LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Cha$. Copyright No. _'. 
 
 Shelf...^i^ z %T 
 
 rMs- 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
NOBLE LIVING 
 
 A SERIES OF STUDIES AS TO THE DEVELOPMENT 
 OF THE DEEPER LIFE IN MEN 
 
 EDITED BY s^ 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER NICKERSON 
 
 BOSTON 
 UNIVERSALIS! PUBLISHING HOU 
 
 1896 
 
tt<r 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
 By THE TJSIYBBSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
 The Library 
 of Congress 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 J 
 
 c J. PKTKBS * SON L TVPOG ! APHKB8, BOSTON. 
 L . BARTn^riBINTEBS. 
 
" / am come that they might have life, and that they might have it 
 more abundantly." — J esus Christ. 
 
 "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
 those things which are before, I press toivard the mark for the prize 
 of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." — St. Paul. 
 
 "He who understands life deeply and fully, understands life truly — 
 he has forever renewed his life; and if there comes into our hearts, in the 
 life which we are living, a perpetual sense that life needs renewal, a rich- 
 ening and refreshing, then it is in order that we may go down into the 
 depths and see what lies at the root of things — things that we are perpetu- 
 ally doing and thinking. It is that we may open to ourselves some newer, 
 higher life" — Phillips Brooks. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Men are living in the midst of transient things. 
 By necessity the mind is much occupied with the 
 affairs of the present. While it is undoubtedly 
 true that scores of our fellows are unnecessarily 
 " anxious for the morrow," it cannot be denied 
 that there is a demand laid upon every one to 
 make some provision for the future. There must 
 be nourishment, clothing, and shelter. 
 
 But because a man recognizes these require- 
 ments, he need not be blind to all things else. 
 Even if he exist in a world of change, it is pos- 
 sible that he may be a partaker of the unchange- 
 able. If he be compelled to deal with material 
 things from day to day, it is possible that he may 
 consider and utilize something which is not ma- 
 terial. If his nattfre links him to lower ranges 
 of activity, it also links him to the higher ranges. 
 Though one lives in the world, he may be above 
 the world. 
 
 The purpose of these Essays is to aid the soul 
 in its struggle for attainment. The mountain of 
 
VI PREFACE, 
 
 character is difficult to climb. From its summit 
 alone can a clear view of life — its toils, duties, 
 and fulfilment — be obtained. Multitudes tire 
 even of the first attempt to rise. Many who spend 
 years grasping at some slight out-jutting points, 
 thereby making slow ascent, become weary of the 
 undertaking and fall backward. Others, through 
 the new motive furnished by the larger horizon, 
 persist in their endeavor, and, though it be by 
 winding ways and over rugged paths, enter into 
 the joy of the wider apprehension. 
 
 To point to the heights, to indicate the oppor- 
 tunity and demand for ascent, to explain how 
 struggle affords strength for continued effort; to 
 present the helps and helpers beside the pathway, 
 to suggest the practices whereby motive is de- 
 veloped, and to exhibit the motive itself; to prove 
 existence a unit, to show what its constant up- 
 ward movement signifies, and to guide to that 
 condition wherein, amidst the rarer atmosphere 
 of the Father's recognized presence, the soul is 
 transfigured, — this is the design of the writers 
 and of the editor. 
 
 May it please the Most Gracious Spirit to let 
 his blessing attend this work, and may it aid to 
 the fulfilment of the petition, " Thy will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Walking with God 3 
 
 Charles Henry Eaton. 
 
 The Blessedness of Faith 17 
 
 Sullivan Holman M'Collester. 
 
 Love as an Inner Force . 51 
 
 Frank Warren Whippen. 
 
 The Riches of the Scriptures 73 
 
 Edward Lovell Houghton. 
 
 Moulded by the Invisible 103 
 
 Charles Sumner Nickerson. 
 
 The Uplift of Prayer 129 
 
 Charles Bockwell Tenney. 
 
 The Obligations of Religiox 161 
 
 Joseph Kimball Mason. 
 
 Saved by Christ ; 183 
 
 Gideon Isaac Keirn. 
 
 Christian Peace 213 
 
 Harrison Spofford Whitman. 
 
 The Immortal Life 233 
 
 James Milford Payson. 
 
 A Perfected Character: the Goal ok Life . 263 
 Fred Augustine Dillingham. 
 vii 
 
WALKING WITH a OB. 
 
 Chaki.es Henry Eaton. 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 
 
 When, forty years ago, Pierre Leroux offered 
 his article, u Dieu," to the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes, it was returned with the observation, 
 " The question of God lacks actuality." The old 
 order Avas based upon Christian theism. Civili- 
 zation has taken the place of Christianity; faith 
 and hope in man, of faith and hope in God. As 
 some one has said, " Vortex reigns in place of 
 Zeus." The flippant and even scurrilous jests 
 of the atheists of the time of the Revolution 
 have gone out of vogue. But the present is 
 characterized by refined indifference. This arises 
 partly from the influence of that philosophy which 
 affirms we can know nothing of God, even if He 
 exist ; but more from the peculiar emphasis laid 
 upon the material side of life through the achieve- 
 ments of a marvellous civilization. 
 
 But, whatever the outward attitude, it remains 
 true that there is no question that is more actual 
 
 3 
 
4 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and more imperative than the one relating to 
 the existence and influence of Deity. Men have 
 sought for God from the beginning, and will to 
 the end. With varying definitions, it has been 
 asserted in every country and in every age, that 
 man could hold communion with God. Mysti- 
 cism, which has been defined as " the conscious- 
 ness of the Infinite," has marked every epoch in 
 religious development. Moses " saw God face 
 to face " in the ancient days. In modern times 
 the metaphysician declares the same truth when 
 he writes, " The highest fact in man can hold 
 immediate intercourse with the highest fact in 
 the universe." The Oriental mystic speaks of 
 the necessity of the " light in the heart which, 
 when the sun has set, and the moon has set, 
 and all sounds are hushed, still illumines man." 
 While the political economist, 1 in a practical age, 
 gives as the conclusion of his remarkable experi- 
 ence, "Human life is inadequate to satisfy human 
 aspirations." 
 
 Every great faith has originated in mysticism, 
 or "heart religion," and by it, lives. When the 
 sense of God's constant presence is absent, re- 
 ligion sinks to superstition, or is smothered in 
 
 1 John Stuart Mill. 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 5 
 
 ceremonialism. For every age, but especially the 
 present, Heine's jest embodies a truth, u Poor 
 old Lampe, the servant, must have his God, or 
 there will be no happiness for him." We are 
 so constituted that, in the natural working of our 
 faculties, we arrive at the conception of God. 
 The duty of the age and the church is to clarify 
 that notion, and convert it into a practical force. 
 The greatest need of our time is to cultivate 
 the consciousness of the Infinite, to leave for a 
 time the consideration of the " beggarly ele- 
 ments " of the physical world, and undertake 
 the study of human nature. We need to re- 
 create the spirit of devotion which moves at the 
 centre of the soul, where "illusion," if not "im- 
 possible," as the saint says, is less certain. When 
 the church had hampered itself with useless legal 
 restrictions, and sacrificed communion to com- 
 merce, faith to ceremonialism, associations were 
 formed which called themselves " Friends of 
 God." They did not break with the church, 
 they often belonged to opposing parties ; but they 
 were one in the effort to strengthen each other 
 in daily intercourse with God. There can be no 
 higher duty, no deeper need, than for Christians 
 
NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 to-day to encourage each other in a daily walk 
 with God. The test of all true religion, the 
 measure of one's usefulness and attainment in 
 the Christian life, is found in the effective reali- 
 zation of the Divine Presence. 
 
 Walking daily with God does not involve a 
 miracle, but simply an awakened brain and heart. 
 It does not require a journey somewhere, but life 
 here and now. " I go," said the dying Plotinus, 
 " to bear the divine within me to the divine in 
 the universe." To die was totally unnecessary. 
 The divine was as near the living as the dead 
 Platonist. To wait for the dissolution of the 
 flesh, or the unveiling of a new sense, was un- 
 necessary. 
 
 We walk with God when we look upon nature, 
 as did St. Bernard, as " the shadow of God " and 
 "the soul as his image." The earth, with its 
 beauty and order, is not the result of a "fortui- 
 tous concourse of atoms," not even the product of 
 "vibrating ether." It is the act of an intelligent 
 creation. It is not chance nor fate that moves 
 the wheel of life, but the hand of God. Civili- 
 zation is not the outcome of an accidental train 
 of circumstances, but the product of a divine 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 1 
 
 mind. The material world, human history, per- 
 sonal life, would be impossible without the ever 
 present and active God. Many fail to dwell 
 upon the divine side of nature. They know 
 nothing, think of nothing, beyond what they see. 
 This lonely world is all in all to them, — 
 its mountains and plains, its rivers and oceans, 
 its sunrises and sunsets, its myriad mysteries, its 
 gorgeous colors, its beautiful forms and sounds, 
 its buildings, its arts, its friendships, its patri- 
 otisms, comprise all there is of life. They only 
 see the outer beauty ; its inner and divine sig- 
 nificance is lost. " Prosperity, struggle, sadness, 
 — it is all the same. They rejoice, they struggle, 
 through it all alone ; and when old age comes, 
 and the companions of early clays are gone, they 
 feel that they are solitary. In all this strange, 
 deep world, they never meet but for a moment 
 the spirit of it who stands at their very side." 
 But whatever the position of the believer or un- 
 believer, it may be said, in the words of a well- 
 known writer, " Age after age passes ; though 
 foolish theologians and blinded atheists may 
 wrangle with their eyes turned away from the 
 light, the world goes oil to larger and larger 
 
8 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 knowledge in spite of them, and does not lose 
 its faith for all these darkeners of counsel may 
 say. As in the roaring loom of time the end- 
 less web of events is woven, each strand shall 
 make more and more clearly visible the living 
 garment of God." 
 
 As we find God in nature, so we may walk 
 with him as we mark the progress of events. 
 In all great social movements, in revolutions 
 which have altered phases of human life, quick- 
 ened the sense of public honor, enlarged the 
 freedom and enlightenment of the people, there 
 is something more than the human element. A 
 wise and thoughtful man will trace along the 
 pathway of nations which have reached great 
 exaltation the footprints of Deity. None can 
 read the history of the progress of the world 
 without perceiving an orderly advance, and a 
 constant adjustment of means to ends which 
 argues the existence of a Supreme Mind. 
 
 So we may walk with God in the hours of pri- 
 vate and public worship, when the deepest affec- 
 tions and moral qualities are awakened, and spring 
 up toward the light. Great thoughts, noble con- 
 secrations, holy aspirations, are the evidence of 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. V 
 
 the living God, are indeed God in manifestation. 
 To feel the constant influence of Deity, to walk 
 with Him hour by hour in affliction as well as 
 in joy, in days of weakness as well as days of 
 strength, in times of failure as well as success, 
 is to realize the true end of the Christian life, 
 and solve the problem of existence. Power, such 
 as we can never measure, and whose growth is 
 without limit ; peace that brings a holy calm 
 into a heart torn by conflicting claims, and makes 
 "music at midnight," — are the outcome of this 
 attitude toward the Creator and Governor of the 
 universe. 
 
 But many are asking to-day, How may this 
 condition of mind and heart be brought about? 
 The answer is not difficult. The analogies of 
 education, illustrations from history, instances 
 from biography, — all point the way. First, there 
 must be an act of the will. Quiescence is not 
 the gate of inspiration. Quietism contains a 
 sublime truth ; but when it seeks to paralyze 
 the motive part of our nature, it is false in 
 theory and practice. The method of Christ is 
 to " knock," " ask," and " seek." We must 
 be completely filled by a divine longing, but we 
 
10 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 must work for its gratification. The world may 
 be full of sunshine and warmth, but if we do 
 not draw the shades and open the windows, 
 there might as well be no light and heat. The 
 majestic Father walks the earth in glory, smiles 
 at us from the face of the cloud, and throws into 
 our lap the prodigal gifts of love. But if we 
 will not open our e}<es, or hold out our arms, 
 how shall we receive the gifts ? An energetic 
 will drives out evil thoughts, cleanses the ways 
 of the mind and heart, that the Spirit may enter. 
 When once it feels the touch of the divine, it 
 cries in a kind of masterfulness, " I will not let 
 thee go till thou bless me." The passive mood 
 in religion has gone. The active mood has come. 
 Self-surrender to God is the highest expression 
 of religion. But it is possible and permanent 
 only as the moral nature wills and persists in 
 willing. 
 
 Association also plays an important part in 
 God-culture. When a painter would absorb the 
 inspiration of his guild, and prepare himself for 
 great achievement, he enters the company of his 
 fellow- workers. He places himself under the in- 
 struction of great masters. " He frequents studios 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 11 
 
 and galleries of art. Sometimes he abandons his 
 home, and crosses leagues of ocean, to join the 
 company of those who think of nothing, who 
 dream of nothing, who labor for nothing, but art. 
 So is it among scientists or would-be scientists. 
 So is it also in the less exalted fields of trade and 
 pleasure. 
 
 It must therefore be the same in the realm of 
 the spirit. There must be active pursuit of God 
 in the company of those who are engaged in the 
 same great quest. Here, in part, is the explana- 
 tion of the value of worship and meetings of de- 
 votion. We feel the magnetism of many hearts 
 filled with the same interests and the same pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Biography has an important office in revealing 
 God, since it makes our living and personal 
 friends and inspirers those from whom we are sep- 
 arated by time and circumstance. Our reading 
 provokes our imagination to create a world which 
 we people with the faithful or the unfaithful. 
 Mental associates, the men and the women who 
 come to us in apparent solitude, often exercise 
 a tyrannous power over us. The dead speak to 
 us in their printed word, which has unmeasured 
 
12 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 influence. Although we shun the presence of the 
 godless in the embodied world, we are constantly 
 under the dominance of the atheism of the invis- 
 ible. So by the same law we can fill our solitary 
 hour, our library and chamber, with the pure and 
 lofty spirits who have believed much, and achieved 
 much for God and man. In the spiritual economy 
 Christ is the open door to God. He reveals God 
 to man, is His u express image." We walk with 
 God when we walk with Christ. Jesus is divine 
 sonship completely realized. He is God trans- 
 lated into human terms, the prophecy of oneness 
 with God which all men are to attain. In hours 
 of strength Christ presents difficult but divine 
 objects of endeavor. In moments of humility he 
 exalts us by revealing our kinship to the Infi- 
 nite Father. In the presence of joy he makes 
 known the divine beneficence, and under the 
 power of sorrow discloses the merciful discipline 
 of Deity. 
 
 "When once we give ourselves intelligently, lov- 
 ingly, and with decision of will, to Christ, we shall 
 walk daily with God. Then in nature, history, 
 human experience, in every civilization and in 
 every revelation, we shall find the Divine Spirit, 
 
WALKING WITH GOD. 13 
 
 "potent to slack the thirst of human nature, to lift 
 eyes dim with tears and dull with pain towards 
 the beatific vision, to heal and strengthen feet, sore 
 and weary from the rough ways of earth, for the 
 ascent of heaven." 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 
 
 •" 
 
 Sullivan Holman M'Collester. 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 
 
 Our little girl of two summers, as she was 
 sitting on the grassy lawn, picking clover blos- 
 soms, saying, as she held them up to her mother, 
 " beautiful," was giving an expression to an in- 
 tuition of beauty, not to an idea which she had 
 learned. When the child of six years old Avas 
 asked by the philosopher, "how she knows there 
 is a God?" answered, "My think tells me so," 
 the sage could not gainsay the reply. As the 
 physician inquired of the convalescent youth, 
 "how she knew that she had a soul?" responded, 
 " My consciousness, or feeling, tells me so." — 
 "Ah! " continued the doctor, "did you ever see 
 it ? " _ « No." — " Did you ever hear it ? " — 
 "No." — "Did you ever taste it?" — "No." — 
 "Did you ever smell it?" — "No." — "Did you 
 ever feel it?" — "Yes." — "Then," continued the 
 wise man, " you have only one sense in favor, 
 and four against it." She retorted, " Doctor, do 
 
 17 
 
18 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 you know there is any such thing as. pain?" — 
 " Yes, I think I do, when I have the jumping 
 toothache," was his reply. — "Well," she con- 
 tinued, "did you ever see it, taste it, smell it, 
 hear it?" — "No, but I have felt it." — " So you 
 have four senses against it, and only one in its 
 favor." Thus it is in the higher conditions of 
 living, — life itself is not only the foundation 
 of knowledge, but certain knowledge inheres in 
 it. Often it does not require demonstration, as 
 in mathematics to prove that the three angles 
 of a triangle are equal to two right angles, but 
 somehow it possesses the truth, or the knowledge 
 of the facts. This is a gift, not an acquirement; 
 it is inherent, not an accretion. Thus the be- 
 lief in God and immortality is born with men. 
 Our deepest convictions are not the outcome 
 of logic ; they are higher than the grasp of 
 reason. This is particularly true of our religious 
 convictions. 
 
 We are wont to say that the poet and musi- 
 cian are born. Culture alone could not produce 
 a Whit tier, or a Beethoven, because it is impos- 
 sible for a lower to create a higher. The order 
 is God, angel, man, beast, bird, fish, insect, mi- 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 19 
 
 crobe. So we can understand why all things 
 good are possible with God ; and why we have 
 different orders, conditions, and administrations; 
 and why souls should have insight by a special 
 gift to things higher than themselves. Now, this 
 insight and outsight is faith, or soul-sight ; it is 
 the soul's going out of itself for what it craves. 
 •This is what sees God and friends. I know we 
 are apt to talk as though it were far otherwise. 
 We often magnify the body to the belittlement 
 of the soul. We are accustomed to speak of 
 burying a friend, when we place his mortality in 
 the grave, just as though a hundred and fifty 
 pounds of matter constituted the man. 
 
 The fact is, we do not recognize one another 
 through the flesh. The child comes to know its 
 mother only as heart touches heart, mind com- 
 munes with mind, and the spiritual takes cogni- 
 zance of the spiritual. The body to-day is not 
 what it was yesterday ; it is incessantly chan- 
 ging ; it can be divided into parts, and its parti- 
 cles are being constantly displaced ; its life can 
 'be but a span long. But the soul is a unit ; 
 its faculties cannot be separated ; they are bound 
 into an everlasting oneness, enabling man to see 
 
20 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and know the spiritual, to love and admire what 
 is unseen to the natural eye. 
 
 It is true there are those who honestly say, 
 they cannot believe, only so far as they can touch, 
 handle, and reason out things. There are those 
 who can make no headway in geometry or classic 
 literature ; this does not prove that these are not 
 facts, it only shows mental defectiveness, or a 
 want of certain intellectual perception. This 
 lack may have resulted from heredity or home 
 education. Therefore, when one says he cannot 
 believe, that he has no faith in any hereafter, 
 that at death he shall drop into nonentity, he is 
 to be pitied. One without any esthetic percep- 
 tion, or musical appreciation, is to be commiser- 
 ated, but nothing so much as he who has no 
 spiritual insight. 
 
 As we read the doubts of Diderot, Hume, 
 Shelley, and John Stuart Mill, they do not make 
 us feel as though life were worth living. An 
 insect with its eyes destroyed buzzes and dodges 
 around strangely ; so it is with men without faith ; 
 they beat themselves wofully against the wall, till' 
 at length their flesh falls into the dust. Sense 
 pierces into the deformities of things, and finds 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 21 
 
 them evanescent; while faith penetrates beneath 
 and beyond the seen, to the unfailing and real. 
 So faith is an attribute of the soul, made up 
 of trust, confidence, and courage, which sees, as 
 the setting sun throws back the colors of gold 
 and rubies, a bright to-morrow ; it has clearest 
 vision of the future. Experience unfolds past 
 ages, and faith penetrates the realms of futurity ; 
 it is nothing else but the soul's venture. As 
 the farmer sows his seed, faith shows him the 
 harvest. As the mariner loses sight of the port 
 left, his faith exhibits the haven towards which 
 his steamer is sailing ; by the showing of astron- 
 omy, we come to know that the sun is ninety-five 
 millions of miles distant from the earth ; through 
 this quality of soul, or mind, we are enabled to 
 see, as science speaks, that the lightest of gases 
 is a mineral, that there are minerals which swim 
 on the water and take fire at the touch of snow, 
 that the diamond is but a bit of melted charcoal, 
 and that pearls are only the resultant of disease. 
 Were it not for this attribute of the mind, the 
 mother, as she kisses her darling, could not see 
 him a noble man ; the teacher, in listening to 
 the recitation of a precocious student, would 
 
22 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 not discover him a philosopher in the unfolding 
 years, neither would that boy have dared leap 
 from the fourth story of a building on fire, as 
 he heard his father's voice ascending through the 
 lurid smoke, saying, " Leap, my son, I am here 
 to catch you." Faith exhibited to him, in spite 
 of raging flames and blackest clouds, his father; 
 and he leaped, and was caught in paternal arms, 
 rescued from a terrible death. It was such sight 
 that enabled the old man, taking the Christ-child 
 in his arms, and raising his eyes to heaven, to 
 say, " Now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
 peace." Surely the believing soul at the foot 
 of the cross can see a risen Christ. 
 
 This quality of character too seldom receives 
 full recognition. It is prone to be treated as 
 something mystical or fanciful, or at least not 
 more than half certain. We are not wont to 
 examine sufficiently, to ascertain the fact that we 
 begin to think in the realm of faith ; that Ave trust 
 friends before we know them, and in ourselves be- 
 fore we comprehend our individuality ; that really 
 it is a force which underlies consciousness and 
 throws open the door to knowledge. It is true 
 that it is less liable to misapprehension in common 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 23 
 
 affairs than the spiritual. The man of business 
 could not get on at all, did he not feel the potency 
 of this soul-force, giving him sight of what is 
 ahead. It enables him to look through a day, a 
 month, or years, perceiving possible riches ; and 
 then with what will he dares the wolves in the 
 way, and struggles for the entity near, or far off. 
 From height to height he pushes on for the golden 
 pitcher filled Avith the silver waters. As blossoms 
 are before the fruitage, so is faith before good 
 works. 
 
 Faith embodies trust, confidence, and courage ; 
 so the adventurer, listening to tales of rivers 
 running over golden sands, like the ancient Pac- 
 tolus, leaves, and ventures all to gain wondrous 
 treasures. The sick man, hearing of sunny climes 
 and invigorating lands, bids adieu to home, and 
 travels far off to reach his anticipated goal. Faith 
 is really the fashioner of all great souls. Had it 
 not been for it, Abraham never would have found 
 the Promised Land ; Columbus never could have 
 endured the raging of the ocean and the contumely 
 of his crew in searching for the new world ; Wash- 
 ington would have deserted his charge in the time 
 of the Revolution, when shamefully taunted and 
 
24 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 thwarted in his noblest endeavors; Sir Walter 
 Scott would have found no peace and power to 
 write his last thrilling stories under the burden of 
 heavy debts which had been unjustly thrust upon 
 him. All great souls have been subject to trying 
 disappointments, and have triumphed because of 
 faith. Therefore Jesus sorrowed as no others, 
 and yet he gained the greatest victories. As faith 
 brings to light the invisible, it fills the soul with 
 patience and courage. It discovers God not only 
 everywhere, but all of God at every point, not 
 his wisdom here and his goodness there, not his 
 love to-day and his justice yesterday ; but he is 
 the same personality always and in every place. 
 Faith is the soul's eye, through which we see 
 God or man. It is only when filmed that it can- 
 not endure the light. Still one, while in the flesh, 
 who sees a distant result, seldom knows just how 
 it is to be attained ; for this reason, when he is 
 making a worthy pilgrimage, his tent is certain to 
 be pitched on higher ground than he anticipated, 
 however, never above the peak his soul sighted. 
 Accordingly, Savonarola could witness the dawn- 
 ing of a new day, when priests were lurking in 
 shadows and stirring up fagots to burn muscle 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 25 
 
 and bone which never see, thinking thereby to 
 destroy the dauntless seer. Christ knew, when 
 the blind Pharisees were driving the nails into his 
 limbs and thrusting the spear into his side, that 
 he himself was not being crucified, that only mor- 
 tal garments were being torn off that his spirit 
 might go free. He well understood that space 
 and time, flesh and blood, have no belonging to 
 the soul's realm ; so he could declare, without a 
 guess or venture, 'If this outward body of mine 
 be destroyed, I shall come to you within three 
 days, because I am the resurrection.' In fulfil- 
 ment of this promise, the Marys were greeted by 
 him on that first Sunday morning that ever was, 
 as they came to the tomb where his body had 
 been laid. Peter and John, and the sojourners at 
 Emmaus, were made inexpressibly glad as he ap- 
 peared to them. They felt in duty bound to 
 declare at once what they had seen, that the rest 
 of the apostles and disciples might rejoice with 
 them ; and as they were assembled for this pur- 
 pose in a private room, who should put in his 
 presence but Jesus himself, upbraiding them for 
 their slowness of belief, or want of faith. To 
 Thomas matter was more real than mind, hence 
 
26 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 he was not going to admit the resurrection true 
 until he had put his fingers into the prints of the 
 nails and the spear. The visible was more real to 
 him than the invisible, the same as it had been to 
 the Israelites, and especially to the Egyptians, 
 who had built vast pyramids and cut into solid 
 rock immense tombs for preserving the bodies of 
 kings and honored men. But in the course of 
 forty days from the crucifixion, all the apostles 
 came to recognize Christ out of the flesh. After 
 this insight and outsight were developed, what 
 far-seeing men the chosen twelve became ! There 
 was no more denying nor doubting on their part. 
 They had now come to realize that men know one 
 another only as they see soul to soul, — a fact 
 which men have been slow to understand, though 
 illustrated by daily experience in all the past. 
 Without this faith-sight there can be no sweet 
 home, no true friendship in the school, or cordial 
 fellowship in the church. The descent of the Holy 
 Spirit is naught but the mind's sighting God, the 
 means through which we see the Father. In these 
 latter days we have been hearing much about faith- 
 missions, faith-healing, faith-science, and faith- 
 works, and all these have more or less significance 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 27 
 
 when fairly treated, and can be accounted for only 
 on the ground of faith, which is just as real as the 
 law of gravitation ; the first pertains to spirit, the 
 latter to matter. They both work by invariable 
 laws of their own. Faith is the vital principle of 
 the spiritual life, just as much as breathing is the 
 vital sustainer of the body ; and the flesh can exist 
 just as well without pure air as the spirit without 
 faith. This is the soul's Rock of Ages, on which 
 it can stand, however terrific the storm or raging 
 the flood. 
 
 The following statements of Christ are in per- 
 fect accord with this line of thought : " And he 
 said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee 
 whole ; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." 
 
 " And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way : thy 
 faith hath made thee whole." 
 
 " And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath 
 saved thee ; go in peace." 
 
 " Then touched he their eyes saying, Accord- 
 ing to your faith be it unto you." 
 
 " Again Jesus said unto him, If thou canst 
 believe, all things are possible unto him that be- 
 lieveth." 
 
 We understand that all good things are possible 
 
28 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 unto God, and here Jesus informs us that all 
 things unto men are possible so far as they can 
 believe. So then our study should be to discover 
 the law by which faith works. Then experiment 
 with it as much as we may, it does seem to be 
 no more nor less than clear-sightedness of God, 
 or any good which is revealed through trust and 
 confidence. 
 
 When the first Christian martyr was led out of 
 Jerusalem, and placed upon the projecting ledge, 
 and the young Saul stood there, holding the gar- 
 ments of the ruffians as they hurled the missiles 
 of death at Saint Stephen, looking straight into 
 heaven, he saw the glory of God, and prayed, "lay 
 not this sin to their charge," and then fell physi- 
 cally asleep, or, in other words, was translated. 
 His sight of God was so clear as to render him 
 sufficiently strong to return good for evil. No 
 doubt that Saul was surprised at such a glorified 
 departure ; and as he was sent forth not long after 
 by the august Sanhedrim to demolish the little 
 church, established in the name of Christ at Da- 
 mascus, it is not strange, as he walked the paths 
 made memorable by the beneficent deeds of Jesus, 
 that he should have been so wrought upon as to 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 29 
 
 have had his spiritual eye cleared in a manner 
 to allow him to see Christ distinctly, whom he 
 never had seen in the flesh. By this experience 
 he was so transformed as to enter Damascus to 
 bless all, and henceforth to love all men. This 
 was no other than Paul, the scholar, who became 
 the greatest of the apostles, enabling him to send 
 forth the refrain, " Thanks be to God, who giveth 
 us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 We can well understand how an artist can feed 
 his mind so much on the skill and life of his 
 master as to become like him, and so follow close 
 in his footsteps. Thus it was with Leonardo da 
 Vinci, as his great teacher, when becoming, feeble 
 and unable to complete his last work, requested 
 da Vinci to finish it. At first the apprentice felt 
 that it would be impossible for him to attempt 
 to put the finishing touches to a picture of his 
 revered master, so skilled and exalted ; but as his 
 beloved senior bid him do his best, he first knelt 
 in prayer, asking, "O Lord, help me in my weak- 
 ness, that I may do faithful service to my de- 
 serving teacher, who has done so much for me." 
 Upon this he took his brush, and became lost in 
 doing his best; and after the finishing touch had 
 
30 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 been given it, the aged and cultured artist was 
 brought into the studio on a litter, and as he 
 looked upon the great work, in tears of joy he 
 said, " I paint no more." 
 
 Thus Paul caught such views of Christ in the 
 spiritual life that he could but assert in most 
 emphatic terms, " Now is Christ risen from the 
 dead, and become the first-fruits of them that 
 slept ; for if in this life only Ave have hope in 
 Christ, we are of all men most miserable. As in 
 Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive. For lie is to reign till he hath put all 
 enemies under his feet. As we have borne the 
 image of the earth)-, so we shall bear the image of 
 the heavenly." Thus he declares that "faith is 
 the evidence of things not seen " with the natural 
 eye. Faith is the soul's eye to discover things 
 invisible to the physical sight. For this reason, 
 he says, "We now see through a glass darkly, but 
 then we shall see face to face." In other words, 
 in looking through mortal sight, we behold con- 
 stant change and mystery; but seeing spiritually, 
 we recognize God and our departed, as having 
 personality. Such visions so tilled the heart of 
 Paul that he most emphatically declared, "Here 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 31 
 
 we know in part, but then shall we know as we 
 are known." To him there Avas no such thing 
 as ceasing to be, or lying dormant in the grave. 
 The only possible death is moral death, the result 
 of sinning. But as none can earn eternal life, so 
 none can deserve eternal death. The apostle sets 
 this matter clear when he affirms, "As a man sows, 
 so shall he reap." Who could thoughtfully wish 
 to have it otherwise ? Just recompense is what 
 encourages righteousness and restrains wrong- 
 ness. Paul makes death the gate which opens 
 from the mortal to the immortal. He allows 
 no dark angels to hover around it, but seraphs 
 of light, to usher souls into eternal life. " Even 
 so in Christ all are made alive." 
 
 This was the experience of that band of Chris- 
 tian women at the time of great persecution in 
 France, as they were being led through the streets 
 of Paris to the place of execution, enabling them 
 to sweetly sing, "Lord Jesus, we come, we come." 
 As they reached the block the lookers-on felt they 
 had never heard such music before ; and the melt- 
 ing strains did not cease as head after head fell 
 to the ground, till the last one dropped from the 
 block. Here faith did its perfect work. 
 
32 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 It is sad that the Christian world has been so 
 reluctant in learning what is the true nature of 
 faith. Too often it would seem that efforts have 
 been made to render it obscure by belaboring it 
 with theological definitions. Many apparently 
 have been anxious to hang on its tree foreign 
 fruit, yet striving to make it appear as though 
 natural, which has been as inconsistent as it would 
 be for an orchardist to buy apples, and hang them 
 on his trees to secure a good crop. Fruit must 
 grow, never be tied on ; this is the law of all 
 kinds of fruit-growing. 
 
 None can honestly question the need of faith. 
 I exist, and I am conscious that I did not create 
 myself, and had nothing to do or say about com- 
 ing into this world ; therefore I know that some 
 one higher than myself fashioned me, whom I call 
 God. Now, faith in Him I need above all else, 
 for by it I gain knowledge of him. Our senses 
 tell us how things look, taste, smell, feel, and 
 sound. Reason explains their relations, and how 
 causes are certain to be followed by effects. Now, 
 must there not be something beyond these? If I 
 do not believe there is, I am wretched indeed. 
 Modern investigation shows the boundaries of 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 33 
 
 science and philosophy. Astronomy can take us 
 only to the stars, not beyond them. Geology 
 turns up the stony leaves of the earth, but cannot 
 read to us a page of the how and why it exists. 
 The entomologist, as he brings his glass to bear 
 upon a drop of water, revealing myriads of mov- 
 ing mites, can give us no explanation of their vital 
 force, or how they came to live. Now, where 
 science and philosophy end, faith begins ; and 
 whosoever fails to be led on by its potency, falls 
 prostrate at the first hill of the spiritual, and there 
 he is likely to lie in the swamp and filth of agnos- 
 ticism. Take your grandchild upon your knee, 
 as some friend calls, and as his attention is di- 
 rected to the bright boy, suppose he begins at 
 once to expatiate about the boy's dress, stockings, 
 shoes, and hair, saying not a word really about 
 the child, that expresses so much through the eye, 
 laugh, and gesture ; how would you like that 
 treatment, and what would you say of it? Sup- 
 pose the visitor should declare that all these pe- 
 culiarities signify naught. Would you not feel 
 inclined to apply to him the epithet, " a know- 
 nothing " ? When invited into a German studio 
 where a young sculptor was moulding an ideal 
 
34 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 statue of Abraham Lincoln in 1866, what if I had 
 simply spoken of his plaster, trowel, and room, 
 without expressing any admiration of the statue 
 and its naturalness ; would the gifted artist have 
 thought me compos mentis ? He could see so 
 much beneath the exterior, he would have had 
 reason at least to wonder why the stranger did 
 not discover some of the real things which he was 
 trying so hard to delineate. He might truthfully 
 have said, the foreigner has evidently no mental 
 eye, or vision of faith, whereby to discover the 
 ideal and intrinsic. The author of Hebrews says, 
 " By faith we understand that the worlds have 
 been formed by the word of God, so that what 
 is seen hath not been made out of things which 
 do appear." Notice how he puts it, " By faith 
 we understand." Accordingly, he regarded faith 
 as something that comprehends, does actually see 
 and understand. 
 
