LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 isujqjrt 
 
 Shelf _/ijfi^B 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 THOUGHTS AND THEMES TO AID 
 AND STRENGTHEN IT. 
 
 2 
 
 JOHN G. ADAMS, D.D. 
 
 " He that believeth hath the witness in himself." — 1 John v. 10. 
 
 11 God grant you to be strengthened with might by Lis spirit in 
 the inner man." — Eph. iii. 16. 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
 1884. 
 
?t» 
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 By Universalist Publishing House. 
 
 University Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
Eo IHg mite : 
 
 COMPAXIOX AND HELPER IX THE CHRISTIAN 
 SERVICE AND LIFE. 
 
" There is a religion behind all religions, and happy is the man 
 who knows it in these days of materialism and atheism" — Max 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 " The thing we are apt to fail of to-day is not breadth and 
 thoroughness of knowledge of what is about us, but of what is 
 above and within us" — Rev. T. T. Munger, "Freedom of 
 Faith," p. 53. 
 
 " What is it, that I, as to my person, have lived here or there, 
 or done this or that ? It is the journeys the soul has made, the 
 altars it has built, and the inscriptions it has written thereon, 
 which constitute a life" — Mrs. H. C. McCabe. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is a twofold life for us all, the inward and 
 the outward. That the outward be right and true, 
 the inward must be. Here is just where Christian 
 instruction begins with man, by enlisting his heart, — 
 his affections ; putting them in tune, that the true 
 life shall be given out from them. Being born again, 
 born from above, renewed by heavenly love, all this 
 implies Tightness at heart. The Christian is in 
 reality what his inner life makes him. lie may 
 appear to men in one aspect, and to God entirely 
 in another. If there is to be a good and strong 
 life-work done, there must be a strong life-power 
 within to render this work actual, continual, and 
 effective. If the Golden Rule is to be observed, 
 it will not be by any ordinary cleverness of the 
 individual, any contentedness with a kind of average 
 piety and benevolence which may be natural to the 
 soul without much extra exercise or striving. You 
 must have a living, w r akeful, watchful, prayerful soul 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to do that, or it will not be clone. It was with this 
 inner life that Jesus had most to do. It is more than 
 anything else insisted upon in the New Testament. 
 " We know that he abideth in us by the spirit which 
 he hath given us." 
 
 The reader will note in these pages very plain 
 indications of the theological opinions and connec- 
 tions of the writer ; but also, it is hoped, some good 
 measure of that charity ever in readiness to accept 
 and give out the benediction, "Grace be with all 
 them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 
 
 That those who consult these few pages may be 
 
 directed to the attainment and enjoyment of the 
 
 u eternal life" in Christ, is the earnest prayer of 
 
 the writer. 
 
 J. G. A. 
 
 Melrose Highlands, Mass., 
 December 1, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Sunday Worship and Every-day Life . „ 
 
 Life a Feast 24 
 
 Walking with God 37 
 
 The Witness Within 47 
 
 Saints and Saintsiiip 57 
 
 Jesus the Morning Star 05 
 
 Entertaining Angels 72 
 
 What is Death to Us ? 85 
 
 Present Salvation 89 
 
 Secret and Source of Spiritual Life . . 95 
 
 The Holy Sfirit 105 
 
 Abhorrence of Evil, Adherence to Good . . lOfl 
 
 Thoughts for Palm Sunday 122 
 
 Devotional Life of the Home 134 
 
 Silence 146 
 
THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 SUNDAY WORSHIP AND EVERY-DAY 
 LIFE. 
 
 Oh, ever with the opening dawn 
 
 May saintly purity attend ! 
 Faith sanctify the mid-day hours ; 
 
 Upon our souls no night descend ; 
 
 Breviary. 
 
 TT was a devout prayer of the psalmist David, 
 at a certain time when calamity had over- 
 taken him, and he remembered his seasons of 
 
 inspiration and joy in the services of the Tem- 
 ple, — ",My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh 
 longeth for thee ; to see thy power and glory 
 so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." 1 
 
 It long since passed into a proverb that we 
 never know the worth of our blessings till we 
 realize the loss of them ; that " our mercies 
 brighten as they take their flight/' The ser- 
 vices of the Temple had been oue of the highest 
 enjoyments of the Psalmist. Now he was desti- 
 
 1 Ps. lxiii. 1, 2. 
 
10 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 tute of these in calamity, and hungered for that 
 which would supply the want. He found in his 
 experience that these seasons of rapturous near- 
 ness to heaven did not remain. They were 
 often transient, ending with the occasion which 
 awakened them, and leaving the mind to which 
 they had ministered to relapse into worldliness, 
 forgetfulness, error, and sin. But for this he 
 might not now have realized this sense of des- 
 titution. 
 
 Do we not in this experience of David read 
 somewhat of our own ? Do we not all remember 
 seasons when in our public religious exercises 
 it seemed that the worth of God's truth and our 
 life in it were brought with such an irresistible 
 power upon us, that we have been ready to say, 
 " Lord, we believe ; help thou our unbelief ! 
 How shall we doubt thy word ? how henceforth 
 fail to delight in thy testimonies ? " But the 
 occasions pass, the worship-seasons end, and 
 back again we have fallen into the influences ad- 
 verse to Christian devotion and life, — while all 
 this time the great and unalterable claims of 
 Heaven upon us are the same, and while we 
 know they must be evermore. These considera- 
 tions may serve to impress us with the instruc- 
 tive truth, that the religion of the Christian 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP AND DAILY LIFE. \\ 
 
 sanctuary service should be also the religion of 
 every-day life. 
 
 Look at the order of our Sunday Christian 
 service. Its principal observances are, Read- 
 ing of the Scriptures, the Hymn of Praise, the 
 Prayer, the Sermon, and the Benediction. Each 
 exercise has its signification, and all the services 
 combined have their salutary effect on the devout 
 and listening mind. And as they arc instituted 
 and observed that they may go further than the 
 time and occasion that called them forth: as the 
 intent of their moral impression is the spirit- 
 ual improvement of mortals in all days and un- 
 der all circumstances, — we may very clearly 
 see the great significance of the Christian life 
 by an embodiment of it under each and all of 
 the forms just alluded to. Let us consider — 
 
 1. That our daily life should he a Consulta- 
 tion of the Scriptures. When the Divine Word 
 which they contain speaks to us as we consult 
 their pages in the Christian sanctuary ; when it 
 there opens before us its grand and striking evi- 
 dences of the wisdom, power, and glory of God, 
 — we cannot fail to see, as we give our atten- 
 tion to its teachings, its perfect adaptedness to 
 our nature ; to our moral capacities, desires, 
 and aspirations. Its impressive and wonderful 
 
12 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 histories, its lofty imagery, its apt parables, its 
 sublime prophecies, its matchless precepts, and 
 " exceeding great and precious promises," — all 
 seem to us to stand in the light of a higher 
 wisdom than that of man, and to afford us that 
 refreshment and strength which we feel that the 
 soul needs through all the mysterious manifesta- 
 tions of its being. We have, as the ministries 
 of this Word have dropped upon our hearts, been 
 arrested, enlightened, corrected, improved, con- 
 soled, and blest. 
 
 Now we should understand that these minis- 
 tries of the Scriptures are for every day and 
 hour. They do not change when we meet them 
 elsewhere ; nor is their importance lessened in 
 the least degree when we seek their wisdom 
 on other days than Sunday. This Bible is our 
 daily directory ; often should we have it before 
 us for reference, as the navigator would his chart 
 and compass, the merchant his day-book, the 
 architect his plan. What we hear from it in 
 the sanctuary will hold good when we find it 
 elsewhere on the same page or in the same 
 expression. Though our interest in it may 
 change, this Word will not. It can know no 
 change. Though heaven and earth pass away, 
 it shall endure while its Author is true and 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP A XI) DAILY LIFE. 13 
 
 immutable, and our nature needs his teaching 
 and his care. We may have this Word with us 
 wherever we go, and always find in it the very 
 direction and support we need. The Bereans of 
 old were esteemed more noble than the Thessa- 
 lonians, in that " they received the word with all 
 readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures 
 daily whether these things were so." 1 They 
 were not satisfied with hearing or reading the 
 Scriptures on public worship-occasions only, but 
 had them at their homes, and there held com- 
 munion with the Wisdom from above, speaking 
 so fully and freely through them. This was a 
 praise-worthy example, and we shall do well to 
 heed it. No other communications coming to 
 us, no increase of reading matter of a different 
 character, such as is so constantly pouring in 
 upon us in this day, can excuse us for neglect 
 of this supreme companion above all other vol- 
 umes. Were it the hand-book and heart-book 
 of us all, our most ordinary life would be filled 
 with new attractions, and all its best interests 
 pervaded with the power and the glory of God. 
 
 2. Our daily life should be a Hymn of Praise. 
 We all recognize the propriety of this service in 
 the Christian sanctuary. The solemn chant, the 
 
 1 Acts xvii. 11. 
 
14 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 fervent song, the "spirit-kindling anthem," all 
 become that day which celebrates the mission 
 as well as the resurrection of him whose advent 
 to our earth was heralded by the songs of angels. 
 The sentiment of every soul when lifted heaven- 
 ward by such a temple service is that of the 
 Psalmist: " Praise God in his sanctuary ; praise 
 him in the firmament of his power ; praise him 
 for his mighty acts ; praise him according to his 
 excellent greatness ; praise him with psaltry 
 and harp ; praise him with stringed instruments 
 and organs! Let everything that hath breath 
 praise the Lord! " 
 
 The all-pervading beneficence of God is a 
 perpetual call to cheerful devotion. If there are 
 frownings in his providence, the smiles of his 
 grace are seen also ; if clouds and darkness, 
 gleamings and the clear shining of that right- 
 eousness and judgment in which his throne hath 
 endurance and glory. Hopelessness and sinking 
 of the heart, in view of his government and 
 dispensations, may come where faith in his pro- 
 vidence is narrow or dim, and the evil is seen to 
 be more powerful than the good; when to the 
 anxious vision, salvation seems but 
 
 ' * to the few confined, 
 And heaven too narrow to contain mankind." 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP AND DAILY LIFE. 15 
 
 But such is not that representation which the 
 Gospel unfolds. That is a revelation of joy 
 "unspeakable and full of glory;" and whenever 
 
 we contemplate its vast means and ends, we shall 
 find reason for highest thanksgiving and praise, 
 because its moans and ends are worthy of a God 
 of infinite wisdom and love. 
 
 But this hymning of the praises of God need 
 not be confined to the Sunday sanctuary exercises. 
 It may become a life-service also of the Christian 
 believer. In Banyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" we 
 are told of the hospitalities offered to Christian 
 on his experimental journey, at one of his tarry- 
 ing places. "The pilgrim they laid in a large 
 upper chamber, whose window opened towards 
 the sun-rising. The name of the chamber was 
 Peace, where he slept till break of day, and then 
 he awoke and sang." And one of our own poets. 
 in an admirable notice of this passage, concludes 
 his song with the Christian desire, — 
 
 u Be called my chamber react 1 , when ends the day ; 
 And let me with the dawn, like Pilgrim, sing and pray." 
 
 But not in the fresh morning-time only may this 
 music of the soul find utterance. It may go up 
 from us through the day. It may not be uttered 
 in words ; may not break out in the harmonious 
 strains of voice or instrument. It may be better 
 
16 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 than either. It is that inward unison of the soul 
 that can make music for us wherever the place 
 of our mortal sojourning may be. It can send 
 up its praises and hallelujahs from the dustiest 
 highway, from the obscurest sick-room, from the 
 deepest dungeon, from the busiest and noisiest 
 throng, or from that silence and sadness which 
 reign at the bedside of the dying or at the door 
 of the tomb. It comes of the consciousness of 
 duty done, of acquiescence in the divine will, 
 of devotion to the constant and living service of 
 the Father of all. It softens many a harsh 
 strain, drowns many a discord, makes smooth- 
 ness through many a rough passage of human 
 experience. It is the grand hymn constantly 
 chanted, the holy anthem ever going up from the 
 soul at peace with itself and with heaven. 
 
 3. Our daily life should also be a Prayer. 
 The service of prayer in the Christian sanctuary 
 is justly regarded as one of the indispensables 
 there. Assembled numbers thus express their 
 acknowledgement to the Infinite One, and im- 
 plore his aid in their weakness, and his supply 
 of their wants. The petition to " Our Father 
 who art in heaven," is never more appropriate 
 than in such seasons when we would signify our 
 dependence upon him for " life and breath and all 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP AND DAILY LIFE. 17 
 
 things." But this very prayer, or any prayer which 
 we may justly offer for the common blessing! 
 life, needs to have no exclusive locality for its 
 utterance. Each clay of life demands it as much 
 as any Sabbath hour. If God lived and wrought 
 for us only on this first day of the week, then 
 might our prayers to him he confined to that 
 day ; but it i^ he who constantly upholds us, 
 and reveals to us his glory. — a power and glory 
 the same as that which the word of the sanc- 
 tuary announces and unfolds. k - Give us this 
 our daily bread," is a petition appropriate not 
 only in the pulpit and pews. l>ut at the family 
 altar, and at the table of <>ur common providen- 
 tial supply each day. There should be home- 
 prayers as well as church-prayers, - well 
 as public, daily as well as weekly . s. We 
 need more prayers in the domestic circle, in the 
 closet of the heart, in our daily intercourse with 
 the world, in all the endeavors and through all 
 the accomplishments of life. True prayer is the 
 soul's sustenance. It cannot really know God 
 without it, and cannot with it fail of knowing 
 him, — something of him, for its light and 
 strength and peace. 
 
 But that life may be a prayer, we should 
 understand the great import of this service. It 
 
18 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 is devotion; it is action. To ask is not all. 
 There should be corresponding exertion, when 
 exertion is possible. Seeking and finding, as well 
 as asking and receiving, are in the lesson of 
 Jesus. The prayer of words may be sincere, 
 but it may be followed by no attempt in work to 
 give these words significance and power; or it 
 may be ceremonial mainly. He who would truly 
 ask for life's blessings must be willing to take 
 that course which, under the wise and immutable 
 laws of heaven, will secure them. " Pray with- 
 out ceasing " is another form of expression, in- 
 cluding such direction as this : " Whether ye eat 
 or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
 of God." To pray " Lead us not into tempta- 
 tion, but deliver us from evil," and then to run 
 voluntarily into the way of both, is but mockery 
 and shame. To ask " Forgive us, Lord, our 
 sins," and still to retain the unforgiving spirit, 
 is the same. To plead " Give us daily bread," 
 and then to indulge in indolence, hath no coun- 
 tenance, no approval of heaven. The whole life- 
 prayer should be service to truth and the right. 
 Strive for that which you are asking of God. 
 
 "Brother, kneeling late and early, 
 Never working, praying ever, 
 Up and labor ; work is prayer, 
 Worship is the best endeavor." 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP AXD DAILY LIFE. 19 
 
 4. Our daily life should also 1 \e a Sermon. The 
 discourse in the Christian sanctuary-service is, 
 or should be, a plain, practical enforcement of 
 the truth of God in reference to life. It should 
 have its proofs and illustrations ; its consistency, 
 thoroughness, completeness ; its unction, too, in 
 the heavenly spirit that pervades it. So should 
 our whole life be thus an expositor of the salu- 
 tary and mighty power of God's Word. 
 
 There are two senses in which we should make 
 life a sermon. One is, in seeking, through all its 
 presentations to us, in all its experiences, con- 
 stant self-instruction and improvement. The 
 other is, in making this life so impressive that 
 .others may be blest in their knowledge of it. 
 Life is a school, and we are here to be learners 
 in it. God, in his greatness and goodness, is 
 constantly teaching us. That thought of the 
 poet, that Ave may find 
 
 " Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything," 
 
 is ill accordance with what we are saying. Even- 
 day is to us, if we attend to it, a sermon : every 
 object of creation, a living text, from which there 
 ray out in every direction the luminous truth and 
 beauty, the wisdom, skill, and goodness of the 
 
20 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 Eternal Source. Sunlight, rain-drop, cloud and 
 wind, yale and mountain, field and forest, sea 
 and shore, — all speak to us the Great Original. 
 Our common supplies proclaim his impartial good- 
 ness, in that universal language heard beyond all 
 creeds, saying " God is love," whatever the theol- 
 ogies of the world may affirm. And in our daily 
 walks, and in his dealings with us, — whether 
 prosperous or adverse as we use these sayings, — 
 we still may learn of God, and make ourselves 
 wise in the teachings he shall impart. Joys 
 should make us thankful, and woes should 
 humble us ; prosperity teach us gratitude, and 
 adversity trustfulness of mind. Our frailties 
 should show us the duty of charity for the faults 
 of others, and amendments of our own ; and our 
 whole intercourse with our fellow-men should 
 give us new and higher views of faith and hope, 
 and the love that never faileth. 
 
 Then our life will be, must be, read by others. 
 What but a sermon of divine truth should it 
 be ? You remember what the early Christian 
 believers are termed by one of their number, 
 " an epistle known and read of all men." 1 They 
 were ; and what evidences of loyalty and true 
 glory do we find in their lives ! As ancient Cy- 
 
 1 2 Cor. iii. 2. 
 
SUNDAY WORSHIP AND DAILY LIFE. 21 
 
 prian wrote, " We do not speak great things, but 
 live them." 
 
 Our world has had many truthful and instruc- 
 tive discourses, in human experiences which have 
 been revealed to it. What sermons on industry 
 and economy have we in such men as Wesley 
 and Franklin ; of perseverance, in Columbus and 
 Livingstone; of philanthropy, in Howard. Ober- 
 lin, and Wilberforce ; of patriotism, in Leonidas 
 and Washington; of Christian principle and 
 self-sacrifice, in the great Apostle t:> the Gentiles ! 
 How these men preach to their fellow-men in all 
 ages and climes! And far above and beyond 
 all, what a sermon of never-waning strength and 
 grandeur have we in that immaculate life whore 
 the image of the Father is seen, " full of grace 
 and truth" ! Though his words are with power 
 whenever they come home in their directness 
 to the soul, how greatly is this power enhanced 
 when the fact of his life accompanies them. 
 What a profound and irresistible discoursing is 
 such a life, of the glory of truth and the beauty 
 of holiness ! And how through all time will 
 this appeal stand, to arrest the attention of man- 
 kind, turn them "from darkness to light, and 
 from the power of Satan unto God"! 
 
 The glorious Gospel, — which proclaims the 
 
22 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 final triumph of righteousness over sin, of good 
 over evil, and the reconciliation of all souls to the 
 beneficent Father, — in its theological presenta- 
 tions, makes its constant and fearless appeals to 
 the reason, the understanding, of mankind. But 
 when the life, in accordance with its instruc- 
 tions, is the argument in favor of it, who that 
 sees and knows it can resist its power ? It will 
 proclaim itself more impressively than all mere 
 word-utterances that could be made by the 
 tongues of men or of angels. Such representa- 
 tives of this Gospel, wherever on the earth they 
 may be found, can truthfully take up the strain 
 of the poet : — 
 
 ' 'Our harp-notes should he sweeter, 
 
 Our trumpet-tones more clear, 
 Our anthems ring so loudly 
 
 That all the world must hear ! 
 Oh, royal be our music. 
 
 For who has .pause to sing 
 Like the chorus of redeemed ones, 
 
 The children of the King !" 
 
