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THINGS OP NORTHriELD 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER THINGS 
 
T hi rigs or.... 
 Norfhfidd 
 
 and.... other Things 
 
 THHT SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 Rev. DAVID GREGG, D.D. 
 
 Pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 Author of "Facts that Call for Faith," "Makers of the Ameri- 
 can Republic," ''The Testimony of the La?id to the 
 Book," "Our Best Moods," etc., etc. 
 
 New York 
 C. B. TREAT & COMPANY 
 
 Office of the Treasury Magazine 
 
 1599 
 
Gf 1 
 
 3>K''S& 
 
 24048 
 
 Copyright 1899 
 E. B. TREAT & COMPANY 
 
 rWO COPIES REC'iVED, 
 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 
 
 This volume consists of five discourses 
 preached in the Lafayette Avenue Presby- 
 terian Church in Brooklyn. There is much 
 demand in that church to see in print the ser- 
 mons there preached, that their impression 
 may be renewed and deepened ; and not a few 
 volumes have been made of these sermons to 
 meet this demand, as well as to carry the im- 
 pressive words to a wider circle. 
 
 The peculiar quality of the sermons here 
 presented, which justified the gathering of 
 them in a special volume under a common 
 name, is that they were preached after a visit 
 to Mr. Moody's annual summer convention at 
 Northfield, in which the author took part, and 
 that under their different headings they all 
 give expression to the emotions and thoughts 
 of an active pastor. As he turns back from 
 this great spiritual colloquy, and looks his own 
 people in the face, and asks his heart what now 
 
in his new thoughts and revived emotions he 
 would wish to translate from these northern 
 hills to this home church. It is a good thing 
 that a pastor may go away from the more com- 
 mon every Sunday surroundings, and fill his 
 soul freely with the finest spiritual food ; good 
 for him to have some other place than his own 
 closet and his own study for the gathering of 
 new strength for his work. But as he does all 
 this, he must needs wish that something of the 
 high, pure, open-air spiritual life of those holy 
 hills may come and remain among all his peo- 
 ple. These discourses ably and tenderly voice 
 this feeling and conviction. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Things of Northfield which Should Be in 
 
 Every Church, i 
 
 II. Why Are there Not More Conversions ? . 29 
 
 III. Our Task as Christians and What We Need 
 
 for Effectiveness, 57 
 
 IV. Am I Worldly ? 85 
 
 V. Our Duty to Our Young Men, . . .115 
 
THINGS OF NORTHFIELD WHICH 
 
 SHOULD BE IN EVERY 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 ' I speak ... if by any means I may provoke to emulation."— 
 Rom. xi.: 14. 
 
I. 
 
 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD WHICH 
 SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 
 
 Is not the summer a menace to the higher 
 life of man? Is it not a season of spiritual 
 weakness? That depends altogether on where 
 you spend the summer, and how. To some it 
 is ; to some it is not. 
 
 A summer spent at a fashionable resort, 
 where artificiality reigns, and the brass band 
 perpetually plays, and the midnight sees the 
 dance only well begun, and custom announces 
 that everybody is expected to be the incarna- 
 tion of the fashion-plate : — that may be a men- 
 ace to the higher life. But a summer spent at 
 Northfield, with prayer in the morning, and 
 church all day, and lights out at ten o'clock — 
 that is a summer of another kind. 
 
 I do not wonder that the question is asked : 
 " Is not the summer a menace to the higher life 
 of man? " The summer as it is now spent is a 
 3 
 
4 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD 
 
 season of relaxation. Everything takes a va- 
 cation, even conscience. Men and women are 
 away from under the eyes of home police. 
 They have time on hand to do as they please. 
 The spirit of self -abandon is in the air. It is 
 too hot to be serious ; and there is too much 
 languor of nerve and muscle and spirit that one 
 should be expected to rein himself up to any- 
 thing like duty or self-restraint. Expectation 
 is everywhere let down to a low tone. A man 
 demands little of his neighbor and nothing of 
 himself. The fact is this, during the summer 
 it is considered that no one is on duty. It is 
 the time when we city people expect to spend 
 our money and to make none. It is allowable 
 for us to use up the income of the whole year 
 to cover the expense of a single trip amid peo- 
 ple we know not, and among whom we can pose 
 for what we are not. Is my sarcasm misplaced? 
 Am I only a miserable pessimist? Am I simply 
 a mean slanderer of the summer? 
 
 Sometimes a single event, a single fact, gives 
 us an insight into the true nature of things. I 
 think this is the case here. Take one single 
 fact relative to the summer — the fact which 
 the bookseller tells us. What does the book- 
 seller tell us? He tells us that the one book 
 which commands the largest sale during the 
 
WHICH SHO VLD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 5 
 
 summer is the novel. Well, what of that? The 
 novel is a good thing ; it is the very widest door 
 to the mind of mankind. It carries inspira- 
 tion in it and mental tonic. It kindles and de- 
 velops love ; and man and woman can do noth- 
 ing better than love. Yes, all this is true of 
 the good and pure and wholesome novel. But 
 the bookseller tells us that the kind of novel 
 which sells best in the summer is the novel 
 which deals in realism, and whose morals are 
 doubtful. Is that true? Then the people are 
 not at their best in summer, and the higher life 
 of man is not being cultured. 
 
 Thoughtful and wise-hearted men have seen 
 the menace which the summer as spent in our 
 age carries in it, and it has awakened them to 
 search for a defence. They have seen idle 
 time going to waste ; they have seen the sleep 
 of conscience ; the frivolous and hurtful dissi- 
 pation ; the fashionable and unintellectual life, 
 and the charm of the questionable novel. They 
 have seen the people return to their homes 
 morally unkeyed and spiritually paralyzed; 
 and, moved to pity by the sight, they have 
 given themselves to the task of rinding a pre- 
 ventive. In their diagnosis of the case, they 
 have found that the origin of the trouble is 
 largely this: — unused time. As unoccupied 
 
6 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 time is the cause which makes the summer an 
 injury to so many, they have determined to 
 remove the cause by providing men with some- 
 thing good and grand wherewith to fill up their 
 time. And this I take it is the origin of Chau- 
 tauqua and Northfield and Long Beach and 
 Keswick and the summer school of theology at 
 Oxford. These are all of them intended to 
 protect the summer against waste, and against 
 what is worse than waste, viz. : a wrong and 
 bad use ; and they do so by filling the summer 
 with education, and with lofty fellowships, and 
 with pure and undefiled religion. 
 
 But it is with Northfield that I mean to deal 
 exclusively in this discourse. 
 
 Northfield is one of the oldest towns in the 
 United States. It dates back to the year 1663. 
 It is a typical New England town, with its one 
 wide street and giant elms. It is located in 
 one corner of Massachusetts where you can 
 look over into Vermont and into New Hamp- 
 shire and see the spurs of the Green Moun- 
 tains and the spurs of the White Mountains. 
 It is picturesque to the last degree. There are 
 river and forest and mountain and lake and 
 fertile valley. But what of this? There are 
 thousands of places in our land which can boast 
 of all I have mentioned. That is true. These 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 7 
 
 do not make Northfield. It is Mr. Moody 
 that makes Northfield, and the institution which 
 Mr. Moody has been instrumental in planting 
 there. At Northfield and on Mount Hermon 
 Mr. Moody has planted Christian schools for 
 young women and young men who have limited 
 means but high aims, and who wish above all 
 things a good and a distinctively Christian 
 education. In these schools are hundreds of 
 young men and women to-day, who are bound 
 to make their mark in this country, and to help 
 America to reach a higher level. Scholars from 
 these schools go to the ends of the earth, and 
 they carry with them a manhood and a woman- 
 hood which are themselves educational. Out 
 of these schools have gone pupils already who 
 have taken the highest honors in our leading 
 universities. Here on these Massachusetts 
 hills and in these educational plants, Chris- 
 tians of money should invest their consecrated 
 means, and enlarge and endow and perpetuate 
 these magnificent institutions which under God 
 are making the very men and women that the 
 future needs. Christian capitalist, instead of 
 building a costly shaft out in Greenwood to 
 perpetuate your name and lead people to ask 
 as they look on it, "Who was he, anyway?" 
 build a hall, or a chapel, or a library, or a 
 
8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 home to the name of Jesus Christ at Northfield, 
 and make your money live and educate and 
 develop and bless immortal souls to the end of 
 time. If you cannot give in large enough sums 
 for this, give in smaller sums. Select some or- 
 phan boy and send him to school there and make 
 a man out of him, and take his coming manhood 
 for Christ. Or select an orphan girl and send 
 her to school and make a woman out of her, 
 and take her coming womanhood for Christ. 
 
 But Northfield not only draws the youth of 
 our land to its Christian schools during the 
 school-term ; when the school-term is over and 
 when vacation has come, it draws to itself 
 bands of earnest Christian men and women, 
 that they may spend the summer among its 
 hills in quest of a higher, broader, deeper, fuller 
 spiritual life. In this regard it is like Oxford 
 of England, which has a summer conference for 
 study upon the more intellectual lines relative 
 to religion. A friend of mine who was at 
 Oxford this summer writes: " The profoundest 
 subjects have been treated with no dread of 
 results. There have been no truths too sacred 
 for reverent inquiry. Principal Fairbairn has 
 been really great, and he is the master spirit 
 here. The summer school is his. But yet 
 after all it is Oxford itself that is the charm 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 9 
 
 and the drawing-power. Here are the very 
 colleges in which the men who have made 
 England have been trained, and here are gath- 
 ered much of the noblest architecture, and the 
 most finished culture, and the richest achieve- 
 ments of the world. And then the place is 
 cool enough for comfortable work in summer." 
 That is it. There is a drawing charm about a 
 spot where educational institutions rise, which 
 are doing a great work ; and now that North- 
 field has its educational institutions, it has a 
 charm which draws and which helps to make 
 the summer Conference a power and a success. 
 
 It is Northfield as the seat of the summer 
 Christian Conference that we have before us 
 now. And Northfield as such has been greatly- 
 blessed by the Lord. God has blessed it to 
 such an extent, and has made it such a far- 
 reaching power, that I believe the great need 
 of our Christian churches is, that they be made 
 hungry with an intense hunger for the things 
 of Northfield. The things which succeed there 
 are the things which will succeed in every 
 Christian church. 
 
 Now I imagine you ask me : What did you 
 see in Northfield which ought to be in every 
 Christian church? The question calls for sev- 
 eral answers. 
 
io THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 i. / saw there a holy, hearty, life-giving, and 
 transforming and tra?isjigurating fellowship. 
 