 This view of faith was beautifully illustrated 
 by Cecil's little daughter. One day, as she was 
 happily playing with some inferior beads and 
 other trinkets, the father said, " My child, please 
 throw all those objects you have in your hands 
 into the fire." Startled as she was, she looked 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 35 
 
 up into her father's face to see if he were really 
 in earnest, when he continued, "You know, my 
 child, I never request you to do anything which 
 I do not mean ; still, you can act your pleasure, 
 obey or disobey, yet you know I never wish 
 you to do any act* which I do not feel will 
 work for your good in the end." Upon this 
 the precious one sighed, but, mustering up cour- 
 age, she cast all these keepsakes into the flames.. 
 Upon this the father said, " There, let them 
 vanish ; you shall hear more about them here- 
 after." In the course of a few days the father 
 came into his house with a whole box of play- 
 things, larger and handsomer than the burned, 
 and placed them in the hands of the daughter, 
 saying, " These are yours, because you believed 
 and trusted me, when I told you to throw away 
 those inferior trifles. Now, by thus doing, you 
 have gained these far more valuable keepsakes. 
 Furthermore, I ask you always to remember that 
 that working of your mind and heart which in- 
 duced you to obey me is faith. Now, I would 
 have you always do towards God, in his provi- 
 dential dealings with you, as you have with me, 
 and you will be a true child of faith." In this 
 
36 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 we see that her spirit of filial love overcame 
 every other emotion or impulse, causing her 
 to act altogether with reference to the unseen, 
 thereby illustrating what faith is, and how it 
 works. So, if we act towards God as this child 
 did towards her father, we shall portray true 
 faith, realizing in the end thrilling gladness and 
 gratitude. 
 
 In this age physical science is exceedingly fas- 
 cinating. The botanist, as he analyzes plant and 
 flower ; the geologist, as he studies pebble and 
 bowlder ; the astronomer, as he explores planet 
 and star; and the anatomist, as he dissects nerve 
 and muscle, — often become so charmed with 
 their specialities, as to infer that there can be 
 nothing superior to them. As such attempt to 
 account for organized life, it is usually on the 
 ground that molecules chance to come together, 
 and this will explain its origin ; or others assume 
 that it has sprung from minute cells and eggs 
 floating in the sap and blood, — and yet they 
 have failed to tell whence came the first plant 
 to produce the cell, or the first bird to lay the 
 
 egg- 
 Now, away with all such pretentious learning, 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 37 
 
 and, like the child, bow before the superior, and 
 we shall soon be taught how mind is more than 
 matter, and spirit than flesh ; that soul-sight is 
 real sight ; and so be made to understand that 
 it is God who rounds the apple, and carves the 
 pear, and paints them scarlet and russet; that it 
 is God who lifts up the oak from the acorn ; 
 that it is God who raises up the tiny child into 
 noble manhood ; that it is God who, in spring- 
 time, when the fields look bare and lifeless, lets 
 fall the April sunshine and showers, and in 
 the course of a few weeks spreads a carpet 
 of emerald over the fields and woods ; that it 
 is God who has caused the sixty different ele- 
 ments so to combine as to produce an infinitude 
 of worlds, and chained them together by gravi- 
 tation. 
 
 It is by faith that we understand who made 
 all things good. Then, is it not needed? Try 
 to account for the merest object without this 
 help, and how we are staggered and soon floored. 
 By it we discover how the higher is helping the 
 lower ; the vegetable is moulding the mineral, 
 the human the animal ; we come to realize that 
 God is the cause of all this. As we examine 
 
38 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and compare, we see how there is similarity of 
 lives. The bee constructs its comb, the fox its 
 burrow, the bird its nest, and man his dwelling, 
 that all may have homes. Faith informs us that 
 the how and why of this is God. He has filled 
 the normal state of existence with fulness of 
 joy ; for this reason the bug ticks in the wall, 
 the cricket chirps in the grass, the frog whistles 
 in the pool, the bird sings in the tree-top, and 
 the little child laughs and sports on the lawn. 
 Still, in spite of this similarity, there are un- 
 likenesses. Man can reason, and do somewhat 
 as he pleases ; but insect and beast must do as 
 they are bidden. Faith sees that this is for 
 the best. Without this gift, or quality of soul, 
 blindness, perplexity, discouragement, and weari- 
 ness of life would fret and discourage mortals. 
 Faith keeps lifting up and pressing on, and 
 whenever reason falters, it flies ahead and in- 
 vites it on. When the latter anxiously asks, 
 " Is man to live forever ? " the former opens wide 
 the gate, and lets fall upon it the radiance of 
 heaven. Now, as the latter applies its logic, it 
 discovers how the mortal reaches perfection here; 
 but man falls far short of it, so its conclusion 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 39 
 
 is that man must continue to live beyond the 
 physical. Then, as it discovers the adaptation 
 of things, how the bird has wings and air has 
 been made for their use; how fish have fins and 
 water has been provided for them, — thus again 
 it infers, as these wants are met, that, since man 
 desires above all else to live forever, he must 
 be gratified, and elsewhere than in this world. 
 
 For the most part, faith takes up the work 
 here and carries it on, making it plain why the 
 flowers bloom, and so soon fade away ; why the 
 rainbow arches the sky with glowing promise, and 
 then so quickly disappears ; why myriads of shells 
 radiate their beauty in the depths of the sea, with 
 no eye to admire their charms. These disappear 
 without having any dirge sung, because they were 
 made for this world. But it is far otherwise with 
 the child, the mature, and the old, as they go 
 hence. We learn patience by long endurance ; 
 we sow in tears that we may reap in joy, for the 
 reason we were not made to finish our course 
 here ; we barely gain the foot of the everlasting 
 mountain ; we only get down to the beach of the 
 great ocean of life. But the eye of faith descries 
 the endless hereafter and scans an eternal future, 
 
40 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 rendering immortality a reality. Is not such a 
 ken demanded? 
 
 All this, and vastly more, exhibits the blessed- 
 ness of faith. It tempers the whole soul and 
 fuses it with truest fortitude. If poverty op- 
 presses, dangers threaten, and sickness is unto 
 death, it penetrates beyond the veil and runs for 
 the goal. It makes life signify, not simply happi- 
 ness, but development. How blessed the reveal- 
 ment that man is always to grow ! Naught can 
 surpass this fact and help so much while he is 
 tabernacled in the flesh ; without it he groans and 
 wearies of existence. 
 
 When in the metropolitan church of Copen- 
 hagen, I was delighted with Thorwaldsen's statue 
 of Christ. Probably it is the most perfect repre- 
 sentation of the Divine One ever made by human 
 genius and skill. Long did the great sculptor 
 enthusiastically and intently work upon it; but 
 when it was at last finished, it is said that a deep 
 sadness came over him, and, when asked the 
 reason, his reply was : " My genius is failing me. 
 Here is my statue of Christ ; it is the first of my 
 works with which I have ever been satisfied. Till 
 now my ideal has always been far beyond what I 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 41 
 
 could execute; but it is no longer so. I shall 
 never have a great idea again." Yes, to feel that 
 we have attained to the pinnacle, and that we are 
 to go no higher, is heart-crushing. 
 
 But one under the exercise of devout Christian 
 faith never suffers any such abrading disappoint- 
 ment. Abraham left his native city, Ur, though 
 he loved it dearly, and went with his aged sire to 
 Haran to dwell, for he felt that he would have a 
 better opportunity to grow ; and after he had ten- 
 derly cared for his aged father and seen him 
 through this life, then he journeyed far aAvay to 
 Canaan, suffering severest hardships for the sake 
 of worshipping unmolested the one living God. 
 So he led his beloved Isaac to the mountain-top, 
 and was ready to offer him a sacrifice unto God, 
 for he Avas made to believe that would prove the 
 best for his son and himself. He was especially 
 guided by faith. 
 
 The greatest human deeds have been done by 
 men of faith. It was through the blessedness of 
 faith that the Pilgrim Fathers settled this country ; 
 that Livingstone opened up the heart of Africa; 
 that Xavier bore the cross of Christ to India. This 
 it was that sustained Galileo, Newton, Faraday, 
 
42 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and Herschel in their researches. This gave un- 
 failing courage to Paul and Peter, Luther and 
 Murray. These were the glad servants of the 
 Most High, whom they had come to know through 
 faith. Thus conditioned, every true soul has gone 
 out of this life glorified. Is this not true of Mary, 
 who broke the vase of ointment and poured it on 
 her Lord? She did the best she could, and her 
 doing has lived as a memorial unto her through 
 the centuries. The old artist in Paris, whose faith 
 had led him into his garret out of sight of the 
 world to mould a likeness of Christ, was building 
 the best he could. As night came, and with it 
 chilling frosts, the old man lay down to sleep. At 
 midnight he was awakened by the freezing blast, 
 and he arose, taking off his coat and coverlet, 
 laid them carefully over his statue lest it might 
 freeze, and then laid himself again on his pallet of 
 straw. When the morning came a friend opened 
 the door of the destitute studio, and lo, the statue 
 was complete and safe, but its designer and exec- 
 utor was cold in death ; he had given himself 
 for his work. What a resplendent crown of bles- 
 sedness rests upon his life ! The young Confed- 
 erate soldier at the battle of Fredericksburg, after 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 43 
 
 a bloody contest, heard groans and entreaties for 
 water all through the night ; and as the dawning 
 came he said to his general : " I cannot stand such 
 beseeching any longer, and I am going to carry 
 water to those poor suffering fellows." His com- 
 mander said, " It will be death to you, if you 
 attempt any such rashness." The reply was, " I 
 have faith to believe that the Lord will not let the 
 Union soldiers fire upon me in being merciful unto 
 their wounded comrades." For an hour and a 
 half he was distributing water to parched lips, and 
 laying weary heads in the most comfortable posi- 
 tion possible, and no harm befell him. Really, he 
 must have experienced more solid happiness in 
 that brief time than he would have realized 
 in ordinary life during years of well-doing. 
 So it is, faith renders the soul daring for the 
 right, which is sure to be followed with great 
 recompense. 
 
 It is related of a young girl who manifested un- 
 common loveliness of character, that she wore 
 around her neck a chain with a locket attached 
 to it, which she did not allow any one to open. 
 But she was taken sick, and it would seem unto 
 death ; and as one of her intimate companions 
 
44 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 was watching by her, she was permitted to open 
 the keepsake, and there was found in it this writ- 
 ing : "Whom not having seen, I love." Herein 
 was revealed the secret of her purity. Faith in 
 Christ had transfigured her life, and filled her 
 soul with blessedness. This is the agency alone 
 that can perfect human life. 
 
 Nothing is sadder than to walk among incom- 
 plete ruins. Perchance there were good begin- 
 nings, but from uncalled-for reasons no finishing 
 was given them. Thus it is with the young man 
 who starts out from the old home full of promise, 
 leaving expectant hearts behind, and enters a city 
 career, paying more deference to outside show 
 than to principle. In a few years his faults ex- 
 pose him, and he falls ruined. The man who 
 sacrifices his all for the sake of riches, that he 
 may count his millions before the world, never 
 using his means to improve society and make 
 others wiser and happier, falls sooner or later 
 amidst incomplete ruins. The sceptic who de- 
 lights in tearing down, but proffers no substitute, 
 never completes any work ; and, however long he 
 lives, he finally falls under a mass of ruins. If one 
 be born a philosopher, and by force of education 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 45 
 
 is made a doubter and disbeliever in God and 
 man, he never departs leaving a completed pile ; 
 his shafts are broken and his foundations are sand. 
 His only monument left is built out of the sand 
 of remorse and wretchedness. 
 
 Perchance there would be no mass of physical 
 ruins at old Babylon, Palmyra, or Athens, had it 
 not been first for the materialization of human 
 character, and the obliterating of moral responsi- 
 bility. Wherever affections have become fixed 
 on things sensual, rendering spiritual progress 
 impossible, obliteration has always sooner or later 
 come to such men. The history of paganism, or 
 atheism, is but one vast volume, delineating hu- 
 man ruins. They are sure to be changed to 
 violence in their action. With such men it is 
 rumors of war, and wars continually. Edmund 
 Burke estimates that such have destroyed upon 
 the field of battle more than thirty thousand 
 millions of human lives. They have influenced 
 human legislators to enact cruel penalties. Pa- 
 ganism has represented God revengeful above 
 all other intelligences, rescuing the few and de- 
 stroying the many. Barbarian philosophy 1ms 
 pictured countless and unending ruins. A faith- 
 
46 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 less man is a failure, just as much as a steam- 
 engine would be without fire or boiler. 
 
 But the men of Christian faith have builded 
 for the ages. Christ has been the chief est of all 
 in the greatest works. As he walked amidst the 
 shadows of time, he exhibited the splendors of 
 eternity. He loved the lilies and stars as the Fa- 
 ther's handiwork. He took little children in his 
 arms and blessed them, and stimulated the ma- 
 ture to highest endeavors. Faith did its perfect 
 work in him, making his whole life redolent with 
 blessedness. He gathered up what goodness he 
 could from Confucian morality, from Brahminism 
 in its grasp for the real, from Buddhism in its 
 search for virtue, from Zoroastrianism in its eager- 
 ness for more light, from the beautiful in Athens, 
 and the law of Rome. He came not to destroy 
 the dispensation of Moses, nor the songs of David, 
 but to fill them full of the love of God. He 
 so combined the good of the past, the present, 
 and future, as to form a perfect doctrine. He 
 breathed the good of all the world into his gos- 
 pel. He built Christianity upon the blessedness 
 of faith, infusing it with immortal vigor. This 
 is the realization of a soul baptized into the pro- 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 47 
 
 foundest faith. This makes it ready to hear what 
 God has to speak, and do what he wills to be 
 done. So his surrender is unconditional, ready 
 to go whither duty bids, to bear any burden 
 imposed, to make any sacrifice, however costly, 
 hoping all things, and pressing towards his lof- 
 tiest ideal. He incessantly struggles at his edi- 
 fice of character, if he does not know whether it 
 is to be finished according to his plan, or not, 
 believing that it will go on to completion in the 
 building not made with hands. He cannot dis- 
 cover room enough in to-day for the blessings 
 which he sights in to-morrow. Thus his own 
 uncertainty results in the certainty of God. Ulti- 
 mate failure, disaster, and destruction are impos- 
 sible to him. 
 
 The superlative blessedness of faith is, that it 
 makes God the beginning of all good things. It 
 sees him unfolding all souls in his tender em- 
 brace, loving, chastening, and training, that they 
 may develop as rapidly as possible from lower 
 to higher orders. It writes " beautiful " over 
 every tomb, setting ajar its door, where angels 
 stand, sending out the consoling refrain, " He 
 is not here, but is risen." 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 
 
 — Z 
 
 Frank Warren Whippen. 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 
 
 A definition of love is as difficult to make 
 as a definition of soul. We can describe love. 
 We can see many of its component parts. But 
 the aggregate of these parts leaves us far short 
 of the whole. We can never define the supreme 
 grace. 
 
 In our common use of the word love, it has 
 many objects. Men are said to love good and 
 also evil, things and persons, one soul, a family, 
 and a race. There is little in common between 
 love of money and love of a friend, and a pity it 
 is that the same word should stand for both. 
 We crave names sacredly to be kept for the deep 
 and holy things. If love is to stand for the su- 
 preme affection of souls, other words should tell 
 of the lower passions. 
 
 There is some reason, however, in letting the 
 word run over the wide scale. There is a com- 
 mon factor. In each case the passion or the 
 
 51 
 
52 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 affection' is a motive. Every state of the soul 
 which we are inclined to call love has its effect 
 as a powerful inner force. 
 
 We see this true of the love of money. Men 
 do everything for gain. Charity, friendship, 
 honor, decency, and respect for the sacreclness of 
 life itself, are all set aside in the face of that 
 mighty passion. No wonder the truth has been 
 magnified into the proverb, " The love of money 
 is the root of all evil." All people have felt 
 the motive. Idolatry, in many forms, has been 
 local, and in the course of ages has passed away; 
 but here is an idolatry that seems to have began 
 with the beginning, and now, at the very close 
 of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, 
 shows little signs of ending. Men, not a few, 
 love money now better than they love their next 
 of kin, and better than they love righteousness or 
 their God, — and this love is the mainspring of 
 their lives. 
 
 We turn gladly to more hopeful things, and 
 one is the love of country. Here is a motive we 
 can honor. This makes men brave and devoted. 
 Our hearts are thrilled by the deeds of the pa- 
 triots. . They take us to the eternal things. It 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 53 
 
 is so with Arnold Winkelriecl, as he throws him- 
 self onto the Austrian line, to make a way for 
 the Swiss, and receives into his body a hundred 
 spears. It is so with the Pilgrim Fathers, when, 
 though exiled by the English king, they dare 
 the stormy Atlantic and the wilderness in order 
 to plant a colony for that king, because they love 
 England so much. It is so with Washington 
 and Lincoln, as they struggle on in the face of 
 the greatest difficulties, in behalf of liberty and 
 human rights and national union. 
 
 All the patriots move us. The rehearsal of 
 their devotion makes us more devoted. Our 
 own national heroes are a part of our inheritance, 
 and our emotion is as pure as the thoughts of 
 angels, and powerful in the direction of good 
 citizenship, when our hearts in song echo the 
 sentiment of the poet's words : — 
 
 " Thy name I love ; 
 I love thy rocks and rills, 
 Thy woods and templed hills ; 
 My heart with rapture thrills, 
 
 Like that above." 
 
 Another form of this inner force is the love 
 of nature. The result in this case may not be 
 
54 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 so striking as in many others, but it is as real. 
 Among those elements in men's lives that may 
 be said to run as undercurrents, few mean more 
 than does a loving intimacy with the great world 
 around us. He who loves nature has a set of 
 motives which other souls lack. He is led by 
 them out into her realm. He is made to see 
 values which figures are powerless to express. 
 In the woods, on the hills, by the rivers, the 
 lakes, and the sea, he finds treasures, which any 
 other of like spirit may also find, which are 
 treasures indeed because they feed the soul. The 
 love of nature banishes wantonness, and quick- 
 ens the humanities. Souls blessed with it are 
 moved to respect even the humblest life. Frank 
 Bolles pauses to regret that he has unwittingly 
 disturbed an ant-hill ; and such as he are re- 
 luctant to tread down even the tiniest flower. 
 Justice and sympathy are born of this spirit, and 
 they reach to all the affairs of men. 
 
 Plainly, love of any sort is a force. What we 
 love we are interested in, and have an enthusiasm 
 for; and wherever there is interest and enthu- 
 siasm there is motive. And yet, there is a love 
 that is pre-eminently strong, and in the motive 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 55 
 
 that it supplies, supreme above all others. If 
 
 love is "the highest word," this is the kind of 
 
 love that exclusively may claim the name. Even 
 
 the most tender affections must be passed by to 
 
 see it in its completeness. 
 
 It is more than the love between man and 
 
 woman. And this is mighty. What will the 
 
 lover not do for his beloved ! What will frail 
 
 woman not endure and give up that she may 
 
 have the companionship which her heart craves ! 
 
 There is little extravagance in Shakespeare's 
 
 lines : — 
 
 " O, gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty Lord: 
 And hath so humbled me, as, I confess, 
 There is no woe to his correction, 
 Nor to his service, no such joy on earth." 
 
 But the supreme love is more than this. And 
 to reach it we must pass by even the love of 
 mothers. No love can be intenser than a moth- 
 er's. All that soul can do for soul a mother will 
 do for her child. Comforts she will forego, pride 
 she will stifle, danger she will dare, starvation 
 and death she will endure, for her child. Eliza, 
 the slave-woman, whom Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 has immortalized in story, leaping with her boy 
 
56 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 in her arms onto the floating ice of the Ohio, and 
 passing desperately from one cake to another 
 with bare and bleeding feet, bnt in safety, to 
 the northern shore, is the heroic type of what 
 this kind of love will prompt. No hardship or 
 risk that can be named, whether it be of a mo- 
 ment or of a lifetime, is too great for a mother's 
 heart. 
 
 The supreme love may not be intenser than 
 such, but it is supreme even over the love 
 of mothers, because it is far-reaching. The su- 
 preme love overleaps the bounds of maternal 
 love, and goes out to man as man, and out 
 to God. When we talk about love as Christ 
 talked about it, this is the love we mean. All 
 other love is secondary, along the way it may 
 be, to that warmth and sympathy of heart which 
 directs itself to all humanity. This love is the 
 divinely appointed bond, not simply between two 
 souls, or a few, but between the souls of the 
 race. Love is the recognition of the universal 
 brotherhood. It is the realization of the com- 
 mon Creator and the common blood of men. 
 
 Love in a sense is before righteousness. The 
 world was a sinful world, but God loved it so 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 57 
 
 that he sent his Son to save it. Jesus loved sin- 
 ners, and there is the secret of his power over 
 them. So, in men, love does not vary with char- 
 acter. Love takes note of character. It takes 
 keener note of it than any other power. But 
 it lives, and ofttimes sublimely, in spite of the 
 worst in souls. 
 
 Evil, it is true, cannot be loved with the love 
 that we speak of now. The Devil, were there 
 such a person, a person totally and hopelessly 
 committed to evil, could not be loved. Love is 
 a divine grace. Only those beings that have 
 something of the divine within them, either ac- 
 tual or potential, can be loved. But love can 
 embrace wicked men, because in them there are 
 godlike possibilities. 
 
 Love is the ideal attitude of one soul toward 
 all other souls. Nothing in earth or heaven can 
 cancel it. The affection of a parent clinging to 
 an erring child, sacrificing for him, patiently en- 
 during for him, leading him home when he has 
 so far lost himself that he must be led, follow- 
 ing him to prison and to the gallows, and saying 
 through it all, " He is my son," and ceasing 
 never for a moment to yearn for him and love 
 
58 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 him, — the affection of such a parent, as far as 
 quality is concerned, is the type of that love to 
 which Christ has called the world ; and which, 
 present in the soul, is life, the eternal life of God. 
 
 Love, then, is a temper of soul. It is an inner 
 grace. You cannot see it or take note of it by 
 any of the senses. Its immediate results are 
 all within. Longing, yearning, and ecstasy are 
 words that tell its power. It is a solace and a 
 peace to those that have it. At the still hour 
 it is a blessing. 
 
 But love is more than a temper of soul, more 
 than an affection to be shut up and enjoyed, and 
 so profited by. Love is an inner force. Present 
 in souls, it moves them to deeds. Jesus said as 
 much to Peter in that last conversation by the 
 lakeside. Peter claimed to love his Master. 
 Doubtless he did love him ; and yet, but a few 
 days before, he had denied him three times, and, 
 with the rest of the disciples, when the critical 
 hour came, he had forsaken him and fled. Jesus 
 says nothing about this now, but he teaches 
 his lesson, nevertheless. Most impressively he 
 couples two ideas that Peter, doubtless, had never 
 before felt to be so close. Three times his Master 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 59 
 
 asks him if he loves him. And to the answer, 
 u yes," repeated with increasing emphasis, he re- 
 sponds each time substantially in the same words, 
 " Feed my sheep." Peter said, " I love." Jesus 
 answered, " Serve, then. If you love me, be 
 good and generous and helpful to me, or what 
 amounts to the same thing, to your fellow- 
 men." It seems as though Jesus would have 
 Peter tell him, in answer to his question, not 
 simply "yes," but as a far more significant an- 
 swer, " Lord, I am going out to carry your mes- 
 sage, and the forgiveness and peace which you 
 have brought to me, to the world that needs so 
 much. Lord, I love you, and to attest that love 
 I am going to be your disciple in deed and in 
 truth." This, at least, is what the reply of Jesus 
 means. If Peter really loved him, he must do so. 
 If he loved, his love must move him, it must be 
 a force in him operative for the good which love 
 must wish for men. 
 
 And so, by this principle that love is an inner 
 force, that, present in souls, it will in one way or 
 another make itself felt, we have a test of love. 
 No man need be in doubt as to whether the 
 divine grace is his. If it is his to any marked 
 
60 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 degree, he will know it by what it makes him 
 do. He cannot love much, and do nothing, or 
 little. He cannot love, and shut himself up away 
 from men. And he who finds himself so shut 
 up, who has no generous impulses toward others, 
 who is not impelled to deeds of mercy and help- 
 fulness, no matter what his professions, or where 
 his name is written, — he is as poor as the poorest, 
 in the riches of the Master's kingdom. 
 
 What, now, can love do ? To little Paul Dom- 
 bey's question, "What can money do?" his father 
 replied, " Money, Paul, can do anything." But 
 even Dombey Senior, in response to Paul's per- 
 sistent questioning, was obliged to admit limita- 
 tions to the power of money. Money could not 
 stay the hand of death, as it reached out for Mr. 
 Dombey's wife, and it could not make little Paul 
 a strong and robust boy. Mr. Dombey admitted 
 this, but still his faith in the power of money 
 remained unshaken. He did not recognize that 
 in certain situations, where it is trusted very 
 much, money is completely without avail ; that it 
 cannot bring contentment, or joy, or peace ; that 
 the richest may be miserable with his wealth. 
 
 But the answer which Dickens puts into the 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 61 
 
 mouth of Mr. Dombey is suggestive. Before 
 the realization that money cannot do everything, 
 we are prompted to ask, Is there anything power- 
 ful to such a degree? Can we substitute any 
 word for money in Mr. Dombey's statement, and 
 let the statement stand? In one sense we can- 
 not; with man some things are impossible. As it 
 was with little Paul's dear mamma, and his own 
 frailty itself, so it always is. The flame of 
 our mortality will grow feeble, and flicker, and 
 go out. And yet, in, another sense, we can sub- 
 stitute a word for Mr. Dombey's money, and make 
 his statement profoundly true. When we substi- 
 tute the word love, we do this. Making allow- 
 ance for the limitations necessary to man, love 
 can do anything. 
 
 It is wonderful in its power to make hearts 
 glad. What sunlight is upon this earth and in 
 our homes, love is in our hearts. It is the secret 
 of spiritual health. We live through the influ- 
 ences of love. Where love is there is security 
 from life's trials. As in the deep sea, so here, — 
 
 " There is a temple sacred evermore, 
 And all the babble of life's angry voices 
 Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door." 
 
62 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 Love is our support in solitude. No matter 
 how far away from men we are, if we love, we 
 are one with them in spirit. The tie can bridge 
 the gulf of death. We grieve to be parted from 
 our loved ones, but because we love them we can 
 follow them on, and know them ours still. The 
 love in our hearts, quickened by Christ, is the 
 secret of our victory over death and the grave. 
 So we can look into the face of our dear dead, 
 and still thank God. 
 
 This great sympathy can make one glad, too, 
 in the society of strangers. There is no feeling 
 of loneliness greater than that which comes over 
 one in a crowd. The situation is sometimes like 
 beiug at sea without water. Just as in such a 
 case there is " water everywhere, and not a drop 
 to drink," so in the crowd there are faces all 
 about, but none with greetings. Such surround- 
 ings may chill a soul like death, but they need 
 not. A loving heart will find greetings. Faces 
 will not seem cold or indifferent to him who 
 really loves humanity. Though seeing them for 
 the first time, he reads in them the universal 
 traits. He sees in them trials and sorrows, hopes 
 and joys ; and the pity and sympathy of his heart 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. ■ 63 
 
 leave no room for loneliness. Such a soul will 
 turn strangers into friends. 
 
 Men have devised other plans for doing the 
 same thing. The Masonic order and kindred 
 organizations have this for a part of their object. 
 By their mystic signs welcome is assured in 
 strange cities and distant lands. This welcome 
 is no doubt realized. And yet, in the long run, 
 love is at the foundation even of this reception. 
 The warm, generous hearts find the true friends 
 even in the fraternities. Love opens every door. 
 It is the universal passport. 
 
 Love in the heart is a source of gladness be- 
 cause loving is living. Love means spiritual 
 health. Even sorrow and great trials do not 
 cancel all life's gladness in the loving soul. Love 
 never lets a soul come to that point where life 
 seems not worth the living. On the other hand, 
 it prompts continually to the thought, " How good 
 it is to be ! " We have a kindred feeling on those 
 rare days God gives us, when physical beauty and 
 the winsomeness of nature in earth and air and 
 sky are forced upon us. What we call the per- 
 fect days fill our souls, and so this love of God 
 and of man, filling men's souls, prompts them to 
 
64 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 cheerfulness and peace. Thank God for the per- 
 fect days, and for the peace of the perfect grace. 
 
 Thank God, too, for the activity of the perfect 
 grace. Love can do well-nigh everything. It 
 can influence souls for good. Men will listen to 
 those who love them, those whose interest in them 
 is genuine and sincere. Love is the secret of 
 success in the great reforms. The human heart 
 is reached by sympathy. Men demur at being 
 treated simply as cases. They respond only feebly 
 to mechanical appeals. Many things can be done 
 by machinery, but saving souls is not one of 
 these. Men are influenced for good by sympathy. 
 Soul after soul has gone to the bad, and souls are 
 still in that way, because no kind word has ever 
 been spoken to them, and no hand, expressive of a 
 warm heart, has grasped theirs to make them feel 
 the universal bond. What pathos in the response 
 of an abandoned soul when surprised by kindness, 
 " No human being ever spoke a kind word to me or 
 put a hand on me in any mood but hate and scorn 
 before ! " — what pathos and what hope ! 
 
 Love saves. It is well to call things by their 
 right names. We hear and read a great deal 
 in these days about the missionary spirit, and 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 65 
 
 we should. All churches are trying to cultivate 
 that spirit, and this is well. But this one truth 
 we cannot for a moment afford to lose sight of, 
 that the missionary spirit, in the missionary him- 
 self and in those who send him, is not an ar- 
 tificial and abnormal tiling, but at its heart 
 this divine grace. Love is the missionary spirit. 
 Love makes workers successful among the way- 
 ward, the abandoned, and the ignorant ; and just 
 in proportion to their love of humanity will 
 churches have this much-talked-of grace. 
 
 In the teacher love is worth more than brains. 
 He may command, but he cannot inspire with- 
 out it. One of the greatest elements of strength, 
 and at the same time one of the profoundest 
 needs in our public schools to-day, is men and 
 women with hearts. Only by sympathy can 
 teachers appreciate the needs or the capacities 
 of their pupils. Only by loving familiarity with 
 them can they impress them with the truth. 
 Love gets behind the mere teaching of facts to 
 their meaning. Without their meaning facts are 
 well-nigh useless. The school-teacher wields a 
 sceptre for good second to no other, if his heart 
 beats warm and true. 
 
66 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 And with love is the solution of the social 
 and economic questions that vex us. And there 
 is no other solution. The great evil is, men do 
 not love each other, do not feel the common 
 bond. They are indifferent, selfish, cruel. They 
 are separated into factions, and each looks upon 
 the other with no sympathy. Eighteen hundred 
 years and more ago the doctrine of the unity of 
 the race was set forth, and men have not ac- 
 cepted it yet. Remedies for existing evils there 
 may he in legislation and in other devices, but 
 the cure depends upon the softening of men's 
 stony hearts. Men must think of each other, 
 especially of people below them, " as if they 
 were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not an- 
 other race of creatures bound on other jour- 
 neys." Love vanishes oppression on the one 
 hand and envy on the other, and insures the 
 true relation between men. 
 
 It is the province of love also to promote 
 righteousness. Love and unrighteousness do not 
 accord. The heart warm with sympathy does 
 no wrong to others, and at the same time is anx- 
 ious that others shall be true. Dr. Livingstone 
 had comparatively little trouble with the natives 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 67 
 
 in the wilds of Africa. William Perm was re- 
 spected and trusted by the American Indians, 
 because he was kind to them, and because he 
 treated them as brothers, and few men in his- 
 tory have a nobler record than his. 
 
 It is said sometimes to reformers, " These 
 things are not your business, you are meddling ; 
 take care of yourselves, and we will do the 
 same." But the charge is made in error. A 
 real interest in humanity cannot be content with 
 wickedness. It is the business of love to seek 
 to better the world, and to lessen the evil and 
 the sorrow of it. 
 
 Love chords only with the virtues. Those we 
 love we want to be pure and good and true. 
 There are many names applied by the lover, but 
 the supreme of these is " angel." Parents wish 
 various things for their children, but the su- 
 preme wish runs out in the direction of charac- 
 ter. Love in the hearts of fathers and mothers 
 makes them desire above all things else that their 
 boys and girls grow up manly and womanly. 
 
 Love toward humanity may not be as intense as 
 the lover's or the mother's, but in effect it must be 
 the same. As a mother weeps over her straying 
 
68 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 boy, and as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so hearts 
 with love in them must sorrow before the wrong. 
 
 And love must not only sorrow, but act. Love 
 says, when confronted with a sadly erring soul, 
 " I will try and help him. The weight is heavy 
 on the side of sin ; I will throw all the influence 
 I can bring upon the other side." Love always 
 says this, for u love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 
 rejoiceth in the truth." 
 
 Love shows itself an inner force when we think 
 of self-sacrifice. Deny yourselves, Jesus repeat- 
 edly said to his followers. And we cannot 
 wonder that they failed to understand him, and 
 that they disobeyed in this even in the most 
 solemn hours. We can see how his followers 
 later made their mistake and crucified their bodies, 
 with the thought of thereby saving their souls 
 and serving their Lord. The doctrine of self- 
 giving rises grim and stern from every point but 
 one. There all harshness is done away, and the 
 light of heaven is on it. That point is love. In 
 love is the motive. Denying one's self for the 
 sake of denial is a stoical and profitless act. But 
 denying one's self in order thereby to help another 
 is grand. Suffering pain as an exercise is folly ; 
 
LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 69 
 
 but suffering pain in another's stead, or for 
 another's welfare, is blessed satisfaction. Such 
 sacrifice is reasonable and natural. It is of the 
 very essence of love to say, " Let me suffer for 
 him." In love the apparent inconsistency between 
 Jesus' call, "sacrifice yourselves," and the angel's 
 message, " I bring you good tidings of great joy," 
 is done away. Where love rules there is joy in 
 giving one's self for others. 
 
 Love is a bond of union where other things 
 tend to keep souls apart. It is the ground upon 
 which all differences sink away. Men may believe 
 opposites, and yet be ■ one in sympathy ; they may 
 have the prejudice of a life-time cancelled by the 
 all-conquering grace. Stronger than prejudice 
 was the aversion between Jew and Samaritan. 
 Each was bred to hate the other. And yet love 
 could overflow such hate. The Jew left for dead 
 on the road to Jericho found a Samaritan's help. 
 In spite of inherited hate, the Samaritan had a 
 heart. He was willing to help even a Jew, and 
 giving up to him his own beast, take his chances 
 with him on a robber-infested road. 
 
 And although times have changed, the Good 
 Samaritan is a character as full of beauty to-day 
 
TO NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 as lie was in the days of Jesus. Society is divided 
 into factions iioav, as of old, and the church is 
 divided. In religion men do not think alike or 
 see alike. It does not appear that they ever will. 
 But for that reason they need not be at variance. 
 It is not creeds that keep the churches apart, so 
 much as it is lack of knowledge one of another, 
 and a spirit that comes very near a spirit of par- 
 tisanship, and, above all, a lack of the loving 
 spirit of their common Lord. 
 
 This is where we should expect the trouble. 
 We are called to live with the spirit of Christ in 
 our hearts. Because we lack this spirit, we are 
 cold and distant to the church people over the 
 way. The receipt for Christian unity is growth in 
 the divine grace. Souls moved by love will never 
 turn contemptuously from any sincere soul, but will 
 be ready and eager to give him the cordial hand. 
 
