LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Shell', $ % UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A/ \ and more affecting sanctions of Calvary. CONVERSION. 1. Agitations which Accompany Conversion. (66.) It is not till the glassy pool is stirred that the mud at the bot- tom rises to light ; it is when storms sweep the sea that what it hides in its depths is thrown up on the shore ; it is when brooms sweep walls and floors that the sunbeams, struggling through a cloud of dust, reveal the foulness of the house ; and it is agitations and perturbations of the heart which reveal its corruption, and are preludes to the purity and peace that sooner or later follow on conversion. CONVERSION. 29 2. The Greatest of all Changes. (67.) This, which is the subject before us now, calls our attention to the greatest of all changes. I say the greatest ; one even greater than the marvellous transition which takes place at the instant of death — from dying struggles to the glories of the skies. Because, while heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn ; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace is the lovely flower ; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court, in passing from nature to grace you did not pass from a lower to a higher stage of the same condition — from daybreak to sunshine, but from darkest night to dawn of day. Unlike the worm which changes into a winged insect, or the infant who grows up into a stately man, you became, not a more per- fect, but " a new creature" in Jesus Christ. 3. Has its Origin in the Heart. (68.) "When grace subdues a rebel man, if I may so speak, the citadel first is taken ; afterward, the city. It is not as in those great sieges which we have lately watched with such anxious interest. There, ap- proaching with his brigades, and cavalry, and artillery, man sits down outside the city. He begins the attack from a distance ; creeping like a lion to the spring — with trench, and parallel, and battery — nearer and nearer to the walls. These at length are breached ; the gates are blown open ; through the deadly gap the red living tide rolls in. Fighting from bastion to bastion, from street to street, they press onward to the citadel, and there, giving no quarter and seeking none, beneath a defiant flag, the rebels, perhaps, stand by their guns, prolonging a desperate resistance. But when the appointed hour of conversion comes, Christ descends by his Spirit into the heart — at once into the heart. The battle of grace begins there. 4. On the Time and Circumstances of Conversion. (69.) Some can tell the time of it — giving day and date, the hour, the providence, the place, the text, the preacher, and all the circumstances associated with their conversion. They can show the arrow, which, shot from some bow drawn at a venture, pierced the joints of their armor, and quivered in their heart. They can show the pebble from the brook, that, slung, it may be, by a youthful hand, but directed of God, was buried in the forehead of their giant sin. (70.) It is not so, however, with all, or, perhaps, with most. Some, so to speak, are still-born ; they were unconscious of their change ; they did not know when or how it happened ; for a while at least they gave liardly a sign of life. 30 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 5. The Wonderful Change. (71.) Look at this cold creeping worm ! Playful childhood shrinks* shuddering from its touch ; yet a few weeks, and with merry laugh and flying feet, that same childhood over flowery meadow is hunting an insect that never lights upon the ground, but — flitting in painted beauty from flower to flower — drinks nectar from their cups, and sleeps the sum- mer night away in the bosom of their perfumes. If that is the same boy, this is no less the self-same creature. Change most wonderful I yet but a dull, earthly emblem of the divine transformation wrought on those who are " transformed by the renewing of their minds." 6. The Wondrous Change from Nature to Grace. (72.) Fallen though he be, man is capable of undergoing, and, created anew in Jesus Christ, born of the Spirit, brought from nature into grace, undergoes a more wondrous change than the insect when, no longer a worm, no longer crawling on the ground, no longer feeding on garbage, it leaves its shell to spend its happy days in sport, flitting from flower to flower ; its food their juices and its bed their leaves. We thus assert the dignity of man. Only that his greatest, purest dignity is seen, not in what he does, but in what has been done for him ; not in what poets or philosophers have written, but the Bible has revealed of him as re- deemed by the precious blood of Christ, as a living temple of the Holy Spirit, a son of God, and an heir of glory. 7. Conversion is a Resurrection. (73.) How great the change, when these mouldering bones, which children look at with fear, and grown men with solemn sadness, shall rise instinct with life ! Think of this handful of brown dust springing up into a form like that on which Adam gazed with mute astonishment, when for the first time he caught the image of himself mirrored in a glassy pool of Paradise ; or, better still, in a form such as, when awak- ening from his slumber, he saw with wondering, admiring eyes, in the lovely woman that lay by his side on their bed of love and flowers. And now, because the change which conversion works on the soul is also in- expressibly great, it borrows a name from that mighty change ; that, a resurrection of the body from the grave — this, a resurrection of the soul from sin. In this " we pass from death to life" — in this we are " cre- ated anew in Jesus Christ." " We rise with Him," says the Apostle, " to newness of life." 8. A Revolution. (74.) Now, a change may be simply a reform, or, extending farther, it may pass into a revolution. The spiritual change, which we call con- CONVERSION. 31 version, is not a mere reform. It is a revolution — a mighty revolution, if aught was ever worthy of that name — a revolution greater than the tomes of profane history, or any old monuments of stone or of brass record. It changes the heart, the habits, the eternal destiny of an im- mortal being. On the banner, borne in triumph at the head of this movement, I read the words that doom old things to ruin, " Overturn, Overturn, Overturn." For the old mischievous laws which it repeals, it introduces a new code of statutes ; it changes the reigning dynasty, wrenches the sceptre from a usurper's hand, and, banishing him forth of the kingdom, in restoring the throne to God, restores it to its right- ful monarch. 9. A New Spirit Given in Conversion. (75.) Conversion does not bestow new faculties. It does not turn a weak man into a philosopher. Yet, along with our affections, the tem- per, the will, the judgment partake of this great and holy change. Thus, while the heart ceases to be dead, the head, illuminated by a light within, ceases to be dark ; the understanding is enlightened ; the will is renewed ; and our whole temper is sweetened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. 10. Our Part in Conversion. (76.) By that tomb men do not sit mere spectators of the might and majesty of Godhead, Jesus addressing them to say, Stand back, stand still and see the salvation of God ! A great stone closes the mouth of the sepulchre ; standing, with the Saviour in front and the corpse behind it, between the living and the dead. It must be removed ; and Christ has only to say the word, and, moved by hands invisible, it rolls away to disclose the secrets of the tomb. But He who takes away stony hearts, because none other can, does not take away this stone ; nor ad- dress it, but those who have put it there, and can take it thence. He requires them to do what they can — each doing their part ; theirs to roll away the stone and his to raise the dead. Now, though we can neither convert nor sanctify ourselves or others, yet man has something, and ranch to do, as is plain from such words as these, " Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed : and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die ?" Strictly speaking, we cannot make us a new heart, but we can place ourselves or others in a position for God to make it. We can remove obstructions to that gracious and holy change — we can dispel ignorance, put away temptation, abandon bad habits — renounce pleasures that occupy our hearts. Thus removing what obstructs the flow of life and grace from Christ, we can " take away the stone ;" and, co-operating with God in 32 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. the use of these, and all divinely appointed means, we can, and, as we ean, we ought to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, God working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 11. The Joy of the Newly Converted. (77.) The Greek on making a discovery, of which he had long been in pursuit, was so transported, as to rush naked into the street, and, leading the people to believe him mad, cry, Eureka, Eureka — I have found it, I have found it ! Joy must have vent. A fountain which not only flows but overflows, it bursts up and out, seeking to communi- cate its own happiness to others. Thus some have been moved to pro- claim their conversion, and tell others of the peace which they enjoyed in believing. Come all ye that fear the Lord, says the Psalmist, and I will tell what he hath done for my soul ; and it is just as natural for a heart full of happiness and God's love to do that, as for a thrush, perched in a summer evening on the top of a cherry-tree, to pour out the joy that fills its little breast in strains of melody. It is the great President Edwards, I think, who relates how, on one occasion, he had such a sense of God's love, that he could hardly resist telling it to the woods, the flowers beneath his feet, and the skies above his head. No wonder, therefore, that when the pure and powerful joys of salvation are poured into a heart which sin had weakened, and never satisfied, the new wine should burst the old bottle, flowing forth in what seems to those who know no better, but ostentation and parade. 12. God Converts His Bitterest Enemies into His Warmest Friends. (78.) Like the Romans, who decreed a crown to him that saved a citizen, we would bold him worthy of highest honors who brings forth a criminal from his cell, so changed as to be worthy, not only of being restored to the bosom of society, but of holding a place in the senate, or some post of dignity beside the throne. That were an achievement of brilliant renown — a victory over which humanity and piety would shed tears of joy. (79.) To compare small things with great, something like this — but unspeakably nobler and greater — God works in salvation. For example — In John Bunyan, he calls the bold leader of village reprobates to preach the gospel ; a blaspheming tinker to become one of England's famous confessors ; and from the gloomy portals of Bedford jail, to shed forth the lustre of his sanctified and resplendent genius to the farther limits of the world, and adown the whole course of time. From the deck of a slave ship he summons John Newton to the pulpit ; and by hands defiled with Mammon's most nefarious traffic, he brings them that are bound out of darkness, and smites adamantine fetters from the CONVICTION. 33 slaves of sin. In Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, he converts his Son's bitterest enemy into his warmest friend. To the man whom a trembling church held most in dread, she comes to owe, under God, the weightiest obligations. 13. The Wishes of the Converted Accommodated to their Wants. (80.) Observe, also, how, when God changes the condition of his creatures, he accommodates their will to the change. Take, for ex- ample, that insect to which I have elsewhere alluded. It comes from the egg a creeping worm ; it is bred in corruption ; it crawls on the ground ; its aliment is the coarsest fare. In time it undergoes its won- derful metamorphosis. The wriggling caterpillar becomes a winged and painted butterfly ; and at this change, with its old skin it casts off its old habits and instincts. Now, it has a will as well as wings to fly. And with its bed the bosom of a flower, its food the honeyed nectar, its Tiome the sunny air, and new instincts animating its frame, its will plays in harmony with its work. The change within corresponds to the ehange without. It spurns the ground ; and, as you may gather from its merry, mazy dance, the creature is happy, and delights in the new duties which it is called to perform. Even so it is in that change which grace works in sinners. The nature of the redeemed is so accommo- dated to the state of redemption, their wishes are so fitted to their wants, their hopes to their prospects, their aspirations to their honors, and their will to their work, that they would be less eontent to return to polluted pleasures than this beautiful creature to be stripped of its silken wings, and condemned to pass its days amid the old, foul garbage, its former food. 14. A Fieri/ Firmament Hangs Over the Unconverted. (81.) Yet, in its hours of deepest darkness and quietest repose, this city presents no true picture of our state by nature. We see it yonder where a city sleeps, while eager angels point Lot's eyes to the break of day, and urge his tardy steps through the doomed streets of Sodom. A fiery firmament hangs over all the unconverted ; and there is need that God send his grace to do them an angel's office, saving them from im- pending judgments. Are you still exposed to the wrath of God ? Rouse thee, then, from sleep, shake off thy indolence, and leap from thy bed, it is all one whether thou burn on a couch of down or straw. CONVICTION. 1. Conviction the First Work of the Spirit. (82.) The first work, accordingly, of God's Holy Spirit in conversion, is to rouse a man from the torpor which the poison of sin — like the 34 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. venom of a snake infused into the veins — produces, to make him feel his illness, to convince him of his guilt, to make him sensible of his misery. And blessed the book, blessed the preacher, blessed the provi- dence that sends that conviction into our hearts, and lodges it, like a barbed arrow, there. 2. Conviction Stifled by Sinful Pleasures. (83.) Robert Burns, who had times of serious reflection, in one of which, as recorded by his own pen, he beautifully compares himself, in the review of his past life, to a lonely man walking amid the ruins of a noble temple, where pillars stand dismantled of their capitals, and elab- orate works of purest marble lie on the ground, overgrown by tall, foul, rank weeds — was once brought, as I have heard, under deep convictions. He was in great alarm. The seed of the word had begun to grow. He sought counsel from one called a minister of the Gospel. Alas, that in that crisis of his history he should have trusted the helm to the hands of such a pilot ! This so-called minister laughed at the poet's fears — bade him dance them away at balls, drown them in bowls of wine, fly from these phantoms to the arms of pleasure. Fatal, too pleasant ad- vice ! He followed it : and " the lusts of other things"' entering in, choked the word. CROSS OF CHRIST. 1. Necessity of Clinging to the Cross. (84.) Till we are reconciled to God, and, born again through his Spirit, have become new creatures in Jesus Christ, we are his enemies. Our works do not spring from love to him, and therefore cannot have any value in his eyes. And how imperfect are even the best works of the best saints ! There is foulness enough in the purest heart, and, in respect of their motives, manner, and object, sin enough in our best actions — those whereby we do most good and earn most commendation, to condemn us. To speak of us not in our worst but best state, not of the sins we commit, but of the best services we render, our wine has its water and our silver has its dross. And so, abandoning every hope of acceptance with a holy God through our own merits, let us cling to the cross of Christ, as a drowning man to the plank that, embraced in his arms, floats him to the shore ; the language of our faith an echo of his who breathed out his life with these words on his lips, None but Christ 1 none but Christ ! CROSS OF CHRIST. 35 2. We should Gaze on Calvary as well as Eden. (85.) And, would we do our heavenly Father justice, we must look on Calvary as well as on Eden. The Son of God indeed does not go up and down heaven weeping, wringing his hands, and, to the amazement of silent angels, crying, Would God that I had died for man ! A more amazing spectacle is here. He turns his back on heaven ; he leaves the bosom and happy fellowship of his Father, he bares his own breast to the sword of justice, and in the depths of a love never to be fathomed, he dies on that accursed tree, " the just for the unjust that we might be saved !" 3. The Robe of Righteousness Woven There. (86.) Are you trusting in a righteousness of your own ? Leave that loom. Are the gossamer threads of your own vows and promises ever snapping in your hand, and breaking at every throw of the shuttle ? The robe of righteousness, a raiment meet for thy soul, and approved of by God, was never woven there. It was wrought upon the cross ; and, of color more enduring than Tyrian purple, it is dyed red in the blood of Calvary. 4. No Dead Souls Lie at the Cross. (87.) But yonder, where the cross stands up high to mark the fountain of the Saviour's blood, and heaven's sanctifying grace, no dead souls lie. Once a Golgotha, Calvary has ceased to be a place of skulls. Where men went once to die, they go now to live ; and to none that ever went there to seek pardon, and peace, and holiness, did God ever say, Seek ye me in vain. 5. Christ Deserted at the Cross. (88.) Paul had hearers, whom he addresses, saying, " Ye did run well, what did hinder you ?" John Baptist had many such, and in Herod a distinguished one — the only king, so far as I know, who felt such interest in religion as to break through established routine and leave his court chaplain to listen to a street preacher. His conduct in this matter, the pleasure he felt in the ministry of the fearless and faith- ful Baptist, the many things he did at John's bidding and advice, were full of promise — never soil was covered with a greener braird — never sky was lighted with a brighter dawn. He dured for a while ; then fell away — and what a fall ! — quenching the hopes, which God's people had begun to cherish of a pious king, in the blood of the martyred, murdered preacher. Not Paul, or the Baptist only, but our Lord him- self had many such hearers. Crowds followed him ; tracked his steps 36 GEMS OF ILL USTRA TION. from city to city, from shore to shore — hanging on his lips, thronging the streets through which he passed, and besieging the houses where he lodged. The day was once when ten thousand tongues would have spoken and ten thousand swords would have flashed in his defence ; and the day arrived when, during for a while they fell away, and of the crowds that swelled his jubilant train, all, all deserted him — the only voice lifted up in his behalf coming from the cross of a dying thief. 6. Christ's Cross and Crown are Insejjurable. (89.) How is that old cruel tragedy repeated day by day within the theatre of many a heart ! God says, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ;" the preacher brings Jesus forth for accept- ance, clothed in purple, and crowned with thorns, and all the tokens of his love upon him, saying, " Behold the man ;" conscience is aroused to a sense of his claims ; but these all are clamored down. Stirred up by the devil — the love of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, and all the corrupt passions of our evil nature, rise like that Jewish mob to cry, " We will not have this man to reign over us." Let the fate of these Jews warn you against their sin ; for if God did such things in the green tree, what shall he do in the dry ? Be assured that, unless you are obeying Christ as a sovereign, you have never yet known him as a Saviour. Your faith is vain. His cross and his crown are inseparable. DEATH. 1. The Timid Believer's Death. (90.) Your last hours may be like hers whom John Bunvan calls Miss Fearing. She was all her lifetime " subject to bondage," and dreaded the hour of death. The summons comes. And when she goes down into the waters, how does this shrinking, trembling, timid one bear herself ? Hand to hand, Christian met his enemy in the valley, and so smote Apollyon with the sword of the Spirit, that he spread forth his dragon wings, and sped him away ; yet where that bold believer was in deep waters, and all but perished, this daughter of many fears found the river shallow. She beheld the opposite shore all lined with shining angels, and passed with a song from earth to heaven. 2. Death an hnmediate Gain to the Christian. (91.) We know that " to die " is — not shall be at some future time, and after some intermediate state — but "to die" is gain, gain imme- DEATH. 37 diate. One step — and, what a step ! — the soul is in glory. Ere the wail has sunk in the chamber of death, the song of the upper sanctuary has begun. There is no delay ; no waiting for an escort to travel that invisible, untrodden way. Angels unseen are moving in that chamber, looking on with tearless eyes where all else are weeping ; and, the last breath out — the last quiver passed from the lip — and away, away, they are off with the spirit for glory. On angel's wings the beggar is borne to Abraham's bosom ; and the shout of saints and angels, that greeted the Conqueror, is still ringing amid the arches of heaven, when the door opens, and the thief walks in. " This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." He leaves his cross, and direct, as I have seen a lark drop singing into her nest, he goes up singing to his crown. 3. A Hard Fight at Death. (92.) Though the more work done now, the less there is to do at a less suitable time, it occasionally happens that the death-bed of the be- liever is the scene of his hardest fight, and of Satan's fiercest tempta- tions. Nowhere has the roaring of the lion sounded more dreadful than in the valley of the shadow of death. And it is sometimes with sin as with the monster of the deep, when to the cry, "Stern all," the men who have buried their lances in its ample sides, seize the oars, and pull rapidly out of the sweep of that tremendous tail that beats the ocean till it sounds afar, and churns the blood-stained waves into crimson foam. Men of undoubted piety have found sin's dying to be sin's hardest struggles. It happens with the kingdom of heaven as with a city the violent take by force ; the hardest fighting may be in the breach, the battle may rage fiercest where the city is entered, and just when the prize is to be won. 4. The Dying Christian. (93.) He clings like Peter to the hand of Jesus. Mercy is all his prayer, and mercy all his praise ; hopes of mercy in the future kindle in his eye, and grateful thanks for mercies in the past employ his latest breath, and dwell on his faltering tongue. His last conscious look turns away from his own works to fix itself upon the cross, and the last word that trembles on his quivering lip is, Jesus ! 5. Footprints of Death. (94.) Our children may not abide ; the earth sounds hollow to the foot — it is so full of graves. Ah ! how few gardens are there where death has not left his footprints, when he came to steal away some of our sweetest flowers. Few are the trees standing on this earth, from 38 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. which he has not lopped off some goodly boughs. In this world, have I not seen one and another stand bleak and branchless ; and oh, how blessed for the father who has laid the last survivor in the dust, and returns from that saddest funeral to find God waiting for him in his desolate home ! 6. It is Well for Some People to View Death. (95.) On relating that he had gone to see a criminal die under the guillotine, and how he had watched the whole affair with an opera-glass, Lord Byron says it is well to see such things once : and, however repulsive the spectacle, when I have seen some pretty but vain, silly woman come vaporing with mincing steps and haughty air into the house of God, not to worship, but be worshipped, I have thought it would be well that such people, for once at least, saw what they are to become. Nor am I singular in that. It is told of an Italian friar, one of Rome's great Lent preachers — a class of men who often subdue their audience into tears, and by vivid descriptions of hell and purgatory throw women into fainting-fits and men into convulsions — that denouncing on one occasion " the lust of the eye and the pride of life," he fixed his large, black, brilliant eyes on a proud beauty who sat before him, and drove the color off her cheek. Taking a grinning skull from out the folds of his cloak, he suddenly held it up before her face, to say, See what thou sbalt be ! 7. Preparation for Death. (96.) What may happen any day, ,t is certainly wise to be prepared for every day. So men make their wills : but so, alas, they don't mind their souls ! This ye should have done, but not have left the other undone. There is no lawyer, but, if you have any property to dispose of, and would not have your death the signal for quarrels and lawsuits and heart-burnings, will advise you to make a settlement, nor delay one day to do so. Oh, how much more need to make your peace with God, and prepare your eternal rather than your temporal affairs for death, — to make it all up w T ith Him who is willing to forgive all, and is now tarrying on the road to give you time to get oil, and go forth with joy to the cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ! 8. Death of Christ. (97.) "Tell me," said a saintly minister of the Church of England, whose star but lately set on this world, to rise and shine in better skies — " Tell me," he said to his physician, "the true state of my case; conceal nothing ;" adding, as his eye kindled, and his face beamed at DEATH. 39 the very thought, ' ' if you have to tell me that my dissolution is near, you could not tell me better or happier news." 9. Death of Saints. (98.) There is enough in the prospects which faith opens up to raise a man out of himself, and render him insensible alike to the feeling of pain and the fears of death. Even those feelings which are commonly feeble may, being roused, undergo such change and acquire such power as a mountain brook, that, ordinarily murmuring along its stony channel of little pools and tiny waterfalls, when thunders shake the heavens and roll among the hills, swells into a torrent which, dashing, roaring, foam- ing along its rugged course, sweeps everything before it. Look, for example, at the bird to whose protecting wings our Lord compares his own fond kindness ! See how bravely, though by nature timid, she defends her helpless brood, and ruffles her feathers to spring in the face of man or beast. The maternal affection, roused by a sense of danger, takes entire possession of her heart, and imparts to it the courage of a lion. Even the love of science — a passion, if as pare, commonly as cold as a wintry sky — has overmastered the fears of death. Archimedes calmly pursued his studies in Syracuse amid the uproar of the assault ; nor when a soldier, with murderous weapon and intent, burst into his apartment, asked other favor at his hand but a few more minutes to finish the problem he was engaged in solving. Even less noble and exalted passions may become equally absorbing. A Roman army once fought with such enthusiasm as to be insensible to an earthquake that rocked the ground beneath their feet ; and I knew a soldier who, with the foe before him and comrades falling at his side, was raised so much above the sense of pain as never to discover that a ball from the French had shattered his wrist, till he found himself unable to fire off the musket he had levelled at their ranks. (99. ) No wonder, therefore, that the prospects of dying saints should sometimes lift them above themselves. 10.-4 Glorious Sunset of a Stormy Day. (100.) Thus one of our Scottish martyrs, standing on the ladder from which they were to throw him off, assured the weeping spectators that he had never gone up to his pulpit to preach with so little fear as he had mounted that ladder to die — to him it was a perch from which his spirit, wearied of a world full of sin and sorrows, was spreading out its joyful wings for the flight to heaven. Another, addressing his weeping mother and sisters, who had entered his cell for a last visit on the morning of 40 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. his execution, said, " Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Could I have ever thought that the fear of suffering and death could be so taken from me. Lord ! " he exclaimed, " Thou hast brought me within two hours of eternity, and this is no matter of terror to me, more than if I rose to go to lie down on a bed of roses : now that I am so near the end of time, I desire to bless the Lord : death is to me as a bed to the weary 1 Yonder," he remarked on hearing the drums beat for his execution, ** yonder is my welcome call to the marriage. The Bridegroom is coming. I am ready ! " Assured, as he said, by God of his salvation, with these sublime words he left the world to pass within the veil — "Farewell, beloved fellow-sufferers and followers of the Lamb. Fare- well, night-wanderings for Christ and all sublunary things. Farewell, conflicts with a body of sin and death. Welcome, scaffold for precious Christ. Welcome, heavenly Jerusalem. Welcome, innumerable com- pany of angels. Welcome, crown of glory. Welcome, above all, thou blessed Trinity and one God. O Eternal One, I commit my soul unto thy eternal rest." What a glorious sunset of a stormy day ! DECISION. 1 . Decision of the Old Romans. (101.) The brave old Romans, whom Caesar led, invaded our country after a different fashion. The first thing they did, on disembarking, was to burn their ships ; doing so in sight of thousands who were bravely mustering on the heights of England, to defend their homes, their wives and little ones, their freedom and native land. Not leaving the enemy to cut off their retreat, they cut it off themselves. Their own hands put the torch to the fleet which had brought them to Britain, and, in the event of failure, would have carried them back to Italy. With the glare of that brave conflagration on their eagles, banners, and serried ranks, we cannot wonder that, with such sons to fight her battles, Rome rose from a petty town to be mistress of the world. Both her destiny and their determination were to be plainly seen in the blaze of their burning ships. Bringing to the enterprise such an indomitable spirit and such decision of character, unless the stars of heaven fought against them as against Sisera, how could they fail to conquer ? (102.) Such is the resoluteness of mind and purpose the Christian's work requires ; nor without some good measure of that, as well as of the grace and spirit of God, can it be brought to a successful issue. On DIFFERENCES. 41 engaging in our Father's - business — entering on the trials and triumphs of the Christian life, we also are, so to speak, to burn our ships, nor so much as think of retreat. Abandoning forever any idea of returning to sin, we are to leave no way open but that which, though beset with trials and swarming with foes, leads straight on to heaven. DIFFERENCES. 1. Differences of Christians. (103.) These differences are like our dark, cold shadows, that, little at noon, grow larger as night approaches, assuming a gigantic size when the sun creeps along the horizon of a winter sky, or hangs low at his rise or setting. Sun of Righteousness ! rise higher and higher over us, till in thy light and love the church enjoys the full blaze of thy meridian beams, and these shadows all but vanish ! For this blessed end, God of love, pour out thy Spirit more affluently on the churches ! Then shall the brethren dwell together in unity, and the world say, as it said in the days of old, See how these Christians love one another ! 2. Unworthy Passions Keep True Christians Apart. (104.) Dishonored often in the present time by their quarrels, and always by their separation, Jesus shall then be glorified in all his saints. It is the dust and the rust which the liquid mercury has contracted that impair the beauty of its lustre, and prevent the union of its divided globules. And what is it but earthly contaminations and unworthy passions that keep true Christians apart. From these let them be puri- fied by the genial fires of love, or the sharp fires of suffering, and union will follow — follow as when the purified globules of quicksilver, brought into contact, run into each other's embraces to form one shining and brilliant mass. 3. Tendency to Run into Extremes. (105.) Whoever reflects on the spherical form of the earth will per- ceive that a traveller going east may continue his journey in that direc- tion till, passing round half the globe, he is on the west of us. He has, in fact, by advancing very far on one and the same line, exactly reversed his position. And just as a man, if he goes very far east, gets into the west, so there is always a danger lest, in our anxiety to avoid one error, we go so far in the opposite direction as to fall into another. Almost all religious, to say nothing of other controversies, illustrate this fact. The longer they rage, the fiercer grow the passions which they kindle, 42 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. and the more extreme the positions which the combatants, carried away by their feelings, are apt to assume. DIFFICULTIES. 1. Eminent Men Nursed Amid Difficulties. (106.) It is not commonly — and this makes Moses' case the more remarkable — from among the enervating influences of wealth, and ease, and luxury, that men come forth to do grand things. It is with them as with birds. Those birds soar the highest that have had the hardest upbringing. Warm and soft the pretty nest where, under the covering of her wings, amid green leaves and golden tassels and the perfume of flowers, the mother bird of sweet voice, but short and feeble flight, rears her tender brood. Not thus are eagles reared, as I have seen on scaling a dizzy crag. There, their cradle an open shelf, their nest a few rough sticks spread on the naked rock, the bright-eyed eaglet sat exposed to the rains that seamed the hill-sides, and every blast that howled through the glen. Such the hard nursing of birds that were thereafter to soar in sunny skies, or with strong wings cleave the clouds, and ride upon the storm ! Even so, I thought, God usually nurses those amid difficulties and hardship who are destined to rise to eminence, and ac- complish great deeds on earth. Hence says Solomon, " It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth." DOCTRINES. 1. No Formal Arrangement of Doctrines in the Word of God. (107.) There is a difference, which even childhood may discern, be- tween the manner in which the doctrines and duties of the Gospel are set forth in the Word of God, and their more formal arrangement in our catechisms and confessions. They are scattered here and there over the face of Scripture, much as the plants of nature are upon the surface of the globe. There, for example, we meet with nothing corresponding to the formal order, systematic classification, and rectangular beds of a botanical garden ; on the contrary, the creations of the vegetable king- dom lie mingled in what, although beautiful, seems to be wild confusion. Within the limits of the same moor or meadow the naturalist gathers grasses of many forms, he finds it enamelled with flowers of every hue ; and in those forests which have been planted by the hand of God, and beneath whose deep shades man still walks in rude and savage freedom, trees of every form and foliage stand side by side like brothers. ENERGY. 43 2. The Harmony of the Doctrines of the Bible. (108.) Having scattered over an open field the bones of the human "body, bring an anatomist to the scene. Conduct him to the valley where Ezekiel stood, with his eye on the skulls and dismembered skele- tons of an unburied host. Observe the man of science how he fits bone to bone and part to part, till from those scattered members he con- structs a framework, which, apart from our horror at the eyeless sockets and fleshless form, appears perfectly, divinely beautiful. In hands which have the patience to collect and the skill to arrange these mate- rials, how perfectly they fit ! bone to bone, and joint to joint, till the whole figure rises to the polished dome, and the dumb skeleton seems to say, " I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Now, as with these parts of the human frame, so is it with the doctrines of the Gospel, in so far as they are intelligible to our understandings. Scattered over the pages of sacred Scripture, let them also be collected and arranged in systematic order, and how beautifully they fit ! doctrine to doctrine, duty to duty ; till, all connected with each other, all members one of another, " they rise up into a form of perfect symmetry, and present that very system which, with minor differences but substantial unity, is embodied in the confessions, creeds, and catechisms of Evangelical Christendom." I have said so far as they are intelligible to us ; for it is ever to be borne in mind, that while the Gospel has shallows through which a child may wade and walk on his way to heaven, it has deep, dark, unfathomed pools, which no eye can penetrate, and where the first step takes a giant beyond his depth. ENERGY. 1. The Great Difference between Men. (109.) In a letter to his son, Sir Fowell Buxton, a great and eminently Christian man, says : " You are now at that period of life in which you must make a turn to the right or to the left. You must now give proof of principle, determination, and strength of mind ; or you must sink into idleness, and acquire the habits and character of an ineffective young man. I am sure that a young man may be very much what he pleases. In my own case it was so. Much of my happiness and all my prosperity in life have resulted from the change I made at your age." Elsewhere he says : " The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination — a pur- pose once fixed, and then death or victory !" 44 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 2. Energy causes Success. (110.) Not simply to the wind, however auspicious, does the seaman owe his progress. Without it, indeed, his ship would but rise and fall in the swell of the deep ; but without the skill to catch and use the breeze, and compel it, even when adverse, by dexterous trimming of the yards, and setting of the sails, and handling of the helm, to force him on and over the waves, what service were the wind to him ? So was it in Joseph's, and so it is in all cases of success. God gives the oppor- tunities ; but success turns on the use we make of them ; on the promp- titude with which we seize the openings of providence ; on the weight of character we bring into the field ; on the resolution and energy we throw into our business. ENVY. 1. Envy is a Base Po (111.) A bad, a base, in every way an unprofitable passion ; one that, more than any other, carries its own punishment with it, and makes- those who cherish it wretched, envy is its own avenger ; and yet, so prone are many to regard others with envy, that a man may feel assured that he has begun to rise in the world so soon as he hears the buzz of detractors, and feels their poisoned stings. This, indeed, is not a bad test of merit, just as we know that to be the finest and the ripest fruit which bears the marks of having been attacked by wasp, or hornet, or other such winged or wingless insects. EQUALITY. 1. Nature 1 a Inequalities. (112.) What variety of plants between the stately cedar and the lichen that seems only to color the surface of the naked rock ; between levia- than, either floating like an island on the glassy deep, or, in his rage, churning the sea into snowy foam, and those creatures which the micro- scope detects, of forms so minute that ten thousand millions — a number equal to the whole human race — have been found in the space of one square inch. With such inequalities in heaven and earth, among an- gels and animals, it were strange if human society presented a uniform aspect, no corresponding variety. ETERNITY. 45 2. The Only Attainable Equality. (113.) God has placed men in different circumstances and endowed them with different gifts. Society has its heights and hollows ; and it were as easy, by throwing down the mountains into the valleys, to reduce this globe itself, as to reduce it to one dead, uniform, uninteresting level. Such " equality, liberty and fraternity" as the French of last century raved of, and to reach waded to their knees in blood, was a dream. These are the privileges of Christ's kingdom ; and of none other. Slaves whom the truth makes free are free indeed. Those who love one another as Christ loved them are brothers ; and more than brothers. And the grandest and only attainable equality is that of the grace of God. It raises all who receive Christ, peasants and princes both, to a common but lofty level ; redeeming them by one blood, sanc- tifying them by one Spirit, constituting them kings and priests to God, and calling them all up to the glory which Jesus had with the Father before the foundation of the world. ERROR. 1. Too Much Zeal in Putting Down Error. (114.) Our tendency to run into extremes finds no less striking and more sad illustrations in the doctrinal positions which good men have allowed themselves to be driven into by the violence of controversy and the natural recoil from error. In their zeal to put down one error they have often fallen into another — to use Archbishop Whately's favorite adage, going too far east, they have got into the west. Of this we have a remarkable example in the positions in which Wesley and Toplady were found at the end of their controversy. Eminently good men, whose names are still fragrant and whose praise is in all the churches, at the commencement of their controversy the first appeared as the cham- pion of a moderate Arminianism, the second of a moderate Calvin- ism. But ere that unhappy war had spent its vehemence, Wesley in his recoil from Toplady' s Calvinism, and the other in his recoil from Wesley's Arminianism, had each taken up positions, and ventured on statements, which in their calmer moments neither of them would have approved or defended. ETERNITY. 1. Eternity Opens Men's Eyes. (115.) We are in darkness till we are converted ; because we are blind — and that not by accident, but by nature — born blind. There are 46 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. animals, both wild and domestic, which, by a strange and mysterious, law of Providence, are born in that state. " Having eyes, they see not." Apparently unripe for the birth, they leave their mother's womb to pass the first period of their being utterly sightless. But, when some ten days have come and gone, time unseals their eyelids, and they are delivered from the power of darkness. But not ten days, nor years, nor any length of time, will do us such friendly office. Not that we shall be always blind. Oh, how men shall see, and regret in another world, the folly they were guilty of in this ! Eternity opens the darkest eyes, but opens them, alas, too late : "He lifted up his eyes, being in torment." He is a madman who braves that fate ; yet it awaits you, unless you bestir yourselves, and, shaking sloth away, seize the golden opportunity to pursue the Saviour with the blind man's cry, " Thou Son of David, have mercy on me !" FAITH. 1. Dead Faith. (116.) And, as in camp followers, or armor, or baggage, what does not promote impairs the efficiency of an army ; as in a household those who do not help hinder work, if the body, through accident or mon- strous birth has a limb that is of no service, it is considered an incum- brance rather than an advantage. Regarded as a deformity, not an ornament, it is removed ; when the operation can be safely performed, it is condemned to the surgeon's knife. So is it with Christ's body — that church of the living God which he has purchased with his blood. By whatever hands they were baptized, to whatever Communion they professedly belong, let none fancy that they belong to Christ, unless they are found working in his service. For them to talk of being saved by faith is to dishonor the Gospel, and to deceive themselves. Faith without works, as James plainly tells us, is dead ; and like all dead things, is an offence. 2. Oar Saviour's Pattern of Faith. (117.) Such is the faith which nature gives it in a father, that it never doubts his word. It believes all he says, and is content to believe where it is not able to comprehend. For this, as well as other reasons, our Lord presented, in a child, the living model of a Christian. He left Abraham, father of the faithful, to his repose in heaven ; he left Samuel, undisturbed, to enjoy the quiet rest of his grave ; he allowed Moses and Elias, after their brief visit, to return to the skies, and wing FAITH. 