 Such a fellowship certainly should character- 
 ize every church of Jesus Christ. There were 
 over two thousand people there, men and 
 women of the church universal, and yet all 
 were heartily welcomed, and all were made to 
 feel at home in this great household of faith. 
 That was one of the very first things that im- 
 pressed me, and I felt there was power in it, 
 and success in it. That is precisely what our 
 churches to-day need: — A fellowship which 
 welcomes, and which will make men and women 
 feel at home. Such a welcome is as divine sun- 
 shine. People will come to it, and respond to it, 
 and in it open all that is best in them and give 
 what is best to God and to others. Let no one 
 say, " Why, that is the welcome every church 
 gives to people " ; for it is not. If that were the 
 welcome the churches gave the people, the 
 churches would be full. A gentleman whom 
 I expect to see to-morrow told me this incident. 
 He is a D. D. , also a LL. D. , and a man of ex- 
 ceedingly fine presence. He said: "I went 
 into a Presbyterian church in New York to 
 hear Rev. Dr. B., lately come to the city. 
 Positively there was not one person in the 
 auditorium to every pew. The sexton showed 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. II 
 
 me into a seat in the middle aisle. Presently 
 a lady came up the aisle and stood in front of 
 the pew in which I was, and from her manner 
 I concluded she was the owner of the pew. I 
 rose, stepped into the aisle and handed her in. 
 She bowed her head and said whatever prayer 
 she had to say, and then bending toward me 
 she whispered, 'Do I know you?' I replied, 
 ' Madam, I do not think I have the honor of 
 an acquaintance. ' ' How did you get in my 
 pew?' 'The sexton showed me to this seat.' 
 'He should have known better than that.' 
 The Doctor of Divinity became at once anxious 
 to know who his kind friend was. The hymn 
 book helped him here. It contained the family 
 name. At the close of the service, using the 
 knowledge he had thus obtained, he addressed 
 his new-made friend : " Have I the honor of 
 speaking to Mrs. X? " " That is my name, sir. " 
 " I knew your late husband well : we were asso- 
 ciated together in many ways and very inti- 
 mately." "Indeed." Then he related several 
 things which awakened her interest; and be- 
 fore the conversation closed, all the ice had 
 thawed away, and she found that he was just 
 as good as she was. In bidding him good-day 
 she leaned over and said : " I hope you will not 
 think anything of the conversation which 
 
1 2 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD 
 
 passed between us at the beginning of the ser- 
 vice." That is an exaggerated case, but the 
 same thing is a possibility in a hundred other 
 pews in New York and Brooklyn. For one I 
 wish to say: It ought not to be a possibility 
 in a single pew throughout Christendom. No 
 child of God should ever be made to feel that 
 he is a stranger or that he is unwelcome in his 
 Father's House. 
 
 But it is of the power of the fellowship which 
 I saw at Northfield which I wish to speak. I 
 wish to lay emphasis upon its power. The fel- 
 lowship there had a testing power. It was self- 
 revealing. If you were nothing but an ordinary 
 Christian, you felt at once that that was your 
 true measure, and that that was all that you 
 were. Is it not something to be taught that 
 there is a life richer, and fuller of joy and of 
 power than that enjoyed by the ordinary 
 Christian? The truth is, that the deepest teach- 
 ings of Christ are almost meaningless to a large 
 number of the members of the church, so 
 ordinary is the average run of Christians. 
 
 The men and women who were present at 
 Northfield were in pursuit of high things, and 
 you felt it. Their religion was a reality to 
 them. God's book was a living voice to them, 
 and salvation through the blood of Christ was 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 13 
 
 a present thing. There was a hunger and a 
 thirst after righteousness in the very air. The 
 whole atmosphere was deeply and intensely 
 spiritual. By your contact with men and wom- 
 en you were made conscious of the absence of 
 the things you had not, but which you ought 
 to have. One felt how feeble his prayers were, 
 and how insignificant his self-sacrifices were, 
 and how little of God he admitted into his life. 
 On the other hand, one felt how great were his 
 possibilities, and how much he might do for 
 God and for self and for others, if he but ful- 
 filled the simple conditions of service laid down 
 in God's word. From all parts of the world 
 there were men and women present whom 
 God was using, and whose stories thrilled one 
 through and through, and found the lowest 
 depths of one's nature, and awoke in one an 
 enthusiasm and a faith and a desire to be used. 
 There was one man there who will be re- 
 membered as long as the Conference is remem- 
 bered. It was the patriarch, the Rev. Mr. 
 Young. He spent his whole life in laboring 
 among the North American Indians. He stood 
 before that audience, his silver locks a crown 
 of glory, a man veritably transfigured, feeling 
 through all his being the ecstasy of a self-sur- 
 render, long honored of God. All he did was 
 
14 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 to tell the story of his life, and how he was in- 
 strumental in bringing thousands to the knowl- 
 edge of Jesus Christ. The audience listened 
 with breathless attention when he told the sor- 
 row of an aged Indian who lost his Bible and 
 who traveled hundreds of miles to find it, and 
 who, when he found it, brought it back with 
 great joy to his wigwam. Methinks many a 
 heart in that audience felt rebuked at the way 
 it treated God's Book in this land of Bibles. 
 That man's life has been a wonderful life; but 
 then the man kept nothing back from God. 
 When Mr. Young finished, if any half-hearted 
 Christian in that audience had been asked to 
 put the life of this missionary to the Indians 
 and the life of A. T. Stewart side by side, and 
 choose which he would rather take before the 
 throne of God, he would have said, with an en- 
 thusiasm at white heat, " There is no room for 
 a comparison, there is only a striking and wilt- 
 ing contrast; give me Mr. Young's life a hun- 
 dred times over." 
 
 Such is the holy fellowship which every 
 church of Jesus Christ needs to-day ; but such 
 is not the fellowship which every church of 
 Jesus Christ has. There are churches on ev- 
 ery hand in which a man can live half-hearted, 
 cold, lukewarm, building up a questionable 
 
WHICH SHO ULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 1 5 
 
 character, doing questionable deeds, speaking 
 questionable words, and yet not be revealed 
 unto himself, not be rebuked, not be shamed 
 out of himself and his burlesque caricature of 
 the religion of Christ. I do not wonder that 
 these churches make no saving impression upon 
 the communities in which they are found. 
 They are not yet saved themselves. Give me 
 a church of converted men and women, in 
 which everything morally wrong stands re- 
 vealed and rebuked ; in which the close-fisted 
 man, and the man of the compromised charac- 
 ter, and the man religiously inactive feels 
 himself to be out of place ; in which honesty 
 and purity and truthfulness and love and a true 
 life are all and all ; give me such a church and 
 you give me a church that will command the 
 community, and save sinners by the hundreds, 
 and into which the saints will flock because 
 there they know they can find their best self, 
 and meet with Christ, and grow, and realize 
 the highest demands of their immortal souls. 
 My fellow-men, you may have eloquent ser- 
 mons in your church, you may have the finest 
 classical music, you may have the richest adorn- 
 ment of sacred art, but if you have not there 
 a holy fellowship, a communion of men and 
 women of pure hearts and of burning zeal for 
 
1 6 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 souls, with characters above the suspicion of 
 the world, and lives which are clean socially 
 and commercially and politically, you will have 
 a church upon which God has written " lcha- 
 bod"; that is: " The glory has departed. The 
 fellowship of every Christian church ought to 
 be such that the moment a man steps into it 
 he will feel that he is in a pure, live, holy, and 
 sympathetic world, in which he gets spiritual 
 electricity and life from every touch, and on 
 every side. 
 
 The second thing which I found in North- 
 field which should be in every church was this : 
 
 2. A living faith in a present God, and in Jesus 
 Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour; and in im- 
 mediate fruits from the faithful offer of salva- 
 tion. 
 
 But do not all churches present God as a pres- 
 ent God? No. At first thought you may think 
 they do ; but upon consideration you will see 
 that they do not. They talk to you of God as 
 a God of the past, and that is about all. He 
 was the God of Abraham, and was with Abra- 
 ham, and called Abraham, and worked through 
 Abraham, and made Abraham a grand man. 
 He was the God of Noah, and saved the world 
 through Noah, and brought Noah through 
 marvellous and startling experience. He was 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 17 
 
 the God of David, and swept David's harp- 
 nature ; and from every string caused a song 
 of the soul to leap forth and thrill and inspire 
 and create and voice spiritual life in the souls 
 of men. He was with Isaiah and with the 
 Apostles, and made them leaders of thought 
 and pillars in the kingdom of God. That is 
 what we hear in the churches to-day. God 
 was the great God of the past. But that, 
 good as it is and true as it is, is far from 
 enough. We need a teaching that brings God 
 up to date. That is what the teaching of 
 Northfield does. In the teachings from the 
 platform there, it is constantly impressed upon 
 men that God is as much with men now as he 
 ever was, and that he is knocking at the door 
 of our being, seeking to make Abrahams out of 
 us, Noahs out of us, Davids out of us, Isaiahs 
 and Johns and Peters out of us. The result of 
 the declaration of this faith in a present God, 
 who to-day calls men and is with men, is this : — 
 men leave the Northfield Conference every 
 year with the conviction that they are as much 
 called of God to their every-day work as Abra- 
 ham was to his, or David to his ; and with this 
 sense of their divine call they successfully do 
 their work. Churches of God, that is what you 
 want to do : you want to put a divine call into 
 
1 8 THINGS OF NOR TBFIELD 
 
 the life of men, and give them the power to be 
 successful in living. 
 
 Another thing that they believe at North- 
 field is this : that Christ is a complete Saviour, 
 and he is a complete Saviour because he took 
 our room and law-place, and in his own body- 
 on the cross bore the penalty of sins. Now, 
 that is not preached to-day as it was in olden 
 days. There are ministers and churches that 
 do not believe in the substitution of Christ in 
 our room and stead. How they can claim to 
 be scriptural I do not know. At one of the 
 meetings of the Conference this year, I heard 
 the great leader of Northfield go through the 
 Bible from Genesis to Revelation, setting forth 
 the substitution of Christ and salvation through 
 his substitution ; and when he finished his mas- 
 terly exposition, the people of that audience 
 said to themselves: "When you take the sub- 
 stitution of Christ out of the Bible, you have 
 left nothing worth keeping, so far as salvation 
 goes ; you may do with the rest of the Bible 
 what you please." 
 
 I tell you, churches of God, if you do not tell 
 men who are under the debt of the law and the 
 condemnation of sin that Christ has paid it all, 
 you tell them absolutely nothing. It is noth- 
 ing to tell them that they are condemned — they 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 19 
 
 know that already ; their wicked hearts tell that ; 
 what men need to be told is how they can be 
 freed from the awful condemnation. They 
 must be told of pardon through the blood of 
 Christ. The news of salvation through Christ 
 is true, and the message is so glad that no 
 church should tolerate any substitute for it. I 
 heard this story related from the Northfield 
 platform, which illustrates the peace and com- 
 fort of pardon through Christ. 
 
 A criminal was on trial for capital misde- 
 meanor. The evidence proved overwhelm- 
 ingly against him. The law was explicit. 
 There seemed no avenue of escape. The peo- 
 ple grew anxious on his behalf, as the verdict 
 of condemnation inevitably drew nearer. Yet 
 all the while this prisoner at the bar kept inex- 
 plicably calm. His eyes never once quailed, 
 although the most damaging facts continually 
 came to light. At last the jury returned and 
 the fatal decision was rendered; but all that 
 the culprit did was to draw a long sigh of un- 
 mistakable relief. The bystanders marvelled 
 at his self-control, and grew curious over the 
 secret of his serenity, and especially when they 
 imagined they detected in his unembarrassed 
 demeanor a strange sort of triumph. By and 
 by, when the sentence of death was pro- 
 
20 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 notmced, he arose in his place and laid before 
 his judges a full pardon for the crime of which 
 he had been just now convicted — a pardon which 
 all along he had held hidden in his bosom. 
 They examined the roll with eager scrutiny, 
 and found that it really was his discharge. It 
 left no further question. It had indeed been 
 signed by the hand of their generous sovereign, 
 and sealed with the grand signet of the realm. 
 There remained no more to be done. And 
 amid the shouts of the people the man went 
 immediately forth free. The law's demands 
 were cancelled. 
 