 Love fails sometimes, but it fails because it is 
 alloyed, because it is mixed with other things. 
 Perfect love is the perfect motive. It is the 
 motive of God, the motive of Christ, the motive 
 to be sought and prayed for, and treasured and 
 rejoiced in ; the motive that shall take the race 
 on to the complete victory. 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 Edward Lovell Houghton. 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 The chief object of this essay is not to prove 
 that the Bible is a collection of inspired books in 
 this or that sense, nor even that it is inspired at 
 all. It is not to champion this or that view of the 
 origin, authorship, and date of the several books. 
 It is simply to take these books for what they are 
 in themselves, as books which have sufficiently 
 proved, by the spiritual experience of centuries, 
 that they have spiritual profit in them ; and to 
 offer some suggestions as to how the greatest 
 possible measure of such profit may be realized 
 for the needs of present every-day life. 
 
 Questions of criticism have their own interest 
 and importance. The practical significance of 
 such questions, in their bearing upon the value 
 of the Scriptures for spiritual profit, may easily 
 be over-estimated, — - often has been, very greatly. 
 By way of illustration, take two examples. 
 
 Some critics say the Pentateuch was written, 
 73 
 
74 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 or rather put into its present form, in the time 
 of Josiah; Others, not until after the return from 
 the Babylonian captivity. It is evidently a com- 
 posite work, based upon several documents of 
 widely different dates. Very well; what of it? 
 Those critics whose opinions differ most from 
 traditional views, although they do not say so 
 as explicitly as might be desired, still admit that 
 the substantial basis of the Pentateuch is made 
 up of genuine history and genuine usages of the 
 Mosaic epoch and earlier. The work of the later 
 writers of these successive periods was, for the 
 most part, simply that of editors. The Penta- 
 teuch, as we have it, is substantially correct his- 
 tory of the Mosaic and preceding epochs. The 
 prophetic writings and the older Psalms may be 
 older than the present form of the Pentateuch, 
 as many critics, perhaps the majority, to-day hold, 
 but have by no means yet been able to prove. 
 To maintain that these writings would have been 
 possible except on the foundation of the substan- 
 tial contents of the Pentateuch, inwrought into 
 the thought and life of the Hebrew people, would 
 be like trying to balance a pyramid on its apex. 
 The practical value of these or of any Old Tes- 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 75 
 
 tament books for present spiritual profit is not 
 affected one particle by modern critical theories. 
 For another example, take the Fourth Gospel. 
 Recent discoveries, particularly the most recent, 
 that of the ancient Harmony of Tatian, may well 
 be said to have rendered the opinion that this 
 Gospel is a second-century document entirely 
 antiquated, and to have settled it beyond ques- 
 tion that it is the work of the Apostle John 
 (with the exception, of course, of chap. xxi.). 
 But suppose it were otherwise. Suppose it were 
 a second-century document. The book is still 
 what it is in itself ; incomparably the deepest, 
 fullest, most sympathetic presentation of the life 
 and character of Jesus we have. The truthful- 
 ness of the picture is self-evident. No writer, 
 even of the apostolic age, much less of that fol- 
 lowing, could have invented it. It must have 
 been drawn from the life. None could have 
 overdrawn it. It is simply a question of differ- 
 ent degrees of apprehension, all partial, by dif- 
 ferent disciples of the Great Teacher. None of 
 them, do his very best, could do more than pre- 
 sent a partial picture of a figure too majestic to 
 be fully comprehended. The real Christ must 
 
76 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 have been far greater than the most exalted 
 picture we possess of him. John lived a much 
 longer life, hence had more time for reflection, 
 and a deeper and richer Christian experience 
 than his fellow-disciples. He could apprehend, 
 hence could remember and relate, many of the 
 deeper things of his Master's teaching which they 
 did not understand, and so forgot. This it is 
 which makes the Christ of the Fourth Gospel 
 so much greater than the same personage as the 
 other evangelists present him to us. Not that 
 the picture in the Fourth Gospel is overdrawn — 
 that would be impossible ; but this writer gives 
 a view which is nearer to the reality, the reality 
 itself being still far beyond this or any possible 
 portrayal. It is this quality which makes the 
 Fourth Gospel the richest, the most valuable for 
 spiritual profit, of all the biographies of Jesus. 
 And this is equally true, whenever and by whom- 
 soever written. 
 
 Taking the Bible, then, for what it is in itself, 
 without regard, except incidentally and in very 
 subordinate degree, to critical questions of date 
 and authorship, without regard to the question 
 of its inspiration, except as its divine character 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 77 
 
 may appear from the internal evidence of its 
 own contents, let us ask how this book may be 
 used so as to yield the greatest possible degree 
 of practical spiritual benefit. The Bible has nour- 
 ished the spiritual life of many thousands for 
 many centuries. The same spiritual needs exist 
 under the changed conditions of modern life. 
 How may the Bible be made to minister most 
 fruitfully to those needs? 
 
 1. Point of view. — Scripture is not all alike, 
 nor all of equal value, particularly not for pur- 
 poses of spiritual profit. Furthermore, it does 
 not follow, because certain Scripture is not suit- 
 able for use in a certain way, that it may not 
 have large value when used in another, the right 
 way. 
 
 An especially broad distinction exists, and 
 therefore should be made, between the Old Tes- 
 tament and the New. Not only should a broad 
 distinction be made, but the right one. It is 
 important not only to avoid the formerly more 
 prevalent mistake of regarding the whole Bible, 
 Old Testament as well as New, as the one per- 
 fect moral and spiritual guide for all time ; it 
 is even more important to guard against the 
 
78 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 opposite error, now far more common, that the 
 New Testament alone has any present spiritual 
 value, the Old Testament being altogether anti- 
 quated and valueless. 
 
 The moral standard of the Old Testament is 
 manifestly imperfect. It is folly to attempt to 
 deny that fact ; very unfortunate to fail to real- 
 ize it fully, and the significance of it. Does it 
 mean that the Old Testament has no divine ele- 
 ment in it, and no present spiritual value? Or 
 is there a point of view, thereby proved to be the 
 right one, from which, in spite of its imperfec- 
 tions, yes, in part even by means of them, both 
 the divine element and the power of spiritual 
 instruction may be clearly seen ? 
 
 One of the prophets has what comes very near 
 being an explicit statement of such a point of 
 view. God is represented as saying (Hos. xi. 
 3), " I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by 
 the arms." Ephraim is the Hebrew people, of 
 whose history, laws, customs, political fortunes, 
 religious aspirations, and apostasies the Old Tes- 
 tament is a partial record. The figure is that of 
 a mother teaching her child to walk, taking it by 
 the arms, and thus guiding and supporting its 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 79 
 
 first feeble, tottering steps, until it is able to go 
 alone. God says his procedure with the Hebrew 
 people has been like that of a mother training 
 her child. Does not the figure fit the facts? 
 
 Suppose we take our stand at Mount Sinai. 
 We shall thus be led directly to the consideration 
 of the chief defects of the Old Covenant, therefore 
 to the chief obstacle in the way of the traditional 
 view of the equal value and perfection of all 
 Scripture. It may be that we shall find in these 
 very things, when looked at from the right point 
 of view, even deeper lessons of divine wisdom 
 and love than could possibly have been obtained 
 under the former view. Here is the Hebrew 
 people, ignorant, childish, passionate, stiff-necked, 
 just released from centuries of hard bondage. 
 This people is to be trained to become the cen- 
 tre of moral and religious light for all the world. 
 A tremendous task, worthy indeed of divine 
 power, if not beyond even that ! Now, upon 
 sound human principles of education, how may 
 the divine wisdom be expected to attack such a 
 problem as this ? For principles which are really 
 sound as human principles are also sound as di- 
 vine principles. 
 
80 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 It is a cardinal principle of all successful edu- 
 cation not to attempt to teach everything at once; 
 to teach first those things which are most funda- 
 mental and necessary, and to adapt the teach- 
 ing always to the capacity of the pupil. Even 
 the perfect wisdom and power of God must be 
 limited, in the moral and spiritual education of 
 his children, by their capacity. Even he cannot 
 at once do as he would, but must do as he can. 
 
 Applying these principles to the task of the 
 moral education of a childish people like the 
 Hebrews, we should expect that the moral code 
 first proclaimed to such a people would be direct 
 and specific. It will not be a single principle of 
 life, nor a set of principles, leaving the people to 
 work out and apply them for themselves. Such 
 a procedure belongs to a more advanced stage of 
 moral education. It is not adapted to the begin- 
 ning. It will say to them, Thou shalt do this, 
 and Thou shalt not do that, of a considerable 
 number of specific outward acts. Is not this an 
 accurate description of the Mosaic legislation? 
 
 We should expect, secondly, that the list of 
 specific things thus prohibited would by no means 
 include everything now considered clearly wrong 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 81 
 
 under an advanced Christian civilization. It is 
 probable, rather, that the worst, most fundamen- 
 tal, most destructive sins will be fixed upon — 
 those most absolutely fatal to the life of the na- 
 tion and to its success in its mission. These will 
 be prohibited absolutely, under the most stringent 
 penalties. Other things, to us as clearly wrong 
 as any prohibited, but not so fatal to the life of 
 the nation or to its fitness for its mission, might 
 be treated in the partial way next to be referred 
 to, or even entirely ignored. 
 
 We should expect, in the third place, that 
 many evil things which were not so vitally re- 
 lated to the existence and mission of the nation, 
 which, moreover, were matters of deeply seated 
 custom, and therefore could not be made to seem 
 wrong to them as they do to us, would be not 
 prohibited, but hedged about with restrictions 
 designed to lessen their evil results — leaving 
 their absolute prohibition as sins to be the work 
 of the greater moral enlightenment to come later. 
 
 In the light of these two last-mentioned prin- 
 ciples of wise moral education, let us look once 
 again at the Old Testament legislation, both as 
 to what it forbids and as to the way it treats 
 
82 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 evil things which it does not forbid. There are 
 two sins against which the whole Old Testament 
 is especially severe — the worship of false gods 
 and impurity. Bearing in mind the mission of 
 this people to he the centre of religious light 
 for the world, the wisdom of such a course is 
 manifest. The two sins were closely related. 
 Impurity was associated with, a part of, the reli- 
 gious rites of the nations round about the He- 
 brews. They themselves were especially prone 
 to it. No sin is so destructive to a people's 
 usefulness and even existence as this. A pure 
 worship and a pure life this nation must pre- 
 serve ; else it could not succeed in its mission. 
 And, although only after many falls, they at last 
 learned the lesson ; and when Christ came with 
 the new, perfect law which was to supersede the 
 old, imperfect one, he found a people who, though 
 marred by many faults and grave, were yet re- 
 markably pure in worship and life, and that in 
 an age of unexampled profligacy. 
 
 On the other hand, the Old Testament legisla- 
 lation does not forbid human slavery. It was a 
 common custom, .and recognized as such in the 
 law. But note how the institution is surrounded 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES 83 
 
 by beneficent checks. The slave must refrain 
 from labor on the Sabbath as much as his master. 
 If a Hebrew, he must be treated rather as a hired 
 servant than a slave, and at the end of six years 
 must be set free again. The position of foreign 
 slaves was less favorable ; but if a master mur- 
 dered his slave, he was punished with death the 
 same as if he had killed a freeman. If he destroyed 
 his eye, or struck out a tooth, the slave must be 
 given his liberty. A very different institution 
 this from other ancient slavery, — equally so from 
 most modern. 
 
 Polygamy was also a common custom of the 
 time. It would have been impossible to make the 
 Hebrews see that it was wrong. The time was 
 not ripe to prohibit it altogether. So the law 
 contented itself with prohibiting certain improper 
 marriages, and limiting the loose divorce practices 
 of other nations, whereby the husband might dis- 
 miss his wife at pleasure, not, indeed, to the 
 extent of the Christian law, yet so as materially 
 to diminish the evils of the common custom. 
 
 The custom of blood-vengeance, by which it 
 was looked upon as the duty of the nearest rela- 
 tive of a murdered man to pursue and slay his 
 
84 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 murderer, was, and still is, very firmly fixed in 
 the Oriental mind, as in some other people's. To 
 eradicate it would have been impossible. Hence 
 the institution of the six cities of refuge in differ- 
 ent parts of the land, to which the slayer might 
 flee from the avenger of blood, and there be safe 
 until he could have a fair trial. 
 
 The law provided that, in certain cases, the 
 rulers might even stone to death a stubborn child. 
 We should regard such an act as murder, and 
 rightly. But when we reflect that the common 
 custom and thought of the time gave a father 
 absolute power of life and death over his house- 
 hold, this provision, with its safeguards, takes on 
 a very different, a positively beneficent, aspect. 
 
 These illustrations will sufficiently justify the 
 position before taken, that there is a point of 
 view, thereby proved to be the right one, from 
 which, in spite of its imperfections, in part even 
 because of them, both the divine element and the 
 power of spiritual instruction in the Old Testa- 
 ment may be clearly seen. This point of view is 
 that of the education of a morally imperfect, 
 childish people to be the centre of religious light 
 for the world. Moral teaching meant for such 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 85 
 
 a people will necessarily, hence rightly, be im- 
 perfect. It is not to be judged by its intrinsic 
 contents, like the Christian teaching, but by its 
 tendency. We are to accept nothing, as a prac- 
 tical guide for present life, which falls below the 
 highest standard of the Christian consciousness, 
 enlightened to the utmost by the highest teaching 
 of the Christian law, interpreted by the best 
 Christian experience. Yet these older Scriptures, 
 when viewed from this standpoint, will be found 
 to contain spiritual riches scarcely inferior to the 
 New Testament itself. 
 
 They are valuable as history. All history is 
 pervaded by the divine presence, and is full of 
 spiritual teaching for those who have the open eye 
 to see it, but no other to such an extent as that 
 of the Hebrew people. They are particularly 
 valuable as the self-evident record of the particu- 
 lar dealings of God, the great Teacher, with a 
 particular people, intended for a mission wholly 
 different from that of any other. Looked at from 
 the vantage-ground of these Christian centuries, 
 and from the true point of view, the wisdom and 
 love of the Heavenly Father shine out scarcely 
 less when, far back in the dim ages of antiquity, 
 
86 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 he condescended to the weakness, the imperfec- 
 tion, the hardness of heart, of his wayward chil- 
 dren, and took the best means, imperfect and rude 
 and severe as they oftentimes were, to teach them 
 the first fundamental lessons which they must 
 learn, in order to be fitted for their great mission 
 to the world, — scarcely less manifest, to us, are 
 his wisdom and love in these preparatory stages of 
 man's moral education, .when,, like a mother teach- 
 ing her child to walk, he taught Ephraim to go, 
 taking them by the arms, than in the final and 
 perfect stage of God manifest in the life and 
 teachings of Jesus Christ. 
 
 That life and its teachings are the height and 
 centre of all the Scriptures. Judge all, as to con- 
 tents, by this standard. But let it not be for- 
 gotten that not all, perhaps not the chief part, of 
 the spiritual value of many Scriptures is in their 
 direct teaching. This ought often to be utterly 
 rejected, while the very same writings may have 
 very great spiritual riches, to be seen only from- 
 the right standpoint. All before the Christ is 
 preparatory ; all after, the working out, more or 
 less perfectly, of what is in his teachings. The 
 point of view is all important, that the real riches 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 87 
 
 of all the Scriptures, both Old and New, may be 
 found, and turned to the greatest possible spiritual 
 profit. 
 
 2. Topical Study. — Beside the reading of favor- 
 ite passages in the Bible for devotion, for comfort, 
 for spiritual sustenance, which has been a common 
 practice all through the Christian ages, a more or 
 less systematic topical study will be found to yield 
 very great spiritual profit. The plan of reading 
 the Bible through in course, so many chapters a 
 day, leaves much to be desired, especially in the 
 Old Testament. The attentive reader will not 
 fail to gather many pearls even thus ; but there 
 is a more profitable way to spend what time one 
 has to give to study of the Scriptures. Aside 
 from the more ambitious topical analyses, of which 
 there are many, even the busy reader, who can 
 have at the most but a brief time for such study, 
 may use the topical method to some extent, and 
 with much profit. In your reading you come to a 
 view of God's providence, of man's nature, duty, 
 or destiny, of sin, temptation, forgiveness, which 
 arrests your attention. A natural question is, 
 Just what does the writer mean ? What does he 
 say elsewhere on the same subject ? What do 
 
88 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 other biblical writers say about it? The Scrip- 
 tures have a vocabulary of considerable extent 
 and striking power, which is peculiar to them- 
 selves and the literature founded upon them. To 
 grasp fully the meaning of these peculiarly Chris- 
 tian words and phrases is to understand Christian- 
 ity itself; to fail to do so is to be certain not to 
 understand it. What does Jesus mean by eternal 
 life, the day of judgment, the kingdom of God? 
 What does Paul mean by justification, the flesh, 
 the spirit, faith, works, grace ? Commentators 
 will give you their opinion. That may be good 
 and helpful. It is better that you make up your 
 own opinion by topical study of the writer him- 
 self, which, indeed, in the main, is the very way 
 in which the commentators made up theirs. The 
 marginal references to be found in many Bibles 
 will help you. Any good concordance will help 
 you. The more elaborate topical analyses will 
 help you still more if you can have more time 
 for study. And the more you study the Scrip- 
 tures in this way the greater the spiritual riches 
 they will unfold to you. 
 
 3. Biographical Study. — Let the Bible be 
 looked upon as a book, not of dogma, but of 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 89 
 
 life, — not even of life in the abstract, but of par- 
 ticular, actual human lives. Religion has lost 
 nearly all its possible value when it is regarded 
 as solely or chiefly a system of impersonal institu- 
 tions, laws, and doctrines. The Christian religion 
 has its great doctrines indeed, but they are doc- 
 trines alive, working in the living hearts of living 
 men. It can be of value to us or to any one only 
 as it comes into our lives, and with living power 
 uplifts and transforms them. Nothing will con- 
 duce so much to this result, which is the spiritual 
 profit for which the Scriptures are designed, as 
 to study them in this way — not as mere doctrine, 
 but as doctrine engaged in its proper work of 
 moulding the character of one and another living 
 man. Study the Scriptures as books of biography. 
 Let the characters found there be real, living men 
 and women. 
 
 If we regard and study the biblical books and 
 characters in this way, it will speedily be borne 
 in upon us, how very modern, after all, is this 
 old Book — or, rather, how independent of all 
 ages — in its essentials ! The outward details of 
 expression, manner, custom, are often strange, 
 sometimes even grotesque, to our thought. But 
 
90 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 underneath all this is the same human nature, 
 weak, imperfect, yet godlike, suffering, sorrowing, 
 sinning and repenting, loving, as at present. And 
 there is the same Heavenly Father guiding, bless- 
 ing, reproving, training his children ; in each age 
 adapting his teaching to their capacity with the 
 same unerring wisdom shown in later times. The 
 lives of these ancient worthies, — and unworthies 
 too, — the mouthpieces, and objects, and instru- 
 ments, just as in different ways men and women 
 of later times have been, of that divine grace 
 and wisdom which are unchanging and eternal, 
 may be means of great spiritual profit to us. 
 
 Study the character of Abraham. Note the 
 effect it had upon him to be called, in whatever 
 way, from the midst of a nation of idolaters, and 
 made the possessor of the great truth that God is 
 one. See how this great idea, coming to that man 
 away back in the dim ages of the past, in the fresh 
 force of its newness, wrought upon his mind. To 
 us this idea is matter of inheritance. Let us put 
 ourselves, so far as possible, in the place of one to 
 whom it came for the first time, as a new thing, 
 and its living power over ourselves cannot fail to 
 be greatly increased. 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 91 
 
 Study Moses, the great leader and lawgiver of 
 Israel. His was one of the master-minds of the 
 world. No critic makes him a myth, or essentially 
 alters the main facts of his life and character. 
 
 Study Elijah, the earnest and fiery prophet of 
 God. Behold him as he rebukes the wicked king 
 and queen of Israel, or as he stands, the sole 
 prophet of the Most High, before the four hun- 
 dred prophets of a false god. Correct, if you will, 
 what is savage and imperfect in him by the exam- 
 ple of Jesus when facing the representatives of 
 evil under somewhat similar circumstances, and 
 then let the ancient prophet teach you a lesson of 
 moral courage. It is a lesson as much needed in 
 these times of peace and luxury and secret corrup- 
 tion, as in those of violence and open profligacy. 
 
 Let Achan impress with the fateful progress 
 from gazing upon the evil thing to coveting, then 
 to sin and its awful consequences. Let Balaam 
 warn us against the fatal infatuation for material 
 gain which makes deaf to the commands of duty, 
 and blind to the inevitable triumph of God and 
 righteousness. 
 
 The life of David will have many lessons for 
 us, — some of the highest uplifting power, in 
 
92 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 which he will seem to raise us almost to the Chris- 
 tian level ; some of the most solemn warning, 
 when he descends to the depths of the grossest 
 sins ; again, and perhaps the most valuable of all, 
 in his equally deep repentance, and in the inevita- 
 ble retribution which, repentance or no repent- 
 ance, every sin of itself Avorks out upon the 
 transgressor. 
 
 Turn to the New Testament. Study John the 
 Baptist, the humble forerunner of the Christ, of 
 whom he said, " Among those that are born of 
 women there hath not arisen a greater than John 
 the Baptist." Note his utter humility and faith- 
 fulness to his own comparatively lowly mission in 
 the face of temptation to assume a higher. " Art 
 thou the Christ? No. Art thou Elijah? No. 
 Art thou the prophet? No. Who then art thou ? 
 I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord." To his disci- 
 ples, over-zealous for his honor, on which the ris- 
 ing fame of the new teacher seemed to them to be 
 encroaching, he said, " He must increase, but I 
 must decrease." Yet there was, with the humil- 
 ity, a courage and fiery zeal for duty which could 
 face the severest test without flinching, — whether 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 93 
 
 it be the arrogance of the corrupt Pharisees, or 
 the anger of an abandoned queen, bringing with 
 it the prison and the headsman's block. 
 
 Read Paul, not for the doctrine alone, but to 
 see the man behind the doctrine. Make him a 
 companion, a familiar one. Let him speak to you 
 as he did to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the 
 Philippians, to Timothy. Let his great personal- 
 ity, shining out through his writings, have its 
 natural effect upon you. It cannot fail to be up- 
 lifting and spiritually profitable. John, the be- 
 loved disciple, whose long life and ripe Christian 
 experience enabled him at last to give us a higher, 
 fuller, more sympathetic view of his Master than 
 any one else, is valuable to us not only for that, 
 but also for himself, to teach us by the power 
 of his own personality that spirit of love which 
 he set forth so clearly as the central principle of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Peter, the impetuous disciple, James, the apostle 
 of common sense, Stephen, the first martyr, beside 
 many others of whom we know less, may be made 
 productive of much spiritual profit, especially 
 when studied not only for what they teach in 
 word, but as living men, like ourselves, worked 
 
94 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 upon by the same gospel, living, under human 
 conditions, with human excellences and human 
 imperfections, the life of service of the same 
 Master, 
 
 Above all, study the life and character of the 
 Christ himself. A marked difference will soon 
 make itself manifest. All the others, great men, 
 very great though some of them were, were yet 
 evidently altogether men like ourselves, and fully 
 comprehensible. Here we are conscious of some- 
 thing beyond our comprehension. In all the 
 others weaknesses and imperfections could be dis- 
 covered ; some were guilty of flagrant and open 
 sin ; the chief lesson to be derived from some of 
 them was one of warning. Here all is purity 
 and perfection. Jesus is perfectly human, and 
 yet there is nothing human about him in the 
 sense in which we often use the word, as imply- 
 ing weakness, imperfection, sin. He is not such 
 as we actually are ; but he is what we ought to 
 be, what we have the possibility of being, what 
 we are destined to become. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that he is so far above our present powers of 
 comprehension, indeed precisely because of it, 
 he is our supreme model. 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 95 
 
 There is no possibility of fabrication here. 
 There were none then, there never have been any, 
 competent to such a task. The fabricator of such 
 a character as that of Jesus would be more won- 
 derful than Jesus himself. 
 
 Then let the Christ be a real and living person- 
 ality to you. Let the Christ himself look at you, 
 speak to you, live before you, die in your sight. 
 Join the band of his disciples, and go in their 
 company and his over the mountains of Juclea, 
 across the lake of Galilee, to Capernaum and 
 Sychar and Jerusalem. Walk with him through 
 the fields, and let him unfold his parables to you. 
 Sit at his feet as he speaks the Sermon on the 
 Mount ; stand with the woman by the well in 
 Samaria, and let him teach you as he taught her ; 
 go with him and the two disciples on the walk to 
 Emmaus. Follow him to the wedding in Cana ; 
 to the temple enclosure, where he contends with 
 scribe and Pharisee ; to the tomb of Lazarus ; 
 and finally to Gethsemane and Calvary. Such 
 intimacy with the matchless personality of Jesus 
 cannot fail to bring rich spiritual profit — far 
 richer than the study, however diligent, of the 
 mere letter of his teachings. 
 
96 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 4. Helps. — Helps are good, but there is need 
 of discretion, both as to numbers and manner of 
 use. Over-many helps and commentaries are oft- 
 times like burying one's self in the midst of a 
 mountain forest, when what is really wanted is an 
 unobstructed view . from the summit. One will 
 often feel the need of returning to the Scripture 
 itself to refresh its own direct impression upon 
 the mind, and to recover from the feeling of con- 
 fusion very likely to be the result of reading 
 many differing, perhaps conflicting, views about 
 the Scripture. Use helps, so far as they are helps. 
 They may suggest to you many a thought of spir- 
 itual profit which might otherwise escape your 
 attention. But never let them deprive you of 
 your own judgment as to the inner meaning of 
 any passage you are studying. Helps used for 
 the purpose of obviating the necessity of doing 
 your own thinking and using your own judgment 
 are not helps, but hindrances, to obtaining spir- 
 itual benefit from the Scriptures. Nor let outside 
 helps overshadow the best of all interpreters of 
 the Bible, which is the Bible itself. 
 
 Excellent helps in scriptural study, available 
 for all, are such as a good Teacher's Bible, with 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 97 
 
 its marginal references and other helpful mat- 
 ter ; a good concordance ; such works as Geikie's 
 Hours with the Bible, for the Old Testament, his 
 Life of Christ, and Conybeare and Howson's St. 
 Paul, for the New. These works are not contro- 
 versial, nor mainly critical, but helpful ; and a 
 knowledge of the original tongues is not necessary 
 in order to make large use of them. 
 
 Use the Revised Version. It often leaves some- 
 thing to be desired in felicity of expression as 
 compared with the old version ; but its painstaking 
 accuracy resolves many a perplexity, and brings 
 out here and there not a little of beauty and sug- 
 gestiveness which would never occur to a reader 
 of the old. For examples, see Ps. lxxxiv. 5, 6 ; 
 John iv. 27 : [his disciples] marvelled that he 
 talked with the woman (old version) — quite 
 colorless and devoid of suggestion ; they mar- 
 velled that he was speaking with a woman (Re- 
 vised Version) — a change of the article only, yet 
 immediately suggestive of the Oriental idea that 
 it was unsuitable for men to hold converse with 
 women upon high themes, or indeed any conver- 
 sation at all except the briefest possible upon the 
 most commonplace and necessary matters ; and 
 
y» NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 secondarily, of the wonderful change in the posi- 
 tion and treatment of women wrought in the world 
 by the power of the teaching and example of him 
 who, so many centuries ago, sat wearied by the 
 well in Samaria, and gave the water of life freely, 
 just exactly as he did to men, to this sinful, but 
 thirsty-souled woman. Similar cases, where the 
 Revised Version resolves some perplexity of the 
 old, or throws some new light upon the Scripture, 
 are to be found on almost every page, especially 
 numerous, perhaps, in the Psalms and Pauline 
 Epistles. 
 
 Such reading and study of the Scriptures can- 
 not fail to reveal ever greater spiritual riches in 
 them. One must not commit the old error of ex- 
 pecting to find, in all parts of the extensive and 
 varied library of sacred books which we bind 
 together and call the Bible, equal measure of spir- 
 itual value. Nor must he fall into the opposite 
 error of supposing that parts of it which have 
 been superseded in their direct teaching by the 
 coming of later and higher revelations, may not 
 still have very large spiritual value when viewed 
 from the right standpoint, and used in the right 
 way. The point of view is all-important. 
 
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 99 
 
 Let the study be often topical, so as to yield a 
 comprehensive view of what the whole Scriptures 
 teach on this or that matter respecting God, his 
 character and relation to his children, and man's 
 nature, duty, and destiny. Let it be often bio- 
 graphical, that so, beholding the divine teachings 
 of the Scriptures working themselves out in actual 
 human lives, these teachings may have more of 
 living power, and so of spiritual profit, for our 
 own lives. Make use of all good helps, but do 
 not overestimate their value, nor allow them 
 to overshadow the best of all interpreters of the 
 Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 Finally, let it not be inferred from the ques- 
 tioning of traditional opinions and the conflicting 
 views of scholars upon matters of literary criticism 
 that the spiritual value of the Scriptures is in any 
 wise diminished, made doubtful, or greatly affected 
 in any way. The chief part of what the Scrip- 
 tures are, they are in themselves. The spiritual 
 power of the Scriptures through the centuries past 
 has not been dependent upon particular views of 
 the origin and authorship of the separate books, 
 nor is it so dependent now. Questions of literary 
 criticism have their own interest, but only slightly, 
 
100 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 if at all, do they affect the chief value of the 
 Scriptures, which is in their power of spiritual 
 uplifting, instruction, suggestiveness. It is in the 
 hope of aiding in the search for these spiritual 
 riches of the Scriptures that the suggestions of 
 this essay have been made. 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 
 
 What is man? When that question is an- 
 swered, we have determined the possibilities of 
 human nature and the methods of moral develop- 
 ment. Then we can prophesy with comparative 
 accuracy, and foretell whether a human being is 
 to be content with a vision from the level of 
 experience and observation, or whether he, inevi- 
 tably, will be dissatisfied until he looks out upon 
 the world of life from the summit of attainment. 
 And if he has within him innate propulsive en- 
 ergy, — energy which compels him forward and 
 upward, — we can, if we understand aright the 
 nature of that energy, be able to affirm what its 
 propulsion can accomplish of itself, and as to 
 whether there will be need of any supplementary 
 agency to bring man to the condition in which 
 he will find absolute satisfaction. 
 
 As soon as we enter upon the path of investi- 
 gation we are met by those who have made a 
 
 103 
 
104 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 study before us, and they begin to advise and 
 to admonish. It is boldly and unhesitatingly 
 asserted by some that man is a creature of dust; 
 that all we see and all we know is simply the 
 activity of matter. The record of Genesis, it is 
 affirmed, has at least one fact when it says that 
 man was formed of " the dust of the ground.' 5 
 It may be that the dust has become highly 
 attenuated ; that it has changed its form, and 
 made its appearance in new and subtile fashions. 
 Nevertheless, it is dust. A certain physicist says, 
 " I do not know of a single naturalist of any 
 distinction in the world who does not think and 
 say that all phenomena exhibited by plants and 
 animals are due to physical and chemical causes 
 alone." And he quotes another as saying that 
 " certain it is that life is a chemical function." 
 
 This means that we are, as persons, in every 
 particular, identical in primal constituent ele- 
 ments. Man is nothing more than the sand be- 
 neath his feet, when that sand is sufficiently " at- 
 tenuated." What we are is " flesh," and " of the 
 earth, earthy." In the last analysis there is one 
 substance — matter, having at least two phases 
 of manifestation. A psychologist affirms that, 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 105 
 
 " Mind and body, consciousness and brain, are 
 evolved as different forms of expression of one 
 and the same being." "We have no right to 
 take mind and body for two beings, or substances 
 in reciprocal interaction. On the contrary, we 
 are impelled to conceive the material interaction 
 between the brain and nervous system as an outer 
 form of the inner ideal unity of consciousness." 
 " Both parallelism and proportionality between 
 the activity of consciousness and cerebral activity 
 point to an identity at bottom." 
 
 The conclusion is, therefore, that we are 
 bodies, flesh and blood. About us there is 
 nothing else. We are beings made up of in- 
 numerable atoms. Says a scientist, " By a body, 
 then, we mean a local habitat for a living thing ; 
 we also mean the living thing itself." 
 
 Glad as we are to know what the naturalist 
 thinks, we continue our research because we be- 
 lieve there are others just as eager for the truth 
 as is he, others who are just as competent to 
 inform us as is he. We do not believe that 
 even naturalists have learned all there is to learn, 
 or that wisdom will depart from this life with 
 them. They have many facts, it is true ; but they 
 
106 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 theorize about the facts they hold, just as do 
 other people. 
 
 By the psychologist we are told that there is a 
 realm of phenomena which is radically different 
 from that to which our attention has been called. 
 Have we not some power or powers besides those 
 of touch, taste, sight, and smell? Is everything 
 to us simply sense-perception? Do we know 
 nothing otherwise? Not that we must believe 
 with the Platonists that original ideas and first 
 truths are known by some special sense called the 
 " Divine Reason ; " nor with the Schoolmen that 
 those truths are discerned by "light of nature" 
 and the "light of reason;" nor with Descartes 
 that they are " innate in or connate with the 
 soul ; " nor with Hume and his disciples that we 
 know them by " association." The inquiry at this 
 point is not so much as to the' acceptance of some- 
 body's peculiar philosophy of how we know, as it 
 is as to whether we have "knowledge" itself. 
 Do we know other than through our senses? 
 
 The answer comes that we know ourselves as 
 ourselves, distinct from anything else. We know 
 that we distinguish something about ourselves as 
 distinct, not only from the matter which consti- 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 107 
 
 tutes our environment, but as well from our own 
 bodies. The thing seen or heard is not the agent 
 which sees or hears. We are able to distinguish 
 our bodily organs from certain states or condi- 
 tions in which we find ourselves. We resist cer- 
 tain bodily desires, as hunger, passion, or sleep. 
 The phenomena discerned by the senses are mo- 
 tion, color, sound, combustion, breathing, growth, 
 height, decomposition, and the like. These have 
 relation to space in that they " require extension 
 in the substance on which they operate, or in the 
 effect or activity itself." There are the phenom- 
 ena, such as emotion, will, thought, memory, joy, 
 sorrow, purpose and resolve, remorse and repent- 
 ance, of which we know just as certainly, but 
 which admit of no such relation to space as the 
 former, nor do they — even as does the electric 
 fluid — require a certain amount of matter to 
 be made living in order that they exhibit vital 
 activity. What, then, shall we call this power by 
 which we know so much, and so much that is 
 radically different from that which the senses 
 afford? Of course we must give it some appel- 
 lation, in order that we may speak of it, and make 
 less difficult the use of it. Let it be called soul. 
 
108 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 This sounds something conscious of itself. It 
 has a means of distinguishing itself from all else 
 — from things about it, and from its own states 
 and actions, as already declared. Any man who 
 will turn his thought inward upon himself and 
 pursue subjective study will be convinced that 
 he is himself and not another, and that he knows 
 immediately and directly his own joy and sorrow, 
 his own choices or recollections. There is no 
 logic in all the world that can force him to con- 
 clude otherwise. 
 