47 their way back to glory. For a pattern of faith, he took a boy from his mother's side, and, setting him up, in his gentle, blushing, shrinking modesty, before the great assembly, he said, " Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein. ' ' 3. Faith the Believer's Mainstay. (118.) Faith being then, as faith is still, the medium of connection between human weakness and Divine power, it was his mainstay. He was thrown entirely on its strength. The ship does not ride the storm otherwise than by the hold her anchor takes of the solid ground. By that, which lies in the calm depths below, as little moved by the waves that swell, and roll, and foam above, as by the winds that lash them into fury, she resists the gale, and rides the billows of the stormiest sea. But her safety depends on something else also. When masts are struck and sails are furled, and, anchored off reef or rocky shore, she is labor- ing in the wild tumult for her life, it likewise lies in the strength of her cable and of the iron arms that grasp the solid ground. By these she hangs to it ; and thus not only the firm earth, but their strength also is her security. Let the flukes of the anchor, or strands of the cable snap, and her fate is sealed. Nothing can avert it. Powerless to resist, and swept forward by the sea, she drives on ruin ; and hurled against an iron shore, her timbers are crushed to pieces like a shell. And what anchor and cable are to her, the faith, by which man makes God's strength his own, was to Gideon ; and is still to believers in their times of trial. 4. Want of Faith in our Lord's Commands. (119.) Let me say further, that I fear we have not faith enough in the literal sense. of many of our Lord's injunctions, as is touchingly illustrated by the following fact : Two boys, brothers, had fallen out, and in the heat and whirlwind of his passion the elder struck the younger on the cheek. Brave as steel and quick as lightning, the other raised his arm to return the blow ; but ere it fell, he remembered how he had read that morning by his mother's knee these words, " When one smites thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also. " No sophist, but a simple child who took Christ's words in their plain and ordinary sense, he drops his arm, and turning on his brother eyes where tears of forgiveness had quenched the flash of anger, he offered the other cheek for a second blow. It was the other's turn to weep now. Sur- prised, subdued, melted, he fell on his brother's neck ; and, kissing him, acknowledged his offence and implored forgiveness. And there, locked in fond embraces, the two boys stood a living proof of this, that 48 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. our Lord's highest and apparently most impracticable injunctions admit of a more literal obedience than any give them, and than any almost suppose it possible to give them. 5. Faith the Motto on the Banner. (120.) Bring out from the dust of six thousand years the old covenant of Eden, and on that soiled and torn banner, you read the fading motto, " Do and live." But what read we on the folds of this banner, which, defiant of hell and the world, waves above Calvary, and under which believers march to crowns and victory ? The eye of a sinner's hope kindles at the sight of another and better motto ; for there, inscribed in the blood of Jesus, like red letters on a snow-white ground, we read, " Believe and live." Salvation is the one thing needful for man, and faith is the one thing needful for salvation. 6. The All- Comprehensive Answer. (121.) That great question — the greatest of all questions — is one -which admits of a very short and intelligible answer. Capable of being much expanded, it can yet be brought within a very narrow compass. The river, which there flows between distant banks, and yonder expands itself out into a lake, reflecting on its mirror-face the bright heavens above and the dark hills around, is here brought — where its foaming waters flash past, loud as thunder, and quick as lightning, or creep sul- lenly along at the bottom of the deep, dark gorgo — within narrow bounds ; bounds so narrow, that with nerve enough, by one brave leap from rock to rock, I could clear its breadth. Even so all the wide ex- panse of doctrines to be believed, and duties to be done, which might be expatiated over in reply to the question, What shall I do to be saved ? is contracted, compressed, comprehended in the Apostle's brief speech, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." V. Fretting and Trusting. (122.) Between a man, torn with anxieties, tossed with fears, fretting with cares, and the good man, who calmly trusts in the Lord, oh ! there is as great a difference as between a brawling, roaring, mountain brook, that with mad haste leaps from crag to crag, and is ground into boiling foam, and the placid river, which, with beauty on its banks and heaven in its bosom, spreads blessings wherever it flows, and pursues the noiseless tenor of its way back to the great ocean, from which its waters came. 8. Abraham's Great Faith. (123.) Look now at Abraham's faith ! It stood the test of severe trials. He is called to leave his country and his kindred — called to go FALL, THE. 49 lie knew not where ; called to be he knew not what. Nor does he hesi- tate. He instantly responds ; repairs to Canaan ; and lives and dies in the confident belief that it shall belong to him and his. Yet he found no place there to rest the sole of his foot — his weary foot — but was "tossed about during a long lifetime here and there, like a sea-weed which is floated hither and thither on the wandering billows, cast on the shore by this tide and swept away by that. Looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, the life of all be- lievers is more or less one of faith. But of Abraham and his whole life in the land of Canaan, of every journey he undertook, every march he made, and every footprint he left on its soil or on its sands, it might be literally as well as figuratively said, it was true of him in respect of this world as well as of the next, as it never was of any other man, ■" He walked by faith and not by sight." (124.) This faith culminates on Moriah — the Mount where, laying Isaac on the altar, it endures its greatest trial, and achieves its greatest triumph. It furnishes the only key to the questions that rise unbidden .as we read the story — a fond and doting father, how could Abraham undertake the dreadful task ? how was he able to contemplate embruing his hands in the blood of his son ? how did his reason withstand the shock ? how did his heart not break ; how had he nerve to disclose the dreadful truth to Isaac, to kiss him, bind his naked limbs, to draw the knife from its sheath, and raise his arm for the blow ? how did not the cords of life snap under the strain, and Abraham, spared "the horrid sacrifice, fall dead on the altar — a pitiful sight, a father clasping within his lifeless arms the beloved form of his son ? It is by the power of faith he stands there, the knife glittering in his Jiand. his arm raised to strike — the conqueror of nature. The blow shall make him childless, yet he believes that he shall be the father of a mighty nation ; that when the flames have consumed the loved form at his side, Isaac shall rise from their ashes ; and that after this bloody tragedy and greatest act of worship, with Isaac restored to his arms, as they climbed, they shall descend the Mount together. Who -can help exclaiming, Abraham, great is thy faith ! FALL, THE. 1. Speculations on the Fall. (125.) But in saving ourselves and others, I am sure that there is -enough to do, without occupying our attention with unsatisfactory specu- 50 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. lations on moral evil, and the entrance of sin into our world. In the first place, few have time or talent for such studies. In the second place, although we had, we should find that, like going down into a coal-pit, or the depths of ocean, the further we descended the darker it grew ; we should fare no better than the fallen intelligences described by Milton : " Others apart sate on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — Fixed fate, free will foreknowledge absolute — And found no end, in wandering mazes lost, Of good and evil much they argued there — Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." 2. Idolatry Proclaims the Fall. (126.) We gaze with blank astonishment on the gods of many- heathen race's. We ask, is it possible that rational beings have bent the knee to this painted stick, that, with a bunch of feathers stuck on its head, and two bits of inlaid pearl-shell for eyes, presents but the rudest resemblance to the form of humanity ? Not only possible but certain. Talk of " the dignity of our nature !" How that ugly idol, with man supplicating its help and trembling before its wrath, refutes the notion, and proclaims the fall ! Contrast Adam, erect in his innocence, and lifting up an open countenance to the heavens, with that dark, crouch- ing, miserable savage, who kneels to this stick. What a fall is there ! How is the gold become dim ? how is the most fine gold changed ? 3. Emblem of Man's Fallen State. (127.) We have sometimes thought that we saw the fittest emblem of man's fallen state, in the ruins of an old church. Now deserted, dese- crated, defiled, what a change is there ! Save in the ivy, that like pity clings to the crumbling wall — sustaining and veiling its decay — and in some sweet wild flower rooted in window-sill, or gaping rent, beauty and life are gone. Yet there, once on a time, many a beautiful babe was baptized to God ; there holy words were spoken ; holy vows were taken, and holy communions held. There are eyes in glory that turn with interest to that lonely spot — God and man often met within these roofless walls ; " This and that man was born there." But now the only sounds are the sighing of the wind or the roar of the storm — the hoot of the owl, or the hiss of the serpent ; no life is found there now, but in the brood of the night bird, which has its nest among the ruins above, or in the worms that fatten upon the dead in their cold graves below. " The glory is departed. " And once a shrine of God, but now FAITH, THE. 51 a deserted sanctiiary, may we not write " Ichabod " on the heart? The ruin resounds with the echoes which the ear of fancy hears mutter- ing among the desolate heaps of Babylon — " Fallen, fallen, fallen !" 4. Man has Made Himself what He is. (128.) Indeed, I would a thousand times sooner believe, that man made himself what he is, than that God made him so ; for in the one case I should think ill of man only ; in the other I am tempted to blame his Maker. Just think, I pray you, to what conclusion our reason would conduct us in any analogous case. You see, for example, a beau- tiful capital still bearing some of the flowers and foliage which the chisel of a master had carved upon the marble. It lies prostrate on the ground, half -buried among weeds and nettles ; while beside it there rises from its pedestal the headless shaft of a noble pillar. Would you not conclude at once that its present position, so base, mean, and prostrate, was not its original position ? You would say the lightning must have struck it down ; or an earthquake have shaken it, or some ignorant bar- barian had climbed the shaft, and with rude hand had hurled it to the ground. Well, we look at man, and come to a similar conclusion. There is something, there is much that is wrong, both in his state and condition. His mind is carnal, and at enmity with God ; the " imag- inations of his heart are only evil continually," so says the Bible. His body is the seat of disease ; his eyes are often swimming in tears ; care, anticipating age, has drawn deep furrows on his brow ; he possesses noble faculties, but, like people of high descent, who have sunk into a low estate and become menials, they drudge in the service of the mean- est passions. 5. Nature, Society, and the World Proclaim that Man has Fallen. (129.) Suppose, that on his return from Africa, some Park, or Bruce, or Campbell, were to tell how he had seen the lions of the desert leave their prey, and, meeting face to face in marshalled bands, amid roars that drowned the thunder, engage in deadly battle, he would find none so credulous as to believe him ; the world would laugh the traveller and his tales to scorn. But should a thing so strange and monstrous occur — should we see the cattle, while the air shook with their bellow- ings, and the ground trembled beneath their hoofs, rush from their dis- tant pastures, to form two vast, black, solid columns ; and should these herds, with heads levelled to the charge, dash forward to bury their horns in each other's bodies, we would proclaim a prodigy, and ask what madness had seized creation. Well, is not sin the parent of more awful prodigies ? Look here — turn to the horrors of this battle- 52 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. field. This is no fancy, but a fact — a bloody, sickening fact. The ground lies thick with the mangled brave ; the air is shaken with the most horrible sounds ; every countenance expresses the passions of a fiend. Humanity Hies shrinking from the scene, and leaves it to rage, revenge, and agony. Fiercer than the cannon's flash shoot flames of wrath from brother's eyes ; they sheathe their swords in each other's bowels ; every stroke makes a widow, and every ringing volley scatters a hundred orphans on a homeless world. I would sooner believe that there was no God at all, than that man appears in this scene as he came from the hand of a benignant Divinity. Man must have fallen ; nature, society, the state of the world, are so many echoes of the voice of Rev- elation ; they proclaim that man is fallen — that the gold has become dim, and the fine gold has perished. 6. Aristotle is but the Ruins of an Adam. (130. ) Aristotle — says South in one of his brilliant sermons — Aristotle is but the ruins of an Adam. This being the view of man which the Bible presents, and the Fall accounts for, those who receive it in its in- tegrity have been charged with holding low, mean, degrading views of the nature and of the dignity of man. In one sense this is true ; in another nothing is more false. It is true in so far as the Bible teaches us to believe that all men, in consequence of sin, are criminals in the sight of God and lie under sentence of death ; that all are dead in tres- passes and sins ; that there is none that docth good, no, not one ; and that, presenting sin in a totally different aspect from that in which it is regarded by many as a light and little thing, sin is exceeding sinful. (131.) What terms can express its degradation other than those of Scripture — our righteousnesses are as filthy rags ; or, in figures borrowed from the loathsome leprosy, the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint, and there is no soundness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. We do entertain low views of human nature ; and so, however loudly they assert its dignity, do others — all who put locks on their doors and a witness on his oath, build prisons and support police. FIDELITY. 1. Remarkable Example of Fidelity. (132.) There was nothing in Pompeii — that most weird and wonderful of all cities ; " city of the dead," as Walter Scott kept repeating to FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 53 himself when they bore the shattered man through its silent streets — that invested it with a deeper interest to me than the spot where a soldier of old Eome displayed a most heroic fidelity. That fatal day on which Vesuvius, at whose feet the city stood, burst out into an eruption that shook the earth, poured torrents of lava from its riven sides, and dis- charged, amid the noise of a hundred thunders, such clouds of ashes as filled the air, produced a darkness deeper than midnight, and struck such terror into all hearts, that men thought not only that the end of the world had come and all must die, but that the gods themselves were expiring — on that night a sentinel kept watch by the gate which looked to the burning mountain. Amid unimaginable confusion, and shrieks of terror mingling with 'the roar of the volcano, and cries of mothers who had lost their children in the darkness, the inhabitants fled the fatal town, while the falling ashes, loading the darkened air, and penetrating every place, rose in the streets till they covered the house- roofs, nor left a vestige of the city but a vast silent mound, beneath which it lay unknown, dead and buried, for nearly 1*700 years. Amid this fearful disorder the sentinel at the gate had been forgotten ; and as Rome required her sentinels, happen what might, to hold their posts till relieved by the guard or set at liberty by their officers, he had to choose between death or dishonor. Pattern of fidelity, he stood by his post. Slowly but surely, the ashes rise on his manly form ; now they reach his breast ; and now covering his lips, they choke his breathing. He also was " faithful unto death." After seventeen centuries they found his skeleton standing erect in a marble niche, clad in its rusty armor — the helmet on his empty skull, and his bony fingers still closed upon his spear. And next almost to the interest I felt in placing myself on the spot where Paul, true to his colors, when all men deserted him, pled before the Roman tyrant, was the interest I felt in the niche by the city gate where they found the skeleton of one who, in his fidelity to the cause of Caesar, sets us an example of faithfulness to the cause of Christ — an example it were for the honor of their Master that all his servants followed. FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS, 1 . Forgiveness of Enemies. (133.) Master, would God they were able to copy his pattern — to copy it as faithfully as a warrior did on a late battle-field ! Riding over the ground when the fight was done, he came, as he picked his steps among the dead, to a body which, stirring, showed some signs of life. The 54 GEMS OF ILL U8TRA TION. bleeding- form wore the dress of a foe. Regardless of that, he said to his attendant, " Give him a draught of wine ;" and, as the officer stooped down to do so, the wounded soldier, discovering, through the mists that were gathering on his dying eye, in this good Samaritan the general of the troops against which he had been fighting, raised himself on his elbow, drew a pistol, and with deadly hate, fired it at his bene- factor's head. Happily the bullet missed its mark ; and the general, so soon as he recovered from his surprise, with a forgiveness truly mag- nanimous said, " Give it him all the same !" 2. A Forgiving Man the Finest Image of the Saviour. (134.) Foreign to nature, forgiveness is difficult even to grace — so difficult, that he who suffers a wrong and feels no impulse to retaliate, recalls one without aught of malice, endures cruel wounds which heal without festering into corrupt, acrid humors, has, if such grace there be on earth, reached its highest pinnacle ; and presents the finest image of Him, who, when reviled, reviled not again, and when his mangled form lay stretched on the cross, raised his meek eyes to pray, " Father, for- give them, for they know not what they do !" 3. We are to Forgive with our Spirit. (135.) Mercy, like the regions of space, has no limit; and as these stretch away before the traveller who looks out from the farthest star, so the loftiest intellect and largest heart can descry no bounds to mercy. Like our Father in heaven, we are to forgive without stint — forgiving as we expect to be forgiven. 4. Christianity Embraces the Bitterest Foe. (136.) For though nature, fallen and unrenewed nature, hates her enemies, and, thirsting for vengeance, would drag them from the horns of the altar, Christianity embraces the bitterest foe in the arms of brotherhood. 5. Christianity is not a Virtue which Belongs to Our Fallen Natures. (137.) The nursery however presents a scene where, as through a rent in that veil of innocence which throws its sweetest charms over infancy, we see the bad passions of our nature. Proud and pleased as it takes its first steps across the floor to the mother, kneeling with radiant smiles and open arms to receive it, the infant totters, and falls with a lurch against chair or table. In such a case it is easier to staunch its wound than calm its anger. And yet, though the remedy is worse than the FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 55 •disease, that may be done. Revenge, says one, is sweet. There is nothing smells so sweet, said Louis XII., as the dead body of an enemy ; and blowing up a spark she should have quenched, the foolish nurse or mother pretends, by beating chair or table, to avenge the wrong. The device succeeds — though it be, after a fashion, casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils, and by another voice than His who spake peace to the storm of Galilee, calming the passions of that little bosom. Alas, her success in soothing anger by gratifying the passion for revenge, proves not so much the nurse's skill, as that forgiveness is not a virtue that belongs to our fallen nature. 6. A Forgiving Spirit the Truest Image of God. (138.) It is when we bless them that curse us, and love them that hate us, and pray for them who despitefully use us, that we present the truest image of God, and most clearly prove ourselves to be the children of our Father which is in heaven. He makes his sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and his rain to fall upon the just and unjust. But not because he could not do otherwise. Such miracles as that which he wrought on the fleece that was saturated with dew when the ground about it was dry, and on the following night lay dry on grass sown with pearls or sparkling with diamonds in the morning sun, he could repeat on all our fields — turning the face of nature into a broad patent mirror of his own secret and unsearchable mind, so that we could tell, by the barrenness or fertility of a farm, whether its tenant was, or was not, a man of God. As I have seen a gardener play the water of his engine on one tree and turn it away from another, God, when he drives his cloudy chariot across the heavens, could so guide its motions and dis- pense its treasures, as to pour refreshing showers on the fields of one man while those of his neighbor were left to wither and die ; and he could still dispense the sunbeams which ripen our fruits and fill our barns with a band as powerful but as partial as on the day when Goshen lay smiling in sunlight, and the neighboring land of Egypt was palled in darkness that might be felt. But who surveys a smiling valley from the summit of a hill sees all its fields alike robed in verdure or waving with golden harvests — God making no distinction between saints and sinners, but distributing his treasures of shower and sunshine equally to both. And thus in the features of the landscape not less than in the pages of the Bible, in the common providence as well as in the inspired precepts of God, we learn to embrace all men in the arms of Christian affection, and, without excluding even our bitterest enemies, to do them good as we have opportunity. This, the peculiar glory of Christianity and g;rand lesson of the Cross, shines bright in every sunbeam, and sounds in every falling shower. 56 QEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 1. God's Full Forgiveness. (139.) Be it money or a living man, whatever, falling overboard and disappearing beneath the wave, is borne by its weight down and down to the bottom of the deep, is certainly, forever, lost ; and therefore God employs this figure to set forth his full and everlasting forgiveness of his people's sins. Enraptured with the thought, " Who," exclaims Micah, "is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage ? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again ; he will have compassion upon us ; he will subdue our iniquities : and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." FORMS. 1. Forms, the Drapery of Religion. (140.) Let us never forget that forms are not religion, but only its drapery ; and that, as they dress children lightly who wish to brace their frames, as the laborer throws off his coat to work, and as in the ancient games the candidates stepped into the race-course unencumbered with many, or heavy, garments, the fewer forms which religion wears, consistent with decency and order, the more robust she will grow — she will work with greater energy — and, like one of beautiful mould and symmetry, she will walk with more native, queenly, grace — when Unadorned, adorned the most. 2. Multiplicity of Forms of Worship an Evil. (141.) The Pharisees have left us, not an example to follow, but to avoid. How does their case warn the churches against attaching much importance to religious forms, either in the way of unreasonably adher- ing to such as are old, or unnecessarily introducing such as are new. It is in the nature of a religion of many forms to degenerate into one of form. By occupying and indeed engrossing the attention of the wor- shipper, they withdraw it from the state of his heart, and prove as pernicious to true piety as a superabundance of leaves to the plant, whose sap is spent on feeding the leaf, to the detriment of the fruit : and perhaps some churches might be benefited by a free use of the knife with which the gardener prunes away the flush of green wood to increase the crop of fruit. I see much danger in a multiplicity, but little, or none, in a variety of forms. GLORY OF GOD. 57 GLORY OF GOD. 1 . Doing All to the Glory of God. (142.) Whether I eat or drink, he said, or whatsoever I do — go to a feast, or a funeral ; make tents, or sermons ; go to the market to sell my work for money, or to the church to sell Christ's free salvation without money or price ; earn my bread with the sweat of my brow, or accept the hospitality of Gaius, mine host ; make tents at Corinth, or fight with wild beasts at Ephesus ; escape from Damascus in a basket, or, brought to bay, stand like a lion before Nero at Rome, I do all to the glory of God ! 2. To Glorify God, the Chief End of Man. (143.) Without entering into the merits of the different catechisms used by the churches, all will admit that none open with an introduction more grand than that of the Westminster Divines. Whatever judg- ment may be formed of the building itself, no porch or vestibule, no introduction could exceed in loftiness and grandeur the manner in which it opens — with this question, namely, and its appropriate answer, " What is the chief end of man ?" — " The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." With that, like the catechism, our life should open and should also close ; the glory of God, and not our own, being the end we should have in view in all the plans and purposes, the actions and arrangements of our life. 3. Life in all its Phases may be Spent to God's Glory. (144.) God's people shall renew their strength and mount up with wings as eagles. But it is quite a mistake to fancy that, like that bird, which builds her nest on the dizzy crag, and soars aloft, and sails along in the paths of the clouds and thunder, religion belongs only to the highest, and what are called holy, duties of life. While she rises to its highest, she stoops to its meanest, occupations. As well as the seraphs that sing before the throne, as the heralds who sound the trumpet of the gospel and proclaim salvation to perishing sinners, as the Christian who enters his closet to hold communion with God, they are doing the work of the Lord who kindle a fire, or sweep a floor, or guide a plough, or sit over a desk, or work at a bench, or break stones on the road, with a desire to do their work that God may be thereby glorified. 4. The Earth is Full of the Glory of God. (145.) With the Sabbath hills around us, far from the dust and din, 58 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. the splendor and squalor of the city, we have sat on a rocky bank, to wonder at the varied aud rich profusion with which God had clothed the scene. Nature, like Joseph, was dressed in a coat of many colors — lichens, gray, black and yellow, clad the rock ; the glossy ivy, like a child of ambition, had planted its foot on the crag, and, hanging on by a hundred arms, had climbed to its stormy summit ; mosses, of hues surpassing all the colors of the loom, spread an elastic carpet round the gushing fountain ; the wild thyme lent a bed to the weary, and its per- fume to the air ; heaths opened their blushing bosoms to the bee ; the primrose, like modesty shrinking frozn observation, looked out from its leafy shade ; at the foot of the weathered stone the fern raised its plumes, and on its summit the foxglove rang his beautiful bells ; while the birch bent to kiss the stream, as it ran away laughing to hide itself in the lake below, or stretched out her arms to embrace the mountain ash and evergreen pine. By a very slight exercise of fancy, in such a scene one could see Nature engaged in her adorations, and hear her singing, " The earth is full of the glory of God." " How manifold are thy works, Lord God Almighty ! in wisdom thou hast made them all." 5. Two Ways by which God Glorifies His Name. (146.) Two methods of glorifying his name are open to God. He is free to choose either ; but by the one or the other way he will exact his full tale of glory from every man. In Egypt, for instance, he was glo- rified in the high-handed destruction of his enemies ; and, in the same land, by the high-handed salvation of his people. In the one case he proved how strong his arm was to smite, and in the other how strong it was to save. He gave Egypt's king — ere he was done with him — a terrible answer to his insolent question, " Who is the Lord that I should serve him ?" God was sanctified before Pharaoh, when, hurrying to the banks of the Nile, and turning pale at the sight, he saw them filled with blood — blood brimming in every goblet, and blood flowing in every channel. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when he saw the same skies rain ice and fire. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when, startled at midnight by a nation's wail, and summoned to the bed of his heir and eldest born, he saw him, stiff and dead — smitten by the angel of death. And God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when — as he looked along the watery vista — he saw Moses come down in the gray of morning to the shore, and watching the last Hebrew safe on land, stretch his rod out upon the deep, whose waves, roaring on their prey, now rush from either flank on the power of Egypt, and bury pale rider and snorting horse — all that bannered army — in their whirling waters. GOD. 59 GOD. 1. God's Forbearance toward Sinners. (147.) Like a father who hangs over some unworthy son, and, while his heart is torn by contending emotions, hesitates what to do — whether once and forever to dismiss him, or to give him another trial — it is most touching to see God bending over sinners, and this flood of melting pathos bursting from his heart : " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall I make thee as Admah, how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? Mine heart is turned within me ; my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger ; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not man." 2. Nothing Difficult to God. (148.) Are you cast down because, while others have shallows, you have depths — dark depths — depths of sorrow, and suffering, to pass through ? Be it so : it is as easy for God to march his people through the wide, deep sea as across the bed of Jordan. Are your corruptions strong ? Be it so : Samson found it as easy to snap a new spun cable as withes fresh gathered on the river's bank ; and believe me, it is as easy for God to break thy tyrant's strongest as his lightest chain. A chain of iron and a thread of flax are all one to God. The blood of thy Saviour cleanseth from all sin ; and nothing being impossible, nay not even difficult to Omnipotence, be assured, that in your battle, and watch, •and work, you shall find this promise true — " My grace is sufficient for thee.'" 3. Cannot Shake off the Presence of God. (149.) "We cannot shake off the presence of God ; and when doors -are shut, and curtains drawn, and all is still, and darkest night fills our ■chamber, and we are left alone to the companionship of our thoughts, it might keep them pure and holy to say, as if we saw two shining eyes looking on us out of the darkness, " Thou, God, seest me." The world called him mad who imagined that he saw God's eye looking on him out of every star of the sky, and every flower of the earth, and every leaf of the forest, from the ground he trod upon, from the walls of his lonely chamber, and out of the gloomy depths of night. Mad ! It was a blessed and holy fancy. May God help you to feel yourselves at all times more in his presence than you are at any time in that of your fel- low-men ! 4. A Pitying Father. (150.) Now, it appears to us that this ill-proportioned theology — the ■doctrine that the only motive in redemption was a regard to God's glory 60 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. — receives no countenance from the Bible. Does not God " pity us, as a father pitieth his children " ? Taught to address him by the endear- ing appellation of Father, oh what affection, love, and loving-kindness are expressed in that tender term ! And if, on seeing some earthly father, whom a child's scream has reached and roused, rush up the blaz- ing stairs, or leap into the boiling flood, it were wrong, it were cruel, it were a shame, to suspect him of being destitute of affection — of being moved to this noble act by no other motive than a regard to his own honor — and by no other voice than the calm command of duty — how much more wrong were it to harbor such suspicions of ' ' our Father who is in heaven." 5. All Things Praise God. (151.) Insects as well as angels, the flowers that spangle the meadow^ as well as the stars that spangle the sky, the lamp of the glowworm as well as the light of the sun, the lark that sings in the air and the saint that is singing in Paradise, the still small voice of conscience as well as the thunders that rend the clouds, or the trump that shall rend the tomb, these and all things else reveal God's attributes and proclaim his praise. 6. A Refuge for His People. (152.) I know an island that stands crowned by its ancient fortalice in the middle of a lake, some good bow-shots from the shore. With the walls of the old ruin mantled in ivy, and its tower rising grim and gray above the foliage of hoary elms, it serves no purpose now but to recall old times, and ornament a lovely landscape. But once that island and its stronghold were the refuge and life of those whose ordinary resi- dence was the castle that, with gates, and bulwarks, and many a tower, and floating banner, rose in baronial pride on the shore. When in the troublous times of old that was beleaguered, and its defenders could hold it out no longer against the force and fury of the siege, they sought their boats, and, escaping by the postern gate over waters too deep to wade and too broad to swim, threw themselves on the island — within the walls of the stout old keep to enjoy peace in the midst of war, and, safe beyond the shot of cross-bow, to laugh their enemies to scorn. In their hardest plight, and against the greatest numbers, this refuge never failed them. Such a refuge and relief his people find in God. 7. Dice! Is in Light Inaccessible. ( 153.) The effect of the wind is visible, not the element itself. The clouds scud across the sky, the trees swing their arms wildly in the air,, aerial waves chase each other in sport across the corn, and the boat,. GOOD WORKS. 61 ■catching the gale in her flowing sheet, goes dancing over the billows. So — although in a sense infinitely higher — the Invisible is visible ; and in his works we see a God, who, seeing all, remains himself unseen. He is lost, not in darkness, but in light ; He is a sun that blinds the eye which is turned on its burning disk. Angels themselves are unable to sustain his glory. They cover their faces with their wings, and use them, as a man his hand, to screen their eyes from the ineffable effulgence. 8. Love should Always- be Included in a Definition of God. (154.) Divines, notwithstanding, have ventured on a definition of (rod ; and, according to the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, " God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wis- dom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." A very compre- hensive definition, no doubt ; yet did it never strike you as strange, that there is no mention of love here, and that that is a very remarkable omission ? — an omission as remarkable as if a man who described the firmament were to leave out the sun, or, painting the human face, made it sightless, and gave no place on the canvas to those beaming eyes which give life and animation to the features. GODLINESS. 1. Godliness Profitable unto all Things. (155.) There is a mine of sound sense in the adage of an old divine, *' seriousness is the greatest wisdom, temperance the most efficient physic, and a good conscience the very best estate." Early habits of self-restraint, total abstinence from all excess, diligence in business, attention to our duties, and that tranquillity of mind which piety breeds, and which those enjoy who are at peace with God, these, we confidently affirm, would do more to abate disease than all our physicians, much more to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, than our poor laws and charitable institutions, and very much more than any acts of parliament to promote the comforts of the people, and preserve the liberties of the commonwealth. GOOD WORKS. 1. Abuse of the Doctrine of. (156.) By putting them in the place of Christ, his righteousness, and saving work, popery brought good works into bad odor — into such dis- 62 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. repute, indeed, that even Martin Luther, because St. James highly corn- mended them, rejected his epistle from the canon of inspired Scripture. In their recoil from her errors, men appeared at the period of the Refor- mation who burst asunder the bounds of all morality. Denouncing the doctrine of good works as a delusion of Satan and an encroachment on the freedom wherewith Christ makes his people free, they openly indulged in the grossest vices ; saying, that with their " life hid with Christ in God," these polluted them no more than the gutter does the kernel inside the nut which falls into it. Nor has Rome only taught that salvation is more of works than of faith. Last century saw a sad eclipse of sound doctrine in almost all Protestant churches. Their pul- pits were occupied by men who, ignorant of the truth, or ashamed to own their Lord and to defend his cause, discoursed a cold morality ; fed the people with empty husks ; and putting good works, as they called them, in the place of the cross, held up heathen virtues rather than Christ and Christian graces to admiration. And under that law of action and reaction which makes the human mind, as well as a pendu- lum, swing from one extreme to the opposite, the result was what might have been expected. From being over-valued, good works came to be under-valued ; theirs the fate of the brazen serpent, which, from being an object of idolatry, was treated with a measure of contempt — ground to powder, and called Nehustan, or a piece of brass. I cannot other- wise explain the carelessness which many display about Christian works, and the hopes they entertain of getting to heaven without having ever given such proofs of conversion as they afford. Nor can I otherwise account for the positive aversion which some good people show, not cer- tainly to doing, but to hearing of good works. 2. A Disrespectful Treatment of (157.) It is told, for example, of an eminent saint, how, on one who sat by his dying bed delicately alluding to important services which he had rendered to the cause of religion, he started — started as if he had heard a serpent hiss ; aud turning round with an expression of pain and horror on his face, besought his friend, as he loved him, to make no mention of his poor unworthy works. And I have seen it recorded to the praise of another, as indicating the healthiest and holiest state a man could live or die in, that to those who spoke of his good works he instantly replied, " I take my good and bad works, and casting them into one heap, fly from both to Christ !" Now, though seeing in our best works much to make us blush, and nothing whatever, since it is by grace we are what we are, to make us vain, I venture to say that good works, by which I mean, works done for the glory of the Father, from love to the Son, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit, deserve a more GOOD WORKS. 03 respectful treatment. It is the exaggeration of a right feeling, and a false humility which casts them into the same heap with our sins. Our trust for pardon and acceptance should rest entirely in the blood of Christ ; yet the works which have pleased our heavenly Father and profited our fellow-creatures are to be recalled with thankfulness on a dying bed. Fruits of the Spirit, which glorify not us, but Him through whose grace they have been wrought, they are clear and comfortable evidence of our being children of God. 3. St. PauVs Estimate of. (158.) It was not thus, as some have done, that Paul spoke of good works. It may be news to many, yet it is true that he applies the same lofty terms to them which he uses to proclaim and enforce salvation by the blood of Christ. To Timothy he says, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ;" and to Titus he says, employing not an equivalent but the identical expression, "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.'-' On death-beds, on the deck, wherever loved ones tear themselves from each other's arms, at all partings, the last are not the least important words ; and it is with exhortations to good works that Paul takes farewell of the church of Philippi. " Finally, brethren," he says, " whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report : if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Elsewhere, placing good works on a yet loftier plat- form, in language the strongest possible according them yet higher hon- ors, he says, " God is not unrighteous to forget our work ami labor of love showed toward his name :" and, after that, it were surely no pre- sumption to say that it cannot be wrong for us modestly to remember what God will not forget ; and further still, that it cannot be right for us to be careless of such works as this great preacher of faith says are ordained of God, and bids us be careful to maintain. 4. N~o Time for Doing Good. (159.) Some allege that they can find no leisure from their other duties for works of Christian charity. They would not say so, did they sufficiently appreciate the value of time, and were as careful of its frag- ments, as those who work in gold are of its dust. I have found that where the goldsmith sits with graver or hammer in hand, a leathern apron, bound to his body, stretches between it and the bench to catch the €4 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. smallest atom that may start from his tools — there, the leather and the cloths he uses for imparting a brilliant polish to the metal, are burned to recover the minute particles which have been rubbed into their text- ures — there, the floor is carefully swept — there its dust is gathered that it may yield up to the fires of a glowing furnace the smallest atom which the dropping of the goldsmith's tool, or the shaking of his hand, has cast by chance upon the floor. The value of gold recovered last year from the sweepings of the floor of one single workshop in Edinburgh amounted to £120. I was astonished at that : but how much more astonished would people be at the vast amount of good they could do in a life-time, or even in a single year, were they, as careful in respect of time as these workmen are in respect of gold, to " gather up the fragments that nothing might be lost." 5. Cannot Earn Salvation by our Works. (160.) I do not mean to disparage good works. Christians are to be careful to maintain them, and to " make their light so to shine before men that they, seeing their good works, may glorify their Father which is in heaven." But we are on the wrong road altogether if we are at- tempting to earn or deserve salvation by these. No gathered sum of human merits, of virtues, prayers, or charities can, like the accumula- tion of money that forms the price of an estate, purchase heaven. We have to buy, no doubt, but not after the world's fashion. The price, on the contrary, which we are required to pay is not virtues and merits, but just that we abandon all trust in these ; give up in them what we may have reckoned goodly pearls ; and consent to be saved as poor, lost, undone sinners — whose type is the beggar that, clad in filthy rags and knocking timidly a1 our door, stands before us, making no appeal but to our compassion, and urging no plea whatever but our mercy and his own great misery. 