, and honor, and life." 
 
108 BROADCAST. 
 
 NAOMI'S telling her daughters-in-law to 
 return from her, is like giving inquirers 
 and young Christians fair notice of all which 
 they will lose by following Christ. Let them 
 count the cost. So the Saviour advised. 
 "Lord, I will follow thee." "Foxes have 
 holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
 but the Son of man hath not where to lay 
 his head." 
 
 THE Holy Ghost selects ministers. And 
 the Holy Ghost said, " Separate me 
 Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto 
 I have appointed them." Vacant churches, 
 remember this. 
 
 CHRIST "marvelled at their unbelief." 
 We give him occasion to do so. He 
 must greatly love and honor faith. We must 
 not depend on frames of mind, but walk by 
 faith. 
 
BROADCAST. 109 
 
 EVEN when the Mediatorship is ended, 
 the enlightening and guiding influences 
 of the Holy Spirit, which are not in their 
 nature temporary, but belong to his Divine 
 nature, will no doubt be employed for the 
 advancement of redeemed souls in knowledge 
 forever. And so that gratitude, which now 
 we owe him for every good thought and right 
 feeling, will swell to a boundless debt, till our 
 love toward him may not be exceeded even 
 by our love to the Redeemer. Notice a word 
 used by Paul in connection with the Holy 
 Spirit, and also the recognition of the Sacred 
 Three in one verse : " Now I beseech you for 
 the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love 
 of the Spirit, that ye strive together in your 
 prayers to God for me." 
 
 BALAAM, Gehazi, Judas, Ananias, were 
 not recovered, while others were. What 
 was the one sin of those men ? Covetousness. 
 
110 BROADCAST. 
 
 A SHORT crop in this country deranges 
 the finances. No country is more im- 
 mediately dependent on God than we. But 
 what a responsibility it is to take charge of 
 suns, and showers, and winds, day by day 
 and at the same time to rule the cabinets, 
 and plan for you and make your little child 
 well of fever, and hear your prayers and put 
 your tears into his bottle. What a God ! 
 who would sin against Him ? " O that men 
 would praise the Lord for his goodness, and 
 for his wonderful works to the children of 
 men!" 
 
 HOW free the Israelites were with their 
 offerings when a false god was to be 
 made ! So men are free and lavish in their 
 amusements, their pleasures, their dress, dwell- 
 ings, and equipage, and backward in the cause 
 of Christian benevolence, until their love to 
 God reaches the same level with their former 
 love of self. 
 
BROADCAST. Ill 
 
 HAD not the translators left some pas- 
 sages obscure, and perhaps equivocal, 
 each sect would have had its Bible. Now all 
 can put their own interpretation on those places. 
 The Bible is thus like a portrait, which seems 
 to every one in the room to be looking specially 
 at him. 
 
 THE last words of God on Sinai to 
 Moses (Exodus xxxi.) had reference to 
 the observance of the Sabbath. After a long 
 interview, and when we have given instruc- 
 tions to one who is to serve us, the thing 
 which we dwell upon just at parting, repeating 
 it with special emphasis, is a thing to which 
 we attach great importance. 
 
 « rp H E world " has no " Comforter." 
 A (John xiv. 17.) 
 
112 BROADCAST. 
 
 "■TH^OR he seeth wickedness also; will he 
 JL not then consider it ? " We meditate 
 and dwell on a base act, analyze it, and con- 
 stantly abhor it. What if God thus dwells 
 upon our acts of evil-doing? Sometimes he 
 makes us feel that he does so. Thus David : 
 "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our 
 secret sins in the light of thy countenance." 
 
 NO one, probably, was ever disappointed 
 at finding himself in heaven. Many 
 have been and will be disappointed in not 
 finding themselves there. 
 
 ^ ~\ T^^T constitutes covetousness ? We 
 V ? need to know ; for is there more said 
 against any one sin, or said in stronger terms, 
 in the New Testament, than against this ? 
 
BROADCAST. 113 
 
 i\ and set them up for his pillow, and 
 lay down in that place to sleep." So w r e 
 may do everywhere and always, — the cir- 
 cumstances of every condition, no matter 
 how unforbidding and repulsive, aifording us 
 always, if we will, a source of rest and con- 
 solation. 
 
 HERE I am on the shore of the sea. 
 What if the sea were veiled, and I 
 had never beheld it, and yet had often walked 
 on its coasts. So the invisible world, and that 
 " otfean we must sail so soon," lie close at 
 hand, concealed. 
 
 MARK, writing under directions from' 
 Peter, omits to praise him as the 
 other Evangelists indirectly do; but he gives 
 his faults most fully. 
 
114 BROADCAST. 
 
 AFTER talking with one who was anx- 
 ious about his spiritual state, but with 
 no fixed belief of anything, and seemingly in- 
 capable of coherent views of things, I have 
 been instructed by seeing men drive piles 
 into a loose soil. The object is to get one 
 pile at a time firmly fixed. So we should 
 aim to fix some one truth in the mind, and 
 it is comparatively of little consequence what 
 the truth is, the object being simply to ex- 
 cite faith. 
 
 ONE great error of the Perfectionists is 
 this : They expect to get into a state, — 
 a state in which they will not sin. One was 
 probably saved from that delusion by asking 
 her, one wintry day, if she ever expected to 
 get into a state of not slipping on the ice ? — 
 The Christian life is a slippery way up to the 
 very gate of the heavenly city, and even while 
 entering. " Hold thou me up, and I shall 
 be safe." 
 
BROADCAST, 115 
 
 " IV /T Y covenant was with him (Levi) of 
 ..?1 life and peace." Mai. ii. 5. God's 
 covenant with ministers. When they are right 
 and good, they must be a great joy to Him 
 who chooses to work by instruments, and " has 
 need " of these laborers, " workers together 
 with God." They may expect covenant bless- 
 
 TAKE salvation as freely as you would 
 buy it, if you had the means, or as you 
 would buy any worldly commodity. " Ho 
 every one that thirsteth, — and he that hath no 
 money, — come ye, — buy, — without money." 
 
 PERFECTNESS under an administration 
 of grace is consistent with indwelling 
 sin, strong temptations, lapses, in short, with 
 being imperfect, the individual being sincerely 
 a follower of Christ. 
 
116 BROADCAST. 
 
 JOAB directed his main attack against the 
 auxiliar force, 1 Chron. xix. This was 
 good generalship. They had no homes and 
 country there to fight for, and could be 
 more easily discomfited, and the effect of 
 routing them would be to dismay the Syrians. 
 The Bible is rich in its incidental instruc- 
 tions. Was a man ever in circumstances to 
 which there is nothing corresponding in the 
 Bible ? 
 
 IN religion, " pietism," that is, frames, emo- 
 tions, meditative religion, — very beautiful 
 often, but without activity, — corresponds to 
 that which in painting is called " still-life." 
 
 WELL might the Saviour sing at the 
 Supper, looking beyond those few fol- 
 lowing days. 
 
BROADCAST. 117 
 
 THERE must have been more appear- 
 ances of Christ in the Old Testament 
 than we usually find, judging from the fre- 
 quent mention, in the New Testament, of his 
 agency under the old dispensation. 
 
 PAUL came to Troas, and found a wide 
 door opened to him, but had no rest 
 because he found not Titus his brother. We 
 love him for this touch of innocent weak- 
 ness. So he beseeches Timothy to do dili- 
 gence, and come to him, telling who had for- 
 saken him. 
 
 WAS Paul ever " forsaken " by any ? 
 Did any leave his ministry for insuffi- 
 cient reasons ? We are glad to know it, if it 
 were so. (2 Tim. iv. 10, 16.) 
 
118 BROADCAST. 
 
 N'OTICE the unstudied, but wonderful 
 expressions about Christ, in the proph- 
 ets and in the New Testament. They drop 
 without system, are mostly incidental, yet 
 each is beyond explanation unless Christ be 
 divine, and all together they have that pecu- 
 liar power which cumulative evidence has on 
 a jury, the weightier for being somewhat dis- 
 joined, and without concert. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE guilt and punish- 
 ment appear in these words : — " That 
 on you may come all the righteous blood from 
 Abel." 
 
 « TJ EARKEN, and serve the King of 
 A A Babylon." Humiliating word! So, 
 submit to chastisement, mortifying, bitter to 
 pride, if God clearly appoints it. 
 
BROADCAST. 119 
 
 THE " three " who appeared to Abraham, 
 as he sat in his tent-door, we do not sup- 
 pose had designed reference to the Three that 
 bear record in heaven ; yet do Christians ever 
 have any experience of communion with those 
 " Three " together ? Why not ? Christ says, 
 " My Father will love him, and we will come 
 unto him, and make our abode with him." O 
 never-to-be-forgotten experience, if, in some 
 season of great sorrow or trial, you had a sense 
 of being visited by the Sacred Three ! 
 
 GOD appeals to the mountains as judges 
 between him and his people, Micah vi. 
 Beautiful condescension to our habits of 
 thought. He is willing to leave the case to 
 referees. We have very limited conceptions 
 of the gentleness of God. The passages which 
 bring it to view are chiefly in the Old Testa- 
 ment. A rejoinder, here, to allegations against 
 that book. 
 
120 BROADCAST. 
 
 A COMMON idea with many of being 
 u an excellent Christian " is, to be kind 
 to the poor, upright, obliging, courteous ; — 
 leaving out of the case a work of God upon 
 the heart. . But many who have this work 
 have all these moral and social qualities also. 
 
 TO be baptized in the name of the 
 Holy Spirit, to be blessed in his name 
 in the Christian benediction, as really prove 
 his personality and deity, as baptism and ben- 
 ediction prove the personality of the Father. 
 
 AND some believed the words which 
 were spoken, and some believed not." 
 Acts ' (last chapter). It is very much so 
 when other ministers than Paul reason and 
 preach. Let them not be disheartened. 
 
BROADCAST. 121 
 
 THE inspection of a single bone will 
 sometimes enable the comparative anat- 
 omist to describe in general the structure of 
 an unknown animal. There are passages of 
 Scripture having no connection with any argu- 
 ment for a system, which reveal a system, or 
 some fundamental truth. For example, Paul 
 says to the Galatians, " Was Paul crucified 
 for you ? " Here is a recognition, the more 
 impressive for its being incidental, of the vica- 
 rious sacrifice of Christ. Hero is another in- 
 stance : " Destroy not him with thy meat for 
 whom Christ died." 
 
 * IT THEREFORE askest thou after my 
 \ ¥ name, seeing it is secret ? " Con- 
 sider the value and beauty of privacy in re- 
 ligion, as regards some experiences which 
 never can be mentioned without both break- 
 ing a certain charm in them to ourselves, 
 and incurring the suspicion of fanaticism, or 
 at least presumption. 
 
 6 
 
122 BROADCAST. 
 
 " 'TT^HE Lord hath set apart him that is 
 JL godly for himself." We look with 
 interest upon the article which the manufac- 
 turer of some rare and valuable product, or 
 upon the lot of land which a land proprietor, 
 has set apart for himself. No godly person 
 escapes the eye of God. " The Lord's por- 
 tion is his people." " Israel is his peculiar 
 inheritance." 
 
 TO be melancholy after confession and 
 repentance implies a want of faith in 
 God. " Be of good cheer, thy sins are for- 
 given thee." 
 
 REPENTANCE is the sorrow of love. 
 It is doubtful whether we ever repent 
 towards any one till touched with some gen- 
 tle emotion toward him. Is it not so with 
 repentance toward God? 
 