 That is the sinner saved by Christ. He is 
 so saved by Christ that there is forever no con- 
 demnation against him. He is saved by the 
 imputed righteousness of Christ. Do you say 
 " I am afraid of this imputed righteousness 
 business — I believe only in imparted right- 
 eousness "? Never mind, have no fears on this 
 score; because, in God's plan, imparted right- 
 eousness always comes to the man to whom 
 God credits imputed righteousness. 
 
 The justified man is always made holy. 
 
 It is my conviction that the church that can- 
 not preach the imputed righteousness has noth- 
 ing saving to preach. 
 
 Now, if this doctrine be true, and this offer 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 21 
 
 of complete salvation through Christ be genu- 
 ine, the next thing which Northfield believes 
 in is perfectly logical, viz. : immediate results 
 — conversions on the spot. If our churches 
 gave the message, " Christ has paid it all," and 
 fully believed in the message as the truth of 
 God, they, too, would look for sudden conver- 
 sions, and would see them. Usually churches 
 get just what they expect. Some people do 
 not believe in sudden conversion, and they 
 think they are orthodox. To my mind they 
 are heterodox. For what saith the Scripture? 
 Are not the most of the conversions recorded 
 there sudden? Zaccheus was converted in 
 coming down from the sycamore-tree and be- 
 tween the branch and the ground. But you 
 say that was because Christ was here on earth. 
 That is not the explanation of it. People were 
 converted faster after Christ left the earth than 
 when he was here. After he went away, they 
 were converted, three thousand in a day and 
 five thousand in a day, and these thousands of 
 converts were stubborn Jews at that. 
 
 Professor Drummond describes a man who 
 went into one of the after-meetings at North- 
 field, and who said he wanted to become a 
 Christian. He was greatly agitated. What 
 was the trouble? He did not wish to tell. 
 
22 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 Finally he said: "The fact is, I have over- 
 drawn my account." That was his polite way 
 of putting it. He had been stealing. " Did 
 you take your employer's money?" "Yes." 
 " How much did you take? " " I don't really 
 know." "Have you an idea that you stole as 
 much as % i , 5 00 last year ? " "I am afraid it was 
 as much as that." Now suppose Professor 
 Drummond did not believe in sudden conver- 
 sions. How would he deal with that man? He 
 would say, " Look here, sir, I do not believe in 
 sudden work; don't you steal more than a thou- 
 sand dollars next year, and the next year not 
 more than five hundred dollars, and in the course 
 of years you will get so that you will not steal at 
 all. If your employer catches you, explain it 
 to him and tell him you are getting converted. " 
 That is your slow conversion for you, and it is 
 a mockery. The fact is, conversion is sudden 
 or it is not at all. The climax of it is sudden. 
 Churches of God, let us push men to turn at 
 once from their evil lives. Let us present 
 Christ as the Saviour of sinners, and urge men 
 to the instantaneous, whole-hearted acceptance 
 of him as such. If Christ has wrought salva- 
 tion out to completion, and if he offers this 
 completed salvation to men, the only reason- 
 able thing for men to do is to take it, and take 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 23 
 
 it at once, and then go and work from grati- 
 tude and live for Christ who has saved them. 
 
 The third thing which I found in Northfield, 
 and which I feel should be in every Christian 
 Church, is this: 
 
 3. The enthronement of the Bible as the book 
 of God, and as the sole authority of faith and 
 manners. 
 
 The Bible, and the full Bible, is in North- 
 field. Every claim for faith is tested by the 
 Book. Every practice proposed is applied to 
 the line and the plumb-line of the divine com- 
 mandment. The Book is never allowed to be 
 the subject of debate. Questions about its 
 composition and inspiration and fallibility 
 never get a hearing. Not that Northfield 
 means to be narrow, but because that is not 
 its method of confirming the Scriptures and 
 establishing its claims. Let others choose what 
 other method they wish. Northfield claims 
 the right to choose its method, and its method 
 is the subjective method. It takes the Word just 
 as it is, and lets it speak for itself to the heart 
 and to the needs of men ; and thus prove itself 
 and thus work its way into the lives and loves 
 of men. Now that is a fair method, and in the 
 long run it has been found to be the most ef- 
 fective method. Men of Northfield believe in 
 
24 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 the Bible because, by means of a careful and 
 thorough study of the Bible, the Bible has 
 found them. Their hearts respond to it. They 
 feel that they need it. 
 
 Following this method, the Bible is studied 
 by whole chapters and by topic and by whole 
 books. And to me it is self-evident that this is 
 the only way of getting at what is in the Bible, 
 viz. : the study of the Bible by whole books. 
 This method requires a Bible in the hand of 
 every man and woman in the audience. And 
 that is what you see largely at Northfield. Is 
 that what you see in our churches? How many 
 Bibles are in the pew-racks of your church? 
 How much Bible is used in our pulpits? A 
 text is taken to start from, and that is about 
 all. Many a man in the pew, if he saw a 
 Bible in his pew-rack, would be like the editor 
 in the West, who found a Bible on his desk 
 one day on entering his office, and who, after 
 turning its pages, sat down and dashed off a 
 review of it and sent it to the press, supposing 
 that it was the last work of some unknown au- 
 thor. But enough upon this point ; I shall take 
 it up again when I come to you with a study 
 of some of the books of the Bible. I shall make 
 this part of Northfield of practical service to 
 this church. 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 25 
 
 The great thing which I saw at Northfield, 
 and the thing which should above all be in 
 every church, was this : 
 
 4. The manifest power of the Holy Ghost 
 working t7i and through consecrated men and 
 making them pozvers for God. 
 
 The baptism of the Spirit for power is the 
 great corner-stone of Northfield. The need of 
 this baptism is constantly taught. If you have 
 not got this baptism, Christian, Northfield 
 would bid you stand still and wait before God 
 until God gives it to you. The one thing above 
 all things which is asserted there, and asserted 
 upon the authority of the Scriptures, is that 
 this baptism can be secured by all who wish it 
 and who are willing to submit to the conditions 
 upon which it is bestowed. This is a great 
 theme, and I mean on some near Sabbath to 
 unfold it before you in the spirit of prayer and 
 with fulness, opening to you the Book of God 
 and showing you what the Word saith. 
 
 Usually our churches think they have a re- 
 vival, and have power, if they can only add 
 numbers to the membership. At Northfield 
 that is not the criterion of a revived church, 
 or of a church with power. A man once said 
 that he had a great revival in his church, and 
 when asked, " How many have you taken in?" 
 
26 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 he replied, "We have not taken any in; we 
 have put one hundred and fifty out." That 
 man was of the Northfield type. Quality and 
 not quantity meant revival and power with him. 
 And that is correct. That is the New Testa- 
 ment idea. Back in New Testament times, 
 one hundred and twenty Spirit-filled men and 
 women, endued with power from on high, 
 meant the coming and the growth of great 
 Christendom. 
 
 In this matter of the power of the Holy 
 Ghost, Northfield does not speculate. It has 
 on its ground the proof and exemplification 
 of its creed. Mr. Meyer, with his great spirit- 
 ual power, which is felt in England and Amer- 
 ica, is Northfield 's creed incarnate. And Mr. 
 Moody himself is another incarnation. I have 
 no hesitancy in saying that if the pulpits of 
 Christendom, and the pews of Christendom, 
 were filled with such men as Moody and Meyer, 
 this world would become out and out for Christ 
 before this century ran its course ; and more 
 than this, the kingdoms of the earth would be 
 loyal from centre to circumference to the au- 
 thority of God. There is no doubt about it. 
 It is Holy Ghost power that we need and that 
 our churches need. 
 
 I have been setting before your minds high 
 
WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 27 
 
 things — things which call for sacrifices upon the 
 part of men and women — things which make 
 religion look like a mighty conflict, a full life- 
 work. Let me in closing present just this one 
 point: If we make the sacrifices we shall be 
 amply rewarded and honored by Him who calls 
 us to make them. If we fight His battles we 
 shall with him enjoy the victories. This story 
 was told at Northfield, and it illustrates and 
 enforces my point : 
 
 "That was a glad day in England in 1855 
 when the soldiers came back from the Crimean 
 War, and the Queen gave them medals, called 
 Crimean medals. Galleries were constructed 
 for the two Houses of Parliament and for the 
 royal families that they might witness the pre- 
 sentation when her Majesty came to gwe the 
 soldiers their rewards. There was one there, 
 and he was honored above all the others, be- 
 cause his fidelity led him to greater sacrifices. 
 A cannon-ball took off one of his legs, but the 
 brave fellow sprang up immediately and, taking 
 hold of a tree, drew his sword and was ready 
 to fight, even to death. Immediately another 
 cannon-ball came crashing past and took off 
 the other leg. They carried him, wounded, 
 bleeding, and as they supposed dying, to the 
 hospital. Strange enough, he came back to life 
 
28 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 
 
 again, and when the day came for the awarding 
 of the medals, they carried him upon a stretcher 
 before her Majesty the Queen. To other sol- 
 diers the Queen simply gave medals by the 
 hands of her secretary ; but when she saw this 
 man carried in on a stretcher, his face so thin 
 and pale, she rose from her throne and stooped 
 down by his side and pinned with her own 
 hands the medal upon his breast, while the 
 tears rained down the face of the brave soldier. 
 The great witnessing throngs were electrified, 
 and spontaneously greeted Queen and soldier 
 with a great deafening shout of applause. " 
 
 That is but a faint picture of the home-going 
 and the reception of the redeemed of God in 
 heaven, as they go up from the fight for truth 
 and from their hard-earned victories to their 
 eternal reward. The King himself shall crown 
 them, and shall say to every faithful one : " Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant; enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord. " 
 
WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE 
 CONVERSIONS? 
 
 " And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be 
 
 saved."— Acts ii. 47. 
 "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes 
 
 both of men and women."— Acts v. 14. 
 14 And a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." — 
 
 Acts xi. 21. 
 
II. 
 
 WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE CON- 
 VERSIONS? 
 
 We cannot value too highly this book of the 
 Bible which gives us our three texts. The 
 striking stories which it weaves together into 
 the history of the Apostolic times are every 
 one of them charged with light and hope and 
 inspiration for all coming ages. No book 
 renders a greater service to the Church of God 
 than the book of " The Acts of the Apostles.'' 
 