6. A Pestilent Heresy, (161.) The truth is, that to set little store by good works is an im- moral and pestilent heresy. The works by which we recommend relig- ion and adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, the works which spring from love to Christ and aim at the glory of God, the works by which a good man blesses society and leaves the world better than he found it, are not the " filthy rags" of Holy Scripture. No filthy rags, but the gracious and graceful ornaments of a blood-bought Church ; these, on the contrary, are the " gold of Ophir," " the raiment of needlework" in which His bride, apparelled as a queen, stands at her Lord's right Jiand — a lovely form, in a blaze of beauty and of jewels. GOSPEL, THE. 65 V. No True Faith without Works. (162.) The fruit is now, as it shall be hereafter, the test of the tree. There is no such thing as faith without works. Without these, your profession is a lie, your faith is dead, your hope is a delusion. It is a delusion and a snare, like the phosphoric light, the product of putrefac- tion, which, to the terror of superstitious peasants, and the destruction of unwary travellers, gleams and burns at night, above the pool in whose dark depths life has been lost, and a body, evolving gases capable of spontaneous combustion, is going to decay. 8. God does not Forget our Good Works. (163.) Who ponders the Apostle's words aright, and forms a proper ■estimate of their importance, will be less surprised than some, no doubt, are at the manner in which Nehemiah mentions his good works in his prayers. Addressing God, he speaks of them in a way which many good men never ventured on. When counselled to fly, he spurned the coward advice : and asking, Shall such a man as I flee ? against the -enemies of his God, his faith, his country, and his countrymen — stood like an iron pillar strong, and steadfast as a wall of brass. But some who admire the boldness with which, amid a crowd of ene- mies, he faces man, may think his bearing before God over-bold ; and that he trode the borders of presumption — when, relating his pious and patriotic deeds, he addresses Jehovah, saying, " Wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof !" Did such a thought occur to them when engaged in prayer, many would strangle it in their hearts — regarding it as a suggestion of the devil ; a temptation to be resisted, if not a sin to be mourned ; as only suited to the lips of one who distributed his alms to the sound of a trumpet, and prayed in corners of the street that he might be praised of men, and said, expressing the sentiments of a heart inflated with pride, l thank thee, O God, that I am not as other men are, extortion- ers, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican ! Yet when Nehemiah prayed, " Remember me, O God, concerning this," he only asked him to remember what Paul assures us God is not so unrighteous as to forget. GOSPEL, THE. 1. The Gospel a Stream of Mercy. (164.) Now, what this river, which turns barren sand into the richest •soil, is to Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to the world. It flows 66 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. through the earth, the " river of the waters of life." Whether they now bloom in heaven, or are still in the nurseries of earth, every plant of grace owes to the Gospel its existence and renown. Observe, how- ever, that — although the parent of those harvests which angels shall reap and the heavens receive — no more in the case of the Gospel than of the Nile does the bounty of heaven suspend or supersede human exertions. No ; but on earth's improvement of heaven's bounty the blessings of both are commonly suspended. " The hand of the diligent maketh rich :" and as it is according to the industry or indolence of the inhabi- tants, that the Nile flows through barren sands, or waters smiling fields, so is it with the Gospel. It is a blessing only where it is sedulously and prayerfully improved, and when, like the overflowings of the Nile, which are conducted along their channels to irrigate its shores, those living waters, through the use of means, are turned on our hearts and habits. " Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers- of the law shall be justified." 2. The Effects of the Gospel. (165.) Accompanied with the blessing from on high and received into the heart by faith, the Gospel alters both our character and condition — making the rude gentle, the coarse refined, the impure holy, the selfish generous — working a greater transformation than if a felon of the prison were to change into a courtier of the palace, or the once ragged boy who had been educated to crime on the streets were to wear a star on his manly breast and stand in the brilliant circle that surrounds a throne. 3. Mysteries of the Gospel. (166.) It is ever to be borne in mind, that while the Gospel has shal- lows through which a child may wade and walk on his way to heaven, it has deep, dark, unfathomed pools, which no eye can penetrate, and where the first step takes a giant beyond his depth. 4. Love the Curative Element of the Gospel. (167.) The Gospel, like most medicines for the body, is of a com- pound nature ; but, whatever else enters into its composition, its curative element is love. No man yet was ever driven to heaven ; he must be drawn to it, and I wish to draw you. The Gospel has terror in it, no doubt. But it is like our atmosphere — occasionally riven by the thun- der and illuminated by the fatal flash — it is at times the path of the stealthy pestilence — charged with elements of destruction, and impreg- nated with the seeds of disease ; but how much more is not a great magazine of health, filled with the most harmonious sounds, fragrant GOSPEL, THE. 67 with the sweetest odors, hung with golden drapery, the pathway of sun- beams, the womb of showers, the feeder of flowing streams, full of God's goodness, and the fountain of all Earth's life ! And, just as in that atmosphere, which God has wrapped round this world, Ihere is much more health than sickness, much more food than famine, much more life than death, so in the Bible there is much more love than terror. 5. Suited to and will Prevail in all Lands. (168.) A single grain of corn would, were the produce of each season sown again, so spread from field to field, from country to country, from continent to continent, as in the course of a few years to cover the whole surface of the earth with one wide harvest, employing all the sickles, filling all the barns, and feeding all the mouths in the world. Such an event, indeed, could not happen in nature, because each latitude has its own productions, and there is no plant formed to grow alike under the sun of Africa, and amid the snows of Greenland. It is the glory of the Gospel, and one of the evidences of its divine origin that it can ; and, unless prophecy fail, that it shall. There is not a shore which shall not be sown with this seed ; not a land but shall yield harvests of glory to God and of souls for heaven. By revolutions that are overturning all things, by war's rude and bloody share, and otherwise, God is breaking up the fallow ground, and ploughing the earth for a glorious seed-time. The seed that sprang up in Bethlehem shall wave over arctic snows and desert sands : and as every shore is washed by one sea, and every land that lies between the poles is girdled by one atmosphere, and every drop of blood that flows in human veins belongs to one great family of brothers, so in God's set time men of every color and tongue shall cher- ish a common faith, and trust in a common Saviour. 6. The Gospel should be Examined in the Broad Shadoios of the Old Economy. (169.) We are aware that the Mosaic economy, and many of God's dealings with his ancient people, were but the shadows of good things to come ; and that, when the things are come, as come they certainly are, you may meet us on the very threshold with this question, Why look at the shadow when you possess the substance ? However valued in his absence the portrait of a son may be, what mother, when he is folded in her arms, and she has his living face to look on, turns to the picture ? What artist studies a subject in twilight, when he may see it in the blaze of day ? True — true at least in general. Yet such study has its advantages. It not seldom happens that a portrait brings to view 68 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION: some shade of expression which we had not previously observed in the face of the veritable man ; and when some magnificent form of archi- tecture, or the serried ridges and rocky needles of a mountain, have stood up between us and the last lights of day, we have found, that although the details, the minor beauties, of fluted columns or frowning crags were lost in the shades of evening, yet, drawn in sharp and simple outline against a twilight sky, the effect of the whole was more impres- sive than when eyed in the glare of day. (170.) Thus it may be well, occasionally at least, to examine the Gospel in the broad shadows and strongly defined outlines of an old economy ; and through God's government of his ancient people, to study the motives, the nature, and the ends of his dealings with our- selves. GRACE. 1. Grace Gives a Holy Bent. (171.) While the grace of God changes all who are brought in con- version under its influence, it does not impart any new power or pas- sion, but works by giving to those we already have a holy bent ; by impressing on them a heavenly character. It did not give John his warm affections ; but it fixed them on his beloved Master — sanctifying his love. It did not inspire Nehemiah with the love of country ; but it made him a holy patriot. It did not give Dorcas a woman's heart, her tender sympathy with suffering ; but it associated charity with piety, and made her a holy philanthropist. It did not give Paul his genius, his resistless logic, and noble oratory ; but it consecrated them to the cause of Christ — touching his lips as with a live coal from the altar, it made him such a master of holy eloquence that he swayed the multitude at his will, humbled the pride of kings, and compelled his very judges to tremble. 2. Salvation by Grace Humbling but Encouraging. (172.) If this doctrine is humbling to our pride, it is full of encour- agement to a poor sinner's hope. It lays me down, but it is to lift me up. It throws me on the ground, that, like Antaeus, the giant of fable, I may rise stronger than I fell. It is not for our sake that we are saved. If Mercy stoops to the lowest guilt, oh then there is hope of salvation for me — for a man who has nothing that he can call his own but misery and sin ; I will not sit here to perish ; but following a GRACE. 69 Manasseh and a Magdalene, a dying thief, and a blood-stained Saul, I ■will join the throng that, called from highways and hedges, are pouring — a ragged crowd — into the marriage supper of the Lamb. 3. The Affluence of God's Grace. (173.) The grace of God is marked by the affluence which character- izes all his works. What abundance in that sun which has shone so many thousand years, and yet presents no appearance of exhaustion, no sign of decay ? What abundance of stars bespangle the sky ; of leaves clothe the forest ; of raindrops fall in the shower ; of dews sparkle on the grass ; of snow-flakes whiten the winter hills ; of flowers adorn the meadow ; of living creatures that, walking on the ground, or playing in the waters, or burrowing in the soil, or dancing in the sunbeams, or flying in the air, find a home in every element — but that red fire in which, type of hell, all beauty perishes, and all life expires ? (174.) This lavish profusion of life, and forms, and beauty, in nature, is an emblem of the affluence of grace, of God's saving, sancti- fying grace. 4. Assimilating Element of Grace. (175.) Moisture dims the polished blade, and turns its bright steel into dull, red rust ; fire changes the sparkling diamond into black coal and gray ashes ; disease makes loveliness loathsome, and death converts the living form into a mass of foul corruption. But the peculiarity of grace is this, that like leaven it changes whatever it is applied to into its own nature. For as leaven turns meal into leaven, so divine grace im- parts a gracious character to the heart ; and this is what I call its assim- ilating element. 5. Grace, though Slow in Progress, yet Certain. (176.) Though grace, unlike sin, and like leaven, is slow in its prog- ress, it shall change the whole man betimes ; and the motto which flashed in gold on the High Priest's forehead shall be engraven on our reason, heart, and fancy ; on our thoughts, desires, and affections ; on our lips, and hands, and feet ; on our wealth, and power, and time ; on our body and soul — the whole man shall be " Holiness to the Lord." 6. The Life of the Soul. (177.) The circulation of water is to the world what that of blood is to the body, and that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, 70 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. and all that lives would die ; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would die. This world would become one vast grave. Water constitutes as much the life as the beauty of the landscape. It is true both in a spir- itual and in an earthly sense, that the world lives because heaven weeps over it. It was Christ's choicest figure of himself, when, turning on his own person the eyes of thousands, as on a perennial fountain — one never sealed by winter's frost, nor dried by summer sans — free, full, patent to all, he stood up on the last and great day of the feast, and cried, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 7. The All-Sufficiency of Grace. (178.) As with an arch, the grace of God stands the firmer, the more weight you lay on it ; its sufficiency, at least, will be the more evident ; the more clearly you will see the truth of the promise, My grace is suffi- cient for thee. With the well ever full and ever flowing, our vessels need never be empty. Whether, therefore, you want more faith, more purity of heart or peace of mind, more light or love, a humbler or a holier spirit, a calmer or a tenderer conscience, a livelier sense of Christ's excellences or of your own unworthiness, more tears for Christ's feet or more honors for his head, fear not to draw, to hope, to ask, too much. 8. God's Grace Exhausted. (179.) Myriads of leaves clothe the forest, myriads of flowers be- spangle the meadow, myriads of insects dance in the sunbeams, myriads of birds sing in the woodlands, myriads of fish swim in stream and ocean, myriads of stars glitter in the nightly sky, and every leaf is as perfect in form, every flower as beautiful in colors, every living creature fashioned with such skill, and every burning star guided through space with as much care, as if it engrossed the entire attention of God, and there was not another but itself within the bounds of his universe. The number of objects our hearts can hold, or our arms embrace, or our eyes watch, or our fortunes enrich, or our bounty pension, is limited ; confined within a narrow range, is small at the largest and few at the most. It is not so with Him who is mighty to save, abundant in good- ness and truth. The supplies of his grace and mercy are unexhausted and exhaustless. Their type shines in that sun which for six thousand years has shed its light on seas and continents, on crowded cities and lonely solitudes, on burning deserts and fields of ice, on palaces and cottages, on ragged beggars and sceptred kings, on all countries and classes of men, and with fires fed we know not how, shines to-day as bright as ever — his eye not dim, nor his natural strength abated. And GRACE. 71 as this is but an image, and a faint image, of God, well may his servant assure us, there shall be no want to them that fear him. None — neither for the body nor the soul ; neither for time nor eternity. 9. Grace of God Above Circumstances. (180.) I have seen a tree crowning the summit of a naked rock ; and there it stood — in search of food sending its roots out over the bare stone, and down into every cranny — securely anchored by these moor- ings to the stormy crag. We have wondered how it grew up there, amid such rough nursing, how it could have survived many a wintry blast, and where, indeed, it found food or footing. Yet, like one familiar with hardships and adversities, it has grown and lived ; it has kept its feet when the pride of the valley has bent to the storm ; and, like brave men, who think not of yielding, but nail their colors to the mast, it has maintained its proud position, and kept its green flag wav- ing on nature's topmost battlements. More wonderful than this, how- ever, is it to see where the grace of God will live and grow. Tender exotic ! plant brought from a more genial clime ! one would suppose that it would require the kindliest nursing and most propitious circum- stances ; yet look here — A Daniel is bred for God, and for the bravest services in his cause, in no pious home of Israel ; he grows in saintship amid the impurities and effeminacy of a heathen palace. Paul was a persecutor, and is called to be a preacher — was a murderer, and be- comes a martyr ; once, no pharisee so proud, now no publican so hum- ble. 10. Glorious Triumphs of Grace. (181.) Take two instances. Look at the thief on the cross. It is from the very edge of the pit, just as he is going over, that the mighty hand of Jesus plucks him. Who that heard that robber with his fellow and the base crowd insult a dying Saviour, who that saw him nailed to his cross, a daring, despairing, hardened ruffian, could have believed it possible that a few hours thereafter he would be singing songs in Paradise ? Yet the sun of that day had not set behind Judah's hills ere a blaspheming wretch ripe for hell was converted, saved, and sanctified ; and had taken his flight to heaven to tell to listening angels what mercy had done for him — how Christ had saved him at the uttermost. Look also at Paul. The old bed of the sea laid bare for the foot of Israel, the dry rock changed into a gushing fountain, the rotting tenant of the tomb rising at Christ's word, to appear, once divested of the grave- clothes, with life sparkling in his eye and health blooming on his rosy cheek, did not attest God's power over dead matter more plainly than Paul's conversion attests his power over a depraved heart. What more 72 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. incredible than that yonder man who, with a fierceness, a firmness of purpose, and an intensity of hatred uncommon to the ingenuous years of youth, stands glutting his eyes with Stephen's blood, would ere long be Christ's greatest and most devoted apostle ; and would die, after a life of unparalleled sufferings, a martyr in the very cause for which he sheds the first martyr's blood ? Yet so it was HEART, THE 1. Cultivation of the Heart. (182.) Some who carefully cultivate their fields, or their gardens, or their business, or their minds, take no pains whatever to cultivate their hearts. 2. The Heart the Same in all Men. (183.) There is one argument which these unhired, impartial, and in- dependent defenders of our faith — these high-priests of science — did not, perhaps, feel warranted to employ, but which presents to us the most convincing evidence of a common origin. It lies where the tests of chemistry cannot detect it, nor the knife of the anatomist reach it, nor the eye of the physiognomist discover it, nor the instruments of the phrenologist measure it. Its place is in the inner mau ; it lies in the depths of the soul ; and comes out in this remarkable fact, that, although the hues of the skin differ, and the form of the skull and the features of the face are cast in different moulds, the features, color, and character of the heart are the same in all men. 3. The Root of Evil. (184.) By this action, or by smiting on the thigh, the impassioned natives of the East expressed the deepest sorrow. But these sound- ing blows expressed more than sorrow. They said, as they fell thick and heavy on his bosom, Here lies the root of all my sins — O this hard, foul, wicked heart ! My life has been bad, but it has been worse — here lies the inner spring of all these polluted streams ! These blows were inarticulate prayers. They sounded forth to God's ear such wishes as these : " Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. ' ' 4. Coldness of the Unrenewed Heart. (185.) The lapidary, using his tongue to test the temperature, can, by that simple means, tell whether the seeming jewel is paste, or a real gem ; and when our eye has been deceived by the skill of the painter, HEART, THE. 73 the sense of touch has informed us, that what seemed marble was only wood. It is a common saying, " As cold as a stone." But what stone so cold as that in man's breast ? Cold is the bed of the houseless, who lies stretched on the wintry pavement, and cold the cell within whose and am I condemned ? He is pardon. 19. Creator and Lord of All. (265.) If nothing could be more sublime than that scene on the Lake of Galilee, when, tranquil in aspect, Jesus stood on the bow of the reel- ing boat, and while the storm played around, and the spray flew in white sheets over his naked head, calmly eyed the war of elements, and raising his hand, said, " Peace, be still !" could anything be more con- clusive than the evidence which these waves and winds afforded, that the Master himself was come home ? No clearer shone the stars that night, mirrored in the placid waters. There, the winds lulled and the wild waves at rest, deep silence spake. By that sudden hush, nature pro- claimed him God, Lord, Creator of all. Declared to be so by inspired tongues, and by such strange witnesses as winds and waves, devils, dis- ease, death, and the grave — heaven concurs in their testimony ; by the voices of its saints and angels, of its worship, hymns, harps, and hallelu- jahs, proclaiming him Creator and Lord of all. 20. The One Way. (266.) " I," not my ordinances, not baptism, nor the supper, nor preaching, nor prayer, not these, but " I," says Jesus, " am the way." Not a way, but the way. There is but one way. 21. Wears a Costly Croivn. (26V.) Inside those iron gratings that protect the ancient regalia of our kingdom, vulgar curiosity sees nothing but a display of jewels. Its stupid eyes are dazzled by the gems that stud the crown, and sword, and sceptre. The unreflecting multitude fix their thoughts and waste their admiration on these. They go away to talk of their beauty, perhaps to covet their possession ; nor do they estimate the value of the crown but by the price which its pearls, and rubies, and diamonds, might fetch in the market. (268.) The eye of a patriot, gazing thoughtfully in on these relics of former days, is all but blind to what attracts the gaping crowd. His admiration is reserved for other and nobler objects. He looks with deep and meditative interest on that rim of gold, not for its intrinsic value, 100 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. but because it once encircled the brow of Scotland's greatest king, the hero of her independence, Robert the Bruce. (269. ) It is the interests that are at stake, the fight for liberty, the good blood shed, the hard struggles endured for its possession ; it is these, not the jewels, which in a patriot's eye make that a costly crown — a relic of the olden time, worthy of a nation's pride and jealous pre- servation. (270.) Regarded in some such light, estimated by the sufferings endured for it, how great the value of that crown which Jesus wears ! What a kingdom that which cost God his Son, and cost that Son his life! 22. Hoiv He Became a King. (271.) There are crowns worn by living monarchs, of which it would be difficult to estimate the value. The price paid for their jewels is the least part of it. They cost thousands of lives, and rivers of human blood ; yet in his esteem, and surely in ours also, Christ's crown out- weighs them all. He gave his life for it ; and alone, of all monarchs, he was crowned at his coronation by the hands of Death. Others cease to be kings when they die. By dying he became a king. He laid his head in the dust that he might become " head over all ;" he entered his kingdom through the gates of the grave, and ascended the throne of the universe by the steps of a cross. 23. Better to be with Jesus. (272.) The holier the child of God becomes, the more he pants after the perfect image and blissful presence of Jesus ; and dark although the passage, and deep although the river may be, the more holy he is, the more ready will he be to say, " It is better to depart, and be with Jesus." 24. A Tender Shepherd. (273.) Among the hills of our native land I have met a shepherd far from the folds, driving home a lost sheep — one which had " gone astray" — a creature panting for breath, amazed, alarmed, footsore ; and when the rocks around rang loud to the baying of the dogs, I have seen them, whenever it offered to turn from the path, with open mouth dash- ing fiercely at its sides, and thus hounding it home. How differently Jesus brings home his lost ones ! The lost sheep sought and found, he lifts it, tenderly lays it on his shoulder, and, retracing his steps, returns with joy, and invites his neighbors to rejoice along with him. JESUS. 101 25. The Author and Finisher of Our Faith. (274.) The first steps toward reconciliation between man and God are always taken by him. He designed redemption in the councils of eter- nity, so that, in a sense, before man lived he was loved, was redeemed before he sinned, and raised up before he fell. Without any application on our part, of his own free spontaneous will, God sent his Son to redeem, and sends his Spirit to renew. The spark of grace which we have to nurse, he kindled in our bosoms ; it was his hand on the helm that turned us round ; and whether we were at first, as some are, driven to Christ by terrors, or, as others are, sweetly drawn to him by the attractions of his love, any way it was the Lord's doing —Jesus, all praise be to his grace, being at once the Alpha and Omega of salvation, the author as well as finisher of our faith. 26. Proofs which Our Lord Gave of His Divinity. (2*75.) When Ulysses returned with fond anticipations to his home in Ithaca, his family did not recognize him. Even the wife of his bosom denied her husband — so changed was he by an absence of twenty years, and the hardships of a long- protracted war. It was thus true of the vexed and astonished Greek as of a nobler King, that he came unto his own, and his own received him not. In this painful position of affairs he called for a bow which he had left at home, when, embarking for the siege of Troy, he bade farewell to the orange-groves and vine-clad hills of Ithaca. With characteristic sagacity, he saw how a bow, so stout and tough that none but himself could draw it, might be made to bear witness on his behalf. He seized it. To their surprise and joy, like a green wand lopped from a willow tree, it yields to his arms ; it bends till the bow-string touches his ear. His wife, now sure that he is her long lost and long lamented husband, throws herself into his fond em- braces, and his household confess him the true Ulysses. (276.) If I may compare small things with great, our Lord gave such proofs of his divinity when he too stood a stranger in his own house, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He bent the stubborn laws of nature to his will. He proved himself Creator by his mastery over creation. 27. The Love of Jesus for the Sinner. (277.) He would rather hear one poor sinner pray, than all these angels sing ; see one true penitent lying at his feet, than all these brill- iant crowns. In glory, where every eye is turned upon himself, his 102 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. eyes are bent down on earth. I fancy that amid the pomp of state, and splendid enjoyments of the palace, it is little that the sovereign thinks of the poor felon who pines in lonely prison, crushed and terror- stricken, with haggard face and heavy heart, waiting the death to which the law has doomed him ; seldom, perhaps, in fancy, does that pallid wretch intrude himself where all wear smiles, or send a hollow groan from his cell to move one thought of pity, or disturb the sparkling flow of royal pleasures. But Jesus does not forget the wretchedness of the lost amid the happiness of the saved. Their miseries are before him ; and amid the high hallelujahs of the upper sanctuary, he hearkens to the groans of the prisoner and the cry of the perishing. And, like a mother, whose loving heart is not so much with the children housed at home, as with the fallen, beguiled, and lost one, who is the most in her thoughts, and oftencst mentioned in her prayers, Jesus is thinking now of every poor careless sinner with his lost soul, and the sentence of death hang- ing over his guilty head. He pities you from his heart. He would save you, would you consent to be saved. And you, who were never honored with an invitation to a palace on earth, you who are never likely to be so honored, you, by whom this world's pettiest monarch would haughtily sweep, nor deem you worthy of the smallest notice, Jesus, bending from his throne, invites to share his glory, and become with him kings and priests unto God. 28. Seeing Jesus as He is. (278.) The dimness of sin impairs our vision, but were we to see Jesus, as we shall see him in heaven, I think it would happen to us as once it happened to a celebrated philosopher. Pursuing his discoveries on the subject of light — with a zeal not too often consecrated to science, but too seldom consecrated to religion — he ventured on a bold experi- ment. Without protection of smoked or colored glass, he fixed his gaze steadily, for some time, on the sun — exposing his naked eyes to the burning beams of its fiery disc. Satisfied, he turned his head away ; but, strange to see ! — such was the impression made on the organ of sight — wherever he turned, the sun was there ; if he looked down, it was beneath his feet ; it shone in the top of the sky in the murkiest midnight ; it blazed on the page of every book he read ; he saw it when he shut his eyes, he saw it w r hen he opened them. It was the last ob- ject which he saw when he passed off into sleep ; it was the first to meet his waking eyes. Happy were it for us if we got some such sight of Christ, and this glory of that Sun of Righteousness were so impressed upon the eye of faith that we could never forget him, and, ever seeing him, ever loved him. JESUS. 103 29. An Abiding Friend. (279.) Like summer birds whch come and go with the sun, like our shadow which deserts us when his face is clouded, like fair flowers, that close their leaves as soon as rain begins to fall or cold winds to blow, earthly friends may desert us when we most need their sympathy and support — at the time, and in the circumstances, expressed in the well- known adage, "A friend in need is a friend indeed.'''' But such a friend is Jesus Christ. Sweetest when trials are bitterest, kindest when others are cruellest, nearest when danger is greatest, his character is delineated in the words, " A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity ;" and his image, though faintly, is beautifully shadowed forth in the mother who presses the tender infant closest to her bosom when storms beat and winds blow the coldest. 30. Jesus the Only Mediator. (280.) There was one ark in the flood — but one ; and all perished save those who sailed in it. There was one altar in the temple — but one ; and no sacrifices were accepted but those offered there — " the altar," as the Bible says, that " sanctified the gift." There was one way through the depths of the Red Sea — but one ; and only where the water, held back by the hand of God, stood up in crystal walls, was a passage opened for those that were ready to perish. And even so, there is but " one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." •31 . Jesus' Name a Word of Resistless Might when Uttered by the Apostles. (281.) In the days of miracles, again, the name of Jesus carried with it the idea of his authority, and of the efficacy of his power. Uttered by the lips of faith, that name was a word of resistless might. It healed disease, shed light on darkness, and breathed life into cold death ; it mastered devils, controlled the powers of hell, and commanded into im- mediate obedience the rudest elements of nature. Like Pharaoh's signet on Joseph's hand, he who used that name in faith, was for the time gifted with his Master's power ; whatever he loosed on earth was loosed in heaven ; and whatever he bound on earth, was bound in heaven. Standing over a cripple — one impotent from his mother's womb — Peter looked on his deformity, and said, ' ' in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And, lo ! he who had never stood erect till now, bounded from the earth, and, in the joyful play of new-born faculties, walking, leaping, dancing, singing, he ushered the Apostles into the astonished temple. 104 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. JEW, THE. 1. A Liviny Evidence of God's Fulfilment of His Word. (282.) The Jew bartering bis beads with naked savages — bearding the Turk in the capital of Mohammedan power — braving in his furs the rigor of Russian winters — overreaching in China the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire — in Golconda buying diamonds — in our metropolis of the commercial world standing highest among her merchant princes — the Hebrew everywhere, and yet everywhere without a country ; with a religion, but without a temple ; with wealth, but without honor ; with ancient pedigree, but without ancestral possessions ; with no land to fight for, nor altars to defend, nor patrimonial fields to cultivate ; with chil- dren, and yet no child sitting under the trees that his grandsire planted ; but all floating about over the world like scattered fragments of a wreck upon the bosom of the ocean — he is a living evidence, that, what the Lord hath spoken, the Lord will do. 2. Intellectual Character of the Jeio. (283.) Water, whether it springs on the shore or bubbles in the mountain well where the eagle dresses her plumes and the red deer slake their thirst, never rises higher than its fountain ; and if, in like manner, children's mental powers form a standard whereby to judge of their parents', we must believe Abraham, judging from his descendants, to have been in mind, as well as in piety, one of the greatest of men. Take, for instance, a skull of each of the different races of mankind, and placing them at random on a table before an anatomist, ask him to select that which indicates the highest mental capacity. Without knowing anything whatever of their history, from what graves they were ob- tained, or to what branches of the human family they belonged, he lays his hand at once on the skull of the Jew. This, take it for all in all, is the best on the table. Vastly superior to those of the aborigines of Australia and ancient Peruvians that, though separated by a great gulf from the animal creation, stand at the bottom of the human scale, it is- visibly superior to the skulls of those Greeks and Romans that in ancient, and also of those Teutonic races that in modern, times have marched at the head of civilization, and seem destined to rule the world. The star of Abraham is in the ascendant here. However morally de- based, the Jew stands pre-eminent for his mental powers, and has- retained his superiority in circumstances which have degraded other na- tions almost to the level of beasts. Amid the fire that has burned for ages, this bush remains unconsumed. Here then is a race which, after suffering oppressions and degradations sufficient to crush the very soul JUDGMENT, THE GENERAL. 105 out of them, is mentally second to none, perhaps superior to any. This is a remarkable fact. It proves what the Bible leads us to believe, that a special Providence watches over the outcasts of Israel, preserving them for some grand end. JUDGMENT, THE GENERAL. 1. God shall Reward Every Man According to His Work. (284.) And let us remember that it shall be with us as with those actors on the stage whom men applaud, not because of the parts they play, but of the way in which they play them. Well done from God, well done from Christ, well done from the tongues of ten thousand angels, shall crown the life of a good servant, but not the life of a bad sovereign. God has no respect for persons, but will reward every man, not according to his place, but according to the way he filled it. He shall reward every man according, to his work. 2. Everything shall be Brought into. (285.) We shall meet again all we are doing and have done. The graves shall give up their dead, and from the tombs of oblivion the past shall give up all that it holds in keeping, to be witness for or witness against us. Oh, think of that, and in yonder hall of the Inquisition, see what its effect on us should be. Within those blood-stained walls, for whose atrocious cruelties Rome has yet to answer, one is under examina- tion. He has been assured that nothing he reveals shall be written for the purpose of being used against him. While making frank and ingenu- ous confession he suddenly stops. He is dumb — a mute. They ply him with questions, flatter him, threaten him ; he answers not a word. Danger makes the senses quick. His ear has caught a sound ; he list- ens ; it ties his tongue. An arras hangs beside him, and behind it he hears a pen running along the pages. The truth flashes on him. Be- hind that screen a scribe sits committing to the fatal page every word he says, and he shall meet it all again on the day of trial. Ah ! how sol- emn to think that there is such a pen going in heaven, and entering on the books of judgment all we say, or wish, all we think, we do. 3. The Folly of Man in not Averting His Fate. (286.) It is alleged by travellers, that the ostrich, when pursued by its hunters, will thrust its head into a bush, and, without further attempt either at flight or resistance, quietly submit to the stroke of death. Men say that, having thus succeeded in shutting the pursuers out of its own sight, the bird is stupid enough to fancy that it has shut itself out of 106 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. theirs, and that the danger, which it has concealed from its eyes, has ceased to exist. We doubt that. God makes no mistakes ; and, guid- ed as the lower animals are in all their instincts by infinite Wisdom, I fancy that a more correct knowledge of that creature would show, that this poor bird, which has thrust its head into the bush, and stands quietly to receive the shot, has been hunted to death. For hours the cry of its pursuers has rung in its startled ear ; for hours their feet have been on its weary track ; it has exhausted strength, and breath, and craft, and cunning, to escape ; and even yet, give it time to breathe — give it another chance — and it is away with the wind ; and with wings outspread, on rapid feet it spurns the burning sand. It is because escape is hopeless and death is certain that it has buried its head in that bush, and shut its eyes to a fate which it cannot avert. To man — rational and responsible man — belongs the folly of closing his eyes to a fate which he may avert, and thrusting his head into the bush while escape is possible ; and, because he can put death, and judgment, and eternity out of mind, living as if there were neither a bed of death nor bar of judgment. JUDGMENT, MAN'S. 1. Crouching before Man' a Judgment. (287.) Yet see, how men of the noblest genius and proudest intellect have crouched, slave-like, before the world, laying their heads in the very dust at her feet. When Byron, for instance, stood aloft on the pinnacle of his fame, he confessed that the disapprobation of the mean- est critic gave him more pain than the applause of all the others gave him pleasure. Miserable confession, and miserable man ! not less a slave that laurels wreathed his brow, and that a star glittered on his breast. What a contrast do we see in Paul ! He was a freeman ! Like some tall rock, he stands erect ; unmoved from his place, or pur- pose, or judgment, or resolution, by the storm of a world's disapproba- tion raging fiercely around him. " With me," he says, " it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment ; . . . he that judgeth me is the Lord. ' ' JUSTICE OF GOD. 1 . Justice of God Glorified. (288.) Justice did a stern but righteous act, when she hung up Hainan in the face of the sun, and before the eyes of the city — a warn- KWDJVfiSS. 107 ing to all tyrants, and a terror to all sycophants ; yet it was a loftier and a happier exercise of her functions to call the Jew from obscurity, to marshal him along the crowded streets with a crestfallen enemy walking at his stirrup, and royal heralds going before to blow his fame, and ever and anon to cry, " Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king de- lighteth to honor." Even so, shall the justice of God be glorified when heads, now lying in the grave, are crowned with honor. 2. Justice and Mercy Combined in the Work of Redemption. (289.) It is cruelty, not justice, that stands opposed to mercy. These attributes of the Godhead are not contrary the one to the other, as are light and darkness, fire and water, truth and falsehood, right and wrong. No ; like two streams which unite their waters to form a common river, justice and mercy are combined in the work of redemption. Like the two cherubims whose wings met above the ark — like the two devout and holy men who drew the nails from Christ's body, and bore it to "the grave — like the two angels who received it in charge, and, seated, •the one at the head, the other at the feet, kept silent watch over the precious treasure — justice and mercy are associated in the work of Christ ; they are the supporters of the shield on which the cross is em- blazoned ; they sustain the arms of our heavenly Advocate ; they form the two solid and eternal pillars of the Mediator's throne. On Calvary mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other. 3. God's Justice Conspicuous in Redemption. • (290. ) Justice is as conspicuous in redemption as the cross which illus- trated it. Sinners, indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are pun- ished ; the guilty are acquitted, but then, their guilt is condemned ; the sinner lives, but then, the surety dies ; the debtor is discharged, not, Tiowever, till the debt is paid. Dying, ' ' the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," Jesus satisfies for us ; and, as we have seen a discharged account pierced by a nail, and hung to gather cobwebs on the dusty wall, he who paid our debt, nor left us one farthing to pay, lias taken the handwriting that was against us and nailed it to his cross. KINDNESS. 