BROADCAST. 123 
 
 "^QUESTIONING with themselves what 
 V^/ the rising from the dead should mean." 
 Reading the bold, clear arguments of the 
 Apostles on that subject, it is encouraging to 
 think of their early ignorance, and to see 
 how the course of events and experience will 
 instruct and advance those who thirst for 
 Christian knowledge. 
 
 "TF he were on earth, he would not be a 
 A priest." But why? — Because his own 
 death and blood invested him with the priestly 
 office. — Here w r e have an indirect testimony 
 to the sacrificial nature of our Saviour's char- 
 acter and office. 
 
 CHRIST lay in the grave the whole of 
 the Jewish Sabbath, but the whole of 
 no other day. 
 
124 BROADCAST. 
 
 "/"T^HE kings of the earth, and all the 
 JL inhabitants of the world, would not 
 have believed that the adversary and the 
 enemy should have entered into the gates of 
 Jerusalem." Lam. iv. 12. So ministers, and 
 professed Christians of eminent reputation, may 
 astonish others by their perdition. God will 
 show his infinite greatness by his independence 
 of the greatest of men and of angels. 
 
 ON being guileless. " Behold an Israelite 
 indeed, in whom is no guile." — Yet 
 Nathaniel was only a man; sinful man, there- 
 fore, can secure such approbation from Christ. 
 
 DANIEL charged Belshazzar with two 
 things : 1. Not improving by his father's 
 sins and punishment ; 2. Not glorifying God. 
 
BROADCAST. 125 
 
 GOD sees our imperfections more than we. 
 " Faithful are the wounds of a friend." 
 That enemy of yours was employed by God 
 to tell you a cutting but needful truth. Turn 
 away your resentment, and be grateful to God 
 for letting you see yourself. The prayer you 
 uttered a month or two since, " Search me, O 
 God, and know my heart," has just now been 
 answered in this reproach, this backbiting, this 
 bitter enmity. 
 
 WARNINGS are ineffectual in them- 
 selves. We would have supposed that 
 the fall of Judas would have made the eleven 
 disciples keep closer to Christ, instead of for- 
 saking him, or following afar off. 
 
 H 
 
 OPELESS deaths: "And Aaron held 
 his peace." 
 
126 BROADCAST. 
 
 WE are honored in having no lower 
 standard proposed to us than perfec- 
 tion, God himself. " Be ye therefore perfect, 
 even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 This sometimes excites querulous remarks, as 
 though it were severe, an impossible exac- 
 tion. But it should be our glory and joy. 
 How would w^e have it? Shall the best of 
 men, or angels, be our standard ? No ; God 
 is the goal after which we are to aspire. 
 
 "-XTI THAT continuance hath an image in 
 yt a glass, if the man turn away his 
 face ? " So if God withdraw, what becomes 
 of his image in our souls ? Angelic perfection 
 is only a creature. How far our native cor- 
 ruption will work if it be irritated, and God 
 suspends the influence of his grace, we may 
 have seen in the case of others, but the great- 
 est illustration of it we shall find in our own 
 temptations. 
 
BROADCAST. 127 
 
 "TV TOT by water only, but by water and 
 ±. ^1 blood." We cannot be saved by 
 outward washings, reformations, observances. 
 Blood must atone for our sins. We cannot 
 be saved merely by being good, and we can- 
 not be saved without it. " By water and 
 blood." 
 
 OBLIGATION is not to be measured 
 by moral ability ; for then there would 
 be as many standards as there are individuals 
 and their degrees of ability. There is one 
 standard for all, and that is God. Our 
 moral impotence does not change it, nor les- 
 sen its obligation. 
 
 "fTMIE High-Priest asked Jesus of his 
 JL disciples." What an inquiry just at 
 that time, and under those circumstances. 
 
128 BROADCAST. 
 
 " y\ -^^ God hath both raised up the Lord, 
 .ZjL and will also raise up us by his own 
 power.'' Here is identification of the believer 
 with Christ; a parallelism of our resurrection 
 and that stupendous event, — the resurrection 
 of Christ. Notice the act of God, the Father, 
 in raising us from the dead, while it is also the 
 frequently asserted prerogative of Christ. 
 
 SUPPOSE that Christ had stood for us 
 instead of Adam, as our federal head ? 
 How safe we should have been. He has stood 
 for us, our second Adam. How safe we are 
 in him. 
 
 u A LL things were made by him and for 
 Jl\. him," — namely, these relationships, 
 these affections, these talents and opportuni- 
 ties, as well as those planetary worlds. 
 
BROADCAST. 129 
 
 DO not always dwell on " ability " in the 
 sinner. " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
 jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it 
 unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." 
 Set men to search and pray for things which, 
 with all their ability, they must receive as free 
 gifts to the undeserving. 
 
 T 
 
 HOU art weighed in the balances." 
 Our sins will go into the same side 
 of the balance with the law of God, to weigh 
 against us. But what if Christ and his right- 
 eousness be counted on our part against them ? 
 
 DANIEL did not call Belshazzar to re- 
 pentance, as he did Nebuchadnezzar. 
 His doom was fixed. His sin was unto death. 
 " I do not say that he shall pray for it." 
 
 6* I 
 
130 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE Saviour taking those three men to 
 watch at the gate of Gethsemane while 
 he suffered, teaches us the use and the true 
 way of showing sympathy to the afflicted. 
 We all crave it ; so did Christ. Draw near 
 to the afflicted. It was that which Christ 
 desired, and not much speaking. 
 
 NO doubt whole households will here and 
 there be seen in the world of sin and 
 suffering, — father, mother, brother, sister, hav- 
 ing made that unprofitable gain of the world 
 for the soul, and now losing both. 
 
 NOAH'S ark in itself was a " vain thing 
 for safety." Putting to sea in it in 
 such a flood was safe only because the cove- 
 nant of God made it so. 
 
BROADCAST. 131 
 
 WE must not expect sorrows and suf- 
 ferings as unmitigated attendants upon 
 growing old. To many aged people we have 
 seen that word fulfilled in their serene or even 
 joyful frames of mind : " And thine age shall 
 be oWrer than the noonday." 
 
 u ] OVE his appearing." Wicked servants 
 1 J and children do not love the sudden 
 appearing of the master and father. But to 
 love the appearing of Christ is one character- 
 istic, mentioned in the New Testament, of 
 Christians. 
 
 BOAZ on his sheaves, his heart merry 
 with wine, and with Ruth at his feet, 
 unknown to him, is a picture of happiness 
 approaching one whom God has designed to 
 bless. 
 
182 BROADCAST. 
 
 WE cannot express the direct and indi- 
 rect help which we have derived in 
 trouble from passages of Scripture. We think 
 in them, in a large measure,- — they seem to 
 be the currency of our minds at such times. 
 " This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy 
 word hath quickened me." 
 
 CHRIST atoned on Calvary for all those 
 sins which now trouble your conscience. 
 Now you endure some of the consequences 
 of those sins, but the guilt of them was atoned 
 for. Go in peace, in view of this. 
 
 SUPPOSE that this and that individual, 
 whom we can name, should meet vis in 
 hell ? Let us imagine the interview, have a 
 good conscience toward him now, and flee 
 from the wrath to come. 
 
BROADCAST. 133 
 
 IT is noticeable that, after such striking 
 events as preceded Samson's birth, his life 
 and death should have been so full of painful 
 conflict ; but he is mentioned with honor, in 
 Hebrews xi., among those who by faith gained 
 a good report. If God honors us or our chil- 
 dren with early signs of his favor, it may be 
 that we and they may suffer for him. But 
 then we shall glorify him. 
 
 HE had risen, he had been in heaven, 
 he had finished the work of redemp- 
 tion, and yet this infinite Redeemer meets a 
 company of weary and hungry friends on the 
 sea-shore, and having with his own hands 
 kindled a fire and laid fish thereon, he says 
 to them, " Come and dine." Condescending 
 Friend ! no service for us is beneath thee. 
 Common blessings are all thy gifts. Thou 
 wouldst wash the feet of every friend of 
 thine, if it were necessary. 
 
134 Broadcast. 
 
 SEE how they marked off and parcelled 
 out Canaan, yet unconquered, " By 
 faith they subdued kingdoms." One king had 
 nine hundred chariots of iron. What of this ? 
 He too was marked out for conquest. So 
 let us lay out plans of usefulness, seek the 
 conversion of individuals, benefit classes of 
 people, attempt reformations, notwithstanding 
 discouragements and opposition, and seek to 
 conquer the world for Christ. 
 
 WE have afflicted God with our sins 
 more than he ever afflicted us by 
 trials. "Thou hast wearied me with thine 
 iniquities." • 
 
 WHEN tempted, fall to praying, and Sa- 
 tan, rather than do you so much good, 
 will desist. Thus "resist the devil, and he 
 will flee from you." 
 
BROADCAST. 135 
 
 CONSIDERING the pre-existence of fallen 
 angels and their history, the first men- 
 tion of them in the Bible is beautifully simple, 
 and in accordance with the Divine plan not to 
 disclose things prematurely. " Now the serpent 
 was more subtle than any beast of the field 
 which the Lord God had made, and he said 
 unto the woman," &c. Had the existence and 
 agency of fallen spirits been directly asserted, 
 it would have made explanations necessary 
 which would have been out of place in the 
 chronology of revelation. 
 
 " \ SLEEP on a pillow." It was a delib- 
 JTjL erate sleep. He had not sunk down 
 accidentally; but though he knew the storm 
 was coming, he took a pillow and went to 
 sleep. When we have done our duty, and 
 nothing remains for us to do, we may safely 
 commit all to God, and take our rest in 
 safety. 
 
136 BROADCAST- 
 
 IT would be difficult to mention a class of 
 individuals to whom something in the 
 Saviour's life does not apply. It is pleasant 
 to think that, by his unseen direction, the 
 thirty pieces of silver for which he was be- 
 trayed were appropriated to buy a strangers' 
 burying-place. O ye who wander over the 
 earth feeling homeless and desolate, consider 
 that Jesus thought of the stranger and the 
 homeless, and identified them with one of 
 the intensely interesting events connected with 
 his sufferings and death. One of his specifi- 
 cations to the righteous in his approval of 
 them at the final judgment is, "For I was 
 a stranger and ye took me in." 
 
 ft T fE is able to subdue all things unto 
 JL JL himself"; — those hard cases of ir- 
 religion, that opposition, all this wealth and 
 talent, this whole population. Therefore pray, 
 labor, wait, and do not " make haste." 
 
BROADCAST. 137 
 
 « rT^HOU art the God that doest wonders." 
 JL And these wonders will never cease. 
 We are repeatedly surprised by them, and we 
 shall be. Things will not proceed according 
 to our low and feeble measures. We are to 
 expect great things while God reigns, " who 
 only doeth wondrous things." They will be 
 in proportion to our humble, consistent, patient 
 faith. " Said I not unto thee," said Jesus to 
 Martha, at her brother's grave, "that if 
 thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the 
 glory of God ? " 
 
 ON becoming a Christian, we convert 
 everything into a friend and helper, 
 whereas before everything was liable to be 
 against us. A sinner's conscience gives him 
 constant alarm and pain till its voice is silenced. 
 But on becoming a Christian, he invokes its 
 aid : — 
 
 " Conscience, whom I with opiates plied, 
 Now wake and be my faithful guide." 
 
138 BROADCAST. 
 
 a V TAVING food and raiment, let us be* 
 J. JL therewith content.'' A small inven- 
 tory of possessions. But there is nothing else 
 which may not be a source of annoyance and 
 sorrow. If God gives us more, let us receive 
 it, but only as stewards, and not build our 
 happiness upon it. — One of our richest men 
 told his confidential clerk, when he applied 
 for the place, that the wages would be his 
 food and clothing. In reply to his remon- 
 strance, the rich man said, " That is all 
 which I ever received from my whole prop- 
 erty." 
 