 Let me illustrate : As we close " The Gospels " 
 in our study of the Bible, we close them with 
 the vision of Christ's ascension. The beauti- 
 ful earthly life of Christ is ended ; his miracles, 
 which brought sight to the blind, health to the 
 sick, life to the dead, are over. No more shall 
 he walk and talk with the disciples. He has 
 preached his last sermon on the Mount. What 
 now? We have his gospel filled with lucid 
 parable, golden promise, and holy principle 
 3i 
 
32 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 and expressions of love and tender reproof : — 
 we have his gospel just as it fell from his lips : 
 yes, — but what is to be the future of his gospel? 
 We are anxious to know if his truth can make 
 its way on its own merit. When he was here, 
 his truth had in its favor that singular mag- 
 netic influence which came from his personal 
 presence and from his audible voice. These 
 gave it life and power and victory. By means 
 of these it won Peter and James and John 
 and the Twelve and the five hundred and the 
 men and women who so thoroughly believed 
 in him that they stood ready to sacrifice their 
 all and die for him. Deprived of his mag- 
 netic personal presence, deprived of his living 
 voice, can his truth make its way and conquer 
 hearts and lives by the sheer force of its celestial 
 beauty and grace and comfort? Or must it 
 perish now? Can voices other than the voice 
 of the Divine Master make it a power? Ut- 
 tered by the voice of Peter and married to his 
 personality : uttered by the voice of Paul and 
 married to his personality : uttered by the voice 
 of Philip and married to his personality : what 
 power shall it have? The Book of the Acts 
 answers this question for us and sets our hearts 
 at rest. 
 
 When Jesus Christ ascended, he saw to it that 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 33 
 
 his truth should not lose its power, and it did 
 not: and it has not. He ordained that his 
 Gospel of Grace should go right on converting 
 and saving men ; and as he ordained, so it was. 
 The Gospel reached and swayed three thou- 
 sand souls on the Day of Pentecost, — souls from 
 every land on the globe, — and it found in them 
 three thousand new centres in the world, north 
 and south and east and west. It found and 
 conquered Paul, and through him blossomed 
 and fruited into the grand Epistles of the New 
 Testament. It found Lydia, and through her 
 entered into the Oriental market and into 
 Oriental commerce. It found Cornelius, and 
 through him entered into the Roman army. 
 It found the Ethiopian eunuch, and through 
 him it made its way into the far-off land on the 
 upper Nile. In the Book of the Acts we see 
 the Gospel taking up its march through Europe 
 on its way to America to bless us and save 
 us. As our three texts tell us: there were 
 " daily additions to the church." "Multitudes 
 were saved." "Numbers were added unto the 
 Lord." 
 
 Our three texts, and the Book of the Acts in 
 which they are found, teach two things with 
 which we start the study of our theme : " Why 
 are there not more conversions ? " 
 3 
 
34 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 First, when there are no conversions, the fault is not 
 in Christ, nor in God, nor in the Gospel. These are the 
 same to-day that they were in the past. 
 
 Second, when there are no conversions, the reason is, 
 the conditions of the former days are not the conditions 
 of to-day. Bring back Apostolic conditions, and you 
 will have Apostolic results. 
 
 I consider it a gain to reach these two points. 
 I consider it a gain when we are willing to say : 
 " God is not at fault ; we are at fault for the low 
 ebb of the spiritual tide. " I consider it a gain 
 when we recognize the fact that we do not have 
 the apostolic conditions, and that this is the 
 reason why so few are converted in our midst. 
 I consider this a gain because the realization of 
 the absence of these possible conditions is the 
 first essential to the earnest endeavor to secure 
 these conditions. There was earnest soul-seek- 
 ing in Apostolic times ; there was the absolute 
 acceptance of the Book of God as the one in- 
 fallible guide of man; there was the faithful 
 preaching of Christ and him crucified; there 
 was self-sacrificing living ; there were pure and 
 holy characters and personalities filled with 
 Christ ; and there was pentecostal power. We, 
 the churches of our age, have lost many of 
 these things. We have lost Pentecost to begin 
 with, and that is a lamentable loss. You are 
 not full of the Holy Ghost and of power, are 
 
WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 35 
 
 you? And yet, as Christians, that is the birth- 
 right of every one of you. It is not only your 
 privilege, but your birthright. Give us back 
 these Apostolic conditions, and there will be 
 daily additions to the Lord right here: and 
 multitudes of men and women will be saved 
 right here. " Why are there not more conver- 
 sions ? " We have not the Apostolic conditions : 
 that is the reason. The converting agents are 
 not what they ought to be. We are the con- 
 verting agents, and there is something wrong 
 in us. Before conversions abound in our 
 midst that wrong must be righted. My Chris- 
 tian brethren, we have struck an exceedingly 
 practical subject. There is blame on the sin- 
 ner's side, but there is blame also on the 
 saint's side; and this last fact is the fact which 
 I propose to consider. I wish to set every 
 member of this church asking this question: 
 "Am la help or a hindrance to the salvation 
 of others ? " Church of God, look on your side 
 of this question: " Why are there not more 
 conversions ? " There are churches and Chris- 
 tians that are spoiling religion every day: — 
 they are offences, and stumbling-blocks. Is 
 ours such a church? Am I such a Christian? 
 It is ours to see that the unconverted have a 
 fair show. Now they have not a fair show for 
 
3<5 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 the conversion of their souls, until the Apos- 
 tolic conditions have been brought back and 
 they have been submitted to the influence of 
 these. The conditions which convert ! These 
 we owe the non-converted, and these the non- 
 converted have a right to demand from us. 
 Hence I repeat my exhortation : " Church of 
 God, look on your side of this question — Why 
 are there not more conversions ? " 
 
 I have already suggested my outline of 
 thought. It is this : To find the hindrances 
 to conversion by a study of the helps to con- 
 version. Our three texts, and the Scriptures 
 in which they are set, tell us what the helps to 
 conversion are. These Scriptures set us right 
 into the midst of conversions and allow us to 
 fellowship with the converting agents of Apos- 
 tolic times. Now the hindrances to conversion 
 are the opposite s of the helps to conversion. What 
 are the opposites of these helps? That is the 
 present question, and it is an all-important 
 question. 
 
 By gathering together these opposites, and 
 arranging them in their proper order, I have 
 discovered many points relative to our theme. 
 There are not more conversions, — 
 
 i. Because the church as a converting agent is 
 not up to par. 
 
WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS? 3 7 
 
 In Apostolic times it is written : " The Lord 
 added to the church daily such as should be 
 saved." "A great number believed." "Be- 
 lievers were added to the Lord, multitudes 
 both of men and women. " Can we account for 
 this marvellous increase? Yes. How? By the 
 Christian church. The church was up to par. 
 Look at the church of those converting times ! 
 It was filled with the Spirit. It was unworldly. 
 It was daily at work. It spared no sacrifice. It 
 went through the world with the open Book in 
 its hand : and to the Book it made its constant 
 appeal. It believed everything that was in the 
 Book. What Book? The Old Testament. It 
 did not discount a single verse of that old Book. 
 Look at what it preached. It preached the cross 
 of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, and 
 the future judgment before the Great White 
 Throne. It preached that man was lost and 
 that Christ came to seek and to save the lost. 
 It declared "there is no other name under 
 Heaven whereby man can be saved, but the 
 name of Jesus. " Look at what it did ! It gave 
 itself up to soul-saving, and allowed nothing 
 else to distract its attention or use up its time 
 and power. It sought to save : and it did save. 
 It gave a welcome to everybody; and con- 
 stantly made a public declaration of its mis- 
 
3 8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 sion; and constantly made a public offer of 
 Christ and redemption through his name. It 
 went after the lost. In the reception and treat- 
 ment of the Holy Spirit : in the representation 
 of Jesus the Master: in its desire to save and 
 its effort to save, — it was up to par and above 
 par. When the church is up to par and above 
 par, there are conversions. That is the rule, 
 and that rule is without a single exception. 
 What we want in our day is churches of Jesus 
 Christ up to par and above par. 
 
 The churches of our day have lost their power. 
 The people are not impressed by them as the 
 people were impressed by the churches of the 
 first century. The world is not moved by them 
 to faith in Christ. The great world has lost con- 
 fidence in them. The impression is abroad that 
 they are hard-hearted ; that they are filled with 
 pride ; that they narrow the hospitality of the 
 house of God and go by the blue book of man ; 
 that they are mere social clubs for the upper 
 classes ; that money, and standing in society, and 
 social caste, are the things which determine a 
 hearty welcome into the churches, and not souls 
 in need of salvation. The impression is abroad 
 that the churches exist for themselves and not 
 for the world. It is true that there is one great 
 and good Shepherd : but all the sheepfolds are 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 39 
 
 private property. There are multitudes of men 
 in the community about us who respect the 
 Christ of our Book, but who hate our Christian 
 churches. In a large meeting of working-men 
 which crowded Cooper Union, New York, some 
 time ago, when the name of Christ was men- 
 tioned as the workman of Nazareth and as the 
 poor man's friend, his name was greeted with 
 a round of applause; but when, at the same 
 meeting, the Christian churches were referred 
 to, they were greeted with a storm of hisses. 
 I tell you, fellow churchmen, when the crowds 
 outside of the church hiss the church, it is high 
 time for us to stop and ask for the cause and 
 the reason why. It is high time for us to ask 
 ourselves the question : Are we so different 
 from Christ that he should be applauded and 
 we should be hissed? Are we representing 
 Christ aright to the world — his desire, his 
 heart, his purpose to save, his welcome into 
 the Household of Faith? He has sent us out 
 to save the world. Are we in right relations to 
 the world, and is saving the world the supreme 
 object of our existence as Christian churches. 
 I verily believe God means to awaken the churches 
 by the hiss of the world. When the world 
 blushes for the church, it is time for the church 
 to blush for itself. 
 
40 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 I am speaking plain words to the Church of 
 God to-day, because I believe in the power of 
 the church, and because I believe that each 
 church gets just what it works for. When it 
 works for conversions, and employs the means 
 for conversions, it gets conversions. When it 
 aims to make itself simply a home for the well- 
 to-do, a home for social life, a place for mere 
 entertainment, and the feeding of the pride of 
 its fellowship, it succeeds in that. It becomes 
 a mere club-house, with its music and oratory 
 and opera and fine arts and sociables and re- 
 ceptions; it becomes a refined play-house. 
 When it aims at nothing, it gets nothing, and 
 becomes cold and lifeless and weak. As Chris- 
 tian churches we can have just what we want 
 and seek. Hence our great responsibility as 
 Christian churches. 
 
 What a contrast between the statistics given 
 in the scriptures which furnish our texts and 
 the statistics given by the religious press of 
 the churches of our time ! " Multitudes saved, " 
 "numbers added unto the Lord," — such is the 
 record of the Book of the Acts. The record of 
 the religious press reads thus: In the year 
 1895, thirteen hundred Congregational churches 
 of America and seventeen hundred Presbyterian 
 churches of America report no additions by con- 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 4* 
 
 fession of faith — no conversions! Over three 
 thousand churches in the leading evangelical 
 denominations of our Christian land failing to 
 report conversions during the last year ! How 
 long will it take to convert the world to Christ 
 at that rate? Add this report to the hiss of the 
 world at the churches, and you will see the 
 need of asking the question: " Why are there 
 not more conversions ? " 
 
 This is the greatest problem we have to con- 
 sider ; it is a problem that will not down ; it is 
 a live issue; and it is on our hands. The 
 churches must settle it or it will settle the 
 churches. Let us have the courage to look it 
 fair in the face. Let us deal with it as it 
 touches Brooklyn, and as it involves Lafayette 
 Avenue Presbyterian Church. We are living 
 in a city called " The City of Churches," and 
 yet the fact is, more than half the people of 
 our city do not go to church. How is it that 
 here in this community, with tradition and cus- 
 tom in its favor, religion is professed by com- 
 paratively few? The churches are not reaching 
 the people and saving souls as the primitive 
 churches did. Why? Let us not be too cow- 
 ardly to meet this question. 
 