1. Kindness a Secret of Success. (291.) I have no doubt whatever that to the generous, kindly, loving ■disposition which Joseph possessed, and all should cultivate, he owed 108 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. not a little of his remarkable success. It won the regards and goodwill of others — kind affections often doing men such service as the arms which a creeping plant throws around a pole does it, when, springing from the ground, it rises by help of the very object it embraces. KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 1. Rules of Other Kingdoms Reversed in Christ 1 s Kingdom. (292.) In your earthly kingdoms the rich and noble carry off the lion's share. It is high-born men and women that fill high places, and stand near our queen's throne ; but this kingdom bestows its noblest honors on the humble, the poor, the obscure, the meek, the lowly ; for " to the poor the gospel is preached," and " not many mighty, not many noble are called." More extraordinary than any of these things, all the ordinary rules of other kingdoms are reversed in this. Here, the way to grow rich is to become poor — the path to honor lies through shame — to enjoy rest we must plunge into a sea of troubles — peace is- only to be enjoyed in a state of war — who would live must die — and who would gain must part with all that men hold most dear. 2. For the Poor and Humble. (293.) It is the high-born chiefly that approach the person of the sovereign, enjoy the honors of the palace, and fill the chief offices of the state. Royal favors seldom descend so low as humble life. The grace of our King, however, is like those blessed dews that, while the moun- tain tops remain dry, lie thick in the valleys ; and, leaving the proud and stately trees to stand without a gem, hang the lowly bush with dia- monds, and sow the sward broadcast with orient pearl. This is the kingdom for the mean, and the meek, and the poor, and the humble ! Its King has said, Not many mighty, not many noble, are called ; Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 3. An Enduring One. (294.) His kingdom, it is " the kingdom" by way of excellence,, there being no other of which, having seen the rise, it shall not see also- the fall — the kingdom, in contradistinction to those which, rivers, shores, or mountains bound — many of which founded in injustice, and maintained by oppression, have tyrants for their rulers, and for their subjects slaves ; and all of which, if I may judge the future by the past, have this course to run — born, they grow, arrive at maturity, flourish for a longer or shorter period, then begin to decay ; and, sinking under KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 109 the infirmities of age, or falling by the hands of violence, at length ex- pire — their palaces a heap of ruins, their kings a handful of dust. 4. The True Subjects of Christ's Kingdom. (295.) Now, to this day, how many would accept of Jesus as king, would he but consent to their terms — allow them to indulge their lusts, and retain their sins ! If, like some Eastern princes, who leave the reins of government in other hands, he would rest contented with the shadow of royalty, with the mere name and empty title of a king, many would consent to be his subjects. But be assured that he accepts not the crown, if sin is to retain the sceptre. He requires of all who name his name, that they " depart from iniquity ;" and, with " holiness unto the Lord " written on their foreheads, that they take up their cross, and deny themselves daily, and follow him. 5. The Divine Right of Christ's Kingship. (296.) There was an ancient and universal custom set aside, on his coronation day, by that great emperor who bestrode the world like a Colossus, till we locked him up in a sea-girt prison — chained him, like -an eagle, to its barren rock. Promptly as his great military genius was wont to seize some happy moment to turn the tide of battle, he seized the imperial crown. Regardless alike of all precedents, and of the presence of the Roman pontiff whose sacred office he assumed, he placed the crown on his own head, and, casting an eagle eye over the applaud- ing throng, stood up, in the pride of his power, every inch of him a king. The act was like the man — bold, decisive ; nor was it in a sense untrue, its language this, The crown I owe to no man ; I myself have won it ; my own right arm hath gotten me the victory. Yet, with some such rare exceptions, the universal custom, on such occasions, is to per- form this great act as in the presence of God ; and, adding the solemni- ties of religion to the scene, by the hand of her highest minister to crown the sovereign. It is a graceful and a pious act, if, when religion is called upon to play so conspicuous a part, on such a stage, and in the presence of such a magnificent assembly, all parties intend thereby to acknowledge that crowns are the gift of God, that sovereigns as well as subjects are answerable for their stewardship, and that by Him whose minister performs the crowning act, kings reign, and princes decree justice. (297.) According to that scripture, God sets up one and puts down another, plucks the sceptre from the hand of this man, and gives it to that, and, as our days have seen, makes fugitives of kings, to raise a 110 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. beggar from the dust and the needy from the dunghill, and set him with princes. And what he does in an ordinary and providential sense to all kings, he did in a high, and pre-eminent, and special sense to his own Son. The " divine right of kings," with which courtiers have flattered tyrants, and tyrants have sought to hedge round their royalty, is a fiction. In other cases a mere fiction, it is in Christ's case a great fact. The crown that rests on his head was placed there by the hands of Divinity. It was from his eternal Father that he received the reward of his cross. LAWS OF THE BIBLE. 1. Criminal and Civil Laws of Moses. (298.) As a legislator, besides moral, Moses established criminal and civil laws which, unless in so far as they were specially adapted to the circumstances of the Israelites, our senators and magistrates would do well to copy. Inspired with the profoundest wisdom, they are patterns to all ages of equity and justice. For instance, how much kinder to the poor, and less burdensome to the community, than ours, are what may be called the " poor laws" of Moses ! How much more wise than ours those that dealt with theft, thus far that, requiring the thief to restore fourfold the value of what he had stolen, and work till he had done so, they assigned to that crime a punishment, which at once secured repara- tion to the plundered and the reformation of the plunderer. Nor less wise, I may add, those sanitary laws of which, though long neglected, late years and bitter experience have been teaching us the importance. It is only now, with all our boasted progress in arts and science, that we are awakening to the value of such regulations as, securing cleanliness in the habits and in the homes of the people, promote their health and preserve their lives. LAW, THE. 1. The Law is Not the Gate of Life. (299.) The law is not now the gate of life ; yet although it has ceased to be the gate, it has not ceased, and never shall cease, to be the rule of life. We preach, indeed, a free and full salvation ; and we glory in the theme. We say that the greatest lawbreaker may be saved ; the foulest sinner washed white as snow ; the basest of the base, the vilest of the vile, exalted to a throne in heaven, and that as no obedience rendered to LOVE TO CUBIST. Ill the law since the fall of Adam can open heaven to fallen man, so since the death of Christ no disobedience can shut its gates against him. 2. The Law Written Upon the Heart. (300.) Dr. Livingstone tells us that he found the rudest tribes of Africa, on whose Cimmerian darkness no straggling ray of revealed truth had ever fallen, ready to admit that they were sinners. Indeed, they hold almost everything to be sin which, as such, is forbidden in the word of God. Nor is it possible to read his clear statements on that subject, without arriving at this very interesting and important con- clusion, that the ten commandments received from God's own hand by Moses on Mount Sinai, are but the copy of a much older law — that law which the finger of his Maker wrote on Adam's heart, and which, though sadly defaced by the fall, may still, like the inscription on a time-eaten, moss-grown stone, be traced on ours. 3. The Law Magnified in Jesus' 1 Death. (301.) Many years ago a horrible crime was committed in a neighbor- ing country. It was determined that the guilty man, whoever he might be, so soon as he was discovered and convicted, should die. He had fled ; but the eye of justice tracked him to his hiding-place. Dragged from it, he is arraigned at the bar ; and fancy, if you can, the feelings of his judge, when, in the pale, trembling, miserable, guilty wretch, he recognized his own son — his only son ! What an agonizing struggle now began in that father's bosom ! He is torn between the conflicting claims of nature and duty. The public indignation against the criminal is lost in pity for the father, as he sits there transfixed with horror, overwhelmed with grief, while his child, with clasped hands and eyes that swim in tears, implores a father's pity. Duty bears nature down. He pronounces sentence of death ; but in passing it on his son, he passes it on himself. Nature would have her own. He rises ; he leaves the bench ; he hastens home ; he lies down on his bed ; nor ever rising from it, dies of a broken heart. God cannot die ; yet, when, rather than his holy law should be broken with impunity, he gave up his love to bleed, his beloved Son to die, a substitute for us, oh, how did the blood which dyed that cross dye his law in colors of the brightest holiness ! LOVE TO CHRIST. 1. Love to Christ a Strong Passion (302.) True piety is not hypocrisy ; and it is due alike to Christ and the interests of religion, that the world should know that the love his 112 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. people bear for him is a deeper affection than what the mother cherishes for the babe that hangs helpless on her bosom ; a stronger passion than the miser feels for the yellow gold he clutches. With the hand of the robber compressing his throat, to have his gray hairs spared, he would give it all for dear life ; but loving Jesus whom they never saw, better than father, or mother, or sister, or brother, or lover, or life itself, thou- sands have given up all for him. Not regretting, but rejoicing in their sacrifices, they have gone bravely for his cause to the scaffold and the stake. 2. Love as Strong as Death. (303.) I look on this mother, who stands with her child on the side of the sinking wreck, to catch the last chance of a passing boat. She catches it — not to leap in herself ; but, lifting her boy in her arms, and printing a mother's last kiss upon his rosy lips, she drops him in, and remains behind herself to drown and die. Or I look at that maid in old border story, who, having caught a glance of the arrow that, shot by a rival's hand, came from the bushes on the other bank, flung herself be- fore her lover, and received the fatal shot in her own true and faithful heart. I look at these things, and, seeing that love is strong as death, I urge you to cultivate the love of Jesus, and go in its divine strength to the field of duty, and the altar of sacrifice. 3. The Believer's Motive Power. (304.) In the doctrines of grace holiness holds a most important place ; a place so important — so prominent and conspicuous — that the notion, once current, that the doctrine of a free salvation through the mercy of God and the merits of Christ alone is unfavorable to the inter- ests of morality, can only be ascribed to the malice of the natural heart, or the grossest ignorance. These doctrines set forth the love of Christ as a believer's great motive power, and it might be a sufficient refutation of the calumny to quote the glowing exclamation of the poet : " Thou bleeding Lamb ! The best morality is love of Thee." 4. The Christian' 1 s Great Strength. (305.) Samson's great strength lay in his hair. Shorn of that, he was like other men. The Christian's great strength lies in his love. 5. Love to Christ Overcoming the Love to the World. (306.) The new love of Christ, and the old love of the world, may still meet in opposing currents ; but in the war and strife of these an- LOVE OF GOD. 113 tagonistic principles, the celestial shall overpower the terrestrial, as, at the river's mouth, I have seen the ocean tide, when it came rolling in with a thousand billows at its back, fill all the channel, carry all before its conquering swell, dam up the fresh water of the land, and drive it back -with resistless power. LOVE OF GOD. 1. Cannot Measure the Paternal Love of God. (307.) I know a father's heart. Have I not seen the quiver of a father's lip, the tear start into his eye, and felt his heart in the grasp of his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a fallen child ? Have I not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the path of mettled coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from their feet, dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant death ? Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin-head, pale, dumb, tear- less, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin which we were carrying away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone, struggle to retain her dead ? If we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril life for our children, and, when they are moldered into dust, cannot think of our dead, nor visit their cold and lonesome grave, but our breasts are wrung, and our wounds bleed forth afresh, can we adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate — even with our fancy at its highest strain, the paternal love of God ? 2. God Loves to the End. (308.) The sun that shines on you shall set, and summer streams *hall freeze, and deepest wells go dry — but not his love. His love is a stream that never freezes, a fountain that never fails, a sun that never sets in night, a shield that uever breaks in fight ; whom he loveth, he loveth to the end. 3. Christ Died for us because God Loved us, (309.) The central truth of the Bible, that on which I lay the great- est stress and rest my strongest hopes, is this, that God does not love us because Christ died for us, but that Christ died for us because God loved us. I do not disparage the work of Christ ; far be such a thought from me. Yet Christ himself is the gift of divine love, the divine ex- pression of our Father's desire to be reconciled. The Lord of angels Tianging on a mother's bosom, the Creator of heaven and earth bending to a humble task, the judge of all standing accused in the place of com- mon felons, the Son of his Father's love nailed amid derision to an 114 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. ignominious cross, death rudely seizing him, the dark grave receiving him, we owe to the love of God. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What love do we owe him who so loved us ! 4. The Love of God Commended toward us. (310.) A spectator of the scenes, the dreadful, tragic scenes, amid which Judah's sun set in blood forever, tells that wood was wanting for crosses, and crosses were wanting for bodies. Yet had Babylon's, Tyre's, Jerusalem's, all these crosses been raised to save you, and on each cross of that forest, not a man, but a dying angel hung, had all heaven been crucified, here is greater love, a greater spectacle. God commend- eth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 5. The Love of God Passes Knowledge. (311.) I can measure parental love — how broad, and long, and strong, and deep it is. It is a sea — a deep sea, which mothers and fathers only can fathom. But the love displayed on yonder hill and bloody cross where God' s own Son is perishing for us, nor man nor angel has a line to measure. The circumference of the earth, the altitude of the sun, the distance of the planets — these have been determined ; but the height, depth, breadth, and length of the love of God passeth knowledge. 6. God Delights in Love. (312). The minnow plays in a shallow pool, and leviathan cleaves the depths of ocean — winged insects sport in a sunbeam, and winged angels sing before the throne ; and whether we fix our eye on the one or the other, the whole fabric of creation appears to prove that Jehovah delights in the evolution of his powers, in the display of his wisdom, love, and goodness ; and, just as it is to the delight which God enjoys in the exercise of them that we owe this beautiful creation, so it is to his delight in the exercise of his pity, love, and mercy, that we owe sal- vation, with all its blessings. LOVE TOWARD GOD. 1. Love to God should be Inflamed. (313.) Inflame your love by looking to Christ. Go often, and, with the shepherds, gaze on the heavenly babe laid on a pallet of straw in the corner of a manger. With the disciples, accompany him to Gethsem- ane, and sit beneath her hoary olives to listen in the stilly night to the LOVE TO OTHERS. 115 moans and groans of the Son in the hands of his Father. Or join the weeping women, and, with the other Marys and his fainting mother, take up your station near the awful cross, and meditate on these things till you can say with David, " While I was musing, the fire hurned. " 2. The Love of God should Replace the Love of the World. >.i'i (314.) It is with man's soul as with this plant which is creeping on the earth ; to upbraid it for its baseness, to reproach it for the mean objects around which its tendrils are entwined, will never make it stand erect ; you cannot raise it unless you present some lofty object to which it may cling. It is with our hearts as with vessels ; you cannot empty them of one element without admitting or substituting another in its place. And just as I can empty a vessel filled with air or with oil by pouring water into it, because water is the heavier fluid, or as I can empty a vessel of water by pouring quicksilver into it, because the specific gravity of mercury is greatly in excess of that of water, so the only way by which you can empty my heart of the world, and the love of the world, is by filling it with the love of God. 3. Man Must Love. (315.) We are constituted with affections, of which we can no more divest ourselves than of our skin. Be the object which we love noble or base, good or bad, generous or selfish, holy or sinful, belonging to earth or to heaven, some object we must love. It were as easy for a man to live without breathing, as to live without loving. It is not more natural for fire to burn, or light to shine, than for man to love. And the commandment, ' ' Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," had been utterly impracticable, and impossible, save in conjunction with the other commandment, ' ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind." LOVE TO OTHERS. 1. Taking a Loving Lnterest in the Salvation of Others. (316.) Although every minister were as a flaming fire in the service of his God, every bishop were a Latimer, every reformer were a Knox, every preacher were a Whitefield, every missionary were a Martyn, the work is greater than ministers can accomplish ; and if men will not submit that the interests of nations and the success of armies shall: be 116- OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. sacrificed to routine and forms of office, much less should these be toler- ated where the cause of souls is at stake. I say, therefore, to every Christian, " the Master hath need " of you. Take a living, loving interest in souls. Don't leave them to perish. It may be the duty of others permanently and formally to instruct, but it is yours to enlist. " This honor have all his saints." 2. Example of a Fugitive Slave. (317.) In the touching narrative of a fugitive slave I have read how, when he himself had escaped, the thought of his mother, a mother dear, and sisters, still in bondage, haunted him night and day, embit- tering the sweetness of his own cup. He found no rest. Liberty to him was little more than a name, until they also were free. And surely one may wonder how Christians can give God any rest, or take it them- selves, while those near and dear to them are in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. 3. A Love that Seeketh not its Own. (318.) On the deck of a foundering vessel stood a negro slave. The last man left on board, he was about to step into the life-boat. She was already laden almost to the gunwale, to the water-edge. Bearing in his arms what seemed a heavy bundle, the boat's crew, who with difficulty kept her afloat in the roaring sea, refused to receive him. If he came, it must be unencumbered and alone. On that they insisted. He must either leave that bundle and leap in, or throw it in and stay to perish. Pressing it to his bosom, he opened its folds ; and there, warm- ly wrapped, lay two little children, whom their father had committed to liis care. He kissed them ; and bade the sailors carry his affection- ate farewell to his master, telling him how faithfully he had fulfilled his charge. Then lowering the children into the boat, which pushed off, the dark man stood alone on the deck, to go down with the sinking ship, a noble example of bravery, and true fidelity, and the " love that seeketh not its own." 4. Expansive Character of Christian Love. (319.) By this story Jesus teaches us to do good to all men as we have opportunity, and to rejoice in the opportunities of doing it. If any man's sorrows need our sympathy, his bodily or spiritual wants our help, let us think no more of asking whether he belongs to our country or family, our party or church, than if we saw him stretching out his hands from the window of a burning house, or found him, like this ob- LOVE TO OTHERS. 117 ject of the Samaritan's kindness, expiring in a pool of blood. Thus Christ loved us ; and thus he teaches us to love one another. 5. The Discoverer of a Fountain Makes it Known to Others. (320.) Those who find treasures in the Gospel, do not hide them. On the contrary, they seek to make the great discovery known, and to communicate its benefits to all. There is no temptation to do other- wise, to keep it to ourselves, since it has blessings in the pardon and peace of God enough for us and for all others. It is as if one of a caravan that had sunk on the burning desert, were, in making a last effort for life, to discover no muddy pool, but a vast fountain — cool as the snows that replenished its spring, and pure as the heavens that were reflected on its bosom. He revives at the blessed sight, and, pushing on to the margin, stoops to drink ; yet ere his thirst is fully quenched, see how he speeds away to pluck his friends from the arms of death ; and, hark ! how he shouts, making the lone desert ring to the cry, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 6. Loving Efforts for the Perishing. (321.) During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain, a dismasted merchantman was observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. Every eye and glass were on her, and a canvas shelter on a deck almost level with the sea suggested the idea that there yet might be life on board. "With all his faults, no man is more alive to humanity than the rough and hardy mariner ; and so the order instantly sounds to put the ship about, and presently a boat puts off with instructions to bear down upon the wreck. Away after that drifting hulk go these gallant men through the swell of a roaring sea ; they reach it ; they shout ; and now a strange object rolls out of that canvas screen against the lee shroud of a broken mast. Hauled into the boat, it proves to be the trunk of a man, bent head and knees together, so dried and shrivelled as to be hardly felt within the ample clothes, and so light that a mere boy lifted it on board. It is laid on the deck ; in horror and pity the crew gather round it ; it shows signs of life ; they draw nearer ; it moves, and then mutters — mutters in a deep, sepulchral voice — " There is another man." Saved himself, the first use the saved one made of speech was to seek to save another. Oh ! learn that blessed lesson. Be daily practising it. And so long as in our homes, among our friends, in this wreck of a world which is drifting down to ruin, there lives an uncon- verted one, there is ' ' another man, ' ' let us go to that man, and plead for Christ ; go to Christ and plead for that man ; the cry, " Lord save me, I perish," changed into one as welcome to a Saviour's ear, " Lord save them, they perish. " , 118 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. MAN. 1. The Worth and Dignity of. (322.) If the value of anything is to be estimated by its price, to what an immeasurable height of worth does it exalt man that God gave his Son to redeem him ! — redeeming him not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot or blemish. So far from cherishing low views of man, I believe that a gem of inestimable value lies concealed beneath the beggar's rags. A soul is there of divine-like faculties and of price- less worth : and a body also, which, though the seat of appetites that man shares with brutes, and of passions, perhaps, such as burn in the breasts of fiends, may become more sacred than any fane built by hu- man hands — a temple of the Holy Ghost. There is a worth in man no meanness of circumstances, no degradation of character can altogether conceal. He is a jewel though buried in a heap of corruption ; the vilest outcast, possessing powers and affections that need only to be sanc- tified to ally him with angels, and make publicans and harlots fit for heaven. 2. Man's Capacity and Incapacity. (323.) Endowed with an intellect which, though defaced, has survived the Fall, his capacities and capabilities are great. As if he were a God, he measures the heavens, weighs the hills in scales, and the mountains in a balance. He subdues the elements, rides on the wind, rides on the waves ; makes the lightning his swift messenger ; and yoking fire and water to his chariot wheels, compels them to serve him. Prolific in invention and skilful in arts, as if he were a creator, he can make the elements he subdues. Image of Him who giveth rain, whose voice is heard thundering in many waters, who casteth out his ice in morsels, and M'attereth his hoar frost like ashes — man makes snow, and ice, and rain, and dew, and lightning ; and, falling on the strange discovery that the brilliant diamond is formed of the very same matter as coal, he has boldly pressed on his Maker's steps, and all but succeeded in rivalling nature's gems. But though it were hard to say — such is the progress of arts and science — what human skill may not accomplish, it has its bounds. There is a line across which it has never passed, and cannot pass ; where a voice is heard, saying to the boldest adventurer, Hither shalt thou come, but no farther. By no skill or combinations of matter can man give being to the lowest living thing. 3. Only Two Classes of Men in God's Sight. (324.) Mankind present all shades of color — from the negro, God's MARRIAGE. . 119 image in ebony, as one said, to the fair-skinned, blue-eyed, golden- haired types of our Scandinavian ancestors — all varieties also of disposi- tion, from the penuriousness of Nabal to the affection embalmed by David in this immortal song: "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, ' ' — all degrees also of sense, from the fool who, untaught by experience, though pounded in a mortar comes out the same, to those astute, far-seeing, and long-headed men, whose utterances, like the counsels of Ahitophel, are " as if a man in- quired at the oracle of God" — and all differences also of outward con- dition, from Lazarus covered with sores and clothed in rags nor ever enjoying one good full meal, upward to him who, clothed in purple and fine linen, fares sumptuously every day. Yet in God's sight the whole human family is divisible into two classes, and only two — the good and bad, the chaff and wheat, the wheat and tares, the sheep and goats, the converted and the unconverted — those that, still at enmity with God, lie under condemnation, and such as, renewed in the spirit of their minds and reconciled to him by the blood of his Son, are in a state of grace. MARRIAGE. 1, Unwise Marriages. (325.) Some choose their wives like as our Grandmother Eve did the apple, because they are pleasant to the eyes to be looked upon ; others out of a love of their wealth, saying of their wives what the Sechemites did of the sons of Jacob, " Shall not all their herds and cattle be ours." 2. The First Marriage. (326.) In looking back to the first marriage, I cannot but think that it was to make its tie more tender that God chose the singular plan he pursued in providing the man with a mate. No other way would have occurred to our fancy of making woman than that of another clay figure, modelled by God's hands in the female form, and inspired by his breath with life. In making her out of Adam, and from the part of his body lying nearest to the heart, while he lay in the mysterious sleep from which he woke to gaze on a beautiful form reposing by his side, God gave a peculiar emphasis and power to the figure ' ' they twain shall be one flesh" — one in sympathy, in mind, in affections, and in interests ; nothing but death afterward to divide them. 120 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. MEANS. 1. Our Confidence should not be in Means. (327.) Nothing, indeed, so much hinders the cure of a soul as what helps the cure of a body. Many as the analogies between the processes of grace and nature are, here there is none — but a total dissimilarity. In that anxious sick-room, where life and death struggle for the mas- tery, it is all-important to sustain the patient's strength. This offers, so to speak, his only chance ; and for that end there is no charm in drug or stimulant more potent than boundless confidence in the skill of the physician. Such confidence in man lies at the foundation of the physician's success ; such confidence in man is fatal to a minister's. This may be one reason why, with so many sermons, there are so few conversions ; why, among the crowds that throng God's houses, so many depart unblessed, unsaved, un sanctified — no better, but rather worse. God will not give his blessing to such as, shutting him out, put their confidence in the use of means — in the virtue of sacraments or the power of sermons, in dead books or living preachers. He is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another. 2. Means Impotent without God's Blessing. (328.) The more it shines, and the more it rains, the thicker the dews of night, and the hotter the sun of day, the faster the dead tree rots ; for those agents in nature which promote the vegetation and develop the beauty of life, the sounding shower, the silent dews, the summer heat, have no other effect on death than to hasten its putridity and decay. And even so, furnishing us with an impressive lesson of the impotency of all means that are unaccompanied by the divine blessing — was it with God's ancient people. He sent them servants, and he sent them suffer- ings ; but, until the Spirit of life descended from on high, their habits only grew more depraved, their condition more desperate, their profanity more profane. 3. Unlikely Means in Nature. (329.) For the purpose of teaching a truth that should inspire and animate our prayers, God has often wrought out his ends by the most unlikely means. There are objects in nature not less astonishing for the smallness of the worker than the greatness of the work. Such are the coral walls around those lovely isles that, carpeted with flowers, clothed with palms, and enjoying an everlasting summer, lie scattered like gems on the bosom of the Pacific. These, with the ocean roaring in its fury before them, and behind them the lagoon lying like a molten mirror broken only by the dash of a sea-bird or the dip of passing oar, are MEANS. 121 stupendous ramparts. Compared to them our greatest breakwaters dwindle into insignificance. One of these reefs off the coast of New Holland is a thousand miles in length, and how many hundred feet in depth, I know not. Yet the masons that build these are creatures so small as to be almost invisible. Such mighty works does God accom- plish by instruments so mean ! 4. Which seem Unfitted to the End. (330.) Nothing is more remarkable in the Bible than to see how God, as if to teach us to trust in nothing and in none but himself, selects means that seem the worst fitted to accomplish his end. Does he choose an ambassador to Pharaoh ? — it is a man of stammering tongue. Are the streams of Jericho to be sweetened ? — salt is cast into the spring. Are the eyes of the blind to be opened ? — they are rubbed with clay. Are the battlements of a city to be thrown down ? — the means employed is, not the blast of a mine, but the breath of an empty trumpet. Is a rock to be riven ? — the lightning is left to sleep above and the earthquake with its throes to sleep below, and the instrument is one, a rod, much more likely to be shivered on the rock than to shiver it. Is the world to be converted by preaching, and won from sensual delights to a faith whose symbol is a cross and whose crown is to be won among the fires of martyrdom ? — leaving schools, and halls, and colleges, God summons his preachers from the shores of Galilee. The helm of the church is entrusted to hands that had never steered aught but a fishing-boat ; and by the mouth of one who had been its bloodiest persecutor, Christ pleads his cause before the philosophers of Athens and in the palaces of Rome. 5. Our Eyes and Our Hopes should be on God when Using Means. (331.) It is with man and God in the production of spiritual, as with the skies and the soil in the production of material, fruit. Gathering harvests each successive year from fields whose wealth of fruitfulness seems exhaustless, we say, How bountiful is the earth ! — the world's, like the widow's, meal-barrel, is never empty. We speak of the fruits of earth, and the flowers of earth, and the harvests of earth ; but these, her offspring, have another parent. Heaven claims their sweet juices, and fragrant odors, and glorious colors, as hers, and most her own. To the treasures of light, heat, rain, and dews, poured from exhaustless skies on the dull cold soil, earth's flowers owe their beauty, her gardens their fruits, her fields their golden harvests. Each, at any rate, has its own part to do ; nor would a husbandman labor to less purpose under a sunless sky on fields bound hard with frost and buried in perpetual snow, than preachers without the cheering, warming, enlivening influences of 122 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. the Sun of Righteousness, the dews of grace, and the blessing of the Spirit. Man's is but a husbandman's office — to plant ; to water ; nothing more. " Paul," as the apostle himself says, " planteth, Apollos watereth, but God giveth the increase ; so, then, neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the in- crease." And thus, whether we preach, or are preached to, when most diligent in the use of means, let a sense of our inability turn our eyes and all our hopes on God. 6. God Accomplishes Great Purposes by Unlikely Means. (332.) But we have not to go to nature to see God accomplishing great purposes by unlikely means. The Bible is full of such examples. We should have committed the treasure of divine truth to the charge of some mighty monarch, and called the Saviour of the world from the loins of a Cyrus or a Caesar — of one whose weakness should not tempt him to seek safety in a lie, and whose family should have been in no danger of dying through famine. My ways are not as your ways, says God, neither are my thoughts as your thoughts. In Abraham, an obscure Chaldean, an exile, a wanderer, without any home but a tent or property in the soil but a grave, God puts the dearest interests of mankind into the weakest hands. In that patriarch the hopes of the world hang on a man around whose head swords are flashing, and into whose breast — but that his steward perhaps in the battle he fought to rescue Lot thrusts it aside — the robber buries his spear. In him and Sarah the hopes of the world are hung on a pair whose bed is childless, and on whose heads time has shed its snows. And again, when a child is born to them in Isaac, the salvation of a lost world hangs by a single strand : and again in Jacob's family, it turns on a dream and fortunes as unlikely as any that fill the pages of a romance. With Abraham in the battle ; with Isaac on the altar ; with Joseph in the dungeon ; with Moses cast on the water ; with Rahab in the beleaguered city ; on yon field, where, with two armies looking on, a stripling goes out to meet the giant ; on yon plain, where, through the midnight gloom, we see a mother hurrying with her babe from the swords of Herod and the mas- sacre of Bethlehem, how often was the light of truth nearly extinguished, the ark that carried the hopes of the world all but wrecked ! Never to human sight was good ship more nearly wrecked ! MERCY OF GOD. 1. Mercy without Merit. (333.) What idea has he formed of God who expects less of him than he would expect of any earthly mother ? Let her be a queen. She is MERCY OF GOD. 123 a mother ; and under the impulse of feelings that reign alike in palaces and in cottages, how would that woman spring from her throne to em- brace a lost babe ; and, weeping tears of joy, press it to her jewelled bosom, though plucked from the foulest ditch, and wrapped in tainted rags ? He knows little of human nature, fallen as it is, who fancies any mother turning from the plaintive cry and imploring arms of her offspring because, forsooth, it was restored to her in loathsome attire. And he is still more ignorant of " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " who fancies that, unless man can make out some merit, he will receive no mercy. 2. Indiscriminating Mercy. (334.) Some have fancied that they honor God most when, sinking all other attributes in mercy — indiscriminating mercy — they represent him as embracing the world in his arms — and receiving to his bosom with equal affection the sinners that hate, and the saints that love him. They cannot claim originality for this idea : its authorship belongs to the u father of lies." Satan said so before them. It is the very doc- trine that ruined this world. The serpent said to the woman, " Thou shalt not surely die. ' ' 3. Pitying Mercy. (335.) Saving, gentle, pitying mercy, turns no more aside from the foulest wretch, than the wind that kisses her faded cheek, or the sun- beam that visits as brightly a murderer's cell as a minister's study. Nay — though the holiest of all kingdoms — while we see a Pharisee stand •astonished to be shut out, mark how, when she approaches, who, weep- ing, trembling all over, hardly dares lift her hand to knock, the door flies wide open ; and the poor harlot enters to be washed, and robed, and forgiven, and kindly welcomed. 4. The Earth is Full of God's Mercy. (336.) Mercies arrive on the wings of every hour ; mercies supply our table ; mercies flow in life's brimming cup. They fall in every shower, and shine in every sunbeam. They lie as thick around man's tent, as desert manna in the days of old. Here, mercy runs to meet the returning prodigal, and opens her arms to fold him to her bosom. Here, she pleads with sinners, and pronounces pardon over the chief of them. Here, she weeps with sufferers, and dries the tear upon sorrow's •cheek. And here, eyeing the storm, she launches her life-boat through foaming breakers, and pulls for the wreck where souls are perishing. It is her blessed hand which rings the Sabbath bell, and her voice which, on savage shores or from Christian pulpits, proclaims a Saviour for the 124 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. lost. None she despises ; she despairs of none ; and, not to be scared' away by foulest sin, she stands by its guilty bed, and, bending down to death's dull ear — when the twelfth hour is just about to strike — she looks into the glassy eye and cries, Believe, O believe, only believe, " who- soever believeth in the Lord Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life." 5. Hope for the Vilest in Goofs Mercy. (337.) If God saves — not because we deserve mercy — but that his own great mercy may be illustrated in saving, ah ! then there is hope for me — yes, although thou wert an adulterer, a thief, a murderer, the vile wretch who spit in Jesus' face, the ruffian who forced the thorny crown deep into his bleeding brow, although thou wert that very soldier who buried the lance in Jesus' side, and just returning from Calvary, with the blood of Christ's heart red on the spear head, I would stop then in thy way to say, there is hope for thee. Oh, this has inspired with hope souls which had otherwise despaired, and gilded the edges of guilt's darkest cloud. In circumstances where we would have been dumb — opening not the mouth — when called to the dying bed of vilest,, lowest sin, it has unsealed our lips, and lent wings to prayer. 6. Mercy Baring Her Own Bosom. (338.) To the surprise of angels, from out the light that veils the throne, a beautiful form steps forth, and Mercy, arresting the uplifted arm, turns its weapon from man on her own bared, spotless, loving bosom. In the Son of God about to become incarnate, she says — " Lo ! I come to do thy will, O God." Ready both to satisfy and suffer for them, Jesus interposes for his elect as he did for his disciples, when, stepping in between them and the armed band, he said — " I am. he ; let these go their way." MIRACLES. 1 . Miracles not Excluded by the Facts of Science. (339.) Again in the last days, according to St. Peter, there were scoffers to arise, asserting " that all things remain as they were from the beginning of the creation." So said David Hume ; and so still say those who, in opposition to Moses and to the miracles of Scripture, take their stand on the uniform successions, and invariable operations of the laws of Nature. But here the philosopher's geology and our theology are at one. The most novel discoveries of our age are in harmony with- NATURAL MAN. 125 the oldest statements of revelation. They prove that there have been no «uch invariable operations as would exclude the possibility, or proba- bility of miracles. They demonstrate what Moses asserts, that all things have not remained as they were from the beginning. They show causes •even now at work sufficient in the course of time to bring about the grand catastrophe that, with a God in judgment and a world in flames, shall usher in a new era — ' ' the new heavens, and the new earth, wherein ■dwelleth righteousness." NATURAL MAN. 1. Fine Specimens of the Natural Man. (340.) And as we have rooted up from the moor some wild flower to blow and shed its fragrance in a sweeter than its native home, have we not longed to do the same with these fine specimens of the natural man ? Transplanted by grace into the garden of the Lord, baptized with the dews of heaven, converted to the faith, they would be flowers fit to form a, wreath for the brow that men wreathed with thorns. I am com- pelled to acknowledge that I have known some, whom even charity •could not reckon among true Christians, who, yet in point of natural virtues, put Christians to shame. 2. The Affections of the Natural Man. (341.) The affections of the natural man are like the branches of what are called weeping trees — they droop to the earth, and sweep the ground ; harmless or deleterious, they are all directed earthward. This world is his god ; his heaven is on earth ; the paradise he seeks is here; Tiis ten commandments are the opinions of men ; his sins are his pleas- ures ; his prayers are a task ; his Sabbaths are his longest, weariest days ; and, although no sheeted ghosts rise at midnight and walk the churchyard to scare him, he has, in thoughts of God, of judgment, of eternity, spectres that haunt him, and to escape from which he will fly into the arms of sin. 3. At Enmity with God. (342.) The footprints of a man are not more visible on the surface of new-fallen snow than are the proofs of a Divine power and presence throughout all the kingdom of Nature : nor is there need to quote Scripture to prove, and adduce crimes to illustrate, our depravity, and how the " carnal mind is enmity against God," so long as we have philosophers, so called, who refer everything to mere material agencies ; 126 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. and excluding all recognition of a Supreme Intelligence, recall these words of an Apostle, " The world by wisdom knew not God." 4. The Eyes of Our Understanding are Darkened. (343.) I can fancy few sadder sights than an entire family, parents and children, all blind — a home where the flowers have no beauty, the night has no stars, the morning no blushing dawn, and the azure sky no glorious sun — a home, where they have never looked on each other's faces ; but a blind father sits by the dull fire with a blind boy on his knee, and the sightless mother nurses at her bosom a sightless babe, that never gladdened her with its happy smile. How would such a spectacle touch the most callous feelings, and move to pity even a heart of stone ! But a greater calamity is ours. The eyes of our understand- ing are darkened. 5. Naturally Amiable Persons. (344.) Away among the rough moors, by the banks of tumbling river r or the skirts of green wood, or on sloping acclivity, or steep hill-side, we have gathered, remote from gardens and the care of men, bunches of wild flowers, which, although very perishing, were exquisitely beautiful, and steeped in fragrant odors ; and such as these are some men and women, who have never yet been transplanted from a state of nature into a state of grace. There is no sin in loving them. In the young ruler who declined to take up his cross and follow Christ, was not there so much that was amiable, gentle, lovely, that Jesus' own heart was drawn to him ? It is said that he " loved him ;" and the emotions of a Saviour's bosom cannot be wrong in mine. PARDON. 1. None Excepted from Pardon. (345.) From the pardon of redeeming mercy there are none excepted, unless those who, by refusing to accept it, except themselves. Are you unjust ? Christ Jesus died, the just for the unjust. Are you sinners ? He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Are you the vilest of the vile ? He never lifted his foot, when he was on this earth, to spurn the guiltiest away. He pitied whom others spurned ; he received whom others rejected ; he loved whom others loathed. Let the vilest, meanest, most wretched outcasts know that they have a friend PARDON. 