 " U 0WBEIT > not a11 that came out of 
 JL X .Egypt by Moses." Is it possible 
 that, after such experience, any of them could 
 fail of the promised land ? Then we will 
 not presume upon our supposed conversion, 
 nor upon the signs of God's favor in times 
 past, but continually labor to enter into that 
 rest. 
 
N' 
 
 BROADCAST. 139 
 
 OTICE some gentle rebukes of unbe- 
 lt ^1 lief; for example: Moses was not com- 
 manded to smite the rock the second time, 
 but simply to speak to it. Again, Samuel did 
 not sacrifice a thousand oxen when he would 
 assure Israel of Divine help against Philistia ; 
 he offered " a sucking lamb." 
 
 THE spoils of Samaria, gathered after the 
 retreat of its army, and during a famine 
 in Jerusalem, show the unthought-of ways in 
 which God can come to our relief in the 
 greatest extremity. " Trust in him at all 
 times." 
 
 HERE is a prescription of holy writ in 
 cases of despondency : " O my God, 
 my soul is cast down within me ; therefore I 
 will remember thee." What could be better ? 
 
140 BROADCAST. 
 
 THERE are many instructions to be 
 gathered from the words of Christ 
 which are profitable in the formation of char- 
 acter and the guidance of conduct, though 
 not essential to salvation. For example, He 
 inculcates modesty : " When thou art bid- 
 den of any man to a feast," &c. He ad- 
 monishes us to act in secret, under the ap- 
 prehension that our most private words and 
 deeds may be known. " Whatsoever is spo- 
 ken in the ear," &c. He teaches us to con- 
 sider the incapacity of some to appreciate our 
 good things, and so not to cast our pearls 
 before swine. An obliging disposition, a read- 
 iness to do a kind act, are enjoined by the 
 general rule, " Give to him that asketh of 
 thee," &c. 
 
 IF God takes away earthly objects, however 
 important and dear, that he may himself 
 fill the vacant places, he honors you. " Let 
 him do what seemeth him good." 
 
BROADCAST. 141 
 
 " X^l OD left him, to try him, that he 
 vJ might know all that was in his 
 heart." So with us : and all through life 
 the painful lessons which we thereby learn 
 keep us humble, make us watchful, and are 
 among the most powerful means, of insuring 
 our salvation. 
 
 SELECT one of the many specifications in 
 the Saviour's injuries at his trial, and 
 during the time preceding and following, and 
 dwell upon it. For example, " And the ser- 
 vants did strike him with the palms of their 
 hands." 
 
 THE interview between Jesus and his 
 mother after his resurrection is not re- 
 corded. One might almost say, that the inspi- 
 ration of the Bible is as clearly seen in that 
 which is omitted as in its actual contents. 
 
142 BROADCAST. 
 
 ON the arrival of some great event, some 
 emergency, some critical and all-impor- 
 tant turn in your affairs, you cannot pray. 
 The mind is too much excited for anything 
 more than ejaculations. They are heard ; but 
 how good it is, then, to reflect that, while there 
 were no excitements, you maintained prayer 
 and walked with God, irrespective of passing 
 events. Now he will " rew r ard thee openly." 
 
 « \ ND the 
 JTjL It mic 
 
 ND the ruin of that house was great." 
 might have been u a habitation of 
 God through the Spirit." Christ was often 
 seen at its door ; the Holy Spirit was often 
 heard within striving with some one to do 
 him good ; blessings from heaven arrived there 
 without number ; it was filled " jvith pleasant 
 riches"; it might have been an eternal habita- 
 tion. But it fell, "and great was the fall 
 of it." 
 
BROADCAST. 143 
 
 FROM what sins is Christ saving me ? 
 " He shall save his people from their 
 sins." Not merely from their future conse- 
 quences. Nor is his object merely to give us 
 hope. Hence you who despond because your 
 hope is feeble, repent, forsake sin, believe, be 
 redeemed from all iniquity. This was the pur- 
 pose of Christ's death, and not merely to give 
 you a comfortable expectation of heaven. 
 
 u 1 JE went down to Capernaum, he and 
 JL A his mother and his brethren and his 
 disciples ; and they continued there not many 
 days." It was a pleasant gathering ; it must 
 have been a heaven on earth ! But rest, 
 and those rich enjoyments, ; w T ere, for him, 
 " not many days." He must be about his 
 Father's business. We have snatches of bliss 
 here in our meetings with Christian friends ; 
 but this is not our rest. 
 
144 BROADCAST. 
 
 A TRANSLATOR and a commentator 
 ought to be men of faith. Otherwise 
 the words of inspiration passing through their 
 minds are robbed of their beautiful freedom, 
 and come to us in a cold and rigid shape. 
 There is an artlessness in inspiration which a 
 man of mere exactness, and, much more, a 
 doubting man, utterly destroys. It is painful 
 to read his translations and comments. 
 
 AFIELD of tall, ripe grain, bowing under 
 a gentle wind, looks like a great wor- 
 shipping host, under one and the same impulse 
 of heavenly joy. Each of those stalks has its 
 root, its distinct organization, its full number 
 of grains ; it has enjoyed the culture of the 
 husbandman and the sweet influences of the 
 heavens. God has done as much for it as for 
 its neighbor, knows it as well ; and a part of 
 its duty and service in return is to make one 
 in a harvest-field. 
 
BROADCAST. 145 
 
 * 1 f OWL, fir-tree, for the cedar is fall- 
 JL A en." The removal of great and good 
 men from posts of usefulness, when they are 
 succeeded by inferior and unworthy men, is 
 a divine judgment. " And I will give chil- 
 dren to be their princes, and babes shall rule 
 over them." 
 
 ACTING on coincidences without judg- 
 ment, and seeing providences without 
 due reflection, is as bad as trusting to 
 dreams. We may get useful hints from 
 dreams, but they are not our guide. Wis- 
 dom and discretion must judge as to the 
 inferences to be drawn from them. 
 
 ESCAPES from imminent danger have an 
 effect sometimes on good people to make 
 them feel safe. God was there. 
 
 7 j 
 
146 BROADCAST. 
 
 WAS it accidental or designed, that Paul, 
 in addressing the two ministers, Tim- 
 othy and Titus, should add " mercy " to the 
 "grace and peace " with which he addressed 
 every Church to whom his Epistles are 
 directed ? To these he says, " Grace be unto 
 you and peace " ; but to the ministers he 
 says, " Grace, mercy, and peace." Peter also 
 says, " Grace and peace," only, to Christians. 
 We ministers specially need the " mercy," — 
 from others, for our mistakes, and our inca- 
 pacity ; and from God, for our sins, which 
 must be worse than those of others. 
 
 THE selection of Canaan for " the Holy 
 Land," the Arab race, and other things 
 related thereto, are striking illustrations of the 
 providence of God coinciding with seemingly 
 fixed inevitable laws and events, as though all 
 were not originally designed and made ex- 
 pressly for the purposes of Redemption. 
 
BROADCAST. 147 
 
 WHAT impression may the Bible be fairly 
 said to have made on the world as to 
 essential truths? what, amidst and underneath 
 all that is denominational and sectarian, do 
 we find to be accepted by all who receive the 
 Bible as "the word of God"? On every 
 principle of common sense those truths are the 
 truths of God's word. 
 
 REPENTANCE is impossible where there 
 is no atonement for sin. This is capable 
 of a strong argument. The bearing of this 
 truth on the future condition of the wicked, 
 when there shall be "no more sacrifice for 
 sin," is obvious. 
 
 IF wicked men could have the Most High 
 in their power, it is not difficult to see 
 what they would do with him. 
 
148 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE thought of never coming back to 
 this world, of leaving it at once and 
 forever, is deeply affecting. We shall be 
 glad if it be better for our having lived in it. 
 " The world and all that is therein shall be 
 burnt up." Even if we inhabit this globe 
 again, we shall recognize nothing, if every- 
 thing shall have been burnt up. Now is our 
 time to work for the good of the world. 
 
 THE penitent thief had a better right- 
 eousness in which to appear before 
 God than the most accomplished moralist in 
 the Sanhedrim. 
 
 WHAT a good kingdom this must be, 
 of which it is said, it " is not meat 
 and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 
BROADCAST. 149 
 
 SEE the natural connection here : " Full 
 of goodness, filled with all knowledge, 
 able, also, to admonish one another." We do 
 not willingly suffer one to occupy this last po- 
 sition, unless he answers to the first two parts 
 of the description. All such are gladly listened 
 to when they admonish. 
 
 DREAMS will no doubt be surpassed 
 hereafter by realities ; some of them 
 exquisitely pleasurable and others inconceiva- 
 bly dreadful. " Dull sleep instructs, nor sport 
 
 BE reverent in all expressions of love to 
 God ; for forms of speech are defences 
 against improprieties. The Saviour is our 
 example and pattern in addressing God. 
 
150 BROADCAST. 
 
 CHRIST was to Adam a man, to Abra- 
 ham a Hebrew, to Moses a prophet, to 
 Isaiah a man of sorrows, to David a king, to 
 Daniel a suffering, sacrificed Messiah. There 
 is a progression, now, in the minds of many 
 respecting Christ. Let them not be discour- 
 aged. "Unto you that fear my name shall 
 the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in 
 his w T ings ; and ye shall go forth, and grow up 
 like calves of the stall." . 
 
 WHEN the end of a trial is evidently 
 near, we see how easy it is for God 
 to clear the darkest skies ; we generally find 
 that all has happeried in the best time; we 
 are sorry at impatience ; we perhaps feel 
 grateful for the subduing and softening influ- 
 ence of the trial, and we may well fear lest 
 with relief we forget God. " The Lord will 
 speak peace unto his people and to his saints ; 
 but let them not turn again to folly." 
 
BROADCAST. 151 
 
 THE Saviour went three times into 
 Gethseinane on that night of his agony. 
 We must not expect that a single prayer of 
 ours, or one effort, will accomplish any great 
 thing for our souls or for the souls of others. 
 The Saviour came back from Gethsemane 
 with these words on his lips, — a result of 
 his experience there : " Watch and pray 
 that ye enter not into temptation." 
 
 WHEN David saw that the Lord had 
 answered him in the threshing-floor 
 of Oman, he sacrificed to him there. We do 
 well to identify our acknowledgments of God's 
 goodness with the places and times of his be- 
 stowments. 
 
 N 
 
 EW YEAR.. How much God has to do 
 for you this year ! Begin it with him. 
 
152 BROADCAST. 
 
 ON revisiting places, where God was 
 good to us, in preserving, helping, 
 comforting, and in various ways blessing us. 
 "And let us arise and go up to Bethel, and 
 I will make there an altar unto . God, who 
 answered me in the day of my distress, and 
 w T as with me in the way which I went." 
 Sadness in memory of the past should not 
 keep us from doing this. 
 
 IN great bodily pain or mental distress, we 
 are instructed how to vent our groans, 
 and on whom to call, by these words of the 
 Most High : " And they have not cried unto 
 me with their heart when they howled upon 
 their beds." 
 
 F 
 
 ANCY yourself with men of the Bible, 
 comparing your opportunities with theirs. 
 
BROADCAST. 153 
 
 THEY who love and worship the Holy- 
 Spirit are deeply interested in the be- 
 lief of judicious critics, that by the " seven 
 spirits which are before his throne," is desig- 
 nated some infinite mystery concerning the 
 Holy Spirit, concerning which, indeed, it is in 
 vain to inquire, but the unfolding of which 
 hereafter will excite our wonder and love with 
 regard to him beyond expression. 
 