 It is this appeal which is to be made when we 
 would answer the initial question, " What is 
 man?" No one is prepared to answer judicially 
 unless he has passed in review the claims of the 
 materialistic naturalist and of the psychologist. 
 Whatever claims may be made by the former as 
 to the connection of soul with a body, its devel- 
 opment with the body, its dependence upon the 
 body for knowledge, or its being an ultimate form 
 of matter, and therefore that body and soul are 
 material organizations, the latter being simply a 
 higher function of the former, — all such claims 
 are met and their force overwhelmed by the fact 
 that the phenomena of the soul are totally unlike 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 109 
 
 the phenomena of the body, — not material nor 
 requiring material substance to make known their 
 existence ; that the soul distinguishes itself from 
 all matter with which it may come in contact, and 
 what that distinction inevitably involves; that the 
 soul is self-active, impelled to activity by its own 
 energy and not of the senses which merely direct, 
 but do not cause, that activity. Self-conscious- 
 ness asserts that man is an invisible, unweighable, 
 untouchable something, which is capable of self- 
 direction and self-determination. He inhabits, for 
 a season, a tenement constructed of clay, but he 
 differs from the tenement in very many regards. 
 While the body is the " local habitat" for a " liv- 
 ing thing," the range of phenomena of which the 
 " living thing " is appreciative and cognizant is so 
 unique in every particular that the "living thing " 
 must be pronounced as something different from 
 the " habitat " — as something different and more 
 than the body. And since thought, feeling, 
 choice, joy, sorrow, memory, and resolve make up 
 much the vaster amount of our life, we are forced 
 to regard that " living thing " which knows of 
 these as distinctly its own states or activities, as 
 the chiefest, grandest, sublimest of all our constit- 
 
110 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 uency — as the man himself. In other words, we 
 are compelled to the conclusion that man is a 
 soul, a spiritual entity. 
 
 Various experiments have been made in order 
 to discover the source of being. Whence life ? 
 has been an inquiry for ages. Not infrequently 
 it has been asserted that the powers resident in 
 nature were of sufficient content to account for 
 all that we see and know. Though there be myr- 
 iad of form, color, and combination, there is an 
 efficient cause for all in natural agency. " Mat- 
 ter is eternal," " Nature is eternal," has been the 
 dictum of some. 
 
 Others have said that there was and is sponta- 
 neous generation. Seekers after truth took their 
 implements, and proceeded to determine whether 
 this were fact. They sought for matter absolutely 
 lifeless. That is, they endeavored, by certain pro- 
 cesses, to destroy all life that might have existed 
 in the matter which they had in hand. And 
 having secured what they believed to be such 
 material, they watched and waited with excited 
 interest. Imagine their concern — perhaps delight 
 — as they saw manifestations of vitality in what 
 they had previously believed altogether devoid of 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. Ill 
 
 life. Was spontaneous generation a fact ? Had 
 they solved one of the mightiest problems of- all 
 ages ? These were some of the questions of their 
 own minds. But being candid men, who sought 
 only for the truth, they reinvestigated ; and, as 
 the result of that reinvestigation, they announced, 
 not an absolute disbelief in spontaneous genera- 
 tion, but rather that, so far as their experiments 
 were concerned, that theory of the origin of life 
 had not been substantiated. ; 
 
 The law of cause and effect being readily 
 accepted, there was no escape from the conse- 
 quence that, since generation was not spontaneous, 
 and since it was evidently an effect, either it was 
 caused by Nature, as has been asserted, or by an 
 efficient something outside of Nature. As Profes- 
 sor Flint and others assert, " The mind of every 
 thoughtful man is forced to one of these two con- 
 clusions ; either that the universe is self-existent, 
 or that it was created by a self-existent being." 
 
 The truth, therefore, that the soul . of man difr 
 fers in its nature from the body and other mate- 
 rial things, induces consideration as to what 
 produced it, with its peculiarities of nature and 
 function. Certainly it could not have come from 
 
112 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 something entirely inferior to itself. That which 
 is lower cannot of itself and alone produce that 
 which is higher. If soul be superior in kind to 
 matter, then it cannot be a result of matter. If 
 reason and conscience be more in kind than is the 
 body, neither is the body nor are the causes which 
 may account for the body efficient for their pro- 
 duction. The primitive inferior cannot produce 
 the primitive superior. Mind having existence in 
 man, and being unaccounted for by matter, makes 
 logically true and acceptable the alternative that 
 the " universe was caused by a self-existent be- 
 ing " or soul. 
 
 The soul of man, therefore, is a creation of the 
 Over-Soul. It is linked to that Being by bonds 
 of nature. Are not those bonds indissoluble? 
 Can anything destroy the connection between an 
 animal or human progenitor and its offspring? 
 How strong soever the desire to sever the union, 
 is it possible to accomplish the task ? A parent 
 may drive his son from his home, deprive him 
 of the felicities of the household, treat him with 
 scorn and disinherit him. Is the child not always 
 a son to that father? There being no denial in 
 such instances, surely there can be none as 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 113 
 
 regards the human soul and the Soul which has 
 produced it. 
 
 As to the character of the Creator, men long 
 wondered and studiously meditated. Was he 
 bad or was he good ? Thousands of years human- 
 ity waited and watched, hoping to determine. 
 But it was not until the " Light of the World " 
 shone forth that men were able to discern clearly. 
 Then they learned, through simple yet profound 
 teaching, that God always has been, and forever 
 will be, good. The disclosure of this fact as a 
 reality, undying and revivifying, was both mar- 
 vellous and inspiring. It lent not only grandeur 
 to the course of history, but sublimity to the 
 human soul. 
 
 A Being who was good — eternally and abso- 
 lutely good — could produce nothing bad or 
 wrong. Especially would it be contrary to the 
 nature of things for such a Soul to make a soul 
 altogether and in every particular " inclined to all 
 evil." The resultant soul must partake of the 
 characteristics and unique qualities of its Pro- 
 ducer. The latter being good, the former must 
 be. At least the former must have decided latent 
 tendency to that which is good and pure. And, 
 
114 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 inasmuch as the soul is made " in the image " of 
 its Creator, — made a soul having judgment and 
 moral discernment, — we must think of it as pos- 
 sessing potential goodness to a degree sufficient 
 to control and dominate it. 
 
 What shall make that goodness active? How 
 shall it overcome the contemporaneous vicious 
 tendencies of human nature ? For nobody can 
 deny that these exist. With freedom to choose, 
 can it be that a soul with strong propensities to 
 unholiness will be directed to holiness ? Will not 
 such direction destroy the soul's freedom ? Can 
 the good be made the dominant quality of the life 
 of the individual and he remain within the circle 
 of his liberty? The reply must always be that, 
 since the soul is a creation and offspring of God, 
 such results must ensue. Else there is an ulcer 
 in the moral universe, and God's goodness meets 
 with ignominious defeat in its transmission and 
 
 o 
 
 operations. 
 
 The apprehension of the method by which souls 
 are transformed may be clearer and more distinct 
 if we investigate some of the things with which 
 we are tolerably familiar. 
 
 Imagine that we are at the beginning of spring. 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 115 
 
 For four long months there has been a chill in the 
 atmosphere, and the leaves have blown about the 
 streets. There have been storms of sleet and 
 snow. Animals have hibernated, and man has 
 partially secluded himself that the winter frosts 
 might not injure him. The invalid, the mother 
 with a babe in her arms, the aged taking their 
 last lingering steps on earth, have found it a pe- 
 riod of undesired imprisonment, of increased care, 
 and of decided deprivation. At last the spring- 
 time, with its vigorous throb of energy, has come. 
 On every side are manifestations of renewal. The 
 grass that has lain brown so long is being dotted 
 with green, i Blades here and there, growing in 
 size, and increasing in number, wrap, at length, 
 the whole earth in a mantle of beauty. The birds 
 are returning. On the recurring mornings we 
 hear their glad voices.' How sweet their songs! 
 The sap in the trees mounts aloft, and from out 
 the branches come the twigs and the leaves. On 
 every bush by the roadside and in the field, we 
 see the buds which prophesy blossoms and fruit. 
 A wonderful transformation has been wrought. 
 How? Ah! that is the secret. Maybe we shall 
 learn as the season progresses. 
 
116 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 We watch the development and scrutinize the 
 unfolding, until at length the autumn comes. A 
 beautiful night succeeds a beautiful day. No 
 clouds shut out the light of heaven as its rays 
 sparkle and stream through the myriad windows 
 of the firmament. King Frost sallies forth from 
 the North with his chariot and fiery steeds. Trav- 
 elling until the dawn of day, he touches the plants 
 and growing vines with his icy fingers. The 
 leaves are seared. The grass is browned. There 
 are drooping heads all about us. Ripened grain 
 and fruit are made ready for the garner. When 
 several nights like this have passed, we climb to 
 some hill-top and cast our eye over the fields and 
 mountain-side. What a view ! Did ever one 
 behold such coloring ! Beautiful reds and } r el- 
 lows ! What a picture ! Where can we secure 
 like tints ! — are the exclamations. It is won- 
 derful and it is fascinating. No lover of nature 
 can look about him in the autumn-time and not 
 be charmed and inspired. Marvellous, marvel- 
 lous is the task accomplished. How has it been, 
 wrought? we ask. But still that remains a 
 secret. 
 
 Were we to stand beside some great cathedral 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 117 
 
 during its construction, we should perceive the 
 blocks of stone, the heavy timbers, and all the 
 materials requisite to the completion of the pile. 
 We should also see the men employed, their tools 
 and machinery. 
 
 Were we to enter the machine-shop, we might 
 look upon a locomotive. It stands before us, 
 seemingly conscious of its might and power. 
 Looking at it carefully, we detect many dissimilar 
 parts, yet each adapted to a specific purpose. As 
 a whole, it is to draw a train freighted with 
 humanity. We are told its capacity, and the tale 
 is verified by a test. After riding seventy-five or 
 eighty miles an hour, we inquire as to the method 
 of its construction. We are shown men, lathes, 
 wrenches, hammers, and a hundred other things, 
 which in their combined capacity have made the 
 huge machine possible. 
 
 Were we to enter a studio and watch the sculp- 
 tor at his work, we should see his block of mar- 
 ble or granite ; we should see his model and its 
 marked measurings ; we should see him manip- 
 ulate his sharpened steel ; and we should behold 
 the figure gradually emerge, well-proportioned, 
 from the rough-hewn stone. 
 
118 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 In all these things we detect not only results, 
 but, as well, the m means and method whereby the 
 results are achieved. If it be desirable, we can 
 calculate the force of muscle and of heat and 
 other elementary energies expended in producing 
 these results. There is very little of anything 
 that is beyond the ken and measurement of the 
 expert and specialist in any of these departments 
 of man's activity. 
 
 It is not so in the changes from winter to 
 spring, nor from summer to autumn. We can 
 but note the alterations of all the things round 
 about us. What of the agency producing those 
 changes? Can we see it? Can we touch it? 
 Can we hear it? Can Ave measure it? Indeed, 
 can we detect it, as it works, by any sense, or by 
 anything similar to sense? If not, to what con- 
 clusion must we come? Surely we are justified, 
 alike by observation, experience, history, and phi- 
 losophy, in asserting that all the transformations 
 wrought in the outer world are wrought by an 
 invisible power. The elements are all within an 
 Unseen Hand, and they are fashioned as a potter 
 fashions the clay. Some power other than that 
 resident within moulds them. 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 119 
 
 If, then, external and material substances may 
 be affected from without themselves, it would not 
 be strange to conceive of a human soul being af- 
 fected by powers or influences external to itself. 
 
 The soul is a creation, with the possibilities of 
 both evil and good. Every soul is such. In 
 some the former dominates ; in others, the latter. 
 In the majority, evil seems to be uppermost. If 
 there could be a spiritual affecting of the soul 
 whereby the good would march forth from the 
 seclusion of potentiality, and become the active 
 and commanding agent in the arena of individual 
 life, the soul would be reborn, renewed, and 
 would, gradually, become holy. Is such an op- 
 eration possible ? 
 
 We need to keep constantly in mind that man 
 is an invisible and spiritual being, and that his 
 Creator is likewise an invisible spiritual Being. 
 If, then, the forces and agents which operate so 
 effectually between material substances for their 
 alteration and improvement are unseen, it cannot 
 possibly be expected that the forces and agents 
 which operate between two spiritual beings will 
 be seen. Indeed, there is far more profound 
 reason for the latter to be regarded as invisible 
 
120 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 than for the former. And not only so. If man 
 and God be spiritual, the agency by which man 
 is to know God, and, indeed, his fellow-men, is — 
 must be — spiritual. Man, therefore, is to be af- 
 fected by unseen spiritual influences, and by these 
 is to be rearranged or polarized, morally and 
 spiritually. 
 
 Is there doubt as to the existence of such 
 agencies ? It seems hardly possible for scepticism 
 in this regard. Make inquiry -of a friend as to 
 which had the greater effect upon him, the pre- 
 cepts and instruction of his mother, or her quiet, 
 gentle, trustful, serene, and loving life. If a boy 
 could have lived twenty years in the presence of 
 George Washington, would it not have produced 
 a result in the quality of his character, even 
 though Washington had never given him moral 
 instruction ? On the other hand, would not the 
 mere companionship of Nero, Louis XIV., or 
 Henry VIII. have corrupted the boy and made 
 him licentious and dissolute ? A father may tell 
 his son not to use tobacco nor to be profane ; but 
 if he is himself addicted to both, what of his 
 boy? Do not our associates affect us for evil 
 or for good ? I do not seek to undervalue teach- 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 121 
 
 ing. I only desire the recognition of another and 
 more subtile agency at work in the world. 
 
 What is that agency ? It has never be m seen, 
 never been touched, never been weighed. To the 
 performance of its task there has been no appare:i1 
 gathering of forces. Every stage of the pro; 
 dure has been noiseless and without appearance.,. 
 Man's influence over man is the influence of an 
 invisible soul over an invisible soul, — an influ- 
 ence in itself as invisible as its source and its 
 recipient. It is a spiritual influence. 
 
 But the human, as already indicated, has unique 
 relationships to the Divine, the created to the 
 Creator. Shall it be asserted that the realm of 
 spiritual influence is limited to that of the lower 
 world and human intercourse ? If one man may 
 influence the soul of another man, may we not 
 believe that there are also soul or spiritual influ- 
 ences of a higher grade ? 
 
 It is most reasonable to believe in an immanent 
 God. The Divine is not only above the world 
 and distinct from the world, bat he is in the 
 world. Law has not been ordained and left to 
 self-execution. God is operating. The universe 
 is not a vast machine once set in motion by the 
 
122 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 Unseen, who, having started it, then retired. It 
 is the Unseen which supplies the motive power, 
 and forces the constant movement. 
 
 If, then, God be in the world, man must be 
 subject to the influence of that Presence. If the 
 shrubs and rocks, the sea and the sky, respond 
 to His demands and commands, much more must 
 man. As a spiritual being he ought, in the 
 nature of the case, to be more sensitive to the 
 presence of the Father-Spirit than is any non- 
 spiritual substance. To deny that such sensitive- 
 ness is possible would be to assert that spirit is 
 utterly unresponsive to spirit. Such an assertion 
 is proven absolutely untrue. If we observe the 
 transformation of character all about us, if we 
 believe in what men tell us, and if we accept 
 the verdict of our own experience, we must con- 
 clude that the spirit of God affects the spirit of 
 man to the enlargement, unfolding, edification, 
 and redemption of the latter. 
 
 Here is the very heart-centre of human exist- 
 ence. Man, as the kin of God, is to be influ- 
 enced, upbuilded, and moulded by him. "No 
 man hath seen God at any time " is as true to- 
 day as ever. But that is not saying that no man 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 123 
 
 hath felt God at any time. To affirm the 
 latter would be a falsehood. Jesus said, " This 
 is eternal life, that men might know thee the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." If men are to have that life, then there 
 must be some sort of knowledge of God. 
 
 To what sort of knowledge is it probable Jesus 
 referred ? If a man studies the firmament with 
 the telescope, or the insect-world with the micro- 
 scope, or studies any other physical phenomena, 
 will he know God? He may, and he may not. 
 Natural scientists disagree in their conclusions as 
 to the existence of a Creator. Does anybody 
 claim that Jesus was a "scientist" or a man 
 " learned in the schools " ? And will not all 
 claim that he, of all who ever walked the earth, 
 had in him the " eternal life " ? If so, he must 
 have known God. That makes it evident that 
 one devoid of technical education, one who is 
 " unlettered and unlearned," may " know God," 
 and thereby have " life." 
 
 But how? By becoming conscious of the pres- 
 ence of the Invisible. If some metaphysicians 
 deny that such consciousness is possible, let no 
 one be dismayed. There are scores upon scores 
 
124 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 of individuals who will persistently assert that 
 they know God directly and immediately, with- 
 out an intervening agency. They will assert that 
 they feel God within themselves when they place 
 themselves in proper spiritual attitude. And 
 we may judge from the course of many lives — 
 some transformed from extreme sinfulness, and 
 others saved from the more ordinary erring of 
 men — that what is so confidently asserted is true. 
 For many such there are who live the Christ-like, 
 or the " eternal " life. 
 
 Man, therefore, may be moulded by this Invisible 
 Being. While it is true that we are affected more 
 or less by influences of which we are not conscious, 
 it is likewise true that we are affected most truly 
 by influences of which we are conscious. There 
 are certain conditions under which the Invisible 
 may work his most complete work in us. To in- 
 tentionally close the way of access to the soul, and 
 to persistently keep it closed, will make growth 
 in divineness of character exceedingly slow, if in- 
 deed not utterly impossible. Simply to be passive, 
 and allow the sunlight of heaven to shine upon 
 the soul, will produce some growth, inevitably; 
 though it will be disheartening and discouraging. 
 
MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 125 
 
 But to be open-souled and eager for assistance 
 to holiness, to be desirous of employing every 
 instrumentality which will promote purity and 
 godliness, that is the condition through which 
 heavenliness of life increases with greatest rapid- 
 ity, and in which moral strength and spiritual 
 beauty become most pronounced, invincible, and 
 sublime. 
 
 Phillips Brooks says : — 
 
 " Let the frost smite your cheek, let the rain beat into 
 your face, let the wind blow upon your back, and then you 
 know by personal experience what you had known by your 
 observation before. I say that only when a man puts him- 
 self where he can feel the power of the Christ, where it is 
 possible for him, if there be a Christ, if Christ be all that 
 the Christian religion claims that he is, only when a man 
 puts himself where he needs and must have and must cer- 
 tainly feel that Christ, if there be a Christ, only then has 
 he a right to disbelieve if the Christ be not there, only then 
 has he a right to believe if the Christ find him there." 
 
 To be moulded by the Invisible is the opportu- 
 nity of opportunities. In a world so full of mar- 
 vels and mystery, with a nature so charged with 
 potentiality, it is our privilege to become right- 
 eous and holy. What a privilege that is ! It 
 means that we are to have our thought so clarified 
 
126 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 as to perceive basal truths, and as to fail not to 
 permit them to lead us to their legitimate results. 
 It means that our choices and our conduct will be 
 compatible with our conceptions. It means that 
 revenge, impulse, passion, and all else of the 
 lower and unworthy, will be subjected to that 
 which is highest and best. Indeed, to be moulded 
 by the Invisible signifies that we shall be growing 
 away from all that is evil, and that love (the free, 
 voluntary outreaching of our spirits) will become 
 the motive in all our considerations, the manifest 
 force in all our intercourse, and the quickener of 
 all our aspirations. 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 
 
 Charles Rockwell Tenney. 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 
 
 Pkayer is desire consciously depending upon 
 God's help for realization of its object. Observe, 
 it is desire depending upon God. The sense of 
 God, and belief that he is, or may be, propi- 
 tious, are essential, are fundamental. So, prop- 
 erly speaking, and however God may meet it, 
 mere desire is not prayer. Need is not prayer, 
 and it is only by a figure of speech that we can 
 say that the tree or the flower prays. They have 
 their needs, and would die if God did not fill the 
 cups which are held up toward heaven on their 
 account ; but they are neither conscious of the 
 need, nor of the only source of supply, therefore 
 they do not pray. So far as we know, or can 
 know, only man prays ; and he only as the sense 
 of need hath over against it the sense of a Power 
 which can, and, if the conditions can be made 
 right, which will, serve the need. Already Mont- 
 gomery's hymn has been suggested, and the reader 
 has said to himself : 
 
 129 
 
130 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
 Uttered or unexpressed." 
 
 And that were good if we did not stop there. It 
 is true that prayer is prayer, whether " uttered or 
 unexpressed ; " but it is entirely false to use these 
 two lines, as they so often are used, as an answer 
 to the question, What is prayer? The author 
 would not have had them used in this way. De- 
 sire, however sincere, is not prayer ; and we must 
 read at least two stanzas of the hymn to find out 
 what prayer is. Then we find out that the poet's 
 idea was that " the sincere desire," " the burden 
 of a sigh," "the falling of a tear," "the upward 
 glancing of an eye," become prayer only as the 
 sense of God is present, only as they come of con- 
 scious dependence upon his help, only 
 
 "When none but God is near." 
 
 To wish or to desire is not to pray. To desire of 
 God is to pray. 
 
 But what is the uplift of prayer? Is it when 
 one uplifts himself in prayer ? or is it when he is 
 uplifted in answer to his prayer ? Why not both ? 
 Is it not the first as the necessary condition of the 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYEB. 131 
 
 second? Is it not the second as the only ade- 
 quate result and justification of the first? It is 
 like this : When we have done the best we could, 
 and our desire is still unsatisfied, our own high 
 instincts encourage, in great stress constrain, us 
 to pray. We turn the pages of the world's his- 
 tory, and we find the holiest in all ages praying. 
 We open the pages of inspiration, and, in no 
 uncertain terms, find ourselves bidden to pray. 
 Now, since from its very nature prayer cannot 
 be merely for the sake of praying, do not these 
 voices utter the one promise, " Ask, and ye shall 
 receive " ? Do they not emphasize the one great 
 assurance that God will heed our call, and come 
 to our need? Do they not distinctly commend 
 prayer, not as a crutch for our incompetency, but 
 as the lever for our strength — the lever with 
 which we may lift from our path the largest diffi- 
 culties, and pry open the great doors of the 
 kingdom? Manifestly great things are condi- 
 tioned upon prayer, and he doeth well who prays. 
 The uplift of prayer, then, shall, must, mean 
 first the voluntary uplift upon which the extra 
 or super-voluntary depends. 
 
 But then it must mean also this extra-voluntary 
 
132 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 uplift, for it is this which the voluntary hath con- 
 templated, and in which it finds its justification. 
 Some say, " Pray, for so you will come to a better 
 understanding of your needs ; " or, " Pray, for 
 prayer is a good spiritual exercise, and will gener- 
 ate spiritual warmth and magnetism." Now, it 
 is doubtless true that real prayer helps by indi- 
 rection and reaction ; but prayer that is made 
 merely for the incidental results is not real, and 
 must be so conscious of the insincerity involved 
 that it cannot long persist. He who bids us pray 
 merely that we may help ourselves is trifling with 
 us. The only justification of prayer to God is 
 that God hears and answers it ; and this, God's 
 answer, is the ultimate and divine uplift which 
 comes of prayer, and which our subject contem- 
 plates. 
 
 We proceed, then, to think upon the uplift of 
 prayer, giving our attention, first, to the volun- 
 tary uplift, or the uplift involved in the act of 
 praying ; and, second, to the extra-voluntary up- 
 lift, or the uplift which comes as the answer to 
 prayer. 
 
 And first the voluntary uplift. This, or the 
 beginning of it, is when we determine to pray. 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 133 
 
 And at the beginning the uplift may be from a 
 very low level ; for we are not praying from the 
 heights, but towards them ; not at the finish, but 
 at the start. There will be a prayer appropriate 
 for the finish and the heights, a prayer breaking 
 into praise and thanksgiving ; but the uplift of 
 prayer does not begin there. Indeed, it begins 
 when we are farthest from all that, when we are 
 most oppressed by sense of sinfulness, littleness, 
 need. Then, when the sense of God, never quite 
 absent from any soul, presses itself upon us as 
 our only hope ; then, when some voice, within or 
 without, says, " Ask, and ye shall receive : " then, 
 when we first say, I will " ask of God, who giveth 
 to all men liberally and upbraideth not," — then 
 is the beginning of prayer and the uplift of prayer. 
 " But," some one will say, " the initiative is not 
 in the will, for " it is God who worketh in you 
 both to will and to do of his good pleasure.'' 
 True ; but, after all, practically, the initiative is 
 with you, for the working of God within availeth 
 not until you engage yourself to " work out your 
 own salvation with anxiety and self-distrust." 
 " The intercession of the Spirit " is prevented 
 until you are ready to say, " God help me." 
 
134 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 And it is good to see that the first thing is the 
 will to pray, for many think they must wait until 
 they " feel like it." And by this they do not 
 mean that they must wait for a sense of need and 
 an impulse to go to God With that need ; but 
 they think that prayer cometh properly only out 
 of some rapture, some ecstasy of the soul. But 
 now we have learned that we are not to wait to 
 "feel like it," but are resolutely, earnestly, to do 
 it. If the rapture comes afterwards and inciden- 
 tally, well and good ; but the initial and essential 
 thing is the will to pray. Some one exclaims, 
 "What, pray when your hearts are cold?" And 
 some one else aptly replies, " Yes, by all means ; 
 suppose your hands are cold, do you wait for 
 them to become warm before going to the fire ? " 
 It is not the experience and then the prayer, but 
 the prayer that we may have the experience. So 
 the purpose is the beginning of the uplift. 
 
 But after one hath purposed to pray, he pray- 
 eth, and this raiseth him higher. He hath lifted 
 his eyes unto the hills, now he climbeth them. 
 He hath said, I will seek my Father, and now he 
 seeketh him. Is it not an uplift when a man 
 wrests his attention from the darkness, and per- 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 135 
 
 sistently fixes it upon the light ; when he ceases 
 looking into the muddy pools of earth, perhaps 
 seeing nothing better than his own reflection in 
 them, and looks upon the pure heavens, and upon 
 him who is enthroned over all? Is it not an up- 
 lift when, even for a little, a man ceases to talk 
 with those who are beneath, that he may talk 
 with him who is above ? Verily his " conversa- 
 tion is in heaven," and " conversation " in heaven 
 is sure ultimately to be translated into "citi- 
 zenship " in heaven. For as one perseveres in 
 prayer, the will to pray grows stronger, and the 
 way to pray grows clearer; the hold upon him 
 of the forces which would keep him down be- 
 comes weaker, and the face of the Eternal, vaguely 
 sought and seen at the beginning, becomes more 
 distinct. Yes, these results follow if one perse- 
 veres in prayer. He may get none of the specific 
 things for which he asks ; but he certainly will 
 get a better acquaintance with him before whom 
 he hath appeared, and a better understanding of 
 his will. And there can be no doubt but his own 
 desires will be greatly qualified, as he holds them 
 up in the light, and tells them over to the pure 
 One. There can be no doubt but one who prays 
 
136 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 learns to desire fewer and better things. Indeed, 
 as in this light he contemplates the foolishness 
 of much that he hath wished, and the wisdom of 
 him to whom he hath come, it is almost sure that 
 he will rise more and more toward the spiritual 
 height of him who subjected his own desires, and 
 said, under the stress and agony of the strongest 
 of them, only this : " If it be possible . . . never- 
 theless not my will, but thine, be done." And all 
 this uplift of purpose, of mind, of heart, of habit, 
 you see is not of the answer to prayer, but of the 
 praying. 
 
 And the uplift involved in praying is surer be- 
 cause he who perseveres will avail himself of all 
 favorable conditions and all helps to it. Gener- 
 ally speaking, it is only he in whom, consciously 
 or unconsciously, scorn of the fact is growing, who 
 scorns the forms of prayer. The genuinely prayer- 
 ful will by no means cease praying because there 
 is no prescribed form which serveth the occasion, 
 or because some customary attitude is inconven- 
 ient. If he has not learned a prayer which fitteth 
 the need, he will make one ; and if it is not con- 
 venient to stand or kneel, he will pray sitting or 
 walking or driving; and if he may not bow his 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 137 
 
 head and close his eyes, yet will he pray. But let 
 him question if his prayerfulness is not waning 
 who never feels an impulse to shut his eyes upon 
 every earthly thing, and bow down, nay, prostrate 
 himself, before the Majesty on high. But the 
 point is, he who really prays will help himself by 
 every suggestive form and attitude ; and if his lips 
 do not teach his knees, his knees will remind his 
 lips, to pray. And he will help himself by seeking 
 such companionships as are helpful, remembering 
 the great promise which hinges upon the consent 
 of any two as to what they shall ask, or which is 
 given to two or three gathered together in the 
 name of the Good. And while he prayeth much 
 in company, that the faith and fervor of others may 
 help his own, he will prize much more the privi- 
 lege of solitude, and, with Jesus, will frequently 
 go apart to pray, where being still will help him 
 to know God, and where nothing shall disturb the 
 glad outpouring of his heart. And while every 
 place, and all the ways in which he walks, and 
 all occasions, are hallowed with the prayers he 
 breathes, it is not because he is indifferent to 
 special places and appointed times. The man of 
 prayer is ever saying, — 
 
138 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 " How amiable are thy tabernacles, 
 O Lord of hosts ! 
 
 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth 
 for the courts of the Lord !" 
 
 and ever singing, — 
 
 "Sweet hour of prayer ! sweet hour of prayer!" 
 
 The place and the time are not unimportant to 
 him. He helpeth the uplift of his soul by all that 
 can be found in hallowed associations and habits 
 of devotion. 
 
 And yet otherwise does praying lift him. Per- 
 sisted in, it shames him out of conduct that is 
 incongruous, and stimulates him to that which 
 is harmonious, consistent. Real prayer will not 
 compound with impurity, falsehood, hate, idle- 
 ness, cowardice, self-indulgence, pride, or any such 
 thing. It is as intolerant of all these as water is 
 of oil. If a man will persist in prayer, will keep 
 its pure flood flowing from his life, it will float all 
 these evils out, and cast them up to be consumed. 
 But if, on the other hand, he will persist in these, 
 or any of them, they will effectually dam the cur- 
 rent Godward of all aspiration and desire, and he 
 will have to say with the wicked king : — 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 139 
 
 " Pray can I not, 
 Though inclination be as sharp as will ; 
 My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; 
 And like a man to double business bound, 
 I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
 And both neglect." 
 
 There are those who " for a pretence make long 
 prayers.'' Their prayers are not prayers, but 
 pretences. All sorts of wickedness are consis- 
 tent with such hypocrisy But real prayer, the 
 voluntary uplift of the soul into the presence of 
 the Pure, demands of the soul that it become 
 pure. 
 
 And it requires not only that the soul rid itself 
 of impurity, but that it engage itself in all good 
 offices and faithful work. As illustrating, per- 
 haps covering, the various positive virtues, real 
 prayer commits one to industry and charity. It 
 commits him to industry ; and the challenge of the 
 apostle is always in order, " Show me thy faith 
 without thy works, and I will show thee my faith 
 by my works." Unless there is nothing else that 
 he can do, he who lies upon his back and longs 
 for things, even though he holds up his idle hands 
 towards God for them, has not yet learned how to 
 pray. Real prayer does not say to enterprise, 
 
140 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 Take in your sails ; wrap yourself in your ham- 
 mock ; your toils are past. It says rather, Call 
 all hands upon deck ; to the last shred spread 
 forth your sails ; do your utmost ; trust God for 
 the rest. Real prayer is not an extinguisher upon 
 zeal, but a breath fanning it to brighter use. 
 Indeed, the truer rendering of St. James v. 16 
 shows it a form of industry. It is "in its work- 
 ing " that it avails. And its working is not 
 always in words. It works in deeds as well, and, 
 with the reverent man, planting and digging and 
 casting his nets are but forms of praying. For 
 see, there is no force in the planting to make the 
 harvest, or in the digging to produce the gold, or 
 in the casting of the nets to create the fish. It 
 is God who " giveth the increase." The prayer- 
 ful man knoweth this ; and his labors become 
 prayers, and he does not forget to thank God for 
 the results. Bayard Taylor says, " Labor, you 
 know, is prayer." Yes, if it be reverent labor, 
 labor depending upon God. But he who works, 
 cursing the necessity that he must work, is not 
 praying. Emerson says, " The prayer of the far- 
 mer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of 
 the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 141 
 
 true prayers." They are if they are, not other- 
 wise. If they are an expression of desire con- 
 sciously depending upon God for the realization of 
 its object, then are they prayers. But how is it 
 when the spirit of the farmer and rower are full 
 of blasphemy, and when they are thinking of no 
 good thing toward God or any one? All prayer 
 works, but, alas, all work does not pray. But the 
 point is, prayer raises the soul to higher levels 
 because it commits to consistent endeavors. And, 
 looking back through the centuries, you will find 
 that this is so — that those who have prayed best 
 have worked best, and that the great endeavors 
 which have transformed the world have had be- 
 ginning in the garden, on the mountain, in the 
 prayer-house, in the closet, where men have re- 
 ceived their patterns and inspirations from Him 
 who " worketh hitherto " and evermore. 
 
 But this is more evidently true because true 
 prayer binds to charity as well as industry. It is 
 impossible that one should come into such con- 
 scious dependence upon the love of God as is 
 implied by the fact that he prays without at once 
 coming into a state of mind, gentle, favorable, 
 propitious, toward any who may in any way be 
 
142 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 served by him. He may come to the altar with 
 his offering and his petition, but then will he be 
 moved to leave his gift before the altar that he 
 may ask pardon, and make reparation to his 
 brother whom he hath wronged; after that, he 
 will come and offer his gift. If it be real, 
 prayer exacts submission to, compliance with, im- 
 itation of, that Love which it supplicates. 
 
 " We do pray for mercy, 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
 Prayer not only works, but loves. This is the 
 meaning, no doubt, of Coleridge's couplet, — 
 
 " He prayeth best who loveth best, 
 All things, both great and small." 
 
 And this may be a test of our prayers; for if 
 they do not result in making us more loving, we 
 have not yet learned how to pray. 
 
 And this is a part — does it not appear so ? — 
 of the voluntary uplift of prayer, a part of the 
 uplift involved in the act of praying. So much 
 hath he who hath willed to pray done for him- 
 self. By use of prayer he hath kindled desire 
 for every form of good. It was his to take the 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 143 
 
 initiative ; and this that we have seen, and more 
 for which this stands, was involved in it. The 
 uplift of prayer is first a voluntary uplift. 
 
 First, but not chiefly. The voluntary is in 
 order to the extra- or super-voluntary ; the pray- 
 ing is for the sake of the answer to prayer ; and 
 when one hath thus uplifted himself he expects 
 God will uplift him, bearing him to heights which, 
 unaided, he cannot hope to reach. And it is the 
 very essence of religion, of Christianity, at least, 
 to affirm that God will do this very thing, that 
 he hears and answers prayer; indeed, that he 
 reserves some of his best gifts, perhaps some of 
 the best of every gift, until our need and our 
 sense of dependence upon him become distinct 
 and urgent enough to lead us humbly and ear- 
 nestly to ask him for them. Then he gives the 
 gift, and better gifts. And this is the uplift of 
 prayer. 
 