127 in him. A mother's door may be shut against them, but not his. It was his glory then, and it is his glory still, to be reproached as the friend of sinners. He faced contumely to save them ; he endured death to save them. And be you groaning under a load of cares or guilt, of sins or sorrows, kind and gracious Lord ! he says, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 2. The Price of Pardon. (346.) Should a mote of dust get into the natural eye, the irritation induced will weep out the evil ; and so, in a way, with sin in a tender and holy conscience. But tears — an ocean of tears — wash not out the guilt of sin. All tears are lost that fall not at the feet of Jesus. But even the tears which bathe a Saviour's feet wash not away our sins. When falling — flowing fast, we are to remember that it is not the tears we shed, but the blood he shed, which is the price of pardon ; and that guilty souls are nowhere to be cleansed but in that bath of blood where the foulest are free to wash and certain to be cleansed. 3. The Peace which Springs from Pardon. (347.) Peace ! Yes, there shall be peace — " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; ' ' and the secret of our peace shall lie in that which held up the head of a royal favorite, while undergoing trial before his country for a very heinous crime. Men wondered at his strange serenity, and how he could bear himself so calmly. He passed on to the bar without a cloud upon his brow, or an expression of anxiety in his eye, as he looked around him on judges, accusers, the crowd of anxious spectators. The trial began. His case grew darker and darker — not so his aspect. Witness after witness bore crushing evidence against him, yet the keen eyes of his enemies could detect no quiver on his lip, or shade upon his brow. Long after hope had expired in the breast of anxious friends, and they looked on him as a doomed man, there he was, looking round serenely on that terrible array. His pulse beat calm, nor started suddenly, but went on with a stately march ; while peace sat enthroned upon his placid brow. When at length, amid the silence of the hushed assembly, the verdict of " Guilty " is pronounced, he rises. Erect in attitude, in demeanor calm, he stands up, not to receive the sentence — which was already trembling on the judge's lip — but to reveal the secret of this strange peace and self-possession. He thrusts his hand into his bosom, and lays on the table his pardon — a full, free pardon for his crimes, sealed with the royal signet. 128 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. PATIENCE OF GOD. 1. God's Patience not Everlasting. (348.) Swift fly the wings of mercy. Slow goes the hand of justice ; like the shadow on the sun-dial, ever moving, yet creeping slowly on, with a motion all but imperceptible. Still let sinners stand in awe. The hand of justice has not stopped, although imperceptibly, it steadily ad- vances ; by and by, having reached the tenth, eleventh, twelfth hour, the bell strikes. Then, unless you now flee to Christ, the blow which was so slow to fall shall descend on the head of impenitence with accumulated force. Let it never be forgotten, that although God's patience is last- ing, it is not everlasting. PEACE. 1. Heavenly Peace. (349.) As I have seen a master, speaking with low and gentle voice, hush the riotous school into instant silence, so Jesus spake. Raising his hand, and addressing the rude storm, he said, " Peace, be still." The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. No sooner, amid the loudest din, does nature catch the well-known sound of her master's voice, than the tumult subsides ; in an instant all is quiet ; and, with a heave as gentle as an infant's bosom, and all heaven's starry glory mirrored in its crystal depths, the sea of Galilee lies around that boat — a beautiful picture of the happy bosom into which heaven and its peace have de- scended. PERSECUTION. 1. Persecution Turned into Good. (350.) So, though intended for evil, the Lord has often turned oppo- sition into good. Indeed, in observing how little Christ's cause has sometimes suffered from its avowed enemies, and how often the very means they employed to hinder have helped it on, I have thought of the eagle, which rises slowly amid the calm of serene and sunny skies ; but, spreading its wings to the storm and turning even adverse winds to ad- vantage, soars aloft in tempests that strike other birds with dismay, ■darken the face of heaven, and roar through the troubled air. God so makes the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder of wrath, that the almost uniform experience of his Church and people has PIETY. 129 been that of Israel in the land of Egypt — " the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew." 2. The Church Strengthened by Persecution. (351.) There are other things besides the sturdy oak which the roar- ing tempest nurses into strength. The storms that strip the tree of some leaves, perhaps of some rotten branches, but moor it deeper in the rifts of everlasting rock. Christ's words cannot fail, On this rock have I built my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 3. By the Greek and Roman Churches. (352.) In the old land of Canaan, the places from which Jebusites, .and Hittites, and others, were expelled, came to be occupied, in part at least, by the Samaritan race. These, though holding a portion of his creed, hated the Jew ; and often opposed him with an animosity more bitter than rankled in heathen breasts. And how has that condition of things found a counterpart in the so-called Christian world ? A cor- responding mixture of truth and error characterizes the Greek ;;nd Roman Churches. Their animosity to the true faith has been seldom, if ever, exceeded by heathen rancor ; nor has Pagan Rome persecuted the truth more bitterly than Popish Rome has done. PIETY. 1. The Most Healthy is that which is the Busiest. (353.) The strongest trees grow not beneath the glass of a greenhouse, •or in the protection of sheltered and shaded valleys. The stoutest timber stands on Norwegian rocks, where tempests rage, and long, hard winters reign. And is it not with the Christian as with the animal life also ? Exercise gives health, and strength is the reward of activity. The muscles are seen fully developed in the brawny arm that plies the ringing hammer. Health blooms ruddiest on the cheek, and strength is most powerfully developed in the limbs of him, who — not nailed to a sedentary occupation, nor breathing the close atmosphere of heated chambers — but fearless of cold, a stranger to downy pillows and luxu- rious repose, rises with the day, sees the early worm rise in the dank meadow, and hears the morning lark high overhead, and passing his hours in athletic exercises, increases his strength by spending it. Even -so, the most vigorous and healthy piety is that which is the busiest. 130 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 2. Practical Piety. (354.) Some three years ago, when we had gone to open a church in the neighborhood of Balmoral, we were asked to visit a widow, who had been but a short while before bereaved of her husband — a plain, humble, but pious man, who had been an elder, or office-bearer, in the Free Church congregation there. Her home was a cottage within the Queen's grounds. In the Trianon at Versailles we had been in the apart- ment and had seen the very table where the First Napoleon sat ; with a. stroke of his pen making and unmaking kings, proclaiming peace or shaking Europe with the thunders of war. The room in that highland cottage where we found the good man's widow was far more interesting to us as the scene of a less usual, and, in its moral aspects, of a grander event. The one apartment seemed to smell of sulphur, the other of the perfume of heaven's golden censers. "Within these walls our Queen had stood, with kind hands smoothing the thorns of a dying man's pillow. There, left alone with him at her own request, she had sat by the bed of death — a queen ministering to the comforts of a saint, preparing one of her humblest subjects to meet that Monarch in whose dread and awful presence every earthly distinction vanishes. Happy the land that can show such a spectacle ! safe the throne that rests on the altars of religion and the affections of the people ! The scene, as our fancy pictured it, seems like the breaking of the day when old prophecies shall be fulfilled ; kings become nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers to the Church. Why should our gracious Sovereign be so commonly, universally, and justly held up to the country and the world as a pattern of all public, social, and domestic virtues, and her discharge of Christian duties be ignored or concealed ? It is not for the sake of adulation, but of imita- tion, that we mention what, in her visit to a peasant's dying bed, acci- dentally came to our knowledge — gleamed forth on our notice as a stream to the sunbeams, which usually pursues a hidden and silent way, nor reveals its presence but by the line of fresh verdure that marks its course. There the highest lady in the realm set an example which all classes would find it a pleasure and should esteem it an honor to imitate — a practical piety hers, amid the duties of which people would find themselves happier and safer than in pursuing those religious speculations which now engross- so much attention and withdraw our energies and our efforts from the weightier matters of the law. POOR, THE. 1. Personally Helping the Poor. (355.) It is less the amount given than the way of giving it, that sweetens the cup of poverty and reconciles the pensioners of our bounty PBA YER. 131 to their lot. There are delicate perfumes that owe their fragrance to elements so volatile and ethereal, that much of their virtue is lost when they are poured from one vessel to another. So it is with charity, the pleasure it yields, and the gratitude it awakens. Those kind looks and tones which bespeak the feelings of the heart, you cannot transmit with the goods or gold, the meat or messages, which you send through the medium of servants or societies, or any second party whatever. As far as possible, therefore, every one should be the almoner of his own charities, and carry the sunbeams of his presence into the homes of the poor. POPERY. 1. A Formidable Power. (356.) How formidable is that power which compels a man to sacri- fice his reason at the feet of priestcraft ; and woman, shrinking, modest, delicate woman, to allow some foul hand to search her bosom, and to drag its secrets from their close concealment. Best gift of heaven:-! God sends them his blessed word, and they dare not open it. Those senses of smell, and touch, and taste, which are the voice of God, de- clare that the cup is filled with wine, and the wafer made of wheat ; but, as if their sense as well as their souls were darkened, they believe that to be a living man's blood, and this to be a living man's flesh ! " Having eyes, they see not." And, greatest triumph of darkness ! they hug their chains ; refuse instruction ; stop their ears, like the deaf adder which will not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely ; and turn away their eyes from the truth, as the owls that haunt some old monastic ruin from the glare of a torch, or the blaze of day. PRAYER. 1. Two Limits to Prayer. (357.) Prayer changes impotence into omnipotence ; for, command- ing the resources of Divinity, there is nothing it cannot do, and there is nothing it need want. It has just two limits. The first is, that its range is confined to the promises ; but, within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings ! The second is, that God will grant or deny our requests as is best for his glory and our good. And who that knows how we are, in a sense, but children, would wish it otherwise ? I'M GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 2. God's Answer Anticipating His People's Prayer. (358.) Let the disciple be sinking amid the waves of Galilee, crying, " I perish" — let the prophet be on his knees in the depths of the sea and the dark belly of the whale — let the widow's last mite, and the barrel's last handful have come — let the confessor be descending into the lions' roaring den — let the queen have her brave hand upon the door, with these words of high resolve upon her lips, " If I perish, I perish" — let the trembling host have the waters of the Red Sea roaring in their front, and the chariots of Egypt pressing on their rear — let God's peo- ple have reached such a crisis — let them stand in any such predicament — and his answer anticipates their prayer. 3. No Crying in Vain. (359.) Unable to save yourselves, it is yours to besiege with prayers the throne of grace. Learn from Simon Peter what to do, and where to turn ; not Peter sleeping in the garden, but Peter sinking in the sea. One who in his boyhood had learned to breast the billow, and feel at home upon the deep, he makes no attempt to swim ; the shore lies beyond his reach, nor can the boldest swimmer live amid these swelling waters. His companions cannot save him ; their boat, unmanageable, drifts before the gale, and they cannot save themselves. He turns his back on them. He directs nor look nor cry to them, but fixing his eyes on that divine form which, calm, unmoved, master of the tempests, steps majestically on from billow to billow, the drowning man throws out his arms to Jesus, and cries, " Lord, save me !" Did he cry in vain ? No more shall you. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost ; nor did he ever say unto one of the sons of men, Seek ye, me in vain. 4. Prayer without Wishes. (360.) Prayers without wishes are like birds without wings ; while the eagle soars away to heaven, these never leave the ground. It is the heart that prays — not the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. Have not I seen a dumb man, who stood with his back to the wall, beg as well with his imploring eye and open hand, as one that had a tongue to speak ? If you would have your prayers accepted, they must be arrows shot from the heart. None else mount to the throne of God. You may repeat your prayers every day ; you may be punctual as a Moham- medan who, at the Mollah's call from the minaret of the mosque, drops on his knees in public assembly or the crowded street. "What then ? The prayers of the lip, tongue, memory, of the wandering mind in its dead formality, are, in the sight of God, no better than the venal prayers of Rome, or the revolutions of the Tartar's wheel. PRAYER. 133 5. The Direct Power of Prayer. (361.) Its direct power is, in a sense, omnipotent. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world. It secures for the believer the resources of Divinity. What battles has it not fought ! what victories has it not won ! what burdens has it not carried ! what wounds has it not healed ! what griefs has it not assuaged ! It is the wealth of poverty ; the refuge of affliction ; the strength of weakness ; the light of darkness. It is the oratory that gives power to the pulpit ; it is the hand that strikes down Satan, and breaks the fetters of sin ; it turns the scales of fate more than the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the weight of sceptres ; it has arrested the wing of time, turned aside the very scythe of death, and discharged heaven's frowning and darkest cloud in a shower of blessings. 6. Easy for God to Supply Our Greatest Wants. (362.) Is it not as easy for yonder great sea to carry the bulkiest ship that ever rode her waves, as the sea-weed or foam she flings upon the shore ? Is it not as easy for that glorious sun to bathe a mountain, as to bathe a mole-hill in gold ? Is it not as easy for this mighty earth to carry on its back an Alp as a grain of sand — to nourish a cedar of Leba- non, as the hyssop on the wall ? Just so, believer, it is as easy for God to supply thy greatest as thy smallest wants ; even as it was as much within his power to form a system as an atom — to create a blazing sun, as kindle a fire-fly's lamp. V. God's Answers to Prayer Correspond to Our Wants. (363.) My little child is angry when I pluck a knife from his hands ; he doubts his father's love because he does not always kiss, but some- times corrects him ; and, turning away his head from the nauseous drug, he must be coaxed — sometimes compelled to drink the cup which, although bitter to the taste, is the restorative of health. Who that sees the child seek meat when he needs medicine, eagerly clutch at tempting but unripe fruit, prefer play, and go weeping to school, reject simple but healthful fare for some luscious, but noxious luxury — who, I say, does not feel thankful that God reserves the right of refusal, and makes his answers correspond to our wants rather than to our wishes ? 8. A Resource that Never Fails. (364.) Is a resource that never fails. There is no evil from which it does not offer escape ; no sin of which it may not, through the ap- plication of Christ's blood, procure the pardon ; nor any temptation 134 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. over which, calling in the aids of the Holy Spirit, it may not achieve a victory. There is no burden too heavy for the back of prayer to carry, nor wound too deep for its balm to heal. It provides comfort in all the sorrows, relief amid all the troubles, and a cure for all the ills of life. 9. Straitened in Ourselves. (365.) Ye are not straitened in me, says God, but in yourselves. Try me herewith, he says — ask, seek, knock ! Who does will find that it is only a faint image of the plenitude of grace we behold in that palace- scene where the king, looking kindly on a lovely suppliant, bends from his throne to extend his golden sceptre, and say, What is thy petition, and what is thy request, Queen Esther, and it shall be given thee to the half of my kingdom ? 10. The Gates of Prayer not Shut. (366.) The sweat standing on his brow, and the blood of the heathen dripping from his sword, Gideon, as he pressed on the flying foe, sought bread at the gate of Succoth. His request was refused ; and, the more honor to him and his followers, though refused and faint, they resumed the pursuit. But did any ever ask strength of God for well-doing, for his work, or watch, or warfare, and find the gates of prayer, like those of Succoth, shut in his face ? No. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail ; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they shall walk and not faint. 11. The Test of Prayer. (367.) An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the battlements of heaven, caught sight of Satan as he flew on broad wing from hell to this world of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a sunbeam to the earth, and communicated the alarm to the guard at the gate of paradise. Search was made for the enemy, but for a time with- out success. Ithuriel entered the bower, whose flowery roof " showered roses which the morn repaired," and where our first parents, " lulled by nightingales, embracing, slept." There he saw a toad sitting, squat by the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand was a spear that had the celestial power of revealing truth, unmasking false- hood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colors. He touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad — which was breath- ing horrid dreams into the ear of Eve— changed its shape, and there, confronting him face to face, stood the proud, malignant, haughty form PEA TER. 135 of the Prince of Darkness. With such a spear as that with which Mil- ton, in this flight of fancy, arms Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Are we in doubt whether a thing is right or wrong ? Examine the matter on your knees. Can you make it the subject of prayer ? Ah ! be sure you are not safe in the place or in the act in which you cannot ask God to be with you. 12. Every Prayer Falls Distinctly On Jesus' 1 Ear. (368.) It is told as an extraordinary thing of the first and greatest of .all the Caesars, that such were his capacious mind, his mighty faculties, and his marvellous command of them, that he could at once keep six pens running to his dictation on as many different subjects. That may or may not be true ; but were Jesus Christ a mere man, in the name even of reason, how could he guard the interests, and manage the affairs of a people, scattered far and wide over the face of the habitable globe ? What heart were large enough to embrace them all ? what eyes could see them all ; what ears could hear them all ? Think of the ten thousand prayers pronounced in a hundred different tongues that go up at once, and altogether, to his ear ! Yet there is no confusion ; none are lost ; none missed in the crowd. Nor are they heard by him as, standing on yonder lofty crag, we hear the din of the city that lies stretched out far beneath us, with all its separate sounds of cries, and rumbling wheels, and human voices, mixed up into one deep, confused, hollow roar — like the boom of the sea's distant breakers. No ; every believer may feel as if he were alone with God — enjoying a private audience of the king in his presence-chamber. Be of good cheer. Every groan of thy wound- ed heart, thy every sigh, and cry, and prayer, falls as distinctly on Jesus' ear as if you stood beside the throne, or, nearer still, lay with John in his bosom, and felt the beating of his heart against your own. 13. A Neglect of Prayer is Dangerous. (369.) How can he escape wounds who rushes into battle without taking time to put his armor on ? To win the fight, a man must gird on his weapons ; to draw sweet music from an instrument, he must tune its strings ; nor can a laborer endure the tear and wear of work, if he neglects his food, unless he supplies the waste of bone and muscle with nutritious meals. The soul, not less than the body, wants its necessary food. (370.) A most important truth ! To overlook it— but that the cove- nant of grace is well-ordered in all things and sure — would involve us in a fate worse than his who some winters ago owed his death to neglecting the means necessary for the support of life. The fatal morning broke 136 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. dimly on hills all white with snow, and a sky along which the tempest hurled thick blinding drift. Alarmed for his flock, the shepherd dressed in haste ; and, deaf to the entreaties of a prudent wife who im- plored him to eat and strengthen nature for the coming struggle, he pulled his bonnet on his brow, and went out into the storm. It was- bravely but rashly done. He never came back. Denied her necessary support, nature speedily sank under his violent exertions ; and he perished — the sleep he sought on the snow-bank where they found his stiffened corpse, deepening into the torpor of death, the sleep that knows no waking. And if not their death — for they that are in Christ shall not finally perish — to what do saints often owe their falls and failings, but to their neglect of prayer, and of God's word, and of other divinely ap- pointed means of grace ? 14. A Man of Prayer is a Man of Power. (371.) What fed the faith wherein his great strength lay ? Challeng- ing comparison with any, and excelling all, in that grace, we may justly apply to him the glowing terms and bold figures of the prophet — " He was a cedar in Lebanon, with high stature and fair branches, and shad- owing shroud — the cedars of God could not hide him — the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him for beauty — his root," he adds, explaining how this cedar towered above the loftiest trees, giant monarch of the forest, ' ' his root was by the great waters. ' * And what that root found in streams which, fed by the snows and seaming the sides of Lebanon, hottest summers never dried and coldest winters never froze, the unequalled faith of Abraham found in close and constant communion with God. Like Enoch, he walked with God. Each im- portant transaction of life was entered on in a pious spirit, and hallowed by religious exercises. His tent was a moving temple. His household was a pilgrim church. Wherever he rested, whether by the venerable oak of Mamre, or on the olive slopes of Hebron, or on the lofty, forest- crowned ridge of Bethel, an altar rose ; and his prayers went up with its smoke to heaven. Such daily, intimate, and loving communion did this grand saint maintain with heaven, that God calls him "his friend ;" and honoring his faith with a higher than an earthly title, the church has crowned him " Father of the Faithful. " He lived on terms of fel- lowship with God such as had not been seen since the days of Eden. Voices addressed him from the skies ; angels paid visits to his tent ; and visions of celestial glory hallowed his lowly couch and mingled with his nightly dreams. He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a man of power. Setting us an example that we should follow his steps, thus, to revert to language borrowed from the stateliest of Lebanon's PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 137 cedar, thus was he " fair in his greatness and in the length of his. branches, for his root was by the great waters. ' ' PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 1. The Charms of Jesus' 1 Preaching. (372.) Orpheus is said to have drawn savage beasts around him by the charms of music ; but our Lord so charmed the world by his preaching, that he drew to him, in publicans and sinners, multitudes more brutal than the beasts. Finding in him a Jew who did not hate but love them, despise but pity them, trample them beneath his feet but stooped to raise them, as if each were a diamond sparkling in the mud, they gathered in crowds to hear him, and listen to one who offered mercy, and held out the flag of hope even to publicans and sinners. 2. The Preacher Feeling what He Says. (373.) An obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. At the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Revolu- tion, turned round to his neighbor, and eagerly asked, Who is that ? The other, who had been in no way interested by the address, wondered at Mirabeau's curiosity. Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet act a great part ; and, asked to explain himself, added, he speaks as one who believes every word he says. Much of pulpit power under God de- pends on that — admits of that explanation, or one allied to it. They make others feel who feel themselves. 3. The Fittest Preacher. (374.) We have somewhere read of a traveller who stood one day be- side the cages of some birds, that, exposed for sale, ruffled their sunny plumage on the wires, and struggled to be free. A way-worn and sun- browned man, like one returned from foreign lands, he looked wistfully and sadly on these captives, till tears started in his eye, and turning round on their owner, he asked the price of one, paid it in strange gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free ; and thus and thus he did with captive after captive, till every bird was away, soaring to the skies and singing on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and stood amazed ; they thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity he replied — " I was once myself a captive ; I know the sweets of lib- erty." And so they who have experience of guilt, have felt the ser- pent's bite, the burning poison in their veins, who on the one hand have felt the sting of conscience, and on the other the peace of faith, the 138 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. joys of hope, the love, the light, the liberty, the life, that are found in Jesus — they, not excepting heaven's highest angels, are the fittest to preach a Saviour, to plead with man for God, or plead with God for man. 4. Illustrative Style of Preaching. (375.) The suitableness of this style of preaching a gospel, intended as well for the unlearned as the learned, for converting the unlettered poor, whose souls are as precious in God's sight as those of philosophers or kings, is obvious ; and was well expressed by an humble woman. Comprehending best, and most interested and edified by those passages of Scripture which present abstract truth under concrete forms, and of which we have examples in such comparisons of our Lord's as these — the kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, unto a treasure, unto a merchant, unto a householder, unto a king, she said, *' I like best the likes of Scripture." 5. Tenderness of Jesus 1 Preaching. (376.) No doubt it was the pleasure Jesus felt in the good news he preached which so glowed in his countenance, and lent such tender- ness, and power, and pathos to his oratory, that a woman who heard him cried, Blessed is the womb that bare thee — and his very enemies confessed, Never man spake like that man. Would that all his servants caught his spirit, and came to the pulpit wearing his mantle ! 6. Gratifying the Imagination. (377.) By awakening and gratifying the imagination, the truth finds its way more readily to the heart, and makes a deeper impression on the memory. The story, like a float, keeps it from sinking ; like a nail, fastens it in the mind ; like the feathers of an arrow makes it strike, and like the barb makes it stick. 7. The Life of Preaching. (378.) I am convinced that among the rocks which beat back the roaring sea — up in the crags where dews, and rain, and bright sunbeams fall — down in earth's darkest and deepest mines, there lies bedded no ■stone colder, harder, less impressible, more impenetrable, than an un- renewed heart. Does unbelief suggest the question, Why, then, preach to the unconverted ? as well preach to stones ? as well knock with thy hand upon a door which is locked on a coffin and a corpse ? In a sense, true ; and altogether true, but for 'the promise — " Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." That promise is the soul of hope and the life of preaching. PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 139 8. Unjust Representations of God by Some Preachers. (379.) The representations of God the Father in the most splendid paintings of the ancient masters are worse than in bad taste. His Son assumed the human form ; and far short as the highest art comes of ex- pressing the love and mildness and majesty that beamed in the face of Jesus, we are not offended by its efforts. Though they may not satisfy they do not shock us. But to set forth the invisible God, in the char- acter of the ' ' Ancient of Days' ' as an old man, or even in the noblest aspects of humanity, is an irreverence — offensive and revolting. Yet there have been representations of our heavenly Father more revolting. He has suffered less injustice from painters than from preachers. Thun- dering out the terrors of the law, armed with bolts of vengeance, and scowling down from pulpits, they have stood there as unlike as possible to Him who wept over Jerusalem, and when he saw the multitudes had compassion on them. By representing God in dark and gloomy colors, with an expression on his countenance of stern severity, and as more prone to punish than to pardon, the preacher' s offence is greater than the painter's. He may quench a sinner's hopes, extinguish the light that is dawning on a darkened soul, and repel a poor prodigal whose steps are turning homeward to his father' s house. 9. Thinking Too Much of the Preacher. (380.) Let any object whatever interpose between me and the sun, ■and a shadow, more or less cold and dark, is the immediate consequence ; as happens when the moon, forgetting that her business is to reflect the sunbeams, not to arrest them, rolls in between our world and him, to turn day into night, and to shroud us in the gloom of an eclipse. Even so the deep shadow of a spiritual darkness may be flung over a congre- gation, who, allowing the pulpit to come in between them and the cross, think too much of the servant and too little of the Master. 10. The Pulpit Offers a Man a Grander Position than a Throne. (381.) Viewed in the light of eternity, the church stands on a loftier -elevation than the palace, and the pulpit offers man a grander position than the throne of empires. To ministers of the Gospel belongs the high pre-eminence of being able to say, " We are fellow-laborers with God ;" and, with such an associate — in such lofty company, devoting his life to such a cause — no wonder that Paul confronted a skeptic, sneering, scoffing world, and bravely said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." 140 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 11. What Comes from the Heart Goes to the Heart. (382.) It is true that a man may impart light to others who does not himself see the light. It is true that, like a concave speculum cut from a block of ice, which, concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touch- wood or gunpowder, a preacher may kindle fire iu others, when his own heart is cold as frost. It is also true that he may stand like a finger-post on a road, where he neither leads nor follows ; and God may thus in his sovereign mercy bless others by one who is himself unblessed. Yet com- monly it happens that it is what comes from the heart of the preachers that reaches the heart of heart of hearers. 12. Gentleness of the Apostles. (383.) Just as it is not with stubborn but pliant iron that locks are picked, the hearts of sinners are to be opened only by those who bring a Christ-like gentleness to the work ; and who are ready, with Paul's large, loving, kind, and generous disposition, to be all things to all men, if so be that they may win some. Never had the disciples gone forth " conquering and to conquer," had they brought their old bigoted, quarrelsome, unsanctified temper to the mission. They might have died for Christianity, but she had died with them ; and, bound to their stake, and expiring in their ashes, she had been entombed in the sepul- chre of her first and last apostles. PROMISES. 1. Surpassing Value of the Promises. (384.) The condition of believers very much resembles that of a man of boundless affluence, whose wealth lies, not so much in money, as in money's worth — in bills and bonds, that, when due, shall be duly hon- ored. With these promises the poorest Christian is really a richer man than any other men, with all their possessions ; nor would he part with one of them for the world's wealth. This rude and naked savage — the dupe of avaricious men — barters a coronet of gold for some worthless trinkets, and buys the wonders of a mirror, the tinkling of a bell, or a string of colored beads, with a handful of pearls, the fit ornaments of a crown. The child of God knows better than to sell what is of surpass- ing value, for anything intrinsically worthless. With this promise, " thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure," he holds himself richer, more sure of meat to eat, and raiment to put on, than he ■would be with the wealth of banks. PRIDE. 141 PRIDE. 1. Spiritual Pride. (385.) Naturalists say that it is much more difficult to get a mountain plant to accommodate itself to a low locality, than to get one, which by birth belongs to the valleys, to live and thrive at a lofty elevation. So, there seems nothing more difficult to men than to descend gracefully, and for those who have been accustomed to a high position in society to reconcile themselves to a humble one. And thus I have seen such an one as I have described, when he had lost his wealth, retain in his vanity what he should first have parted with, and continue proud even when he had become poor. So is it with us in our low and lost estate. Spirit- ually poor, we are spiritually proud — saying, " I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, " while we are " wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. ' ' 2. Pride Shuts out God. (386.) A soul filled with self has no room for God ; and, like the inn of Bethlehem, given to lodge meaner guests, a heart full of pride has no chamber, within which Christ may be born " in us the hope of glory." 3. Pride in Dress. (387.) To them who believe, Christ is precious ; but what can be more sad than to see the value a woman sets on trinkets, the pride with which she shows and wears her jewels, while Jesus has no preciousness in her eyes ? What fools people are ! They set more on some glitter- ing bits of glass or stone than on a crown of glory ! — they care more in this dying body for the perishable casket than for the immortal jewel which it holds ! 4. A Dreadful Sin. (388.) Obtaining access to hearts which would close the door in the face of grosser vices, pride, besides, is a very dreadful and deadly sin. Has it not proved itself so ? It cost Nebuchadnezzar his reason ; in his successors it cost Hezekiah his kingdom ; on Galilee it nearly cost Simon Peter his life ; taking root in the hearts of our first parents, it cost them and mankind Eden ; springing up in angels' bosoms, it cost them heaven. 5. Prevalence of Pride. (389.) Plants grow only in certain soils, or at certain heights, or under certain lines of latitude. TJnlike these, pride is a weed that, spring- 142 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. ing up in every heart, grows at all elevations — as well in the humblest as in the highest stations of life ; and under every system of religion, the true as well as the false. 6. Peter's Pride. (390.) So strong was Simon in his own vain judgment that in place of waiting till Christ invited him to walk on the water, he volunteered to make the bold attempt. Addressing his Master as, stepping with God- like majesty from billow to billow, he approached their boat, Peter said, " Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water." To drown not him but his vanity, and mortify the conceit and presumption which was his besetting sin, our Lord - acceded to Peter's request, saying, Come. The permission is no sooner granted than, probably without a prayer for Divine help, and certainly with more rashness than genuine courage, he leaps from the boat. The water bears him up : he walks the rolling billows — yet, ere he rejoins his companions, how effectually is he taught that when a man is strong, then he is weak ! He began to build without counting the cost ; and the only result is a house which, unfinished and unfurnished, remains the inglorious monument of his pride and poverty. PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 1 . The Language of the Seers of the Old Testament. (391.) That will, like ours, works through the instrumentality of means ; and " it is curious," says the Duke of Argyll, in a profound and subtle book which he has published, called " The Reign of Law," "how the language of the grand seers of the Old Testament corresponds with this idea. They uniformly ascribe all the operations of nature — the greatest and the smallest — to the working of divine power. But they never revolt — as so many do in these weaker days — from the idea of this power working by wisdom and knowledge in the use of means : nor in this point of view do they ever separate between the work of creation and the work which is going on daily in the existing world. Exactly the same language is applied to the rarest exertions of power and to the gentlest and most constant of all natural operations. Thus the saying that ' the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; by understanding hath he established the heavens, ' is coupled in the same breath with this other saying : ' By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.' " The Bible furnishes many other illustrations of this important remark of our noble author, one of which may be quoted for the beauty of its poetry, and for its PUNISHMENT. 143 correct and scientific theory of rain: " Seek him," says the prophet Amos, " that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night ; that calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out on the face of the earth : the Lord is his name." 2. Lying Calmly in the Arms of Providence. (392.) Yet why should we not lie as calmly in the arms of God's providence as we lay in infancy on a mother's breast ? Having an ever-living, an everlasting, and ever-loving father in God, how may we welcome all providences ; and, drawing some good from every evil, as the bee extracts honey even from poisoned flowers, how may we say, " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory !" PUNISHMENT. 1. God is Slow to Punish. (393.) " He executeth not judgment speedily against the workers of iniquity." He does punish ; he shall punish ; with reverence be it spoken, he must punish. Yet no hand of clock goes so slow as God's hand of vengeance. Of that, the world, this city, and this church, are witnesses ; each and all, speaker and hearer, are living witnesses. It is too common to overlook this fact ; and, overlooking the kindness, long- suffering, and warnings which precede the punishment, we are too apt to give the punishment itself our exclusive attention. 2. Conscience Approves the Punishment. (394.) Endless misery — the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched — in whatever shape it comes, is an awful thought. We cannot think of it without shuddering. Oh, why should any hear of it without fleeing instantly to Jesus ; for who. among us shall dwell with the devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burning ? I do not undertake to defend God's procedure in this matter. He will defend it himself, and one day justify his ways, in the judgment even of those whom he condemns. They shall not have the miserable con- solation of complaining that they have been hardly and unjustly dealt with. The sentence that condemns them shall find an awful echo in 144 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. their own consciences. How they shall blame themselves, and regret their life, and curse their folly — turning their stings against their own bosoms, as the scorpion, maddened with pain, is said to do, when sur- rounded by a circle of fire ! 3. Love Demands the Punishment of the Impenitent. (395.) Divine Love, however, is no blind divinity ; and that love being as wise as tender, sinners may rest assured, that out of mere pity to them, God will neither sacrifice the interests, nor peril the happiness of his people. Love herself — bleeding, dying, redeeming love — with her own hand will bar the door of heaven, and from its happy, holy precincts, exclude all that could hurt or defile. Stern words these ! and when Love puts on her armor, to fight against him, what hope for the man who has compelled her to be his enemy ? Having armed Love against you, where now are you flying ? Look at this scene of judg- ment. He who died on the cross occupies the throne. Love incarnate presides at that august tribunal. The print of the nail is on the very hand which waves away the lost into perdition. The voice which so often invited the impenitent is that which now condemns and commands them to depart. 4. God's Unwillingness to Punish Seen in the Case of the Antediluvians. (396.) Long before God had been calling an impenitent world to repentance. Had they no warning in Noah's preaching ? Was there nothing to alarm them in the very sight of the ark as story rose upon story ; and nothing in the sound of those ceaseless hammers to waken all but the dead ? It was not till Mercy's arm grew weary ringing the warning bell, that, to use the words of my text, God " poured out his fury" on them. I appeal to the story of this awful judgment. True, for forty days it rained incessantly, and for one hundred and fifty days more " the waters prevailed on the earth ;" but while the period of God's justice is reckoned by days, the period of his long-suffering was drawn out into years ; and there was a truce of one hundred and twenty years between the first stroke of the bell and the first crash of the thunder. Noah grew gray preaching repentance. The ark stood useless for years, a. huge laughing-stock for the scoffer's wit ; it stood till it was covered with the marks of age, and its builders with the contempt of the world ; and many a sneer had these men to bear, as, pointing to the serene heavens above and an empty ark below, the question was put, " Where is the promise of his coming?" Most patient God ! Then, as now, thou wert slow to punish — " waiting to be gracious." REDEMPTION. 145 REDEEMED, THE. 1. The Honor and Glory of the Redeemed. (397.) In taking our nature into union with his own, God conferred the rarest and highest honor on humanity, so, since he redeemed men with the blood of his Son, the highest angels do not wear crowns so bright as the thief on the cross and the woman that was a sinner. As in the families of men the youngest child is seated by day next to its father, and lies closest by night to its mother's breast ; as in the mate- rial heaven it is not the largest but the smallest planets that revolve in orbits nearest to the sun ; so in consequence of redeeming love, though in his original position inferior to the angels, man occupies in the family of God, and in those heavens of which the visible are but the starry pavement, a place nearest to the throne. And by the law that to whom much is given, of them shall much be required, those whom God has most loved are most bound to love, those whom he has most glorified are most bound to glorify him. 2. The Great Company of the Redeemed. (398.) " He cometh, he cometh to judge the earth ;" and how ? after -what manner ? in what royal state ? " Behold he cometh with clouds" — clouds, that on their nearer approach to earth, when the general mass shall resolve itself into individual objects, may be found to consist of in- numerable hosts of winged and shining angels. On that great occasion, the saints — countless as the atoms that float in the vapors of the sky, or the drops that fall in its showers — shall also form, to use Paul's expres- sion, " a cloud of witnesses." Already they form a cloud in heaven ; and to the eye of faith it is as those nebulous spots, which, by their great distance, shine only with a faint luminosity far away in the depths of the starry firmament, but which, under the eye and instruments of the astronomer, are resolved into a countless aggregate of burning suns. REDEMPTION. 