 I believe that worldliness in the churches 
 of our community is one reason why. Our 
 
42 THINGS OF NORTHPIELD. 
 
 churches are not separated unto God as they 
 should be. They are not half spiritual enough. 
 They allow themselves to be patronized by the 
 world; they allow themselves to indorse the 
 world ; they allow themselves to adopt the ways 
 of the world. They do not exist and live for 
 God and God only, as they should ; and there- 
 fore, God does not dwell in them in a large and 
 powerful degree : therefore, God does not give 
 them his Spirit with power. God cannot trust 
 them with the power of his Spirit. There is 
 a Scripture in the Gospel according to John 
 which comes in right here, and which throws a 
 great light upon the weakness of the churches 
 and the weakness of Christian men and women. 
 It explains why these are not filled with the 
 Holy Spirit and with power. It is John ii. 3. 
 " Now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the 
 Passover, on the feast days, many believed in 
 his name, when they saw the miracles which 
 he did: but Jesus did not commit himself unto 
 them." God cannot commit himself to a half- 
 hearted people. The power of the Holy Ghost 
 is religiously withheld from those who, while 
 professing God's name, are serving divers lusts 
 and pleasures, and are hand and glove with the 
 world : — who are carnal Christians, and are liv- 
 ing a carnal life. Christ will not commit him- 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 43 
 
 self unto us until he can trust us. From all 
 you know of this church, for our interest is es- 
 pecially centred here, do you think Christ has 
 committed himself to us? Could he do this 
 without compromising his name? Is every- 
 thing here in accord with his mind? Could 
 he bestow upon us as a church the gift of the 
 Holy Spirit, and be sure that the Spirit's power 
 would be used solely for his glory? May God 
 get us ready for the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
 with power. When God has all there is of us, 
 then he will give himself to us without re- 
 serve : but not until then will he give himself 
 to us without reserve. Let us not complain of 
 the lack of conversions until we make right and 
 effective the converting agent. 
 
 To help us in making right the church, 
 the converting agent, allow me to bring for- 
 ward the following Scriptures, which describe 
 what the church is in God's intention and what 
 the church ought to be in fact: Hear the 
 Scripture : 
 
 " For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God ; 
 the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people 
 unto himself, above all people that are upon the face 
 of the earth" (Deut. vii. 6). "And ye shall be holy 
 unto me : for I the Lord am holy, and have severed 
 you from other people that ye should be mine" (Lev. 
 xx. 26). "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye 
 
44 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 
 
 transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may 
 prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will 
 of God" (Rom. xii. 2). "Wherefore come out from 
 among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord : . . . 
 and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, 
 and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
 Almighty" (2 Cor. vi. 17). 
 
 These are clear Scriptures, and they set forth 
 the power of the church. The church of God 
 is a power as a converting agent only when 
 there is a broad line of demarcation between it 
 and the world ; and between its life and the 
 world's life. When the men of the world come 
 to the church of God and find it worldly, they 
 are shocked. They lose the respect and the 
 awe with which they have been accustomed to 
 regard it, and they at once write it down in 
 their estimation. When the church of God is 
 written down in the estimation of men, it ceases 
 to be a converting influence with men. 
 
 I believe that God has a controversy with the 
 churches in our midst. He brings grave charges 
 against them. He says to them: " I have com- 
 missioned you to reach the people, but you are 
 not reaching the people. I have commissioned 
 you to bring souls to salvation, but you are not 
 bringing souls to salvation. I have commis- 
 sioned you to guard my Holy Book, but you 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 45 
 
 are not guarding my Holy Book : your minis- 
 ters are putting interrogation points against 
 this part of it, and against that part of it, 
 and the result is the unbelieving world is 
 putting an interrogation point against the 
 whole of it. If the people of the churches 
 do not rise up and protest against this back- 
 handed destruction of the citadel of their faith, 
 I will raise up advocates and defenders of the 
 Book outside of the church and take the glory 
 of its defence away from my people. I have 
 commissioned you to preach the Gospel, but 
 your ministers are preaching everything else 
 but the Gospel: they are preaching science 
 and literature and politics and criticism and 
 socialism; they are putting their theories in 
 the place of ' Thus saith the Lord. ' They are 
 preaching salvation through development in- 
 stead of salvation through the blood of Christ ; 
 they are hiding the cross of Christ and making 
 the cross of no effect. This is the state of 
 affairs at this very hour, and the people love to 
 have it so." 
 
 You see, God's charge is brought not only 
 against the ministers in the pulpit, his charge 
 is brought also against the people in the pews. 
 He holds the people responsible for what they 
 tolerate in the pulpit. The pew as well as the 
 
4<$ THINGS OP NORTHFIELD. 
 
 pulpit make the church. It is the indorse- 
 ment of the pew that makes the utterances of 
 the pulpit a power. 
 
 I saw this illustrated grandly the other day 
 in the salvation of souls. Cooper Union was 
 crowded to the door with an audience that was 
 not a churchgoing audience — an audience, too, 
 composed largely of men. The simple Gospel of 
 Christ was being preached in an honest, straight- 
 forward way. The text was : " The son of man 
 is come to seek and to save that which is lost." 
 The power of God was at work there mightily, 
 and over two hundred men rose to their feet to 
 ask prayer, and to signify their intention to 
 start out on the new and the divine life. What 
 was it that produced these results? The utter- 
 ances of the preacher solely? They had much 
 to do with these results, for they were the ut- 
 terances of the Gospel : but these results were 
 not solely due to these utterances. As I 
 watched and analyzed that meeting I found 
 that the grand results sprang as much from the 
 faith of the Christian listeners as from the faith 
 of the preacher. There was one prominent 
 Christian citizen sitting on the very front of 
 the platform. As far as I am able to judge, 
 the spiritual movement of that hour began with 
 him. At one part of the sermon he became so 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 47 
 
 moved that the tears rolled down his cheeks 
 and he restrained them not. These tears were 
 the visible tokens of his absolute surrender 
 to the truth presented by the preacher. His 
 tears and surrender moved others to tears and 
 surrender, and thus the movement of faith and 
 surrender swept the hall and moved multitudes 
 to tears and surrender. Before that one man, 
 on the front of the platform, surrendered him- 
 self to the truth, there was but moderate in- 
 terest in the gospel message of that day ; but 
 out of his faith grew a whole community of 
 faith and the conversion of sinners through 
 faith. Oh for the enthusiasm and the faith of 
 the people of the Christian churches of our 
 land! That is what the Gospel is waiting for, 
 and that is what sinners are waiting for. When 
 the people want and demand that the pure 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be preached, they 
 will get it ; and when they get it and become 
 enthusiastic over it and indorse it by their 
 tears and their self -surrender, their enthusiasm 
 and their surrender and their indorsement will 
 become contagious and sinners by the hundreds 
 will be converted. 
 
 But it is time for me now to present the sec- 
 ond point of this sermon. There are not more 
 conversions — 
 
48 THINGS OF NORTHFlELD. 
 
 2. Because the individual Christian as a con- 
 verting agent is not up to par. 
 
 Multitudes were saved in apostolic times; 
 but look at the individual Christians of those 
 times! Peter, James, John, Paul. These men 
 were duplicates of Christ. Give us duplicates 
 of Christ and we shall have conversion now 
 and here, just as they had conversion then and 
 there. 
 
 My fellow-men, let us open our hearts to this 
 point upon which we are dwelling — viz. : God 
 expects converts from the individual Christian 
 as well as from the Christian churches. He 
 calls Christians to account individually. As 
 Jesus Christ multiplied himself, God expects 
 us to multiply ourselves. He expects our 
 Christian faith to bring forth other Christian 
 faith. And it will, if we are what we ought 
 to be, and if we do what we ought to do. 
 This solemn fact presses home upon the in- 
 dividual conscience this pointed question: 
 " What am I as a converting force in the 
 world?" I wish to locate the responsibility for 
 the salvation of souls. Christian man, Chris- 
 tian woman, the responsibility rests with you. 
 You are one of God's spiritual seeds, and God 
 expects a harvest from you. God comes to 
 you this hour and asks you : " Where are your 
 
WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 49 
 
 converts? I gave you sons and daughters to 
 bring up for me — where are they? Are they 
 one with you in your Christian faith and life? 
 I have given you brothers and sisters ; I have 
 given you a Sabbath-school class ; I have given 
 you partners in business; I have given you 
 friends and neighbors; have you reproduced 
 yourself in them? Where are your converts? 
 If you have associated with people and have 
 not led them to Christ, you have done them 
 more harm than good. " If you have not se- 
 cured their conversion, you have neglected 
 them ; or else you have misrepresented Christ 
 to them and have given a wrong idea of the 
 true Christian life; or else your Christianity 
 has been so ordinary as to be repulsive to them 
 rather than attractive. Your conversion is not 
 up to par, and men have seen this and have 
 refused to invest in it. And I do not blame 
 them. 
 
 When men can get a better conversion out- 
 side of the church than we Christians get in- 
 side of the church, no one can find fault with 
 them for holding on to their conversion and 
 rejecting our conversion. Let us be honest 
 and admit that this is one of the reasons why 
 there are so few conversions : men outside of 
 the church are not willing to exchange their 
 4 
 
SO THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 conversion for the conversion of multitudes of 
 people who are in the church. The conversion 
 we offer them is below par, when judged by 
 ourselves as converts. We want to get a little 
 more saved ourselves than we are, and then we 
 can save others. We must offer the people of 
 the world something better than they already 
 have. We must show them Christians up to 
 par, and offer them a Christianity that is above 
 par, if we are ever to reach them. The men 
 of the world are moved Christ- ward only by an 
 anointed tongue and a transfigured life. They 
 demand as their guide a living Gospel and a 
 living Christian. They respect only Spirit- 
 baptized souls. As Emerson puts it with re- 
 gard to eloquence so we may put it with regard 
 to salvation : " There is no true eloquence unless 
 there is a man behind the speech," — even so 
 there must be a saved man behind the offer of 
 salvation in order to make that salvation seem 
 real to the unsaved. When you tell an un- 
 saved man that you are saved, he will ask you, 
 " Saved from what ? " And if you are to have 
 any influence with him, you must be able to 
 show him from what you are saved. You must 
 show him something which you have reached, 
 through faith in Jesus Christ, which he has not 
 reached: something which it is profitable to 
 
WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 5* 
 
 reach and desirable to reach. We do not con- 
 vert others, because our own conversion is 
 below par. 
 