 U \ ^^ ^^ tQ °k Dagon and set him in 
 ill his place again." Men sometimes re- 
 peat the sins and follies for which they had 
 been signally humbled and chastised. 
 
 H 
 
 EIRS of heaven get a larger " earnest 
 of their inheritance " than heirs of rich 
 
 men. 
 
 7* 
 
154 BROADCAST. 
 
 IT is a beautiful illustration of the nature 
 of faith, that, though we speak so often 
 to God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and 
 have no audible or sensible reply, we continue 
 to pray. We should not long address a fellow- 
 creature without sopie response. But we are 
 answered, and are made to feel that we are ; — - 
 not always at the time of praying, — for that 
 might weaken faith. 
 
 IF you so love Christ whom you have not 
 seen, how must it be when you see him ? 
 Your eternity is to be an eternity of loving 
 and being loved. 
 
 U \ ^^ a &F e2L ^ company of the priests 
 J~jL were obedient to the faith." We 
 must not despair of conversions among the 
 ecclesiastics of erroneous systems. 
 
BROADCAST. 155 
 
 THE key note of preaching should be 
 Salvation, as it is that of the Gospel, 
 and all we say should be governed accord- 
 ingly. " For God hath not appointed us to 
 wrath, but to obtain salvation through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 U Tfjj^OR none might enter into the king's 
 JL gate clothed in sackcloth." Esther iv. 
 2. Would that we could spiritualize this rule 
 at the gate of mercy and at the gate of the 
 Lord's house. 
 
 JOSEPH was two years old or less when 
 his mother died. He surely could not 
 have succeeded better in life had she lived 
 to train him. God does not need even a 
 mother in fulfilling his gracious purposes to 
 a child of his covenanted love. 
 
 . 
 
 
156 BROADCAST. 
 
 " T? CCLESIASTES " is > much of i*» the 
 
 M J moody reflections of a man troubled 
 with the mysteries of Divine Providence. Some 
 passages in the writings of the able and elo- 
 quent John Foster remind one of this book. 
 Parnell's " Hermit " may profitably be read 
 on this subject. 
 
 THERE is only one affection in which 
 there is no danger of excess, and that 
 is Love to God. Everything else may be in- 
 ordinate and hurtful ; but that which is best 
 of all may be indulged without limitation or 
 fear. 
 
 INTOLERANCE is laid down by the 
 Apostle as a sign of being in the wrong. 
 " But as then he that was born after the 
 flesh persecuted him that was born after the 
 Spirit, even so it is now." 
 
BROADCAST. v lo7 
 
 EVERY future hour will have its own 
 duty, sorrow, care ; how then can you 
 postpone the duty of the present hour, which 
 is, to repent, and so burden a future hour with 
 it, which will be sufficiently occupied with its 
 own urgent concern ? Men of business know 
 how wrong this is in their private affairs. 
 
 SEE the effect of one angel on the Ro- 
 man guard at the tomb of Christ. 
 "And for fear of him the keepers did shake, 
 apd became as dead men." Hence, when 
 " the Son of Man shall come in his glory, 
 and all the holy angels with him," well is 
 it said, "then shall he sit upon the throne 
 of his glory." 
 
 B 
 
 E " wise to do good." Invent ways, 
 create means, find subjects. 
 
158 BROADCAST. 
 
 « yi ND had a wall great and high." AH 
 jLJl these emblems of heaven must of 
 course be in keeping with the nature of the 
 place. If so, it may properly be asked, What 
 need of a wall round about heaven, if heaven 
 be not in any sense exclusive ? Whom will 
 there be to shut out, if all are saved ? And if 
 all are saved, why need they be shut in ? 
 
 WHENEVER we detect any evil thing 
 in us, let us act toward it as we do 
 toward an eruption, or a disease, or a damage 
 threatening the house. 
 
 THE Holy Spirit made the Bible for his 
 chief instrument in his official work. 
 He took sixteen centuries in which to do it, 
 from Moses to John. 
 
BROADCAST. 159 
 
 THERE are many commands in the Old 
 Testament from God himself to love 
 Him, — not invitations, nor permissions, nor 
 exhortations, but commands, enforced by the 
 most solemn injunctions and penalties. This 
 may be a relief to those who fear to approach 
 God with their affections. 
 
 WHAT if, ages hence, we should be 
 summoned, for the first time, to eat 
 the flesh and drink the blood of Him whom 
 we shall have known as our final Judge. 
 What a sacrament that would be ! We do it 
 now, in anticipation. What a sacrament this 
 will hereafter seem to have been ! 
 
 D 
 
 EATH made Pharaoh give up his bond- 
 men and his jewels. 
 
160 BROADCAST. 
 
 SOME who are convinced and persuaded 
 neglect, and sometimes refuse, to make a 
 Christian profession, for the reason that a friend 
 is believed to have died without a Christian 
 hope. To embrace a certain faith will seem 
 to be a condemnation of the friend. " If he is 
 lost, I prefer to be lost with him ! " Perhaps, 
 however, in his last hours, unknown to you, 
 he accepted that Gospel which you, for his 
 sake, reject, and so he may be saved, and 
 you, by loving him more than Christ, may be 
 forever separated from both. 
 
 THE life of Christ was a life of incidents. 
 Let us be willing that ours should be 
 so, meeting each as he did. Then we shall 
 always have something to do, and be saved 
 from that aimless, listless condition . which is 
 the bane of Christian character and usefulness. 
 We shall also be kept from uselessly looking 
 out for some great good to accomplish. 
 
BROADCAST. 161 
 
 U \ ^^ ^ e t00 ^ ^ ie ^lind man by the 
 JT^. hand, and led him out of the town." 
 Perhaps the excitement of being cured in 
 public would have been inconsistent with the 
 circumstances of the patient. If so, see the 
 Divine regard to circumstances, even in a 
 miracle. We must regard means, and adapt 
 ourselves to circumstances, not relying on 
 Divine pow r er for preternatural help. When 
 this blind man was cured, he was sent to 
 his own house, and was forbidden to go into 
 the town. If we neglect the use of proper 
 means, we must cast no blame on God. 
 
 66 1 ■ "\HY gentleness hath made me great." 
 JL " God knows how to encourage, to 
 help us on, " gently lead " us ; whereas 
 harshness and violence, with impatience, frus- 
 trate the best designs. The Bible has the 
 only true standard and rules of education. It 
 is a book for parents. 
 
162 BROADCAST. 
 
 WHEN some new system in religion 
 is broached, or a popular delusion 
 springs up, they who are carried away by 
 them are those who never knew by experi- 
 ence that word of truth and wisdom, " It is 
 a good thing that the heart be established 
 with grace." We need so to instruct the 
 people in systematic divinity that they will be 
 furnished with defences against cunningly de- 
 vised fables and winds of doctrine. 
 
 THE intrepid conduct of Jonathan and 
 his armor-bearer had a wonderful effect 
 in turning the tide of war in favor of Israel ; 
 so that, but for Saul's folly, they would have 
 almost destroyed the Philistines. See what 
 one public-spirited man can do in a church or 
 corporation. People need leaders. If but 
 one man will show himself efficient and com- 
 petent, a host will often follow, who would 
 not lead. 
 
BROADCAST. 163 
 
 SEVERITY, and, much more, unfairness, 
 in a judge, mars the effect of justice. 
 No doubt the last judgment will so illustrate 
 the perfect rectitude of God as to leave not 
 the least impression of severity on a good 
 mind. Hence holy beings are represented as 
 saying, " Alleluia," at the Divine sentence. 
 This necessity of so commending himself at 
 the great day to the secret approbation of all 
 the good, is perhaps referred to when it is 
 said of God, " Is God unrighteous that taketh 
 vengeance ? God forbid, for how then should 
 God judge the world ? " 
 
 U T3^T though he had done so many mir- 
 U acles, yet they believed not on him." 
 Belief, therefore, does not depend on the 
 amount or force of evidence ; nor conviction 
 on clearness and power of statement. See 
 the reason in the passage from which the 
 Evangelist here quotes, Is. vi. 
 
164 BROADCAST. 
 
 PETER moved that the place of Judas he 
 filled. With what feelings must he have 
 made that motion. But for the infinite grace 
 of his dear Lord, one would also have had 
 occasion to move that Peter's place also be 
 filled. But being forgiven and restored, we 
 cannot but respect Peter for being able " and 
 willing to make the motion. Learn some- 
 thing from this, distrustful penitent. 
 
 BE not ambitious to be thought very good, 
 a saint. This is one of the many forms 
 of spiritual pride. Try to feel and do right, 
 for its own sake, and to please God. 
 
 GOD, who had just punished Israel fear- 
 fully, nevertheless would not let Ba- 
 laam curse them. 
 
BROADCAST. 165 
 
 SOME are not satisfied with those proofs 
 which are enough for a well-balanced 
 mind. We ought to know when belief is rea- 
 sonably demanded, in spiritual things, and not 
 be continually seeking for evidence. Two 
 hinges, or at most three, are enough for a 
 door; but some minds, in requiring evidence, 
 are like one who should fill the whole length 
 of the door with hinges. 
 
 ONE of the first things which a physi- 
 cian says to his patient is, " Let me 
 see your tongue." A spiritual adviser might 
 often do the same. 
 
 COMMIT to the Blessed Three in One, 
 severally, particular wants, sorrows, re- 
 quests, which seem related to their several of- 
 fices and parts in the work of redemption. 
 
166 BROADCAST, 
 
 " C^ HALL we be judged twice ? " it is fre- 
 k-/ quently asked. " Why should there be 
 two judgment-days ? " It is obvious that no 
 man's account can be fully made up till his 
 influence in this world has wholly ceased ; and 
 it will not cease till time is no longer. The 
 influence of parents, and preachers, and authors, 
 and good and bad men of every description, 
 will be transmitted to the last day. Moreover, 
 there will be others who will be included in 
 the judgment, for good or ill, of every one. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING God was angry 
 at Israel's demand for a king, yet 
 when it was settled, God would have blessed 
 their first king, had he obeyed him, as he 
 blessed David, the second king. Hence, when 
 we have greatly disapproved of a thing, and 
 it is done, and established, let us learn from 
 our God how to feel and act with regard to 
 it. 
 
BROADCAST. 167 
 
 APPLYING the rule, " By their fruits ye 
 shall know them," to the Holy Spirit, 
 and contemplating that passage in which " the 
 fruits of the Spirit " are declared, and among 
 which " love, joy, and peace " are the " first 
 fruits," we find in the Holy Spirit an occasion 
 for love and adoration in no respect less than 
 in the Father and the Son. 
 
 « T)LEAD my cause, God." What an 
 1 advocate. Seek him always before ap- 
 plying to another. Who has not continually 
 some cause for God to plead ? There are 
 always some on whose will and decision our 
 happiness in a measure depends. 
 
 IT is not best for us in religion always to 
 be in raptures. We need absences in our 
 friendship with God to try us. 
 
168 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE written word is far better than the 
 Mount of Transfiguration. For what 
 did the three disciples do there? They were 
 sore afraid, they fell asleep, and they wist 
 not what they said. One of them, speaking 
 of the scene on the mount, gives the pref- 
 erence to the Bible. " We have a more 
 sure word of prophecy," says he. 
 
 A LIMB of a peach-tree broken off in 
 my friend's garden had a hundred and 
 twenty-five peaches on it, nearly ripe. " If 
 a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a 
 branch, and is withered," — no matter how 
 great his apparent usefulness, or his desirable- 
 ness to others. 
 
 O 
 
 NE object in our temptations is, to foil 
 and afflict the tempter. 
 