1. The Design of Infinite Wisdom. (399.) In that ladder whereby faith climbs her way aloft to heaven, there is not a round that we can call our own. In this ark which, with open door, offers an asylum in the coming storm, a refuge in the rising flood — from stem to stern and keel to deck there is neither nail, nor plank, nor beam, that we can claim as ours. The plan of redemption was the design of infinite wisdom ; its execution was left to dying love ; 146 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. and it is Mercy, generous Mercy, whose fair form stands in the open? door, bidding, entreating, beseeching you all to come in. 2. The Spectacle which Redemption Offers. (400.) What man, what father, has not felt so on reading the story of the Roman judge ? Had that stern patriot condemned common criminals enough to make the scaffolds of justice and the gutters of Rome run red with blood, that wholesale slaughter had been a weak expression of his abhorrence of crime, compared with the death of this- solitary youth. When the culprit — his own child, the infant he had carried in his arms, his once sweet and beautiful boy, the child of his- tenderest affections, who had wound himself round a father's heart — rose and received the immolating sentence at a father's lips, oh ! that iron man offered the costliest sacrifice man ever made at the shrine of justice, and earned for Roman virtue a proverbial fame. But that i& nothing to the spectacle which redemption offers. 3. Spans an Impassable Gulf. (401.) "Between us and you," said Abraham to the rich man,. " there is a great gulf fixed ; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." I know that a gulf as impassable and profound divides the state of sin from the state of grace ; and that no quantity nor quality of good works that we may attempt to throw in, can form a passage for our guilty feet. Rubbish at the best ! how are they lost in its unfath- omed depths ! lost like the stones which travellers in Iceland fling into those black, yawning, volcanic chasms, which descend so deep into the fiery bowels of that burning land, that no line can measure, and time never fills them. Yet, blessed be Christ's name ! the great gulf ha& been bridged. Redemption, through his blood and merits, spans the yawning chasm. An open way invites your feet. 4. A Work without a Parallel. (402.) It is of all God's works the greatest ; it is his " strange" work. That cross on Calvary, which mercy raised for you, cost more love, and labor, and wisdom, and skill, than all yon starry universe. With the earth its emerald floor, its roof the sapphire firmament, the sun and stars its pendent lamps, its incense a thousand fragrant odors, its music of many sounds and instruments, the song of groves, the murmur of the streams, the voices of winged winds, the pealing thunder, and the ever- lasting roar of ocean, Nature's is a glorious temple ! Yet that is a REDEMPTION. 147 nobler temple, which, with blood-redeemed saints for its living stones, and God and the Lamb for its uncreated lights, stands aloft on the Rock of Ages — the admiration of angels and the glory of the universe. 5. The Story of Redeeming Love. (403.) The story of redeeming love surpasses anything related in the pages of the wildest romances. These tell of a prince, who, enamored of an humble maid, assumed a disguise ; and doffing his crown and royal state for the dress of common life, left his palace, travelled far, faced danger, and fared hard, to win the heart of a peasant's daughter, and raise her from obscurity to the position of a queen. Facts, as has been said, are more wonderful than fables. The journey which our divine lover took was from heaven to earth ; to win his bride, he exchanged the bosom of the eternal Father to lie, a feeble infant, on a woman's breast. Son of God, he left the throne of the universe, and assumed the guise of humanity, to be cradled in a manger and murdered on a cross. Besides, in his people he found a bride, deep in debt, and paid it all ; under sentence of death, and died in her room ; a lost creature, clad in rags, and he took off his own royal robes to cover her. To wash her, he shed his blood ; to win her, he shed his tears ; finding her poor and miserable and naked, he endowed her with all his goods ; heir of all things, everything that he possessed as his Father's Son, she was to enjoy and share with himself. 6. The Motive of God in Redemption. (404.) The lofty subject of the motive of God in redemption resembles those binary stars which look to the naked eye as but one, but which, brought into the field of the telescope, resolve themselves into two orbs, rolling in their brightness and beauty around a common centre. Blessed be his holy name ! " He so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but should have everlasting life." " He commendeth his love to ns, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. " Never, therefore, let us exalt this doctrine of the divine glory, at the expense of the divine love. God's love to sinners is his mightiest, his heart- softening argument ; and it were doing him, his gospel, and our own souls great injustice, if we should overlook the love that gives divinity its name, and which, sending in his Son a Saviour from the Father's bosom, was eulogized by an apostle as possessed of a " height, and depth, and breadth, and length, which passeth knowledge." 148 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. REGENERATION. 1. The Purest Need Regeneration. (405.) We believe that the purest, gentlest, loveliest, most amiable creature that blesses fond parents, and adorns earth's happiest home — one of nature's fairest flowers — stands as much in need of a new birth as the vilest outcast who walks these streets — the lost one, whose name is never mentioned but by broken hearts and in wrestling prayers to God. The best of mankind are so bad that all have need to be born again. RELIGION. 1. The World's Great Want. (406.) The truth is, the world's great want is the want of religion. Perhaps men want more equal laws, more liberal institutions, and through their happy influence, better and more stable governments. The greatest want of nations is, however, that without which liberty has no solid pedestal to stand on — a genuine, mass-pervading piety. To drop all reference to foreign countries, I am sure that he who attempts to cure our own social maladies, independently of this best and most sanatory element, may be a philanthropist, but is not a philosopher. We had almost said he is a fool. He is an idle schemer, who would fain make bricks without straw, and heal the water of Jericho without the prophet's salt. His theories are as baseless and unsolid as if they conceived of man as a creature without a soul — of the solar system as without its central sun — of the universe without its God. 2. True Religion Lies in the Heart. (407.) Religion does not lie in the denomination we belong to, in attendance on churches whose stony fingers point to heaven, in having a pew in the house of God, or even an altar in our own, in professions of piety, or even in works of benevolence. It lies in the heart. If it is not there, it is nowhere ; these other things being but the dress which may drape a statue, and give to a corpse the guise, or rather the mock- ery of life. In consequence of its being lodged in their hearts, true Christians, so far from being hypocrites, have more of the reality of religion than of its appearance. They are better than they seem to be ; and less resemble those fruits which, under a painted skin, and soft, luscious pulp, conceal a rough, hard stone, than those within whose shell and husky covering there are both milk and meat. RENEWAL. 149 3. God Requires More than a Negative. (408.) God requires more than a negative religion. Piety, like fire, light, electricity, magnetism, is an active, not a passive element ; it has a positive, not merely a negative existence. For how is pure and unde- fined religion defined? "Pure religion and undefined is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. ' ' And on whom does Jesus pronounce his beatitude ? " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." And what is the sum of practical piety — the most portable form in which yon can put an answer to Saul's question, " Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do !" What but this, " Depart from evil, and do good." * REMORSE. 1. The Terrors of Remorse. (409.) The tale of the goblet, which the genius of a heathen fashioned, was true ; and taught a moral of which many a death-bed furnishes the melancholy illustration. Having made the model of a serpent, he fixed it in the bottom of the cup. Coiled for the spring, a pair of gleaming eyes in its head, and in its open mouth fangs raised to strike, it lay beneath the ruby wine. Nor did he who raised that golden cup to quench his thirst, and quaff the delicious draught, suspect what lay be- low, till as he reached the dregs, that dreadful head rose up and glis- tened before his eyes. So, when life's cup is nearly emptied, and sin's last pleasure quaffed, and unwilling lips are draining the bitter dregs, shall rise the ghastly terrors of remorse, and death, and judgment, upon the despairing soul. RENEWAL. 1. Renewal, Not Repair. (410.) The bark grows on the peeled surface of an old elm or oak, so as in time to obliterate the letters that friendship or fond love has carved. From the lips of the gaping wound a liquid flesh is poured, which, receiving nerves and blood-vessels into its substance, solidifies, and at length fills up the breach. From its shattered surfaces, the broken limb discharges a fluid bone — a living cement — which, growing solid, restores the continuity of the shaft^ and gives the sufferer a leg or arm, strong as before. In some of the lower animals, indeed, this power of reparation is equal to the task, not only of repairing a broken, 150 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. but of even restoring a lost member. With sucb renovating powers has God endowed certain creatures, that, if by accident or otherwise, the writhing worm, for example, is divided, the headless portion not only survives such a formidable lesion, but, strange to see ! produces and puts on a new head ; and offers us an example of animal life, which, besides being fortified against the most formidable injuries, is actually multiplied by division — " How marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty !" There are many striking and very interesting analogies between grace and nature. But there is no analogy between these cases and the case before us. 2. Renewal Indispensable. (411.) Observe how this property of new runs through the whole economy of grace. When Mercy first rose upon this world, an attri- bute of Divinity appeared which was new to the eyes of men and angels. Again, the Saviour was born of a virgin ; and he who came forth from a womb where no child had been previously conceived, was sepulchred in a tomb where no man had been previously interred. The Infant had a new birth-place, the Crucified had a new burial-place. Again, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of a new testament, the founder of a new faith. Again, the redeemed receive a new name ; they sing a new song ; their home is not to be in the Old, but in the New Jerusalem, where they shall dwell on a new earth, and walk in glory beneath a new heaven. Now it were surely strange, when all things else are new, if they themselves were not to partake of this gen- eral renovation. Nor strange only, for such a change is indispensable. A new name without a new nature were an imposture. It were not more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the rapacious vulture by the name of the gentle dove, than to give the title of sons of God to the venomous seed of the Serpent. REPENTANCE. 1. God Rejoicing Over Repenting Sinners. (412.) Some wretched and heart-broken creature, the flower which has been trodden on the street where the villain hand that plucked had thrown it when its freshness and bloom were gone — one polluted in body and in mind — one lost to virtue and shunned by decency — one for whom none cared but a mother, who clung to hope, and with love burn- ing in its ashes, wept and prayed in secret for her she never named, is converted ; and think of God in heaven feeling more joy than the RESURRECTION, THE. 151 mother who on a wild winter's night has opened her door to the wan- derer's moaning cry ; and while she hastens to tell the glad tidings to humble and sympathizing neighbors, think of him telling them to his angels, and calling them to rejoice with him that the dead is alive again and the lost is found ; think of the joyful alacrity with which those happy, holy spirits haste, if so employed to do the Saviour's bidding — prepare another mansion and weave another crown. 2. Angels Rejoicing over the Repentance of a Sinner. (413.) What value belongs to these souls of ours, when the repent- ance and salvation even of one sinner is thought worthy of being pub- lished in heaven and sung to the music of angels' harps ? We may be assured that it is from a dreadful doom the soul is saved ; and that it was over a fearful abyss it hung when Jesus plucked it from the wreck. Angels had not otherwise turned an eager gaze from heaven on earth, and looked down from their lofty realms to watch the issue with breath- less interest, and feel such joy at the result. 3. Truest and Deepest Repentance. (414.) A sense of God's kindness is the spring of deepest sorrow ; and the repentance that succeeds forgiveness is truer and deeper than any which precedes it. Therefore when God says, " I will establish with thee an everlasting covenant," he adds, " then shalt thou remem- ber thy ways, and be ashamed." It was when Jesus, whom Peter had denied, turned a look of love and pity on him, that Simon, pierced to the heart, went out to weep bitterly. RESURRECTION, THE. 1. The Matchless Change at the Resurrection. (415.) Who saw the rolling waves stand up a rocky wall ; who saw the water of Cana flow out rich purple wine ; who saw Lazarus' s fester- ing corpse, with health glowing on its cheek, and its arms enfolding sisters ready to faint with joy, saw nothing to match the change the grave shall work on these mouldering bones. Sown in corruption, they shall rise in incorruption, mortal putting on immortality. How beauti- ful they shall be ! Never more shall hoary time write age on a wrinkled brow. The whole terrible troop of diseases cast with sin into hell, the saints shall possess unfading beauty, and enjoy a perpetual youth ; a pure soul shall be mated with a worthy partner in a perfect body, and an angel form shall lodge an angel mind. 152 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. RICHES. 1. The Mean Between Riches and Poverty. (416.) The regions which lie mid- way between the equator and the poles are proved by experience to be most favorable to life and its en- joyments ; and so those conditions which lie mid-way between the op- posite extremes of poverty and riches, are found most conducive to man's spiritual welfare. 2. Danger and Deceitful Influence of Riches. (417.) The danger and deceitful influence of riches, their tendency to turn our thoughts away from another world, and drown such concern for the soul as providences or preachers may have awakened, in the cup of pleasure, is awfully expressed in the saying of our Lord, " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Dr. Johnson put the point well when, on Garrick showing him his beautiful mansion and grounds, the great moralist and good man laid his hand kindly on the player's shoulder, and said, " Ah ! David, David, these are the things which make a death-bed terrible !" 3. Earthly and Heavenly Riches. (418.) Again, if wealthy, you may reside in a splendid mansion, but it is to leave it one day for the narrow house ; you may pamper the body with the costliest luxuries, but you are fattening it for worms ; nor can the flashing blaze of a thousand diamonds blind our eyes to the melancholy fact that this gay, beautiful, charming form shall, stripped of all that bravery, be wrapped in a shroud, nailed up in a coffin, and thrust down into a black hole to rot. But give me the treasures of re- demption, my food is manna, and my wine is love ; my sweet pillow the bosom of the Son and my strong defence the arm of Almighty God; my home that palace, eternal in the heavens, where angels' harps sup- ply the music, and woven of Jesus' righteousness the robes are fairer than angels wear. 4. Very Unfortunate for Some Men to be Wealthy. (419.) A young man, liberally endowed with wealth, and, better still, with admirable moral qualities, had, elbowing his way through the crowd, come to Jesus ; and, with gaze fixed on heaven and wings outspread for flight, sought his counsel — saying, Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? Go, was the answer, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 153 come, follow- me ! He was not prepared for this — for such a complete surrender of all which men hold dear. He longed, and looked, and wistfully looked again ; but the price was too high. He was unfortu- nate enough, as others have been, to be very wealthy ; and so, though Jesus loved him and followed his departing steps with kindly interest, he returned to the embraces of the world — strange yet true conjunction — "sorrowful, for he had great possessions." What an event for a sermon ! — the subject Mammon, and he the text. Seizing the occasion, and taking his eyes from this youth, as with drooping head and slow, reluctant steps, he disappears in the distance, Jesus turns a solemn, sad look on his disciples to say, ' ' Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'' RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 1. Imputed Righteousness of Christ. (420.) Bring forth the fairest robe and put it on him, says the father. It is done ; and, the rags of the swine-herd stript off, the best robe in the house is thrown over his naked shoulders, and flows in rich beauty to his bleeding feet ; and there now he stands — a beautiful type of the investiture of a sinner in the righteousness and imputed merits of the Saviour — the best robe in God's own house. 2. The Robe of Jesus' Righteousness. (421.) Best of all shrouds, may you be wrapped in the " clean linen" of Jesus' righteousness ! With that robe around you may you rise from the grave ! — this your plea — ' ' Almighty God ! of my own works I have nothing to say but this, What is bad in them is mine ; what is good in them is thine. Behold this pardon — look on this robe, and know now whether it be thy Son's coat or no." 3. A Spotless Robe of Righteousness. (422.) And it is well all should remember, when you wash on a Sab- bath morning, that your soul needs washing in another laver ; and, when your person is decked for church, that you need other robes — robes fairer than worm spins or shuttles weave, or the wealth of banks- can buy. See that by faith ye put on that righteousness, even that righteousness of Jesus Christ, in which God sees neither spot, nor stain, nor any such thing. 154 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. RIGHTEOUSNESS, MAN'S. 1. Mail's Righteousness, Filthy Rags. (423.) Now since God pronounces our righteousness — observe, not our wickednesses, but our devotions, our charities, our costliest sacri- fices, our most applauded services — to be "filthy rags," trust not to them. What man in his senses would think of going to court in rags ? Nor think that the righteousness of the cross was wrought to patch up these ; to make up, as some say, for what is defective and wanting in our own merits. Nor fancy, like some who would have a Saviour and yet keep their sins, that you may wear the rags beneath this righteous- ness. Put them away ; not as a dress, which a man lays aside, to be afterward resumed ; but cast them away, like a beggar who, having got a better attire, flings his rags into the nearest ditch, and leaves them there in their foulness to rottenness and decay. ROMANISM. 1. Vatican-made Deities. (424.) Rome's characteristic is to multiply objects of worship, and to bow down to canonized men and women, to sacred images and winking pictures ; in a word, it can never have gods enough nor lords enough ; it is an example, not of atheism, but of pleistotheism ; Olympus was nothing to the Paradise of Vatican-made deities. 2. The Idolatry of Romanism. (425.) Look to the Church of Rome ! Hertemples are crowded with images. Fancy some old Roman, rising from his grave on the banks of the Tiber. Looking on the sensuous worship of modern Rome, the honors paid to a doll decked out to represent Christ's mother — multi- tudes prostrate at the feet of stone apostles — the incense and prayers offered to the lifeless effigy of a man, here hanging in weakness on a cross, or there sitting in triumph on the globe where he sways a sceptre, and treads a serpent beneath his feet, what could he suppose but that the " eternal city" had changed her idols — nor ceased from her idola- try ; and, by some strange turn of fortune, had given to one Jesus the old throne of Jupiter, and assigned the crown which Juno wore in his days to another queen of heaven ? 3. Salvation by Works, Rome's Principle. (426.) The Church of Rome taught her people to recommend them- SALVATION. 155 selves to the favor of God by good works, as she calls them — fastings and watchings, gifts of charity to the poor and of piety to the church, lives of voluntary poverty, and various acts of painful penance. Her Sustentation Fund is the doctrine of purgatory : and, notwithstanding the ostentatious parade she makes of cross and crucifix, her principle, to all practical intents and purposes, is salvation by works. This appears in every country where, removed from the restraining influences of Pro- testantism, her character, like a plant growing in its native soil, is fully developed. There only, popery is seen aright ; as is the lion in the desert he shakes with his cruel roar, or the tiger in the Indian jungles through which, crashing like a bolt, she makes her fatal spring ; not in those menageries where, confined within iron bars and subdued by hun- ger, these savage beasts, but occasionally growling, quietly pace their narrow bounds, and cower beneath the keeper's eye. SALVATION. 1. The Inestimable Value of the Gospel Salvation. (427.) The costliest jewel mentioned by ancient writers is a pearl which helonged to Cleopatra, the beautiful but infamous queen of Egypt, and the strongest proof which historians have to give of the wanton and boundless extravagance of some of their emperors is the fact that they dissolved pearls in vinegar and drank them with their wine. In harmony ^vith these passages of profane history, the parable of the Pearl of Great Price and other parts of sacred Scripture prove that among jewels the highest place in former times was assigned to pearls, from which we are warranted to conclude that when our Lord compared " the kingdom of leaven," the blessings, in other words, of redeeming love, to " one pearl of great price," he intended to set them forth as of pre-eminent value ; as, in fact, amid a thousand things desirable, the one thing need- ful. 2. The Sacrifices at which Salvation was Obtained. (428.) Nor does this pearl present an emblem of salvation in respect only of its incalculable price and intrinsic characters. In the hazards And sacrifices at which both were obtained, we discern, however faintly, another point of resemblance. Other gems, the diamond and ruby and emerald and sapphire, lie bedded in river-courses, or set in the solid Tocks ; and there men seek them without loss of health or risk of life. But pearls belong to the ocean ; they are gems which she casts not up among the pebbles that strew her beach, but hides in her dangerous and darkest depths. Hence a dreadful trade is the pearl-fisher's. Weight- 15 G GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. ed with stone to sink him, and inhaling a long, deep-drawn breath, he leaps from the boat's side, and, the parting waves closing above his head, descends into the depths of the sea to grope for the shelly spoils amid the dim light which faintly illuminates her slimy bed ; nor rises, breathless and black in face, to the surface till on-lookers have begun to fear he will rise no more. And not unfrequently he never does. These waters are the haunts of terrible monsters ; and marked for its prey by the swift and fierce and voracious shark, in vain the wretched man stirs the muddy bottom to raise a cloud to cover his escape. Some air-bells bubbling up, and blood that spreads, crimsoning the surface of the sea, are all that is evermore seen of one who dies a sacrifice to his hazardous pursuits ; and the story of the dangers which pearl-fishers have always to encounter, and the dreadful deaths they have often to endure, will recall to a reflective mind the memory of Him who, in sal- vation, purchased this pearl at so great a price — giving His life for ours, and dying the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. 3. Its Perfect Character. (429.) But, besides its money value, a pearl such as this presented a remarkable as well as beautiful emblem of salvation in other aspects — in, for instance, a color of snowy whiteness, a purity unclouded by the slightest haze, and a form so round and polished and perfect that it was- impossible to improve it. The lapidary, to whose grinding skill the very diamond owes much of its brilliancy and those many-colored fires with which it shines and burns, may not touch a pearl. His art cannot add to its beauty — the polish of its snowy surface, or the perfection of its rounded form. And what an emblem, therefore, is this gem of that sal- vation which came perfect from the hand of God — of that righteousness of Jesus Christ which, as no guilt of ours can stain, no works of ours- can improve — of that Gospel which, as revealed in the Bible, is without defect of truth or admixture of error. 4. The Pivot on which Salvation Turns. (430.) Whose was the love salvation sprang from ? whose the Eden promise that begat hope in the bosom of despair ? whose the finger that wrote the holy law ? whose the prophets that heralded the Saviour 1 whose the Son that was cradled in Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary ? whose the Spirit that, taking of the things of Christ, applies them — turning the sinner into a saint, a child of the devil into a son of God and an heir of glory ? These questions admit of but one answer. That love, that promise, that finger, that Son, that Spirit is God's. In him all our well-springs are ; nor by any hand but his was forged one single SALVATION. 157 link of the golden chain that hinds believers to the skies : ' ' Whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son ; and whom he did predestinate, them he also called ; and whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 5. Effort Required on Our Part. (431.) The soul is not, as some seem to think, a piece of softened wax, receiving the image of God as that does the impress of a seal. We receive salvation ; still, we must put forth our hand for it, as the starv- ing for a loaf of bread ; as he who dies of thirst for a cup of water ; as a drowning man, who eagerly eyes and rapidly seizes the falling rope — clinging to it with a grasp that neither his weight nor the waves can loose. 6. Salvation Free to All. (432.) Is there not a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanliness ? Is it not true that whosoever seeks salvation there, may wash and shall be clean ? Most true. Jesus has filled that fountain with blood, and, once bathed there, the foulest become white as snow. Blessed truth ! that fountain is free to all ; free as air, free as light, free as the waves of ocean, where man, who parcels out God's earth, and forbids other foot than his own to tread on it, claims no exclusive property — where the beggar may go in to bathe abreast of a king. 7. Putting Off Salvation. (433.) Were we to judge of the matter by the conduct of many, we should conclude it to be by no means a difficult thing to be a Christian. They seem to think it almost as easy to wash one's heart as their hands ; to change their habits as their dress ; to admit the light of Divine truth into the soul as the morning into our chamber by opening the shutters — in short, that it is not more difficult to turn the heart from evil to good, from the world to God, and from sin to Christ, than to turn a ship right round by help of her helm. (434.) How else can we account for many, otherwise sensible people, putting off their salvation to a time confessedly unsuitable for any arduous task whatever — till, reduced to a state of mental and physical prostration, they lie languishing on a bed of sickness, or tossing on a bed of death ? 8. God is Mighty to Save. (435.) It is equally easy for God to supply our greatest as our smallest wants, to carry our heaviest as our lightest burden — just as it is as easy 158 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. for the great ocean to bear on her bosom a ship of war with all its guns and crew aboard, as a fisherman's boat or the tiniest craft that floats, falling and rising on her swell. In the most desperate cases of sinners and in the darkest circumstances of saints, " when all power is gone" and there seems no outget or deliverance, God is mighty to save. Con- fident in his resources, he says, Is anything too hard for me ? — Prove me herewith, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing till there is no room to contain — Who is he that fcareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay him- self on his God. 9. Seeking Salvation. (436.) Nicodemus, who repaired to Christ under the cloud of night, was one seeking goodly pearls ; so also was the centurion, who " was a just man and one that feared God," and to whom Peter was sent with the tidings of a Saviour ; and so in some sense also was that unhappy youth who with more courage than Nicodemus came in open day, and pushing his way through the crowd, thus accosted our Lord, " Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?" — only when Jesus told him to sell all, he judged the terms too hard, the cost too great. 10. The Source of Salvation. (437.) Some talk as if we were saved just because Christ paid our debt, representing God's share in the transaction as little else than that of a severe, stern, unrelenting creditor, who takes no interest in his imprisoned debtor beyond letting him out when the surety has taken up the bond. Is this true ? Is it fair to God ? True ? It is utterly false. Salvation flows from a higher source than Calvary. It has its fountain, not in the cross of the incarnate Son, but in the bosom of the eternal Father. These hoar hills with their time-furrowed brows, that ocean which bears on its face no mark of age, those morning stars which sang together when our world was born, these old heavens, are not so old as the love of God. 11. The Infatuation of Rejecting Salvation. (438.) One might fancy that now all are certain to be saved. Who will not accept of it ? Offer a starving man bread, he will take it ; offer a poor man money, he will take it ; offer a sick man health, he will take it ; offer an ambitious man honor, he will take it ; offer a life-boat in the wreck, a pardon at the gallows, oh ! how gladly he will take them. Salvation, which is the one thing needful, is the only thing man will not accept. He will stoop to pick up a piece of gold out of the mire, but SALVATION. 159 he will not rise out of the mire to receive a crown from heaven. What folly ! What infatuation ! May God by his Spirit empty our hearts of pride, and take away the heart of unbelief ! Vain here is the help of man. Arise, O Lord, and plead the cause that is thine own. Break the spell of sin, and help us to say with the man of old, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief ! 12. God Glorifying Himself in Saving Man. (439.) Now, in the eye of reason, and of a humanity that weeps over a suffering world, his is surely the nobler vocation — and, if not more honored — the more honorable calling who sheds blood, not to kill, but cure ; who wounds not that the wounded may die, but live ; and whose genius ransacks earth and ocean in search of means to save life, to re- move deformity, to repair decay, to invigorate failing powers, and restore the rose of health to pallid cheeks. His aim is not to inflict pain, but relieve it — not to destroy a father, but — standing between him and death — to save his trembling wife from widowhood, and these little children from an orphan's lot. And if, although they be wove round no coronet, those are fairer and fresher laurels which are won by saving than by slaying ; if it is a nobler thing to rescue life than destroy it, even when its destruction is an act of justice ; then, on the same princi- ple, God most glorified himself when revealed in the flesh, and speaking by his Son, he descended on a guilty world, this his purpose — " I came not to judge the world, but to save it" — and this his character — " The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in good- ness and truth." 13. Work Out Your Salvation. (440.) Busy ? So, in a way, are the children who, when the tide is at the ebb, with merry laughter and rosy cheeks and nimble hands build a castle of the moist seasand — the thoughtless urchins, types of lovers of pleasure and of the world, so intent on their work as not to see how the treacherous, silent tide has crept around them, not merely to sap and undermine, and with one rude blow demolish the work of their hands, but to cut off their retreat to the distant shore, and drown their frantic screams and cries for help in the roar of its remorseless waves. From a death-bed, where all he toiled and sinned and sorrowed for is slipping from his grasp, fading from his view, such will his life seem to the busi- est worldling ; he spends his strength for nought, and his labor for that which profiteth not. With an eye that pities because it foresees our miserable doom, God calls us from such busy trifling, from a life of laborious idleness, to a service which is as pleasant as it is profitable, as graceful as it is dutiful, saying — Work out your salvation — Work 160 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. ■while it is called today, seeing that the night coraeth when no man can "work. 14. No One Need Despair of Salvation. (441.) Gracious, glorious change ! Have you felt it ? May it be felt hy all of us ! You have it here in this woman, who, grieved in her mind, lies a-weeping at the feet of Jesus. She was a sinner. Her con- dition had been the basest ; her bread the bitterest ; her company the worst. She is casting off her vile, sinful slough. She leaves it. She rises a new creature. The beauty of the Lord is on her ; and now, with wings of faith and love wide outspread, she follows her Lord to heaven. How encouraging the wonders of converting grace ! Let us despair of none — neither of ourselves nor any one else. 15. Holiness not a Prerequisite to Going to Christ. (442.) A slight wedge of wood or small pebble; lying upon the slip, prevents the vessel from being launched on the bosom of a tide that swells to receive her in its arms. The full tide of love flows in Jesus' heart, his bosom is open to receive the sinner, everything conspires to his salvation, and yet in such happy circumstances, we have seen the notion, that a man must be holy before he goes to Christ, arrest a soul that had already moved, advanced, got some way in its course, and, as we thought, was off for heaven. This is a delusion of the enemy of souls. I believe it to be a common wile of Satan. 16. A Saving Word. (443.) Now, to this state, and this very confession, all who are to be saved must first be brought. " I perish," is a saving word. '• I per- ish, ' ' like the cry of a child in the natal chamber, is the first utterance of a new existence. He who raises bis eyes to heaven to cry, " I per- ish," " Lord, save me, I perish," has planted his foot on the first round of the ladder that raises man from earth to heaven. SANCTIFICATION. 1. The Christian an Example of Gradual Development. (444.) The Christian is an example of gradual development. When our growth is quickest, how slow it is ! As, from some fresh stain we wash our hands in the blood of Jesus ; as, from the field of daily con- flict we retire at evening to seek the healing of the balm of Gilead ; as, with David, we eye some eminence from which we have fallen, or, look- SATAN. 161 ing back on some former period, measure the little progress we have made — how often are we constrained to ask in disappointment, " When shall I be holy ?" How often are we constrained to cry in prayer, '" How long, Lord, how long ?" At times it looks as if the dawn would never brighten into day. We almost fear that our fate shall have its emblem in some unhappy flower, which — withered by frost, or the home of a worm — never blows at all ; but dies like an unborn infant, whose coffin is a mother's womb. This shall not happen with any child of grace. God will perform all things for his people, and perfect what concerneth them. Still, although He who has begun a good work in them will carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus, all the figures of Scripture indicate a gradual progress. The believer is a babe who grows " to the stature of a perfect man in Christ," and " the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." SATAN. 1. Satan's Defiance and Defeat. (445.) When his vessel has broken in the storm, and Ajax stands unsheltered on a rock in mid-ocean, he is represented as in anger with the gods, shaking his clenched hand at heaven. In Eden, for a time at least, Satan stands in a different and prouder position ; he has con- quered ; he has won the victory ; who shall pluck it from his grasp ? He tramples on earth, and laughs at heaven. God permits him to scale the walls, to carry the citadel by assault, and to plant for a time his defiant standard on the battlements of this world. He does this, that from his proud eminence he may hurl him into a deeper hell ; and, angels rejoicing in man's salvation, and devils discomfited in their leader's defeat — both friends and foes — might be constrained to say, " Hast thou an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like his?" 2. Triumph and Defeat of Satan. (446.) Placed on probation, man looked, lusted, ate, sinned, and fell. Satan triumphed. With the ruins of Eden around him, he stood above the grave of human hopes, and, as it seemed also, of heaven's intentions. He contemplated with proud satisfaction the triumph of his malignant subtilty. As he wrung the first tears from human eyes, I can fancy how hie taunted his weeping victims with the question — " Where is now thy lood of Christ oftener than he washes his hands in water ? 12. Sin the Greatest Folly. (473.) Sin is the greatest folly, and the sinner the greatest fool in the world. There is no such madness in the most fitful lunacy. Think of a man risking eternity and his everlasting happiness on the uncertain •chance of surviving another year. Think of a man purchasing a mo- mentary pleasure at the cost of endless pain. Think of a dying man living as if he were never to die. Is there a convert to God who looks back upon his unconverted state, and does not say with David, " Lord, I was as a beast before thee" ! 13. Your Sin ivill Find you Out. (474.) A man stands a better chance of escape who violates a physical than a moral law. This is difficult to be believed. And why ? Just because, in the breach of moral laws, judgment does not, as in the hreach of physical laws, follow speedily on the transgression, nor succeed it as the peal thunders on the flash. Yet it is not •more strange than true ; and true, for this plain, satisfactory, and un- answerable reason, that he who made the laws which govern the physi- cal world, may modify, may change, may even altogether repeal them. He has already done so. Iron is heavier than water ; yet did not the iron axe swim like a cork at the prophet's bidding ? Did not the un- stable element of sea stand up in walls of solid crystal, till the host passed over ? Did naked foot, when bathed in morning dew, ever feel 172 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. the green grass cooler than those three Hebrews, when on the floor of the burning furnace, they trod at once beneath their feet a tyrant's power and the red hot coals of fire ? Fire may not burn, and water may not drown. He who gave their laws to these elements may alter them as he sees meet ; but that moral law, which is a transcript of his own mind and will, is and must be unchangeable as himself. Be sure, therefore, that you cannot sin with impunity. Be sure that your sin will find you out. 14. Returning to Sin is Treading Jesus under Foot. (475.) Disheartened by the extraordinary dangers and difficulties of their enterprise, one of her armies (ancient Rome) lost courage, and resolved on a retreat. The general reasoned with his soldiers. Expos- tulating with them, he appealed to their love of country, to their hon- or, and to their oaths. By all that could revive a fainting heart he sought to animate their courage and shake their resolution. Much they trusted, they admired, they loved him, but his appeals were all in vain. They were not to be moved ; and carried away, as by a panic, they faced round to retreat. At that juncture they were forcing a mountain pass ; and had just cleared a gorge where the road, between stupendous- rocks on one side and a foaming river on the other, was but a footpath — broad enough for the step of a single man. As a last resort, he laid himself down there, saying, '" If you will retreat, it is over this body you go, trampling me to death beneath your feet." No foot advanced. The flight was arrested. His soldiers could face the foe ; but not man- gle beneath their feet one who loved them, and had often led their ranks- to victory — sharing like a common soldier all the hardships of the cam- paign, and ever foremost in the fight. The sight was one to inspire them with decision. Hesitating no longer to advance, they wheeled round to resume their march ; deeming it better to meet sufferings and endure even death itself than trample under foot their devoted and patriot leader. Their hearts recoiled from such an outrage. But for such as have named the name of Christ not to depart from iniquity, for such as have enlisted under his banner to go back to the world, for such as have renounced sin to return to its pleasures, involves a greater crime. A more touching spectacle bars our return. Jesus, as it were, lays him- self down on our path ; nor can any become backsliders, and return to the practice and pleasures of sin without treading him under their feet. These, Paul's very words, call up a spectacle from which every lover of Jesus should recoil with horror: ''If he," says that apostle, "who despised Moses' law died without mercy, of how much sorer punish- ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under- foot the Son of God ?" SINNERS. 173 SINNERS. 1. Condition of the Alarmed Sinner. (476.) The condition of an awakened and alarmed sinner resembles that of the shedder of blood to whom the cities of refuge in the land of Israel offered protection from the sword of the avenger. Patent roads led to these ; and how were they travelled by him who, throwing fear- ful glances over his shoulder, descried the form of the avenger, saw the gleam of the naked sword, and by-and-bye, as the other gained on him, heard the panting of his breath and the tread of his foot ? Many a lovely flower grew by the road-side, but none did he pause to gather ; many a friend was met, but none did he pause to salute ; the hill is steep, but he stoutly breasts it ; the road is rough, but he presses its flints beneath his bleeding feet ; nor draws breath, nor pauses, nor hesi- tates, till, approaching the blessed boundary, he gathers up his remain- ing strength into one great effort and leaps across the line, to fall on the ground fainting, but saved. Did men thus toil, endure, run, fly for life — with this life in jeopardy ? Then what should be their decision of character, what their promptitude of action, what their strong, earnest crying of prayer, who, having Christ to seek, pardon to obtain, souls to be saved, eternal life to win, have a far greater work to do — the time allotted them to do it in often very short, and always very uncertain. 