 And so let us see in clearest light the teaching 
 of the topics upon which we have now dwelt. 
 Let us aim to have our constant life-service a 
 Prayer of trust, a Consultation of God's living 
 Word, a Hymn of thanksgiving, a Sermon of 
 truth and righteousness, of love to God and 
 
VDAY WORSHIP AND DAILY LIFE. 23 
 
 man ; and in all, and through all, and at the end 
 of all, let there be a Benediction of heavenly 
 good-will, saving : "The grace of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ be with us all forever. 
 Amen." 
 
24 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 LIFE A FEAST. 
 
 Oh, for fuller life we pine ; 
 Let us more receive of Thine ; 
 Still for more on Thee we call, 
 Thou who fillest all in all ! 
 Live we now in Thee ; be fed 
 Daily with the living bread. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 A SIGNIFICANT statement of the Christian 
 life is contained in the similitude used by 
 Jesus : " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
 certain king, which made a marriage feast for his 
 son." 1 Man needs that aliment on which his 
 spirit can feed, and of which his true vitality 
 must be supplied and increased. Apt and 
 instructive statements of Scripture set this forth. 
 In the Old Testament record we hear the divine 
 voice speaking to the subjects of human error 
 and delusion : " Wherefore do ye spend money 
 for that which is not bread, and your labor for 
 that which satisfieth not?" 2 Earnest seeking 
 was there because of human want ; but the good 
 which the seekers required was not found by 
 them. They did not apply to the right sources. 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 2. 2 Isai. lv. 2. 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 25 
 
 Their soul-feasting was a mockery, as the prophet 
 affirmed : " As when a hungry man dreameth, 
 and behold he eateth, but he awaketh, and his 
 soul is empty ; or as when a thirsty man dream- 
 eth, and behold he drinketh ; but he wakcth, and 
 behold he is faint and his soul hath appetite." 
 Such were the effects of error, the pursuit of 
 wrong, and indulgence therein. Hence this 
 expostulation of heavenly wisdom. But expostu- 
 lation is not all. There follow kindly entreaty, 
 heavenly invitation and direction: " Hearken dili- 
 gently unto me, and eat ye that which is good ; 
 and let your soul delight itself in fatness." x 
 
 Thus the spiritual blessings in Christ are set 
 forth in the parable of the Marriage Feast. The 
 banquet was prepared ; the invitation was sent 
 out, — accepted by the few, by the many rejected ; 
 then the consequences of acceptance, — fulness, 
 rest, peace ; the doom of those who refused the 
 proffered good, — what the banished from heav- 
 en's truth must find, — "outer darkness," desti- 
 tution, affliction. The beautiful parable is one 
 of a series spoken by Jesus in illustration of the 
 excellency of that gift with which he came from 
 the Father to mankind. The feast signifies not 
 only a supply of the natural wants, but a full, a 
 
 1 Isai. lv. 2. 
 
26 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 pleasurable supply. There could not be a more 
 significant comparison. It answers to the idea 
 of the Psalmist : " How excellent is thy loving 
 kindness, Lord ; therefore do the children of 
 men put their trust under the shadow of thy 
 wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with 
 the fulness of thy house, and thou shalt make 
 them to drink of the river of thy pleasures." * 
 It is not mere spiritual existence that Jesus 
 brings to man, but " life more abundantly." 
 When Paul would endeavor to express the ful- 
 ness of this blessing, he exclaims : " Now unto 
 him that is able to do exceeding abundantly, 
 above all that we ask or think, unto him be 
 glory in the Church, by Jesus Christ, throughout 
 all ages, world without end." 2 
 
 Man's life in God's truth, as Jesus reveals and 
 imparts it, constitutes this feast, this fulness. 
 It is the most satisfying, strengthening, and 
 enduring spirituality, " the true God and eternal 
 life " within. Let us note a few of the con- 
 stituents of this true feast of life in man. 
 
 1. Knowledge of God and trust in him. No 
 dispensation like that of the Gospel makes 
 known the divine guardianship, impartial, uni- 
 versal, perfect as it is. And this is the view yet 
 
 i Ps. xxxvi. 8. 2 Eph. iii. 20, 21. 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 27 
 
 needcd in Christendom ; for other conceptions 
 of God than those of his paternity abound. 
 The human heart, in its deep and unsatisfied 
 cravings for rest and peace, has been grievously 
 and unspeakably tormented with them. No 
 degree of personal purity has been able to bl 
 the soul truly, while these dark and unpaternal 
 aspects of the Deity were in the soul's view- 
 To talk of submitting to the divine sovereignty 
 and to be reconciled to such confusion has only 
 been the severest mockery of man's reason and 
 holiest affections, The Gospel, instead of being 
 "good news," has contained most terrific intelli- 
 gence to mortals, and to many a one. as to the 
 gifted Saurin, instead of a perpetual feast of 
 heavenly truth and grace, has been "a mortal 
 poison," diffusing itself through all life's expe- 
 riences, and rendering existence itself "a cruel 
 bitter." Hence the need of showing men what 
 God is, that knowing him they may put their 
 trust in his infinite paternity. What a comment 
 upon Christianity is it, that millions, professing 
 a knowledge of its sublime doctrines, should find 
 some of them so revolting as to be explained 
 only on the supposition that hereafter the kindly 
 sympathies, which here cause us to feel so keenly 
 the afflictions of others, will then become so 
 
28 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 changed as to find reconciliation, and pleasure 
 even, in view of endless woes inflicted upon the 
 irreclaimable outcasts from God's presence and 
 love ! A meagre feast must life be at times 
 under such appalling contemplations ! 
 
 Life, then, needs trust in God, — true and 
 strong trust. And this means something more, 
 something higher and stronger, than a mental 
 conclusion that he is adequate to all our wants 
 and weaknesses, and that whether we are obe- 
 dient or disobedient, morally wakeful or drowsy, 
 faithful or unfaithful, his grace is sufficient for 
 us. This is indeed the lowest order of trust ; 
 and we are thankful that the weakest creature of 
 humanity has it, when all other trusts fail, to 
 awaken him to moral life and to duty. But 
 I speak now of a higher trust, one that implies 
 intrenchment in principle, self-reliance, a good 
 conscience, the conviction that God's ways are 
 righteous, and that only in conformity to them 
 can moral safety be found, — heavenly elevation 
 and rest. Talk not of life as a feast to him who 
 has not confidence enough in his own sincere and 
 good intentions to have confidence in God ; who 
 must know that he is false, pretentious, seeming 
 to be instead of being loyal to right, and ready to 
 follow wherever it leads always. Oh, the lean- 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 29 
 
 ness and starvation that come of this false- 
 heartedness in man ! Xo external things can 
 compensate for it — no standing, no profession, 
 no word-piety whatever. God is not trusted in, 
 because the soul has not cast itself upon him, 
 and agreed to abide by his Word and run with 
 readiness in his commands. If we would have 
 the true life-feast, we must have a divine and 
 constant trust, such as will enable us to say, in 
 every call, duty, trial, change, — whatever life 
 may bring, — as said the youthful Samuel, who 
 waited day and night in the Temple : " Speak, 
 Lord, for thy servant heareth ; " or with the 
 Psalmist : " The Lord is my light and my salva- 
 tion ; whom shall I fear ? Though a host should 
 encamp against me, in this will I be confident. 
 In his tabernacle shall he hide me." Such is the 
 highest life, such the soul's banqueting in the 
 Almighty's secret pavilion ; such the inner and 
 enduring life of him who said once to human 
 weakness and distrust, " I have meat to eat that 
 ye know not of. " 
 
 2. Spiritual growth and improvement are 
 implied in this life-feast. What can we make 
 of ourselves ? This is the main question of life. 
 Powers are given us, not to hold merely but to 
 improve. If we do not improve them, then we 
 
30 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 are suffering loss with them. Life's greatness 
 is measured by our means of realizing and 
 enjoying it. We have the privilege of putting 
 ourselves upon interest. How large shall the 
 percentage be ? That depends upon our use of 
 the principle. The parable of the Talents tells 
 us that. Woe to him who hides his in the earth ! 
 Blessing for him who uses and improves the 
 smallest that may be given him ! He shall in 
 nowise lose his reward. In this work of self- 
 making, self-growth, accumulation, improvement, 
 all life's realities may aid us. The smallest 
 work we have to do, if a duty, may have God's 
 aid and blessing in it. Prosperity may make us 
 grateful, trial and affliction bring us that disci- 
 pline through which the soul most bowed and 
 humbled often passes into higher and higher 
 realms of contemplation and assurance, into 
 grander fields of spiritual experience and enjoy- 
 ment. Fulness comes of faithfulness. Thus 
 can the soul be multiplying its inward resources, 
 and in the midst of the world's leanness and 
 want find — what the Word assures us are ever 
 at God's right hand, where his true and chosen 
 have their portion — " fulness of joy and pleas- 
 ures forevermore." " The object of life," says 
 Goethe, "is life itself. If we but do our duty 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 31 
 
 to our own minds, we shall soon come to do it 
 to the world." 
 
 3. Beneficent action is another constituent of 
 this life-feast. To live harmless is not the whole 
 of life. To be useful is one of its chief blessings 
 and ends. " No man liveth unto himself." No 
 man should be a drone in this vast hive of hu- 
 manity. He has a work to do with others and 
 for them. As freely as he has received, so freely 
 should he give. God delights in communicating 
 good, and thus we are directed and encouraged 
 to be his children. No luxury life affords is like 
 that of beneficent action. Heaven is made joy- 
 ous because of the errands of mercy and love 
 upon which its angels are permitted to go abroad 
 through all God's realms. 
 
 But this beneficent action often involves sacri- 
 fice. There are duties meeting us which as often 
 as they come impose on us self-denial, and in 
 which we may make ourselves really heroic and 
 noble. Bereavements sadden our spirits, vexa- 
 tions provoke us, labors oppress, and watchings 
 weary us. Bearing these meekly and firmly is 
 a part of the highest life we can realize here. 
 This experience may not be known to the world : 
 it is none the less acceptable to God and blessed 
 to man. And not a Kttle of this heroism may 
 
32 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 there be in our most ordinary life. Some one 
 has said that " the daily sacrifices of a laboring- 
 man to duty may involve more bravery of soul 
 than the achievements of patriots and heroes ; 
 and the devotion of an unlettered girl, comforting 
 through years the bed-ridden winter of a parent's 
 age, may contain a holier martyrdom than any 
 which the Church has canonized or glorified." 
 To lighten the burdens of others ; to bear our 
 testimony in our ready word or action against 
 wrong ; to refuse to follow the multitude to do 
 evil ; to say no with a firm voice, from conviction 
 of God's right, when most others are readiest to 
 say yes, — or yes, when they are most loudly 
 clamoring no ; to obey the heavenly call through 
 evil and good report, — in all these experiences 
 there is something else than mere ease of mind 
 or luxury of sense. There is resolute, earnest, 
 persistent action, downright work, — work which 
 we are sacredly bound to do, and which will 
 abundantly remunerate the doer. And he who 
 enters upon it with readiness and perseverance 
 will find, in many an hour of life, his darkness 
 light, and his dishonor glory in the Lord. What- 
 ever waste or want there may be at other daily 
 life-repasts, his shall be a feast of heavenly 
 fulness and joy. 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 33 
 
 4. Faith in the soul's immortality is the 
 crowning blessing of this feast, — faith that sees 
 the good in the present as a blessed indication 
 of what the future shall be. If " men did eat 
 angels' food," as one of the Scripture writers 
 calls the giving of the manna to Israel, so do 
 they in this contemplation of the glorious life 
 to come. This life-feast, however sumptuous in 
 other supplies, w T ill utterly fail to give the soul 
 fulness, if this assurance of the future is left out 
 of it. Its highest joy comes in the conviction, — 
 
 " I feel my immortality o'ersweep 
 All pains, all groans, all griefs, all fears, — and peal, 
 Like the eternal thunders of the deep, 
 Into my ears this truth, Thou livest forever." 
 
 Nor is this all, as the poet has spoken it. This 
 immortality is the common blessing of the race — 
 spiritual uprising, change, renewal, perfection. 
 
 What of this life-feast are we in readiness to 
 enjoy ? Diogenes, reprimanding a youth for 
 wasting time at a Bacchanalian feast, inquired, 
 " Dost thou know, boy, that to the good man 
 every day is a festival?" What heathenism 
 could thus conceive of, Christianity verifies. As 
 the renowned Chrysostom, in his comments on 
 the words of Paul, said: "Let us keep the feast 
 [the Christian Passover or Communion] not 
 
 3 
 
34 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 with the old leaven of unrighteousness, but with 
 the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. . . . 
 Therefore the present time is a feast-time, for 
 when he says, ' Let us keep the feast,' he does 
 not say this because it was then Easter or Whit- 
 suntide, but to show that all times are feast-times 
 for Christians, in virtue of the superabundance 
 of the blessings imparted to them." 
 
 In seeking the best of life in its material or 
 earthly forms merely, the writer of the book 
 of Ecclesiastes sums up the mournful result : 
 " Therefore I hate life, because that the work 
 wrought under the sun is grievous unto me ; for 
 all is vanity and vexation of spirit." 2 If we con- 
 sult one of the most gifted of poets, we read, — 
 
 " The spiders most attenuated thread 
 Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie 
 Of earthly bliss ; it breaks at every breeze." 
 
 " I once attempted," said Byron, "to enumerate 
 the happy days I had lived, — which might, ac- 
 cording to the common use of language, be called 
 happy. I could not make them count more than 
 eleven, and I believe I have a pretty distinct 
 account of every one. I often ask myself, 
 whether, between the present time and the day 
 
 i Eccl. i. 14. 
 
LIFE A FEAST. 35 
 
 of my death, I shall be able to make up the round 
 dozen." On the morning of the day previous to 
 the death of Talleyrand, a paper was found on the 
 night-table, near his bed, on which he had thus 
 written : " Behold eighty-three years passed 
 away. What cares, what agitation, what anxiety, 
 what ill-will, what sad complications! And all 
 without other result except great fatigue of body 
 and mind, and disquiet with regard to the past, 
 and a profound sentiment of discouragement and 
 despair with regard to the future ! " A mourn- 
 ful confession indeed for one who died possessed 
 in abundance of this world's wealth, and of all the 
 earthly honors which the sovereigns of Europe 
 could bestow. 
 
 What mean these utterances ? Why, that life 
 is not life considered simply as a pleasure, a 
 round of dissipation, a gain of material good 
 only, balanced against the spiritual aspiration, 
 toil, strife, and discipline which most souls need 
 to make them healthful, strong, and free. " My 
 world has been very beautiful and my life happy," 
 said a dying young man, who had been stricken 
 down by a mysterious disease with fairest worldly 
 prospects before him, shut up for years in the 
 chamber of suffering, helpless and blind ! Oh, 
 the compensations of Christian truth and faith, 
 
36 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 the grandeur of that vision which sees Him who 
 is invisible ! 
 
 Life is great ; all human life is, from its origin, 
 its dependencies, its connections with the past, 
 the present, and the future. We talk, sometimes, 
 of periods in time, of days of special interest, — 
 birthdays, Christmas, the closing of the Old or 
 the beginning of the New Year. But where are 
 the periods in this continuous life of ours ; and 
 where are the days that are not special ? What 
 time is greater than to-day, as we stand in God's 
 presence, to hear his voice and to do his holy 
 will ? Is not life always great, and may we not 
 always be true and welcome guests at its holy 
 festival ? Let us ask ; let us determine. The 
 banqueting-room of the Infinite is open. " The 
 Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; and let him that 
 heareth say, Come ; and whosoever will, let him 
 come ! " 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 37 
 
 WALKING WITH GOD. 
 
 No longer would my soul be known 
 
 As self-sustained and free ; 
 Oh, not my own ! oh, not my own ! 
 
 Lord, I belong to thee ! 
 
 T. H. Gill. 
 
 "\T7HEX we read of early and distinguished 
 patriarchs of our race, as in the instances 
 of Noah and Enoch, that they " walked with 
 God," we perceive their acquaintance with one 
 great want of our nature, and the means of 
 supplying it. Men can no more truly live with- 
 out God than respiration can be freely carried on 
 without air, or health and vigor continue in the 
 bodily system without suitable food. 
 
 The great mistake with many religionists, who 
 profess to believe in God, is, that he is not to 
 them the reality that he should be. He is rather 
 an abstraction, — not near, but afar off; not so 
 much in the present as in the past or future. 
 We should have a clearer conception. While we 
 have such evidences of God's existence as are 
 given us, we are bound to treat the subject of 
 nearness to him — communion with him — as 
 
38 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 though it were a reality. It needs to be made 
 a certainty in our conviction. It will, if we have 
 the right measure of faith. The first and great 
 commandment is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart." This does not signify 
 a love of abstract truth, right, goodness, but 
 something deeper, more intimate, — a personal 
 attachment to an individual spirit, to an identical 
 being, the Living God ; a tender, confiding love 
 towards our Father, which augments in our souls 
 the love of right and truth and goodness. To 
 love him, we must love his character, must love 
 purity, goodness, and truth ; and with a love of 
 these, must possess in our hearts the conscious- 
 ness of a friend in whom we may confide, and 
 whose presence will be to us one of the chief 
 lights, supplies, and blessings of our being. 
 
 We need to realize that this name, Heavenly 
 Father, signifies all that we can desire of spirit- 
 ual light, aid, hope, comfort, strength, and peace ; 
 that if we have this Father we may consult him 
 as the child would his near and waiting and 
 provident parent. So speak the olden voices : 
 " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
 strength ; " "I have set the Lord always before 
 me ; because he is at my right hand I shall not 
 be moved ; " " He that cometh to God must 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 39 
 
 believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of 
 all them that diligently seek him." l No lesson 
 is more clearly taught in all the Scriptures than 
 this, — that our great need is a secret soul-piety 
 as well as a religion of outward manifestations, 
 a closet as well as an out-of-door religion, a com- 
 munion with God as well as a work with man- 
 kind. And this is to say, that the power of our 
 religious influence and the essential value of 
 our religious activity will be in proportion to the 
 sincerity and depth of our inward spiritual life. 
 The stream must have its fountain. There must 
 be a supplying and sustaining power behind all 
 these institutions, — churches, ministers, prayers, 
 praises, religious enterprises, and accomplish- 
 ments, at home, abroad, anywhere in the world. 
 Just so far as there is this inward, hidden force 
 of truth and' love, aspiring after the knowledge of 
 God and the inward imbibing and outward diffu- 
 sion of his spirit, just so far will there be abiding 
 prosperity and strength with Christianity among 
 men, and no farther. Those to whom we are 
 indebted for what we have of truest religious 
 advancement and blessing with our race, have 
 been those living, like the ancient patriarchs, 
 near to God, taking counsel of his Word, com- 
 
 1 Isai. xl. 31 ; Ps. xvi. 8 ; Heb. xi. 6. 
 
40 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 miming with his spirit, leaning in secret upon 
 his almighty arm, and supplying the pulsations 
 of their own spiritual vitality from the fulness of 
 the Infinite Heart itself. Had not our Noahs 
 and Enochs, our Pauls and Johns, lived of old, 
 we should find deeper darkness than we now do 
 among men. Did Ave not now have, in some of 
 our churches, at our devotional altars, in the 
 secret paths of life in our world, those who live 
 near God and draw their inward strength from 
 communion with him, our prophecies of greater 
 good in store for man would falter upon our lips, 
 our confidence in what we call our religious 
 prosperity often fail. But of this we feel sure, 
 that God is to be sought and found by his chil- 
 dren ; that he will " indeed dwell with men upon 
 the earth," raise them into heavenly places, and 
 impart to them the treasures of his saving 
 grace. 
 