BROADCAST. 169 
 
 k ENOMINATIONAL lines and rules are 
 helpful in our imperfect condition, some- 
 what like ruled paper. True, theoretically, 
 every one should be able to write straight. 
 Some, who think that to write on ruled paper 
 is not refined, put their own ruled lines under- 
 neath their pages. We meet with some who 
 are decidedly opposed to denominational dis- 
 tinctions, yet they are as strongly attached to 
 their own way in religion as those are whom 
 they regard as sectarian. They discard the 
 common ruled sheet, but are sure to put down 
 rules and lines of their own when they write. 
 
 THERE is never a greater longing for 
 more than this w r orld can give, than 
 in one who is on the very point of receiving 
 the utmost wish of the heart. It is a good 
 time then for a judicious Christian friend to 
 speak of spiritual religion and the favor of 
 God. 
 
170 BROADCAST. 
 
 SNOW-FLAKES are now skilfully copied, 
 in their geometrical forms of crystalliza- 
 tion, in cuttings of delicate paper. The originals 
 are " those marvellous things which we can- 
 not comprehend," mentioned by Elihu among 
 the great things of God. Yet in March you 
 will see in our streets the horses with their 
 heavy loads floundering in ditches of miry 
 snow, every particle of which, however, as it 
 came down from heaven, was a pure crystal, 
 each varying from the rest according to Di- 
 vine skill. And you will have reflections at 
 the sight which it is needless here to specify. 
 
 WE are apt to have a misapprehension 
 of the Saviour's power and willingness 
 to do better for us than we think, correspond- 
 ing with that of the woman of Samaria, when 
 she said to Him who made all things, " Sir, 
 thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well 
 is deep." 
 
BROADCAST. 171 
 
 THERE is a difference between " throng- 
 inn; " Christ, and " touching " him with 
 the finger of faith. " The multitude throng 
 thee," said the disciples, " and sayest thou 
 who touched me ? " " Somebody touched me," 
 said Jesus. He knew that touch, amid the 
 pressure of the throng. Not one act of faith 
 in him is unnoticed or disregarded. 
 
 ON meeting with a striking passage of 
 God's word, copy it, and lay it back 
 in your Bible. On opening the book some 
 time after, you will be greatly cheered and 
 comforted on reading that passage in your 
 own handwriting. 
 
 WHAT in prayer does God probably 
 most regard ? " Behold thou requir- 
 est truth in the inward part." 
 
L72 BROADCAST. 
 
 SOMETHING in Paul's words on one oc- 
 casion warrants the belief that, to some 
 of his natural feelings, the work of preaching 
 was not wholly agreeable. " If I do this 
 thing willingly, I have a reward ; but if 
 against my will, a dispensation of the Gospel 
 is committed unto me." " For necessity is 
 laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me if I preach 
 not the Gospel." Who would choose, for its 
 own sake, to be, professionally, a reprover, a 
 constant warning, opposing men's wishes, his 
 presence an interruption and restraint, and 
 ghostly associations with him dwelling in the 
 minds of men ? And yet for the love of souls, 
 and for Christ's sake, to say nothing of the 
 absolute enjoyments which make the work of 
 the ministry the most enviable employment, 
 every true minister of Christ will say, with 
 Paul, " Neither count I my life dear unto 
 myself, that I may finish my course with joy, 
 and the ministry which I have received of 
 the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the 
 grace of God." 
 
BROADCAST. 173 
 
 A MAN comes into a church when the 
 Lord's Supper is administered, and sees 
 among the stated communicants one who has 
 defrauded him. The adversary of souls seldom 
 has a better opportunity to keep any one out 
 of heaven, than in the case of this injured and 
 justly indignant man. It would be a noble 
 triumph of Christian principle, but, alas ! hardly 
 to be looked for, if the sight of this dishonest 
 man should excite in the other a desire and 
 purpose to be, in deed and truth, such a fol- 
 lower of Christ as he sees this man is not, 
 but should be. The future condemnation of a 
 hypocrite will not make perdition less tolerable 
 for him who should stumble over this false 
 professor into hell. 
 
 " t I "\0 me every knee shall bow." What 
 JL bowing of the Jmee will be seen at 
 the last day ! Now that it will cost us some- 
 thing to bow the knee to Jesus, we do well 
 to improve our opportunity. 
 
174 BROADCAST. 
 
 HEARING the criticisms which some 
 make on members of the Church, the 
 thought arises, Would that those who have 
 such decided views of the Christian life were 
 themselves members of the Church, to afford 
 us patterns of true Christian excellence ! The 
 rules which they lay down, and the exactions 
 which they make with regard to Christians, 
 will be likely to be produced on their trial 
 at the last day. " The servant that knew his 
 Lord's will," must expect plain dealing. 
 
 THE way to overcome the fear of dying 
 is to understand and practise upon that 
 word, — "And whether we die, we die unto 
 the Lord." If we think only of ourselves in 
 connection with our death, of course we are 
 liable to encounter the terrors of death alone ; 
 but if we desire that we may " die unto the 
 Lord," he will regard our death as connected 
 with his honor and glory. 
 
BROADCAST. 175 
 
 THAT the Old Testament is not sangui- 
 nary in spirit, observe that the decora- 
 tions of the temple were not any of them 
 images or emblems of war. Many things in 
 the temple were, on the contrary, of a do- 
 mestic nature. Its main representation, its 
 " altar-piece," was " the cherubims of glory 
 shadowing the mercy-seat." 
 
 ONE impression which the whole Bible 
 makes on a thoughtful mind is, that 
 God has had exceeding trouble to make this 
 world love him, and that he has succeeded as 
 yet to a very limited degree. 
 
 THE name of God occurs four times in 
 the last two verses of Exodus ii. There 
 is great pathos there. 
 
176 BROADCAST. 
 
 THOUGH we deserve all we suffer, and 
 more, yet God, who is rich in mercy, 
 gives us sometimes compensatory blessings in 
 sorrows. " He stayeth his rough wind in the 
 day of his east wind." David knew this fea- 
 ture in the gracious dealings of God with us, 
 when he said of Shimei, " It may be that 
 the Lord will look on mine affliction, and that 
 the Lord will requite me good for his curs- 
 ing this day." 
 
 IT was one who leaned on Jesus' bosom, 
 who was able to ask, more emphatically 
 than the rest, who was the traitor. Peter 
 beckoned to him for the purpose. The put- 
 ting of that question is noted by the writer 
 who finished John's Gospel by designating 
 John as him who leaned on the Saviour's 
 breast at supper, " and said, Lord, which is he 
 that betrayeth thee ? " The confidence which 
 there is in love controls even our self-distrust. 
 " Perfect love casteth out fear." 
 
BROADCAST. 177 
 
 IF we need to be qualified in heaven for 
 some special service of great importance, 
 perhaps the preparation will be by some ex- 
 ceeding o-reat blessing, as in this world we 
 are thus qualified by a very great affliction. 
 " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir- 
 tree, and instead of the brier shall come up 
 the myrtle-tree." 
 
 WHEN we read, or hear it said, that an 
 advocate " appeared " for a party, we 
 may be reminded of that passage where it is 
 said that Christ has gone into heaven " now to 
 appear in the presence of God for us." Our 
 case there needs great attention, infinite skill 
 and power, and an ever-wakeful interest. 
 
 T 
 
 HERE is a credulity in unbelief which 
 surpasses that of the superstitious. 
 
 8* L 
 
178 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE seal is now put upon all our words 
 and deeds in connection with those who 
 have died. Those words and deeds recurring 
 to the memory, now seem important. We do 
 well to live with surviving friends under the 
 influence which the recollections of particular 
 words and deeds now exert. 
 
 DISPOSITION in children, and in our- 
 selves when we see our deficiency, is 
 in no way so well cultivated as to see the 
 perfect example of it in Christ, and its illus- 
 trations in his conduct, and to keep them 
 before the mind. 
 
 GOOD parents have a special claim on 
 God to support their authority. So 
 have upright magistrates. So had the Apos- 
 tles in working miracles. 
 
BROADCAST. 179 
 
 A YOUNG daughter of a friend, when 
 she was dying, asked her father to for- 
 give certain things which she specified. The 
 father did not remember them, and had noth- 
 ing, it seemed to him, to forgive. It is, in 
 effect, so with God, when we repent. "As 
 far as the east is from the west, so far hath 
 he removed our transgressions from us." 
 
 " \ ^^ Jesus sat over against the treas- 
 JLJl ury." With him for a witness, let us 
 order our contributions to his cause aright, 
 remembering the scene whicli ensued when 
 he took his place on that occasion. 
 
 HEARING one complain that he did not 
 know that God had elected him, the 
 question was put to him, u Have you 4 elected ' 
 God?" 
 
180 BROADCAST. 
 
 THE manner of Christ's ascension into 
 heaven may be said to have been an 
 instance of Divine simplicity and sublimity 
 combined, which scarcely has a parallel. While 
 in the act of blessing his disciples, he was 
 parted from them, and was carried up, and 
 disappeared behind a cloud. There was no 
 pomp ; nothing could have been more simple. 
 How can the followers of this Lord and Mas- 
 ter rely on pomp and ceremony to spread his 
 religion, when he, its founder, gave no counte- 
 nance to such appeals to the senses of men ? 
 Had some good men been consulted about 
 the manner of the ascension, we can imagine 
 the result. 
 
 JESUS furnished the technical ground for 
 his condemnation. The witnesses had 
 not agreed. — " Thou say est that I am " ; or, 
 " I am that [which] thou sayest," i. e. a King. 
 This was that "good confession." — "I lay 
 down my life for the sheep." " No man tak- 
 eth it from me, but I lay it down of myself" 
 
BROADCAST. 181 
 
 WOULD we think it possible that God 
 should forgive us before we repent ? 
 No, says the theologian, that would violate 
 the whole system of truth. Let us adhere to 
 well-established systems ; but there is something 
 above all systems in this appeal of the Most 
 High : " I have blotted out as a thick cloud 
 thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins. 
 Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." 
 Here is the image of one approaching another 
 with a bond cancelled, and appealing by it 
 for the debtor's confidence and love. We do 
 this, sometimes, to subdue a man ; why may 
 not God deal thus with a sinner ? 
 
 THISTLES should be mowed in a wet 
 day, else the thistle-down will " spread 
 the seeds. The best time to reprove and to 
 correct is, • when the feelings are inclined to 
 be penitential. Reproof in times of happiness 
 or gladness is apt to perpetuate tlie evil. 
 
182 BROADCAST. 
 
 " 1 IE hoped also that money should have 
 A JL been given him of Paul, that he 
 might loose him ; wherefore he sent for him 
 the oftener, and communed with him." Poor, 
 base man ! never was money looked for from 
 a more unlikely source, and never does the 
 love of it seem so contemptible as when thus 
 brought in contrast with the noble Apostle, 
 and the infinite riches which he was commis- 
 sioned to bestow. 
 
 A FRIEND had nearly a thousand potted 
 plants in his conservatory which were 
 rooting. He did not seem to be so much in- 
 terested in them as when he came to some 
 full-grown heath, and lifted it up, and said, 
 " Was there ever such whiteness ? " — Strange 
 if God does not love you more when you are 
 old than he did when you were young. How 
 he has watched, and cultivated, and reared 
 you. " And even to your old age I am he, 
 and even to hoar hairs I will carry you." 
 
BROADCAST. 183 
 
 WHAT a scene that must have been of 
 which it is said, " When he bring- 
 eth in the first-begotten into the world he 
 saith, And let all the angels of God worship 
 him." Judo-mg from the effect of being su- 
 perseded here, it must have been a trial of 
 virtue on the part of angels to see one of an 
 inferior race exalted to the infinite dignity of 
 the incarnation. We were then honored ; our 
 nature was promoted ; we are joint-heirs with 
 Christ. 
 