2. All Have Sinned. (477.) We cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that we have all sinned times and ways without number. Whose conscience does not condemn him as a debtor to the law of God ? Who boasts, my hands are clean, my heart is pure ? The one redeeming feature in that Sanhedrim of sanctimonious hypocrites where Jesus stands facing the guilty woman, is that, when he says, " Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her," a sense of guilt paralyzes every arm — they retreat, and she goes scatheless. To say that we have not sinned, is, in fact, to sin in saying it ; for we make God a liar, and our mouth proves us perverse. We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God. 3. A Sinner's Duty and Prayer. (478.) And as I have seen a man when the wave, bearing the boat on its foaming crest, brought it up to the ship's side, seize the happy moment and with one great bound leap in, so should sinners, perilously hanging on the brink of perdition, seize the opportunity to be saved. Willing and eager to save, Christ stretches out his arms tn receive us. 174 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. Let us throw ourselves on his mercy, crying, Save now, Lord — Lord, save me, I perish ! 4. Insensibility of the Sinner. (4*79.) The misery of the sinner is not to know his misery. I offer a man the bread of life, and he tells me that he is not hungry ; living water, and he puts aside the cup, saying, I am not thirsty ; I find him stricken down with a mortal disease, but, on bringing a physician to his bedside, he bids us go, and not disturb him, but leave him to sleep, for he feels no pain. Insensibility to pain is his worst symptom, fatal proof that mortification has begun, and that, unless it can be arrested, all is over — you may go, make his coffin, and dig him a grave. But let sensibility return, so that on pressure being applied to the seat of disease, he shrinks and shrieks out with pain ; alarmed and ignorant, his attend- ants may imagine that now his last hour is come, but the man of skill knows better. There is life in that cry — it proves that the tide has turned, that he shall live. Sign as blessed, when brought to a sense of his sins, a man feels himself perishing ; cries with Peter, sinking among the waves of Galilee, I perish ; with the prodigal, sitting by the swine- troughs, I perish ; with the jailer at midnight in the prison, What shall I do to be saved ? 5. The Sinner Beside Himself. (480.) Transport yourself to such scenes as Hogarth painted. Here is a man in a damp, dark cell, seated on a heap of straw, and chained like a wild beast to the wall. Does he weep ? Is he haunted by recol- lections of a happy home ? Does he, as you look through the bars, en- treat you to take pity on him, to loose his fetters, and let him go free ? No. He smiles, sings, laughs — the straw is a throne ; this bare cell, a palace ; these rough keepers, obsequious courtiers ; and he himself, a monarch, the happiest of mortals ; an object of envy to crowned kings. Strange and sad delusion ! Yet, is that man not more beside himself who, with a soul formed for the purest enjoyments, delights in the lowest pleasures ; who, content with this poor world, rejects the heaven in his offer ; who, surest sign of insanity, hates in a heavenly Father and his Saviour, those who love him ; who, in love with sin, hugs his chains ; lying under the wrath of God, is merry ; sings, and dances on the thin crust that, ever and anon breaking beneath the feet of others, is all that separates him from an abyss of fire ? 6. Sure Help for the Sinner. (481.) I knew of one who, while wandering along a lonely and rocky shore at the ebb of tide, slipped his foot into a narrow crevice. Fancy SINNERS. 175 his horror on finding that he could not withdraw the imprisoned limb ! Dreadful predicament ! There he sat, with his back to the shore, and his face to the sea. Above his head sea-weed and shells hung upon the crag — the too sure signs that when yonder turning tide comes in, it shall rise on him inch by inch, till it washes over his head. Did he cry for help ? Does any man dream of asking such a question ? None heard him. But, oh, how he shouted to the distant boat ! how his heart sank as her yards swung round, and she went off on the other tack ! how his cries sounded high above the roar of breakers ! how bitterly he envied the white seamew her wing, as, wondering at this intruder on her lone domains, she sailed above his head, and shrieked back his shriek ! how, hopeless of help from man, he turned up his face to heaven, and cried loud and long to God ! All that God only knows. But as sure as there was a terrific struggle, so sure, while he watched the waters rising inch by inch, these cries never ceased till the wave swelled up, and washing the dying prayer from his lips broke over his head with a melancholy moan. There was no help for him. There is help for us, although fixed in sin as fast as that man in the rock. 7. Conscience Condemns us as Guilty. (482.) The bar here is one at which, some time or other, we all have stood ; and where, without regard to rank or office, kings and priests, and purest women, as well as the lowest criminals, have been tried. This court holds its sittings within our bosoms — the presiding judge, God's vicegerent, is conscience — the law is the statutes of Heaven — and each man, turning king's evidence, bears witness against himself. And though in a sense man himself here constitutes the whole court — being at once prosecutor, witness, judge, and jury, and the trial is conducted under circumstances not favorable to an impartial decision — yet in every case the verdict is, and must be, guilty. 8. The Blood of Christ Avails for the Greatest Sinners. (483.) It is impossible to set too high a value on the blood of Christ. It cleanseth from all sin, and it only cleanseth from any. Washed in it the greatest sinner shall be saved ; without it, the least of sinners must be lost. To a poor guilty man, suffering the stings of conscience and standing in terror of death and the judgment, it is better than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; the pearl of great price, which he would sell all, and, were he possessed of a thousand worlds, would part with them all to buy. 9. One Way in which the Wicked Serve God. (484.) Though unbelievers and the wicked are after a fashion serving God, it is as the rod which a kind father reluctantly uses to chasten his 176 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. son, and which, when it has answered its purpose, he breaks in two, and ■casts into the fire. Do you, for instance, injure a godly man ? God is using you to train up his child in the grace of patience. Do you de- fraud him ? God is using you to detach his heart from the world, and to loosen the roots that bind his affections to the earth. Do you de- ceive him ? God is using you to teach him not to put his trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. Do you wound his feelings ? You are a knife in God's hand to let the sap flow more freely in a bark-bound tree, or to prune its branches that it may bring forth more fruit. Messenger of Satan ! dost thou buffet an apostle ? God uses thee to keep him humble, and to teach him to wear his honors meekly. Oppressor of the church ! dost thou cast an apostle into prison ? God uses thee, thy dungeon, and thy chains, to show how he will answer prayer, and bring his people eventually out of their sorest troubles — saving, as he saved Peter, at the very uttermost. SYMPATHY. 1. The Strong Fellow- Feeling of Human Hearts. (485.) Though the lower animals have feeling, they have no fellow- feeling. Have not I seen the horse enjoy his feed of corn, when his yoke-fellow lay dying in the neighboring stall, and never turn an eye of pity on the sufferer ? They have strong passions, but no sympathy. It is said that the wounded deer sheds tears ; but it belongs to man only to " weep with them that weep," and by sympathy to divide another's sorrow and double another's joys. When thunder, following the daz- zling flash, has burst among our hills, when the horn of the Switzer has rung in his glorious valleys, when the boatman has shouted from the bosom of a rock-girt loch, wonderful were the echoes I have heard them make ; but there is no echo so fine or wonderful as that which, in the sympathy of human hearts, repeats the cry of another's sorrow, and makes me feel his pain almost as if it were my own. They say that if a piano is struck in a room where another stands unopened and untouched, who lays his ear to that will hear a string within, as if touched by the hand of a shadowy spirit, sound the same note. But more strange how the strings of one heart vibrate to those of another ; how woe wakens woe ; how young grief infects me with sadness ; how the shadow of a passing funeral and nodding hearse casts a cloud on the mirth of a marriage party ; how sympathy may be so delicate and acute as to become a pain. There is, for example, the well-authenticated case of a lady who could not even hear the description of a severe surgical operation, but she felt TEMPER. 177 all the agonies of the patient ; grew paler and paler, and shrieked, and fainted away under the horrible imagination. Not fancy ; for the dog has that, and, asleep on the warm hearth, he dreams of battles and of hunts : not reason, for there is an intelligence in his honest eye, and a skill in his tasks, that at least apes and imitates the intellect of man — it is not these, but fellow-feeling, which elevates our race above the unim- mortal brute, and brings us near to Him whose sympathy is our chief comfort in sorrow, and of whom we are assured — thank God in life's dark hour for the assurance — that " in all His people's affliction He is Himself afflicted. ' ' TEMPERANCE. 1. Abstinence from Intoxicating Drinks. (486.) Have I not seen many, whose spring budded with the fairest promises, live to be a shame, and sorrow, and deep disgrace ? And, though it were revealed from heaven that you yourself should never fall, is there nothing due to others ? Does not that bloody cross, with its blessed victims, call upon every Christian to live not to himself, but to think of other's things, as well as of his own ? Every man must judge for himself ; to his own master he standeth or he falleth. But when I think of all the beggary, and misery, and shame, and crime, and sorrow, of which drunkenness is the prolific mother, of the many hearts it breaks, ■of the happy homes it curses, of the precious souls it ruins, I do not hesitate to say that the question of abstinence deserves the prayerful consideration of every man ; and that, moreover, he appears to me to consult most the glory of God, the honor of Jesus, and the best interests of his fellow-men, who applies to all intoxicating stimulants the Apos- tolic rule, Touch not, taste not, handle not. In regard to no sin can it be so truly said that our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. TEMPER. 1. The Unhappg Temper of Some Pious Men. (487. ) The good temper for which some take credit, may be the result of good health and a well-developed frame* — a physical more than a moral -virtue ; and an ill temper, springing from bad health, or an imperfect organization, may be a physical rather than a moral defect — giving its victim a claim on our charity and forbearance. But, admitting this ITS GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. apology for the unhappy tone and temper of some pious men, the true Christian will bitterly bewail his defect, and, regretting his infirmity more than others do a deformity, he will carefully guard and earnestly pray against it. Considering it as a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him, it will often send him to his knees in prayer to God, that the grace which conquers nature may be made ' ' sufficient for him." TEMPTATION. 1. Sudden Temptation Overcoming the Christian. (488.) When he that sitteth upon the flood, and turneth the hearts of men like the rivers of water, hath sent the current of our tastes and feelings in a new direction, how apt are they, especially in some outburst of sudden temptation that comes down like a thunder-spout, to flow back into the old and deep-worn channels of a corrupt nature ! Of this, David and Peter are memorable and dreadful examples. And who, that has endeavored to keep his heart with diligence, has not felt, and mourned over the tendency to be working out a righteousness of his own, to be pleased with himself, and, by taking some satisfaction in his own merits, to undervalue those of Christ. 2. Stand in Fear of Temptation. (489.) Never fear to suffer ; but oh ! fear to sin. Stand in awe of God, and in fear of temptation. " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." It is not safe to bring gunpowder within reach even of a spark. Nor safe, however dexterous your driving, to shave with your wheels the edge of a beetling precipice. Nor safe in the best-built bark that ever rode the waves, to sail on the rim of a roaring whirlpool. The seed of the woman has, indeed, bruised the head of the serpent ; yet beware ! the reptile is not dead. It is dangerous to handle an adder, or approach its poison fangs, if the creature is alive, even although its head be crushed. 3. Yielding to Temptation on Small Occasions. (490.) How often have Christ's people found it easier to withstand on great occasions than on small ones ! Those will yield to some soft seduc- tion, and fall into sin, who, put to it, might stand up for the cause of truth and righteousness as bravely as he who, in yonder palace, stands like a rock before the king. Commanded to do what lays Christ's crown at Caesar's feet, he refuses. It is a thing which, though ready to dare ■ UNIFORMITY. 179 death, he dare not, and he will not do. He offers his neck, but refuses that — addressing himself in some such words as these to the imperious monarch : " There are two kingdoms and two kings in Scotland ; there is King Jesus and King James ; and when thou wast a babe in swaddling- clothes, Jesus reigned in this land, and his authority is supreme." (491.) Would to God that we had, whenever we are tempted to com- mit sin, as true a regard for Christ's paramount authority ! UNIFORMITY. 1. Unnatural Attempts at Uniformity. (492.) It was the misfortune of Europe that Charles V. did not learn at an early period of his life the lesson which he was afterward taught in a Spanish cloister. It had saved him much treasure, the world much bloodshed, and his soul much sin. After vainly attempting to quench the light of the Reformation, and make all men think alike, this great monarch, resigning his crown, retired to a monastery. Wearied, perhaps, with the dull round of mechanical devotions, he betook him- self, in the mechanical arts, to something more congenial to his active mind. After long and repeated efforts, he found that he could not make two timepieces go alike, two machines, that had neither mind nor will, move in perfect harmony. Whereupon, it is said, he uttered this memorable reflection, What a fool was I to attempt to make all men think alike ! Unfortunately for the peace of the church and for the interests of Christian charity, Charles the king has had more followers than Charles the philosopher. 2. Uniformity is but the Shadoio of Unity. (493.) Unity with variety is God's law in the kingdom of nature ; and why should not his law in the kingdom of grace be unity of spirit with variety of forms ? Uniformity is but the shadow of unity ; and how often have churches, in vain attempts after the first, lost the second — like the dog in the fable lost both ? 3. An Uninteresting Uniformity Foreign to Nature. (494.) God, while he preserves unity, delights in variety. A dull, dreary, uninteresting uniformity is quite foreign to nature. Look at the trees of the forest ! all presenting the same grand features, what variety in their forms ! Some, standing erect, wear a proud and lofty air ; some, modest-like, grow lowly and seek the shade ; some, like 180 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION'. grief, hang the head and have weeping branches ; some, like aspiring and unscrupulous ambition, climb up by means of others, killing what they climb by ; while some, rising straight and tall, with branches all pointing upward, present in their tapering forms emblems of the piety that spurns the ground and seeks the skies. Or look at the flowers, what variety of gay colors in a meadow ! Or look at mankind, what variety of expression in human faces, of tones in human voices ! There are no two faces alike, no two flowers alike, no two leaves alike, I believe no two grains of sand alike. In that variety God manifests his exhaustless resources, and. nature possesses one of her most attractive charms. And why insist on all men observing a uniform style of worship, or thinking alike on matters that are not essential to salvation ? You might as well insist on all men wearing the same expression of face, or speaking in the same tone of voice ; for I believe that there are as great natural and constitutional differences in the minds as in the bodies of men. VICE. 1. What a Life of Vice Resembles. (495.) A life of vice resembles those petrifying wells which turn into stone whatever is immersed in them, fairest flowers or finest fruit. The ravages of the worst diseases which vice engenders in the body present a loathsome, but yet a feeble image of the wreck it works on the noblest features of the soul. 2. Vice Becomes a Punishment and a Torment. (496.) It is the curse of vice, that, where its desires outlive the power of gratification, or are denied the opportunity of indulgence, they become a punishment and a torment. Denied all opportunity of indulgence, what would a drunkard do in heaven ? Or a glutton ?' Or a voluptuary ? Or an ambitious man ? Or a worldling ? one whose soul lies buried in a heap of gold ? Or she who, neglecting quite as much the noble purposes of her being, flits, life through, a painted butterfly, from flower to flower of pleasure, and wastes the day of grace in the idolatry and adornment of a form which death shall change into utter loathsomeness, and the grave into a heap of dust ? These would hear no sounds of ecstasy, would see no brightness, would smell no perfumes, in paradise. But, weeping and wringing their hands, they would wander up and down the golden streets to bewail their death, crying — " The days have come in which we have no pleasure in them." WORLD, THE. 181 WORLD, THE. 1. Getting Sick of the World. (497.) As in Roman Catholic countries, many a cowled monk, and many a veiled nun, enters convent or monastery more from feelings of disappointment than devotion ; so, when hopes are blasted, and pride is mortified, and ambition has missed her mark, you may get sick of the world. Alas ! all who bid adieu to the ball-room and theatre, and giddy round of fashion, do not leave the circle of their enchantments for the closet, for the sanctuary, for fields of Christian benevolence. 2. Why the World is Preserved. (498.) To save our lost race, God did not spare his own Son. For that end he gave up his Son to death, and the Son gave up himself. And why does God at this moment tolerate the flagrant crimes and wickedness of earth ? Why sleep the fires of Sodom ? Where arc the waters of the avenging deluge ? In preserving the world from de- struction, in sending summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, in raising up one nation and casting down another, in directing and over- ruling all sublunary events from the fall of kingdoms to the fall of a sparrow, God has one purpose. It is that wdiich angels have come down from heaven to help and devils have come up raging from hell to hinder - — the salvation of sinners and ingathering of his chosen people. For their sake he spares his enemies ; the tares for the wheat ; Sodom for the Lots within its walls ; nor till the last of these has left them, shall the City of Destruction be ready for burning. 3. The World should be Turned Upside Down. (499.) The world requires to be turned upside down. Like a boat capsized in a squall, and floating keel uppermost in the sea, with men drowning around it, the world has been turned upside down already ; and to be set right, it must just be turned upside down again. If the order which God established has been reversed by sin — if in our hearts and habits time has assumed the place of eternity — the body of the soul — earth of heaven, and self of God ; — if that is first which should be last, and that last which should be first, — if that is uppermost which should be undermost, and that undermost which should be uppermost, then happy the homes and the hearts of which, in reference to the entrance of God's Word, Spirit, and converting grace, it can be said, "These that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also." 182 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. WORLD, THE (EARTH). 1. A Grand Destiny Awaits the World. (500.) A grand destiny awaits this world of sins and sorrows. This earth, purified by judgment fires, shall be the home of the blessed. The curse of briars and thorns shall pass away with sin. " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree." Of the thorns of that curse Jesus' crown was woven, and he bore it off upon his head. Under laws accommodated to the new economy, the wide Avorld shall become one Eden, where, exempt from physical as well as moral evils, none shall shiver amid arctic frosts, nor wither under tropic heat ; these fields of snow and arid sands shall blossom all with roses. From the convulsions of expiring — or rather the birth-pangs of parturient nature — a new-born world shall come, a home worthy of immortals, a palace befitting its King. The blood that on Calvary dyed earth's soil shall bless it, and this theatre of Satan's triumph, and of a Saviour's shame, shall be the seat of Jesus' kingdom, and the witness of his glory. WORKS OF GOD. 1. God's Works Reveal His Power. (501.) An Arab, a wild son of the desert, one more accustomed to fight than to reason, to plunder a caravan than to argue a cause, was asked by a traveller how he knew that there was a God. He fixed his dark eyes with a stare of savage wonder on the man who seemed to doubt the being of God ; and then, as he was wont, when he encountered a foe to answer spear with spear, he met that question with another, " How do I know whether it was a man or a camel that passed my tent last night ?" Well spoken, child of the desert ! for not more plainly do footprints ou the sand reveal to the eye whether it was a man or camel that passed thy tent in the darkness of the night, than God's works reveal his being and power. They testify of him. His power has left its footprint impressed upon them all. 2. Unapproachable Excellence in God's Works. (502.) The more closely the works of God are examined, the higher our admiration rises, and the less Ave fear that true science will ever appear as the antagonist, and not the ally of the faith. Whether we turn the telescope on heavens, studded so full of stars as to present the appearance of gold-dust scattered with lavish hand on a dark purple WOMAN. 183 ground, or turn the microscope on such comparatively humble objects as a plant of moss, a drop of ditch water, the scaly armor of a beetle, a spider's eye, the down of a feather, or the dust on a butterfly's wing, such divine beauty, wisdom and glory burst into view, that child- hood's roving mind is instantly arrested ; the dullest are moved to wonder, the most grovelling souls take wing and rise up to God. 3. God's Works Infinitely Sur])ass Man's. (503.) The British Museum possesses in the Portland Vase one of the finest remains of ancient art ; and it may be remembered how — some years ago — the world of taste was shocked to hear that this precious relic had been shattered by a maniac's hand. Without disparaging- classic taste or this exquisite example of it, I venture to say that there is not a poor worm which we tread upon, nor a sere leaf, that, like a ruined but reckless man, dances merrily in its fallen state to the antumn winds, but has superior claims upon our study and admiration. The child who plucks a lily or rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of a fluttering insect, destroys a work which the highest art could not in- vent, nor man's best skilled hand construct. And there was not a leaf quivered on the trees which stood under the domes of the crystal palace, but eclipsed the brightest glories of loom or chisel ; it had no rival among the triumphs of invention, which a world went there to see. Yes ; in his humblest works, God infinitely surpasses the highest efforts of created skill. WOMAN. 1. More Religion Among Women than Men. (504.) Furnished with clasping tendrils, and strong by the attach- ments which they form, the woodbine and ivy wind their arms round the tree, embrace it closely, and rising to its lofty boughs, and clinging to its rough bark, they give ornament and beauty — a vesture of soft green spangled with flowers — in return for the support they get. Like these, woman, with her strong and warm affections — gentle, loving, con- fiding — is prone to attach herself to a nature stronger than her own, and to lean on it for support. And, whether it be that she is from this peculiar disposition less opposed to the faith which looks to another's righteousness and leans on another's strength, certain it is there is more religion among women than men. 184 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 2. Holy Heroism of Christian Women. (505.) Both before and since the days when they ministered to our Lord, and, followed him to Calvary with their tears, were the last at the cross and the first at the sepulchre, the Church has exhibited many in- stances of high and holy heroism on the part of women. However de- serving of the name in ordinary circumstances where martyrs' fires were fiercely burning, and scaffolds flowed with blood, and prisons overflowed with captives, women Lave not shown themselves to be the " weaker sex." On the contrary, when adherence to principle involved painful sacrifices, men have found such support in gentle women as I have seen the green and pliant ivy lend the wall it clothed and clung to, when that, undermined or shaken, was ready to fall. Daughters of Eve, but no tools of the tempter to seduce, with a babe at their breast and others at their knee, they have encouraged man to withstand temptation, and boldly face the storm, counting rank, home, living, and all things else, but loss for Christ. Such was the spirit of Hannah. 3. Religion Owes Most to Woman. (506.) If, on account of the elevation and high position which it has given her in Christian countries, woman owes most to religion, religion in turn owes most to her. You tell me that "by woman came sin"? I know it ; but I set off this against the fact — by woman came the Saviour. Jesus was a virgin's child. And, more than that, in those days when he walked this world, women were his trustiest, kindest friends. Whoever betrayed, denied, deserted him — they never did. The nearest to his cross, and earliest at his sepulchre, they were faith- ful when others were faithless, and gave early promise of that devoted- ness to his cause, which their sex in all ages have honorably and pre- eminently displayed. 4. Woman Owes Much to the Humanizing Influences of Christianity . (507.) Not long years ago you might have seen a pile of wood on the banks of the Ganges, surrounded by a mighty throng. The crowd opens, and up through the vista a lifeless body is carried to be laid on the summit of that funeral pile. Again the crowd opens, and, like a wave in the wake of a ship, it closes behind a woman, the dead man's widow, who comes to share his fiery bed. Attired for the sacrifice, on taking farewell of children and friends, she lies down by the corpse. As she embraces it in her arms the signal is given, and the pile is lighted ; and, though in some instances, mad with agony, and all on fire, the victim would leap for life through the flames and smoke, commonlv, WOMAN. 185 while her piercing shrieks were drowned in shouts, the poor widow submitted with patience to her fate. She submitted to it, very much to escape a worse one. These funeral piles throw a lurid glare on the wretched state of widows in that heathen land ; and, though not doomed in all other lands to > so hard a fate, oppression and cruelty was the common lot of a class than which there is none that owes more to the humanizing influences of Christianity. I suppose there are few of us but, among competing claimants on our pity, time, money, help, would, whether she were a cmeen or beggar, give the preference to one in a widow's garb. Here we see the benign influence of the Gospel, and God fulfilling his words — " Let thy widows trust in me." INDEX. ACTIVITY, CHEISTIAN. 1. All Christians to be co-workers with God, 1. 2. To whom the working Christian allies himself, 2. 3. Work our main vocation, 3. 4. A characteristic of the true Chris- tian, 4. 5. All the members of the body formed for work, 5. 6. The men of worth, the men of work, 6. 7. A useful and holy life is the only life of well-doing, 7. 8. Praying and working for others, AFFLICTIONS. 1 . Troubles turned to blessings, 9. 2. Those who are without chastise- ment, 10. 3. No plain sailing to heaven, 11. 4. Afflictions cannot remove sin, 12. 5. Unsanctified afflictions, 13. 6. Effect of overwhelming trials, 14. 7. Afflictions are of short duration, 15. 8. Trials purify God's people, 16. 9. Christians bend to the storm, not resist it, 17. 10. Patient endurance of trials, 18, 19. AMBITION. 1. A holy ambition, 20. ATHEISM. 1. The atheist's avowed belief, 21. 2. A crushing answer, 22. 3. Disbelief in the existence of athe- ism, 23. 4. The atheistic poet on the iEgean Sea, 24. BEAUTY. 1. Personal beauty, 25. 2. No sin in beauty, 26. 3. Beauty a good gift of God, 27. BENEVOLENCE. 1. Playing at benevolence, 28. 2. Wide reach of benevolence, 29. BIBLE, THE. 1. The Bible adapted to all classes, 30. 2. The Bible as a subject of study, 31. 3. Something in the Bible for every person, 32. 4. Treasures of the Bible, 33. 5. Fanciful resemblances seen in the Bible, 34. 6. The benefits of studying the models of piety and virtue found in the Bible, 35. 7. Facts in natural history corrobo- rating the testimony of Scripture, 36. BODY, THE. 1. The Christian's body a nobler tem- ple than Solomon's, 37. 2. A shrine of immortality, 38. CALUMNY. 1. How to treat calumny, 39. CHRISTIANS. 1. Narrow-minded Christians, 40. 2. Despondent Christians, 41. 3. The emblems of God's people, 42. 4. Christian ends lend grandeur to the Christian life, 43, 44. 5. Christians are not what they must aim to be, 45. 1SS INDEX. 6. Christians should follow Jesus, 46. 7. The common brotherhood of Christians, 47. 8. Safe in Christ, 48. 9. How to distinguish the godly from the ungodly, 49. 10. Unfruitful professors, 50. 11. Christians shine with a borrowed light, 51. 12. Not easy to be a Christian, 52. 13. Christians who are beautiful epistles, 53. 14. Christian brotherhood, 54. 15. No man starts uj) a finished Chris- tian, 55. 16. The benefits of Christian compan- ionship, 56, 57, 58. CHURCH. 1. Of whom the members of the true church consist, 59. 2. The marriage tie between the Lamb and his Bride indissoluble, 60. 3. The Church of Christ not identi- fied with forms, 61. 4. Christ's body not identical with any one church, 62, 63. COMMANDMENTS. 1. Ten Commandments obeyed and enforced by Jesus, 64, 65. CONVERSION. 1. Agitations which accompany con- version, 66. 2. The greatest of all changes, 67. 3. Has its origin in the heart, 68. 4. On the time and circumstances of conversion, 69, 70. 5. The wonderful change, 71. 6. The wondrous change from nature to grace, 72. 7. Conversion is a resurrection, 73. 8. A revolution, 74. 9. A new spirit given in conversion, 75. 10. Our part in conversion, 76. 11. The joy of the newly converted, 77. 12. God converts his bitterest enemies into his warmest friends, 78, 79. 13. The wishes of the converted ac- commodated to their wants, 80. 14. A fiery firmament hangs over the unconverted, 81. CONVICTION. 1. Conviction the first work of the Spirit, 82. 2. Conviction stifled by sinful pleasures, 83. CROSS OF CHRIST. 1. Necessity of clinging to the cross, 84. 2. We should gaze on Calvary as well as Eden, 85. 3. The robe of righteousness woven there, 86. 4. No dead sovds lie at the cross, 87. 5. Christ deserted at the cross, 88. 6. Christ's cross and crown are in- separable, 89. DEATH. 1. The timid believer's death, 90. 2. Death an immediate gain to the Christian, 91. 3. A hard fight at death, 92. 4. The dying Christian, 93. 5. Footprints of death, 94. 6. It is well for some people to view death, 95. 7. Preparation for death, 96. 8. Death of Christ, 97 9. Death of saints, 98, 99. 10. A glorious sunset of a stormy day, 100. DECISION. 1. Decision of the old Romans, 101, 102. DIFFERENCES. 1. Differences of Christians, 103. 2. Unworthy passions keep true Christians apart, 104. 3. Tendency to run into extremes, 105. INDEX. 189 DIFFICULTIES. 1. Eminent men nursed amid diffi- culties, 106. DOCTRINES. 1. No formal arrangement of doc- trines in the word of God, 107. 2. The harmony of the doctrines of the Bible, 108. ENERGY. 1. The great difference between men, 109. 2. Energy causes success, 110. ENVY. 1. Envy is a base passion, 111. EQUALITY. 1. Nature's inequalities, 112. 2. The only attainable equality, 113. ERROR. 1. Too much zeal in putting down error, 114. ETERNITY. 1. Eternity opens men's eyes, 115. FAITH. 1. Dead faith, 116. 2. Our Saviour's pattern of faith, 117. 3. Faith the believer's mainstay, 118. 4. Want of faith in our Lord's com- mands, 119. 5. Faith the motto on the banner, 120. 6. The all - comprehensive answer, 121. 7. Fretting and trusting, 122. 8. Abraham's great faith, 123, 124. FALL, THE. 1. Speculations on the fall, 125. 2. Idolatry proclaims the fall, 126. 3. Emblem of man's fallen state, 127. 4. Man has made himself what he is, 128. 5. Nature, society, and the world proclaim that man has fallen, 129. 6. Aristotle is but the ruins of an Adam, 130, 131. FIDELITY. 1. Remarkable example of fidelity, 132. FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 1. Forgiveness of enemies, 133. 2. A forgiving man the finest image of the Savioiir, 134. 3. We are to forgive with our spirit, 135. 4. Christianity embraces the bitter- est foe, 136. 5. Forgiveness is not a virtue which belongs to our fallen natures, 137. 6. A forgiving spirit the truest image of God, 138. FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 1. God's full forgiveness, 139. FORMS. 1. Forms the drapery of religion, 140. 2. Multiplicity of forms of worship an evil, 141. GLORY OF GOD. 1. Doing all to the glory of God, 142. 2. To glorify God the chief end of man, 143. 3. Life in all its phases may be spent to God's glory, 144. 4. The earth is full of the glory of God, 145. 5. Two ways by which God glorifies His name, 146. GOD. 1. God's forbearance toward sinners. 147. 2. Nothing difficult to God, 148. 3. Cannot shake off the presence of God, 149. 4. A pitying father, 150. 5. All things praise God, 151. 6. A refuge for his people, 152. 7. Dwells in light inaccessible, 153. 8. Love should always be included in a definition of God, 154. 190 INDEX. GODLINESS. 1. Godliness profitable unto all things, 155. GOOD WOEKS. 1. Abuse of the doctrine of, 156. 2. A disrespectful treatment of, 157. 3. St. Paul's estimate of, 158. 4. No time for doing good, 159. 5. Cannot earn salvation by our works, 160. 6. A pestilent heresy, 161. 7. No true faith without works, 162. 8. God does not forget our good works, 163. GOSPEL, THE. 1. The gospel a stream of mercy, 164. 2. The effects of the gospel, 165. 3. Mysteries of the gospel, 166. 4. Love the curative element of the gospel, 167. 5. Suited to and will prevail in all lands, 168. 6. The gospel should be examined in the broad shadows of the old economy, 169, 170. GEACE. 1. Grace gives a holy bent, 171. 2. Salvation by grace humbling but encouraging, 172. 3. The affluence of God's grace, 173, 174. 4. Assimilating element of grace, 175. 5. Grace, though slow in progress, yet certain, 176. 6. The life of the soul, 177. 7. The all-sufficiency of grace, 178. 8. God's grace exhausted, 179. 9. Grace of God above circumstances, 180. 10. Glorious triumphs of grace, 181. HEAET, THE. 1. Cultivation of the heart, 182. 2. The heart the same in all men, 183. 3. The root of evil, 184. 4. Coldness of the unrenewed heart, 185. 5. Deceitful above all things, 186, 187, 188. 6. Desperately wicked, 189. 7. A new one necessary, 190. 8. What the new heart explains, 191. 9. Delicate sensibility of the new heart, 192. 10. An outward resembling an inward change, 193. HEATHEN, THE. 1. Stupidity of the heathen, 194. 2. Guilt of neglecting the heathen, 195, 196, 197. HEAVEN. 1. Heaven an abhorrent vacuum to the unsanctified, 198. 2. The sinner out of place in heaven, 199. 3. Emblems of the New Jerusalem, 200. 4. The two bolts which bar the door of heaven, 201. 5. Heaven greatly made up of little children, 202. 6. We shall see Jesus there, 203. 7. The wonder is that any get to heaven, 204, 205. 8. Is obtained by heritage, 206. 9. Honors of those who turn men to God, 207. 10. The brightest honors of heaven, 208. 11. Our knowledge will be increased in heaven, 209. 12. Pledges of heaven, 210. 13. Who will be associated in heaven ? 211. 14. The sinner exasperated in heaven, 212. 15. A clear prospect of heaven, 213. 16. His sinless home a wish of every Christian, 214. 17. Hard work to get to heaven, 215. 18. Strengthening ourselves with thoughts of heaven, 216. 19. A type of the heavenly paradise, 217. INDEX. 191 HELL. 1. The trees shall burn that will not bear, 218. 2. The pit an awful reality, 219. 3. Longer in perdition the greater sinner, 220. 4. God's voice of terror, 221. 5. What the wrath of God is a key- to, 222. 6. Play not with fire unquenchable, 223. HOLY SPIEIT. 1. Power of the Holy Spirit, 224. 2. Mysterious work done by the Spirit of God at the hour of death, 225. 3. God's people have the witness of the Spirit, 226. 4. The gifts of, do not supersede our own efforts, 227. 5. Improving his call, 228. 6. The Spirit of God the moving power, 229. 7. Special moving of the Spirit, 230. HUMILITY. 1. Humility the root and strength of lofty piety, 231. 2. The humbler in our own, the higher in God's eyes, 232. 3. The holiest men have always been humble, 233. 4. Humility of the sincere Christian, 234. 5. The saint grows in, as he grows in holiness, 235, 236. HYPOCEISY. 1. The insinuation of general hypoc- risy, 237. IDLENESS. 1. Idleness the mother of mischief, IGNORANCE. 1. Man's ignorance, 239. IMMORTALITY. 1. The heathen believe the soul sur- vives the death of the body, 240. INDUSTRY. 1. The benefits of unwearied indus- try, 241. INFIDELITY. 1. Defeats of infidelity, 242. INSTRUMENTS. 1. Instruments chosen by God, 243. 2. Man as the instrument of saving his fellow-men, 244. INVISIBLE THINGS. 1. Visible and invisible things, 245. JESUS. 1. The advent of Christ, 246, 247. 2. Jesus should be all our desire, 248. 3. We should go to Jesus just as we are, 249. 4. Separate from sinners, 250. 5. Sufferings of the Saviour, 251. 6. Our Treasure, 252. 7. Our Lord's lofty and holy life, 253. 8. On looking to Jesus as a Saviour, 254. 9. The sinner's surety, 255. 10. Holds the sceptre of universal empire, 256. 11. The boundless grace of Christ, 257. 12. A preacher of salvation, 258. 13. Revealed truth proclaims Jesus Christ Lord of all, 259. 14. Our ransom, 260. 15. Emblems of Jesus, 261. 16. Eternal obligation of the Christian to Christ, 262. 17. Sacrifices for the sake of the doc- trine of Christ's headship, 263. 18. Attractive relationships of Christ, 264. 19. Creator and Lord of all, 265. 20. The one way, 266. 21. Wears a costly crown, 267, 268, 269, 270. 22. How he became a king, 271. 23. Better to be with Jesus, 272. 24. A tender shepherd, 273. 25. The author and finisher of our faith, 274. 192 INDEX. 26. Proofs -which our Lord gave of his divinity, 275, 276. 27. The love of Jesus for the sinner, 277. 28. Seeing Jesus as he is, 278. 29. An abiding friend, 279. 30. Jesus the only Mediator, 280. 31. Jesus' name a word of resistless might when uttered by the Apostles, 281. JEW, THE. 1. A living evidence of God's fulfil- ment of his word, 282. 2. Intellectual character of the Jew, 283. JUDGMENT, THE GENEEAL. 1. God shall reward every man ac- cording to his -work, 284. 2. Everything shall be brought into judgment, 2S5. 3. The folly of man in not averting his fate, 286. JUDGMENT, MAN'S. 1. Crouching before man's judgment, 287. JUSTICE OF GOD. 1. Justice of God glorified, 288. 2. Justice and mercy combined in the work of redemption, 289. 3. God's justice conspicuous in re- demption, 290. KINDNESS. 1. Kindness a secret of success, 291. KINGDOM OF CHEIST. 1. Rules of other kingdoms reversed in Christ's kingdom, 292. 2. For the poor and humble, 293. 3. An enduring one, 294. 4. The true subjects of Christ's kingdom, 295. 5. The divine right of Christ's king- ship, 296, 297. LAWS OF THE BIBLE. 1. Criminal and civil laws of Moses, 298. LAW, THE. 1. The law is not the gate of life, 299. 2. The law written upon the heart, 300. 3. The law magnified in Jesus' death, 301. LOVE TO CHEIST. 1. Love to Christ a strong passion, 302. 2. Love as strong as death, 303. 3. The believer's motive power, 304. 4. The Christian's great strength. 305. 5. Love to Christ overcoming the love to the world, 306. LOVE OF GOD. 1. Cannot measure the paternal love of God, 307. 2. God loves to the end, 308. 3. Christ died for us because God loved us, 309. 4. The love of God commended tow- ard us, 310. 5. The love of God passes knowledge, 311. 6. God delights in love, 312. LOVE TOWARD GOD. 1. Love to God should be inflamed, 313. 2. The love of God should replace the love of the world, 314. 3. Man must love, 315. LOVE TO OTHEES. 1. Taking a loving interest in the sal- vation of others, 316. 2. Example of a fugitive slave, 317. 3. A love that seeketh not its own. 318. 4. Expansive character of Christian love, 319. 5. The discoverer of a fountain makes it known to others, 320. 6. Loving efforts for the perishing. 321. MAN. 1. The worth and dignity of man, 322. INDEX. l'J3 2. Man's capacity and incapacity, ' 323. 3. Only two classes of men in God's . sight, 324. MARRIAGE. 1. Unwise marriages, 325. 2. The first marriage, 326. MEANS. 1. Our confidence should not be in means, 327. 2. Means impotent without God's blessing, 328. 3. Unlikely means in nature, 329. 4. "Which seem unfitted to the end, 330. 5. Our eyes and our hopes should be on God when using means, 331. 6. God accomplishes great purposes by unlikely means, 332. MERCY OF GOD. 1. Mercy without merit, 333. 2. Indiscriminating mercy, 334. 3. Pitying mercy, 335. 4. The earth is full of God's mercy, 336. 5. Hope for the vilest in God's mercy, 337. 6. Mercy baring her own bosom, 338. MIRACLES. 1. Miracles not excluded by the facts of science, 339. NATURAL MAN. 1. Fine specimens of the natural man, 340. 2. The affections of the natural man, 341. 3. At enmity with God, 342. 4. The eyes of our understanding are darkened, 343. 5. Naturally amiable persons, 344. PARDON. 1. None excepted from pardon, 345. 2. The price of pardon, 346. 3. The peace which springs from pardon, 347. PATIENCE OF GOD. 1. God's patience not everlasting, 348. PEACE. 1. Heavenly peace, 349. PERSECUTION. 1. Persecution turned into good, 350. 2. The church strengthened by per- secution, 351. 3. Persecution by the Greek and Ro- man churches, 352. PIETY. 1. The most healthy is that which is the busiest, 353. 2. Practical piety, 354. POOR, THE. 1. Personally helping the poor, 355. POPERY. 1. A formidable power, 356. PRAYER. 1. Two limits to prayer, 357. 2. God's answer anticipating his people's prayer, 358. 3. No crying in vain, 359. 4. Prayer without wishes, 360. 5. The direct power of prayer, 361. 6. Easy for God to supply our great- est wants, 362. 7. God's answers to prayer corre- spond to our wants, 363. 8. A resource that never fails, 364. 9. Straitened in ourselves, 365. 10. The gates of prayer not shut, 306. 11. The test of prayer, 367. 12. Every prayer falls distinctly on Jesus' ear, 368. 13. A neglect of prayer is dangerous, 369, 370. 14. A man of prayer is a man of power, 371. PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 1. The charms of Jesus' preaching, 372. 194: INDEX. 2. The preacher feeling what he says, 373. 3. The fittest preacher, 374. 4. The illustrative style of preaching, 375. 5. Tenderness of Jesus' preaching, 376. 6. Gratifying the imagination, 377. 7. The life of preaching, 378. 8. Unjust representations of God by some preachers, 379. 9. Thinking too much of the preacher, 380. 