 Too many regard this walking with God as a 
 religious rapture or communion which the patri- 
 archs of old could enjoy, but have little or no 
 conception of the absolute nearness of the same 
 God now to them. As James Martineau has so 
 aptly said : " There in old Palestine, we think, the 
 august voice broke for a moment the eternal 
 silence. Had we stood where Moses was, and 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 41 
 
 travelled at the right hand of Paul, we should 
 have felt as they." This might, or might not, 
 have been. What is our kind and degree of 
 communion with God now ? The right answer 
 to this may serve to show what might have been 
 had we lived in those other days of the world's 
 history. God has never spoken to any one of our 
 race in the past more clearly and emphatically 
 than he has " spoken unto us by his Son." He 
 speaks, too, in the same nature, in the same daily 
 providence, in the same accents of heavenly truth 
 and holiness and love. Let us be as true to our 
 lessons from heaven as those old saints (with all 
 their earthly imperfections) were to theirs, and 
 we shall know, as really as they, the mystery of 
 communing with God. Noah was but one of our 
 race. What knew he of God that we may not ? 
 Let us search and see. 
 
 Walking with God comprehends all that is 
 meant by faith in him. " They that know thy 
 name," says the Psalmist, " will put their trust 
 in thee." And this is ever the great need of our 
 nature. The depths of this trust are unfathom- 
 able. It has been the strength of the world's 
 truest and noblest heroes and martyrs in all the 
 past ; the comfort of the oppressed and afflicted 
 in every age and place — in Christendom, out of 
 
42 THE INNER LIFE, 
 
 Christendom. It is able to hope, able to do, able 
 to save to the uttermost, able to withstand a 
 world's opposition to principle, — to take hold up- 
 on truth, when its advocacy is weakest with man, 
 and see and feel it conqueror, and more than 
 conqueror, through its Author's omnipotence ; 
 to let its footsteps 
 
 " Fall on the seeming void, and find 
 The rock beneath ! " 
 
 The aids of Christian truth are for those who 
 are in any extremity, its comforts for those 
 who are in any trouble. Men often have not that 
 faith in God's promises that they would have in 
 the promises of a good man, — one who had never 
 deceived them, but had always proved himself 
 true in his conduct in reference to the benefit of 
 his fellow-men. Yea, it is strange how ready 
 most men are to think the worst instead of the 
 best of God. How distrustful they are of safety 
 in him. Before we attempted our first ascent of 
 Mount Washington on the railroad, we hesitated ; 
 we doubted the safety of the experiment. What 
 if there should be a break in the machinery ? 
 What peril to limb and destruction of life might 
 follow ! But when we began to make the upward 
 movement so steadily and strong, the cog-wheels 
 in the centre track fitting in with such a firm 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 43 
 
 grasp upon the solid cross-bars made to receive 
 them, all thoughts of danger vanished, and up- 
 ward and downward the sense of security was 
 realized by every passenger. The road had 
 been built to meet emergencies, and with every 
 preparation for security which the ingenuity and 
 faithfulness of man could devise. Hence the 
 confidence felt in it. Even so may it be in our 
 trust in the divine beneficence. God's purposes 
 are formed to meet all emergencies. Faith 
 running in the central track of his promises, and 
 laying firm hold on his Word constantly in all 
 life's experiences, can realize the glorious truth 
 of the Psalmist's exclamation, " Safety is of the 
 Lord." 
 
 We need this, then, most of all things, a daily 
 life-piety. And this must come not from without 
 but from within. It must have its springs in 
 the soul's secret depths, in its communings with 
 God as with a near and ever constant friend and 
 benefactor. We need to feel that we have not 
 only our worldly, but divine interests ; that we 
 belong not only to an earthly, but to a heavenly 
 home ; and that we have our business with God 
 each day, — a business which cannot be dis- 
 pensed with, any more than that of the greatest 
 earthly interest pressing upon us. I know not 
 
44 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 where I have seen this subject more impressively 
 illustrated than in a sketch from life, by one of 
 the most distinguished literary men of our nation 
 — the poet, William C. Bryant; a note, by the 
 way, which contains a lesson for us all, beneath 
 the rich coloring which the skilful pen of the 
 author has given it. 
 
 The narrator was walking in the late watches 
 of the night, when the stars were yet bright in 
 the heavens, the earth fresh and fragrant with 
 the night-dew, and the great ocean, on whose 
 shore he strayed, pealing its solemn hymn 
 through the star-lit darkness, when he saw this 
 holy scene. " The sound of human voices," he 
 writes, " drew my attention toward the bank, 
 looking over the verge of which I discovered an 
 elderly man in a rough dress, with a small boy 
 by his side. 
 
 " The first words heard from them were in 
 reference to their sudden and early rising. Some 
 duty had been omitted, and they were question- 
 ing each other respecting it. There was a pause 
 of a few moments, which the old man broke by 
 saying : ' We are quite early, and perhaps the 
 duty omitted by us in the house may as well be 
 done here. We will scarcely work the worse for 
 it to-day.' 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 45 
 
 " The speaker then took off a glazed hat and 
 displayed a head slightly bald. The long, matted 
 hair upon its sides trembled in the slight breeze 
 that set in from the ocean. The younger also 
 laid aside his hat, and both knelt upon the sand. 
 In a solemn tone the father commenced his 
 morning's devotion. 1 could not catch all the 
 words, but here and there, when special earnest- 
 ness marked the request, I could distinctly hear 
 each syllable. The language was simple but 
 expressive ; and, as much of it was Scripture, it 
 occasionally rose to sublimity. The daily wants 
 and cares and clangers of the petitioner went up 
 to Him who has taught us to ask day by day our 
 daily bread. And when family and friends had 
 been commended to Him who careth for all, the 
 humble worshippers rose from their knees, and 
 launched their boat for a craft lying at some 
 distance from the shore. Other ears than mine 
 heard the prayer of the old pilot ; and whatever 
 fate might be his, we could not doubt he would 
 be prepared to meet it as a willing and confiding 
 believer in the gracious God of all." 
 
 Does this narrative seem an attractive and 
 pleasing one ? Something like its equally beau- 
 tiful reality may be ours each day. Though we 
 kneel not where the old boatman did before the 
 
46 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 day-dawn, we may find that same God wherever 
 day comes to us, — at our bedside or table, 
 wheresoever our daily thought and toiling shall 
 begin. Let us find him ; and in our conversation 
 and example each day, let reverence for his name 
 and character be in our hearts, and consciousness 
 of his nearness and guidance be our inspiration 
 and strength. So shall we gain new vigor for 
 our walk with God, and for the work of salvation 
 with our fellow-men. 
 
THE WITNESS WITHIN. 47 
 
 THE WITNESS WITHIN. 
 
 But not alone Thy care we claim, 
 
 Our wayward steps to win ; 
 We know Thee by a dearer name, — 
 
 Love of God within ! 
 
 Eliza Scuddee. 
 
 r I ^HE Samaritan woman, who met Jesus at 
 Jacob's Well, immediately after her inter- 
 view with him there, hurried to the city where 
 she dwelt, with her wonderful account of the 
 new teacher. He had revealed to her his knowl- 
 edge of the very secrets of her life. Was not 
 this the Messiah ? 
 
 A number of those to whom she thus ap- 
 pealed went out of the city and came to Jesus. 
 Their personal interview with him convinced 
 them far more deeply as to his character than 
 the narrative of the woman had done. Graciously 
 acceding to their request that he would tarry 
 with them, he and his disciples abode there 
 two days. His personal intercourse with them 
 doubtless had its influence afterwards, when 
 conversions among the Samaritans were so 
 notable. " Xow," say they to the woman, " we 
 
48 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 believe, not because of thy saying ; for we have 
 heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed 
 the Christ, the Saviour of the world." l This ex- 
 perience of the Samaritans with their holy visitor 
 suggests this thought : Personal spiritual near- 
 ness to Christ, the surest and safest witness to 
 the truth of his religion. 
 
 What others know of Christianity may not 
 profit us. While they are enjoying the light of 
 life, we may be walking in darkness. That 
 which we know is ours. So far as we have per- 
 sonal exercise of our own souls with the power 
 of Christian truth, in so far are we justified in 
 declaring such testimony to others ; and so much 
 the more valuable has this testimony become. 
 Too many have their theology and religion at 
 second-hand — have it in a minister, or in a creed, 
 or in a sect, or in a Bible which they seldom 
 consult. And many such pretend to have their 
 own opinions on theology and religion, when 
 their opinions are borrowed. They have not 
 true Christian personality. 
 
 Knowledge of Christ, as the New Testament 
 explains it, is living faith in him, communion 
 with him in spirit, nearness to him. Nominally 
 Christ is known wherever the Bible has found its 
 
 1 John iv. 42. 
 
THE WITNESS WITHIN. 49 
 
 way among men and its Gospel has been pro- 
 claimed. Really and practically he is known 
 only to those " who hear the Word of God and 
 keep it." Let us note, then, the importance of 
 the great experimental evidence of the religion 
 of Christ. Of all the evidences presented in the 
 New Testament, or in the defences of Christianity 
 which have been written by its most able apolo- 
 gists and supporters, none is of paramount 
 importance to this. It goes further than all the 
 others, and confirms them. It is something of a 
 different and higher kind, increasing the persua- 
 sion of the truth to those in possession of other 
 arguments, and supplying their place to those 
 who are not. 
 
 There is an old medical preparation, which 
 has been highly prized in certain cases, said to 
 have been invented in the most ancient days of 
 Rome. It is called Mithridates, and is said to 
 be a preventive against poisons. It has, of course, 
 passed through many hands since it first came 
 into use; and some sceptical person, if he were 
 offered the medicine or had been asked to recom- 
 mend it, might be disposed to question the state- 
 ment as to the origin of it, and conclude that, as 
 now vended, it had passed through so many 
 hands before it had reached his, that no depend- 
 
50 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 ence could be placed on it, and that it might as 
 well be rejected at once and altogether from the 
 list of remedies. But of how little account 
 would such objection be in the estimation of him 
 who could in truth reply : " I have made trial of 
 this medicine, and have found it effectual, in 
 case of a disease that threatened my life, when 
 all other means failed. As to the historical 
 objections to the use of it, I know little or 
 nothing. This I know, that I was apparently 
 near to death ; I took the medicine, and it 
 restored me to health and soundness." 
 
 Now Christianity is the medicine for curing 
 the moral disorders with which a sick humanity 
 is afflicted, and Christ is the administering 
 physician. Faith in him is the antidote of sin, 
 — and its dire consequence, the spiritual death 
 which comes of sin. The work effected by this 
 faith is restoration to spiritual health, the love 
 of Christ shed abroad in the soul, love of truth, 
 righteousness, holiness. It is the spirit of God 
 reigning within. And it is thus that Christianity 
 is most clearly and undeniably proved by its 
 effect on human conduct and life. 
 
 These statements are corroborated by the 
 testimony of Christ and his apostles. Here is 
 the test which the Master gives of his religion, 
 
THE WITNESS WITHIN. 51 
 
 the most perfect answer that can be given to its 
 claims : " If any man will do His will, he shall 
 know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or 
 whether I speak of myself." l Imposture here is 
 defied. Truth in its demonstration stands forth. 
 History might be darkened ; logic might perplex 
 or mislead, rhetoric dazzle and bewilder, appeals 
 to the passions deceive. Living fact could not. 
 Such fact is in the mind of the apostle, when he 
 so forcibly encourages and sustains his brethren 
 in their Christian life : " You hath he quickened, 
 who were dead in trespasses and sins ; " " Who 
 hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 
 and translated us into the kingdom of his dear 
 son ; " " Such were some of you [adulterers, 
 thieves, covetous, <fcc] ; but ye are washed, ye 
 are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the 
 Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God." 2 
 These were wonderful changes. They were 
 known and understood ; and appeals to the mind 
 on the strength of them were the most effectual 
 which it was possible for the apostle himself to 
 make in his communications to his brethren and 
 to the world around him. 
 
 Note, now, the especial benefits of this personal 
 evidence of the truth of Christianity. 
 
 i John vii. 17. 2 Epli. ii. 1; Col. i. 13; 2 Cor. vi. 11. 
 
52 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 1. It is the only proof coming alike to the 
 great multitudes of mankind. Of the external 
 evidences of Christianity all may not be able to 
 judge correctly. This internal evidence is level 
 to all. The Gospel is for the unenlightened as 
 well as for the learned and wise. A poor slave 
 was' ridiculed by his master for being so religious. 
 " What good does religion do you, Pompey ? " 
 asked the master. " It makes my soul happy," 
 was the simple reply. " You foolish thing," said 
 the master, " you have no soul." " Then — then, 
 massa, it makes my body happy." Soul or body, 
 there was delight in it. That was experimental. 
 This perception is realized " by saint, by savage, 
 and by sage," wherever the principles of Chris- 
 tianity are received in the heart and made 
 the directors of the moral actions. 
 
 2. This evidence grows. Once really planted 
 in the soul, it will germinate and expand. It 
 will advance with our knowledge of God, our 
 love to Christ, our victory over siQ, our watching 
 and prayerfulness, our spiritual tastes, habits 
 and joys. Other evidences may sometimes get 
 obscured and dim, but there is a constant renewal 
 here. It is what Jesus would have the Samari- 
 tan woman understand, — " a w r ell of water, 
 springing up into everlasting life." 
 
THE WITNESS WITHIN. 53 
 
 3. It is the most satisfactory of all evidences. 
 The persuasion from historical and internal evi- 
 dence of the Christian revelation may produce a 
 human faith, may silence objections from with- 
 out, may prove negatively that man could not 
 have invented the Gospel, may establish the 
 abstract excellency of its founder, its doctrines, 
 precepts, and tendencies. But these conclusions 
 may be lifeless and uninfluential till the affections 
 are reached and warmed by God's love, — till the 
 inward testimony of the Gospel, from its sur- 
 prising glory and heavenly effects upon the whole 
 character, is added to all the others. It is then 
 that these others kindle into life, have freshness 
 and vigor and beauty and power. 
 
 This evidence, we say, is the most satisfactory. 
 A blessing we have once experienced is not to be 
 reasoned out of us ; any more than that realized 
 by the man born blind, who had been cured by 
 Jesus, was to be reasoned out of him*. The 
 scorning Pharisee would browbeat him with the 
 accusation against Jesus, " We know that this 
 man is a sinner." The calm reply was, " Whether 
 he be a sinner or no, I know not ; one thing I 
 know, that whereas I was blind, now I see ! " 1 
 Although for his persistence in recognizing and 
 
 1 John ix. 25. 
 
54 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 praising his benefactor he was cast out of the 
 synagogue, yet this cured blind-one has been a 
 personal witness to the healing power of Christ 
 down to this day. He had an experience of the 
 divine mercy, such as has led thousands of others 
 in every century since to feel what the poet has 
 so significantly written : — 
 
 " Oh, that all the blind but knew him, 
 And would be advised by me ; 
 Surely they would hasten to him, 
 He would cause them all to see ! " 
 
 4. Again, this evidence is the one most needed 
 with all men everywhere. It has been too much 
 the practice to make the subject of the Christian 
 evidences an intellectual disquisition mainly, 
 a matter of argument on external testimonies. 
 Just and requisite as this may be in its place, it 
 is not sufficient to impel the heart to the love 
 and work of Christ's religion. The adversary 
 of Christianity is not to be beaten by weapons 
 like these. Human reasonings, plausibly stated 
 theories, may satisfy the understanding, but not 
 enlist the soul. We must have this true and only 
 unquestionable experience of the Christian, a 
 knowledge of God's nearness to us, and his life 
 in us, by the spirit he has given us, as we have 
 
THE WITNESS WITHIN. 55 
 
 sought to do his work and will. Love, mercy, 
 humility, patience, hope, and persevering faith in 
 goodness and truth, — these are the evidences 
 which will speak with effect where others might 
 be unavailable — speak for the genuineness and 
 excellency of true Christianity, while the world 
 may be wondering that such dishonesties, frauds, 
 and corruptions are committed by those who have 
 taken shelter and sought sanction under its holy 
 name. This personal Christ-power men can, 
 will, and must comprehend. 
 
 Here, then, is one door of evidence plainly 
 open to us all, as we consult the teaching of the 
 New Testament, " He that believeth hath the wit- 
 ness in himself." What have you done, dear 
 reader, to make the two grand requirements of 
 Christianity, love to God and love to man, 
 an experience of your soul, the habitual desire 
 and action of your life ? You will not pretend 
 that you have known of any better religion than 
 this. And whether this is a failure or not, you 
 can never know for yourself until you have per- 
 sonally made the experiment. Until you have, 
 do not heed sceptics, fault-finders, speculators, 
 drifters, denouncers. Try the specific, and see 
 what its effect upon your spiritual nature will be. 
 Whatever the experiences of others may be, let 
 
56 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 us heed the lesson contained in the words of the 
 ancient Samaritans : " For we have heard him 
 ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, 
 the Saviour of the world." 
 
SAINTS AND SAINTSHIP. 57 
 
 SAINTS AND SAINTSHIP. 
 
 For all thy saints, God, 
 
 Who strove in Christ to live, 
 Who followed hira, obeyed, adored, 
 
 Our grateful hymn receive. 
 
 Ancient Hymns. 
 
 O AINTS are not myths. They have lived in 
 the past, and are living now. That there 
 may be saints in the immortal state is not gen- 
 erally a subject of doubt among Christians ; but 
 saintship is usually considered as pertaining 
 rather to a higher state than to that which mor- 
 tals enjoy. 
 
 There is a ceremony of canonization in the 
 Romish Church, by which persons deceased are 
 placed in the catalogue of the saints. It succeeds 
 beatification. The spirit is believed to rise from 
 this to a higher state, in consequence of certain 
 proceedings of the Church upon the earth in its 
 behalf. This rite resembles much the apotheosis, 
 or deification, of the ancient Romans, and in all 
 probability had its rise therein. One considera- 
 tion in connection with this rite is quite signifi- 
 cant of that kind of saintship which keeps itself 
 
58 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 so far away from the present, and has so much 
 less to do with the earthly than with the 
 heavenly state. We refer to a maxim in regard 
 to canonization in the Romish Church, that the 
 Church shall not enter into inquiries with a view 
 to canonization, until fifty years, at least, after 
 the death of the person to be canonized. There 
 is quite too much of such saintship in both Cath- 
 olic and Protestant churches. But it is not the 
 saintship which the New Testament recognizes, 
 and unto which Christianity is constantly calling 
 us. That is a saintship resolving itself into the 
 living present, and working out its power in the 
 midst of a needy and living world — a saintship 
 which means not only glorified angels, or men 
 long since gone from earth, but all of us who at 
 this hour inherit mortal life, and have bodies 
 and spirits with which to glorify the God of our 
 life and salvation. 
 
 True Christian saintship implies reverence and 
 love for God, piety in principle ; piety — another 
 word which has been as vague in respect to 
 meaning as that of saint. It is a compound for 
 veneration and affection for the God and Father 
 of all. To know the brotherhood we must know 
 aright the Fatherhood. An Atheist might, 
 according to all good use of language, be chided 
 
SAINTS AND SAINTSHIP. 59 
 
 for calling man brother, because he questions 
 the paternity of the creator of the race. We can- 
 not have the most effective philanthropy without 
 just conceptions of what God is. We need to 
 see the Father as Jesus reveals him, as Christian 
 apostles have made their representations of his 
 grace and truth to our minds, and as the human 
 soul, when it most knows its own wants, hungers 
 and thirsts for him. The most godlike are those 
 most fitted to be saints ; and it is this saintship 
 that we are called upon in the Gospel to possess 
 and enjoy. 
 