 Am I wrong in insisting as I do upon a bet- 
 ter brand of ourselves as Christian converts 
 and upon a new and higher and a more radical 
 and more thorough conversion of our own 
 hearts and lives? Not if we want more con- 
 versions. It is personality that influences us. 
 It is the gospel incarnate that is the gospel in 
 power. It is the man, it is the woman, that 
 tells. It is the convert himself that in turn 
 converts. Seek, then, for yourself a converting 
 personality. 
 
 Dr. Watson, in his Yale lecture on preaching, 
 sets before theological students in a beautiful 
 way the supreme importance of putting a fine 
 personality back of the Gospel message in order 
 to make it a power. He does this by giving a 
 life-picture of a preacher with an ideal char- 
 acter. This preacher is not over-blessed with 
 mentality ; but he lives his religion. To others 
 he is commonplace ; but to his own people he 
 is the best preacher in the world. Why? His 
 people know him. They read his character 
 between the lines of his address. Sitting in 
 the pew, they edit his sermons anew with 
 foot-notes, which by and by eclipse the origi- 
 
52 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 nal. His people are fairly overcome by his 
 lovely illustrations, his deep arguments, his 
 moving appeals. But these are not newly writ- 
 ten ; they are not written at all : they are deeds 
 ten, twenty, thirty years old. The people put 
 the man into his sermons, and this makes his 
 sermons great and effective. 
 
 In bringing my sermon to its conclusion, I 
 wish to make but one practical point. It is 
 this: The facts which we have discovered in 
 our study lay upon the converting agents — the 
 church and the individual Christian — a present 
 and an imperative duty. 
 
 It is the duty of the church and of the indi- 
 vidual Christian openly to confess their faults 
 and publicly prof ess a change of life. 
 
 For example, this church should issue- its 
 manifesto to the community of Brooklyn on 
 the Hill. It should confess its deadness. It 
 should tell why it exists. It should confess its 
 sins and shortcomings. It should speak truth- 
 fully of the things upon which it has spent its 
 force. It should name just what it has done 
 for the conversion of souls. It should show 
 what it might have done, and confess what it 
 has left undone. It should tell the number of 
 people who have been lost out of its fellow- 
 ship. There are ways of being lost, out of the 
 
WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 5 3 
 
 very centre of the church. This is the way a 
 man falls out of the church : he is absent, and 
 no one inquires about him or goes after him 
 to bring him back. He is missed nowhere — 
 then he is expected nowhere ; and finally, as a 
 natural consequence, he goes nowhere : he has 
 no church-home: he is lost. In this public 
 manifesto the church should promise what it 
 means to do. It means to have some open free 
 service at some regular time for the public — 
 free and open to everybody. It means to live 
 not for itself, but for God, and for the lost 
 world, and for the immediate community. It 
 means to see that the Bible is honored, and 
 the cross honored, and a pure Gospel preached 
 and practised. I wish I could set every man 
 and woman belonging to the membership of 
 Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at work 
 writing a manifesto to be issued by the Church 
 to the public. I should give a great deal to 
 have such a collection. It would be a great 
 revelation. It would give our membership a 
 new insight into what a church of Jesus Christ 
 ought to be. It would give us a vivid knowl- 
 edge of our failings as a church ; it would show 
 us our possibilities; it would lead us to do 
 things differently, and it would be a large step 
 toward a revival of religion. 
 
54 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 Every crmrch of Jesus Christ in the United 
 States ought to issue some such manifesto to the 
 public. It would be good for the public, and it 
 would be good for the churches. It would 
 bring about a relation and an understanding 
 between the churches and the public which 
 would lead to a new church life, and to a multi- 
 tude of conversions. 
 
 The confession of our faults! That is the 
 duty of the hour. There was a man of God 
 once who, during the early years of his Chris- 
 tian career, was noted for his extraordinary 
 devoutness, zeal, and self-sacrifice ; but gradu- 
 ally and imperceptibly to himself, he fell from 
 his first love. He still abounded in good works 
 of a certain kind, and was looked up to by or- 
 dinary Christians as a pattern of piety. But he 
 was not up to the Lord's mark; so the Lord 
 showed him whence he had fallen. He did 
 this by bringing him into close contact with a 
 man filled with the Spirit and burning with 
 zeal for the salvation of souls. When he looked 
 upon this man's work, by the law of contrast, 
 there flashed on him the conviction that he had 
 lost his first love. He said to himself: " I was 
 once like that man: I felt as he does: I re- 
 joiced as he does: I prayed as he does: I la- 
 bored as he does: but I am not like him now. 
 
IV H Y NOT MORE CON VER SIONS ? 55 
 
 O my God! I am a backslider from thee and 
 from all good! " The discovery almost over- 
 whelmed him. He realized its bitterness, and 
 agonized over its consequences until his dis- 
 tress reached a climax. Then kneeling down 
 he prayed in an agony, telling God that if he 
 would restore him his first love, he would con- 
 fess his heart-backsliding to his brethren, and 
 do all in his power to counteract the evil effects 
 of his coldness and unfaithfulness. The Lord 
 heard his prayer and answered it. This was 
 what the Lord wanted of his servant, in order 
 to his pouring in the oil and wine of his love 
 and consolation. Like the disciples on the day 
 of Pentecost, he rose from his knees filled with 
 the Spirit. The next day there was an official 
 meeting of the church at which he had to take 
 part. At the appointed time some dozen of 
 the leading men assembled. After the busi- 
 ness was gone through with, he asked to be 
 allowed to make a few remarks: and then 
 with the simplicity of a child he related his 
 experience of the last few days. He con- 
 fessed to his brethren his backsliding, and told 
 them how the Lord had convicted him of it, 
 and how graciously he had restored him to 
 his first love. The brethren present were 
 melted to tears: they sobbed like children. 
 
56 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 When he finished they all broke forth into a 
 general confession and told of their unfaithful- 
 ness. They remained confessing their sins 
 until midnight. As one after another poured 
 out his sins in confession and supplication, the 
 Holy Ghost fell on them, and there commenced 
 in that room on that memorable night a genu- 
 ine revival of religion in their church, which 
 swept hundreds into the Kingdom. This is the 
 power of confession. 
 
 Who is going to start the confession of back- 
 sliding in this church which will bring us a re- 
 vival in the individual heart and life, and in the 
 heart and life of this great congregation? Who 
 is going to start the confession among us which 
 will result in the taking away of the barriers 
 which stand between this church and the con- 
 version of souls? God asks the question, Who? 
 the church asks the question, Who? the lost 
 soul in our community asks the question. Who? 
 Who? 
 
Topic : " When we become Christians and churchmen — 
 what when? " 
 
 OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS AND 
 
 WHAT WE NEED FOR 
 
 EFFECTIVENESS. 
 
 44 Compel them to come in."— Luke xiv. 23. 
 
 57-58 
 
III. 
 
 OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS AND 
 WHAT WE NEED FOR EFFEC- 
 TIVENESS. 
 
 The task of Christians is self-evident. The 
 very name which Christians bear reveals it. 
 It is this: To be as Christ in the community 
 and to do Christ's work in the world. As 
 Christians we have been saved that we may 
 save others. The magnet has been magnetized 
 that it may magnetize. Our task is to do as 
 much for those around us as has been done for 
 us : to win some friend to Christ as some friend 
 has won us to Christ. To tell the story of our 
 salvation. To transmit Christianity to poster- 
 ity. To keep the home for God. To purify 
 society by transfusing it with the Spirit of 
 God. To erect the cross in view of every crea- 
 ture. To put an open Bible into every hand. 
 To save the perishing race. To Christianize 
 commerce, and fashion, and art, and pleasure. 
 59 
 
60 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 To incarnate Jesus of Nazareth in all the insti- 
 tutions and governments of earth. To keep 
 the church loyal to the truth of the crucified 
 Christ ; pure in doctrine and pure in life, and 
 enthusiastic in its saving work, and full of the 
 Spirit of fire. To ring the world round and 
 round with hosannas to the Son of David, and 
 to keep it so ringed. Such is our mission, and 
 such, too, is the great purpose of the reigning 
 God. 
 
 While this is the purpose of the reigning 
 God, yet we ourselves must fulfil our own 
 mission and do our own work. God will co- 
 operate with us, but he will not take our place 
 or do that which we neglect to do. Let us 
 write this down as a certain ty— God will never 
 do that zvhick we ourselves can do. This has 
 always been so. He will multiply the loaves 
 and fishes, but he will not distribute them. 
 The disciples must do that, for they can do 
 that. He will raise Lazarus from the dead, 
 but he will not roll away the stone from the 
 sepulchre of Lazarus ; the friends must do that, 
 for the friends can do that. He will purchase 
 redemption for man and pay the great price 
 for it, because only he can do that ; but man 
 must carry the offer of this purchased redemp- 
 tion to his fellow-man, because this is what man 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 61 
 
 is able to do. This all the saved are commis- 
 sioned to do. 
 
 God has purposed great things for his peo- 
 ple ; but they are conditioned. The condition 
 is this: God's people must take these things. 
 It is with us as it was with the Hebrews. God 
 made them the promise of the Holy Land. 
 He drew for them the outlines of the Land of 
 Promise, and held the map up to view for their 
 inspiration, and told them that all should be 
 theirs ; but he made a condition. That condi- 
 tion was this: they must march through the 
 length and the breadth of the land and meas- 
 ure it off with their own feet — that is, they 
 must take it. These are God's words to Josh- 
 ua : " Everywhere that the sole of your foot 
 shall tread upon, that give I unto thee." To 
 tread the land they had to eject the enemies 
 who pre-occupied it. The Hebrews never trod 
 more than one-third of the property mentioned 
 in God's grant; consequently they never had 
 more than one-third of what God intended 
 them to have. They had just what they meas- 
 ured off with their own feet and no more. 
 God, in His holy purpose and promise, has 
 given us the world for Jesus Christ our Mas- 
 ter; but that purpose and promise will never 
 be realized until we work for it and make the 
 
62 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 world Christ's by toiling, triumphant, evange- 
 listic work. 
 
 Are we taking the world for Christ as rapid- 
 ly as we should? Is everybody at work, and at 
 work in downright earnest? Are you at work, 
 and are you satisf3'ing yourself with your work? 
 Are you a hot saint? What do you know about 
 "compel them to come in"? Oh, what an 
 amount of sham there is in our religious pro- 
 fession, and what an amount of hollow mock- 
 ery there is in our pretension of work for Christ ! 
 Our prayer for revivals and for a spiritual visi- 
 tation is for the most part a mere form and is 
 sheer hypocrisy. The church of God can have 
 a revival of religion any day — a revival as deep 
 and as powerful as it is possible for her to ask — 
 if she will only comply with the conditions 
 upon which God has promised to grant it. 
 