10. The pulpit offers a man a grander position than a throne, 381. 11. What comes from the heart goes to the heart, 382. 12. Gentleness of the Apostles, 383. PKIDE. 1. Spiritual pride, 385. 2. Pride shuts out God, 386. 3. Pride in dress, 387. 4. A dreadful sin, 388. 5. Prevalence of pride, 389. 6. Peter's pride, 390. PROMISES. 1. Surpassing value of the promises, 384. PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 1 The language of the seers of the Old Testament, 391. 2. Lying calmly in the arms of Provi- dence, 392. PUNISHMENT. 1. God is slow to punish, 393. 2. Conscience approves the punish- ment, 394. 3. Love demands the punishment of the impenitent, 395. 4. God's unwillingness to punish seen in the case of the antedi- luvians, 396. REDEEMED, THE. 1. The honor and glory of the re- deemed, 397. 2. The great company of the re- deemed, 398. REDEMPTION. 1. The design of infinite wisdom, 399. 2. The spectacle which redemption offers, 400. 3. Spans an impassable gulf, 401. 4. A work without a parallel, 402. 5. The story of redeeming love, 403. 6. The motive of God in redemption, 404. REGENERATION. 1. The purest need regeneration, 405. RELIGION. 1. The world's great want, 406. 2. True religion lies in the heart, 407. 3. God requires more than a nega- tive, 408. REMORSE. 1. The terrors of remorse, 409. RENEWAL. 1. Renewal, not repair, 410. 2. Renewal indispensable, 411. REPENTANCE. 1. God rejoicing over repenting sin- ners, 412. 2. Angels rejoicing over the repent- ance of a sinner, 413. 3. Truest and deepest repentance, 414. RESURRECTION, THE. 1. The matchless change at the resur- rection, 415. RICHES. 1. The mean between riches and poverty, 416. 2. Danger and deceitful influence of riches, 417. 3. Earthly and heavenly riches, 418. 4. Very unfortunate for some men to be wealthy, 419. RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 1. Imputed righteousness of Christ, 420. INDEX. 195 2. The robe of Jesus' righteousness, 421. 3. A spotless robe of righteousness, 422. EIGHTEOUSNESS, MAN'S. 1. Man's righteousness filthy rags, 423. ROMANISM. 1. Vatican-made deities, 424. 2. The idolatry of Eomanism, 425. 3. Salvation by works Rome's princi- ple, 426. SALVATION. 1. The inestimable value of the gos- pel salvation, 427. 2. The sacrifices at which salvation was obtained, 428. 3. Its perfect character, 429. 4. The pivot on which salvation turns, 430. 5. Effort required on our part, 431. 6. Salvation free to all, 432. 7. Putting off salvation, 433, 434. 8. God is mighty to save, 435. 9. Seeking salvation, 436. 10. The source of salvation, 437. 11. The infatuation of rejecting salva- tion, 438. 12. God glorifying himself in saving man, 439. 13. "Work out your salvation, 440. 14. No one need despair of salvation, 441. 15. Holiness not a prerequisite to go- ing to Christ, 442. 16. A saving word, 443. SANCTIFICATION. 1. The Christian an example of grad- ual development, 444. SATAN. 1. Satan's defiance and defeat, 445. 2. Triumph and defeat of Satan, 446. 3. How Satan is overcome, 447. 4. Tempts us when distressed, 448. 5. Emblems of Satan, 449. 6. A sleepless and ceaseless adversary, 450. . 7. Types of Satan, 451. SCIENCE. 1. The infidel's attack from physical science, 452. 2. Using the facts of science to undermine religion, 453. 3. Science confirming the Bible ac- count of the destruction of the world, 454. 4. Credulity of scientific men, 455, 456. 5. The Nilotic brick demolishing Moses, 457. 6. Modern science and Moses, 458. 7. Science dismisses all Adams but one, 459, 460. SERVANTS. 1. Servants honored, 461. SIN. 1. Glozing over sin, 462. 2. A life-long battle with sin, 463. 3. The sum of our sins, 464. 4. Proneness of even Christians to sin, 465. 5. Guard against the beginning of sin, 466. 6. God's abhorrence of sin, 467. 7. Sin and suffering, 468. 8. Nothing so easy as to sin, 469. 9. Dying to sin, 470. 10. Sin is a heart disease, 471. 11. The saint not free from sin, 472. 12. Sin the greatest folly, 473. 13. Your sin will find you out, 474. 14. Returning to sin is treading Jesus under foot, 475. SINNERS. 1. Condition of the alarmed sinner, 476. 2. All have sinned. 477. 3. 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The world should be turned up- side down, 499. WORLD, THE (EARTH). 1. A grand destiny awaits the world, 500. WORKS OF GOD. 1. God's works reveal his power, 501. 2. Unapproachable excellence in God's works, 502. 3. God's works infinitely surpass man's, 503. WOMAN. 1. More religion among women th. men, 504. 2. Holy heroism of Christian women, 505. 3. Religion owes mostto woman, 506. 4. Woman owes much to the huinan- izing influences of Christianity, 507. PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK & WAGNALLS. 10 and 12 DEY STREET, NEW YORK. RELIGIOUS WORKS. Analytical Bible Concordance, Revised Edition. Analytical Concordance to the Bible on an entirely new plan. Containing every 'word in Alphabetical Order, arranged under its Hebrew or Greek original, with the Literal Meaning of Each, and its Pronunciation. Exhibiting about 31 i, 000 References, marking 30,000 various readings in the New Testament. With the latest informa- tion on Biblical Geography and Antiquities. 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The London Christian World Pulpit says: "We have no hesitation in describing these 'expositions,' for such they really are, as most luminous in their interpretation of the Divine sayings. Ihey glow The above works will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price. PUBLIC ATIOXS Of PUNK d- W AON ALLS, NEW YORK. inake sturJier efforts in Christ's uame. . . . The prayers which accompany them are remarkable for tenderness and power." The St. Louis Presbyterian says : " The reader will find much to delight, much to instruct, much to edify." The Syracuse Northern Christian Advocate says: "For richness, originality and vividness of thought, ani for force of expression, these sermons are not surpassed by any in the English language." with h:ly fire, and they are inspirational alike to intellect, conscience and heart, it is pre-eminently a book for preachers. We pity the Christian who is not stimulated and helped by this volume, placed so easily within the reach of all. The volum ) has interested us beyond measure at times ; it has thrilled us with vital convictions of truth, and, at the last page, like ' Oliver Twist,' we want more." The Boston C mgregationalist says: *' They are ex- ceedingly stirring sermons in the best sense. . . . They rouse the reader to taie fresh courage and Through the Prison to the Throne. Through the Prison to the Throne. Illustrations of Life from the Biography of Joseph. By Rev. Joseph S. Van Dyke, author of "Popery tne Foe of the Church and of the Republic." l6mo, cloth, 254 pp., $1.00. The Treasury of David. By Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon. 8vo, Cloth. Price per volume, $2.00. Spurgeoris Authorization.— " Messrs. I. K. Funk & Co. have entered into an arrange- ment with me to reprint The Treasury of David in the United States. I have every confidence in them that they will issue it correctly and worthily. It has been the great literary work of my life, and I trust it will be as kindly received in America as in Eng- land. I wish for Messrs. Funk success in a venture which must involve a great risk and much outhv. "C. H. Spurgeon." Dec. 8, 1881". Date of Issue. — Volume I., issued February 28th; Volume II., April 28th; Volume III., June 28, and one volume about every two months thereafter. Philip Schrff, D.D., the Eminent Commentator and the President of the American Bible Revision Commit- tee, says: " The most important and practical work of the age on the Psalter is ' The Treasury of David,' by Charles H. Spurgeon. It is full of the force and genius of this celebrated preacher, and rich in selections from the entire range of litera- ture." William M. Taylor, D.D., New York, says: "In the exposition of the heart 'The Treasury of David' is sui generis, rich in experience and pre-emi- nently devotional. The exposition is always fresh. To ihe preacher it is especially suggestive." John Hall, D.D., New York, says: " There are two questions that must interest every expositor of the Divine Word. What does a particular passage mean, and to what use is it to be applied in public teaching? In the department of the latter Mr. Spurgeoa's great work on the Psalms is without an equal. Eminently practicil in his own teaching, he h is collected in these volumes the best thoughts of the best minds on the Psalter, and especially of that great body loosely grouped together as the Puritan divines. I am neartily glad that by ar- rangements, satisfactory to all concerned, the Messrs. Funk & Co. ara about to bring this great work within the reach of ministers everywhere, as the English edition is necessarily expensive. I wish the highest success to the enterprise." William Ormiston, D.D., Nev York, says: "I con- sider ' The Treasury of David ' a work of surpass- ing excellence, of inestimable value to every stu- dent of the Psalter. It will prove a standard work Van Doren's Commentary. on thePsalms for all time. The instructive intro ductions, the racy original expositions, the numer- ous quaint illustrations gathered from wide and varied fields, and the suggestive sermonic l-i'ta, render the volumes invaluable to all preacner. 1 -, nd indispensable to every minister's library. All -j-'j delight inreading the Psalms — and what Christ an. does not ? — will prize this work. It is a rich cyclo- paedia of the literature of these ancient odes." Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn, says: " I have us 3d Mr. Spurgeon s 'Treasury of David' for three years, and found it worthy of its name. Whoso goeth in there will find 'rich spoils.' At both my visits to Mr. S. he spoke with much en- thusiasm of this undertaking as one of his favorite methods of enriching himself and others." Jesse B. Thomas, D.D., Brooklyn, says: "I have the highest conception of the sterling worth of all Mr. Spurgeon's publications, and I iucline to re- gard his ' Treasury of David' as having received more of his loving labor than any other. I regard its publication at a lower price a3 a great service to American Bible Students." W.H. Van Doren. D.D., the Author of the "Sug- gestive Commentary," says : " A life work of the Prince oj Preachers. No minister of the Church of Christ for 1300 years has drawn and held such a number of h jarers so long. If the secret of his power is here revealed, it will be a Treasury, price- less in value, for centuries to come." Rev. Henry Ward Beecher say s : "Whatever comes from Spurgeon is presumptively good." A Suggestive Commentary on Luke, with Critical and Homiletical Notes. By W. H. Van Doren, D.D. Edited by Prof. James Kernahan, London. 4 vols., paper, 1104 pp. (Standard Series, octavo, Nos. 54-57), $3.00; 2 vote., 8vo, cloth, $3.75. Spurgeon says: letic hints " It teems and swarms with homi ■ Canon Ryle says : " It supplies an astonishing amount of thought and criticism." Bishop Clieeny says : " I know of no volume in my library I could not consent to spare sooner." Dr. Cx'tver says : " It is the best mullum in parvo I have ever seen." The above works will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price. PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK & WAGNALLS, NEW YORK. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. Bulwer's Novels. Leila ; or, The Siege of Granada; and, The Coming Race; or, The New Utopia. By Edwabd Buxweb, Lord Lytton. 12mo, leatherette, 284 pp., 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. Sartor Resartus; The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh. By Thomas Cab- LYiiE. 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Appleton's Encyclopcedin , 1860 edition, " Carlyle," page 443, eays: "In the course of the year 1833-4, he published in Eraser's the most peculiar and re- markable of all his works— the quaint, the whim- sical, the profound, the humorous, and the poetic ' Sartor Resartus,' into which he seems to have poured all the treasures of his mind and heart. Under the eccentric guise of a vagabond German Communism. Communism not the Best Remedy. A pamphlet for the times containing the following three great discourses in full : " Social Inequalities and Social Wrongs," by J. H. Rylance, D.D. ; "How a Rich Man may become Very Poor, and a Poor Man Very Rich," by Theodor Christlieb, D.D. ; " Vanities and Verities," by Rev. C. H. Spur- geon. 8vo., paper, 10 cents. Dickens' Christmas Books. A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man. 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A new book of 19 sermons to farmers, by Charles H. Spubgeon. The following list of subjects will show its importance in the way of suggestions to every clergyman who has farmers or lovers of nature in his congregation: 11. "What the Farm Laborers can do, and what they cannot do. 12. The Sheep before the Shearers. 1. The Sluggard's Farm. 2. The Broken Fence. 3. Frost and Thaw. 4. The Corn of Wheat dying to bring forth Fruit. 5. The Ploughman. 6. Ploughing the Rock. 7. The Parable of the Sower. 8. The Principal Wheat. 9. Spring in the Heart. 10. Farm Laborers. Price $1.00. Gems of Illustrations. From the writings of Dr. Guthrie, arranged under the subjects which they illus- trate. By an American clergyman. A priceless book for clergymen and all public teach- ers. Price $1.50. WW The above works will be sent by mail, Postage paid, on receipt of the price. 13. In the Hay-Field. 14. The Joy of Harvest. 15. Spiritual Gleaning. 16. Meal-time in the Cornfields. 17. The Loaded Wagon. 18. Threshing. 19. Wheat in the Barn. PUBLICATIOXS OF FUXK & W AG X ALLS, XEW YORK. Burial of the Dead. By Rev. George Duffield, D.D., and Rev. Samuel W. Duffield. A Pastor's Complete Hand-Book for Funeral Services, and for (he consolation and comfort of the afflicted. This work is a complete handy -volume for all purposes con- nected with the Burial of the Dead. It is arranged, for ease of reference, in four parts. Entirely practical, wholly unsectarian, and far in advance of all other Manuals of the kind. Price, Cloth, 75 cents; limp leather, $1.00. The Deems Birthday Book. By Sara Keables Hunt. This book is being gotten up in beautiful style, making it a very acceptable present for birthdays or other occasions. It contains some hundreds of the choicest extracts of the writings and addresses of Dr. Charles F. Deems, the well-known pastor of the Church of the Strangers, New York. These extracts are printed on the left-hand pages throughout the book. On the right-hand pages are printed the days of the year; two dates to each page, one at the top and one in the middle of the page; for example, on first date page, January 1st is printed on the top, and January 2d at the middle of the page. Under each date there is space for a number of friends to write their names, each name to be written under the date of the birth of the writer, so that at a glance at the book the owner can tell the birthday of each of his friends. The book thus serves as a most convenient autograph album. Each volume contains a number of autographs of leading clergymen, as Spurgeon, John Hall, Canon Farrar. Phillips Brooks, etc., etc. At the close there are a number of blank pages on which are to be written, in alphabetical order, the names of all your friends contained in the book. The book has for a frontispiece a very fine vignette portrait of Dr. Deems. What could be a more pleasing and appropriate present than this book ? Every family should have one. Price, Cloth, Plain Edges, $1.00; Gilt Edges, $1.25. The Diary of a Minister's Wife. By Almedia M. Brown. One editor says of it: " Some Itinerant's wife has been giving her experience out of meeting." Says one who has lived in the family of a minister for over a quarter of a century: "It's funny; yes, it's very funny; but it's true— it's all true. Let those who want to know the ups and downs of the life of a minister and his wife read this book." Another reader says of it: "I have never read a book in which I was so much inter- ested and amused at the same time. The story of the trials of Mrs. Hardscrabble with the ' Doolittles' is alone worth ten times the cost of the book. Every one should buy it, and let his minister and his wife read it." Complete Edition, 12mo, 544 pages; Handsomely Bound in cloth, Price $1.50. What Our Ciris Ought to Know. Br Mary J. Studley, M.D. A most practical and valuable book; should be placed in the hands of every girl. Intelligently read, it will accomplish much in the elevation of the human race. The book is full of the most practical information— just what every girl ought to know — must know. Clergymen and others who have occasion to address, in sermon or lecture, girls, will find this book "crammed with suggestiveness." The author, Dr. Mary J. Studley, was a physician of large practice and great success. She was a graduate, resident physician and teacher of the natural sciences, in the State Normal School, Framingham, Mass., also graduate of the Woman's Medical College, !New York : Dr. Emily Blackwell, Secretary of the Faculty, and Dr. Willard Parker, Chairman of the Board of Examiners. Price, $1.00. JP&- 7 he above works will be sent by mail, tostage paid, on receipt of the price. PUBLICATIONS OF FUXK & WAGNALLS, Nli THE STANDARD SERIES. 1. John Ploughman's Talk; or, plainAd- vice to Plain People. By Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon. On the Choice of Books. By Thomas Carlyle. Both in one. 12 cents. 2. 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I). Without Notes. Con- tents and Index in full. Two parts. 50 cts. This is the most popular "Life of Christ" which has been written since the Gospeis were closed. Over 300,000 copies have been sold. It should be in ■every family. This Life, and the companion one of St. Paul, are of great value to the Sabbath-school teacher and all lovers of the bible. 8. Carlyle's Essays: Goethe, Burns, Luther's Psalm, Schiller, Memoirs of Mirabeau, Death of Goethe. By Thomas Carlyle 20 cents. 9 and 10. The Life and Work of St. Paul. By F. W. Farrar, D. D. With- out Notes. Contents and Index in full. In two parts . . ...... 50 cents. The Cnngregationalist, Boston, says : " We think 1 rt few will deny this to be probably the most inter- e:ing life of Paul ever published." 11. On Self Culture : Intellectual, Physical and Moral. By Prof. John Stuart Blackie 10 cents 12 — 19. The Popular History of Eng- land : A History of Society and Govern- ment from the Earliest Period to our Own Times. By Charles Knight Complete in eight parts $2 80 Bound in two vols., cloth ... 3 75 A'lihone says: "Having long earnestly desired the appearance of a complete History of England and of T/!^' J he above works will be sent by m< 22. Idyls of the King. By Tennyson. Arranged in the the English— o{ the people, as well as of their kings— ot the customs of the fireside, as well as the intrigues ot the court— we acknowledge with gratitude the ac- complishment of our wish in the ' History of England ' by Charles Knight, one of the first literary benefactors of his age." 20 and 21. Letters to Workmen and Laborers: Fors Clavigera. By John Ruskin, LL. D. In two parts. 30 cents. Alfred Arranged in the order de- signed by the author 20 cents. 23. Rowland Hill— His Life, Anecdotes and Pulpit Sayings. By Rev. Vernon J. Charlesworth. With introduction by Charles H. Spurgeon . . . .15 cents. 24. Town Geology. By Charles Kings- ley, Canon ofChester .... 15 cents. 25. Alfred the Great. 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A Statement of its Principles and Methods. By Robert Walter, M.D. With Introduction by Joel Swartz, D.D. Octavo . . 15 cents. An excellent book, full of practical hints on how to get well, and how to keep well, without the use of medicine. The author ab'y maintains that food, prop- erly used, is the best of medicines. His suggestions are sensible, and easily put in practice. 60. Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions ot Herr Teufelsdrockh. By Thomas Carlyle. Octavo . 25 cents. Bound in one vol., 8vo, cloth . 60 cents. 61 and 62. Lothair. By the Rt. Hon. b. Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Com- plete in two parts, octavo. . . . 50 cents. Bound in one vol.. 8vo, cloth Ji 00. 63. The Persian Queen, and Other Pic- tures of Truth. By Rev. Edward P. Thwi.ng. Octavo 10 cents. 64. The Salon of Madame Necker (Mother of Madame De Stael). Tran- slated from the French. Part III. (con- taining Parts V. and VI. of the origi- nal) 15 cents. 65 and 66. The Popular History of English Bible Translation. By Mrs. H. C. Conant. New edition, Revised and Continued to the Present Time. By Thomas J. Conant, D.D. Complete in two parts, octavo 50 cents. Bound in one vol., 8 vo, cloth . . $1 00. J. Stanford Holme, D.D „says: " It is interesting as a novel, and, beyond all comparison, the best wor'< of the kind ever written. It ought to be in everybody's hands." 67. Ingersoll Answered. "Whatmu^t I do to be saved ?" By Joseph Parker, D.D. Octavo form 15 cents. 68 and 69. Studies in Mark. By D c. Hughes. 8vo, in 2 parts. . . 60 cents. 70. Job's Comforters. A Religious Satire. By J. Parker, D.D., London . 10 cents. The above works will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price. 13 THE PRACTICAL CYCLOPEDIA OF QUOTATIONS. i 7,000 Quotations— 50,000 Lines of Concordance. A MOST VALUABLE REFERENCE BOOK. What Representative Men Say: Hon. Samuel J. Randall, Ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, writes from Washington under date of January 7 : " Enclosed find check for copy of ' Cyclo- paedia of Quotations.' I am much pleased with it. I consider it the hest book of quo- tations which I have seen." Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, M. C, writes :— " In relation to the ' Cyclopaedia of Quota- tions,' I desire to express my sincere thanks to you and to the authors of this admirable publication. The labor bestowed must have been immense, and the resultis a work indis- pensable to authors, scholars and speakers. The completeness of the indices is simply astonishing ; and altogether the design is so well executed as to leave nothing to be de- sired on the part of those who may have occasion to find or verify a quotation. And who is there who has not such need ? " New York, Jan. 3, 1882. Mr. Jas. E. Harvey, Private Secretary of Vice-President Davis, writes :— "At the request of Judge Davis, I have examined the plan of the 'Cyclopaedia of Quotations,' and have practically tested its merits by reference to original authorities. It is admirably organized and fills a void long felt by professional and public men, and even by those engaged in literature. Such pains- taking and precise work as this book exnibits on every page, fairly entitles it to large suc- cess." Vice-President's Chamber, Washington, Jan. 4, 1882. Maj.-Gen. George B. McClellan writes:— " It is the most perfect work of the kind I have yet met with, and I confidently recom- mend it as a book that should be in every private and public library." Hon. Oeo. F. Edmunds, U. S. Senator, writes: — " An inspection of your ' Cyclopaedia of Quotations^ satisfies me that it is the most complete and best work of the kind with which I am acquainted. The arrangement and classification are admirable, and the book constitutes a rich treasury of gems gathered from many fields of literature. It deserves a place on every library table." Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C, Jan. 5, 1882. Henry W. Longfellow writes from Boston:— "I shall often read and enjoy this ' Cyclo- paedia of Quotations. ' I am glad to see that it is so thoroughly furnished with indexes of authors and subjects. It can hardly fail to be a very successful and favorite volume. ' George William Curtis writes :— " I congratulate the authors and publishers on the happy completion of a work which must have cost a great deal of labor. It m a handsome volume. * * Am sure to find it a most serviceable companion." Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College, writes:— "I shall value the book for its own worth, and am confident it will be a help and pleas- ure to many." Gen. Winfield S. Hancock writes :— " It is a work carefully and intelligently compiled, and of great practical use." Gova-nor's Island, New York Harbor, Jan,. 6, 1882. Gen. Stewart L. Woodford writes:— "It seems to me the most complete and accurate work of the kind I have ever seen. Such a book is almost invaluable." Office of the U. S. Attorney, New York, Jan. 6, 1882. Oliver Wendell Holmes writes from Boston, Mass.: "It is a very handsome and immensely laborious work; has cost years to make it. * * I shall let it lie near my open diction- aries. * * It is a massive and teeming vol- Wendell Phillips writes: "It seems to contain almost everything one can need, or wish, of fine and striking and valuable thought in English and other tongues. * * It is of rare value to the scholar, and to those who have not had an opportunity to become such." Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., writes:— " A most valuable adjunct to the reading- table and writing-desk. It is elaborately and judiciously prepared/' George Washington Childs, Editor oi the Philadelphia Ledger, writes : " I send you $20.00 for your 'Cyclopaedia of Quotations.' " He also encloses a notice of the work from his paper from which we quote : "This is unique among books of quotations. . . . It is impossible to give a full idea of this rich store-house, except to say that ato any one who dips into it will place for it among his well-choaen books." Hon. Rev. J. Hyatt Smith, Member of Congress, writes: " It is a monument of labor and taste. . . The book has the first place in my library this side the Bible and Cruden." Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Sec- retary of State, Washington, writes: " The authors have overcome the difficul- ties in the way of producing a book of useful and interesting reference which goes over new ground in a new way. Am much pleased with it." J.H.Rylance, D.D., writes Jan. 13th.; "I have carefully looked through and tested the 'Cyclopaedia of Practical Quota- tions' as a book of reference, and am thank- ful to have lound it so thoroughly reliable. It is the best bit of work of the kind that I know. It will henceforth be to me a friend always at hand. Such helps are increasingly needed as the treasures of literature grow, and as the demands upon a man's time mul- tiply." What tne Press in America say: From New York "Herald," Jan. 2 — "This is by long odds the best book of quo- tations in existence, and it may for usefulness be placed beside such works of patient labor as Mary Cowden Clarke's Concordance to Shakespeare. Indeed, it is the much more meritorious as a labor, in that it needed a thorough ransacking of the authors using the English language for the finding of its ma- terial, although many compilers had broken the ground. The joint authors, J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. Ward, are Americans, and Mr. Hoyt is a journalist. We offer them our con- gratulations on the taste, research and in- genuity they have displayed. The general idea of a book of quotations is that it is an easy means for the unlearned to put on the varnish of erudition; for the pretentious to keep up their priggishness; for the writer with poverty of wit to set the gems of genius in his work. Another aspect of its use is that its gems ot speech, if fairly set, are always welcome. There is a difference, too, between robbing the cradle and the grave of literature for phrases between quotation marks, and acknowledging by them that what has teen so well said cannot be bettered in form by the writer or speaker. It may, however, be fra .kly admitted that much quotation is van- ity or affectation. A book like the one we have been perusing is nevertheless distinctly valuable in furnishing the man with a phrase noating in his mind the exact language of the phrase. It is not pretended by the authors that every quotable phrase in'the language has been culled, but a pretty thorough over- hauling of its contents has shown that without being periect in this respect it is wonderfully full. The headings are generally well chosen, though occasionally a cross reference to kin- dred headings would have been an advantage. The list of authors is formidable, and the numerical strength of selections from them fairly represents their standing. To the con- cordance of English quotations, we give our warmest approval. There, indeed, will be found the work's greatest usefulness to the man of letters. The greatest care has been taken in the indexing, and all quotations are not only properly credited to the author, but the line, scene or stanza, and the title ot the work, play or poem quoted from, are given. The book is a large, well-printed octavo ot 900 pages, and will at once take its place in well-regulated libraries. At first we were in- clined to resent the term, ' practical quota- tions,' and we are not yet reconciled to it, but practicability is the essence of the book's construction, and we only wish it had instead been called ' a practical cyclopaedia of quota- tions.'" From tne Daily "Journal of Com* merce," New York : " Messrs. I. K. Funk <5t Co. have sent us an advance copy of their ' Cyclopaedia of Practical Quotations, English and Latin, with a Copious Appendix.' The work has been compiled by Mr. J. K. Hoyt, who was for many years managing editor of that excellent newspaper, the Newark Daily Advertiser, and Miss AnnaL. Ward, said to be a lady of taste and culture. Such a compila- tion cannot fail to be highly useful. Those who, like ourselves, have spent weary days in hunting for familiar quotations, wilf heart- ily appreciate the work, calculated, as it is, to abbreviate such wearisome labors ; while those who wish a pleasant companion for a leisure hour will find ample entertainment in its crowded pages. It has a very copious in- dex, on which a vast amount of work has been expended to render the contents of the book available at once to the busy student. It is a whole library in itself, and those whose means will not allow them to accumulate many books, or who have not time to consult them in detail, will find this condensed sum- mary of so many notable things worthy of re- cord, a most vaiuable treasure." From the Boston " Globe," Jan. 8. "One of the most valuable books of the time is the comprehensive 'Cyclopaedia of Practical Quotations,' by J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. Ward, and published in attractive style by the New York firm of I. K. Funk & Co. There are over 17,000 quotations, in- cluding many not included in previous com- pilations, and unusual care has been shown in making them strictly accurate, as well as in giving the authorship, where that was as- certainable. An admirable system of classi- fication has been adopted, there being nearly a thousand subject-heads ; and by the full concordance, which forms such a valuable feature of this book, every one of these quo* tations is made readily available. The sub- divisions of the Cyclopaedia will commend themselves to every reader. Special mention seems to be called for regarding such char- acteristic features of this book as the collec- tion ot nearly 2,000 quotations from the Latin, the list of proverbs and familiar sayings in French, German, Italian and other "modern languages ; the department of Latin law terms, which is particularly valuable ; and a biographical dictionary of the names of the 1,200 authors quoted in this work. In all respects the Cyclopaedia, with its 900 pages, is worthy to be accounted as one of the great publications of the day. A monument of in- dustry and well-directed work, marked by thorough system, this ' Cyclopaedia of Prac- tical Quotations ' must at once take its place among the few really standard books— a vol- ume indispensable to the man of letters, and one which should be in the library of every reader." From the "Christian Union," New York : "The ' Cyclopaedia of Practical Quota- tions,' prepared by J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. Ward, and published by I. K. Funk & Co., will prove a valuable publication. To any person who has ever needed its aid the ordi- nary dictionary of quotations is a grief of heart and a vexation. What you want you never can find, and what you do not want is perpetually presenting itself. Moreover, such collections are usually ill-digested and worse edited, and of no earthly good when you call upon them. We can except from this verdict Mr. damage's ' Beautiful Thoughts ' series ; but these are too fine to be popular. What the people want, and what the student and the professional man and the literary man all want, is a working cyclopaedia — and here it is, at last. " Opening the pages at random, we strike the gloomy, but important, topic, 'Death,' and discover fourteen columns given to this alone, and the authors' names arranged alpha- betically; while each quotation on the double- columned octavo pages is distinguished by an italic letter for the sake of easy refer- ence. Some departments, such as 'Trees,' 'Flowers,' 'Birds,' 'Occupations,' 'Months,' 'Seasons,' «tc, have also sub-heads, and quo- tations are classified, for greater convenience, under them. In things like these there is hardly an improvement to be suggested. It is quite the same, too, when we observe the character and scope of the Latin extracts, of which there are in the neighborhood of two thousand, including law and ecclesiastical terms, proverbs and mottoes. But the high- est praise we can bestow we are readv to give to the ' concordance ' by which the Eng- lish quotations are rendered, available. "If we descended to a certain small and hypercritical style of investigation we could probably find a few faults, such as the au- thors themselves will probably discover and correct in a later edition. No great work is free from occasional blemishes, and we have observed some ourselves, which we might certainly take the liberty to note. But such a vast piece of labor, involving both skill and judgment, and covering more than nine hun- dred pages, invites and even challenges a broad and fair discussion of its merits and defects. The former are all summed up, to our mind, in two words : convenience and usefulness. It nearly supersedes Mrs. Cow- den Clarke's ' Concordance to Shakespeare ' for practical utility. And the compilations of Allibone (over which we have often grown wrathy enough) and Bartlett (which it drains to the dregs) are quite out of competition. "On the whole, we rejoice over this book. We shall no longer beat over half of creation for an elusive quotation. We shall be greatly preserved from a desire to employ what Bishop Coxe happily styled ' an appropriate form of words by which Christian people might suitably express themselves on occa- sions of great spiritual provocation.' If we misquote the bishop's language ourselves, we do it unintentionally, and we know he will set us right. He might, perhaps, furnish a certified copy for the second edition of the ' Cyclopaedia.' "It remains that we should add that in this heavy undertaking Messrs. Funk & Co. have shown good typographical taste and judg- ment, and have put the book on excellent pa- per, and in a durable and neat binding, and offer it at a moderate price. The defects which a smaller style of criticism may dis- cover will doubtless be promptly remedied, but for the scope and usefulness of the work itself we have most hearty and unqualified approbation. Especially, too, because our American authors are so largely repre- sented." From the Daily " Times," New York : "If this new competitor with the established books of quotations had no better feature to | recommend it, the elaboration of its index would place it before others of the kind. The main index is, in fact, a concordance, and occupies more than two hundred large octavo pages of close print. It is followed by a con- cordance to the English translations of the Latin quotations, the list of which is very large. The Latin quotations have their own index. There are also topical indexes for the English and the Latin subjects; an alpha- betical register of the authors quoted ; a list of ecclesiastical terms and definitions ; an- other of Latin law terms and phrases in com- mon use ; a compilation of Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese and other proverbs and mottoes. Under the title of ' Unclassified Quotations ' are ranged many short sayings of noted authors in the order of their initial letters. Naturally enough, the very purpose for which such books are compiled is defeated if the reader cannot turn readily to the quo- tation wanted. Half the use of cyclouaediaa of quotations comes from the need of some work of reference which shall render exactly the floating memory of the phrase. Some little clue is lurking in the mind, the general bearing of the desired sentence is known but the conscientious quoter wants to quote rightly or not at all. Hence the value of in- dexing after this fashion, where it needs only a slight clue to lead the eye to the de- sired quotation. Moreover, when found thia compilation gives a further clue to the where- abouts of the context, which may, after all, be the object in view. An editor's claim that the grouping of certain prominent objects, like those under 'Birds,' 'Flowers' or 'Trees,' is novel. ' Not a line,' they assert, has been knowingly added merely to* expand the book. The elaborate indexes are secondary to the general alphabetical plan on which the sub- jects are arranged, and under each subject the quotations stand alphabetically, according to the name of the author. An ingenious sys- tem of small letters indicates the quarter of the double-columned page in which the quo- tation stands," From the Boston "Post," Jan. 10. "The entire reading public, but more es- pecially the great army of students and literary workers, will hail this volume with undisguised satisfaction, for it is a boon to them that they have time out of mind longed for in vain. * * * Is a monument of in- dustry, research and learning. * * * The book is indexed in the most superior manner, both according to topics and by a concord- ance to the English quotations. The magni- tude of the work which has been done in the compilation of this cyclopaedia impresses one at the very outset, and the authors have every reason to be proud of what they have jointly accomplished. Mr. Hoyt is a trained journal- ist, having been managing editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser for many years, and the arrangement of the book and all its methods show a thorough understanding of the needs of those for whom it is intended. Miss Ward is said to be a lady of exception- ally fine culture and literary taste, and of this the work gives good evidence. For con- venience and usefulness the work cannot, to our mind, be surpassed, and it must long re- main the standard among its kind, ranking side by side with, and being equally indis° pensable in every well-ordered library, as Worcester's or Webster's dictionary, Eoget's Thesaurus, and Crabb's Synonyms. Enthusiastic Comments from the Advance Subscribers. valuable. Compilers' work thoroughly done." Arch- ibald Gunn, Windsor, N. S. Can find the stolen scraps. — "They have a great feast of languages and stolen the sciaps, Concordance brings every quotation under tlie eye at once.— *' Valuable to any public speaker — its range ofsubjecisis extensive, and the complete concordance brings every quoiation under the eye at once." — Geo. H. Brown, Cherokee, La. Treasury of Information. — "Your literary friends owe you a debt of gratitude for such a treasury of information so thoroughly digested, and yet admir- ably indexed."— R. F. Bunting, Galveston, 1 exas. " All that my fancy painted it."— W. G. Puddeford, White Clouds, Mich. Surprised at the size and quality.— "Am surprised at the size, extent of quotations and their quality." — Rev. W. K. Smith, Atlanta, Ga. An excellent work.-" An excellent work. Am well satisfied." — S. Bixbv, Holland, Mass. Never saw its equal.— "The most acceptable book of q'otations I ever saw." — Rev. F. J. Grimes, Park Hill, N. H. " Exactly fits a niche in my Library." —Henry M. Grant, Middleboro, Mass. Far surpasses anything of the kird. — " Far surpasses anything of the kind 1 have ever seen." — I. B. Banker, Morgan Park, 111. Remarkably iow in price.— " It is what you claimed for it, and remarkably cheap at that." — F. B. Haule, Holyoke, Mass. The help needed.— "It is in a line where I have need of help."— Fayette Hurd, Laingsburg, Mich. Without a peer. — "A work of very great merit, and is without a peer."— Jesse F. Sharpe, Newburg.N. Y. " V book of great value."— F. G. Claris, Gloucester, Mass. Well-chosen compilation —"A splendid re-inforcement to any man's library — a comprehensive, wide-scoped,well-chosen compilation." — G. G. Baker, Baltimore. It has the pithy sentences speaker* need. — •' My highest expectations have been realized. It is the short, pithy sentences that the speaker needs, and not the long-drawn, though very ornate, "illustra- tion."— Rev. I. M. Fuet.Jr., Staunton, Va. Beyond comparison the best.—" Far urpasses my expectations, and is, beyond comparison, the best work of its kind I have ever seen."— Rev. E. R. Eschbach, D. D., Frederic, Md. Exceeds highest, expectations.— " Ex- ceeds my high est expectations." — C. Price, Harris- burg, Pa. Far surpasses our promises.—" Far sur- passes my expectations and your promises." — I. B. Saxton, Troy.N. Y. Surpasses the high reputation our house led him to expect.— •' Knowing the reputation of your house, I was prepared to see in the •Quotations' a first-class work. But I must confess that it far exceeds my expectations." — I. M. Hamp- ton, St. Louis, Mo. Superior to -what he anticipated.— " Much superior to what I anticipated. Contents 1 is true with regard to the book. And the beauty of it is, that you can find the 'scrarjs' by the exjellent in- dexes."— Peter Lindsay, Seneca Falls, N. Y. A masterpiece in English literature.— " A work of superior merit, a masterpiece in English literature. The best work of the kind ever issued fr^m the American press." — Chas. M Cain, Clarksville.Va Scholarship, research and tact.— " Scholarship, research and tact, have combined to produce a work of rare worth."— I. W. Olewine Manor Neill, Pa. Never saw its equal — " Have never seen anything to equal it in arrangement and quality of quotations." — £'. Albert, Teacher of Mathematics in the MillersviLe, Pa., State Normal School. Most brilliant gems of literature. — " The quotations cover a wide field with some of the most brilliant gems of the literature of the English and other languages."— I. Burnett, PinePlains, N. Y. Key that will unlock many treasures. — " It is a magnificent work, a key tha' will unlock many treasures of thought to the wise scribe and to the mit ister of discerning spirits, realms of noblest power. The lecturer who would succeed in both interesting and edifying his audience, cannot sfford to dispense with this most valuable work." — R. W. Jenkins, Boothbay. Its superior is not to be found in liter- ature. — " Reaches my highest expectations in both quantity and quality oi matter. I think it next to im- possible to find its equal, and its superior is not in anv field of literature. 'Ihe price is aster. ishingly low." — Rev. A. L. Hutchinson, Morrison, 111. Every literary family should have it. — "I am much pleased with the wide range of quota- tions; would recommend its presence in every familv inclined to literary pursuits."— S. M. L. Thickstun, principal of the Central University, Pella, Iowa. No library is complete without It. — "No library can be complete without it." — Rev. T. A. Bracken, D.D., Lebanon, ky. Scholars can't afford to be without it. — "A glance will show that no scholar can affnrd to do without it." — Rev. J. P. Williamson, Yankton Agency, Dak. Ter. The typography gooii for sore eyes. — " Its typographical appearance is beautitul, and good for sore eyes. lam surprised to find it so agreeable a bookin every respect."— Rev. F. E. Kittredge, State Missionary of the Michigan Unitarian Conference. Found authorship at once.— "Has already enabled me to find the authorship of two poetical quo- tations in common u e which no member of our society knew."— J. A. Hendricks, Collegeville, Mont. Co., Penn. Twenty years in want of one.— "For twenty years 1 have wanted a_ concordance of quota- tions. I immediately tested this one, with perfect suc- cess."— C. Huntington, Lover, Del. It contains every desirable quotation to be found in otber books of tbe kind, and, be- sides, thousands of quotations not heretofore collected. The Acctjbacy of all Quotations has been Carefully Vebtfted; the authorship of eaoh has been identified, and the place where to be found indicated. The arrange- ment embraces many new features, which will Make at once accessible every one of the 17,000 QUOTATIONS. Pwces: Royal 8vo, over nine hundred pages, heavy paper, in cloth binding, $5; in sheep, $6.50; in half morocco, $8; in full morocco, $10. FUNK & WACNALLS, Pulishers, IO and 12 Dey Street* N- Y* %-\ !^>