 This saintship implies loyalty to Christ. 
 " Saints in Christ Jesus " is the New Testament 
 definition. There may be other saintly ones 
 among all religionists ; God forbid that we should 
 think of doubting this ; but Christian saintship 
 is that above or beyond which no other can 
 reasonably be preferred, because it has in itself 
 all the essentials of a true life-power. The great 
 intent of God with man, the highest moral pre- 
 cepts lived out into perfect life, the clearest 
 light of the immortal existence, come through 
 Christ for all the ages. A world full of " saints 
 in Christ Jesus " can bring as perfect a world 
 to us as any religious sect in its farthest outlook 
 would hope or pray for. 
 
60 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 This saintship also implies a sincere and con- 
 stant devotion to human good. The second 
 commandment is said to be like the first. Both 
 are inseparably joined. He who would give 
 evidence of his love to God has one proof among 
 the best he can offer, taught him in the New 
 Testament, — love to his neighbor and brother: 
 " For he that loveth not his brother whom he 
 hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath 
 not seen ? " 1 History assures us that among the 
 early Christians this lesson of heavenly truth 
 was well learned, and wrought out in correspond- 
 ing works. The testimony of an enemy gives 
 evidence of this. The Emperor Julian, uneasy 
 and vexed with the charities of the Christians, 
 gives this instruction to one of his Pagan priests : 
 " Establish hospitals in every town, for the care 
 of the sick and the entertainment of strangers, 
 and for extending the cares of humanity to all 
 that are poor. I will furnish the means. For it 
 is a shame for us that no Jew ever begs, and that 
 the impious Galileans should not only keep their 
 own poor, but even many of ours whom we leave 
 to suffer." Of the Christian Emperor Constan- 
 tine afterwards it is written — in justice to his 
 sincerity, too, we have reason to believe — that 
 
 1 1 John iv. 20. 
 
SAINTS AND SAINTSHIP. 61 
 
 " he poured out his alias liberally, both upon 
 Christian and Pagan. To the public beggars he 
 gave both food and clothing ; he assisted gener- 
 ously those who had fallen from a better condi- 
 tion, giving to some pensions, to others lucrative 
 offices. He took especial care of widows and 
 orphans, giving their daughters to rich men 
 whom he knew to be worthy." 
 
 Such was primitive Christianity in its humane 
 activities. And admiration for this work of love 
 has never ceased in our world. God be thanked 
 for what we realize of a growing and increasing 
 saintship in this direction in Christendom. Our 
 Christian charities are everywhere multiplying; 
 charities which include the welfare of the stricken, 
 needy, and afflicted of our race — the blind, the 
 dumb, the insane, the idiotic, the aged and 
 infirm, the sick and destitute, the inebriate, the 
 fallen outcast, and all the debased of our com- 
 mon humanity. All this is a work born of no 
 paganism, nor of any heathen or worldly phil- 
 osophy, or blazing fanaticism, burning for a 
 season only to consume itself. It comes of that 
 Christianity which recognized in some good 
 measure the interest of the Divine Parent in his 
 children, and the great mission of mercy and sal- 
 vation upon which Christ came into the world. 
 
62 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 While we rejoice in these manifestations, we 
 cannot shut our eyes to the great need of an 
 increase of this philanthropic work among 
 Christians. There has often been among the 
 sects more effort to define creeds than to 
 befriend and dignify humanity, more reliance 
 on human learning than in human affection, 
 more confidence in the letter than in the spirit 
 of God's truth. This order ought to be changed, 
 and must be, ere true saints will increase and 
 "judge the world," as the New Testament de- 
 clares, and bless it with their ministries of love 
 and heaven. 
 
 Once more : this saintship implies true con- 
 victions of a heavenly citizenship. The true 
 Christian saint is " in one world, and hath 
 another to attend him." He has interests and 
 fellowships here and now, — interests and fellow- 
 ships that reach " beyond the veil " which Jiides 
 the earthly from the heavenly, and which find 
 their answering only in that which is immortal. 
 It is this verity which speaks out of the heart of 
 Christian trust : " We look not at the things 
 which are seen and temporal, but at those which 
 are unseen and eternal." And this look of the 
 believer is a hopeful one for himself and for his 
 race. It sees the Divine Reconciler of all things 
 
SAINTS AND SAINTSHIP. 63 
 
 to God, whether they be things in the earthly 
 state or in any heavenly realm or dominion. 
 His Saviour is Lord of this world and the next, 
 " who hath abolished death, and brought life and 
 immortality to light." 1 
 
 " Saints in Christ Jesus " are needed, or the 
 New Testament would not call thus for them 
 nor upon them : Christlike spirits, believing and 
 confiding in God and his Word, having large and 
 comprehensive views of his divine administra- 
 tion, — believing, too, in man, and the possibili- 
 ties of his spiritual progress now and evermore. 
 The world has been blest with such, and still 
 needs to be ; and without this blessing our 
 Christianity with men is but little else than a 
 name. 
 
 All sects have their saints. But all of them 
 need a greater number, for their own blessing 
 and for the world's good. This, however, let us 
 know, that this saintship will not come at once. 
 There is no short process, no modern invention 
 by which we may reach it. It grows of Christian 
 light and self-discipline, — of consultation with 
 God, with Christ, with goodness everywhere. In 
 this growth we may all have some goodly share, 
 and thus, through all our earthly experiences, be 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 
64 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 raised to realize the unspeakable blessing, that of 
 being " made meet to be partakers of the inheri- 
 tance of the saints in light." 1 
 
 1 Col. i. 12. 
 
JESTS THE MORXIXG STAR. 65 
 
 JESUS THE MORXIXG STAR. 
 
 nr^HE Revelator John, in one of his visions at 
 Patmos, represents Jesus as speaking of 
 himself: "I am the root and offspring of David, 
 and the bright and morning star." r He was the 
 Messiah predicted by the Hebrew prophets. He 
 was, in the line of Jewish genealogy, the son of 
 David. But how the root as well as the offspring ? 
 Thus : Christ is the head of humanity. Although 
 the offspring of David according to the flesh, 
 he is also Lord of the race, and this entitles him 
 to the appellation Lord, applied by the Psalmist- 
 King to the Messiah whom he foretold. He is 
 the spiritual life or root of humanity, as well 
 as the offspring of David. 
 
 He affirms of himself, also, " I am the bright 
 and morning star." Instruction and inspiration 
 are to be found in this beautiful similitude. "We 
 are reminded by it of the special attractiveness 
 of Jesus. The morning star, by its peculiar 
 lustre, is an object of attraction to every eye> and 
 
 1 Eev. xxii. 16. 
 5 
 
66 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 has been, in every age, known and distinguished 
 under various names. Among the ancient 
 heathen, when seen in the west as the evening 
 star, it was known as Hesperus ; and thence 
 from its name, Vesperus, gave title to those ves- 
 pers, or evening songs and devotions of the 
 Romish Church, which began as its light ap- 
 peared. No eye, in civilized or savage lands, 
 however unacquainted with the heavens, probably 
 ever failed of noticing it, and its pure and full 
 light has caused it to be known and named by 
 those who could call none other of the starry 
 host by name, as well as by those familiar with 
 the names of all. Richly emblematic is this of 
 Jesus Christ. Among the hosts of the wise and 
 great of the past, who have been indeed the 
 luminaries of the ages, he is pre-eminent in 
 brightness. He is known not only to the learned 
 but to the unlearned. Christ ! Volume after 
 volume has been written, controversy after con- 
 troversy held upon this theme. " What think 
 ye of Christ ? " has been a question uppermost 
 in the minds of multitudes of the most intelli- 
 gent and earnest of men in every age, since the 
 advent of this wonderful one to our world. And 
 to-day the subject is as vividly attractive as at 
 any time in the past. From every conceivable 
 
JESUS TEE MORNING STAR. 67 
 
 standpoint men are surveying this luminary, — 
 from Christian, heathen, and pagan sides, through 
 atheistic, pantheistic, theistic, rationalistic in- 
 struments, as the inclination of the beholders 
 may be. It is because the pre-eminent light is 
 there, and will be as the ages move on, and be- 
 cause of the inquiries which its nature and posi- 
 tion in the spiritual heavens so inevitably call 
 forth. There is but one Christ ; there never has 
 been. Well sang the poet Watts of this simili- 
 tude : — 
 
 " Is he a star ? He breaks the night, 
 Piercing the shades with dawning light ; 
 I know his glories from afar, 
 I know the bright, the morning star." 
 
 This star, too, is the precursor of the day. At 
 the time of the advent of Jesus, " darkness cov- 
 ered the earth, and gross darkness the people." * 
 Men were ignorant of God, — of themselves, 
 their duties and destiny. It was in the midst 
 of this darkness that the new light arose. It 
 indicated day, a new day — a day of light and 
 splendor, such as man had never seen. It was 
 God's day-— the day of his reign on earth 
 through his chosen and anointed one. It was 
 
 1 Isai. lx. 2. 
 
68 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 the day which Paul at Athens announced — 
 " a day in the which he will judge [rule, govern] 
 the world in righteousness by that man whom he 
 hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance 
 in that he hath raised him from the dead." 1 As 
 soon as this light began to shed itself upon the 
 nations, there came new views of God to them. 
 The Creator and Ruler was transformed into the 
 Father, and man was taught his true relations to 
 his brother-man ; duty was seen to be the highest 
 privilege, and love the highest life of the soul ; 
 immortality became a clearer conviction than 
 ever, and earth and heaven were made one. As 
 this day advances the world becomes more 
 enlightened and blest. The work of Christ to 
 be accomplished in it shall be completed. In 
 the expressive words of the elder Ballou : — 
 
 " As night before the rays 
 Of morning flees away, 
 Sin shall retire before the blaze 
 Of God's eternal day." 
 
 This is why the day comes in, to show God's 
 glory in dispelling the world's darkness and 
 bringing all souls into his " marvellous light." 
 Professor Olmsted of Yale College, in his 
 
 1 Acts xvii. 31. 
 
 
JESUS THE MORNING STAR. 69 
 
 " Observations on Meteors/' says : " Those who 
 were so fortunate as to witness the exhibition of 
 shooting meteors on the morning of November 
 13, 1833, probably saw the greatest display of 
 celestial fireworks that has ever been since the 
 creation of the world, or at least within the 
 annals of it covered by the pages of history." 
 To the eyes of some it seemed as though the 
 heavens rained fire ; and one beholder, speaking 
 of the strange light, said : " I kept my eyes fixed 
 on the morning star ; I thought while that stood 
 firm we were safe ; but I feared every moment 
 that would go, and all would go with it." But 
 the morning star kept its place, and the star- 
 shower at length passed away, So in the midst 
 of the fluctuations of the world, through all its 
 strange scenes and startling experiences, we may 
 regard the stability for which Christ stands now 
 and evermore. We mourn the frailty, we are 
 sick of the depravity of men. We are reminded, 
 in view of these human shortcomings and fail- 
 ings, of the admonition of Israel's prophet : 
 " Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, 
 for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Men 
 who have seemed like fixed luminaries in church 
 and state, who have been regarded in society as 
 models of rectitude, have failed their fellow-men 
 
70 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 and proved themselves unfit to be trusted. To 
 many who see these moral aberrations, who are 
 wondering and amazed at the multitude of 
 these " wandering stars," the question comes : 
 " Whither shall we turn ? Is there anything 
 morally permanent ? " The answer is, Yes ! 
 Let us keep our eyes fixed on " the bright and 
 morning star." While that stands we are safe. 
 Other stars may fall, but this one never ! 
 Blessed are all they who are assured of its sta- 
 bility. 
 
 Let us remember, moreover, that Christ is the 
 needed spiritual light within. It is in no mere 
 outward manifestation that this heavenly good 
 can come. In one of the epistles of Peter, 
 believers are exhorted to give heed to the study 
 of God's Word " until the day-star arise in their 
 hearts ; " * that is, until they have experimental 
 knowledge of this heavenly light — of the truth 
 of Christ's religion, of their hope in him. This 
 is " the witness within," of which the New Tes- 
 tament so emphatically speaks. It is the higher 
 evidence than all others, — that of experience, 
 Christ's work in our own souls, the revelation of 
 his personal excellence to us ; so that we come 
 to regard him and his service above all other 
 
 i 2 Pet. i. 19. 
 
JESUS THE MORNING STAR. 71 
 
 good. God grant you, reader, this heavenly 
 trust, this divine illumination of him who said, 
 " I am the root and offspring of David, and the 
 bright and morning star." 
 
72 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 ENTEKTAINING ANGELS. 
 
 With silence only as their benediction, 
 God's angels come. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 HPHAT is a significant direction given by the 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews : " Be 
 not forgetful to entertain strangers ; for thereby 
 some have entertained angels unawares." x The 
 expression has evident allusion to the visitations 
 received by Abraham and Lot, in the patriarchal 
 ages, the accounts of which are interwoven with 
 our earliest Scripture history ; accounts beautiful 
 in their moral adaptations, as they are still to us 
 fraught with the mysterious and sublime. The 
 apostle would not have us to understand that 
 such interviews and communings of the earthly 
 with the celestial were confined to these first 
 ages of human history. They awaited men when 
 this Christian writer addressed them ; and he 
 would have the blessing appreciated and im- 
 proved : " Let brotherly love continue ; " " Bear 
 ye one another's burdens ; " " Remember them 
 
 i Heb. xiii. 2. 
 
ENTERTAINING ANGELS. 73 
 
 that are in bonds as bound with them, and them 
 which suffer adversity as being yourselves also 
 in the body." l Open your hearts to the instruc- 
 tions, wants, and manifestations of this wonder- 
 ful nature you possess. Seek to know the sig- 
 nificance of it. Study its unity ; learn its mutual 
 dependencies ; feed and renew your love of it in 
 the spirit of our new and highest Teacher sent 
 from God. Such is the lesson taught. 
 
 If we want a heaven of angels, why may we 
 not have one below ? I do not mean so perfect 
 a heaven as that one where higher beings than 
 men have inheritance and immortal life. I mean 
 on earth, counting it as evil as it really is, with 
 all its errors, wrongs, and abominations. If we 
 only take the right view here, we shall under- 
 stand what intercourse may await us, what 
 righteous influences may go out from us to 
 others, and be received by us from them in 
 return. If the inner vision is right we shall not 
 only kindly await, but plainly perceive the angels. 
 It is because of man's selfishness, and lack of 
 confidence in his fellow-man, and neglect to culti- 
 vate his spiritual sympathies, that our good angels 
 so rarely reveal themselves. The soul that goes 
 out into the world wholly absorbed in self, seek- 
 
 1 Keb. xiii. 1, 3 ; Gal. vi. 2. 
 
74 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 ing only its own gratification, cannot see angels, 
 save such as are spoken of in the parable as 
 belonging to the company of the adversary. It 
 is by kindly and blessed sympathy with human 
 hearts and human natures that these holy rev- 
 elations will be made to us. 
 
 We should, then, keep our hearts open to all 
 the good we may receive in our intercourse and 
 experience with those who mingle with us in the 
 great journey of life. " I am nothing to the 
 world, and the world is nothing to me," is a very 
 poor thought, even for the lowliest of our race 
 to cherish. Here on the right hand and left, 
 before or behind us, may be those who wait to 
 do us good, did we but know it, and who, in their 
 nearness to us, should not be discouraged by our 
 selfish demeanor from making manifest to us 
 their good dispositions and intentions. Stranger 
 faces may greet, but kindred hearts may speak 
 to us ; and " as face answereth to face in water, 
 so the heart of man to man. 5 ' Only let us greet 
 and hear and receive kindly, and whether others 
 lose or gain, some profit shall be ours. We may 
 not always be listening to the communications of 
 the good angels ; but their messages will not 
 injure us if the motives of our hearts are right. 
 We may, on the other hand, be hearing instruc- 
 
ENTERTAINING ANGELS. 75 
 
 tive, substantial, saving truth, that had never thus 
 been spoken to us before, from the very heart of 
 infinite truth itself. We may, in many of these 
 wayside interviews with our fellow-creatures, — 
 in the little glimpses we get of their characters, 
 in the little confidence they gain in ours, in some 
 relation of their trials or anxieties or temptations 
 or strifes or triumphs, — be laying up remem- 
 brances and forming associations that shall here- 
 after bear the fruit of richest wisdom and bless- 
 ing. Something thus spoken, thus remembered, 
 thus retained, — some good, right word, some 
 safe suggestion or impression, — may be the very 
 instrument of our instruction and safety and 
 hope at some hour when it shall be more needed 
 than we had ever dreamed it could be. 
 
 Perhaps this idea of moral and sympathetic 
 intercourse may be realized with no greater force 
 anywhere in human life than in the domestic re- 
 lations. It is here we come into most direct and 
 unavoidable communication with those who shall 
 prove to us the dispensers of blessings which can 
 be derived from no other sources, and which, if 
 blighted in their beginnings by our misconduct 
 or indifference, will leave us in a poverty of 
 spirit which no possessions or attractions of the 
 world can supply. Look at the ministry of little 
 
76 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 children. What parent has not known some- 
 thing of it ? And more than blest are parents 
 and homes where these visitants from the spirit- 
 source are most truly welcomed and nurtured 
 and sanctified by pure affections. " God sends 
 them," says Mary Howitt, " to enlarge our hearts, 
 to make us unselfish and full of kindly affections ; 
 to give our souls higher aims, and to call out all 
 our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion ; 
 to bring round our fireside bright faces and 
 happy smiles and loving, tender hearts. My 
 soul blesses the Father every day that he has 
 gladdened the earth with little children." 
 
 While there are so many whose hearts readily 
 respond to this truthful language, we have to 
 regret that there are also so many who fail to 
 greet and entertain as they ought these messen- 
 gers of heavenly wisdom and goodness. In how 
 many homes are there no just conceptions of the 
 unawakened powers for good within the little 
 child. How often are these powers shamefully 
 perverted, and these little ones of the Father 
 offended in their whole nature and earthly life, 
 by the errors and follies and sins of ignorant or 
 selfish or worldly and falsely ambitious parents ! 
 How often, in sheerest ignorance or stupid indif- 
 ference on the part of those who should be their 
 
EXTERTAIXIXG AX GELS. 77 
 
 counsellors in noblest truth and holiest love, are 
 they left to become ministers of sin and angels 
 of death among their fellow-men ! 
 