 And, in this second part, it begins when God 
 takes the prayer, and sets it among the reasons 
 upon which his action is to depend. The man 
 pursued by urgent need and by the sense of God 
 cannot help praying ; how does his soul take cour- 
 age when he knows that God, filled with the love 
 
144 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 of his child, can no more help hearing. Your 
 request is heard and recorded in heaven, and hath 
 weight there. The specific thing may or may 
 not he granted, hut it will be more likely to he 
 granted because you have prayed. As Dr. Clarke 
 has said : " Just as, when a man ploughs the 
 ground and plants his seed, he co-operates with 
 divine laws, the natural result of which is a har- 
 vest ; so, when a man prays for anything he really 
 wants, and while he prays endeavors to abide in 
 the spirit of Christ and pray out of that, he co- 
 operates with other divine laws, the natural result 
 of which is the receiving what he asks. Not 
 always, not always in either case. The man may 
 plough and sow, and no crop come ; still there 
 is a tendency in ploughing and sowing to make 
 the crop come. A man may pray for his sick 
 child's recovery, and the child die nevertheless. 
 But there was a tendency in his prayer to save 
 his child's life." So your prayer is heard in 
 heaven. God hath received it. In this are not 
 both it and you lifted up? And, unless the ob- 
 jections are insuperable, so that to answer with 
 the thing you ask would not be to bestow the 
 blessing you desire, God answers your prayer — 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 145 
 
 is not this to be exalted? In the fact that God 
 attends and answers is there uplift in prayer. 
 
 How must Abraham have rejoiced in it when 
 he knew himself recognized of God as he prayed 
 before him ! So high does he appear in view 
 of all this that we call him the " Friend of 
 God." And Ishmael is but a little boy, and 
 more despised because he is the son of the hand- 
 maid ; yet can he cry so as to be heard on high ; 
 and the messenger saith to Hagar, his mother, 
 " Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the 
 lad where he is." And Jacob wrestles in prayer, 
 and proves what force is in it, inasmuch as the an- 
 swer is given only to his perseverance ; and he is 
 named Israel because, as a prince, hath he power 
 with God and with men, and hath prevailed. 
 And to Joseph in Egypt were secrets shown when 
 he prayed, and to Daniel in Babylon, and to 
 David and the prophets. And in the New Tes- 
 tament how strongly hath God bound himself to 
 heed the requests of his children ! In the prom- 
 ises he hath opened a way for the poorest of us 
 to stand beside him, that we may tell him our 
 reasons, and make known our requests. How is 
 the promise iterated and emphasized : " Ask, 
 
146 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
 find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you : 
 for everyone that asketh receiveth ; and he that 
 seeketh findeth ; and to him who knocketh it shall 
 be opened." " And all things whatsoever ye 
 shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 
 " And whatsoever ye shall ask in ray name, 
 that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
 in the Son." " If ye abide in me, and my 
 words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and 
 it shall be done unto you." " Verily, verily, 
 I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the 
 Father, he will give it you in my name. Hitherto 
 ye have asked nothing in my name : ask and ye 
 shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled." 
 And these promises are multiplied, and the exhor- 
 tations to prayerfulness are upon almost every 
 page of the New Testament. And, as of old 
 the force which is in prayer had been revealed to 
 Jacob's persistency, so in the teachings of Jesus 
 is it revealed when, in the parables of the friend 
 at midnight, and the importunate widow, he 
 shows that " men ought always to pray and not 
 to faint ; " the reason and encouragement being 
 that, if prayer hath force to constrain unwilling- 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 147 
 
 ness, it must be of far greater force with him 
 whose willingness hath ordained it, and only waits 
 that it be made with due earnestness and faith. 
 But its force is even more impressively taught 
 by the conduct of Jesus. His office was to show 
 us what God is like, and what is his disposition 
 toward his children. And how accessible he 
 was ! Was any need which came to him unan- 
 swered ? This means that no need shall be 
 brought to God which shall not in some way, in 
 the best way, be answered. A leper hails him 
 and says, " Thou canst make me clean." He 
 doth not withdraw from, but compassionately 
 touches him, answering his prayer. The para- 
 lytic is brought, and the divine discourse is inter- 
 rupted as his friends illustrate the truth that real 
 prayer works as well as prays. Jesus is not 
 offended, but bids the paralytic go home, bearing 
 his bed. A woman in the throng would secretly 
 avail herself of the health which is in him. This, 
 however, she could not do ; nevertheless, because 
 her touch was genuine, the gift she sought was 
 given. A man prayeth for his son, another for 
 his servant, another for his daughter. These 
 prayers for others are allowed, and the son and 
 
148 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 servant, though far away, are cured ; and the lit- 
 tle daughter, dead when he cometh to the place, 
 is raised to life again. And then, as now, there 
 were those who thought that prayer was (at least 
 sometimes) an impertinence. When the Ca- 
 naanite woman importuned for the deliverance of 
 her daughter from an unclean spirit, and when 
 the blind men, at the gates of Jericho, clamored 
 for the restoration of their sight, these would have 
 silenced and sent them away. But he was not 
 offended by their earnestness ; he gave himself 
 to their need. And he doth not wait that men 
 be worthy to be answered. Did he, how hopeless 
 it were to pray ! Ten lepers come, and, though 
 only one hath grace enough to return him thanks, 
 all are cleansed. So doth it appear that, apart 
 from everything beside, even apart from virtue, 
 prayer hath force, a force its own. And by these 
 examples does Jesus impress the conviction that 
 God, whom he represents, is not far off, inacces- 
 sible, but present, ready to hear, easy to be en- 
 treated. So does he show us, by his acts, how 
 God honors prayer by making his omnipotence 
 to flow through the gates it opens. The real 
 uplift of prayer is in this, that God answers it, 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 149 
 
 that " Good prayers never come weeping home." 
 And what an uplift this is ! In the darkness one 
 has been reaching up and feeling after God ; 
 what joy to find the divine hand reaching down 
 for him ! He holds upon that hand, grasping it 
 firmly lest he lose it ; what joy to feel its answer- 
 ing pressure, as if it would not be lost ! 
 
 And this answer to prayer men have known, 
 not in the Bible times alone, but in all the years. 
 The testimony of Sir Fowell Buxton, quoted by 
 Professor Phelps, could be repeated by multi- 
 tudes. He says, " When I am out of heart I 
 follow David's example, and fly for refuge to 
 prayer. ... I am bound to acknowledge that 
 I have always found that my prayers have been 
 heard and answered. ... I understand literally 
 the injunction : <• In everything make your re- 
 quests known to God ; ' and I cannot but notice 
 how amply these prayers have been met." Again, 
 he writes to his daughter concerning a division 
 in the House of Commons in the conflict for 
 West Indian emancipation : " What led to that 
 division? If ever there was a subject which oc- 
 cupied our prayers, it was this. Do you remem- 
 ber how we desired that God would give me his 
 
150 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 spirit in that emergency ; how we quoted the 
 promise, ' He that lacketh wisdom, let him ask 
 it of the Lord, and it shall be given him ; ' and 
 how I kept open that passage in the Old Testa- 
 ment, in which it is said, 'We have no might 
 against this great company that cometh against 
 us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes 
 are upon thee ' — the Spirit of the Lord reply- 
 ing, c Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of 
 this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, 
 but God's' ? If you want to see the passage, open 
 my Bible ; it will turn of itself to the place. I 
 sincerely believe that prayer was the cause of 
 that division ; and I am confirmed in this by 
 knowing that we by no means calculated on the 
 effect." Testimonies, instances, like this, could 
 be multiplied indefinitely. They mean that to- 
 day God hears and answers prayer — that Jesus 
 made visible the attention with which God al- 
 ways honors it. If it is possible, he answers it 
 in kind ; but, if the prayer is real, he always 
 answers in some kind. Says an old English di- 
 vine, " I am sure I shall receive either what I 
 ask or what I should ask." But the point is, 
 God hears thee, and thy prayer hath a tendency 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 151 
 
 to bring the specific thing it seeks. And this is 
 the uplift of prayer. 
 
 But not this alone. God gives the gift, and 
 better gifts. He pours his omnipotence through 
 the gates which prayer opens, but not merely 
 upon the wheels which prayer hath set for it. 
 The flood of good is sure to overflow all bounds, 
 and variously bless the life. And here the two 
 parts of our discourse overlap each other and be- 
 come confused. We have said that the volun- 
 tary uplift, the act of praying, strengthens the 
 will and makes clearer the way to pray, that, as 
 one perseveres, desire is purified, the hold of the 
 forces that keep down becomes weaker, and the 
 soul is more and more committed to all that is 
 good. And this must be true. These are nat- 
 ural results. But when one truly prays are they 
 wholly left to nature? Not for a moment. In- 
 deed, the answer anticipates, crowds upon, the 
 asking, inasmuch as "it is God who worketh 
 within you both to will and to do of his good 
 pleasure," inasmuch as it is God, who, unrecog- 
 nized, prompts all pure desire. And the desire 
 becomes purified as it is lifted up to the pure 
 One, does it? That surely is natural and reason- 
 
152 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 able. But not so alone is it purified ; for, while 
 thou pray est, God pours his desire for thee into 
 thy bosom that it may become thine ; and so the 
 Spirit maketh intercession for thee. This it is 
 which brings thee surely to that spiritual uplift 
 of the Master, toward which thine own volition 
 to pray tendeth, in which he said, " Not my will, 
 but thine, be done." And, as thou prayest, the 
 will to pray grows stronger, does it? Yes, nat- 
 urally, as when one exercises any power it grows 
 stronger by the exercise. But is there not an 
 experience to the devout beyond this ? Early 
 hath he not felt another Will beneath his own, 
 and lifting him to heights he could not hope to 
 reach alone ? 
 
 " A mighty wind of nobler will 
 Sends through his soul its quickening thrill ; 
 No more a creature of the clod, 
 He knows himself a child of God." 
 
 And is conscience quickened? As we have seen, 
 so must it be with one who prays. But not alone 
 because he prays ; more because God answers him. 
 He, with clear vision, sees and hates the evil 
 things that crawl and hide within ; but it is so 
 because the flood of grace, sweeping to the point 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 153 
 
 to which his prayers have bidden it, has washed 
 his vision clear that he may see ; or it is so be- 
 cause the light, invoked for special use, has lighted 
 all the corners and closets of his room. And 
 is ambition stirred so thou wouldst work as well 
 as pray, proving thy piety by thine industry? 
 It is God giving himself to the regeneration of 
 his world, and the building of his kingdom 
 through thee. And doth thy spirit grow in love 
 toward everything? In thy sphere dost thou feel 
 thyself bound to imitate his mercy? Ah, it is 
 hot merely because thou seest how good he is, 
 but because when thou openest the door in prayer 
 his love comes into thy heart, to be, if thou wilt 
 not crush it, the life and love of your love ever- 
 more. So doth God give, not sparingly, carefully 
 fitting his answers to our petitions, but "abun- 
 dantly, above all that we ask or think." 
 
 Nor is this all. The uplift of prayer finally 
 bringeth one to transcendent vision and experi- 
 ence. We recall Moses, when he came to the 
 back of the desert, to the mountain of God, even 
 to Horeb. We remember how the vision he 
 sought transcended his expectation, how he was 
 overwhelmed by the revelation of the Eternal, so 
 
154 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 that he hid his face, being afraid to look on God. 
 We remember how God disclosed his presence and 
 power when Elijah prayed, and the place was 
 wrapped about with fire, which consumed " the 
 burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and 
 the dust," and licked up the water that was in 
 the trenches about the altar ; " and all the peo- 
 ple saw it, and fell on their faces, and said, The 
 Lord he is God, the Lord he is God." We re- 
 member Paul, the man of prayer, and what trans- 
 cendent vision came to him when he was lifted 
 up " to the third heaven," when he was " caught 
 up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, 
 which it is not lawful for a man to utter." We 
 remember St. John, a prisoner upon the island of 
 Patmos. We remember the sea beating mono- 
 tonously about him, making visible and audible 
 his loneliness. We remember him u in the Spirit 
 on the Lord's day," and how, in the exaltation of 
 that hour, there was to him "no more sea." We 
 remember that the throne-room of the universe 
 was open to his vision, and that he was lifted to 
 the presence of him that sitteth upon the throne, 
 and to the presence of the Lamb. And the vision 
 opened upon the future, and upon " a new heaven 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 155 
 
 and a new earth," when "the tabernacle of God 
 shall be with men," when he 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." We remember Jesus 
 and his transfiguration, and that it was "as he 
 prayed" that " the fashion of his countenance was 
 altered, and his raiment was white and glistering." 
 We recall that it was then that Moses and Eli- 
 jah appeared in a glory which smote awake the 
 heavy eyes of the apostles, and made them long 
 permanently to abide in the divine altitude and 
 experience to which they had been raised when 
 the Master prayed. We recall the cloud, Jeho- 
 vah's token, which overshadowed, filling them 
 with fear, and the voice from the cloud commend- 
 ing the "beloved Son." And then the voice was 
 past, the cloud gone. Jesus touched them and 
 said, " Arise, be hot afraid." They rose to take 
 up again the tasks of every day, and to go for- 
 ward with a better trust in him whom they had 
 seen when his prayer was answered in the glory 
 of the transfiguration. 
 
 But some one is ready to say, These experiences 
 
156 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 are reserved for prophets, saints, and Saviours ; 
 we may not hope for them. Nay, but common 
 men have enjoyed such approaches to them as to 
 make them seem altogether possible to any who 
 may but learn to pray ; and in the life-stories of 
 many whose times touch on ours, is it discovered 
 that true prayer is not infrequently blessed with 
 uplifts similar. It has been written of Edward 
 Payson, a New England divine, " that his mind at 
 times almost lost its sense of the external world, 
 in the ineffable thoughts of God's glory, which 
 rolled like a sea of light around him, at the throne 
 of grace. " Of Cowper also, '■" that, in one of the 
 few lucid hours of his religious life, such was 
 the experience of God's presence which he en- 
 joyed in prayer, that, as he tells us, he thought 
 he should have died with joy, if special strength 
 had not been imparted to bear the disclosure." 
 And the same author tells of one of the Tennents, 
 " that, on one occasion, when he was engaged in 
 secret devotion, so overpowering was the revela- 
 tion of God which opened upon his soul, and 
 with augmenting intensity of effulgence as he 
 prayed, that at length he recoiled from the intoler- 
 able joy as from a pain, and besought God to 
 
THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 157 
 
 withhold from him further manifestations of his 
 glory. He said, c Shall thy servant see thee and 
 live ? ' And our author continues, " We read 
 of the ' sweet hours ' which Edwards enjoyed on 
 the banks of Hudson River, in secret converse 
 with God, and hear his own description of the 
 inward sense of Christ, which at times came into 
 his heart, and which he 'knows not how to ex- 
 press otherwise than by a calm, sweet abstraction 
 of soul from all the concerns of this world ; and 
 sometimes a kind of vision ... of being alone 
 in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far 
 from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, 
 and rapt and swallowed up in God.' ' 
 
 Is it still urged that these experiences are rare ? 
 Not so rare. It was out of experience like this 
 that, in her poor home and in her last sickness, 
 the only leisure that her life had known perhaps, 
 an untaught woman, who had been used all her 
 life to the roughest kind of work, said to her min- 
 ister, as he stood beside her to pray, " Those folks 
 are richest who beg most." She had learned how 
 to make the " durable riches " her own. No, these 
 experiences, or approaches to them, are not rare ; 
 or, if they are, the fault is not on his part, but on 
 
158 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 ours. By whatever may serve it, let us make the 
 voluntary uplift, and the super-voluntary shall be 
 the thing we ask, better things, the vision and ex- 
 perience of God himself. From whatever depths, 
 let us faithfully pray toward the heights, and God 
 will lift us to them. The uplift of prayer begins 
 with thee ; God finishes it. 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Joseph Kimball Mason. 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Religion is an everlasting reality. The latest 
 utterances of science, philosophy, and poetry con- 
 firm our faith in its permanence and power. 
 
 " We have at length reached a point," says Dr. 
 John Fiske, " where it is becoming daily more 
 and more apparent that, with deeper study of 
 nature, the old strife between faith and knowl- 
 edge is drawing to a close ; and, thus disentan- 
 gled at last from the ancient slough of despond, 
 the human mind will breathe a freer air, and enjoy 
 a vastly extended horizon." 
 
 The late Ernest Renan finds in Christ's teach- 
 ings, " the sure word on which the edifice of 
 eternal religion shall rest, the pure worship of no 
 date which all lofty souls will practise to the end 
 of time ; and, having run through the whole cir- 
 cle of errors, mankind will return to them as the 
 imperishable expression of its faith and hope." 
 
 Whittier voices the same profound sentiment in 
 these words, — 
 
 161 
 
162 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 " The letter fails and systems fall. 
 And every symbol wanes ; 
 The spirit overbrooding all, 
 Eternal love remains." 
 
 So all the thought of the world seems to con- 
 firm the reasonable conclusion that religion is as 
 lasting as man himself. 
 
 Theology, that is, man's thought about religion, 
 is indeed a progressive science, like chemistry, or 
 the art of government, or the questions of philan- 
 thropy and enlightened charity. It is influenced 
 by environment, ruling ideas, and intellectual at- 
 tainment. 
 
 In days of superstition and ignorance, magic 
 and ceremony are identified Avith religion. In 
 times of cruelty, barbarism, and oppression, the 
 teaching concerning the divine nature and human 
 destiny is colored by the prevailing conceptions of 
 humanity and of justice ; while in ages of en- 
 lightenment, when general knowledge, scientific 
 thought, and free government prevail, theology 
 becomes reasonable and true to life. So our 
 Christianity may be compared to a stream having 
 its source far up in the mountain snows, but be- 
 coming corrupted by the soil through which it 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 163 
 
 passes, as it flows down the hillside ; until, emer- 
 ging finally in pleasant fields, it journeys on for 
 miles over its rocky bed under the light of the 
 sun, becoming pure once more as it moves toward 
 the sea. 
 
 The leading thoughts of the present-day the- 
 ology are the Fatherhood of God, the value of 
 man, the leadership of Christ, — who, in his per- 
 fect humanity, is at once the mark toward which 
 we press and the revelation of the divine charac- 
 ter, — the regeneration of human society through 
 the acceptance of Christian ideals of conduct, the 
 immortality of the human soul, and the spiritual 
 progress of the race, involving the final and uni- 
 versal triumph of good over evil and so hope 
 eternal for the soul of man. Who will deny that 
 such teaching as this is in accordance with the 
 spirit of the New Testament and is identical with 
 religion itself ? We are beginning to know the 
 full meaning of Christ's words, " My joy I give 
 unto you," and to see that this, and not despair, 
 is the secret of the universe. Moreover, though 
 materialism and unbelief prevail far too gen- 
 erally, and the kingdom of heaven is still in 
 the distance, it is our profound conviction that 
 
164 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 the world was never more truly religious, never 
 nearer to Christ, than it is to-day. 
 
 At this point we touch a danger — the dan- 
 ger always attending prosperity — of ignoring the 
 fact that divine blessings are conditioned upon 
 human activity. Every advance that has been 
 made implies human faithfulness and devotion. 
 Nothing comes by chance. We rejoice in what 
 we call the fruits of our Christian civilization, 
 because brave men have lived and toiled in the 
 past, rebuking error and sin in their day, and, 
 one by one, winning the triumphs of light over 
 darkness. So it has been in our progress toward 
 a true theology. We stand on the sunlit heights 
 of vision, but prophets and apostles in every gen- 
 eration have led us there. Hence, to rest upon 
 our religion, and to say, practically, the world 
 will be saved by waiting, and we have nothing 
 to do, is not only our danger, but is contrary to 
 all experience. The very nature of our faith 
 calls us to act in the present moment, and to 
 find in our great hopes no excuse for negligence 
 nor for idleness, but rather an inspiration to join 
 the cloud of witnesses, and share with them the 
 privilege of being co-laborers with God. 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 165 
 
 Every gift of Heaven to man implies correspond- 
 ing obligations. Bodily health involves physical 
 activity ; mental powers indicate the earnest seek- 
 ing after knowledge ; the possession of wealth 
 lays upon the holder the duty of using the gift 
 for the welfare of the greatest number possible. 
 Positions of honor are bestowed upon men not 
 that they may have personal ease, but that they 
 may render devoted service. Genius implies ex- 
 pression ; he who paints or carves or sings must 
 use his gift for the happiness and welfare of his 
 brother, or the gift perishes, and the possessor is 
 dishonored. It is not strange therefore that this 
 principle holds good in religion. 
 
 The story is told of one who had always lived 
 far inland, and who stood one summer day upon 
 the shore of the ocean. "Is this all?" he said; 
 "it looks like a tranquil lake." "Yes, this is 
 all." But let this observer wait, and see how 
 much is involved in this seeming calm. Let him 
 observe the tides, as twice a day the great body 
 of waters rolls down into the trough of the 
 sea, or, wonderful and mysterious, flows back 
 again, covering the black wastes, and filling every 
 inlet of the land with the inflowing tide. Or let 
 
166 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 him, borne forth upon the bosom of this sea, now 
 so quiet, behold the storm arise, feel its mighty 
 power as it tosses the huge vessels like egg-shells 
 on its surface. Let him realize the vastness of 
 this channel of the world's traffic, and he will 
 apprehend more clearly the powers of the sea. 
 It is so with religion. We must know by ex- 
 perience before we appreciate the comprehensive- 
 ness of that which, when all things else prove 
 but a rope of sand, uplifts and sustains the soul. 
 It brings peace to the mind indeed, and comfort 
 to the heart, and, more than this, it involves 
 gracious duties and noble obligations. "If ye 
 know these things," said Christ, " happy are ye 
 if ye do them." Religion is not only a reality to 
 be trusted, but a duty to be performed. He who 
 trusts in the Infinite must also heed Christ's in- 
 junction, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
 all thy mind." Faith, in God as an intellectual 
 act most men can understand ; but they are not 
 so ready to accept a corresponding obligation of 
 " love of God." The mind seeks to know the 
 cause of things. Not to know the reason of 
 being is to live "where musicians are always 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 167 
 
 tuning their instruments, but never play a tune." 
 Hence, most men assume the divine philosophy 
 in preference to the unsatisfying assumptions of 
 materialism, and say, with the author of Genesis, 
 " In the beginning God made the heavens and 
 the earth." 
 
 The problems of physical and moral evil find 
 no solution so adequate as the assumption of a 
 loving and all-powerful Being, who will overcome 
 evil with good. But when we go on, and affirm 
 that the logical outcome of such faith is to love 
 the Lord our God, the result is not so generally 
 realized or accepted. Men say, " How can we 
 love a being whom we have not seen ? Why is it 
 not sufficient to believe, and rest there ? " 
 
 In order to answer these questions we must 
 proceed to definitions. What is the nature of 
 love ? Surely he who spake " as never man 
 spake " would not imply an obligation that was 
 an impossibility ; moreover, the student of the 
 gospel is impressed with the fact that every com- 
 mandment there made is written also in the 
 nature of things, and may as truly be called 
 privilege as commandment. " Christianity," says 
 Dr. Andrew Peabody, " cannot enable us to do 
 
168 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 more than the right, nor can the rejection of 
 Christianity make less than the right incumbent 
 upon us ; but this burden Christ makes light 
 and easy in two ways. First, by giving us clear 
 knowledge of the right in his plain and unmis- 
 takable precepts, and most of all in the beauty of 
 holiness as exhibited in his life ; and, secondly, 
 by the irresistible motives to duty which he 
 supplies." 
 
 The only reason why I am bound to do any- 
 thing is because it is intrinsically right and fitting. 
 Purity, industry, charity, reverence for all that 
 is great, love for all that is good, are enjoined 
 upon me by the law of my nature. 
 
 Thus we are led to see the reasonableness of 
 the requirements of love to God, while at the 
 same time the nature of that love is made appar- 
 ent. For love to God is reverence toward and 
 communion with the All-Perfect. We have affec- 
 tion for human companions ; it is natural for us 
 to feel admiration for the works of genius and for 
 the glorious universe itself, where beauty is an 
 all-pervading presence. How natural, therefore, 
 that we should revere and commune with the 
 infinite Spirit in whose image our human friends 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 169 
 
 are created, of whose wisdom, power, and good- 
 ness all outward things are but the expression 
 and revelation ! 
 
 Who, then, in the light of such facts, can see 
 in this great commandment other than a blessed 
 privilege ? The wonder is that any one who be- 
 lieves in God, and in such a God as is revealed in 
 Christ, can fail to fall upon his knees and adore. 
 
 There are those to-day who tell us that waiv- 
 ing, for the time, the question of the existence of 
 a Divine wisdom and power, it is apparent that, 
 whether such a being is in the universe or not, 
 conscious communion with, and love for him, find- 
 ing its expression in worship, is an impossibility — 
 an indication of an imperfect condition in human 
 development. This was the philosophy of August 
 Comte. Some of his recent disciples boldly as- 
 sert that the day is drawing near when no spires 
 shall pierce the sky, and men shall no longer 
 wrestle with the invisible, like Jacob, seeking and 
 obtaining a blessing. The time and money devoted 
 to such purposes will hereafter, it is asserted, be 
 given to altruistic schemes for the improvement 
 of humanity, and the churches will be converted 
 into schools of technology, gymnasiums, theatres, 
 and bureaus of scientific charity. 
 
170 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 Our attention is frequently called in confirma- 
 tion of this position to the break between modern 
 thought and faith, to the alienation of culture and 
 the hard-working classes from the church, and to 
 a so-called irreconcilable conflict between science 
 and religion. A traveller comments upon the fact 
 that the beautiful and costly St. Patrick's Cathe- 
 dral in Dublin is used only for religious services, 
 which go on almost without interruption, day 
 and night. But the great church stands in the 
 midst of a population sunken in poverty and vice, 
 constantly disturbing its ceremonies with the pa- 
 thetic cry for daily bread, to which, apparently, 
 the priest at the altar turns a deaf ear, as he 
 swings his censer and chants his prayer. And 
 so it is said by some, the institution of worship 
 exists in a suffering and needy world to-day a 
 useless and extravagant custom, which hardens 
 men's hearts to the real needs of society, and 
 might better give place to the more practical 
 " worship of humanity," that is, the effort to ele- 
 vate and improve "the outward condition of the 
 other half." 
 
 But these criticisms are all superficial. They 
 ignore one of the deepest needs of human nature 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 171 
 
 — communion with the Perfect. Man must wor- 
 ship. The commandment to love God is not only 
 privilege but jDrophecy. u \y e are cre ated for 
 thee," says St. Augustine, " and we can find no 
 rest until we rest in thee." When wonder dies, 
 and awe exists no longer in the human mind, 
 when the sense of mystery and dependence fades 
 away, when man becomes less than man, then 
 will he cease to look above himself. Knowledge 
 only deepens reverence, and leads us to say, 
 " O God, thou art our refuge in all genera- 
 tions ! " 
 
 So worship, the expression of love toward God, 
 is as natural and necessary as faith in him is 
 reasonable. It must be admitted, however, that 
 it is possible to live, for a time, in neglect of 
 this supreme privilege ; indeed, it is one of the 
 perils of our day and generation. 
 
 The absorption in things outward and temporal, 
 the tendency to discuss " every new thing " purely 
 from the intellectual standpoint, and the low 
 ideals of life and conduct so common among large 
 classes of people, blind the eyes of thousands to 
 the real needs of humanity. No longer held in the 
 church by the belief that future happiness is some- 
 
172 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 how secured by this alliance, the multitudes have 
 followed false leaders, and, like the Jews of old, 
 deserting the temple of their fathers, have turned 
 to their idols. The situation is serious ; for where 
 there is no open vision, the people perish. There 
 is but one consolation, it must be temporary. 
 Driven back by want and woe, the world, like 
 the prodigal in the parable, will at length, through 
 very starvation, " arise and go to the Father." 
 
 Meanwhile, how plain is the duty of those 
 who see the obligations involved in religious faith. 
 With sincere spiritual worship they should hold 
 forth the word of truth, not driven but drawn 
 to the sweet old ways of communion ; saying 
 ever with the Psalmist, "A day in thy courts is 
 better than a thousand. I had rather be a door- 
 keeper in the house of my God than to dwell 
 in the tents of wickedness," and so realizing, 
 within their own experience, the truth of the' 
 beautiful words of Faber, — 
 
 " I worship thee, sweet will of God, 
 And all thy ways adore; 
 And every day I live, I seem 
 To love thee more and more." 
 
 The power of human influence is subtle and 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 173 
 
 far-reaching; and the hardest blow we can give 
 the arrogant scepticism that would cheat our 
 fellow-men out of the noblest possession of the 
 soul — adoring love to God — is to be steadfast 
 and unmovable, worshipping him who is a Spirit 
 u in spirit and in truth." What blessed results 
 in character grow out of the faithful observance 
 of this obligation ! By the altar of our prayers 
 we spontaneously cast away every lingering com- 
 promise with sin. False words, fraudulent acts, 
 cruel revenge, guilty relations with our fellow- 
 creatures, — these pass from the soul animated 
 with love towards God. And in their place comes 
 a holy consecration to the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good, pervading the heart with happiness 
 and praise, as the skylark fills the heavens with 
 his glad song. Moreover, it is in the recep- 
 tion of this obligation of religion that we are 
 led directly to the recognition of all those duties 
 to our fellow-men which some thinkers assure us 
 should supplant the adoring love of the soul 
 toward its Creator. In our love to God we find 
 the noblest motive for the second great obliga- 
 tion of religion — love toward man. We are all 
 the children of an infinite Father, and derive our 
 
174 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 being and nature from him, and, therefore, " all 
 ye are brethren." For us to say that we love 
 God, and at the same time to hate and de- 
 stroy our fellow-men, or even to be indifferent 
 to their welfare, would be an absurdity. " He 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " 
 The fact is that religion has never been satisfied 
 with raising temples of worship, but has belted 
 the earth with kindly charities. Wherever men 
 have worshipped a compassionate Father, they 
 have become compassionate in turn to their fel- 
 low-creatures. Jesus taught that the first duty of 
 man is to love the Lord our God ; but he added, 
 as though it were a logical conclusion, " and thy 
 neighbor as thyself." Moreover, in his example, 
 whose whole life was spent in a conscious walk 
 with God, Ave have a supreme ideal of the noblest 
 and strongest love for man, — a love that knew 
 no bounds of nationality, clime, or worth, sought 
 everywhere the welfare and happiness of human- 
 ity, was as impartial and as changeless as the 
 eternal goodness itself. This divine compassion 
 for man manifested itself in parables, like that of 
 the good Samaritan, which are read with as un- 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 175 
 
 tiring interest to-day as when written, two thou- 
 sand years ago. It found expression in deeds of 
 mercy that have won the world, and moved his 
 followers to do works greater than miracles for 
 the amelioration of the suffering, the helpless, the 
 degraded, and the sinful. 
 
 Truly, though the form was old, the spirit was 
 new in those ever memorable words of his, U A 
 new commandment I give unto you, that ye love 
 one another, as I have loved you." This last 
 clause transformed the love of man from a senti- 
 ment to a principle. 
 
 The love which the world practised was as 
 the shallow mountain stream to the bottomless 
 ocean surrounding the globe, when compared to 
 the Divine compassion which Jesus illustrated in 
 his teachings and example ; and this spirit is 
 an obligation of religion incumbent upon every 
 one who has heard and obeyed his summons, who 
 said, "Follow me." It is the test of discipleship. 
 
 What a transformation would the recognition 
 of such a duty, and its universal practice, effect 
 in human society ! What must become of every 
 debasing trade, of every immoral custom, that in- 
 jures or degrades our fellow-man, in the light of 
 
176 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 this principle? So-called Christian nations would 
 hardly send forth vessels to the heathen with mis- 
 sionaries on the deck and rum in the hold. It 
 would not be necessary to reveal to an aston- 
 ished world the extent of the opium trade be- 
 tween Christian England and heathen China. 
 Protests would be unnecessary against the publi- 
 cation of immoral literature ; while the relations 
 of capital and labor, and the problems of dealing 
 with the criminal classes, would find speedy set- 
 tlement if men accepted the sentiment of the 
 apostle, " in honor preferring one another." 
 
 Christian nations bearing upon their banners 
 the cross of Christ, the supreme expression of 
 love to man, would hardly find it consistent to 
 deplete Europe of her best young life that their 
 standing armies might be maintained in idleness ; 
 or to tax the poor to the point of despair for the 
 support of a useless and oftentimes degenerate 
 nobility. 
 
 Instead of lamenting our small navy, it would 
 be counted the glory of America that she had 
 passed the need of such relics of barbarism, save 
 for commercial purposes or as illustrations of 
 human progress in scientific knowledge. Love 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 177 
 
 to man like this, would suggest better methods 
 for the settlement of national questions than the 
 terrible destruction and the cruel and widespread 
 sufferings produced by war and bloody persecu- 
 tions, of which, alas ! we have illustrations in 
 this end of the century. Our prisons would be- 
 come workshops and schools, where, by severe 
 discipline, the criminal, never deprived of hope, 
 should, through a righteous punishment, involv- 
 ing wholesome instruction, arise to self-respecting 
 manhood. 
 
 The poor would find — what they need more 
 than money — friends to redeem them from their 
 poverty ; while strikes and labor-wars would dis- 
 appear when the law of love moved the employer 
 to justice, and the employee to faithfulness. 
 
 Think, too, what transforming influence would 
 be felt in the more private relations of life ! 
 The stability of the home would be secured; and 
 many, governed by principle where now passion 
 rules, would remain faithful to the solemn vows 
 made at the altar — vows so often lightly broken, 
 and bringing with sad and increasing frequency 
 such unholy results into many a desolate dwell- 
 ing. 
 
1<8 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 After all, the question in society is not so much 
 whether we shall have a severe or liberal law of 
 divorce, as whether men shall recognize the fact 
 that true love is not hateful lust, but a change- 
 less and unselfish devotion to the welfare of its 
 objects. 
 
 Dr. Ware writes delightfully of the Compro- 
 mises of Love. Happy, thrice happy will be our 
 homes, happy the children, now so often more un- 
 fortunate than if deprived by death of parental 
 care, when men learn the meaning of that phrase ! 
 
 Love to man will lead to the only toleration 
 worth the name ; that is, a sincere respect for the 
 honest opinion of our neighbor, and the recogni- 
 tion of the fact that all who are seeking the 
 truth are our fellow-laborers, and are the instru- 
 ments as truly as ourselves in the hands of divine 
 Providence for bringing about the answer to the 
 world's prayer, " Thy kingdom come." 
 
 It is said that " the world has outgrown Christ 
 and his religion." Outgrown Christ ! When we 
 compare the actual condition of society with the 
 ideals suggested to our minds by his law of love, 
 how apparent it is that we have not yet touched 
 the hem of his garment ! 
 
THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 179 
 
 Dean Stanley tells of an old Scotch Methodist 
 who in his earlier years had clung vehemently 
 to one or the other of two small sects on either 
 side of the street. " The street I am now trav- 
 elling in, lad, has nae sides ; and if power were 
 given me, I would preach purity of life more, and 
 purity of doctrine less, than I did." — "Are you 
 not a little heretical in your old age ? " said his 
 interlocutor. "I care na\ Names have not 
 the same terror on me they once had, and since 
 I have grown old, I have had whisperings of the 
 still small voice that the footfalls of faith and 
 their wranglings will never be heard in the Lord's 
 kingdom whereunto I am nearing; and, as love 
 cements all differences, I'll perhaps find the place 
 roomier than I thought in times by past/' 
 
 Thus are we led to see what gracious privi- 
 leges are involved in our religious faith, as we 
 stand in the sunlight of that interpretation of 
 Christianity which leads us, in the spirit of Christ, 
 to call God our Father, and to say of our brother 
 man, " O God, I can trust for the human soul." 
 May we also learn that this Christian optimism 
 leads not to indifference. It is instead a most 
 strict and solemn standard of duty, teaching us 
 
180 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 that there is "no substitute " for purity of heart 
 and uprightness of life. It is the will of God 
 that his kingdom should come upon earth, and 
 that " all men should be saved, and come to a 
 knowledge of the truth; " yet this divine purpose 
 will be realized in this world or any other realm 
 of being only when each child of God is imbued 
 with a profound sense . of the obligations of re- 
 ligion. For the prayers and adoration of his 
 children return from the bosom of God to the 
 hearts of men, transformed into gracious and 
 changeless purposes for the redemption of human- 
 ity, even as the mists of the mighty cataract, 
 thundering in its solitudes, rise to the skies only 
 to come back with fructifying power to the earth 
 again. In the language of Ralph Waldo Emer- 
 son, " This great, overgrown, dead Christianity 
 of ours still keeps alive, at least, the name of 
 a Lover of mankind. But one day all men will 
 be lovers, and every calamity will be dissolved 
 in the universal sunshine," — the day when all 
 men worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 
 
 Gideon Isaac Keikn. 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 
 
 When the advent of Jesus was announced, 
 the angel said to Joseph, " It is he that shall 
 save his people from their sins." It is of this 
 saving power of Jesus, of his work in the human 
 heart, of him as " the Word made flesh " and 
 dwelling among men, and of him as the life and 
 energy of the soul, leading it to God, that I am 
 to write. The subject is a practical one. I am 
 to have in mind the man or woman engaged in 
 the cares of life ; therefore the purely theological 
 or controversial will, so far as possible, be avoided. 
 Yet, since the theme is Christ as a Saviour of 
 the individual soul, any doctrine germane to the 
 subject must of necessity be practical. 
 
 I. Saved by the Power of Christ's Personality. 
 
 The human mind is so constituted that it is 
 most effectually moved by personality. An ab- 
 stract truth or theory will have an effect upon 
 
 183 
 
184 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 any mind which comprehends it ; but the most 
 effectual means of giving it possession of the 
 mind is through some person in whom the truth 
 dwells as a moving power. The most efficient 
 agent for bringing about a reform is not a list of 
 written precepts upon the subject, but those pre- 
 cepts embodied in a warm heart. We often hear 
 men say of certain wrongs that they will right 
 themselves, or that certain difficulties will " take 
 care of themselves." The truth is, they never 
 did take care of themselves, and they never will. 
 They have always been taken care of by personal 
 sacrifice. William of Orange took care of the 
 oppression of Holland ; Martin Luther, of the 
 Reformation ; Channing, Murray, and Ballou, of 
 the more liberal ideas of God and the brighter 
 destiny of the human race. The same has been 
 true of every reform, from. the most ancient to the 
 most recent. Mighty truths must have mighty 
 souls to voice them in word and life before the 
 world can comprehend them. All the greatest 
 and best principles of our modern civilization 
 have been paid for in the coin of personal effort 
 and sacrifice. Such is the law of human progress. 
 It is through the operation of this law that 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 185 
 
 Christ has had such a marvellous effect upon the 
 world, and has saved every soul whom he has 
 saved. It is through this law that he will con- 
 tinue to work until he hath drawn all men unto 
 himself. Perhaps nearly all his truths had been 
 taught in some form before he came ; but they 
 never took hold of the world as they did when 
 he taught them. The reason of this is that 
 when he once taught a truth it was ever after- 
 ward imbued with his personality. He never 
 wrote a gospel ; but the truths of the gospel he 
 taught were so intimately and vitally a part of 
 himself, and he so impressed his life upon his 
 followers, that wherever his teachings go in his 
 name somehow his personality goes with them. 
 It is a marvellous fact that he vitalizes his word 
 with a subtle influence, with an individuality, a 
 magnetism, a something which no one can de- 
 scribe, but which everyone recognizes, a some- 
 thing which cannot be taken, from it because it 
 is an essential part, and which gives it its power 
 over the human soul. It is Christ, and not his 
 truth only, that moves us. 
 
 Thus in all the duties and struggles of every- 
 day life we have the help of his inspiration. The 
 
186 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 man under temptation finds an example of resist- 
 ance and a help to victory in the forty days in 
 the wilderness. The selfish heart finds its selfish- 
 ness rebuked and ultimately destroyed by the 
 life of Christ, for he teaches brotherly love as 
 much by deed as by word. The man prone to 
 revenge learns from him to forgive his brother, 
 " not until seven times seven, but until seventy 
 times seven." All other teaching of forgiveness 
 pales before his own act in his dying hour. Who 
 can, in thoughtful imagination, sit at the foot of 
 the cross and witness the awful cruelty of his 
 enemies, and hear in the moment of his greatest 
 agony his prayer, " Father, forgive them," and 
 not turn away ashamed of his own unrelenting 
 disposition. Perhaps we feel that the most diffi- 
 cult thing for us to do is to love our enemies. 
 Here again Jesus asks only what he himself did 
 from the beginning. He loved his friends and 
 loved them tenderly ; but he loved his enemies 
 also. He saw in them something more than an 
 enemy, something more than bigotry and sin ; 
 he saw a brother, a child of God, a possible saint. 
 Such examples, which might be extended to 
 almost any length, are sufficient to show the close 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 187 
 
 personal relation between the sayings and the life 
 of Christ, that he not only taught us what to do, 
 but showed us how to do it. 
 
 " When Jesus, our great Master, came 
 To teach us in his Father's name, 
 In every act, in every thought, 
 He lived the precepts which he taught." 
 
 In Jesus we have not only an example, but a 
 perfect example ; far above us, it is true, but the 
 more helpful on that account, because a man can 
 best shape his character only in comparison with a 
 perfect model. A recent writer says, in illustra- 
 tion of this thought, that the most skilful wood- 
 carver, working with the greatest care, cannot 
 make his second copy from his first, his third 
 from his second, and so on to a large number of 
 copies, lest in his last production he would not 
 recognize his original model, because he had suc- 
 cessively copied his unconscious errors. He must 
 always have his model before him, and work from 
 that. If this is true in the material and the seen, 
 how much more is it true in the spiritual and 
 the unseen, which enter into the formation of 
 character. Man must have constantly before him 
 a faultless model by which to work, else human 
 
188 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 defects will be unrecognized. Christ is himself 
 that much needed model, that perfect example 
 in all things, by which we may shape our char- 
 acters, causing them to grow more and more 
 like him who was " without sin." As Elizabeth 
 Channing has so finely said, " By his life he set 
 the most perfect example of goodness that man 
 can conceive, reverent and obedient as a child, 
 in maturit}^ a model of active and passive virtue. 
 Awake to the sinfulness of sin and faithfully 
 warning of its deformity, he loved the sinner and 
 labored for his salvation. He went about doing 
 good, but observed meditation and prayer. In 
 his character, he was free from earthly ambition, 
 and steadily aspired to spiritual perfection. His 
 trust in his divine Father was as complete as 
 his sympathy for his human brother. His pity 
 for his enemies equalled his love for his friends." 
 Some one may ask, " Does not Christ save us 
 by his death ? " Only in the same way that he 
 saves us by his life. That which is generally 
 known as Christ's atonement is a result, and not 
 a process. Atonement is at-one-ment. It means 
 a state of harmony, or union with God. This is 
 the result of all that Christ did, both in his life 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 189 
 
 and in his death. There is no magic or mystery 
 in his death which makes it the all of his saving 
 power ; but there is a much needed help and ex- 
 ample to be found in the way in which he bore 
 the suffering and trials of the last day of his life. 
 If there is one thing that the world needs to-day 
 more than anything else, it is a loyalty to con- 
 viction, and a revival of the sense of duty and 
 moral responsibility. There is a large class of 
 people who live as though they thought they 
 were to consult only their pleasure and con- 
 venience in assuming the responsibilities of life. 
 The call of duty is unknown to them. The voice 
 of pleasure is the only voice they hear. They 
 are loyal to so much of truth as will cost them 
 nothing, or so much as every one else believes. 
 If, perchance, God gives them a higher truth, 
 they hide it under a bushel lest they lose some 
 of their popularity, if it be known that they 
 possess it. Many people who think themselves 
 saved by the death or " the blood " of Christ are 
 fallen into this very sin, from which his death 
 was designed to save them. lie could have been 
 popular had he chosen to be disloyal, and live 
 as though it mattered not what ho believed, or 
 
190 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 where he cast his influence. He could have 
 escaped suffering had he chosen to run away 
 from duty. Had he done this, he would not 
 have been a complete Saviour, for he would have 
 encouraged that sin from which our day and gen- 
 eration is suffering so much. He chose rather 
 to be loyal to his convictions, though it cost 
 him his life. He felt a deep moral responsi- 
 bility. He knew that he owed it to his Father 
 to be faithful to the highest which He had given 
 him, and trust the result to His infinite love. 
 How much of the saving power of Christ's death 
 the world has lost because it has been looking 
 to it for something which it does not contain, 
 and because it has failed to see that which is 
 really there ! If, instead of seeking the mysteri- 
 ous, men had only looked to Calvary for the 
 highest manifestations of a simple, faithful, brave 
 adherence to truth and the call of duty, which 
 is the voice of God, we would have been a 
 braver and stronger people than we are ; we 
 would have been more ready to bear moral re- 
 sponsibilities, and the highest truths would have 
 been more generally established. Every man who 
 comes thoroughly to know, with mind and heart, 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 191 
 
 the calm, loyal, victorious Jesus under trial, will 
 be led by him to victory. 
 
 In this capacity of teacher, example, and per- 
 sonal embodiment of divine life, Jesus becomes 
 our Saviour from sin. To the sinner who com- 
 pares himself with the immaculate he brings con- 
 viction ; then his attitude toward the convicted 
 is a strong and tender admonition to forsake sin ; 
 then, when the resolution to forsake sin is made, 
 that is, when the man is converted, Jesus, by the 
 marvellous fulness of his life, imparts power to 
 walk in the better way ; for every one who will 
 ask himself, " What would Christ do were he in 
 my place? "will find, if sufficiently familiar with 
 his life, just the word or deed that will help him. 
 No one ever was, and no one ever will be, placed 
 in circumstances involving principles which were 
 not involved in something that Christ said or did. 
 Not that he performed the outward acts which 
 we are to perform, not that Ave are to do at all 
 times the deeds done by him, nor that we are 
 necessarily to use the ceremonies and ritual of his 
 time ; but in the life he lived in his day and age 
 of the world, and with the people of his time, he 
 exemplified every principle which we are called 
 
192 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 upon to use in our time, applied to our affairs. 
 This is the work of the Saviour under the divine 
 law of personality ; it is the touch of Christ upon 
 the soul of man, bidding it be clean and strong. 
 
 II. Saved by Christ's Revelation. 
 
 Christ saves by revealing that which the world 
 could not otherwise know, or could not have 
 known so soon as it did, had it not been for his 
 revelation. He reveals the character of God. It 
 is impossible for man, by any help whatsoever, 
 fully to know God. It is difficult for him to 
 form even a helpful idea of a Being so vast; 
 and yet it is indispensable to his best living that 
 he should have some understanding of the char- 
 acter of his Creator. Ignorance of God, or wrong 
 ideas of him, have held man in bondage to doubt, 
 fear, and superstition, and have made a tyrant of 
 him who otherwise would have been a brother. 
 It is possible for a man without a belief in God 
 to live a good life ; but it is impossible for him 
 to live as good a life as he could had he a realiz- 
 ing sense of the Father. And yet, indispensable 
 as this knowledge is to the best living, man must 
 have some help in order that he obtain it in any 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 193 
 
 satisfactory measure. Left to himself, he is lost 
 in his own abstractions and errors. If all the ele- 
 ments in the character of the Infinite could be 
 combined in miniature in one person, it would be 
 possible for our little minds to comprehend that 
 person, and so know enough of God to meet the 
 soul's practical need. Such a person would serve 
 as a picture in which we might see the nature and 
 disposition of the Infinite. We have this much 
 needed miniature, this picture of God (I speak 
 reverently), in Christ. He came as a representa- 
 tive of God, not representing His greatness, for 
 that would be impossible, but His goodness or the 
 quality of His character. This he so well portrays 
 that he could say, " He that hath seen me, hath 
 seen the Father." That is, he who thoroughly 
 knows Christ has been led through him to know 
 the character of God. To know one's character is 
 to know that person. " The conception of God 
 has been spiritualized through the teachings of 
 Jesus. He is no longer to the believing soul 
 mere will, intellect, or holiness ; He is not force, 
 power, or law. He is one like ourselves ; a friend 
 to whom we can go, whom we can lean upon; a 
 master who teaches us the word of life ; a loving 
 
1 ( J4 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 heart that trusts us and is trusted by us. He 
 turns not from us when we forget Him, but grows 
 even more anxious for our good, if that is possi- 
 ble. Though we forget Him and revile Him, and 
 will have none of His love, yet He loves on and 
 will never forsake us. It has thus come about 
 that the thought of God is winning, attractive, 
 uplifting." In Christ God makes a unique ap- 
 proach to man, and brings so much of himself 
 within man's perception as it is possible for him 
 to comprehend. Jesus thus becomes a revelator, 
 disclosing that which the world did not know, and 
 that which we have no right to say it ever could 
 have known in its tenderness and fulness without 
 such revelation. 
 
 Christ's revelation saves from weakness. Man 
 is made to feel that he is not left to depend upon 
 himself alone. He is made to know that infinite 
 wisdom, power, and love, which know no failure, 
 will sustain him, and consequently he is filled 
 with hope. The wounded soldier on the field of 
 battle is faint and weary, and feels that he must 
 die. Just as he is about to fall out of the ranks 
 he hears the cry of victory shouted back from the 
 front. It fills him with new courage and strength. 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 195 
 
 He forgets his fatigue, forgets his wounds, and 
 presses forward that he too may participate in the 
 victory. So with the soldier in life's battle. He 
 is wounded and sin-stained and faint, and feels 
 that he can do no more, when, from the Captain 
 of salvation, he hears sounded back from the dis- 
 tant future the cry of " Victory, victory to the 
 hosts of God, victory, for ' God is all in all.' ' It 
 gives him new courage, new power ; he presses 
 forward that he may participate in the final and 
 eternal triumph of righteousness. This bright 
 and victorious end Christ declares when he says, 
 " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
 draw all men unto me ; " when he says, " There 
 shall be one fold and one shepherd ; " when he 
 enunciates the parable of the lost sheep and the 
 lost piece of money ; and, in fact, whenever he 
 tells of the all-conquering love of the Father. 
 To think of God as Creator may cause one to 
 wonder at his power and resources ; to think of 
 him as Judge only, may cause one to tremble be- 
 fore his throne ; but to think of him as a loving 
 Father who will reach after his children and ulti- 
 mately induce them all to come home, is to have 
 one's love, and all that is good within one, stirred 
 
196 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and brought to life in response to the love and 
 goodness enthroned above. When the world 
 comes to know this, it will be saved from despair 
 and weakness, and will be filled with joy and 
 hope. 
 
 As revelator Jesus saves from overwhelming 
 sorrow. To one beset with " living trouble " he 
 shows that the value of existence is not to be 
 measured by the amount of its gladness or sad- 
 ness, but by the life of the soul, God's greatest 
 gift, which is back of all joy and sorrow. Hav- 
 ing this in abundance, man can lose other bless- 
 ings, if he must, and still feel that the greater 
 and better part remains. Every faithful Chris- 
 tian comes to feel as one of the first and per- 
 haps the greatest Christian felt, that " our light 
 affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for 
 us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory ; while we look not at the things that are 
 seen, but at the things that are not seen." A 
 lady of beautiful Christian spirit, who had been 
 under very great trial, once said to me, " I would 
 not for the world again go through with what I 
 have undergone ; and yet, somehow, now that 
 I have passed through it, I would not for the 
 
SA VED B Y CHRIS T. 197 
 
 world be without it ; for I have approached nearer 
 than ever before to my Saviour and my God, and 
 they have given me blessings which it seems to 
 me I could never otherwise have received, and 
 which are the most precious treasures I possess." 
 She simply realized the truth of what Paul says 
 in his words just quoted. She had received the 
 blessing Christ promises to all the weary and 
 heavy-laden that come unto him. 
 
 When death comes Jesus destroys it by bring- 
 ing life and immortality to light, and causes it 
 to lose its former dread significance, and to take 
 its place as only one incident in the continuous 
 life which begins with birth and lasts forever. 
 To such as receive from him this faith in its 
 fulness, there can be no anxiety about those who 
 have passed on, nor any doubt about meeting 
 them in the future, for the promises which Jesus 
 makes are assured to us by no less than infinite 
 power. They hear them as the voice of God 
 speaking through His Son. The tender words of 
 comfort spoken to the apostles in their sorrowing 
 hour are spoken alike to all : " Let not your 
 heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe 
 also in me. In my Father's house are many 
 
198 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 mansions : if it were not so, I would have told 
 you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if 
 I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again, and receive you unto myself ; that where 
 I am, there ye may be also.'* He who thor- 
 oughly believes in Jesus and these blessed prom- 
 ises can never be overthrown by any possible 
 calamity or sorrow, but in spite of all will have 
 a peace which surpasses his own understanding, 
 and which Jesus gives, not "as the world gives," 
 but as he alone can give. 
 
 The child born into this world is confronted 
 with the unknown and mysterious as soon as its 
 intelligence begins to take cognizance of its sur- 
 roundings. It asks its elders and parents puz- 
 zling questions. They stand to it in the relation 
 of interpreters of — 
 
 " The meaning hid life's common things beneath." 
 
 These mysteries do not all vanish with increasing 
 years and intelligence. Some of them even grow 
 deeper and more profound. Man asks, " Why 
 suffering ? Why ignorance ? Why is sin al- 
 lowed ? What is man ? What his destin}^ ? " 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 199 
 
 Many have been thrown into doubt and darkness 
 because they could not satisfactorily answer these 
 and other equally perplexing questions. They 
 need an interpreter, some one who can at least 
 give a key by the aid of which the answer may 
 be discovered. Jesus is that interpreter. He 
 shows us manhood as it is to be when its growth 
 and development are complete. He answers our 
 question, " What is man ? " by teaching that he 
 is a child of God, a brother of himself, and 
 hence possessing a nature similar to his own, 
 and capable of results like those we see in him. 
 He explains and exalts manhood by setting it 
 before us in its ideal form. He who sees in 
 Jesus that which represents what God designs 
 that he himself shall be when the divine work 
 is completed in his soul, can never be troubled 
 about the value or meaning of life, even though 
 it is beset by heavy burdens and severe trials. 
 He even explains these burdens and trials; he 
 interprets the ignorance and mistakes and sins 
 of life by showing them to be the struggles of 
 imperfection toward designed perfection, of im- 
 purity toward designed purity. He makes all 
 these things plainer by revealing the ideal man- 
 
200 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 hood in which they are to result. He interprets 
 to each man his life by revealing to him its 
 nature, its aims, and its possibilities. The man 
 who finds his own life explained in the greater 
 and fuller life of Jesus, finds likewise every other 
 man's life so explained, since every other man is 
 his brother, under the same Providence, and of 
 similar nature and destiny. He interprets the 
 future by showing it to be but the enlarged 
 and purified present. As we have already seen, 
 he is the great interpreter of the doings and 
 purposes of God. When he declares the univer- 
 sal brotherhood of man, the universal Father- 
 hood of God, the universal immortality of the 
 soul, the final, universal triumph of good over 
 evil, he throws an inextinguishable flood of light 
 on life's dark places. Jesus, life's interpreter, is 
 indeed " the light of the world." 
 
 He does not give us the interpretation, written 
 page by page and word by word ; but, what is 
 better, he indicates the direction wherein, with 
 faith and wisdom for his guide, man may ulti- 
 mately reach the plain and satisfactory end. He 
 is himself the great luminary of the way, the guid- 
 ing star by which the soul may confidently pursue 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 201 
 
 its course in search of truth and peace and life. 
 When Jesus reveals the unconquering love which 
 rules the universe, he reveals the key by which, 
 and by Avhich alone, all life's mysteries may be 
 solved. I could not know these things as I know 
 them now, were it not for him ; he is therefore 
 my Saviour, because he is my revelator. Phillips 
 Brooks says, " Christ's redemption of the world 
 means, for each man who believes it, just these 
 three things : the revelation to man of his own 
 value, the value of his fellow-man, and the near- 
 ness and dearness of God." The man who prac- 
 tically knows this is lifted above his fears and 
 doubts. 
 
 in. Salvation above Salvation from Sin. 
 
 The saving power of Christ does not end here. 
 To save a man from sin and every moral evil is 
 a w^ork marvellously great. Our hearts gladly 
 cry out that it is sufficient to give him a "name 
 which is above every name." But, great as it is, 
 there is a phase of his saving power which goes 
 even farther. When we think of him as he lived 
 on earth, he never seems to us as merely a sinless 
 man. He was more than this, much more. There 
 
202 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 is a transcendent greatness on which our minds 
 are fixed when we think of him. His soul had 
 wrought itself through the realm of temptation 
 into that of communion. 
 
 His prayers are the soul's earnest pleading, the 
 child's confident talk with the Father. In their 
 beautiful simplicity they confide in a Father's ten- 
 derness. With him there is no room for specula- 
 tion or query about God ; he does not simply have 
 faith in Him, he seems to know Him as positively 
 as he knew Peter and James and John. He knew 
 that he could not be alone even in his hour of 
 darkness, when the disciples forsook him, for the 
 Father was with him. There was a union of his 
 life with God which is always conscious of the 
 divine presence and counsel and inspiration and 
 love. As to the endless life of all his Father's 
 children, that was no more to be questioned than 
 that the sun shines. His soul was so full of life 
 that he lived and moved in these great spiritual 
 realities. When we come to know this fulness of 
 Jesus, we realize how much less than this, and 
 how far below it, is mere sinlessness. It is his 
 mission to man to give him more than sinlessness. 
 Fie say, " I came that ye might have life, and 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 203 
 
 have it more abundantly." To be saved from sin 
 is negative, but to be filled with life is positive. 
 It is salvation above salvation from sin. 
 
 The followers of Christ will be led into this 
 graduate salvation, into the more abundant life 
 which he came to bring, and into the knowledge 
 which results from it. The degree of such knowl- 
 edge may depend upon many things ; it may de- 
 pend upon education and surroundings, or upon 
 what one thinks he ought to see in life, but it 
 will depend chiefly upon purity. The sinful soul 
 is necessarily the blind soul. " Blessed are the 
 pure in heart, for they shall see God." None of 
 us is wholly pure, consequently none of us has an 
 entirely clear spiritual vision. There are many, 
 however, who are able to hear the first accents 
 of the still small voice, and to understand some- 
 thing of its message. They have begun to know 
 those truths which come by this means. The 
 critic may tell them, if he will, that they do not 
 know what they profess to know ; and yet they 
 do know it, despite the contrary opinion. The 
 soul has various avenues of knowledge. The 
 heart is one of them. In some things the heart 
 is more reliable than the mind or the senses. 
 
204 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 When the heart of man gives him a fact, the 
 value of which it is better able to determine than 
 any other faculty of his being, he should receive 
 it with the same confidence that he would had it 
 come through some other avenue. Man should 
 feel that he knows this class of facts as really as 
 he knows any other class. " The natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: 
 for they are foolishness to him : neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned." They must be so discerned. The other 
 faculties are incapable of clearly seeing them, and 
 fully appreciating them. It is the man of abun- 
 dant spiritual perception who penetrates them most 
 deeply and knows them best, hence his opinion 
 upon these things is the more likely to be correct. 
 He has learned of his great spiritual teacher to 
 look into the future, and to know the Father. 
 This is the beginning of that larger life which 
 Christ works in the heart of his follower. He 
 leads him up out of the realm of temptation and 
 conflict, through which he himself passed, into 
 that of knowledge and communion. 
 
 But the end is not yet. As far as the eye of 
 the spirit can penetrate, we see the Lamb of God 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 205 
 
 leading the race of man on and on in purity and 
 knowledge and love to higher and still higher 
 degrees of perfection. The endless future grows 
 brighter, richer, and happier. This conception 
 elates my soul with hope, it stirs my being with 
 power to achieve, it fills my heart with love and 
 gratitude to my Saviour, it moves me to avow 
 faithfulness in my discipleship. The mission of 
 Christ does not end when he has saved the world 
 from sin. He is its leader in the boundless fields 
 of perfection. So far as we can know, he is to 
 lead humanity on forever and forever. 
 
 I have tried to show the work of Christ in the 
 soul of man ; how by the power of his great per- 
 sonality he impresses the principles of righteous- 
 ness, how he reveals the truth that makes us free, 
 and finally, how he leads us into communion and 
 accord with God and the eternal. No one knows 
 better than I how inadequately this has been 
 done, and to how small a portion of these great 
 truths I have been able to give utterance. Their 
 greatness and beauty would surpass a more facile 
 pen. The devout soul may realize them, although 
 it may not find words sufficient to express that 
 
206 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 reality. To any one who would know these things 
 to their heart's content, let me, in conclusion, 
 offer a few thoughts leading to their attainment. 
 In the first place, you cannot receive the life of 
 a man whom you do not know. In order to be 
 helped by Christ, you must know him. Is it any 
 wonder that many receive so little from his reli- 
 gion, when they give him so little thought? Be 
 a daily reader of his life ; be familiar with it 
 all, especially its greatest chapters ; ponder much 
 upon his choicest sayings ; dwell with him at 
 Nazareth, and look out with him from those 
 native hills upon life, and feel his yearning to 
 save the world in which he lived; go with him 
 to his baptism, and there with him make your 
 own consecration ; hear him call his first disciples ; 
 go with him on his journey to Galilee, and stop 
 at Jacob's well, and hear the conversation with 
 the woman of Samaria ; journey on to Nazareth, 
 and enter the synagogue with his neighbors and 
 kinsmen, and listen to the sermon from the text 
 for his life, " The spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
 because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel 
 to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken- 
 hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and 
 
SA VED B Y CHRIS T. 207 
 
 recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, and to preach the accept- 
 able year of the Lord ; " dwell with him in his 
 Capernaum home ; sail with him the Sea of Gali- 
 lee, and listen to his parables and sermons from 
 nature ; go with him on his missionary journeys, 
 and behold him touch the diseased with health, 
 and the dead with life ; then turn with him 
 towards Jerusalem to celebrate his last Passover ; 
 after the busy days in the Temple, go out on 
 the evenings of that marvellous final week of 
 his life to Bethany, and, surrounded with loving 
 friends, enjoy a quiet rest in that peaceful village 
 home ; when you are purest in heart, enter that 
 holy of holies, the upper room, and sit with him 
 and his disciples at the last supper, and listen 
 to his tender parting words; then, purified still 
 more by this sacred experience, you may go with 
 him to dark Gethsemane, and standing apart, may 
 weep with him in his deep anguish, and witness 
 him returning serene and courageous. After this 
 you will not be surprised at his calmness in the 
 judgment hall, and will be prepared for his 
 victory on Calvary, and can with sympathy enter 
 into his transcendent glory on the resurrection 
 
208 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 morn. Make his life from the manger to the 
 ascension an open book, familiar in every word 
 and deed, cherished in all its beauty. Know him, 
 and you shall be known of him. 
 
 In the second place, when you have thus lived 
 with Christ and become acquainted with him, 
 when you have seen that his religion was life, 
 and that he came not so much to teach a new 
 theology as to live a new life, in a word, when 
 you have seen what he was, be like him. Be the 
 new husband and father, the new wife and mother, 
 the new son or daughter, the new brother or 
 sister, the new business man, the new ruler, the 
 new man or woman in any sphere, which he 
 would have you be. Like him make all things 
 divine because they are done for God and to God, 
 and not as unto men alone. When he says to 
 you, " Love your enemies," do it. When he asks 
 you to deny yourself, and take up your cross and 
 follow him, obey, no matter how heavy that cross 
 may be. All along your life, when he calls you 
 to service, be quick to heed and faithful to fulfil. 
 
 Finally, you have seen, as you have followed 
 him, how often Christ went away to pray, how 
 earnestly he prayed for his disciples and himself, 
 
SAVED BY CHRIST. 209 
 
 what an inexhaustible source of power this was to 
 him, and how his life was transfigured by prayer. 
 If this great strong personality must have fre- 
 quent recourse to prayer in order to be sustained, 
 much more must we. If he could not do without 
 this help, how much less can we who are weaker 
 than he. Let deep, earnest, simple prayer be thy 
 daily habit; for if "in his name," that is, in his 
 spirit, ye ask, " it shall be given unto you." 
 
 Who can say that Christ does not still actively 
 and personally help his followers ? When he was 
 about to depart he assured the disciples that he 
 would be with them after he had gone away ; that 
 is, after he had finally withdrawn his visible pres- 
 ence from them. There is no reason to think 
 that it was possible for him to be with them, and 
 is not now possible for him to be with us. They 
 were men as we are men, and, when he had gone 
 away, were related to him as his faithful followers 
 are related to him to-day. There is, therefore, 
 no reason to think that this promise was for them 
 alone. We know that he is with us in the mighty 
 uplift and marvellous inspiration of his great 
 historic personality as recorded in the Gospels ; 
 but is he not with us even now in a still closer 
 
210 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and more vital personal, soul-to-soul relation ? 
 The thought may be beyond us, we may not be 
 able to see how it is, and yet he who never failed 
 in any promise hath promised it. We may then 
 feel assured that we can even now come into a 
 spiritual meeting with the personal Jesus, and that 
 he may touch and quicken us with new life 
 and strength. Blessed privilege, sacred help ! to 
 look up to him, and feel that he is speaking to us 
 when he says, "Zo, I am ivith you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world." 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 
 
 Harrison Spofford Whitman. 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 
 
 
 
 Many years ago, a little vessel might have 
 been seen, with sails spread, making across the 
 dark Sea of Galilee. There were but a handful 
 of men. One of them, reclining in the stern 
 of the boat, was fast asleep. The others were 
 beginning to cast anxious looks upon the black 
 leaden clouds piling up so ominously from every 
 side. It is but five miles across to the lonely 
 deserted region on the eastern shore whither 
 they were journeying. They were girt in with 
 rugged hills and towering peaks. And before 
 them these desolate hills, without a visible habi- 
 tation or a single tree, rose abruptly from the 
 water over a thousand feet. 
 
 Suddenly the storm that had been gathering 
 struck down upon this little band in all its fury. 
 The waves, lashed by the tempest, beat about 
 them with terrific force, rising every moment 
 higher and higher. The danger was extreme. 
 
 213 
 
214 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 Yet the sleeper slept on, unmindful of the storm, 
 the tumult, and the terror. But now the angry 
 waves were beginning to pour over into the ves- 
 sel itself, threatening every moment to ingulf 
 it. Then the disciples, almost beside themselves 
 with fear, awoke him with piercing cries of wild 
 excitement, " Lord ! Master ! save ! we perish ! " 
 Thereupon the Master arose in the calm majesty 
 of his strength ; and hushing the raging tumult in 
 their souls with the quiet words, " Why so fearful, 
 O ye of little faith?" he looked out upon the 
 tempestuous sea, and said, " Peace ! he still." 
 And immediately the winds ceased, and there was 
 a great calm. 
 
 It is refreshing to dwell upon this picture — 
 Jesus, at a single word, calming the troubled 
 sea. For in this occurrence, which was enacted 
 of old on the Sea of Galilee, we have a visible 
 representation of the wonderful power which the 
 Son of man exercises over the souls of men in 
 all ages since. He stilled the raging waters. 
 He spoke ; and the sea was at rest, hushed into 
 stillness and peace. So does he calm the troubled 
 soul. That " voice of a Saviour heard across the 
 long generations can calm wilder storms than 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 215 
 
 ever buffeted into fury the bosom of the inland 
 lake." 
 
 Now, what is the secret of Christ's power? 
 How is it that he is able to send peace into the 
 human soul ? And what is the nature of this 
 peace which he imparts? 
 
 It may help to a clear understanding of this 
 whole matter if we turn to the life of Jesus in 
 its calm serenity. That life was pre-eminently a 
 life of deep, unalloyed peace. It was not that he 
 was exempt from temptation. He was tempted 
 in all points as we are tempted. It was not that 
 he was exempt from trial and suffering. He was 
 " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
 He knew, from personal experience, all about the 
 hardships of life, — deprivation, want, weary toil. 
 Often he had not where to lay his head. He 
 was " despised and rejected of men." He en- 
 countered the fiercest of opposition. He was 
 maligned and misrepresented, pursued even unto 
 death by the cruel hate of bitter enemies. And 
 in the darkest hour he was deserted by his 
 friends, and left to bear his burden alone. Yet, 
 in spite of all these untoward circumstances, one 
 cannot fail to be impressed with the deep, abiding 
 
216 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 peace which characterized his whole life. There 
 was no emergency so great or so sudden as to be- 
 tray him unto undue agitation. When awakened 
 suddenly from deep sleep at night by shrieking 
 cries of fear, with the wild wind howling, and 
 the waves breaking over him, he was yet calm, 
 and evinced no sign of alarm. So in all the 
 exigencies of his life. How the strife of men 
 raged all about him ! But with what composure 
 did he bear himself through it all ! It was the 
 composure of absolute strength and absolute trust. 
 There is no trace of anxiety or distraction or 
 perturbation in all his life, in any word, act, or 
 attitude, not even in that last scene in the 
 divine tragedy, when, betrayed and deserted by 
 his friends, when, mocked and scourged and cruci- 
 fied by his enemies, he hung bleeding upon the 
 cross. As Dr. Fairbairn says, " While human 
 passions were darkening Christ's path, and human 
 enmities were preparing the doom that was to 
 be his glory, sweet peace sat like the blessed 
 angel of God within his spirit, and filled it with 
 celestial light and joy." Not all the beating and 
 tossing of the world of humanity could shake the 
 serenity of his soul. His life reached up so com- 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 217 
 
 pletely into the Father's life, he found such per- 
 fect security and assurance in the ever present 
 nearness and love of the Fathef, that he could 
 but be profoundly at peace amid all the strife 
 and turmoil of a wild, tempestuous world. 
 