 WHAT a position does a preacher oc- 
 cupy, — such a congregation attending 
 to him, and receiving that which he is led to 
 give them, and in silence, with no reply nor 
 dispute, and with confidence in him. It should 
 make us love those who thus listen to us. 
 We must be careful not to abuse our power 
 in the Gospel. We must give our best efforts 
 and energies to our sermons, in return for the 
 privilege of preaching. 
 
184 BROADCAST. 
 
 IF we knew and could feel as much con- 
 cerning God, and Christ, and heaven, as 
 we sometimes desire, probably it would make 
 us insane. We have seen horticulturists pull 
 down the awnings in their greenhouses. Plants 
 may sometimes have too much sun ; and so 
 may we. 
 
 LOOKING at one of the most extensive 
 prospects in this or any land, where 
 everything great and beautiful was combined, 
 it was affecting to think, — He that made all 
 this died for me. 
 
 TO those whose great effort is to be rich 
 against the time when they are old, 
 the Apostle James may say, "Ye have heaped 
 treasure together for the last days," when you 
 can enjoy it but little, and only for a little 
 while. Were we made for this ? 
 
BROADCAST. 185 
 
 PERHAPS we do not make enough of 
 worship, — public, social, family, private, 
 as offerings to God. He expects them, as 
 he did ancient oblations. They take the place 
 of all those pious acts of acknowledgment 
 and adoration, and they are required now, 
 through our Great High-Priest, as anciently 
 the offerings were made through earthly min- 
 isters. " By him, therefore, let us offer the 
 sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, 
 the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his 
 name." Each Christian is a priest unto 
 God. " Ye also as lively stones are built 
 up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to 
 offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
 through Jesus Christ." 
 
 CHRIST never tasted one of the pleas- 
 ures of sin. Holy angels never did. 
 Souls in heaven never will. Can those pleas- 
 ures be essential to happiness ? 
 
186 . BROADCAST. 
 
 GOD seeks our good opinion of him, 
 wishes to be understood, appreciated, 
 loved. The Old Testament abounds in proofs 
 of this. A collection of passages illustrating 
 Divine grief at ill-treatment from men would 
 show surpassing pathos. As one instance, — 
 in Malachi L, — God comforts himself against 
 the wicked Jews by the prospect of repent- 
 ing Gentiles. " For from the rising of the 
 sun even unto the going down of the same, 
 my name shall be great among the Gentiles." 
 
 " 1^3 ^^ w ^ e I am com i n g> another step- 
 i-J peth down before me." He makes 
 us think, though he was not one of them, of 
 those hapless people w T ho are always too late, 
 or who lose an advantage, or meet often with 
 ludicrous accidents. They are, however, " im- 
 potent folk," as to energy and practical wis- 
 dom. Their reading should be largely in the 
 Book of Proverbs. 
 
BROADCAST. 187 
 
 ON spending Sabbaths at Cemeteries. 
 Better be in the house of God. You 
 will be nearer your friends in heaven there 
 than at their graves. They are sorry to see 
 you at their sepulchres on the Lord's day. 
 Do you wish for a good example on this 
 point ? Even those who entombed the Lord 
 Jesus would not visit his sepulchre on the 
 Sabbath. " They returned and prepared 
 spices, and rested the seventh day, according 
 to the commandment." What an unobjection- 
 able thing, it may be said, to have spent that 
 Sabbath at the Saviour's tomb. But these 
 friends of Jesus were right. They kept the 
 unrepealed commandment. 
 
 THE temptations which Satan used with 
 Christ in the wilderness were these 
 three : Want, Ambition, and Presumption. 
 These include many of his present forms of 
 assailing men. 
 
188 BROADCAST. 
 
 THERE is wonderful power in death, 
 upon survivors, to subdue animosities, 
 to make men gentle toward each other, to 
 correct their errors, to moderate their pas- 
 sions, to qualify their judgments, to bring in 
 thoughts and feelings of a refining power. 
 So by the Gospel every curse is used for 
 good. 
 
 A SOUL pressing onward and upward to 
 heaven through darkness and storms, 
 amidst temptations, with growing faith and 
 zeal, must be an exceedingly interesting ob- 
 ject to those who are now within the veil. 
 
 « T HAVE seen all that Laban doeth unto 
 JL thee." So that we never need fear, if 
 our cause is just. We may suffer temporary 
 hardship, but the end will be peace. 
 
BROADCAST. 189 
 
 YOU confidently expect to be converted 
 and saved. How in heaven will you 
 probably wish that you had acted, and when 
 have begun to obey the Gospel, and how 
 will you wish that you had felt toward the 
 Church of Christ and its ordinances, and on 
 what principles had used your property, and 
 what end in life will it seem that you should 
 have had constantly in view ? 
 
 SOME of the ways in which transgressors, 
 when detected, try to escape, are, by 
 Flight, Force, Bribery, Appeal to Compas- 
 sion, Suicide. None of these will avail sin- 
 ners at the last. " And they cannot escape." 
 
 S 
 
 UPPOSE that you could overhear Christ 
 praying for you in the next room. 
 
190 BROADCAST. 
 
 HOW shall we feel and act in heaven, 
 meeting angels at every turn, and 
 great and good men ? and having the Saviour 
 look in upon us, and the cloud, as it were, 
 descending and resting at the door of our 
 mansion ? O to live so here, by faith ! 
 
 u ? | ^O whom shall we go?" said one, in 
 A reference to leaving Christ. The 
 misery of apostates. To whom can they go ? 
 Follow them, trace their dreadful, devious 
 ways in search of peace and happiness, which 
 they have forever left behind them. 
 
 A FRIEND had it for one of his rules, 
 as helping his devotion, to pause in 
 what he was doing and offer ejaculatory prayer, 
 whenever he heard the clock strike. 
 
BROADCAST. 191 
 
 GRIEF on the part of " the Holy Spirit 
 of God," rather than anger, at the 
 sins of those who by him are " sealed to the 
 day of redemption," is in beautiful accordance 
 with all the representations which are made 
 of him, from that similitude of him, "like a 
 dove," to that closing word of his in one of 
 the last verses of the Bible, " Come." 
 
 IT is kindly said, that while we are kept 
 waiting for God, we should hope ; and 
 while we are hoping, it is our duty also to 
 wait. "It is good for a man that he both 
 hope, and quietly wait, for the salvation of 
 God." 
 
 WOULD any of us suffer ourselves, like 
 Daniel, to be cast into a den of lions 
 rather than be prevented from praying ? 
 
192 BROADCAST. 
 
 FROM tins window in the country I see 
 at least a thousand pines, firs, spruces, 
 larches, standing close together. They were 
 there last year, and the year preceding, and 
 have been there for twenty years or more. 
 Each is undistinguished from the rest, but 
 stands there quietly and patiently. Are we 
 willing, if so it pleases God, to be, not " one 
 of a thousand," but one in a thousand, satis- 
 fied to be anything or anywhere, as it shall 
 please God ? 
 
 " My soul, be humble in thy low estate, 
 Nor seek nor wish to be esteemed or great ; 
 To take th' impressions of a will divine, 
 Be this thy glory, and these riches thinc. ,, 
 
 WE must not write bitter things against 
 ourselves, nor forebode, nor be expect- 
 ing evil, but the contrary, — " knowing that 
 ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit 
 a blessing." 
 
BROADCAST. 193 
 
 EVEN the Lord Jesus himself, almighty 
 and omniscient, would not " tempt Prov- 
 idence " by exposing himself needlessly to 
 danger ; but he practised caution, and was 
 prudent. " After these things Jesus walked 
 in Galilee, for he would not walk in Jewry, 
 because the Jews sought to kill him." 
 
 BLESSED are the dead, for this, as much 
 as for anything that can be said of 
 them, — " For he that is dead is freed from 
 sin." O word of bliss to one who here chieflv 
 sought the spiritual interests of a departed 
 child or friend : — " They are without fault 
 before the throne of God." 
 
 R 
 
 E A D the excuses of those who made 
 Israel to sin. 
 
 9 M 
 
194 BROADCAST. 
 
 AFTER being loved as you are here by 
 some, with all the strength and sweet- 
 ness of human affection, you are going to be 
 loved by One who is almighty and every 
 way as infinite in his love as in his power. 
 We do not yet know what it is to be loved 
 by God, and by the Saviour, and by the 
 Blessed Spirit, and by the Three together. 
 
 THE wisdom of not answering our prayers 
 at once. It puts us upon self-examina- 
 tion, repentance, the use of means, makes us 
 wait, and it teaches patience, and has a good 
 effect on our consciences. 
 
 PAUL gloried in his " infirmities," more 
 than in his " revelations," — to honor 
 Christ. 
 
BROADCAST. 195 
 
 CHRIST is the only one whom the grave 
 has yielded to die no more. " The 
 first-begotten of the dead." As such he must 
 be the object of infinite interest with souls, 
 who see in him both the proof of their resur- 
 rection and likeness of their future bodies. 
 
 ADVICE to young converts : — Guard 
 against despondency at the loss of first 
 religious impressions. They are not Christ. 
 He is your righteousness, in joy as well as 
 in sorrow, in hope as well as in fear. 
 
 UNLESS we have kind feelings toward 
 those whom we are obliged to oppose, 
 our opposition will hurt ourselves, and perhaps 
 more than it hurts them. 
 
1 196 BROADCAST. 
 
 "TP there had been a law given which could 
 X have given life, then righteousness would 
 have been by the law." This means, " It is 
 utterly impossible for you to be saved by your 
 goodness. In the superstructure of a house, 
 glass, paints, lime-work, and soft wood are 
 indispensable ; but they cannot make a good 
 foundation. Our goodness is indispensable ; 
 but Jesus Christ is the only foundation. 
 
 WHAT is your expectation ; what are 
 you living for ; what is the present 
 great aim and end with you ; what would 
 make you most happy ? Ascertain this, and 
 examine it prayerfully. "And now, Lord, 
 what wait I for ? " 
 
 D 
 
 O We ever know " a peace " " which 
 passeth all understanding " ? 
 
BROADCAST. 197 
 
 ONE of the most interesting spectacles, 
 perhaps, ever witnessed in heaven, must 
 have been the first interview there between 
 " Saul, who also is called Paul," and Stephen. 
 If we ever indulge the thought as to some of 
 the principal objects of interest to us hereafter 
 in heaven, we may well place this among 
 them, — to behold these two men together. 
 What shall we lose, if we lose heaven, full 
 as it is of such wonders of love and joy! 
 
 ONE of the chief characteristics of Paul 
 is his urbanity. His address, in most 
 of his Epistles, in his most common manner 
 of speaking to his Christian friends, may al- 
 most be likened to the manner of a well-bred 
 man toward a lady. This is the more re- 
 markable, considering the imperfect character 
 and behavior of many to whom he wrote. 
 But this mode of address makes his Epistles 
 suitable for all times. See 2 Cor. vii. 
 
! 198 BROADCAST. 
 
 IF but a little of God be so distasteful to a 
 sinner, how will it be when he knows 
 him more ? If the duties of religion here 
 repel him, the eternal employments of heaven 
 will be his sorest affliction. There is no 
 heaven in the universe to a sinner. " There 
 is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." 
 
 NO prophet ever preached such terrible 
 things as Christ, nor in such terms. 
 But love to man blends so with the Saviour's 
 words, that they do not shock the mind. 
 Learn, that with love to men they will allow 
 you to say anything to them. 
 
 SHALL death be to eftch of us " the last 
 enemy"? If not, we shall never see 
 "the last" of our enemies. 
 