 A startling consideration, surely. Parent, 
 what is the child God has given thee, as he comes, 
 a stranger, into this strange world ? What shall 
 he be if your devotedness and exertion can tell 
 aright, as they will tell for good or for evil, upon 
 his character and life ? You know not the 
 powers here undeveloped which shall either be 
 checked or called outward into action for the 
 right or the wrong by you. Be careful, then, of 
 your reception of this stranger. Be careful 
 of the entertainment you give it, now that it is 
 with you. Heaven says to you, as Pharaoh's 
 daughter to the mother of Moses : " Take this 
 child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee 
 thy wages." Nursed, nurtured, it will be, by you 
 or by the world ; and sure as the law of compen- 
 sation stands, you and the world will receive the 
 wages, — sorrow and shame, it may be, or 
 glory and honor. Be careful, then, of the enter- 
 tainment you provide for it. Let it be in the 
 atmosphere of heavenly virtue. Let its daily 
 and nightly ministries be truth and goodness ; 
 let the right, God's right, be its guide and 
 patron-saint everywhere ; and you may train 
 
78 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 up an angel who shall one day give you such 
 revelations of blessedness and peace as you 
 now can perceive only in dim and distant 
 imaginings. What a tribute to paternal faithful- 
 ness and love was that declaration of one who 
 had seen much of the strife and vicissitude of 
 earthly life : " I never knew a surer preventive 
 in the way of wrong-doing than the remembrance 
 of my mother's earliest religious exhortations to 
 me. Many a time have I been saved from the 
 commission of crime from the impressions thus 
 given ; and that I am now kept from ruin and 
 permitted to preserve my integrity, I trace to 
 the indelible effect of that simple prayer, made 
 as my little hands were clasped at my mother's 
 knee, ' Lead us not into temptation, but deliver 
 us from evil.' " It is thus that the early minis- 
 tries of paternal affection send out into the world 
 their messengers and agencies of light and salva- 
 tion. Faithful, indeed, should these ministries 
 be. 
 
 There is another thought now uppermost in 
 mind, which, from its very sacredness, I hardly 
 dare clothe in words ; and yet I know that I shall 
 be pardoned if I fail to express it as I might. 
 There are dear ones among these visitants to our 
 families and homes whose tarrying-time here is 
 
ENTERTAINING ANGELS. 79 
 
 brief indeed ; who only look in upon us from the 
 great infinite with their innocent faces, giving 
 us glimpses of their recognition in the midst of 
 this great life-crowd in which we are all moving 
 on, and then vanishing from our presence, as we 
 say, forever. Ask many a bereaved and sorrow- 
 ing heart if such have not been angels, and are 
 not now angels, in their fondest memories ; and 
 if the hope of meeting them again is not to be 
 counted above all the dearest considerations 
 earth can ever bring them ? There may be those 
 now reading these lines whose beating hearts 
 know full well what I mean, and who feel more 
 on this sacred theme than my poor words can 
 utter. What affections, hopes, sympathies, have 
 these transient visitors awakened ! and who 
 knows what increase of spiritual attraction 
 these absent ones may gain in that mysterious 
 being which is still theirs, though hidden from 
 our outward vision, and what new greetings 
 there may be in the world of immortal reunion ? 
 With what significance has it been written, that 
 " they only can be said to possess a child forever 
 who have lost one in infancy." 
 
 Taking another view of our subject, let us 
 understand that we may not unfrequently enter- 
 tain angels in our right reception of the good 
 
80 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 thoughts that visit us. We live by thought, if 
 we live at all as our nature demands. If the 
 inner guests be heavenly, so shall our life be 
 heavenly ; if otherwise, then shall the life declare 
 the truth. " The good man, out of the good 
 treasure of his heart, bringeth forth good things ; 
 the evil man, evil things." 1 There can be no 
 discipline without thought ; no great strength of 
 moral character without discipline. Many are 
 lost, not so much from lack of good thoughts as 
 from lack of effort to keep them. The visitants 
 are not entertained as they should be- They 
 come and depart, and leave no blessing behind. 
 Duty should not be thus tampered with. No 
 sane man would permit himself to sleep amid 
 robbers, with bags of gold in his hands. Yet 
 how many, in their moral slumbering, suffer their 
 most precious thoughts to be stolen away. 
 
 Good thoughts ! They are among the spiritual 
 safeguards of our moral nature, as we strive here 
 below with its infirmities. They caused the great 
 Master of Christians to say to the tempter, " Get 
 thee behind me, Satan, . . . man shall not live 
 by bread alone, but by every word that proceed- 
 eth out of the mouth of God." 2 They brought 
 heaven to light in the mind of Stephen, as he 
 
 1 Matt. xii. 35. 2 Matt. iv. 4. 
 
ENTERTAIXIXG AX GELS. 81 
 
 sank beneath the stones of his murderers. They 
 enabled Luther to laugh at calamity, as he made 
 his way onward in the strife of the Reformation. 
 They have inspired the inebriate to shake off his 
 chains, and stand erect in the freedom of a re- 
 newed and sober man. They have wrought 
 righteousness in innumerable ways. It is said 
 of Mr. Morse, our American projector of the 
 telegraphic wires, that before entering upon this 
 new and wonderful enterprise which has so dis- 
 tinguished him, he became so despondent as to 
 resolve on taking his own life. He was delivered 
 from death by some angel of a thought that came 
 looking in through all the darkness of his soul, 
 and made daylight there again. He resolved not 
 to die, and so lived to make manifest his own 
 worth to the world, as well as to declare to men 
 the workings of one of the marvellous agencies 
 of God. Many a one can testify that he has 
 been saved from suffering and sin by some right 
 thought that has made him strong and trium- 
 phant over evil. He has given entertainment to 
 an angel of salvation. 
 
 Again : in our reception of those who seem to 
 be most anxiously striving for the amelioration 
 of mankind, we should ask ourselves whether we 
 may not sometimes be giving entertainment to 
 
82 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 some of earth's best angels. We have preten- 
 ders and laborers in human society, representing 
 different ideas of progress, intellectual, social, 
 religious, political. While we seek rightly to 
 discriminate, we should be careful that we do 
 not hastily condemn. 
 
 Some of the world's noblest benefactors have 
 been scorned, insulted, and discarded by the 
 world in their day. That world was not ready 
 for them. Paul must be scourged, Galileo im- 
 prisoned, Luther summoned to Rome, Murray 
 stoned. A greater than these, coming to his 
 own, is rejected by them, and hurried away amid 
 the clamors of the crowd who cry, " Crucify 
 him ! crucify him ! " They dared speak in the 
 face of public opinion, and that sealed their 
 doom. Now, some of the very descendants of 
 these persecutors join in the praises of these 
 leaders and benefactors of the past. Were the 
 saints living now, the acclamations of honor 
 would reach them ; but the most we can do is to 
 inscribe their names on high places, and speak 
 their praises to the present and to coming gen- 
 erations. Foolish world, that such is its dulness 
 of apprehension ! It may be that some of the re- 
 formers of the present hour, now derided and 
 scorned, will have an immortality on earth, 
 
ENTERTAINING ANGELS. 83 
 
 even, of which we do not now dream. While 
 we would " prove all things " then, in the pre- 
 tensions of reformers, let us be sure, if possible, 
 to " hold fast that which is good." 
 
 We might speak of the angels rejected of 
 society in its treatment of the guilty, but cannot, 
 within the space intended for this chapter, do 
 justice to the theme. We will only remark, that, 
 did we know what moral capabilities were 
 crushed and affections blighted, in consequence 
 of the wrong treatment of criminals by society, 
 we should see a most pointed application of that 
 ancient Christian advice concerning the enter- 
 taining of angels who come to us with their 
 pleading faces. This is advocating no morbid 
 sympathy that would restrain the correction of 
 the guilty, but rather a practical perception that 
 would recognize their capacities for good. Let 
 society understand their wants better ere it dooms 
 them, as it often does by its short-sightedness, to 
 perpetual sin and shame. Were the right recep- 
 tive spirit ready in our hearts, many, who now 
 bear with them the curse of the transgressor, 
 might shine in virtue " as the brightness of the 
 firmament, and as the stars forever and ever." 
 
 We need not, then, in our thoughts of angels, 
 deem these heavenly visitants afar off. They 
 
84 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 are nearer than we are often ready to believe. 
 The same earth, the same heaven, the same laws 
 of spiritual sympathy now in harmony, were in 
 united operation when the world began. If there 
 are angels above and beyond the earth, so there 
 are angels upon it, many of them awaiting the 
 word of the Father of all. They breathe his love ; 
 they go on his errands of mercy ; they are ready 
 to speak and to do in his holy name. Does not 
 the soul of the reader bear witness to that sweet 
 outflowing of the poet's song, — 
 
 "I have seen angels by the sick one's pillow, — 
 
 Theirs was the soft tone and the soundless tread ; 
 
 Where smitten hearts were drooping like the willow, 
 
 They stood between the living and the dead. 9 
 
 " There have been angels in the gloomy prison, 
 In crowded halls, by the lone widow's hearth ; 
 And where they passed the fallen have uprisen, 
 The giddy paused, the mourner's hope had birth." 
 
 Yes, this earth of ours is consecrated. The 
 ground whereon we stand is holy. At noontide, 
 in the watches of the night, or at morning's early 
 dawn, these visitants are near us. Where their 
 footsteps come we may enjoy celestial audience, 
 and find in some of the most common places of 
 our earthly journeying, what Jacob found on his 
 way to Padan-aram, " the house of God, and the 
 gate of heaven." 
 
WHAT IS DEATH TO US? 85 
 
 WHAT IS DEATH TO US? 
 
 What we need is to banish all haze from our conceptions of 
 the reality of the future state, so that we can think of it heartily 
 and talk about it to each other with clear eye and open brow, as 
 we would talk of some great university or landscape of a foreign 
 land. 
 
 Rev. T. Stare, King. 
 
 HHHE religion of Jesus directs us to live each 
 day in thoughtful reference to our depar- 
 ture from this earthly state. For among all the 
 realities with which we have to deal, this is one 
 of the most certain. Every hour, while we are 
 at our toil or play of life, we see this surely 
 verified. One after another, loved ones, friends, 
 fellow-mortals, drop away from our earthly 
 paths ; and the inquiry presses itself upon us : 
 Who may next be called ? This word of depar- 
 ture may come to us. What if it shall ? 
 
 Since we cannot turn aside this event, how 
 reasonable, as well as important, that we make 
 ourselves acquainted with it ; that we live not as 
 though this little earth-space in which we move, 
 this little enumeration of moments which we 
 call time, were all of the existence unto which 
 
86 ' THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 we are destined. Each day should awaken in us 
 some thought on the meaning, as well as the 
 certainty and nearness, of death ; should send 
 us to the great Source of life with prayer for his 
 wisdom to enlighten us ; should send us into 
 ourselves, that in thoughtful meditation in the 
 home of the heart, we may better comprehend 
 the greatness of our means of spiritual enlarge- 
 ment, progress, and enjoyment ; should send us 
 to God's Word, that we may be instructed, edified, 
 and strengthened in our anticipations of the Life 
 Immortal. 
 
 It is in this heavenly revelation that we are 
 instructed not to fear death as an enemy, but to 
 regard it as a friend. It is an enemy to the 
 apprehension of unbelief. But it is faith's 
 friend. It should be studied truthfully, to be 
 perceived and understood as one of the great 
 instrumentalities of Divine Goodness in its deal- 
 ings with man. So that whenever and however 
 it come to us, — whether at midnight, or in morn- 
 ing or evening time, in solitude or with the 
 crowd, amid the eager pursuits of temporal 
 interests, or when resting awhile from them, in 
 the room of sickness, where for long days or 
 months or years we may have awaited it, or in 
 awful suddenness, amid perils wholly unforeseen 
 
WHAT IS DEATH TO US? 87 
 
 and avoidable, — we may greet it with a welcome 
 born of faith* s triumph over all the fears of mere 
 mortal dissolution ; may say to it : " Thou art no 
 stranger ; I have seen and known thee before. 
 Thou hast been very near me in the past, hast 
 taken many a loved one from my side, hast torn 
 my heart with anguish, and left me to sorrow 
 and mourning, but never to fear, or distrust of 
 heaven. For I have known the nature of thy 
 mission, thy goings forth from the great God of 
 all. Thou art his messenger, as I am his child. 
 Thou wilt do with me not as thou wilt, but 
 according to the purpose of his wisdom and the 
 riches of his grace. Where is thy sting ? It 
 hath no power upon me ! " 
 
 Such familiarity with death will keep us in 
 remembrance of the interest we have in the life 
 beyond it, an interest as truly ours as any we 
 have in the things of the present world. Our 
 departed loved ones, our companions, friends, 
 the great multitudes of our race, are there. 
 They are not cut off from us, nor we from them. 
 They are near us as we walk these earthly 
 ways with lightsome or with weary feet. Their 
 God is ours. They live, as we live, under his 
 guardianship. They remind us daily of our 
 treasures in the heavens. 
 
88 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 And so through every day's account of life 
 we should seek to keep its present filled with 
 good, should aim to keep its noblest ends in 
 view, should be " in the fear of the Lord all the 
 daylong," — in that fear long since defined as 
 " the beginning of wisdom," which is wisdom's 
 life and greatness and honor and power. In 
 works of sternest duty, in trial and in joy, in 
 deeds of love for men, in prayers of faith to 
 God ; in all the great and all the little things of 
 this our mortal being, and in prospect of that 
 higher state into which the wisdom and goodness 
 of the Father calls us, we should be making the 
 best and most of our pilgrimage. Short, indeed, 
 is it; but yet how full of noble thoughts and 
 truthful, hopeful words and faithful doings it 
 may be ! Such may it be to the writer and 
 reader of these pages, so that at the close 
 of its realities we may be able to say, as in 
 the sweet words of a devout believer in man's 
 immortality : — 
 
 "Life ! we have been long together, 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 
 'T is hard to part when friends are dear, — 
 Perhaps 't will cause a sigh, a tear. 
 Then steal away, give little warning ; 
 Choose thine own time ; 
 
 Say not, Good-night ! but in some higher clime 
 Bid me Good-morning ! " 
 
PRESENT SALVATION, 89 
 
 PRESENT SALVATION. 
 
 Hold there ! where runnest thou ? 
 
 Know heaven is in thee ; 
 Seek'st thou for God elsewhere, 
 
 His face thou 'It never see. 
 
 Angelus Silesius, 1620. 
 
 " 'TPHIS is a faithful saying and worthy of all 
 acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into 
 the world to save sinners." 1 He came where 
 sinners were, to turn them away from their 
 iniquities, to place them here and now in the 
 way of salvation. The direction of his truth to 
 us all continually is, " Now is the accepted time, 
 behold now is the clay of salvation." 2 
 
 Human effort is one of the agencies in effect- 
 ing this salvation. But doubters have little faith 
 in it. Amidst all the strivings for good among 
 our fellow-men, how often do we meet the eye of 
 disapprobation, and hear the word of discourage- 
 ment and despair : " A wicked world still ; none 
 the better, on the whole, for all the reforms of 
 which you boast. Human nature will be itself, 
 
 1 1 Tim. i. 15. 2 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 
90 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 notwithstanding all efforts for its moral improve- 
 ment. The evil will overbalance the good. It 
 always was so ; it will ever be so with mankind!" 
 Such is the declaration too often greeting us 
 when we talk of the moral progress of humanity. 
 But it is ungenerous, unjust, pernicious. It is 
 this very language and spirit which tends as 
 much as anything else to keep the world just 
 where it is. Let the word be continually going 
 forth to men that they can do nothing for them- 
 selves, — make no Advancement, no new acquisi- 
 tion, realize no great reformation, no newness of 
 life, or spiritual effectiveness, — and what is the 
 consequence ? You paralyze their best efforts for 
 self-elevation ; you serve to render them, what 
 they believe themselves to be, feeble, helpless, 
 given over to the influences of the Adversary, 
 rather than able to rise and prove themselves 
 the sons of God! Convince men that they are 
 totally depraved, and what of noble and godlike 
 moral exertion can you expect of them ? Spread 
 abroad everywhere among them this despicable 
 conviction, that there must needs always be so 
 much wickedness in the world, — and, when you 
 have given out this word, if you speak of reform, 
 do nothing to bid it God-speed, but rather sneer 
 at it quietly, and let the indifferent feel that this 
 
PRE SEX T SALVATION. 91 
 
 is your influence in behalf of human reformation 
 and progress, — and what is the result ? Let one 
 do this, and what is effected ? Let twenty, a 
 hundred, a thousand, take this course, and what 
 follows ? What but the very evil so readily and 
 generally predicted ? The very prediction has 
 served to keep the evil in being. Though it be 
 in itself a base libel on our nature, the constant 
 repetition of the libel has made it truth ! But 
 take the opposite view. Instead of listening to 
 this word of repining, discouragement, and 
 despair, let every one who would prove himself 
 a lover of righteousness put his heart and hands 
 into the work of promoting it. Let him labor 
 with his erring fellow-men with a true, earnest, 
 and trusting soul. If strong himself, let him 
 endeavor to bear the infirmities of the weak ; if 
 he have greater light than others, let him shed 
 a portion of it on them ; if higher advantages, 
 let him minister to their elevation. Only let him 
 work in faith, saying, and feeling the truth of 
 the conviction as he speaks : " Now is the time, 
 and this is my opportunity. This labor must not, 
 shall not, be deferred. To wait is to give confi- 
 dence to the Adversary. To say that he must 
 always find as much employment as now, is to 
 give him good cheer in his work of death. It 
 
92 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 shall not be thus. Men need not be always 
 slaves. They have a right to assert their moral 
 freedom, and they have the means to secure it." 
 Look at all our acknowledged reforms. It is 
 thus they have moved on. So has the drunkard 
 been made free from his chains of inebriation 
 and death. The labor of faith and love rescued 
 him. A clearer and more convincing demonstra- 
 tion of this was never given than in the Wash- 
 ingtonian reform. So shook and tottered and 
 fell, at last, that stronghold of Slavery, in which 
 more than half our nation once seemed so 
 securely entrenched. No evil in the land seemed 
 more gigantic and forbidding. Earnest, truthful, 
 faithful words — from hearts and consciences that 
 were thoroughly alive and sensitive to the magni- 
 tude of the evil — were first spoken, then repeated 
 and multiplied, until the crisis came; and the 
 evil was placed where it will never thus show 
 itself again, while the education and progress of 
 humanity are a part of human life and history. 
 So have other reforms, in humbler ways, been 
 worked out through this faithful effort of brave 
 and loving souls. If we would have the world 
 better, we may. But we must not rest too easily 
 in the philosophy of waiting. Our work must 
 be prompted by the conviction that a present 
 
PEE SENT SALVATION. 93 
 
 salvation is our own pre-eminent need, and that 
 of our race. 
 
 " Thy kingdom come ! " This is the true 
 prayer of the Christian : " Come to me, come to 
 all men here below. Thy will be done on earth 
 as in heaven." This is the kingdom of our Lord, 
 this his coming for which we should pray, — his 
 coming " with power and great glory," to vindi- 
 cate the Father's name and bless his children 
 with that knowledge of his grace which is life 
 eternal, — his coming to overturn the old and the 
 false, and bring in the new and the true. Thus 
 did the Revelator on Patrnos see spiritually this 
 coming of the true Christ. He sang of " the 
 New Jerusalem coming down from God out of 
 heaven," and of the voice he heard saying, " The 
 tabernacle of God is with men ; and they shall 
 be his people ; and God himself shall be with 
 them and be their God." And he concludes the 
 grand chant with the emphatic words : " And 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; 
 and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow 
 nor crying ; neither shall there be any more pain ; 
 for the former things are passed away." 2 
 
 How much of this very heaven are we desirous 
 of having come to us and to our fellow-men? 
 
 1 Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
94 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 And how earnestly and constantly are we striving 
 for this good, as though we believed it something 
 more than a pleasing vision to dwell upon, — the 
 dream of a joy to be realized somewhere in the 
 dim distance, without the joint agency of man in 
 this needed work of spiritual redemption ? How 
 comprehensive, in view of this subject, are the 
 words of Coleridge, — 
 
 " Think not the faith by which the just shall live 
 Is a dead creed, a map correct of heaven, — 
 
 Far less a feeling fond and fugitive, 
 
 A thoughtless gift withdrawn as soon as given ; 
 
 It is an affirmation and an act 
 
 That bids eternal truth be present fact " 
 
THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 95 
 
 THE SECRET AND SOURCE OF 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a 
 mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 
 
 Luke, vi. 12. 
 