 Are we satisfied with the way things are in 
 Christendom? Are there not coldness, and dead- 
 ness, and dearth in the Christian churches, which 
 we cannot help feeling? Is there not a great 
 want somewhere? There is a vast amount of 
 effort put forth, there is enormous expenditure, 
 there is the multiplication of instrumentalities 
 on every hand : but the results — where are these? 
 The results do not correspond with the outlay. 
 What is the secret? What is the cause of the 
 
OUR TA SK A S CHRIS TIA NS. 6 3 
 
 failure? It is this: We are not honoring the 
 Holy Ghost as we should; we are ignoring 
 him and his functions and rule ; we are leav- 
 ing him out of our work, and hence we are 
 working without that enduement of power 
 which comes from on high. But what is writ- 
 ten? This: " It is not by might, nor by pow- 
 er, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." It is the 
 power of the Holy Spirit versus the might of 
 intellect, and learning, and eloquence, and po- 
 sition, and wealth, that carries in it success in 
 Christian effort. 
 
 The church to-day is like Israel of old — " she 
 hath multiplied her defenced cities, and. her 
 palaces, but she hath forgotten the God of Is- 
 rael, in whom her strength is." The strength 
 of the church is the Spirit of the Almighty 
 God. The strength of the church is a perpetual 
 Pentecost. It is by Pentecostal gifts and 
 methods that the church is to win the people. 
 God has not abrogated these yet, and until he 
 does we must work by them, or else we will 
 work in vain. 
 
 How often during these later times do we 
 hear discussions concerning the "lapsed 
 masses"! And how often is the question 
 asked, " Why have the masses lapsed from the 
 churches?" I beg leave to answer that accord- 
 
H THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 
 
 ing to my way of thinking : the masses have 
 not lapsed from the churches ; it is the churches 
 that have lapsed from the masses. 
 
 It is the churches that have become indiffer- 
 ent to the fallen. The churches are full of 
 elder brothers, i.e., the people who have no 
 real and helping sympathy with the fellows 
 who are down ; who prate continually about the 
 sins of the masses, the vices of the masses, 
 the heartlessness and the ingratitude of the 
 masses, instead of talking about the salvation 
 of the masses. These are the people who have 
 moved the churches away from the masses, and 
 now slander the masses by charging them with 
 dropping the church. 
 
 My friends, we talk of the unconverted and 
 of their duty of repentance. I tell you that 
 there is a repentance which we people of the 
 churches need. It involves mental suffering, 
 but we should go through it. We should repent 
 that the flesh is in us after our regeneration, and 
 very much in us. We should repent that we 
 have been unfaithful to God's saving grace ; we 
 have been untrue to Christ's saving love; 
 we have been neglectful of the dying world ; we. 
 have hidden the cross from the view of the un- 
 saved. All this demands our speedy repentance. 
 
 When the churches of God do their duty, the 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 65 
 
 people will do theirs. When the Christian 
 churches get back their Pentecost, it will be 
 written of the nineteenth century, as it was 
 written of the first century, "So mightily 
 grew the Word of God and prevailed." "The 
 trouble is that the churches have lost their 
 way to the 'upper room.' Let a church only 
 find its way back there and obtain a Pente- 
 cost from God ; let pulpit and pew be baptized 
 with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and the 
 people will come running in to see the burn- 
 ing. That church will not need to cater to the 
 fleshly elements in mankind, nor deal in baits 
 to catch the masses; the people will come 
 climbing into her pews as Zaccheus of old 
 climbed into the branches of the sycamore- 
 tree, when he wanted to see the Lord. The 
 people still want Jesus." 
 
 My fellow-men, the state of affairs which now 
 exists ought not to exist ; there is no necessity 
 compelling things to be so. It is this state of af- 
 fairs — viz. : the disparity between results and 
 expenditures and the coldness of the great 
 multitudes of Christian confessors — and the 
 tarrying of the millennial glory of Zion, that 
 call for a present and careful discussion cf the 
 question before us: " What do we need for 
 effectiveness ? " 
 5 
 
66 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 I propose now to enumerate some of these 
 needs as they present themselves to my view. 
 I mention this to begin with — viz. : 
 
 i. The very first requisite for successful 
 Christian work is a start. 
 
 You may think this is not worth a mention : 
 but it is. It is what some of you as yet do not 
 know. You have not yet started to work for 
 Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls — I mean 
 started to work in dead earnest. With the 
 vast majority of people, this is the most diffi- 
 cult thing of all, to start work ; to tell the story 
 of their salvation the first time; to give the 
 first invitation; to make the first effort to in- 
 vade the personality of another and bring its 
 soul face to face with Jesus Christ. To make 
 a start, they have to overcome timidity and 
 prejudice and foreboding, and fear of giving 
 offence, and apprehension lest the besought 
 may be driven away from Christ rather than 
 attracted to him. How many questions a man 
 asks himself when he begins evangelistic testi- 
 mony-bearing work: when he actually seeks to 
 save his first soul for Christ ! " Am I the best 
 party to speak to that soul? If I speak to him, 
 am I sure that I shall say the right word? 
 Does God want me to speak to him? How will 
 he receive me? Oh, who is sufficient for this 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRIS TIA NS. 7 
 
 great soul-saving work? " It is hard to begin, 
 but, Christian, do your duty and God will stand 
 by you. The Spirit of God will see to the re- 
 sults. With the results you have nothing to 
 do: you have to do only with your duty. The 
 Spirit will supplement your deficiency. It is 
 the Spirit that prompts you, and you shall find, 
 when you do your part, that the one to whom 
 you speak has marvellously been made ready 
 for your word. The Spirit will overrule your 
 blunders and straighten out your imperfec- 
 tions of service. 
 
 Canon Wilberforce tells this story of Her- 
 komer, the great English portrait painter: 
 Herkomer had an old father who lived with 
 him in his splendid palace at Bushy. In his 
 early life his father used to model in clay. 
 In his old age his great fear was that his 
 work would show imperfection. It was his 
 one sorrow, as he retired to bed every night, 
 that he had lost his art. Knowing this, his 
 talented son went into his father's studio after 
 he was asleep, and took up the tools and made 
 his father's feeble attempts as beautiful as art 
 could make them. When the old man came 
 down in the morning and looked at his work, 
 he used to rub his hands in perfect delight and 
 exclaim : " Ah, I can do it as well as I ever did I 
 
68 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 See! The work speaks for itself!" In some 
 such way the Spirit will supplement your work 
 and make up for your defects. Begin, trust 
 him, test him, and see for yourself if he will 
 not. 
 
 It is in Christian work as it is in making a 
 fortune, the hardest part is the start. The 
 first thousand is the hardest thousand to win. 
 John Jacob Astor in his old age is reported to 
 have said that given these two alternatives, 
 to start from where he started with nothing 
 and work his way into possession of ten hun- 
 dred dollars, or to go on from the ten hundred 
 and amass the large amount he had gathered 
 together, he would accept the latter alterna- 
 tive. To start is the difficulty. But what after 
 the start? Why this: comparatively speaking, 
 the work will take care of itself. You do not 
 need to ask that question. Save your first soul, 
 and the joy coming to you from that will give 
 you such an impetus in Christ's work that you 
 will forget all about difficulties. The work itself 
 will bind you to itself. The work itself will 
 bring you accumulated strength, and knack and 
 tact, and a knowledge which will become wis- 
 dom. You sow strength and you reap strength. 
 You sow improved opportunities, and you reap 
 opportunities waiting to be improved. You 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRJS TIA NS. 6 g 
 
 sow the power to save one soul, and you reap 
 the power to save two souls. Christian, you 
 express your desire to work for Christ. That 
 is right. But do not stop with expressing de- 
 sire : begin to work, and begin at once. Begin, 
 begin, and everything will follow in due order. 
 A gentleman in New York put into my hand 
 a little booklet entitled " A Day's Time-Table." 
 The booklet bears right on this point. The 
 heroine of the book is a young woman who 
 lives in the home of wealth and fashion. She 
 is a Christian. In her devotional reading of 
 the Bible one day she came across this verse 
 in Deut. xi. 21: " That your days may be 
 as the days of heaven upon the earth." She 
 said to herself, " I have no such days on earth. " 
 Then she began to wish that God would give 
 her a time-table from Heaven for each day, 
 and fill it with duty to be done each hour of the 
 day. That would make earth-days Heaven- 
 days. She longed to do Christian work and 
 be useful; but how, she did not know. A 
 voice within said to her, Only begin and God 
 will see to coming time. A poor girl that day 
 came to her father's house on business. Her 
 father being absent from home, it fell to her 
 lot to talk with the girl. She accepted that as 
 her opportunity from God. The girl was an 
 
7© THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 invalid and needed help and sympathy, and 
 she gave these to her. In doing her duty to 
 this poor girl she started to work for Christ. 
 The result was this: the work of that one 
 hour grew and shaped itself and developed 
 slowly into an organization for invalids, then 
 into a seaside home, and then into lives 
 brightened and restored to health, and then into 
 hearts won for Jesus Christ. Was this all? 
 Not all. She herself was developed all around 
 in her religious nature ; she was brought into 
 the broadening fellowship of other consecrated 
 workers and was enriched by their experience 
 and aspirations. A sick minister whom she 
 met helped her as he carried on his work in 
 his sick-room and served the Lord in what he 
 was accustomed to call his " sofa-diocese. " 
 He taught her to conduct all her transactions 
 with the great Unseen. Her Bible became to 
 her a new book. Before this it brought her 
 only a Gospel of salvation : but now it brought 
 her in addition a Gospel of guidance. Some 
 new power touched its verses and chapters with 
 a holy light, and made it all the time-table 
 of life that she felt she needed. Her whole 
 life became a service of God, and everything 
 she did became " Kingdom-work. " She start- 
 ed, and God took care of the rest. Our first 
 
UR TA SK A S CHRIS TIA NS. 7 1 
 
 need in order to the successful meeting of our 
 task is to start. Have you started? 
 
 2. Our second need for effectively meeting our 
 task is the stimulus and help which one gets 
 from keeping one' s-self in touch with a live 
 Christian fellowship. 
 
 One of the uses of the church of Christ with 
 its fellowship is just this: to secure for its 
 members the necessary equipment for spiritual 
 service. It provides a common fund of ex- 
 perience, and tact, and faith, and knowledge, 
 and enthusiasm from which all are permitted 
 to draw. Here in the temple of God it is ex- 
 pected that Christian will communicate with 
 Christian backward and forward by way of 
 loving exchange. It is here that we give and 
 receive. Every church, every temple of God 
 should be such an exchange. There is a charm- 
 ing tradition coming down to us from the rab- 
 bins relative to the site upon which Solomon's 
 Temple was erected, which is in point here. 
 The place is said to have been owned in com- 
 mon by two Hebrew brothers. One of the 
 brothers had a family, the other had not. On 
 this very spot was sown a field of wheat. On 
 the evening of the harvest-day, the wheat hav- 
 ing been gathered into shocks in the field, the 
 elder brother said to his wife : " My younger 
 
72 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 brother is unable to bear the burden and heat 
 of the day ; I will arise and take of my shocks 
 and place them with his without his knowl- 
 edge." The younger, being actuated by the 
 same benevolent motive, said within himself: 
 " My elder brother has a family, and I have 
 none ; I will arise and take of my shocks and 
 place them with his. " The next day they were 
 both astonished to find that their respective 
 shocks remained undiminished. This course 
 of events transpired for several nights, when 
 each resolved in his own mind to go on guard 
 and solve the mystery. They did so, and on 
 the following night they met each other with 
 their respective shocks in their arms on their 
 way to make their loving exchange. It was 
 upon ground hallowed by such loving associa- 
 tions that the temple of Solomon was erected. 
 This story of the rabbins is a parable; it 
 teaches that every temple of God in which the 
 people of God fellowship should be a place where 
 brethren shall exchange mutual gifts and where 
 they shall communicate the one to the other. 
 