 This peace which Jesus possessed he promised, 
 as a precious legacy, to his disciples. "Peace 
 I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." 
 And this peace divine has been a marked feature 
 in the life of those choice spirits who have walked 
 nearest to the Master in love, obedience, and 
 trust. 
 
 Not many men have had more, in outward 
 relations, to vex and harass the soul than the 
 Apostle Paul. He was continually beset with 
 hardship and opposition and persecution. But, in 
 every hour of trial and suffering, his calm spirit 
 mounted superior to outward circumstances in the 
 tranquillity of deep peace. "I have learned," he 
 said, " in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be 
 content." And this spirit became a dominant 
 characteristic of his life. He stood serene and 
 calm in all those experiences which usually fill 
 the soul with a tumult of fear and dread, — 
 whether in prison at Philippi, his body all lacer- 
 
218 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 ated from a Roman scourging, or in Jerusalem 
 facing a raging mob, or on the wild sea in ex- 
 treme peril for fourteen days with shipwreck at 
 last, or in Nero's prison-house in Rome awaiting 
 execution. Evidently St. Paul had gained the 
 secret of his Master's peace. His soul was an- 
 chored in God, and his life was a magnificent 
 exemplification of those grand words of trium- 
 phant faith, " We know that all things work 
 together for good to them that love God." 
 
 And what is true of the Apostle Paul is true 
 of thousands of Christian disciples in all ages 
 since. They have come into possession of the 
 Master's peace, — an untroubled peace of soul 
 amid life's deepest mysteries. 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of all this? How 
 is it that Christ's dying promise of peace has been 
 so literally and abundantly fulfilled? 
 
 Christ imparts peace, in the first place, by 
 communicating a larger life, and delivering from 
 the bondage of evil. That which, above all else, 
 proves destructive to genuine peace of soul is 
 inward discord, — the discord which springs from 
 guilty deeds and a sinful life. 
 
 The Greeks personified the guilty conscience 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 219 
 
 by the three Furies. These are represented as 
 pursuing the perpetrators of wicked deeds up and 
 down the earth with whips and scorpions. The 
 conception is true to nature. The conscience 
 pursues the guilty person with avenging stripes 
 and torturing stings. It holds up before him 
 continually the memory of the black deed. " Be- 
 hold," it cries in condemnation, " this is your 
 doing." The power of conscience to harrow the 
 soul is well portrayed in the self-accusing words 
 of Macbeth, " Will all great Neptune's ocean 
 wash this blood clean from my hand ? " He real- 
 izes that there is no more peace for him. "Mac- 
 beth shall sleep no more ! " 
 
 And even when conscience loses its first sting, 
 when it ceases to torture with its stern accusation, 
 there is yet no real peace for the soul. The last 
 state of Macbeth, when he had become hardened 
 in crime, evinces even deeper disquietude than 
 that which had marked his early guilt. " Out, 
 out, brief candle : life's but a walking shadow ; a 
 poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon 
 the stage, and then is heard no more : it is a tale 
 told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing." 
 
220 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 There is no deliverance from the disquietude 
 of guilt but by deliverance from the evil. The 
 inward jangling and discord are caused by the 
 transgression of God's law of right. There is no 
 possible peace for the wicked till they turn from 
 their evil, and learn to do well. 
 
 Sin, then, is the great arch-enemy of peace. So 
 long as one does evil, or pursues an evil course 
 of life, he is contending against his nature and 
 against God. The very elements of the universe 
 are set in array against him, and the stars in their 
 courses tight against him. At the same time there 
 is an irrepressible conflict within. The man's 
 better nature — his true self — is irreversibly op- 
 posed to the evil. And there can be no real peace 
 but by conquest of the evil. In seeming opposi- 
 tion to his character as Prince of peace, Jesus 
 declared he came not to send peace, but a sword. 
 That is, his principles of righteousness and truth 
 could but incur the opposition of sin and error, 
 and stir them up to fierce hate and terrific strife. 
 This is equally true of the human soul, and leads 
 to an inevitable conflict within. It is in vain to 
 cry, " Peace, peace ; when there is no peace." And 
 there is only one way of gaining genuine peace, — 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 221 
 
 not by yielding to the evil, not by compromising 
 with the evil, but by fighting the evil and con- 
 quering it. And then comes peace, "full of joy, 
 without one throb of tumultuous passion, the pre- 
 lude of the peace of a happier world." This is 
 the peace which Jesus gives. It is by the influx 
 of his life and love that we may find deliverance 
 and peace. It is a radical peace. It accepts of 
 no compromise. It goes to the root of every 
 wrong, and conquers peace by routing evil in 
 every form, and bringing in concord and harmony. 
 As Ruskin says, " No peace was ever Avon from 
 fate by subterfuge or agreement ; no peace is ever 
 in store for any of us, but that which we shall win 
 by victory over shame or sin — victory over the 
 sin that oppresses, as well as over that which cor- 
 rupts." 
 
 More and more, as we come into nearness with 
 the Saviour, and triumph over the evil that is 
 within by growth in Christian character, will we 
 experience of the deep peace which was never 
 absent from the Lord, — the "peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding, ,, the peace of a soul 
 at one with God in the unruffled calm of a pure 
 and holy life. 
 
222 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 In the second place, Christ leads the soul into 
 a state of peace by the faith which he communi- 
 cates. Next to sin, the greatest foe to peace is 
 doubt. We look out upon a transitory world. 
 Flowers bloom and decay. And the sweet flowers 
 of human life, to all outward appearance, are 
 quite as evanescent. Life is crowded with dark 
 mysteries. As we contemplate these mysteries, 
 as we meditate upon the awful facts of pain 
 and sin and death, as we think of the myste- 
 rious lines of blood and suffering which run 
 through all the twisted skein of created existences, 
 there is no relief for mind or heart except as our 
 poor human vision shall be supported by an 
 abiding trust in God. How great must be the 
 disquietude of that disbelief which recognizes no 
 Heavenly Father in all this bewildering maze of 
 things ! To think the adjustments of this world, 
 the course of events and history, are not planned 
 and executed in love, with a purpose and end that 
 love can justify; to think that evil is as likely to 
 triumph ultimately as good ; to think that immor- 
 tality is but a dream, while this present earth-life 
 is our all, — this, indeed, were to lacerate the 
 soul, and destroy the very roots of peace. It was 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 223 
 
 to deliver from the disquietude of doubt that 
 Christ came, revealing the Father. " We are all 
 encircled by omnipotent love," his words and life 
 declare. And so, " amid the events that bear us 
 onward," we can look out upon the dark mysteries 
 of life with the calm assurance and the serene 
 faith that make for peace. The highest reason 
 and the largest faith are blended in one to those 
 who walk near the Saviour in sincerity, in obedi- 
 ence, in trust. 
 
 How many go through life heavily burdened 
 with anxiety and grim forebodings ! What solici- 
 tude and care and perplexity to vex the weary 
 soul ! To many, indeed, the future looms up 
 black and drear. It is streaked with the doubts 
 and fears that reach out from their own distrust- 
 ing soul. 
 
 From all this there is one sure deliverance. It 
 is to be found in the simple faith and absolute 
 trust of the Saviour, — trust in God as the Sover- 
 eign of the world, trust in his supreme wisdom 
 and goodness and love always to do that which 
 is best, always to do that which is right. Come 
 what may, we are in his hands. With this great 
 conviction we are fortified against the evils and 
 
224 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 calamities of life. We may not be able to un- 
 derstand all ; but in that we do not understand 
 we may fall back on trust, — trust in God be- 
 cause of his illimitable wisdom and goodness. 
 Without this trust we are in darkness in this 
 world, with no ray of light except that from 
 flitting stars. We are lost amid the sad perplexi- 
 ties of life. But with this trust, we may believe 
 that all those things which so distress and worry, 
 and with which we have nothing to do, are shaped 
 for good. With all our boasted freedom, which is, 
 indeed, sufficient to make us accountable, it is 
 only in small part that we make our lives. They 
 arc made for us. There is an infinite Power 
 compassing us around which even in the darkest 
 features of life is working for our best good. 
 
 " And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our 
 incompleteness, — 
 Round our restlessness, his rest." 
 
 In all the tribulations and disappointments and 
 sorrows of life, how may the anguished soul, 
 tempest-tossed, be hushed into calm by that strong 
 filial trust which will never let go the living God, 
 — which looks out into the uncertain future with 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 225 
 
 calm and tranquil vision, assured that God in his 
 infinite wisdom and love and power will reign 
 triumphantly for good. 
 
 This great universe, with all its titanic forces, 
 is ruled and fashioned by that almighty power. 
 The great world of humanity, with its throbbing 
 life, its hopes and fears, its tumults and strife, its 
 pain and grief, is ruled by that same mighty hand 
 of power, — ruled in wisdom and ruled in love. 
 We are not heaving about on a turbulent sea of 
 discord and confusion. There are ripples of dis- 
 cord, to be sure, caused by man's disordered will, 
 and eddies running counter to the divine will. 
 But the great trend of humanity is ever forward 
 toward its destined end. It is held by the al- 
 mighty grasp. The eternal purposes are going 
 forward in beautiful simplicity and order. The 
 pain and the sorrow are but incidental to the 
 progress. They must yet be left behind. They 
 are but " the background of the pattern which the 
 Eternal Mind is weaving on the clashing looms 
 of life ; and he who looks with true insight 
 already sees gleaming threads falling into shapes 
 of beauty and of light." 
 
 There are, as we have seen, two primary causes 
 
226 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 for human unrest, — inward discord and distrust 
 of God. These two great foes to true peace — 
 sin and doubt — are really the only things that 
 can greatly affect the serenity of man. These 
 have to do with the soul life within and its atti- 
 tude toward God. And the remedy must be 
 applied where the disease is, — to the inward life. 
 It is Christ's life and truth that must be applied, 
 to destroy the sin and the distrust, to expand the 
 higher life of love and faith. This is the peace 
 which Jesus gives. It is a real, substantial peace, 
 an abiding peace, a satisfying peace, a peace which 
 reaches down into the depths of the soul, and 
 which outward circumstances cannot destroy. 
 
 Yet how many there are that greatly mistake 
 in this matter. How many seem to think the 
 greatest enemies to peace lie without rather than 
 within. And so the great concern of their life 
 is to remove the outward trial or want. It is a 
 mistake. This is the peace which the world pro- 
 poses to give, — to remove the outward burden, 
 to free the soul from trouble, to surround it with 
 the ease and comfort of luxury and wealth. This 
 is the peace which the world promises. But this 
 is not the peace of the Saviour. He says, "My 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 227 
 
 peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, 
 give I unto you." It is not the outward circum- 
 stances that make or unmake our peace, but the 
 inward state of the soul and its attitude toward 
 God. If there be inward discord or distrust of 
 God, one cannot be at peace, though everything 
 without be in the highest degree propitious. 
 Wherever he may be, and whatever his environ- 
 ment, he will yet carry with him his own self, 
 with all the elements of unrest. So long as these 
 remain, there will be no peace. Just as with the 
 fever patient who tosses from side to side in the 
 vain effort to fwid relief from the burning heat 
 within. 
 
 Neither, on the other hand, if there be harmony 
 within, if there be perfect confidence in God, can 
 the most unfavorable circumstances greatly dis- 
 turb the calm repose of the soul. The surface of 
 the life may be moved and tossed ; but below the 
 surface there will be a life of peace which no cir- 
 cumstance can greatly mar. 
 
 Some of the sweetest and most tranquil souls 
 have yet been beset with deep sorrow and severe 
 trial. But amid all they have lived in calm con- 
 fidence, with the peace of God in their hearts. 
 
228 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 No one could come into their presence without 
 feeling rested. Though the sun hid its face, and 
 dark clouds folded them about, no chill night- 
 damp came within to wither the bloom of love 
 and trust; no storms could shake them from 
 their faith ; no waves could sweep them from the 
 etarnal Rock of Ages. 
 
 This is Christian peace, — the peace which 
 Christ promises to give his disciples. It is har- 
 mony instead of " chaotic passions in jar and dis- 
 cord." It is acquiescence in the will of God. 
 Once let the soul be moored in the divine life, 
 and' though sorrow, sickness, ♦ loss, tribulation, 
 roll in upon it, yet may it rise into the broad em- 
 pyreal atmosphere of eternal verities, and come 
 into a realizing sense of God's mighty love. 
 
 " Like a cradle, rocking, rocking, 
 Silent, peaceful, to and fro; 
 Like a mother's sweet looks dropping 
 On a little face below, — 
 Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 
 Jarless, noiseless, safe, and slow ; 
 Falls the light of God's face, bending 
 Down, and watching us below. 
 
 And as feeble babes that suffer, 
 Toss and cry, and will not rest, 
 
CHRISTIAN PEACE. 229 
 
 Are the ones the tender mother 
 Holds the closest, loves the best ; 
 So when we are weak and wretched, 
 By our sins weighed down, distressed, 
 Then it is that God's great patience 
 Holds us closest, loves us best." 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 ■ 
 James Milfobd Payson. 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 " If a man die, shall lie live again ? " " This is 
 the great question," wrote a friend of Emma Ab- 
 bott shortly after the death of that queen of song. 
 No question so generally and persistently pleads 
 for reply. We sometimes think there are many 
 who rarely lift their eyes beyond the earthly 
 horizon, who are rarely disturbed by any ques- 
 tion save how to win fortune or position or 
 pleasure. But probably there is no one Avho does 
 not often face the west, where the sun of life goes 
 down, and question about the new day. We 
 are travellers on a highway barred by a cloud-gate. 
 Our poor human eyes can neither see through nor 
 around nor over. Sooner or later it opens and 
 closes upon all. The footsteps of those who walk 
 in blessed companionship with us are hastened, and 
 the impenetrable mists hide them from our longing 
 sight. Strain our vision as we may, we get no 
 glimpse of the vanished form. We call after 
 233 
 
234 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 tliem through the darkness, but there comes back 
 no reply. Men may show no interest in the in- 
 stitutions of religion, neglect all religious service, 
 repudiate all faith ; but the great question, Into 
 what does that cloud-gate open ? can never be 
 wholly without interest to any one. 
 
 "One question more than others all 
 
 From thoughtful minds implores reply ; 
 It is as breathed from star and pall, 
 What fate awaits us when we die?" 
 
 It is the object of the present essay to offer 
 some suggestions in answer. Already there have 
 been numberless attempts at reply. A certain 
 writer says that " every considerate person in the 
 unnumbered successions that have preceded us 
 has, in his turn, confronted the same facts, en- 
 gaged in the same inquiry." So far from pre- 
 suming to more certain knowledge than thousands 
 of others, the present writer does not hope to of- 
 fer any word that has not often been expressed 
 before. But he feels justified in his essay by the 
 general longing for light, and the hope that an 
 additional witness may help some one to journey 
 toward the cloud-gate with more elastic step and 
 more cheerful face. 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 235 
 
 " What fate awaits us when we die ? " It is 
 a question to which a not uncommon philosophy 
 of our time does not make very satisfactory 
 answer. Materialism would shatter at one blow 
 the sublimest hope of the ages. It would make 
 the grandest vision that has inspired the human 
 soul but "the baseless fabric of a dream." It 
 says that fate awaits us when we die which 
 awaits all material life, — every organic form, the 
 tree, the flower, the body, — a return to dust. 
 Aristoxenus, a Greek philosopher of the fourth 
 century before Christ, likened the relation be- 
 tween body and soul to that between the harp 
 and its harmony. Does not this essentially illus- 
 trate materialism to-day? The soul is a result 
 of highly organized matter. The brain is a kind 
 of electric apparatus that throws off the sparks 
 of thought and feeling. Of course this doctrine 
 demands an absolute denial of a future life. 
 There is no defensible doctrine of immortality 
 except that which says that the human spirit can- 
 not die. If the soul is but the melody of this 
 material instrument, then when the instrument is 
 destroyed the melody will cease forever. Or to 
 change the figure, if the soul is but the flame 
 
236 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 of this lamp of the body, then when the lamp 
 is broken, or the oil is all gone, the flame will 
 go out, never to shine again. 
 
 If the mind results in any way from bodily 
 organism, is it not surprising that it should be 
 so superior to it? All adown history mind has 
 been conquering matter. What is the progress 
 of civilization but the subjugation of the material 
 by the human spirit? The body has constantly 
 to bow to the soul's regal sway. When the body 
 would rest, the soul can force it to move on. 
 When it would sleep, the soul can say to the 
 eyelids, you must not close. Observe into what 
 marvellous subjection the mind of a pianist brings 
 her fingers. The hand becomes the instrument of 
 immortal executions on canvas and in marble, in 
 obedience to a thought. It is in no small degree 
 true that the soul is a sculptor to whom the body 
 is clay. In quite a measure, thought and feeling 
 can disfigure and transfigure bodily form. They 
 turn the face into a tablet, upon which to write 
 the story of their selfishness, unkindness, and 
 vice ; or a mirror from which to reflect their aspi- 
 rations, beauty, and sweetness. Can that which 
 so masters bodily organism be a product of it? 
 
THE IMMOBTAL LIFE. 237 
 
 Professor Fisk says that " The only thing 
 which cerebral physiology tells its, when studied 
 with the aid of molecular physics, is against the 
 materialist so far as it goes. It tells us that, dur- 
 ing the present life, although thought and feeling 
 are always manifested in connection with a pecu- 
 liar form of matter, yet by no possibility can 
 thought and feeling be in any sense the products 
 of matter." Another writer says that the fore- 
 most scientists declare that the bodily organism 
 is inert without the influence of an agent external 
 to itself, and quotes an eminent scientist as say- 
 ing of the body that "it cannot change its state 
 of motion nor rest without the influence of some 
 force from without. True spontaneity of move- 
 ment is, therefore, just as impossible to it as to 
 what we call dead matter. So we are compelled 
 to admit the existence of an exciting cause in the 
 form of some force from without to give the in- 
 itial impulse in all vital actions." That is, it is 
 an agent independent of the body that animates 
 and moves it. The brain does not produce 
 thought. It is but the instrument of that which 
 thinks. The relation of the body and soul is not 
 that of the harp and its harmony, but of the harp 
 
238 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 and its player. The destruction of the harp does 
 not injure the harper. 
 
 This doctrine that the real person, the being 
 who thinks and feels and loves, survives the dis- 
 solution of the body, is confirmed in many ways. 
 It is not without reason that the fact that the 
 doctrine of immortality has ever been so nearly 
 universal, has been regarded as strongly sugges- 
 tive of its truth. A belief in immortality of 
 some sort has been largety prevalent in all lands 
 and ages. It has been prominent, at least, in 
 most of the Avorld's great religions. The religion 
 of ancient Egypt had its Amenti, almost as 
 real as the present world to the believer ; the old 
 Scandinavian its Valhalla, a splendid mansion 
 in the skies, roofed with shields and supported 
 by spears. The most widespread of all religions, 
 Mohammedanism, owes its marvellous conquests 
 very largely to its vivid doctrine of a future life. 
 Though in crude form, it has been as surely the 
 heritage of the savage as the civilized mind. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock declares that certain West 
 Africans are entirely without the idea of a future 
 life. But probably his statement is to be received 
 with some caution. It is doubtful if there be any 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 239 
 
 who have not some intimation of it, if it be no 
 more than a belief in spirits haunting the abodes 
 of the living. The Greenlander looks for an 
 eternal summer-land beneath the ocean, or a 
 paradise in the sky, where the Northern Lights 
 reveal the sporting of happy souls. Some savages 
 think the Milky Way the path to a celestial abode, 
 white with journeying spirits. 
 
 Is not the fact of this sublime expectation 
 being so generally and deeply rooted, especially 
 in the primitive soul, a strong intimation that it 
 is not a vain hope ? Think how much antago- 
 nism the unthoughtful mind has had to meet in 
 its hope of a survival of death. Doubtless be^ 
 neath the surface of material nature, there is 
 strong testimony to the immortal life. But that 
 written on the surface, nature's only message to 
 the unthoughtful, is against it. As you bend 
 above the white and motionless face of a friend, 
 what is there to indicate that he still lives ? Is 
 it not wonderful that the primitive mind, in con- 
 stant association with death as the final goal of 
 all, with no perception of any reason why it does 
 not end all, should have conceived and cherished 
 the belief that an eminent preacher has called 
 
240 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 "the most audacious that has ever entered into 
 the imagination of man," that it is to live for- 
 ever? Could the expectation have survived hu- 
 man experience had it been born of priestcraft 
 or originated in dreams? Is it not a much 
 more reasonable thought that the primal root of 
 the belief in immortality is a kind of instinct, as 
 surely indicating the existence of the life it sug- 
 gests, as the instinct of the birds that of the south- 
 ern home toward which in autumn it inspires them 
 to wing their way? 
 
 Does not this hope of the endless life of the 
 soul find further and very strong confirmation in 
 the soul itself ? Is there not written in the en- 
 dowments of human nature very certain proph- 
 ecy of their continuance ? In his endowments, is 
 not man out of all proportion to this brief life ? 
 Has he not been made too much of a being to 
 live so short a time ? He has been given a mind 
 capable of comprehending the universe in no 
 small degree ; of transforming the world and 
 itself; of enlisting the mightiest forces of nature 
 into its service ; of conceiving and executing that 
 which lives through the centuries ; of singing a 
 song that thrills human hearts generations after 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 241 
 
 the fingers that penned it are dust. Think of cre- 
 ating a being to so completely justify the saying, 
 " Thou hast made him a little lower than the 
 angels," to live but a little while at the longest, 
 and often to be almost as fleeting as a shadow. 
 Many a great intellect remains in this world 
 barely long enough to show what it can do. In- 
 deed, the light of many a great mind goes out in 
 the cradle. If man has only this life, then in his 
 creation God is like an artist who paints a great 
 picture to adorn his studio but for a day, and 
 then be cast as rubbish to the void, or spoiled 
 before any one can enjoy looking at it ; like a 
 sculptor who exhausts his genius upon a statue 
 that is soon to be broken in pieces. Infinite pains 
 and great genius in the construction of a machine 
 show that it was intended for more than the use- 
 fulness of a day. Does not the creative genius 
 expressed in the human soul suggest that it was 
 intended for more than this brief life ? 
 
 And is not this further suggested in the soul's 
 capacity for growth? If every person experienced 
 life enough here to completely unfold all his 
 powers, that would possibly suggest that this is 
 all of life. But many are taken from the world 
 
242 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 before their intellectual and moral development 
 really begins. Many more live barely long enough 
 to begin such growth ; and not very much more 
 do those who enjoy the best opportunities of a 
 long life. Here is a student who has spent three- 
 score years in diligent explorations in a certain 
 realm of thought. He is renowned for his inti- 
 mate knowledge of his chosen field. Yet, as he 
 sees how rapidly his sun is setting, his chief re- 
 gret is that the night will call him from so unfin- 
 ished a task. He says he knows but little 
 compared to what he might know, give him time. 
 Leonardo da Vinci Avas a marvel of intellectual 
 culture. But how much more marvellous would 
 have been his acquirements could he have lived 
 until to-day? It must be intended that the soul 
 shall fully unfold its powers. Under no circum- 
 stances can it do so in this life. Must it not 
 have another life ? 
 
 All this is further enforced by the fact that so 
 many high ambitions and hopes fail of fulfilment 
 here. There is the story of a young woman re- 
 turning from a foreign land, weary, ill, longing 
 for home, on a steamer burned in sight of the 
 blessed goal. It illustrates much human experi- 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 243 
 
 ence. Death often compels the abandonment of 
 great hopes on the eve of fruition. Are they 
 never to be realized ? How many persons, just as 
 they are prepared to experience great good in life, 
 are called to leave it ! Is the good never to be 
 attained? With much toil and pains young men 
 and women are educated for usefulness and happi- 
 ness. They cross the threshold with their hearts 
 pulsating with great ambitions about what they 
 are going to be and do. But at the very begin- 
 ning the tools, fashioned with such care for carv- 
 ing out fortune, drop from their paralyzed hand. 
 Are they never to be taken up again ? Under the 
 mysterious touch, the brush of the artist falls with 
 the great picture as yet but an outline. Is the 
 picture never to be finished? The voice of the 
 poet is hushed with many a song yet unsung. 
 Are those songs forever to remain unsung? Some 
 of the most beautiful friendships in this world are 
 blighted by death almost as soon at they have 
 bloomed, while full of promise. Is that blessed 
 association, upon which death so early intruded, 
 every thought of which is a joy, henceforth to 
 be only a brief memory? 
 
 The administration of the divine government is 
 
244 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 equally suggestive of continuous life. While it 
 may generally prove true here, that "Whatever a 
 man soweth that shall he also reap," often it does 
 not. Many of the world's greatest benefactors 
 have lived to reap little more than persecution 
 and suffering for their self-sacrificing toil; while 
 those who constantly injure the world often flour- 
 ish like the green hay-tree, perhaps to the even- 
 ing time, and amid abundant comfort, seemingly 
 at least, fall peacefully asleep. Many crimes are 
 committed for which this world affords no chance 
 for penalty. The soul often takes its flight with 
 the fresh stains of sin yet upon it. And there is 
 another respect in which the divine rule demands 
 more than the present life. Doubtless there is 
 less inequality in human lot than is often thought. 
 Much called inequality is apparent rather than 
 real. Yet some do have a much better chance for 
 holiness and happiness in this world than others. 
 If the divine rule is to justify itself, there must be 
 experience with it beyond this life. 
 
 Of course many more hints of the continuance 
 of life might be added in this same line. But all 
 these evidences of immortality are insignificant 
 compared to one other. The human heart longs 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 245 
 
 for a " Thus saith the Lord." Do we not have 
 it in " Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, 
 and hath brought life and immortality to light 
 through the gospel " ? Some one has called at- 
 tention to the contrast between the thought of 
 immortality among the early Christians and their 
 pagan neighbors. The surrounding pagan world 
 rested under the black shadow of scepticism. 
 With the Christians the future world was almost 
 as certain as this one. Paul voices the faith of 
 the early church when he says, " For we know, 
 that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
 dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 Travellers tell us that in the Catacombs, where 
 are both Christian and pagan tombs, the Chris- 
 tian are distinguished by the greater faith of the 
 epitaph. If those early Christians had not seen 
 the risen Lord, or any one who had seen him, 
 they had testimony sufficiently at first hand to 
 make his resurrection a certainty. So that open 
 sepulchre was to them, and in a measure is to us, 
 a kind of window in that cloud-gate in which 
 every earthly pathway ends. 
 
 But Jesus gives other evidence of immortality 
 
246 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 scarcely less satisfactory than his reappearance 
 among his disheartened disciples. There is dis- 
 appointment sometimes that the Master did not 
 say more about the immortal life. It is true that 
 he does not say much specifically about it. He 
 does not even use the word •* immortality," or the 
 phrases "immortal life," or "future life." But 
 is there not very gratifying teaching in this si- 
 ence ? He assumes the doctrine of immortality 
 to be true. That is a very strong conviction of 
 the truth of a doctrine that assumes it to be true. 
 It suggests what a certainty immortality was to 
 Jesus that he did not think it necessary to argue 
 about it, or try to prove it. In that pathetic con- 
 versation with his shadowed disciples on the eve of 
 the great tragedy, he said, " In my Father's house 
 are many mansions: if it were not so 1 would have 
 told you." 
 
 The source of this certainty we do not know. 
 It may be that he was so far up the mount of 
 holiness, and so near to God, that he could hear 
 the whispers of the divine. Certainly he could 
 not have been mistaken, and thought he knew 
 when he did not know. A certain writer says, 
 "If one tells me ninety-nine truths, I will trust 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 247 
 
 him in the hundredth, especially if it is involved 
 in those before. When the clearest eye that ever 
 looked on the world and into the heavens, and 
 the keenest judgment that ever weighed human 
 life, and the purest heart that ever throbbed with 
 human sympathy, tells me, especially if he tells 
 it by assumption, that man is immortal, I repose 
 on his teaching in perfect trust." 
 
 After such a creditable witness to the exist- 
 ence of the immortal life, we may well pass on 
 to some consideration of the conditions of that 
 life. It may be thought that, if not presumptu- 
 ous, this cannot be a very satisfactory task ; that 
 the attempt to tell what kind of life awaits be- 
 yond the veil is like that of the author to de- 
 scribe an unvisited island of the sea. It is true, 
 as already intimated, that while the great Master 
 gives us good reason for believing in the immor- 
 tal life, he nowhere attempts any portrayal of it. 
 The Scripture once thought to be descriptive of 
 the future life is now regarded by most competent 
 authority as illustrative of conditions in this life. 
 We sometimes wish that Jesus, if only for a 
 moment, had lifted the veil that hides so much 
 we long to see ; that he had left at least one 
 
248 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 discourse on " Beyond the Gates , " that when 
 he said, " In my Father's house are many man- 
 sions," he had given a detailed description of the 
 heavenly house; that when he came back to 
 his disciples he had told them all about the land 
 he had just visited, and to which he would soon 
 return. There is a spot on the highlands back 
 of Lake Erie, where that magnificent stretch of 
 landscape that borders the lake opens to the 
 traveller journeying toward it all at once. The 
 first time I came to that spot, I stood entranced 
 before the wondrous scene, — grainfields, apple or- 
 chards, peach orchards, vineyards, beautiful homes, 
 so suddenly revealed. So perhaps the landscapes 
 of heaven wait to entrance us with the sudden- 
 ness of the view. 
 
 And yet imagination is not without aid here. 
 It is not true that the gospel tells us nothing of 
 the character of the immortal life. While the 
 great Teacher does not lift the veil from before 
 our longing eyes, his attitude toward it is very 
 suggestive of what is on the other side. It has 
 been said that the fact that Jesus so infrequently 
 refers especially to the immortal life, strongly 
 evidences the existence of that life. Is it not 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 249 
 
 also suggestive as to the character of that life? 
 Certainly were the immortal world entirely dif- 
 ferent from this morally, under different laws, 
 with different rewards and penalties, Jesus would 
 have told us all about it. The fact that he 
 says so little about the immortal life, especially 
 the fact that he is so largely concerned with 
 making men happy here, shows that he did not 
 distinguish between this and the next life ; that 
 in his mind the immortal, intellectually and mor- 
 ally at least, is essentially a continuance of this 
 present life. And why must not this be the 
 case ? The intellectual and moral nature sur- 
 vives. Death is merely the removal of the spirit- 
 ual tenant out of the material house into the 
 house not made with hands. The real person 
 is no more essentially affected by the change 
 than is a person by removal from one house into 
 another. The mind and heart, the will and con- 
 science, remain the same. Therefore death is not 
 a gateway into a foreign country, where a divine 
 government unlike what we are acquainted with 
 here prevails. Man enters the immortal world 
 to find the same divine government that has al- 
 ways ruled him ; barring material temptations, the 
 same moral relations as in this life. 
 
250 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 The good and bad are not materially separated 
 in this world. They live together in the same 
 community. The noble and ignoble touch elbows 
 on the street, deal with each other, yea, sleep 
 under the same roof, and eat at the same table. 
 God does not reward the righteous here with an 
 outward paradise, nor punish the wicked with 
 exile into some awful place. The divine govern- 
 ment here is administered within the soul. The 
 kingdom of God is within us. It cannot be dif- 
 ferent in the immortal life. Man enters the im- 
 mortal world not to find some place of reward or 
 punishment prepared for him, but to experience 
 whatever of heaven or hell within himself his pre- 
 vious life has prepared him for. The gateway of 
 death must open into a blessed heaven for him 
 who has made the most of his life. But how can 
 he who has lived mostly for the material here, 
 when entirely separated from it, find other, at first, 
 than a most barren life? He whose disposition 
 has not permitted happiness in this world will 
 scarcely enter at once into unalloyed bliss in the 
 next. He who does not find the backward look 
 pleasant from the summit of this life, because of 
 the faults and follies that mar the scene, from the 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 251 
 
 heights of the immortal will scarcely find it more 
 so. Indeed, under that whiter light will it not 
 be less satisfactory than before? 
 
 But with the same divine government, the 
 same Saviour, the same will and conscience, there 
 must' be the same opportunity of salvation in the 
 immortal world as here. The sinful soul can no 
 more lose its opportunity of repentance and ref- 
 ormation by entering the next world than by emi- 
 gration to France. Indeed, with its freedom from 
 earthly temptation, salvation must be easier in 
 that life. Can you conceive of a soul, however 
 sinful here, in the larger spiritual freedom and 
 light of the immortal life, with no more pleading 
 of the earthly appetite or impulse of evil passion, 
 remaining long out of the right way ? Is not all 
 this very comforting, especially in view of the 
 many who have had but poor chance of growth 
 in grace here? A certain gentleman has said 
 that he never walks through the poorer quarters 
 of his city, past the crowded tenement houses, 
 and looks at the little ragged forms and starved, 
 pinched faces at the windows and doorways, with- 
 out a great thankfulness for the thought that 
 these unfortunates are to have another and better 
 chance for their lives. 
 
ZbZ NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 The thought that the immortal world is not 
 divided into two localities, one of reward and 
 another of penalty, suggests the question, What is 
 it outwardly like ? The statement now so often 
 heard, that heaven and hell are conditions, not 
 places, is likely to create the unsatisfactory and 
 unreasonable idea that the immortal world is 
 " without form and void." Emerson speaks of 
 Swedenborg having taken an important step in 
 religious history when he taught a future world 
 with the accompaniments of all nature, where 
 should be continued "the like employments in 
 the like circumstances as those we know ; " and 
 quotes Milton as saying, " What if earth be but 
 the shadow of heaven and things therein, each to 
 the other like more than on earth is thought." 
 Certainly it is not a very satisfactory conception 
 of the future world that does not locate it, nor 
 give it any form or feature ; that juictures de- 
 parted spirits as shadows drifting on a sea of 
 space. We have been made to enjoy this mate- 
 rial world. We delight in the forms of nature, 
 — the hills, the lakes, the streams, the trees, the 
 flowers. Would our nature permit satisfaction 
 with a world where there is nothing like these? 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 253 
 
 Some writer has said, " Three things there must 
 be in heaven, — children and music and flowers." 
 This suggests the question, Why may not liber- 
 ated spirits still remain amid these material scenes 
 they have loved? Why should we think of the 
 immortal world as in some distant realm of space ? 
 I like the old illustration of the immortal life 
 drawn from the transformation that results in a 
 butterfly. The butterfly sheds his husk, not to 
 find himself in another world, but still in the old 
 world, with increased capacity to use and enjoy 
 it; the power to rise into the sunshine, and find 
 the flowers. Why may not death be, not transpor- 
 tation, but transformation in a sense, — birth out 
 of the material, yet into the same old world, with 
 new visions and uses of it ? The poet says : — 
 
 " So sometimes comes to soul and sense 
 The feeling which is evidence 
 That very near about us lies 
 The realm of spiritual mysteries. 
 The sphere of the supernal powers 
 Impinges on this world of ours." 
 