 \\ 7E read this of Jesus during his earthly life 
 and work with man. Most of his work, 
 as the world knew of it, was done openly in the 
 sight of men. He mingled with the multitude, 
 conversed, advised, taught, and sympathized with 
 them. He " went about doing good." 
 
 This power which shone forth in his works 
 had its origin, its supply. Jesus did not come 
 in his own unaided strength. He was not the 
 source of this strength. No language can be 
 more explicit on this point than his own : " I 
 can of mine own self do nothing ; " "I speak that 
 which I have seen of my Father ; " " My Father 
 is greater than I ; " u All power is given unto me 
 of my Father." This power, which made him so 
 great and so glorious, was a derived, a delegated 
 power. Thus the works he wrought were the 
 works of God ; thus was he in the Father, the 
 
96 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 Father in him. He lived in constant connec- 
 tion with the Infinite Source of all life. 
 
 In this statement of the evangelist we have 
 quoted, we find verified what Jesus stated in 
 reference to his dependence upon the Father. 
 To renew his strength for the work assigned 
 him, he had recourse to communion with 
 the Divine Source, to meditation and prayer. 
 Hence, when the cares, anxieties, and toilings 
 of the day were done, after he had been ex- 
 pending his heavenly power, — giving himself 
 to the wants and calls of a needy humanity, 
 — he withdraws from the multitude, and goes 
 away to that Father on whose gracious bosom 
 he would recline, and whose new supplies of 
 grace he would seek for the life of self-sacrifice 
 which was still before him. 
 
 He is our exemplar ; and if in any duty and 
 work of life he teaches us clearly, it is in this 
 instance, respecting our dependence upon that 
 Source whence his life-supplies were derived, 
 the necessity on our part of constant prayerful- 
 ness, meditation, and communion with heaven, 
 that our inward strength may be sure, and 
 our work for God and humanity effective and 
 unfailing. 
 
 There is just as much Christian life and power 
 
THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 97 
 
 in the churches and in the world as there are 
 hearts in subjection to Christ's rule, and in 
 communion with that Holy Spirit from which 
 he drew his supplies, and no more, that may 
 really be relied upon and counted as the pure 
 gold of the kingdom. You may have any 
 amount of outward manifestation, of the "lo 
 here!" or "lo there!" — costly churches, fash- 
 ionable congregations, scholarly ministers, pop- 
 ular educational institutions, charitable activities 
 not a few. But something more you must have 
 to make any church or sect a divine, increasing, 
 and regenerative power in this erring and sin- 
 stricken and spiritually famishing world. Signs 
 may deceive, and this may be but a show of the 
 life that the churches and the world are most 
 needing. The true life, the saving, exalting, 
 redeeming, and glorifying power, is really in the 
 pure, loving, consecrated, Christlike hearts which 
 that church or sect may hold! Without this 
 knowledge, tongues, gifts, however rare or 
 abounding, may be a show without substance, 
 the body without the soul. 
 
 Godliness is the divine supply of all souls. 
 
 It is the force of all forces in the work of 
 
 spiritual regeneration and redemption. It is 
 
 because we believe in its infinite fulness and 
 
 7 
 
98 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 efficacy that we have hope and faith in the 
 reconciliation of all souls to God. Jesus would 
 have fainted but for this conviction, this joy 
 that was set before him, — the highest joy of his 
 spirit, the completion of the work given him 
 of the Father to do. The apostles would have 
 given up their work in despondency, but for 
 this ever present inspiration — the fulness of 
 God's love adequate to all spiritual wants. 
 They were " persuaded that neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
 nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any other creature, could 
 separate them from the love of God, which was 
 in Christ Jesus the Lord." 
 
 Let us note a few instances wherein this 
 divine supply is needed in the individual soul. 
 
 1. In Temptation. All of us are subjects of 
 temptation. Christ was assailed by it. That 
 which saved him from its influences, will save 
 us also. He could not have stood against it 
 but for that divine force which was in him, 
 and which he kept supplied through commun- 
 ion with his Father and our Father, his God 
 and our God. That led him to say at once and 
 persistently to the Adversary, " Get thee behind 
 me, for thou art an offence unto me." It is 
 
THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 99 
 
 morally certain that we shall be tempted ; but 
 in this there is no sin. The sin is in the yield- 
 ing. " Blessed is the man that endureth temp- 
 tation; for when he is tried, he shall receive 
 the crown of life." If we cut ourselves away 
 from Christ, if we have in the time of tempta- 
 tion no heavenly principle, as he had, to fall 
 back upon, then are we in moral peril, and 
 may be weak and overcome when we deem 
 ourselves strongest. But if we can go confi- 
 dently, in the quiet and earnestness of the soul, 
 to the Father, and pray to him and consult 
 anew his directions and lay hold upon his hand, 
 then may we realize the full meaning of that 
 utterance of the Psalmist, " The name of the 
 Lord is a strong tower ; the righteous runneth 
 into it and is safe." x It is then and thus that 
 the trustiug soul may find the secret of the Lord, 
 and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 
 How grandly expressive of this power are the 
 words of one of Newton's Olney hymns, — 
 
 " Oh, I have seen the day, 
 
 When, with a single word, 
 God helping me to say, 
 
 ' My trust is in the Lord,' 
 My soul has faced a thousand foes, 
 Fearless of all that could oppose ! " 
 
 1 Prov. xviii. 10. 
 
100 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 2. In our dealings with the world we need 
 this inward seeking for the heavenly supply. 
 That we may fulfil the second commandment, 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," an 
 inward supply, adequate to the doing of this 
 duty, is requisite. For this we must go to the 
 Father. The apostolic word is, " Beloved, if 
 God so loved us, we ought also to love one 
 another." But neither the apostle's word alone, 
 nor our assent to it, will insure this love of man 
 to man. This love of God must be the deep and 
 constantly fed conviction of his soul. It was 
 thus with Jesus. The great love ever outflow- 
 ing from him had its constant supply from the 
 beneficent Father of all. 
 
 Loving our fellow-men as he loved them, we 
 shall seek in all our intercourse to deal justly, 
 mercifully, righteously, rendering to all their 
 dues, in that charity which " suffereth long and 
 is kind, seeketh not her own, beareth, hopeth, 
 endureth all things, and that never faileth." 
 All this must come through self-seeking, self- 
 discipline, application to the divine source, 
 reliance upon the wisdom from above, " which 
 is pure, full of mercy and good fruits, with- 
 out partiality and without hypocrisy." 
 
 He who would deal justly in all his business 
 
THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 101 
 
 transactions with his fellow-men froni day to 
 day, needs to keep true and constant and 
 faithful in his business first with God, needs 
 to seek the counsel and aid of the Father in 
 secret, that he may walk openly with his fel- 
 low-men " in all godliness and honesty." 
 
 3. In the afflictive allotments of life we need 
 this inner aid, this divine supply coming through 
 prayer and trust and communion with the Father. 
 In seasons of affliction the sympathy of earthly 
 friends is of unspeakable value to us. Their 
 words and offices of love cheer and bless us. 
 But how often do these prove ineffectual to 
 meet our wants, earnestly and constantly as 
 they may seek and minister to us. There is " a 
 deeper depth " of the soul than that which they 
 can reach, hidden from all human access, where 
 only grace can come of the Infinite fulness and 
 love ! And for this want the Giver of all good 
 has provided. The sorrow that would go apart 
 to weep and meditate may find in him that 
 strength which will enable it in faith to say, 
 " not my will, but thine be done," — enable it 
 also to realize in its high communing and its 
 heavenly confidence, " Now no chastening for the 
 present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; 
 nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable 
 
102 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 fruits of righteousness unto them which are 
 exercised thereby." x 
 
 Let us understand, then, that in order to fulfil 
 the great objects of our life as Jesus has given 
 us the example, we need the same divine resources 
 that supplied him. We need them now, and we 
 never needed them more than now. The excite- 
 ment of the world is everywhere about us ; its 
 outward distractions are forcing themselves upon 
 us through every day and almost every hour of 
 our life. Fast thinking, fast living and doing, 
 seem to be the order of the day. Our own land 
 is pervaded with an intense restlessness and 
 activity, which would seem to be anything but 
 favorable to habits of quiet thought, calm medi- 
 tation, or devout repose. Many seem to think 
 that they are not living at all, if it be not at the 
 swiftest rates of speed and in the midst of new 
 excitements. 
 
 But if we will rightly understand the needs 
 of our spiritual nature, and in what our truest 
 life consists, we shall see that this perpetual roar 
 and agitation is anything but favorable to the 
 supply of them. Neither our physical nor mental 
 powers can endure this constant strain. If even 
 stone and iron will disintegrate under constant 
 1 Hcb. xii. 11. 
 
THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 103 
 
 jarring, so will the soul lose its spiritual compact- 
 ness and strength by these unceasing outward 
 infractions upon it. 
 
 What, then, is its security ? Nothing short of 
 that which Jesus found, as he left the multitude 
 and went apart to seek quiet and renew his 
 inward strength through meditation and prayer. 
 Even so must we do, and do it conscientiously, 
 resolutely, habitually. Just as we go to our 
 meals, to our daily work or nightly rest, so 
 should we go to the closet or mountain apart, — 
 anywhere that we may have seclusion, quiet, 
 peace from the world's noise and confusion, 
 anywhere that we may find time for a little 
 free breathing, bracing prayer, and heavenly 
 meditation. 
 
 At the time of this writing there runs by my 
 dwelling-place the grand and beautiful Merrimac, 
 whose waters move the vast machinery of our 
 city and of the other cities and towns through 
 which it passes. I hear its murmurs night and 
 day, as it ripples in its summer slowness through 
 its rocky channel, or sweeps down in its spring 
 fulness, bearing the freshets of the north to the 
 wide and receptive ocean. Its steady and resist- 
 less force is the reality which oftenest holds me. 
 And whence this ever moving, ever onward, ever 
 
104 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 working power? Ah! you must look for it, not 
 here where our eyes are daily and nightly gazing 
 upon it, and our ears are greeted with the cease- 
 less hymn of its good cheer and adoration. To 
 find the sources of all this power, you must go 
 far back among the mountains of the Granite 
 State, far up toward their summits, and find the 
 living springs quietly at work in their hiding- 
 places, and constantly feeding the little streams 
 that run down the hill-slopes and along the shaded 
 valleys, till they form this swelling flood of living 
 waters as it rolls on and on to the sea. 
 
 So if you would have this Christian life, in the 
 individual or in the churches, a vital, working, 
 constantly effective and unfailing force, it must 
 have its supplies far back in the summits of faith 
 and communion with God, — in secret prayer and 
 heavenly trust, in holy contemplation, in Chris- 
 tian resolution and consecration. Of this comes 
 fulness and life, unfailing strength and prevailing 
 power. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 105 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 We may or may not pronounce the ancient phrases, but we 
 need no longer hesitate to say, " Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; " 
 meaning, a personal heart and will at the centre, a sonship that 
 stands for humanity, a spiritual energy that is the life of men, 
 and through which they come into freedom and righteousness. 
 Mungeb : Freedom of Faith, p. 60. 
 
 "\ ^ERILY, this all Christians ought to under- 
 stand. Nothing is plainer in the New 
 Testament teachings than the assurance given 
 us of the work of God's Holy Spirit in the hearts 
 and affections of men, directing them into the 
 truth, and into the life which the truth inspires. 
 Holy men wrote under its influence, Christ pos- 
 sessed it without measure, the first apostles were 
 endowed with its power; it is promised to all 
 souls seeking and accepting the heavenly direc- 
 tion of the great Teacher sent of God to man. 
 The theological mistiness hindering the right 
 comprehension of this influence cleared away, 
 we understand this promise of our gracious 
 Father to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 him, to be as reasonable and just as any other 
 which he may, in his loving kindness, make to his 
 
106 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 children. The blindness in reference to this 
 blessing ought to be removed, especially among 
 those who have been blest in any good degree 
 with the light of the Christian revelation. It is 
 a shame to the Christian Church that there 
 should be so many in it, or who are looking to it 
 for instruction, adrift on this subject, and in the 
 condition of certain Christian professors of old, 
 who, on being asked by the apostle, " Have ye 
 received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?" 
 replied, " We have not so much as heard whether 
 there be any Holy Spirit." l 
 
 This heavenly influence is to be regarded as an 
 emanation from God our Father, the power of 
 divine goodness, 2 just as light and heat are 
 emanations from the sun. This allusion is made 
 as the simplest illustration of the subject. Phi- 
 losophers have not yet exactly concluded what 
 light is, or how it operates, but all of us know 
 something of its effects upon vegetation; that 
 the bloom of summer and the fruitage of autumn 
 come of it, — effects which could not be realized 
 in the absence of it. The human heart may 
 possess all the elements of religious life, and 
 
 1 Acts xxix. 2. 
 
 2 This is one of the definitions of the Holy Spirit given by 
 Dr. Jonathan Edwards. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 107 
 
 God's spirit may be near it, resting upon it, even, 
 with the refreshing power in it ; yet if this heart 
 be not open to its influences, and in readiness 
 to receive them, there will be barrenness and 
 unfruitfulness there. It is to the receptive, to 
 those in readiness and in waiting, to the earnestly 
 seeking, that the Spirit comes. " Ask, and it 
 shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 1 If 
 earthly parents are in readiness to bestow favors 
 upon their children, " how much more shall your 
 Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask him." 2 Near to our souls, a positive, 
 accessible good, is the spirit of God. Such are 
 the authoritative instructions of Christian truth 
 respecting it. 
 
 This, dear reader, is for your instruction and 
 mine. How far have we realized the pre-eminent 
 blessing of which I am speaking ? If we do not 
 possess it, then why not ? If because we have 
 been too regardless of the meaning of the Holy 
 Spirit, and its actual work with man ; or have 
 regarded it as pertaining chiefly to Christians of 
 other days, now gone ; or have been so much 
 absorbed in other questions of theology as to over- 
 look this, one of the most significant of all, — 
 
 1 Matt. vii. 7. 2 Luke xi. 13. 
 
108 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 whatever the cause may be, in the name of our 
 great and glorious Gospel, let us see that this 
 deficiency is no longer applicable to us. With 
 our pre-eminent Christian faith, let us seek with 
 all our powers the influence and life of the Holy 
 Spirit, not only for our own highest personal 
 blessing, but that this faith may stand and 
 operate and reign and be glorified, not in the 
 wisdom of man, but in the power of the living 
 God ! Let no souls, no sects, no churches, know 
 more of the Holy Spirit than ours. 
 
 " Come, purifying Spirit, come, 
 And make our hearts thy constant home ! " 
 
ABHORRENCE OF EVIL. 109 
 
 ABHORRENCE OF EVIL. ADHERENCE 
 TO GOOD. 
 
 Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 
 
 Apostle Paul. — Bom. xii. 9. 
 
 A BHOKREXCE of evil surely implies sorae- 
 thing stronger than a silent objection to its 
 being and doing, something more demonstrative 
 than a tame repugnance to its manifestations. 
 It means dislike, displeasure, hatred — in the 
 sense in which this term is to be understood as 
 applying to God in expressing his opposition to 
 wrong and sin. This is a part of the creature's 
 imitation of him. a part of the godlikeness which 
 the creafure is to seek. If God loves and favors 
 sin. then may his children do so. If he is op- 
 posed to it, sets his face against it. warns his 
 children to flee or forsake it, there is but one 
 conclusion as to the light in which his children 
 are to regard it. Our Xew England Puritan 
 forefathers had a very expressive name for some 
 of their children. Hate-Evil. The name signi- 
 fied the hope of the parent respecting the child. 
 
HO THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 The evil which we are to abhor is everything 
 opposed to the moral and spiritual well-being of 
 man. The embodiment of this evil in a personal 
 being has never, as we understand it, made the 
 strife against evil any more effective with man- 
 kind. These old ideas of the Devil, as a special 
 personal tempter of every man, are getting out- 
 grown in the churches ; but the fact of evil, of 
 wrong, of sin, is not, cannot be, outgrown. That 
 is an ever present, ever suggestive, ever aggrava- 
 ting reality. The contact is inevitable. One or 
 the other must yield, the tempter or the tempted ; 
 which, it is for our highest interest to answer in 
 " the good fight " which by divine grace we may 
 be able to maintain. To get a personal Devil 
 out of the way, is not to get rid of that whicli he 
 is understood to personify. Evil still lives, and 
 the call upon us is to resist and overcome it. 
 
 We lately met with this poetic querying as to 
 the wisdom of giving up the idea of a personal 
 Devil, according to the teaching of the old the- 
 ology. The writer seems wittily in earnest : — 
 
 " Men don't believe in a Devil now, as their fathers used to do ; 
 
 They 've forced the door of this broadest creed to let His Maj- 
 esty through; 
 
 There is n't a print of his cloven foot, or a fiery dart from his 
 bow, 
 
 To be found in earth or air to-day, for the world has voted so. 
 
ABHORRENCE OF EVIL. HI 
 
 11 But who is it mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and 
 
 brain, 
 And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred 
 
 thousand slain ? 
 Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath 
 
 of Hell, 
 If the Devil is n't, and never was ? Will somebody rise and 
 
 tell? 
 
 "Who dogs the step of the toiling saint, and digs the pit for 
 his feet ? 
 Who sows the tares in the field of time wherever God sows 
 
 his wheat ? 
 The Devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true ; 
 But who is doing the kind of work the Devil alone should do ? 
 
 " Will somebody step to the front forthwith, and make his bow, 
 
 and show 
 How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up ? We 
 
 want to know. 
 The Devil was fairly voted out, and of course, the Devil 's 
 
 gone ; 
 But simple people would like to know who carries his 
 
 business on ? " 
 
 This question involves no puzzle. The real 
 tempter to evil is clearly set forth in the Scrip- 
 tures : " Every man is tempted when he is drawn 
 away of his own lust, and enticed." x It is a 
 battle with our own evil habits and inclinations, 
 into which we are called, — with that " subjection 
 
 1 James i, 14. 
 
112 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 to vanity " in which human nature was created. 
 This is Devil enough, personal, as men are per- 
 sonal, and to be fought and vanquished, as men 
 would be personally and spiritually safe and free. 
 There is no voting this Satan away ; he must be 
 driven away and destroyed by truth and right- 
 eousness ; and as these prevail in human souls, 
 he will be. 
 
 It is of great consequence what attitude we 
 assume towards wrong, — great consequence to 
 ourselves and to others, as respects the influence 
 which we exert. But few men regard an evil 
 deed with complacency ; but few, again, if not 
 moved by self-interest, regard an evil deed with 
 downright abhorrence. Indifference is the atti- 
 tude which men too often assume. But this is 
 one of the most afflictive of mistakes. It is the 
 occasion of no small share of the actual evil- 
 doing there is, even in what is called our most 
 advanced society. It is a disposition to be quiet 
 and let evil alone, because of its prevalence, its 
 popularity. What would Christianity have done 
 at the start, what would all its subsequent efforts 
 have effected, if this fear or indifference had gov- 
 erned its advocates ? It would have been weaker 
 than a shield of gauze against the sword-strokes 
 of the Adversary. But it did not come into the 
 
ABHORRENCE OF EVIL. 113 
 
 world thus to compromise or to tamper with evil, 
 but to abhor and assail it. 
 