BROADCAST. 199 ' 
 
 HE who would feel his heart melt within 
 him at the infinite kindness of God, 
 let him ponder those words in which God tells 
 Israel, " When thou art in tribulation, and all 
 these things are come upon .thee, then the 
 Lord thy God will not forsake thee," &c. 
 We should declare it unsafe and injudicious 
 to tell one whom we are threatening, that, 
 when he has sinned and is in trouble, we will 
 certainly be kind to him. " Who is a God 
 like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and 
 passeth by the transgression of the remnant 
 of his heritage?" 
 
 THERE is a moral incapacity, and in 
 effect it is equal to natural deficiency. 
 It is criminal, for this incapacity relates only 
 to spiritual things ; in everything else men 
 are not deficient in their apprehensions. But 
 for the time it is equal to natural defects. 
 " Bring forth the blind that have eyes, and 
 the deaf that have ears." 
 
200 BROADCAST. 
 
 THESE exhibitions of the " Industry of 
 all Nations " may remind us of that 
 word concerning heaven : u And they shall 
 bring the glory and honor of the nations into 
 it." If here a knowledge of foreign parts en- 
 larges our ideas, — recollecting old Homer's 
 eulogium of his hero as one who had " seen 
 many men and knew their mind," — the end- 
 less types of character and the boundless vari- 
 ety of personal qualities and accomplishments 
 in heaven, its natural scenery surpassing all 
 the distinctive features of every grand and 
 beautiful region here, will be to the inhab- 
 itants of this world in heaven a transcendent 
 means of enjoyment and progress. 
 
 FEW things give greater peace, than to 
 recollect how in times of great sorrow 
 and trial we were patient, prayerful, loving, 
 and faithful. God was a witness to it. 
 "Thou hast known my soul in adversities." 
 
BROADCAST. 201 
 
 A WRITTEN revelation is an incompar- 
 able blessing. Is not the cry of sub- 
 jects everywhere for a constitution, * some- 
 thing written, not the will of a sovereign, 
 nor prescription, but the rights and duties 
 of sovereign and subject in black and white? 
 The Bible is to us like a written constitu- 
 tion ; we can take it home, we can consult 
 it when we please, quote from it, appeal to 
 it. God graciously binds himself by it. Of 
 all the modern heresies, none is more con- 
 trary to human experience than the rejec- 
 tion of a written Word, and the proposed 
 substitution of human conscience and the 
 moral sentiments as our guide. We hear 
 and read many things designed to ridicule 
 the idea of " a revelation from heaven shut 
 up between the covers of a book." Blessed 
 be God that his will and our duty may be 
 thus conveniently possessed. 
 
202 BROADCAST. 
 
 " W T^ 01 ^ * sha11 see for m y self > and not 
 
 T T another," said Job of his Redeemer. 
 I am " to see Christ. No one will interpose 
 between us, in any way, or for any purpose. 
 It will be personal intercourse with Him who 
 has searched me and known me. What influ- 
 ence shall this expectation now exert? 
 
 "QHARPNESS" may sometimes be for 
 \<D " edification," 2 Cor. xiii. It should be 
 employed, if at all, for that purpose, and 
 never for " destruction." 
 
 A MOST excellent Christian lady, to 
 whom it was an effort to lead in 
 prayer, once said, "It always puts strength 
 in me when I hear any one decline to 
 pray. 
 
BROADCAST. 203 
 
 IF we shall have rapturous love to our Re- 
 deemer in heaven, is there none in this 
 world ? There surely is, for Christ is now 
 all which he will be in heaven, and Christians 
 have the same spiritual affections which they 
 will then possess. We little know what is 
 passing in the heart of that Christian friend 
 who sits at our side in the house of God. 
 If the history of each secret place of prayer 
 could be divulged, we should think some- 
 times that heaven is not " the land which is 
 very far off." 
 
 "TT THEN Jesus therefore perceived that 
 T ? they would come by force and 
 make him a king, he departed again into a 
 mountain, himself alone." His probable re- 
 flections there at the contrast of his own 
 ingdom with that poor principality to which 
 he might have been appointed. Thus when the 
 world solicits us, let us as Christians remem- 
 ber how much better a possession we have 
 than the world can give or take away. 
 
204 BROADCAST. 
 
 U \ ^^ ^ e manna c ease d on the morrow 
 -ZjL after they had eaten of the old corn 
 of the land." Departed Christian friends 
 have ceased to need the ordinances which 
 sustained and cheered them here. At once 
 and forever the productions of the heavenly- 
 Canaan became theirs. 
 
 A GERMAN princess, Maria Dorothea, 
 (let her name live with her saying,) 
 took leave of a Christian missionary 
 with these words : " Chris- 
 tians never part for 
 the last time. 
 Adieu." 
 
Index 
 
 Aaron and Moses of one family, 
 93. 
 
 " Abide in me," 168. 
 Ability, on preaching it, 127. 
 Abram and the king of Sodom, 
 
 86. 
 " Accepted in the beloved," 17. 
 Admonish, who may? 149. 
 Adversary, on having one, 105. 
 Advice to a king, 82. 
 
 " to vouna: converts, 195. 
 "Afraid of God,'' 28. 
 "A God to thee," 99. 
 Agreement of sects, 147. 
 Alliances with the bad, 32. 
 All things made for Christ, 128. 
 Always do right, 62. 
 Ambition to be thonght good, 
 
 164. 
 " And the prisoners heard them," 
 
 60. 
 " An excellent Christian," 120. 
 Angels anticipate us, 96. 
 u not effeminate, 69. 
 " worshipping Christ, 183. 
 Apostates, their misery, 90. 
 Appearances of Christ in the 
 
 Old Testament, 117. 
 "Appearing" for us, 177. 
 Arab race, 146. 
 
 Ark, a strange protection, 130. 
 Ascension of Christ, 180. 
 Ashtaroth, or the favored sin, 
 
 100. 
 
 " Asleep on a pillow," 135. 
 Assurance as evidence, 32. 
 Atonement for present sins, 132. 
 Atonement proceeding, 88. 
 Aurora of 1859, 44. 
 
 Bashfulness a snare, 38. 
 " Beauty and Bands," 102. 
 Begin early to fear God^ 98. 
 Begin with love, 31. 
 Behemoth an emblem, 89. 
 Believing and speaking, 77. 
 Belshazzar not bid to repent, 129. 
 Belshazzar's sins, 124. 
 Bible an anchorage, 14. 
 
 " and visions, 201. 
 
 " is catholic, 111. 
 
 " fearless of cavil, 22. 
 Billingsgate and Gehenna, 45. 
 Boaz a picture of happiness, 131. 
 Bright light in the clouds, 92. 
 
 Calmness in divine justice, 63. 
 Canaan, selection of, 146. 
 " Chariots of iron," 100. 
 Cheerfulness after repentance, 
 
 122. 
 Christ a judge of character, 94. 
 
 " and strangers, 136. 
 
 " an example of prudence, 
 193 
 
 k< before Pilate, 180. 
 
 " faithful to his trust, 103. 
 
 44 in common things, 136. 
 
206 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Christ in danger of a crown, 202. 
 " in the house, 61. 
 " in the ship, 59. 
 " in the stead of Adam, 128. 
 " more severe than proph- 
 ets, 198. 
 " praying for you, 189. 
 " feedeemer of the Church, 
 
 30. 
 " the first-fruits, 195. 
 Christ's blood has a cry, 74. 
 
 " social pleasures, 143. 
 Christians and heathens com- 
 pared, 79. 
 Church quarrels, 18. 
 Clinging to Christ, 75. 
 Coincidences, 145. 
 Comforter, the world has none, 
 
 111. 
 Compensations, 176. 
 Confidence in prayer, 106. 
 Conquering by faith, 134. 
 Conversion of ecclesiastics, 154. 
 Conversion, its effect on others, 
 
 13. 
 Copy striking passages, 171. 
 Cornelius's and Peter's visions, 
 
 88. 
 Count the cost, 108. 
 Country, .our, its dependence, 
 
 110. 
 Covenant with ministers, 115. 
 Covetous, not recovered, 109. 
 Covetousness, what is it ? 112. 
 Credulity of unbelief, 177. 
 Criticisms returning upon us, 
 
 174. 
 Curing evils, 158. 
 
 Dagon set up again, 153. 
 Daniel's advice to a king, 82. 
 Daniel's discretion, 87. 
 David inquires in famine, 39. 
 David's parentage, 72. 
 David's psalms after his fall, 46. 
 Day of judgment, comfort from, 
 
 39. 
 Dead, freed from sin, 193. 
 Declining to pray, 202. 
 Deity of Christ, a corner-stone, 
 
 31. 
 
 Deity of Christ, a solvent for 
 
 doubts, 40. 
 Despondency, cure for, 27, 139. 
 Disposition, how formed, 178. 
 Dreams will be surpassed, 149. 
 
 Earth viewed from other worlds, 
 39. 
 
 Ecclesiastes, 156. 
 
 Education of conscience, 65. 
 
 Election, 179. 
 
 Elijah declines his translation, 
 27. 
 
 Elisha and Hazael, 19. 
 
 End of a trial, 150. 
 
 Ephraim Syrus, 71. 
 
 Established with grace, 162. 
 
 Every one shall pray, 87. 
 
 " Every knee shall bow," 173. 
 
 Everything changed at conver- 
 sion, 137. 
 
 Escapes, 145. 
 
 Excuses of tempters, 193. 
 
 Faith in a translator, 144. 
 Fallen angels first mentioned, 
 
 135. 
 Father of Eedemption, 61. 
 Fearing God, 28. 
 Fear in religion, 78. 
 Fear of death, 174. 
 " Few," a word of honor, 24. 
 Field of grain, an emblem, 144. 
 Fir-trees for thorns, 177. 
 First duty in affliction, 51. 
 First-fruits of his creatures, 97 
 Foiling the tempter, 168. 
 Food and raiment, 138. 
 Forbearance, 51. 
 Foreboding evil, 192. 
 Forgetfulness of benefits, 85. 
 Free agents governed, 33. 
 Fruit of suffering, 48. 
 Future company of the good, 
 
 190. 
 Future happiness unmixed, 7. 
 Future punishment, apologizing 
 
 for, 29. 
 
 Gentleness makes great, 161. 
 Glorified friends, 87. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 207 
 
 God, a preacher's chief end, 16. 
 
 u a Rock, 101. 
 
 " appeals for judgment, 119. 
 
 " as final Judge, 163. 
 
 " beforehand with us, 181. 
 
 " considers wickedness, 112. 
 
 " does not need us, 17. 
 
 " fails to win sonie, 175. 
 
 u fills vacated hearts, 140. 
 
 " in wicked hands, 147. 
 
 " is light, 91. 
 
 " jealous for his people, 164. 
 
 " misses our gifts, 102. 
 
 " our example, 84. 
 
 " our standard, 126. 
 
 " pardons for his own sake, 
 21. 
 
 " past finding out, 96. 
 
 " sees others harm us, 188. 
 
 " seeks to be loved, 186. 
 
 " upholds parents, 178. 
 
 " your rereward, 8. 
 God's earnest promises, 76. 
 
 " particular knowledge, 76. 
 
 " silence painful, 42. 
 
 " sinning people defended, 
 13. 
 Godliness requires effort, 35. 
 God-man, 40. 
 Going from Christ, 40. 
 Good influence of deaths, 188. 
 Good kingdom, 148. 
 Good men all sinners, 94. 
 Grandeur of Christ's coming, 43. 
 Graves an emblem, 24. 
 Growing Christians, 77 
 Guileless, 124. 
 