 The thought that the spirit world may be right 
 here gives rise to an old and perplexing question. 
 Must not its happiness often be spoiled by the 
 
254 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 miseries of earth? How can the mother, amid 
 whatever sources of delight, mid it heaven, know- 
 ing that the little ones whose heartstrings were 
 so interwoven with hers that in all their sufferings 
 she herself felt a pang, are being neglected and 
 abused ? It has been well asked whether she 
 would be any happier ignorant of their fate. May 
 it not be said that earthly suffering cannot appear 
 to immortal as mortal eyes ? The mother in 
 heaven knows not only that while the weeping 
 of her child may endure for a night, joy cometli 
 in the morning, but perhaps sees how his light 
 affliction, which is but for a moment, works for 
 him a " far more exceeding and eternal weight 
 of glory." 
 
 But let us consider briefly some other features 
 of the immortal life. It is a common conception 
 of heaven, often expressed in sermon and song, 
 that it is " a land of rest." " There the wicked 
 cease from troubling, and there the weaiy be at 
 rest." Says a beautiful sacred song, " Up above 
 the stars there is rest." Of course the immortal 
 world cannot impose the burdens of toil that 
 the earthly pilgrim often longs to lay down. A 
 realm without material necessities must be with- 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 255 
 
 out many of the labors of this life, and no work 
 in such a world can be the severe taskmaster it 
 often is here. There the body does not wear 
 out from the friction of hard work ; the back 
 does not ache under burdens too heavy for it ; 
 the fingers do not stiffen with the severity of 
 their tasks. " What shall we eat, and what shall 
 we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " 
 is no longer a harassing anxiety. Of many a 
 one who enters the immortal life, it must be 
 blessedly true that "he rests from his labors." 
 
 And yet would that life be satisfactory were 
 there no kind of labor there ? Human nature was 
 made for activity. Inactivity soon ceases to be 
 rest. Many persons are miserable in this world 
 from having nothing to do. How wearisome would 
 the immortal life become with no other pursuit than 
 singing God's praise ! Think of the mind which 
 has been especially active here, that has found 
 its very life in excursions through these won- 
 drous realms of thought, being happy in a world 
 where there is nothing to think about ! Is it 
 heaven to Agassiz if he can no longer pursue his 
 favorite sciences? Is it not darkness to Her- 
 schel if he is shut out from the light of the 
 
256 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 stars? Is Longfellow happy if lliere is no inspi- 
 ration to song? 
 
 Is there any reason why there should not be 
 as good an opportunity in the immortal life of 
 intellectual and moral activity as here ? The 
 necessity for men to instruct and make better 
 themselves and others must furnish ample exer- 
 cise for all. It may be that the opportunities of 
 knowledge will be so much greater that all will 
 become delighted students there. I recall a dis- 
 course in which the preacher referred to the new 
 opportunities that the immortal life will give to 
 science. He thought that there may not be any 
 impediment to transit in that life. And why 
 should not the celestial inhabitant have all the 
 freedom of the skies ? Why should he not visit 
 the outermost world of space, and test for him- 
 self Mr. Proctor's wondrous picture of far-away 
 worlds, clothed in ever-changing loveliness" under 
 colored suns ? Perhaps with the material veil 
 removed, the immortal spirit may see this mar- 
 vellous mechanism of force about us, the, to us, 
 unseen loom that weaves the flowers. 
 
 But there is a more important consideration 
 with respect to the immortal life. It concerns 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 257 
 
 its social relations. The probability of recogniz- 
 ing friends in the immortal life has been a much- 
 discussed theme. Certainly it will be practically 
 annihilation if we do not retain conscious iden- 
 tity, and as little desirable if we do not know 
 each other. The greatest good of this world re- 
 sults from its friendships and kinships. Of what 
 value would this world be to you if all the cords 
 were cut that bind you to others? Chapin said, 
 " The most lonely of beings is a man cut off 
 from all social relations and domestic ties. The 
 rock that stands out in the ocean alone with the 
 sky and the surf is only an image of human des- 
 olation. . . . There is nothing so solitary as a 
 solitary man." Whatever the attractions of the 
 immortal life, though its sky be fairer than any 
 overarching the earth, though its landscapes be 
 more charming than any that have ever inspired 
 the painter's brush, it must be desolation if friend 
 does not meet with friend. No thought of that 
 life so quickens the pulses as that those to whom 
 we so reluctantly said good-night are waiting 
 to bid us a glad good-morning, when we shall 
 awaken from the sleep of death into that eternal 
 day. 
 
258 NOBL^ LIVING. 
 
 But how can disembodied spirits know each 
 other? Here we recognize each other very 
 largely, though not wholly, by form and feature. 
 How can we know each other when these bodies 
 have been laid aside to crumble to their parent 
 dust ? " How are the dead raised up, and with 
 what body do they come ? " Paul says, " There 
 is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." 
 Stopford Brooke says, " If we believe in God at 
 all, that a new form should knit itself to a mind 
 and spirit which have become personal through 
 the memories and worth of a human life, is no 
 more incredible than that they should have been 
 originally knit together/' Many years ago, in his 
 famous Analogy, Bishop Butler taught what has 
 since been more specifically illustrated by the sci- 
 entific believer, — that there is not only a spiritual 
 body, but with the same form as the natural body. 
 It has been said, in opposition to materialism, that 
 instead of the body giving birth to the spirit, the 
 spirit originates the body. Why may not the 
 'material body be a garment which the soul has 
 woven for itself ? If the body be a mantle draped 
 about the spiritual form, then when it is torn 
 away by the hand of death, the form will remain. 
 
THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 259 
 
 What a comforting thought it is that we shall see 
 again the same familiar form, greet again the same 
 beloved face that faded into the darkness, in 
 whose very expression there was such comfort, 
 inspiration, and joy ! 
 
 What a wonderful thought this is of the immor- 
 tal life! Many grand conceptions have resulted 
 from the human mind. But grander than any 
 machinery it has invented, grander than any of 
 its thoughts of the marvels of space, is this 
 thought of immortal life. What a thought it is 
 that you and I will never cease to be ; that the 
 scenes we have known and the friends we have 
 enjoyed we shall always know and enjoy ; that 
 life is an endless highway ; death, as some one has 
 called it, "a covered bridge." We pass through 
 to overtake those who have gone on in advance of 
 us, and in their blessed companionship, dearer and 
 sweeter than was possible here, because there are 
 no longer any differences of opinion to alienate, any 
 earthly struggles and trials to irritate, — in their 
 blessed companionship to go on and up forever, 
 with constantly new visions and new joys. Who 
 can think of it without increased respect for him- 
 self, without feeling that a being of such noble lin- 
 
260 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 eage and destiny is too good to live an unworthy 
 life ? Remembering that " the pure in heart see 
 God," that "spiritual things are spiritually dis- 
 cerned," we should so live that the immortal life 
 will be a constant reality to us. 
 
A PERFECTED CHARACTER: THE 
 GOAL OF LIFE. 
 
 Feed Augustine Dillingham. 
 
A PERFECTED CHARACTER: THE GOAL 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 i. Life. 
 
 Human life is a problem, in its present estate, 
 in its mediate and ultimate destiny ; and the prob- 
 lem grows as our consciousness of its elements 
 increases. In its lowest conception it involves 
 struggle, and pronounces its interrogatory, " How 
 shall life be sustained ? " As the conception 
 broadens, struggles increase, and questions multi- 
 ply in number and interest. In its lowest forms 
 the attainment of temporary physical comfort is 
 about the only thought and effort. When man 
 recognizes the relationships and interdependen- 
 cies of physical functions, the question becomes, 
 how to harmonize, how to lubricate, the various 
 bearings, that the machine may run without fric- 
 tion. 
 
 The dawning consciousness of intellectual fac- 
 ulties and need still further complicates the 
 problem ; and in the gratification and growth of 
 
 263 
 
264 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 these powers, in the provision for these needs, 
 life rises to a higher dignity, realizes a larger 
 usefulness, and returns a sweeter blessing. 
 
 So with the recognition of the powers and 
 claims of our social, moral, sesthetic, and spiritual 
 being. Each forward step carries us farther into 
 the problem ; each upward step increases labor, 
 adds responsibility, presents new and more diffi- 
 cult problems. At the same time our horizon of 
 life is broadening, fresh delights open along the 
 way, new realms of knowledge come within our 
 range ; and the exhilarating, inspiring advance 
 upon the heights grants the sweetest satisfactions, 
 and promotes the largest health and growth. Hu- 
 man life is not only a problem ; it is an individual, 
 personal problem. The spirit and accomplish- 
 ment of the life depend upon a personal compre- 
 hension of its powers and possibilities. A large 
 vision of life's power is not always the assurance 
 of large accomplishment ; but no large accomplish- 
 ment can come without the large vision. It is the 
 prime essential. The first thing for the individual 
 to do in preparing for life is to take an honest view 
 of the situation, face his conditions, and take an 
 inventory of his personal estate. By an honest 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 265 
 
 view we mean accepting the universal testimony 
 of the senses, universal intuitions, and the bright- 
 est light of discovery and revelation. What is 
 man ? Physically he is an animal ; i.e., with or- 
 gans, adjustments, needs, desires, which, properly 
 supplied, conduce to physical health, growth, re- 
 production, and comfort. But more than this, 
 the physical man is adjusted to minister to the 
 higher faculties of mind and soul, and through 
 these in return to receive a ministration which 
 exalts merely animal comfort to human happiness. 
 
 Man is soul ; he is an emanation from God ; 
 he is God's child ; he has God-given faculty and 
 capacity; he is God-like in the quality of intel- 
 lect, affection, and will, in moral and spiritual in- 
 stincts and powers ; he has capacity and desire 
 for the exercise of all these faculties. 
 
 How is man conditioned? He is placed in a 
 physical realm that is friendly, that readily fur- 
 nishes all needed supply for physical life and 
 growth, — an ample sphere filled with plenteous 
 stores of material to captivate the eye, delight 
 the aesthetic sense, stimulate and enlarge the in- 
 tellect, and enlist the affections, — opportunities, 
 necessarily exercising the will, realms for test- 
 
266 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 ing the social and moral powers. And to-day 
 not only the leadings of a universal spiritual in- 
 tuition, hut the revelations to the spirit, the ex- 
 periences of the race, and the discoveries of 
 nature's harmonies, assure man of his relation- 
 ship to and dependence upon God, — of the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and of his relations and 
 duties to man. 
 
 Life means not only a recognition, but activity, 
 of the faculties. Activity is natural, and is in- 
 duced by the necessary conditions of contact with 
 earth. The infant lungs are congested, and leap 
 into action by contact with air. The eyes are 
 called into action by light, and the ears by sound. 
 The demands of the new relation create hunger, 
 under conditions which provide supply. The in- 
 tellect dawns by contact with that upon which it 
 feeds. Love feels its impulse ; the will, moral 
 and spiritual faculties, assert themselves under 
 the divine provision of nature. Natural activity 
 involves neither pain nor loss, but suspended 
 activity involves both. It is natural and easy to 
 breathe, unnatural and harmful to cease. It is 
 natural and easy to think, sometimes impossible 
 to stop. Natural and easy to will and love, un- 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 267 
 
 natural and harmful to impede the action of 
 either. It is natural to have and exercise moral 
 sense and spiritual aspiration, unnatural and with- 
 ering to suppress them. 
 
 Life means the healthy, natural exercise of pow- 
 ers. Growth, whether physical, intellectual, moral, 
 or spiritual, is dependent upon health. The study 
 of men discovers how inadequate has been the 
 comprehension of the marvellous powers of life. 
 Men have failed to see life in its fulness of power, 
 in its wealth of endowment, in its varied functions, 
 in its myriad adaptations. 
 
 The most noticeable thing in a survey of human 
 life is its lack of symmetry. The average human 
 life is so different from its design and possibility, 
 even in its contour. The divinely beautiful tree 
 has been deprived of nourishment or sun ; its 
 budding powers have been sadly and ruthlessly 
 closed ; the tap-root running into the soil of the 
 Infinite has been partially, and often practically, 
 sealed up. A few wild, unsightly, and barren 
 branches too often confront us, in place of the 
 divinely beautiful, natural, and symmetrical tree 
 filled with, and contributing to, life. 
 
 No one can take a calm, thoughtful view of 
 
268 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 life without being filled with wonder and aston- 
 ishment at its marvellous mechanical design ; its 
 eloquent scope ; its range of faculty, extending 
 from the needed ministry of the physical to the 
 no less needed ministry of the spiritual ; its ad- 
 justments for time and for eternity ; its commu- 
 nions with Nature and with Nature's God. We 
 are possessed with wonder when we view the 
 complex and mammoth machines of human skill. 
 We view with growing astonishment the suns 
 and systems of God's physical universe. We fall 
 down in awe before the vision of God's gift of 
 life to man, which in design, in skill, in adjust- 
 ment, in possibility, is God's masterpiece. 
 
 II. The Goal. 
 
 Life is not an accident, but a design. The pos- 
 session of a "governor" by a machine is a pre- 
 sumption that it has a purpose, and that it has a 
 sphere of action ; so with the condenser, there is 
 something to be condensed, some need of conden- 
 sation for the success of the work. The existence 
 of this — God's masterpiece — is a presumption of 
 purpose, of legitimacy. That God is all-powerful 
 creates a profound respect and expectation con- 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 269 
 
 cerning his work. The work itself commands our 
 wonder. That God is all-wise forces the convic- 
 tion that this work is purposeful and resultful; 
 that he is all goodness assures us of its beneficent 
 design in relation to himself, itself, and the world ; 
 that he is all-loving confirms our hope that the 
 results will be felicitously consummated. The 
 existence of life is not only the pledge of a divine 
 purpose or goal, but the wealth of human faculty 
 sheds light upon the wide extent of realms that 
 are tributary to this result. The existence of 
 each faculty is God's guaranty that it has a part 
 to act in the drama of the soul's existence. The 
 possession of physical being is the assurance of 
 its divine relation to the goal. The possession of 
 intellect is God's command to us to use it in the 
 service of life. The possession of will and affec- 
 tion command their exercise. The leadings of 
 instincts mark the way. The thirsts of the spirit 
 conduct to the fountain of soul-supply, and bid us 
 partake. Again the power of our endowment, the 
 observed accomplishments of life, are a prophetic 
 gleam of the magnitude of God's purpose. The 
 glow of conscious physical power and health ; 
 the reaches and triumphs of intellect, in whose 
 
270 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 crown rest the wonders of the microscopic atom 
 and the glories of the telescopic sphere ; the in- 
 spiration of love, under power of which hearts 
 and homes have given birth to society and nation, 
 in whose embrace the families and kindred of the 
 earth find a place, and whose altars burn with 
 the spirit of helpfulness for a universe of souls ; the 
 power of will in shaping the destinies of men and 
 nations ; the artistic skill that has wrought such 
 wonders ; the aesthetic sense that has so persist- 
 ently and helpfully ministered to the every stage 
 and condition of life ; the moral sense that has 
 directed and held sway in the vicissitudes of indi- 
 vidual, social, and national struggles ; the spiritual 
 impulse and uplift that has left no man without a 
 present help, no nation without a God, and has 
 been as the beacon of hope to the storm-tossed, a 
 haven of rest to the weary, — these are the earnest 
 of a sublime, divine purpose. 
 
 While a careful survey of life gives no uncer- 
 tain sound regarding the existence of a divine 
 purpose, it gives sadly eloquent testimony that 
 many men have failed to apprehend that fact, 
 many more have failed to be inspired by it, and 
 most have failed to comprehend its nature, its 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 271 
 
 breadth, or its complete harmony. Many have 
 never been awakened from the earth-long sleep of 
 physical existence ; or, if aronsed, have gained bnt 
 an indistinct vision of higher glories, and have 
 lapsed into slumber. Others have stood tempo- 
 rarily upon the heights where the delights of the 
 intellect, the pulsings of the will, the throb of love, 
 the sense of moral responsibility, or the ecstasy 
 of spiritual reality have swept over and through 
 them, only to close these divine avenues through 
 lack of purpose. Still others, having tasted the 
 sweets of either the physical, intellectual, affec- 
 tional, moral, or spiritual realm, have closed their 
 eyes to all others ; and thus recklessly have de- 
 stroyed, not only the symmetry of growth, but 
 have withheld from life the rich fruitage of a 
 developed whole, and have failed to realize the 
 richest possibilities of the chosen field. 
 
 The successes of life are only attained by pur- 
 pose. Chance winds may blow an occasional 
 blossom across our path, but they never cultivate 
 flowers. Whatever has been achieved in any of 
 the wide domains of life has been born of an aim; 
 some end in view has lured and cheered and 
 strengthened the toiler on his way. The aimless 
 
272 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 man is not only unproductive, lie is a burden to 
 himself and society, he is one of the serious prob- 
 lems in modern civilization ; he has to be sup- 
 ported, if not with the necessities of existence, 
 surely by the many provisions of a wise society ; 
 he is not a power, but a pensioner in society, in 
 business, and in everything that draws strength 
 from the higher realm of life. Looking at the 
 activities and the accomplishments of life — all 
 the results of purpose — we cannot fail to be im- 
 pressed with the conviction that there has been 
 strong purpose acting as the lever of the world's 
 progress, and also that the purposes of men have 
 a wonderful variety and intensity. The accom- 
 plishments of good that dot the pages of human 
 history and mark its glory are eloquent testimo- 
 nies and hopeful prophecies, and its increasing- 
 army of devotees to the good, the beautiful, and 
 the true, and its steady advance in the realms of 
 knowledge and life, mark the still nearer and 
 nearing approach of the purposes of men to the 
 purpose of God ; while the accomplishments of 
 evil, seen as such by the good, and largely 
 acknowledged as such by the workers of evil, 
 remain as problems, although carrying in their 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 273 
 
 bosoms the weapons of their own destruction in 
 the confession of their selfish purpose and greed. 
 The dominance of legitimate purposes in the ac- 
 tivities of life marks our hopeful advance. Still, 
 the goals of life as viewed and pursued by men 
 in the direction of progress are sadly inadequate, 
 oftentimes they cross purposes from a lack of 
 harmonious action. No adequate purpose of life 
 can be formed by confining our vision to one 
 faculty or sphere of life. Our faculties are inter- 
 dependent. Our highest motive comes of a rec- 
 ognition of all faculties, and a desire to so adjust 
 them, one to the other, each to all, that the har- 
 mony may be secured. The history of life testi- 
 fies to the preponderance of partial and individual 
 motives in the struggles of life. Partial views, 
 partial activities, have withered the crop, or pro- 
 duced fruit inferior in quality and quantity for 
 the world's sustenance. Results have been only 
 partially satisfying. It is not possible for a 
 partial success to satisfy man ; it is not possible 
 for the man whose only success is the attainment 
 of physical health and comfort to feel satisfied. 
 The ascent of intellectual heights while other 
 realms are untried or unknown is inadequate to 
 
274 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 human need. Wealth, fame, position, all have 
 been sought, and all, notwithstanding their worth, 
 when weighed in the balance with man's needs, 
 are found wanting. There are goodly pearls in 
 any of the many fields of life ; no one of which, 
 however, is worthy to rest " solitaire " in the 
 crown of life ; but all are worthy a place in the 
 setting of the pearl of great price, from whose 
 surpassing lustre each gains an added value and 
 increased beauty. 
 
 Not only is there a great diversity of aims in 
 human life, but the various stages of the same life 
 may be, and often are, marked by radical changes 
 in purpose. The goal the child sets before him- 
 self, and which for the time holds him in en- 
 thusiastic adherence for its attainment, gives place 
 to a new purpose under his broadening vision and 
 ripening experience, which in turn is supplanted 
 by another. What is true in childhood is true, 
 in lesser extent, in youth, still true in the least 
 degree in age. What more natural ; what more 
 necessary? Youthful vision, limited observation, 
 brief experience, in the study of life, give short 
 range to the goal, the pleasurable is seen as de- 
 sirable, and it is seen as near; but, with the 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. Zi 
 
 awakening of the larger powers, the field broad- 
 ens, the ambitions take a loftier flight, experience 
 deepens our purpose, and the goal is still at a 
 remoter distance, calling for greater and longer 
 continued devotion in a pathway beset with dif- 
 ficulties. Thus the cultivation of our powers, the 
 feeding of our faculties, conduce to a breadth of 
 purpose which, while it dethrones the small usur- 
 pers of life's little kingdoms, elevates them to the 
 peerage in the larger government of the larger 
 kingdom of life. 
 
 ni. Character. 
 
 Among the aims that have actuated human life, 
 character holds conspicuous place. A character 
 is a mark, and as applied to life is the way or 
 groove, cut out by one's self, in which to move. 
 .Character, whether good or bad, is a commanding 
 force. But as evil forces are temporary by nature 
 and necessity, having the whole power of internal, 
 external, and eternal means to subdue them, we 
 shall consider only character as directed to a per- 
 manent good. Character is not nature, it is not 
 primitive natural impulse, it is not a gift from 
 God ; it is a human product ; it cannot be pur- 
 
276 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 chased from another, or put on as a garment; it 
 cannot be transferred ; it is something attained ; it 
 is a creation, a growth ; it is not a transient im- 
 pulse, but a stable habit. Nature is God's gift 
 to us ; character is our gift to God. Nature 
 furnishes the material ; character is the human 
 product. Character is the verdict we pronounce 
 upon the problem of life ; it represents our solu- 
 tion. Character represents, not possession of the 
 things of the world, but the possession of one's 
 self. It is not expressed in the things acquired, 
 but in the principle or method of acquisition. 
 The stronghold of character is that it recognizes 
 the supremacy of right, and that its kingdom is 
 within us. Nature questions how to obtain food 
 for its impulses ; character studies how these shall 
 be fed to insure health and growth. Character 
 interrogates life's impulses, and asks, not what 
 does appetite seek, but what will satisfy and bless. 
 Character asks of intellect, as it stands on the 
 border land of rich territory, not how much can 
 be gathered of whatsoever kind, but what can be 
 gleaned to contribute to intellectual power and 
 life's largest good. Character discriminates, it 
 sifts, it adjudicates, it rules, on the conviction of 
 permanent good. 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 277 
 
 The ideal of highest good has varied in the ages 
 and stages of human progress. Character has 
 been manifested and expressed in many ways, but 
 it always has the mark of a definite purpose and 
 method to serve what is believed to be good. 
 
 Scientists tell us that magnetism is not a for- 
 eign something that is imparted to a bar of iron, 
 whereby it is made magnetic, but that magnetism 
 is a native quality of iron, or a particular arrange- 
 ment of its atoms. Science says that magnetization 
 simply rearranges the atoms, and that a bar of iron 
 is magnetic in character when the atoms are so 
 arranged that the inherent magnetic quality leach. 
 Human character is formed, not by importing a 
 foreign substance, but by a definite arrangement 
 of faculties. Characters productive of evil come 
 by elevating to the throne of power and the posi- 
 tion of leadership an infirm, perverted, or naturally 
 tributary impulse. Characters productive of good 
 come from such an arrangement of our faculties 
 and powers in life that the higher permanent fac- 
 ulties shall lead. Men are characterized in fact 
 and in reputation generally by their leading mo- 
 tive. Some men are intellectually polarized; they 
 feel that the intellectual realm is superior, that 
 
278 NOBLE LIVING 
 
 intellectual needs are superior, and that intellec- 
 tual attainments are supreme. Others have a voli- 
 tional or affectional polarization, others have an 
 aesthetic polarity, still others moral or spiritual. 
 And all these characteristics are seen with their 
 numerous radiations as they reach out into the 
 varied and rich fields of human thought and ac- 
 tivity. Character has various qualities, dependent 
 upon whether inspired by the ideas of happiness, ' 
 utility, or absolute right. Characters have assur- 
 ance in varying degrees, dependent upon the recog- 
 nized source of power, whether as in the individual 
 or in the race or in the Supreme Spirit. Charac- 
 ters have scope and power dependent upon the 
 conviction of life as temporal or eternal. 
 
 At this stage of advancement in human life, 
 it cannot be seriously doubted that the highest 
 character is marked by the Christian purpose to 
 serve right, reposing in its assurance of birth from 
 and government by the infinite God, and reading- 
 its destiny in immortality. The influences that 
 have operated all through human history to crys- 
 tallize purpose into character have been numerous 
 and mighty; the persistent and unrelenting im- 
 pulse of the soul, which has never allowed man to 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 279 
 
 rest satisfied save in right; the harmonies of phys- 
 ical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual life that 
 have gradually lifted men into a vision and appre- 
 ciation of lightness and wholeness ; the undying 
 influence of manifested good and truth and beauty 
 as it has shone upon us from the hilltops of life, 
 in saint, sage, psalmist, and prophet — not in any 
 one, but in all ages of the world — and especially 
 in the life of Jesus Christ. Truly the angel of the 
 Lord has not only been encamped round about 
 man, but has kept vigil at his inner tent, — the 
 Holy of Holies. As a contribution to, and as a 
 direct and all-powerful influence in, crystallizing 
 human character, the life and teaching of Jesus 
 Christ stand as unique. In the teachings of Jesus 
 the world gets its first grand and inspiring knowl- 
 edge of the Universal Father. This vision of di- 
 vine origin, divine and imperishable love, divine 
 and unending guardianship, and of divine purpose, 
 at once laid the necessary and permanent founda- 
 tion of enduring purpose in man. Man then saw 
 himself divine, divined, and capable of divining. 
 In the gospel the world first saw the reality of uni- 
 versal brotherhood and what it involved. Then 
 the world held the sufficient evidence, legitimizing 
 
280 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 the existence and purpose of all power, and com- 
 manding a husbandry of all resources. In the life 
 of Jesus, truly the Word (" gospel ") made flesh, 
 the living, practising, illustrating personality, the 
 world first saw the picture of life as God designed 
 it, as man should view it and live it. Once seen, 
 it has been recognized by the world as the sublime 
 ideal and manifestation of life. Its prophecies in 
 dull outline had long blessed the world and fed 
 its hope. Its copies, drawn in all succeeding time, 
 with varying degrees of perfection, testify to its 
 matchless beauty, its supreme inspiration, and its 
 mastery still. It is the crowning manifestation of 
 character, recognized as such the world over. It 
 is the crowning inspiration to human thought and 
 effort, as advancing Christian civilization testifies. 
 Christian character, the character that compre- 
 hends the gospel principle and exemplifies gospel 
 virtues, is the type before which the world bends 
 in grateful homage, and in which reposes its fond- 
 est hope. 
 
 IV. A Perfected Character. 
 
 We are apt to think of anything as perfected 
 when completed, when it has reached its possi- 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 281 
 
 bility, when it is full, incapable of further addi- 
 tion or improvement. Thus viewed, the question 
 arises, " Can a character be perfect? " Can there 
 be attained such a completeness that nothing 
 further is desirable or possible ? Can a character 
 attain its growth at any time or period so that 
 beyond it there is no change? This is not a 
 frivolous speculation, but it has distinct and force- 
 ful bearing on the deep questions of time and 
 eternity. " If life means growth, if time means 
 opportunity for growth, and full growth is at- 
 tained by any soul, of what service is the balance 
 of eternity to that soul? It would seem to thus 
 have outstripped the infinite design, or outdone 
 the divine expectation. Absolute perfection is 
 an ideal, and not to humanity an accomplished or 
 accomplishable thing, if thus popularly viewed. 
 Certain it is that no known life on the earth has 
 reached such a stage of completeness. We have 
 had great specialists in the various fields of 
 human accomplishment ; but we have never seen 
 an all-round, all-rounded, fully developed life, i.e., 
 one exhausting human possibility. We have had 
 great warriors, weak in morals. We have had 
 wise philosophers, dwarfed in spirit. We have 
 
OQ-7 
 
 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 had specialists in the knoAvledge of earth, ignorant 
 of the stars ; wise scientists who could control 
 many of earth's forces, still ignorant of self-con- 
 trol. And at the best, no warrior, philosopher, 
 geographer, or scientist has the world seen, who 
 held undisputed the title of rider, — no one who 
 had in any way exhausted the possibilities of his 
 faculties or the field of research. We have had 
 great and wise instructors in morals and religion ; 
 still, how incomplete has seemed the world's sys- 
 tems in both realms. The systems have largely 
 been proven incomplete and faulty. Look at the 
 teachers themselves, even the founders of moral 
 and religious systems, and see, under growing 
 light of the world, how imperfect most appear, 
 how Aveak in comprehension and in government. 
 In its comprehension and character Christianity 
 rises mountain high above the summits of ordi- 
 nary hills. No ! — earth has not produced abso- 
 lute completion in the development of human life. 
 If by perfection we mean reaching that point 
 beyond which no more is possible, perfection be- 
 comes impossible except as an idea, by the law 
 of life, the opportunit}^ of life, and the duration 
 of life, which point to endless progression. 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 283 
 
 We might fancy that a science, the possession 
 of whose secrets made one a pre-eminent teacher 
 on earth, might be exhausted under a few aeons 
 of eternity ; still, when we think that to know 
 any one thing thoroughly, one must know all 
 things, the day of perfect knowledge is pushed 
 into the dim eternity. We might think that one 
 who had learned in time or in the young days of 
 eternity to know of the existence of the infinite 
 God, and to apprehend his love for his children, 
 might become perfected in spiritual motive and 
 power and service in the opening cycles of eter- 
 nity. But when we reflect what it means to 
 know God as he knows us, to grow to a full pos- 
 session of infinite compassion, to be perfect in 
 everything, the day of absolute perfection recedes. 
 If history can be trusted, perfection — absolute, 
 entire fulness in everything — has never appeared 
 on earth. When Enoch walked with God, when 
 Abraham was commanded to be perfect, the eter- 
 nity-long ideal was not brought before them, but 
 something they were to, and could, accomplish 
 while in the flesh, in the process of development, 
 in a still imperfect condition. Job i. 1 says 
 the man of Uz was " perfect and upright," but a 
 
284 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 study of the character will impress the fact that 
 absolute fulness of knowledge and being was not 
 and could not be postulated of him. The injunc- 
 tion of Jesus to his disciples, " Be ye therefore 
 perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
 is perfect," was certainly not to encourage the 
 disciples in the hope or expectancy of becoming 
 equal with God. His word to the rich young 
 man, who had kept all the commandments from 
 his youth up, " If thou wilt be perfect, go sell that 
 thou hast, and give to the poor," cannot possibly 
 be construed as identifying added thoughtfulness 
 and ministry to the poor with absolute character- 
 perfection, meaning completion or fulness. Even 
 the character which we all so much delight to 
 ascribe to Jesus himself as the perfect man, the 
 perfect teacher, the perfect Saviour, must be taken 
 with a restricted meaning, certainly not in its 
 absolute fulness. Jesus said, " I can of mine own 
 self do nothing ; " that is certainly not a claim of 
 absolute perfection, meaning fulness of power. 
 He said there were things he did not know; that 
 certainly limits absolute fulness of knowledge. 
 Not to detract, heaven forbid ! one jot or one 
 tittle from the supreme glory of Jesus Christ as 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 285 
 
 man or teacher or Saviour, not to deny or doubt 
 any claim he made for himself, not to detract 
 from the popular apprehension of his exalted 
 sphere, but in absolute fidelity to what we believe 
 he taught and was. Perfection thus seen is an 
 ideal, ultimate product, a goal towards which we 
 look for inspiration, towards which we work, but 
 never attain. 
 
 The terms "perfect," "perfection," and "per- 
 fected," are most commonly used, not in this sense 
 of absolute completeness, but in an accommodated 
 sense, referring to quality rather than quantity, or 
 again referring to stages of development rather 
 than full development, also as referring to a prom- 
 ise of good rather than accomplished good. A 
 tone may be perfect in quality without reference 
 to volume or range, which may be soft or harsh, 
 high or low. The rich young man was told how 
 to increase the quality of his life in the earth. He 
 was devout, obedient to God and man, virtuous ; 
 he needed the quality of mercy, not to complete 
 his character and accomplishment, or bring it to 
 that point beyond which there was no growth, 
 but to give it Christian quality, to fit it to be and 
 to do better things. 
 
286 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 We speak of perfection in the bud, the blossom, 
 and even in the unripe fruit, in this qualitative 
 Avay, and with reference to its promise of further 
 development. We speak of infancy, childhood, 
 youth, manhood, and age in terms of perfection, 
 referring to qualities that in the highest degree 
 characterize the stages of development. How 
 much is embraced in the fact of Jesus' perfection 
 we cannot now know ; we certainly believe that 
 not only the quality of his life was the most per- 
 fect, i.e., most like God's, that the world has ever 
 seen or shall see, but that in a peculiar way there 
 was a larger, more perfect range of conscious 
 power, a more perfect harmonious blending of 
 faculties, a more perfect subjection of the lesser, a 
 more perfect exaltation of the greater powers, than 
 the world has seen. 
 
 There was perfect oneness with God in the 
 quality of life, u the brightness of God's glory and 
 the express image [xapaKrr?p] of his person." Jesus 
 had, and represented to the world, in a pre-eminent 
 and appointed way the quality of a divinely bal- 
 anced life, actually as in God, potentially as in 
 man. 
 
 So perfect was this life, so true a representation, 
 
THE GOAL OF LIFE. 287 
 
 that it is, and is to be, the goal of earthly inspira- 
 tion, — the unclimmed pattern to point our search, 
 and stimulate our activity. 
 
 The "polarity " of Jesus' life was spiritual, and 
 thus discloses the perfect, divine order and proces- 
 sion by which souls advance in harmonious and 
 endless progress. Thus held, the idea of a per- 
 fected character takes its place as a legitimate goal 
 of life. • It is harmonious with the revealed 
 powers and purposes of God, that find expression, 
 not only in his word, but in his work, in the almost 
 infinite capacity of human faculty, in the scope of 
 human power, in the duration of soul-life, and in 
 the quality of its fruits. 
 
 It is harmonious with the innate and undying 
 desire of man to attain the best. 
 
 No man is permanently satisfied with imperfec- 
 tion in anything which he may undertake. 
 
 Earnest life is marked by inspection, retrospec- 
 tion, prospection, and a purpose to improve. 
 
 A vision of that which is true and beautiful 
 and good stimulates effort for its attainment ; and 
 each attempt, when found to be imperfect, serves 
 as a stepping-stone and spur for greater advance. 
 
 A soul is never satisfied when it has less than 
 
288 NOBLE LIVING. 
 
 the recognition and activity of all its powers, 
 when it has anything less than the highest revealed 
 ideal of divine and human service, anything less 
 than spiritual quality and leadership, anything less 
 than advancement in a symmetrical, spiritual de- 
 velopment. It is harmonious with the idea of its 
 possibility ; since what God has so clearly marked 
 out as his purpose in human life, and what univer- 
 sal man, as constituted and born of God, desires, 
 must be possible. 
 
 It is harmonious with facts as testified to in 
 human experience, and in the multitude of lives, 
 which, patterned after the Saviour, have helped to 
 lift, ennoble, and fructify the sources and forces of 
 human power, whereof the knowledge, virtue, and 
 joy of Christian civilizations eloquently testify.