 Many of the evils of human society are kept 
 in countenance because they are not abhorred; 
 as they should be. Allowance in them, repeti- 
 tion of them, cause apathy in reference to their 
 depredations. The old words of Pope are 
 verified : — 
 
 " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 "We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 It is thus that evil riots in secret and stalks 
 abroad at noonday, that the social evil defiles 
 human society, that fraud finds apologists and 
 holds up its head in what are deemed respecta- 
 ble places, that the fires of intemperance are burn- 
 ing all around us, and social, moral and political 
 corruption are eating away at the substance of 
 our national being and prosperity. If those who 
 know the right, and profess adherence to it, would 
 more resolutely and habitually put themselves in 
 positive opposition to these wrongs, we should 
 have diminution of them which we cannot now 
 readily compute. 
 
 Years ago there was a great prize-fight be- 
 
 8 
 
114 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 tween two representatives of nations, England 
 and America. They had met to bruise and batter 
 each other according to the most approved pugi- 
 listic methods. Great enthusiasm, pervading high 
 and low places, was awakened by the event. It 
 found expression in parlor and bar-room alike. 
 The Times newspaper of London improved the 
 occasion to draw the notable conclusion, that 
 only nations possessing remarkable qualities 
 could produce two such champions of manly 
 strength and endurance ! Nor was the interest 
 confined to sporting-circles. Men and women, 
 old and young, were alike subjects of the inter- 
 est. " It still seems incredible," says a writer in 
 reference to that event, "but I well remember 
 hearing Christian young ladies of the highest 
 social position and pretensions, discuss with ani- 
 mation, and without a blush, the disgusting de- 
 tails of the fight. They read, they listened, they 
 asked questions, and they replied, until indif- 
 ference succeeded to aversion, and then until en- 
 thusiasm conquered indifference. Indifference, 
 instinctive aversion even, was not enough to 
 secure their safety. They needed with set pur- 
 pose to abhor. Deliberate hatred was their pan- 
 oply." This villainous evil is now staring us in 
 the face, in the fact that such prominent notice 
 
ABHORRENCE OF EVIL. 115 
 
 is given, in some of our city dailies, of the pugi- 
 listic encounters and victorious fighters of the 
 present time. " The offence is rank." 
 
 The same is true of other evils which abound 
 in society. Yice and wrong often seen, con- 
 stantly repeated, fresh records coming daily 
 before us in the newspapers, talked of in the 
 streets, in the workshop, and drawing-room, — it 
 becomes contagion, and its work is debasing and 
 corrupting. Indifference to it is sin. Abhor- 
 rence manifested is the duty of all who would 
 be true to the highest interests of humanity to 
 the demands of Christian truth and righteous- 
 ness. Righteous public sentiment is made up of 
 the righteous sentiments and convictions of indi- 
 viduals. We each have a contribution of this 
 force to make, if we would have a righteous pub- 
 lic sentiment prevail. 
 
 Evil only asks to be let alone. It can carry 
 on its work most effectually without spectators 
 to criticise it. Rogues do not like a vigilant 
 police-force ; and there are those who dislike 
 Christian teachers and reformers if they are per- 
 sistent against special and prevailing sins, and do 
 not preach a gospel so general and so liberal, 
 that they who most need its searching reproofs 
 are most pleased with its soothing and soporific 
 
116 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 platitudes. Against all this, the testimony of 
 the Christian Gospel is as clear as Divine truth 
 can make it. 
 
 While we are justified in thus urging the plea 
 of the apostle, we are all the time to understand 
 that this abhorrence or hatred of evil does not 
 extend to those who commit it. Love is for 
 them, — compassion, pity, — as well as justice, 
 punishment, retribution. Christ loved the sin- 
 ner, while he had no love for the sin. That was 
 his abhorrence, constantly. He was ever pitiful 
 towards the transgressor ; but he had only detes- 
 tation for the transgression. He came not to 
 hate, not to condemn the sinner hopelessly, but 
 to save, — to release him from his bonds, to give 
 him pardon, newness of life in truthfulness, 
 obedience and love. All the abhorrence of evil 
 we are ever called upon to exercise is perfectly 
 compatible with the spirit of Christ, who came to 
 confront the wrong, to vindicate the right, and 
 to make man a partaker of the Divine holiness. 
 
 The other clause of the apostle's injunction 
 deserves attention ; " Cleave to that which is 
 good." This signifies not a mere acknowledg- 
 ment of the claims of heavenly righteousness 
 upon us, but closest adherence to truth and to 
 duty. It is an alliance with goodness which 
 
ADHERENCE TO GOOD. \YJ 
 
 makes it a part of ourselves, our daily being and 
 strength. 
 
 Goodness, as Christian truth reveals it, is the 
 natural element of the soul. The old doctrine, 
 that man is totally opposed in heart to truth 
 and right, is one of the opinions of the past 
 which the churches are dropping from their 
 creeds. Man is capable of receiving the seed of 
 divine truth into the soil of his heart so that it 
 may germinate there, or he is not. If he is not, 
 then all the appeals which come to him in the 
 Gospel are meaningless ; if he is, then obedience 
 is his true life. His new birth of the divine 
 spirit is essential to this life. He must feed 
 upon that which his spiritual nature craves, and 
 without which it cannot have true development 
 and power. Most men, even the lowest, have 
 an innate reverence for goodness. It appeals to 
 their consciences ; it awakens what there is in 
 their own nature that can be satisfied only with 
 goodness. It was this susceptibility which Jesus 
 saw in man, and which drew him in sympathy 
 to the erring and sinful. He knew that his 
 appeals could reach them, and draw forth re- 
 sponses from their hearts. He knew that all 
 souls would at last hear his voice and come to 
 him as their Deliverer and Life ; because they 
 
118 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 could not rest out of him, could not find their 
 spiritual nature satisfied, save with the blessing 
 which he alone by Divine grace could impart. 
 It is this appreciation of goodness in man upon 
 which God's spirit operates, with which it bears 
 witness of the true Fatherhood and Sonship. 
 The evil in man is not converted into goodness, 
 but is cast out, that the good in him may be 
 quickened, developed, made to grow and bring 
 forth fruit unto everlasting life. 
 
 Bach to its element, each to its end, this is 
 a law of nature. It is a spiritual law, involving 
 man's destiny. Whatever may have befallen 
 him since his creation, whatever explanations 
 theologians may put upon what is called his 
 degeneracy, or fall, one thing is sure, — he is 
 still an object of paternal interest on the part 
 of his Creator, and can find truest action and 
 enjoyment of his highest powers only in him. 
 This appeal of the apostle, therefore, is in per- 
 fect accordance with our spiritual nature and 
 needs. 
 
 Again : goodness, by which we understand 
 Christian obedience and life, is its own reward. 
 A patient, cured by the kind and skilful atten- 
 tions of a physician, would not think of demand- 
 ing payment of his helper for the work he had 
 
ADHERENCE TO GOOD. 119 
 
 wrought upon him. The obligation would be the 
 other way. So are we to regard our obligations 
 to the Great Physician of our souls, sent with 
 divine supplies from the Father of all to his 
 children. With what inconsiderateness, not to 
 say foolishness, do some ask : " If all souls are to 
 be blest, finally, with the heavenly life, what is 
 the intent of preaching the Gospel here and now, 
 or of any special exertion for a holy life ? " What 
 a narrow conception of goodness and of the ob- 
 ject of holy living does such a statement evince ; 
 and how is it utterly lost in that blaze of light 
 streaming from the apostolic testimony : " For 
 the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we 
 thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all 
 dead ; and that he died for all, that they which 
 live should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
 but unto him who died for them and rose again." l 
 Service on principle, — this is requirement of him 
 who is " Lord of all ; " and this is one of the 
 great lessons yet to be learned more thoroughly 
 than ever in all the churches in Christendom. 
 
 Too many professed believers in " the grace 
 of God that bringeth salvation to all men," fail 
 to be moved and inspired by this highest of 
 all considerations. They have in theory the true 
 
 i 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 
 
120 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 exposition of the Christian service and life. The 
 world needs to see how faithfully they can reduce 
 it to practice. For deeply as we condemn this 
 foolish saying just noted, — " If all souls are to be 
 saved at last, of what consequence is a righteous 
 life in the present?" — there may be those who, 
 by their very example of indifference to the spir- 
 itual demands of our pre-eminent faith, are pro- 
 voking this very question from ignorant and pre- 
 judiced opposers of it. Let us be wiser. 
 
 Adherence to goodness is so much contributed 
 to the great work of human progress. It is 
 right that God should reign in all souls. From 
 everlasting to everlasting his delight is in the 
 diffusion of good, the utmost diffusion of it, in 
 his own time and way. The powers that are 
 hateful to him should be hateful to us. In the 
 pertinent words of Robertson : " I will tell you 
 what to hate. Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate 
 indolence, oppression, injustice, hate Pharisaism; 
 hate them as Christ hated them, with a deep, 
 living, godlike hatred." What to love, Chris- 
 tianity as pertinently directs us. Love God, 
 first of all, the Fountain of goodness ; love man, 
 His offspring and the object of his unchangeable 
 affection ; love truth, duty, justice, mercy, holi- 
 ness, as Christ loved them ; love goodness as the 
 
ADHERENCE TO GOOD. 121 
 
 prevailing and overcoming power by which evil 
 shall be rooted out of the universe, and " God 
 shall be all in all." Blessed are they who have a 
 life-enlistment in this heavenly service, and who 
 prove faithful therein. 
 
122 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 
 
 Eide on, ride on, in majesty ! 
 
 In lowly pomp ride on to die ! 
 
 O Christ ! thy triumphs now begin, 
 
 O'er captive death and conquered sin. 
 
 MlLMAN. 
 
 r I ^HERE is a day in the Christian Church cal- 
 endar called Palm Sunday, commemora- 
 tive of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 
 the account of which is given in Luke xix. 
 37-40 : " And when he was come nigh, even 
 now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the 
 whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice 
 and praise God with a loud voice for all the 
 mighty works that they had seen ; saying, 
 Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the high- 
 est. And some of the Pharisees from among 
 the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy 
 disciples. And he answered and said unto them, 
 I tell you that if these should hold their peace, 
 the stones would immediately cry out." 
 
 We do not, of course, interpret these words of 
 Jesus literally. They signify that the response 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 123 
 
 to God's truth from man will somehow find utter- 
 ance, and his name and honor be vindicated by 
 his children. Human nature will manifest its 
 admiration for the right when the time comes. 
 Lofty genius, self-sacrificing philanthropy, dis- 
 tinguished heroism, awaken and call forth 
 human praise. The claims and works of Jesus 
 impel admiration and the highest expressions of 
 thanksgiving and joy. 
 
 What are his claims ? Consider the truth with 
 which he comes to man. Everywhere and al- 
 ways do we find in it supplies for our needy 
 nature. Light is not more evidently adapted to 
 the human eye than is the Gospel to the spiritual 
 nature of man. When the Scotch Missionary to 
 India read to the intelligent Hindu youth, for the 
 first time, the precept of Jesus, " I say unto you, 
 Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you," 
 one of them could not refrain from giving utter- 
 ances to his feelings : " Beautiful, indeed, how 
 beautiful ! " For clays and weeks, he could not 
 help repeating : " ' Love your enemies ; bless 
 them that curse you ! ' Excellent, indeed ! This 
 must be the truth." It commended itself at once 
 to his reason and affections. 
 
 Other religions of the earth may be outgrown, 
 their moral codes searched out and exhausted, 
 
124 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 but Christ's, never. There lives not a man too 
 depraved to embrace it, or too pure and holy to 
 need its inspiration and strength. For who is 
 there to whom the apostolic precept, " Grow in 
 grace," bears no meaning, — who, to whom the 
 command, " Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
 your Father which is in heaven is perfect," does 
 not present an incomparable sphere of duty, an 
 infinitely exalted standard of moral attainment ? 
 Perfection is the only limit, — constant growth 
 and improvement, the great law of the Christian 
 life. 
 
 Our Heavenly Father's interest in his children, 
 and the interest they are to have in one another, 
 are revealed through Christ. No religion, as that 
 of the Gospel, so closely, universally, everlast- 
 ingly binds all souls in one interest, one sym- 
 pathy, one life. It has always done most for the 
 world, and gives largest hope for the race, — hope 
 which no heathenism, paganism, philosophy, 
 Judaism even, could ever impart. We are told 
 that at a meeting of the Radical Club in Boston, 
 where the comparative merits of Brahmanism 
 and Christianity had been discussed, Mr. Wendell 
 Phillips very pointedly said to the company as- 
 sembled : " Gentlemen, the reply to all your argu- 
 ments about Brahmanism is in one word, India. 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 125 
 
 The argument and defence, unanswerable and 
 impregnable in behalf of Christianity, is also in 
 one word, Christendom" The world can read 
 the influence of Brahmanism in that " tomb of 
 nations/' India ; it can see the beginnings of the 
 power of Christianity in the leading civilized na- 
 tions of the earth, where, even now, the people 
 are learning and practising but the rudiments 
 of this all-comprehending religion. 
 
 Christianity will do the best and not the worst 
 with our nature, through all its perils, adversities, 
 failures, calamities, conflicts, and defeats. Evil 
 is transient, good the prevailing power. As this 
 whole humanity has borne the image of the earthy 
 so shall it bear the image of the heavenly. There 
 are germs and capabilities of this heavenliness in 
 man. Hence there need be no despondency in 
 view of the call made upon him by the Gospel 
 to repentance, rectitude, righteousness, holiness 
 of life. To preach this Gospel to the poor, to 
 bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliver- 
 ance to the captives and the opening of the prison 
 to them that are bound, — this was and is the joy 
 of Christ's mission. So came he eighteen centu- 
 ries ago ; so comes he to us at the K present hour. 
 
 TTe do not hesitate to condemn these Pharisees 
 who would have Jesus suppress the acclamations 
 
126 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 of the multitude. Yet they were no more un- 
 reasonable than many who would suppress his 
 praises by neglect of the truth which he came to 
 dispense, or stand in opposition to its holy de- 
 mands. The world is full of this opposition in 
 its various forms, — in open, flagrant, far-abound- 
 ing iniquity, bigoted unbelief, wilful or unblama- 
 ble ignorance, the moral insanity that makes a 
 mock of sin, the delusion which seeks, in mere 
 temporal gratifications and follies, to satisfy the 
 longings of the human soul. All these would 
 not only suppress Christ's praises, but his truth 
 and power among men. Individuals or institu- 
 tions, not in moral correspondence with this 
 heavenly revelation and intention, would not 
 have Christ to reign over them. Philosophies or 
 theologies adverse to his spirit of expansive and 
 exhaustless benevolence are to be ranked in this 
 opposition. It is the work of Christianity to ap- 
 peal to them in its own spirit, and to do its holy 
 will with them ; in its own spirit, I say, as this 
 must sooner or later be the power that shall reach 
 and transform them. 
 
 To oppose a religion like this is like spurning 
 from our own door a dear friend who comes to 
 give us strength in our weakness, light in our 
 darkness, plenty in our poverty, comfort and joy 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 127 
 
 in our affliction. It is the great strife against 
 ourselves that makes us, in this respect, such 
 inconsistent sinners in the sight of our heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 Acceptance of Christian truth, and loyalty to 
 it, is therefore the greatest and most important 
 lesson of our subject. When God, the Father 
 speaks, it is for the interest of his children to 
 hear. He speaks to us in the truth of Christ : 
 " This is my beloved Son ; hear ye him ! " It has 
 been his call to man ever since this Meditator 
 of the New Covenant had his ministry here. It 
 is his call now. Christianity is not only to be in- 
 wardly accepted in its statements of truth, but 
 honestly and cheerfully avowed. The good it 
 involves demands this. It is worth receiving 
 and enjoying; it is worth avowing, standing 
 by, defending, and honoring. Hence Christian 
 profession is everywhere enjoined in the New 
 Testament. " Let us hold fast," not only the 
 principles, but " the profession of our faith," — 
 its profession as a religion, a vital spiritual force 
 which we seek for the life and healthfulness of 
 our own souls, and which we believe in as a 
 regenerative power needed in all souls. 
 
 Next to a Christian profession comes Christian 
 activity. Religious apathy is everywhere con- 
 
128 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 demned in the Scriptures. Our hands were not 
 more evidently given us to work with, nor our 
 eyes to see with, than our spiritual faculties to 
 be actively and profitably used. Wakeful, fervent, 
 vigorous spiritual life has accomplished whatever 
 of the great and good and effective we now 
 witness in the kingdom of the Redeemer. It 
 was this which kept alive Christianity in the 
 earlier periods of its history, and bore it on 
 through the darkness and change of a thou- 
 sand years, till its strong witness-voices awoke 
 the world anew at the dawn of the Reformation. 
 This has since led the way in successive refor- 
 mations, — has given to not a few of our Chris- 
 tian sects their most effectual power, and made 
 them the real contributors, that they have been, 
 to the actual enlargement, growth, vitality, and 
 strength of the whole Christian Church. It is 
 this which now gives power to many a movement 
 in Christendom, and tends to make the religion 
 of Jesus a light and glory in the midst of the 
 moral darkness and shame of our world. And 
 it is this which must sustain us, as we seek to 
 enlighten this world with " the glorious Gospel 
 of the blessed God." 
 
 The activity of the Church is one of the con- 
 ditions on which it is to live. We may accept 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 129 
 
 this condition ourselves, as a leading force in 
 connection with others in it. The armor that 
 we bear signifies that we are to do a pioneer 
 work, that we are to be foremost in hope and 
 faith and love, and all their legitimate endeavors 
 and accomplishments. Our helmet, Salvation, 
 may mean more than this very word means on 
 other helmets in the ranks of the redeeming army. 
 Yet for all this, many of us may be no better 
 soldiers than others of these very hosts can pre- 
 sent, — some of us, perhaps, not so good. If we 
 love our own church-cause with an unfaltering 
 love (which is the true loyalty), if we hold dear 
 the great principles which our church-edifices 
 stand for, and which our own ministry signifies, 
 then are we to carry on the work which our faith 
 announces, and that we, if we are speaking the 
 truth to the world, have enlisted to perform. 
 
 Christian loyalty ! let us heed well this claim 
 of our holy faith upon us. We need not be less 
 loyal in our good works with others, because we 
 are first loyal to our own church and communion. 
 " Do good unto all men ; especially to those [or 
 with those] who are of the household of faith." 
 This is the right direction. Faithful at home, 
 faithful elsewhere ; faithless, unreliable, there, — 
 the same in other places and connections. 
 9 
 
130 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 In the light of this lesson let us consider — 
 1. The inevitable vindication of the truth and 
 the right, under the providence of God. Opposi- 
 tions, these will be sure to awaken, while they 
 encounter human ignorance and folly. Improve- 
 ments and reforms work slowly. Galileo is 
 persecuted and his testimony silenced, because 
 science has just convinced him that the earth 
 moves. Harvey, for the discovery of the circula- 
 tion of the blood, is bitterly denounced by the 
 physicians and other scientists of his day. 
 Fulton is ridiculed as his first steamer moves 
 slowly up the Hudson ; and Morse, whose genius 
 has aided more than that of any one of our race 
 in opening and speeding the facilities for com- 
 munication of the earth's nations and peoples, 
 was called to encounter a world of doubt and 
 coldness and discouragement in the outset of his 
 afterwards illustrious career. All these, and 
 others we might name, are benefactors now. 
 The world henceforth will give them honor and 
 renown. Every reformer will have his up-hill 
 strivings, his hand-to-hand encounters with error 
 and wrong, — denunciations, persecutions, suf- 
 ferings, and it may be, death. But the day of 
 triumph comes, and the unpopular cause then 
 awakens the acclamations of the multitude of 
 mankind. 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 131 
 
 2. The duty of fidelity to our highest convic- 
 tions of what is right. Too many fail, and make 
 nothings of themselves, when they ought to be 
 forcible somethings just here. They allow preju- 
 dice and party to govern and direct them, instead 
 of a good conscience. They utterly forget that 
 one soul siding with God is in the majority 
 against all parties, all multitudes, all numbers, 
 in the universe opposed to them. Better say 
 yes, alone, for the truth, than with the masses 
 for a lie ! For the truth will live and the lie 
 perish ; and withholding our influence for the 
 right will not defraud it of its just dues, in the 
 long run. We are to be ready to follow the truth, 
 and our convictions of conscience in the light of 
 it, fearlessly ; remembering that, notwithstanding 
 our denial of it, it is destined at last to prevail. 
 