 Haman and *he horse, 92. 
 Hapless people, 186. 
 Have you a heaven? 198. 
 Have you a last enemy? 198. 
 Having a heart for anything, 34. 
 Hard cases, 89. 
 Hazael, 19. 
 Heaven better unseen here ; 10. 
 
 " illustrated, 10. 
 
 M walled, 158. 
 
 " heirs of, the best heirs, 
 153. 
 " He hath borne our griefs," 95. 
 
 " He will be our guide," 203. 
 High-Priest's inquiries, 127. 
 Hinderances to conversion, 104. 
 Holy Spirit, his grief, 191. 
 " " in baptism, 120. 
 " " judged by his fruits, 
 
 167. 
 " " made the Bible, 106, 
 
 158. 
 " " selects ministers, 103. 
 11 " sins against, heinous,. 
 82. 
 Holy Spirit's foresight of our 
 wants, 97. 
 " " future influen- 
 
 ces, 109. 
 Home influence on prodigals, 49. 
 Hopeless deaths, 125. 
 
 " mourners, 121. 
 Hope and wait, 191. 
 House in ruins, 142. 
 Human nature joined with De- 
 ity, 25. 
 Human race and angels, sinning, 
 107. 
 
 Identification with Christ, 128. 
 
 " I have prayed for thee," 15.* 
 
 Imitation of good men, 96. 
 
 Importuning in prayer, 14. 
 
 Imprecations otner than Da- 
 vid's, 100. 
 
 Incapacity of sinners, 199. 
 
 In Christ, as safe as he, 97. 
 
 " In Christ's stead," 28. 
 
 Incidental doctrinal proofs, 121. 
 
 Incidental wisdom from Christ, 
 140. 
 
 Incidents make up life, 160. 
 
 Infirmities and revelations, 194. 
 
 Instincts, incompetency of, 58. 
 
 Intolerance a proof of error, 156. 
 
 " I pray not for the world," 78. 
 
 Iron gates, 99. 
 
 Irrecoverable falls, 30. 
 
 Israel a lesson for us, 11. 
 
 Jealousy for God, 75. 
 Jehoshaphat, 32. 
 Jehovah's name made known, 
 21. 
 
208 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jesus at the " treasury," 179. 
 
 Joab's generalship, 116. 
 
 Job's '' change," 44. 
 
 " description of the vile, 47. 
 u present views of trials, 48. 
 " scorn, 96. 
 
 John mistakes a saint for an an- 
 gel, 87. 
 
 John's question at the Supper, 
 176. 
 
 John's quick eye, 15. 
 
 Jonah fleeing from God, 57. 
 
 Judas " knew the place," 53. 
 " repenting, 67. 
 
 Judgments under the Gospel, 99. 
 
 Key-note of preaching, 155. 
 Kind feelings in controversy,195. 
 
 Labor for the Church, 83. 
 Labor to enter that rest, 66. 
 Lambs and their antitype, 70. 
 Last charge on Sinai, 111. 
 Law satisfied with believers, 60. 
 
 " sprinkled With blood, 89. 
 Leaving Egypt in vain, 138. 
 Leaving this world forever, 150. 
 Efeft to be tried, 141. 
 " Let me see your tongue," 165. 
 Liberality in false worship, 110. 
 Life a failure, 64. 
 Life viewed from heaven, 189. 
 Like begets like, 73. 
 Limiting Christ, 170. 
 Long suffering and doctrine, 35. 
 Lord's Supper in the retrospect, 
 
 159. 
 Losing a friend, an excuse, 160. 
 Love and kindness, 26. 
 Loved by God, 194. 
 "Love his appearing," 131. 
 " Love mercy," 59. 
 Love the living, 178. 
 Love to God commanded, 159. 
 Love to the chastened, 73. 
 Loving and being loved, 154. 
 Luxurious piety, 62. 
 Make more of worship, 185. 
 " Make it a well," 38. 
 Maker and Saviour, 184. 
 Manners in piety, 33. 
 
 Mark faithful with Peter, 113. 
 Marvel at unbelief, 1*08. 
 Mary's sick brother, 16. 
 Means regarded in miracles, 161. 
 " Meddling with God," 23. 
 Mediatorship ended, 47. 
 Meetings jn perdition, 132. 
 " Mercy " to ministers, 146. 
 Ministers as workmen, 80. 
 
 " spectators at last, 104. 
 Miracles wisely withheld; 100. 
 Misanthropic Christians, 37. 
 Miscellaneousness of Scripture, 
 
 86. 
 Moderation encouraged, 93. 
 Modesty of greatness, 19. 
 Money from Paul, 182. 
 Morality in religion, 36. 
 Motherless young children, 155. 
 Mother of Christ, 95. 
 Muse and work, 81. 
 
 Naomi's, advice, 108. 
 
 Nations losing the true religion, 
 
 50. • 
 New Testament prophecies, 63. 
 New Year, 151. 
 Noah's preaching and small ark, 
 
 12. 
 No final escape, 189. 
 None disappointed at being 
 
 saved, 112. 
 Nothing to forgive, 179. 
 Nothing too hard for God, 136. 
 
 Obligation and ability, 127. 
 Obtaining promises, 9. 
 Old age serene, 131. 
 Old Christians, 70, 182. 
 " Old corn of the land," 204. 
 " Old man," 85. 
 
 Old Testament and the Jew, 20. 
 On being a warning, 18. 
 One angel, power of, 151. 
 One indignity to Christ, 141. 
 One in a thousand, 192. 
 Only one safe love, 156. 
 Opportunities compared, 152. 
 Opportunities to be saved, 28, 
 " Other foundation," 196. 
 •' Other men labored," 78. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 209 
 
 Others made beacons, 30, 84. 
 Overhearing prayer, 95. 
 
 Painful answers to prayer, 125. 
 Pardoned, 90. 
 Pathos, instance of, 175. 
 Paul, a humbled Pharisee, 76. 
 
 u and Stephen, 197. 
 
 " forsaken," 117. 
 
 " not believed, 120. 
 
 " on preaching, 172. 
 
 " translated, 101. 
 Paul's "I lie not," 26. 
 
 li social nature, 117. 
 
 14 urbanity, 197. 
 Peace and holiness, 98. 
 Peace of God, 196. 
 Peaceful recollections, 200. 
 Penitent thief righteous, 148. 
 People need leaders, 162. 
 Perfection, 22, 114. 
 Perfectness recognized, 117. 
 Persons and goods, 86. 
 Peter and Judas repenting, 67. 
 Peter's motion about Judas, 164. 
 Pharaoh gives up to death, 159. 
 Phenomenal Christians, 80. 
 Picture of the sinner's com- 
 pany, 47. 
 Pietism, 116. 
 
 Pile-driving in the mind, 114. 
 Places of blessings, 151. 
 " Plead my cause," 167. 
 Pleasing God, 25. 
 Pleasure of God at goodness, 83. 
 Pleasures of sin, 48, 185. 
 Prayer an educator, 58. 
 " in emergencies, 142. 
 " of Christ in agony, 94. 
 " and den of lions, 191. 
 Praving and no response, 154, 
 
 194. 
 Praving to the Three in One, 
 
 165. 
 Preacher's position, 183. 
 " Prepare a place for you," 43. 
 Preparing to meet God, 64. 
 Preserver of men sinned against, 
 
 107. 
 Private sectarianism, 169. 
 Procrastination, 157. 
 
 Proof of God's love, 71. 
 Prosperity, way to, 107. 
 Promise to sinners, 199. 
 
 Quiet usefulness, 72. 
 
 Raptures in religion, 167. 
 Rainy-day sermons, 37. 
 Receive more from God, 68. 
 Reflection on human nature, 63. 
 Regeneration not development, 
 
 19. 
 Religion friendly to pleasure, 19. 
 Religion of the head and heart, 
 
 41. 
 Removal of good men. 145. 
 Repentance defined, 122. 
 
 " needs atonement, 
 
 147. 
 Representative guilt, 118. 
 Requital at being cursed, 93. 
 Resurrection in the book of Job, 
 44. 
 '" of the body, 10. 
 
 " while we live, 42. 
 
 Reverence in love, 149. 
 Revisiting scenes of goodness, 
 
 152. 
 Rewards a good motive, 23. 
 u are mercy, 45. 
 11 must follow goodness, 
 90. 
 
 Sabbath and Sinai, 111. 
 Sabbath-morning thoughts, 59. 
 Sabbaths anticipated, 42. 
 
 u at cemeteries, 187. 
 
 " future witnesses, 73* 
 Sackcloth prohibited, 155. 
 Salvation most free, 115. 
 Samson's birth and life 133. 
 Satan resisted, 134. 
 Satan's reflections on Job. 70 
 Satisfaction with proofs, 165. 
 Saul and free agency, 67. 
 Saved from sins here, 143. 
 Sceptical thoughts, 32. 
 Scripture helps m trouble, 132. 
 Secret follower of Christ, 21. 
 Secret sins, 100. 
 Seed of evil-doers, 81. 
 
210 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Seeking Christ at his tomb, 8. 
 
 Seeming success, 87. 
 
 Self-complacent bliss, 36. 
 
 Self-respect, 65. 
 
 Set apart for God, 122. 
 
 " Seven spirits before the 
 
 throne," 153. * 
 Shame removed, 83. 
 Sharpness, when proper, 202. 
 Sight of a crowd, 9. 
 Signal for prayer, 190. 
 " Sin not unto death," 72. 
 Sincerity in praying, 171. 
 Sincerity in God, 79. 
 Singing at the Supper, 116. 
 Sinning after blessings, 50. 
 
 " against warnings, 10. 
 Sins changing to blessings, 88. 
 " Sleep in Jesus," 12. 
 " Small ship " for Christ, 64. 
 Snow-flakes, 170. 
 Solomon, his choice, 83. 
 
 " forgets God, 50.. 
 Spiritual ignorance, 41. 
 " Stones of the place," 113. 
 Stumbling-block, 173. 
 Sublime truths common, 34. 
 Submission to bitter trial, 118. 
 Success and goodness, 7. 
 Suffering well, 15. 
 Sustaining grace Constant, 126. 
 
 Temple ornaments peaceful, 175. 
 Theologv must be practical, 46. 
 The " Three," 119. 
 Think daily of Christ, 75. 
 " Thou wilt,make all his bed," 
 
 11. 
 " Though thou be little," 68. 
 Three men at the gate, 130. 
 Three forms of temptation, 187. 
 
 "Thronging" and "touching" 
 
 Christ, 171. 
 Time to reprove, 181. 
 Too much light, 184. 
 Treasure for the last days, 184 
 Truthfulness, 92. 
 Two judgment days, 166. 
 Two thirds of God eclipsed, 105. 
 Two visions of two men, 88. 
 
 Unbelief against evidence, 163. 
 
 " a heinous sin, 49. 
 
 " gently rebuked, 139. 
 Unexpected perdition, 124. 
 Unsatisfied desire, 169. 
 Unseen world near, 113. 
 Unstudied allusions to Christ. 
 
 118. 
 Unthought-of relief, 139. 
 
 Visit, power of a, 29. 
 
 Waking in the morning, 74. 
 Warnings ineffectual, 125. 
 " Water and blood," 127. 
 Wearying God with sins, 134. 
 Weeping, two kinds, 67. 
 Weighed in the balances, 129. 
 "What wait I for?" 196. 
 Whole household perishing, 130. 
 " Whom having not seen," 202. 
 " Whom I shall see for myself," 
 
 203. 
 Why do you suffer? 39. 
 " Wise to do good," 39. 
 Witnesses of us, 188. 
 Wonders to be expected, 137. 
 Worldly hunger, 169. 
 Written word and visions, 168. 
 
 Yielding to circumstances, 166. 
 
 ^|f> 
 
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