 Man might at this moment cease every tribute 
 of praise to the great Creator of all. Yet would 
 this testimony to him be silent in the earth ? I 
 tell you, Nay. The ocean would still chant adora- 
 tions to him on her ever-sounding shores ; the 
 flowers of the valley would look up to him in 
 gladness and beauty ; the birds of the morning 
 and evening would send forth their anthems in 
 his vast temple, and earth reflect his beaming 
 brightness back to heaven. God will have praise. 
 
132 THE INNER LIEE. 
 
 His truth in Jesus will. If it be not hailed and 
 welcomed in one way, it will be in another. If 
 the voices of this multitude in its favor are sup- 
 pressed, another will yet come with its hosannas, 
 or even the very stones will proclaim them. You 
 cannot cheat the world out of God's reign in it. 
 That " was, and is, and is to come." Better 
 strive to do something towards preparing the 
 way ! The kingdom of which Christ was found- 
 er is all conquering. Humanity, as one, shall 
 be drawn to him. " Worlds unborn shall sing 
 his glory." 
 
 3. Our other thought is this, — our duty to fol- 
 low the leadings of our holy faith, to see that no 
 others are in advance of us. Let us not stifle 
 our convictions, nor limit the means by which 
 we can give expression to them. There is no 
 safety but in duty. Christ will have the honor 
 due to his mission and name. If our hearts and 
 tongues do not give this honor, others will. That 
 old word will have fulfilment : " He shall not 
 fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment 
 in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law." 
 His judgment is set more and more by the in- 
 crease of his truth and the love of his righteous- 
 ness in human souls. The surest praise we can 
 render him is not that given out in strong words 
 
THOUGHTS FOR PALM SUNDAY. 133 
 
 and acclamations only, but in the living deeds of 
 a loving loyalty. 
 
 " For these do men and angels wait ; 
 . . . And these are sure, 
 As God and goodness shall endure, 
 As right, and truth, and God are great." 
 
134 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 
 
 Where'er the Lord shall build my house, 
 An altar to his name I '11 raise. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 * I ^HE family is the first human institution. 
 It was so in the beginning, and, as we 
 read the Divine method, will be so through all 
 time. "God setteth the solitary in families," 
 and from these centres intends that the earth 
 shall be peopled and the influence of truth and 
 righteousness be everywhere extended. The 
 ancient promise to Abraham was, that in him 
 " all the families of the earth should be blessed." 
 This promise has distinctly in view the family 
 relation. It is not merely the general, but the 
 particular, the minute, the individual application 
 of the promise, that immediately concerns us. 
 What is this blessing in Christ, — how mani- 
 fested, when effected ? These are the practi- 
 cal considerations growing out of the promise 
 itself. Do we give praise to God for this prom- 
 ise, so gracious, extensive, universal ? Take it 
 
DEYOTIOXAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 135 
 
 home ; let its life be in you, imparted to your 
 family, go out from your family to others, be- 
 come a part of the general religion. If the 
 religion do not exist in the family, it will not 
 in the neighborhood, in the state, in the world. 
 
 TTe all know something of the influences of 
 home. Its memories, its impressions, its loves, 
 go with us everywhere. Xo attractions that 
 meet us far away, amid other homes or in other 
 lands, can efface that indwelling respect and love 
 for our early home. True to its sacred influ- 
 ences the pilgrim-heart responds, — 
 
 " Where'er I roam, whatever lands I see, 
 My heart, untra veiled, still returns to thee." 
 
 The home, then, as we understand it, should 
 be the place of Christian Example, Devotion, 
 and Instruction. 
 
 1. "We put Example first, when speaking of 
 paternal duty. Good precepts on the part of 
 parents and guardians are not enough to in- 
 sure a well-ordered and virtuous home. Even 
 good words may be cheap in the family-circle, 
 as elsewhere. TThat the parent does is always 
 of more consequence to the child than what he 
 says. The saying has chief power only or 
 mainly as it accompanies the deed. If the 
 
136 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 child is tempted to wrong, what an induce- 
 ment to resist it is ever coming up before him 
 in the light of a righteous paternal example. 
 Was not that an utterance of wisdom on the 
 part of the Psalmist : " I will behave myself 
 wisely in a perfect way ; I will walk within 
 my house with a perfect heart." 1 What we 
 pray for or commend in the morning, we should 
 live for during the day, — for consistency of 
 character, righteous action, for fidelity to duty, 
 for firmness, tenderness, self-control, justice, 
 kindly affection. There is an eloquent persua- 
 sion in a Christian life, which no mere words 
 can ever contain. Many a home, humble, 
 though it might have been, has by this means 
 sent out an influence into the world that has 
 added to the world's virtue and strength. It 
 is thus that the parent, though he may not be 
 a ready and voluble pleader for the excellence 
 of the Christian precepts, may have that daily 
 practice in accordance with them which shall tell, 
 if with noiseless yet with sure effect, upon the 
 members of his household. u Whoso heareth 
 these sayings of mine," said Jesus, " and doeth 
 them, I will liken him unto a wise man who 
 built his house upon a rock." 2 This is the sure 
 
 i Ps. ci. 2. 2 Matt. vii. 24. 
 
DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 137 
 
 and abiding foundation for all homes — the 
 sayings of Jesus lived therein. 
 
 2. The Devotional spirit is essential to the 
 true Christian character of the home. Religion 
 asks expression in word and form on all proper 
 occasions. It asks such in the home, and should 
 have it there, in its time. There should be, it 
 seems to us, if we read our religion aright, in 
 every home a family altar — a daily acknowledg- 
 ment, in some form, of our religious obligations 
 to the Father of all. If children look for guid- 
 ance and support to earthly parents, so should 
 all look to the great Guardian of souls. Read- 
 ing of the Scriptures and prayer and sacred 
 song — a service, however brief and simple, in 
 which the united expression of the family goes 
 heavenward, the look upward, amid the rush- 
 ing past of these earthly excitements and 
 scenes — well befit the daily home-life. Our 
 dependence on God, our daily temptations to 
 sin, our daily causes for thanksgiving, our daily 
 need of new mercies, all are so many reasons 
 for this observance. They are so plain that 
 the simplest may comprehend them. 
 
 The common objections to this observance are 
 obvious. One is, that stated family devotional 
 services often become monotonous, and beget 
 
138 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 dislike rather than enjoyment and pleasure. 
 This may be true in certain instances, but 
 what shadow of an argument does it afford 
 against that which should be a delight as well 
 as duty ? Devotion need never be monotonous 
 nor unprofitable, and will not if the heart is 
 in it. And it is our first duty to look to this. 
 One of the very objects of daily devotion is, 
 that our spiritual life may be renewed and 
 abounding. 
 
 Want of ability is pleaded. Those w^ho must 
 plead, however, would not make this excuse if 
 they could have no food until they had prayed 
 for it. The will usually finds out the way. 
 Words for prayer may come as readily as for 
 complaint or rejoicing. 
 
 Want of capacity may be sometimes another 
 word for want of inclination. It is not thus in 
 the secular pursuits of life, that the want of 
 ability holds men back. They create abilities, 
 they make circumstances for themselves ; and 
 become, by perseverance, strong in that wherein, 
 at the beginning, they were weak indeed. Be- 
 sides, there are excellent forms of family prayer 
 instituted for those who may need them, in the 
 use of which many have found their devotional 
 feelings awakened and their spirits refreshed. 
 
DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 139 
 
 Furthermore, no other professedly religious 
 people on the face of the earth have higher, 
 stronger reasons, urging them to the observance 
 of family-devotion, than believers in Christian 
 Universalism. Who have such views of the great 
 family ties which bind us together as one race, 
 and all to the one gracious God and Father ? 
 What other religion brings him nearer to his 
 children ? None ! We say all this every time 
 we assert the superiority of our faith — its 
 theoretical perfectness, its practical excellency. 
 Who then should go before us in the culture 
 of the religious affections at home ? Upon 
 whose family-altars should there be brighter 
 fires of adoration burning ? If we are not 
 among the number who have our homes con- 
 secrated by prayer and praise and religious 
 instruction, where shall we look for homes 
 where these manifestations are seen and 
 known ? The members of our homes are to 
 meet and mingle in other family-circles than 
 their own. And in some of these homes they 
 will listen to the voice of prayer and praise, 
 and be called to participate in Christian 
 home-devotions. Shall they not be qualified, 
 by previous home-examples, to hail and wel- 
 come these religious observances elsewhere ; 
 
140 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 or shall these be to them new scenes in home- 
 life, which, from youth up, they have not wit- 
 nessed beneath the otherwise goodly home-roofs 
 that sheltered them ? Shall they be led to ask 
 the question, " Why are not these calls made 
 upon us in our own families ? " without being 
 able to render an answer such as would meet 
 the approval of Heaven ? Or, shall they feel 
 that these religious exercises in other homes are 
 but the continuation of prayers and praises 
 which, from day to day and from year to year, 
 have blest them in their own ? 
 
 What we want is, that our family religion 
 should be just as rational and genuine as our 
 other convictions and duties ; that it should be 
 a part of our family character, without which we 
 should dishonor our family identity ; that it 
 should be a constituent part of our enjoyment of 
 life, as much so as our nightly sleep or daily 
 food. Let us so understand it, let others un- 
 derstand this of us, and our family devotions 
 need not be otherwise than respected and blest. 
 They will be a manifestation of the religion of 
 him who made glad the homes of his friends, — 
 who wept with the stricken family at Bethany, 
 familiarly mingled with the guests at the mar- 
 riage in Cana of Galilee, and said to the humble 
 
DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 141 
 
 Zaccheus, so modestly wondering why this emi- 
 nently holy one had honored his house with his 
 presence, " This clay is salvation come to thy 
 house." So shall this religion double all the 
 attractions of home, and send out from it, into 
 a world of error and sin, the lights and hopes of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 3. Let us note, also, the duty of religious in- 
 struction at home. This is as essential as that 
 of reverent devotion. Indeed, they are insepara- 
 ble. I fear it is too common among us, as with 
 other sects, to depend for religious instruction too 
 much upon the Sunday-school. But this institu- 
 tion, good as we may conceive or know it to be, 
 can never take the place of home instruction. 
 
 Teach your children God's truth as you under- 
 stand it. That is the word of duty coming to us all, 
 in reference to the youthful souls of which we may 
 have the guardianship. Said an aged minister 
 of Xew England once : " Blessed is the memory 
 of our mothers for their early religious instruc- 
 tion of their children and others committed to 
 their care. The mother began their instruction 
 early. She literally brought them up in the 
 discipline and instruction of the Lord. I rever- 
 ence and thank my mother for teaching me the 
 Catechism. Though it is hard to be understood, 
 
142 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 not fitting for babes, and in some parts erroneous, 
 it was the best she knew ; and I thank her for 
 teaching it, and my father for encouraging me 
 to learn it. A deep reverence for God and for 
 sacred things was imprinted on my mind ; and I 
 have no doubt of being a better man and better 
 Christian for this instruction." 
 
 We have a better word for our children and 
 youth, and should see that they have it. And if 
 they do, — in the religious earnestness and fidelity 
 of the parents just referred to, in the spirit of 
 our holy faith, there will come of this work fruits 
 of holiness and everlasting life. 
 
 We need, then, a home church. The temple, 
 the minister, the congregation, these are not all. 
 In the quiet sanctity of home, every Christian 
 parent may watch and tend a church. Says a 
 late writer in the " London Inquirer " and his 
 words are as true as beautiful : - — 
 
 " There are no sacraments which such a man 
 cannot administer, from the baptism of the babe 
 to the extreme unction of the dying. He may 
 consecrate his own altar, and find his ordination 
 in his own Christian heart, filled with the ele- 
 ment which alone makes heaven a holy place. 
 Home may be a church, because there may ever 
 be offered a genuine Christian worship. But 
 
DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 143 
 
 this worship, to be genuine, must be the worship 
 of love. It is easy to drill and discipline the 
 young into an outward observance, which is 
 hurtful to themselves, and worthless in the sight 
 of the Parent Spirit. Whether the church 
 meet before the time-honored shrine of a thous- 
 sand years, or around the family-altar, there is 
 no worship without love. But where can we 
 find so fitting a place for the nurture of this 
 divine element as the family ? Its existence is 
 essential to the very constitution of a Christian 
 family, and without it we have only a social 
 skeleton." 
 
 In answer to the question, How may the devo- 
 tional life of the home be most effectually pro- 
 moted ? we answer briefly and emphatically — 
 
 1. By personal realization of its importance. 
 This we are persuaded is too generally overlooked 
 in the estimate made of religious duty. This 
 is evinced in the apparent indifference to the 
 subject or the neglect of it on the part of so 
 many who are interested in the worship-services 
 of the public sanctuary. The reasons already 
 presented for attention to this duty of home- 
 religious culture are not thoughtfully enter- 
 tained and carefully weighed as they should be. 
 When they are, we can have little doubt of the 
 good results. 
 
144 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 2. By a faithful presentation and enforce- 
 ment of this subject on the part of our ministers, 
 Sunday-school teachers, Theological schools, and 
 Church journals. The life of the Church in 
 connection with the home, or the culture of 
 the reverential and devotional in the family, 
 is as much a proper topic for the Christian 
 pulpit as any other which can claim attention 
 there. How many of our pastors make it a 
 point to urge this duty home upon their 
 hearers, as they do any other important interest 
 in connection with Christian doctrine and prac- 
 tice ? Perhaps more than we imagine ; we hope 
 so. But if the pulpit be delinquent in this 
 respect, how can we expect a large interest in 
 this work among the families of our congrega- 
 tions ? In their intercourse with families of 
 their charge, our pastors may properly com- 
 mend this work, especially the use of the daily- 
 worship manuals which can be so readily obtained. 
 We have known such instances to operate favora- 
 bly. The Christmas or birthday gift to some 
 young man or woman, of one of our family-devo- 
 tional books, has often been the occasion of its 
 habitual use in the home. Such instances might 
 be multiplied. 
 
 Our Theological schools may be instrumental 
 
DEVOTIONAL LIFE OF THE HOME. 145 
 
 in the furtherance of this work. In the training 
 of our new ministers there this interest cannot 
 be wisely overlooked. It should be especially 
 urged upon their attention as one of the indis- 
 pensable assurances of the inward, permanent 
 strength of our Church everywhere, and might 
 very justly now and then be presented by our 
 theological graduates in their public exercises. 
 
 Our Church journals should be more alive to 
 this work, — their editors and correspondents. 
 They may do much to promote it if they will. 
 Brief articles in reference to it might oftener be 
 seen in the columns of our weekly papers, and a 
 good, sound, and thorough treatment of the sub- 
 ject, by some of our talented writers, might well 
 grace the pages of the " Quarterly." 
 
 In short, instruction in Christian truth, and 
 consecration to its duties in the family, is so 
 much added to that righteousness which must 
 ever be the exaltation and safety of the state. He 
 is one of the truest and noblest patriots, who is 
 doing what he can to purify and Christianize the 
 home. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 SILENCE. 
 
 All great things are born of silence. 
 
 Martineau. 
 
 OILENCE is one of the exquisite enjoyments 
 v ^ and blessings to be realized in the midst of 
 the Lord's works. The poet Young makes 
 " silence and darkness solemn sisters, twins." 
 Another poet, Moore, represents the throne of 
 the Eternal Sovereign as " all light and silence." 
 Both comparisons are equally expressive. The 
 stillness of some deep forest shade in the hush of 
 noon ; the sublime quiet in the midst of vast 
 mountain scenery, far above and away from the 
 world's " great Babel ; " the utterance of the 
 ocean, which called forth this hymning of the 
 lyrist, — 
 
 " My choir shall be the moonlight waves, 
 When murmuring homeward to their caves, 
 Or when the stillness of the sea, 
 E'en more than music, speaks of Thee, " — 
 
 all are inspirations such as silence awakens, — 
 the silence in which He speaks whose thunder- 
 tone voices can reach the remotest shores of 
 creation. Well did the Psalmist exclaim, " The 
 Lord is in his holy temple ; let all the earth keep 
 silence before him." 
 
 Silence is a sedative which most of us need in 
 
SILENCE. 147 
 
 the hurry and push and rush of the great busy 
 world, — an occasion for thoughtful meditation 
 now and then. Never did mankind and woman- 
 kind need it more than now, when k * What next ? " 
 is the hasty inquiry of the delving business-man 
 and uneasy pleasure-hunter and skurrying tour- 
 ist and insatiable reader of the latest issues of 
 the press. Dullards talk of meditation and qui- 
 et, — not living spirits who belong to this age, 
 who are " up with the times ! " So the many 
 falsely think and foolishly blunder, We have 
 the heavenly privilege of being wiser if we will. 
 After the soul's swiftest flights and most pro- 
 longed conflicts, there will come a time when 
 it will need most of all things rest, repose, 
 silence, and contemplation. After all the world's 
 commotion, unrest, and distraction, there will be 
 times when it must have peace in the assurance 
 of a greater good accomplished. That remarka- 
 ble passage in the Apocalypse is in agreement 
 with this thought : " And there was silence in 
 heaven about the space of half an hour " * It is 
 the close of a prolonged conflict of the heavenly 
 and adverse powers. The groanings and travail- 
 ings of the earth have ceased, its sorrows have 
 ended, and God gives his people peace. 
 
 1 Rev. viii. 1. 
 
148 THE INNER LIFE. 
 
 " earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 men with wailing in your voices ! 
 
 delved gold, the wailer's heap ! 
 strife, curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 
 And giveth his beloved sleep. " 
 
 The highest joy of the Christian is that of the 
 peace within " that passeth understanding : " not 
 stillness, merely, but the " expressive silence," 
 the inbreathing of a heavenly harmony, uplifting 
 ' and delighting, — the consciousness of the Divine 
 presence and approval, the " joy unspeakable," 
 that comes of the soul's oneness with the loving 
 and glorious Source of all good. Ah ! we are 
 losers, all of us, if we fail to consider, or lightly 
 esteem, this holy seeking and possession. Think 
 of it ! 
 
 In silence the most profound the highest con- 
 fidence and joy of the spirit may be ours, as it 
 was with him who said to his followers : " Ye will 
 leave me alone ; and yet I am not alone, because 
 the Father is with me." 1 Silence and isolation 
 from the earthly thus become a realization of 
 the divine presence and life. 
 
 i John xvi. 32. 
 
 THE END.