 We can receive much from one another, be- 
 cause we have a great influence the one with 
 the other. We search one another, we rebuke 
 one another, we chill one another, we stimu- 
 late one another, we educate one another, we 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 73 
 
 interpret one another, and we do this by our 
 simple presence. We see this illustrated in a 
 hundred ways in daily life. A handsome wom- 
 an, for example, interprets and measures the 
 homeliness of all women not handsome, when 
 these come into her presence or when she goes 
 into their presence. A tall man, for example, 
 interprets and reveals and measures the short- 
 ness of short men who come into his presence. 
 Short men know this. There are short men 
 who know it so well that they positively re- 
 fuse to go into a room where there is a single 
 tall man. I do not blame them. They de- 
 sire to have all the credit of what little height 
 belongs to them, without any invidious com- 
 parison. We judge one another. We reveal 
 one another by our simple presence ; therefore 
 the presence of a hopeful, constant, efficient 
 Christian worker is one of the greatest powers 
 for Christ and for the cause of Christian work. 
 He is an inspiration among workers. He cre- 
 ates an atmosphere of enterprise in which great 
 plans for God are formed. He instructs. He 
 suggests methods of work. Brethren, keep 
 constantly in the fellowship of such. 
 
 Let me illustrate the way we are equipped 
 for our Christian task by getting lessons from 
 a living fellowship in the household of faith. 
 
74 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 Here is a man who wins souls to Christ by 
 the score. But how does he do it? By aiming 
 at great things? No. By aiming at compara- 
 tively small things. He individualizes. He 
 works upon souls one at a time. He covets 
 some particular man for Christ, and goes to 
 him and reasons with him, and keeps going to 
 him until the man surrenders to Christ. He 
 makes him a study day and night. From this 
 man we learn to individualize in our Christian 
 work. To master this lesson is one of the 
 needed equipments in the service of saving 
 souls. For souls are saved, not in the mass, 
 but one by one. 
 
 Here is another man who makes great use of 
 prayer in carrying on the work of the Lord. 
 With him prayer is always the precursor of 
 work: just as it was with Peter when he opened 
 the doors of the Christian church to the great 
 Gentile world. From him we learn the value 
 of prayer as an instrument and a preparation for 
 Christian service. Here is a man who exalts 
 the Bible in his work. I knew such a man, and 
 he gave me a lesson that has been helpful to 
 me in Christian work for many years. The 
 Bible was a finality with him. He admitted 
 of no appeal from it. In dealing with unsaved 
 souls, he positively refused to discuss its merits 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRIS TlA NS. 7 5 
 
 or demerits. He took for granted that it was 
 the Word of God beyond all peradventure. He 
 related to me one case illustrating his method 
 of work. He fell in one day with a sceptical 
 young college student, who felt that he had the 
 arguments at his tongue's end which wholly 
 annihilated Christianity. He made one state- 
 ment after another against Christianity. My 
 friend said " I simply met each statement with 
 an apt quotation from the Bible. " The young 
 man kept replying : " Oh, that is from the Bible. 
 I do not believe in the Bible. " My friend said : 
 " God says it, young man, whether you believe 
 or not." A few weeks after, the young man 
 came to him and said : " I am a Christian, and 
 I want to thank you that you helped me to 
 become such. It was the Bible you quoted 
 that took hold of me and brought me to faith. 
 If you had argued with me, I should have been 
 an infidel still ; but you just made God speak 
 to me, and that did the work." You will save 
 no souls if you do not believe in the Bible 
 through and through and without a question 
 or a doubt. It is the Book that carries weight 
 with men. Men will a hundred cases out of one 
 hundred and one believe the Book when they 
 will not believe you. A man only who is full of 
 the Book is well equipped for his Christian task. 
 
76 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 
 
 Christian workers, associate with men in 
 whom is the divine life, who are daily living 
 in prayer, who are planning for God's cause, 
 and spending themselves in his service; and 
 from their presence go out to labor for your 
 Master full of their contagion and enthusiasm, 
 strong with their strength, alive with their 
 hope, tactful with their versatility, all on fire 
 with their love for souls, partakers of their un- 
 wavering faith, and well equipped with their 
 experience. 
 
 Another requisite for our Christian task is : 
 
 3. An effective Christian personality. 
 
 This is our chief furniture in Christian work. 
 This is a requisite away beyond any that I 
 have as yet named. It is the incarnation of 
 all the other requisites. You may be able to 
 quote most fluently the Bible in answer to the 
 objections of the sceptic, but if you have not a 
 real and effective Christian personality to put 
 back of your apt quotation, you will spoil the 
 Bible and render its most beautiful and pun- 
 gent sayings powerless. 
 
 It is the man, or the woman, back of the 
 Scripture quotation that gives it its force. It 
 is the man back of the sermon that makes the 
 sermon a power. 
 
 Spurgeon tells us that he went once to hear 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 77 
 
 George Muller preach, that man whom God 
 has so lately crowned with his eternal crown ; 
 that man who did so much for the orphans and 
 who carried on his great enterprises on the 
 capital of simple faith. He says of George 
 Muller's sermon: " Oh, it was such a soul feast 
 to me." "Why? Was the sermon grand, Mr. 
 Spurgeon?" "No, it was not. There was no 
 grandeur about it. It was as plain a sermon 
 as ever I heard. It was the man in the ser- 
 mon that moved me and thrilled me. It was 
 George Muller's spiritual strength poured into 
 my emptiness that fed me. If many another 
 man had preached it, it would have been profit- 
 less to me. But it was profitable to me be- 
 cause it came out of George Muller's life and 
 because George Muller was back of it." My 
 experience in hearing George Muller was the 
 very opposite of Mr. Spurgeon 's. When he 
 was in this country years and years ago, he 
 preached here in Brooklyn. I came over from 
 New York to hear the pastor of the church in 
 which he preached. The pastor was away, and 
 I was told George Muller of England was going 
 to preach. He did preach. He took the whole 
 of the twenty-third Psalm and expounded that. 
 I thought it was as flat as anything I ever lis- 
 tened to from the pulpit. And I went away 
 
73 THINGS OF NORTBFIELD. 
 
 unfed and disappointed. Was it George Mul- 
 ler's fault? It was not. It was David Gregg's 
 fault. David Gregg was a very young man 
 then, a hide-bound close-communion Scotch 
 Covenanter, and he did not know a single thing 
 about George Muller. He had never heard of 
 him before. He did not know the personality 
 that evolved the sermon and which was behind 
 the sermo n. It would be different now if I heard 
 George Muller preach. I know George Muller 
 now and I love George Muller now ; and a ser- 
 mon from him now, with his personality back 
 of it, would be a gospel feast to me. 
 
 In calling us to labor for him, God first of all 
 bids us look after what we are by way of faith 
 and sincerity, love, and holiness of life. He 
 wishes us to be up to the full weight spiritu- 
 ally, because he will then have in us a mighty 
 witness of his power and purpose. He knows 
 that men can believe that there is a God up in 
 Heaven when they see a God dwelling in our 
 heart down here. The greatest evidence of 
 spiritual religion is a holy life. The best ser- 
 vice you can render to the Master is to be like 
 him. Character is service, A man keeping 
 himself pure in the midst of impurity, a man 
 who keeps his love in the midst of the bitter 
 sarcasm of a cruel world, a man who repro- 
 
UR TA SIC A S CHRIS TIANS. 7 9 
 
 duces the holy character of Christ in this sinful 
 generation, is the most irrefragible argument 
 that God is true, and that God's Word is true. 
 The man who lives the resurrection-life is the 
 strongest proof of the resurrection. 
 
 The chief thing to be looked after in carry- 
 ing on the work of Jesus Christ on earth is to 
 see to it that Jesus Christ is truly represented 
 among men by those who professed to be his 
 and to live his life. If as Christians we do not 
 in our own personalities give the world the 
 very best representation of him, he will not 
 be appreciated, he will not be accepted by oth- 
 ers. Two men stopped on the street to talk. 
 Just then a street-organ struck up a tune. 
 The hand-organ was a mean, rickety instru- 
 ment, and did nothing but wheeze and groan 
 and give forth distortions and sounds in spasms. 
 " Let us move on and get rid of that abominable 
 tune," said the one to the other. His friend 
 replied : " The tune is all right. Do you not 
 know what it is? " " No, and I do not care to 
 know. I never can be made to like it. " " Why 
 not? it was written by Handel, and is called 
 'See the Conquering Hero Comes.'" "Well 
 then, Handel wrote a very poor thing." "I 
 cannot allow Handel's work to be slandered 
 thus: you must come with me to the Handel 
 
8o THINGS OF NORTHFIELD, 
 
 festival, and hear that tune as it ought to be 
 rendered. " A month later the admirer of Han- 
 del took his friend to the Handel festival. As 
 the man listened to that sound of harping sym- 
 phonies and sevenfold hallelujahs, he was es- 
 pecially carried away with one part. He went 
 into raptures in his praises of it. Asking his 
 friend what that part was called, he was utterly 
 amazed at the reply : " That is * See the Conquer- 
 ing Hero Comes!' " There are Christians and 
 Christians, and there is as much difference be- 
 tween them as there is between a creaking 
 hand-organ that croaks out, in paroxysms and 
 gasps, Handel's great production, and the finely 
 selected and managed orchestra that makes 
 Handel's great production thrill. We wish 
 Christ presented to men at his best, that 
 men may love him. Only the fine Christian 
 personality can present him at his best — but 
 it can. 
 
 We have all known men who have made 
 Christ real to us. Do you remember how it 
 was said of a good woman by a chivalrous 
 man, " that it was a liberal education to have 
 known her." Why? Had she written books? 
 No. Had she led some great movement and 
 been a brilliant figure in society? No. Had 
 she wit and genius, a mind of unusual power 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRIS TIA NS> 8 1 
 
 and penetration? No. What did she have? 
 She had the grace of sweet purity and good- 
 ness. She had complete sympathy with Jesus 
 Christ. Christ lived in and through her. She 
 was in the grandest and broadest sense a Chris- 
 tian woman. There are such people in the 
 world — people of such a noble order that when 
 we meet them we instinctively recognize that 
 they are the finest products of human life. We 
 come out of their presence invigorated and 
 strengthened and refreshed. We love good- 
 ness better for having seen them, and feel a 
 new loyalty to the truth for having talked with 
 them. We know them by the brightness of 
 their eye, and the purity of their face, and the 
 calmness of their brow. The gentle dignity of 
 their manner and the influence of their holy 
 lives make us feel and know that they breathe 
 the air, and wear the dress, and speak the lan- 
 guage, and frequent the court of the King of 
 kings. By their motives and words and deeds 
 and principles and sacrifices and devotion they 
 make the discipleship of Jesus a real and beau- 
 tiful confession, and the personality of Christ 
 one of the vital forces of the world. They 
 " compel us to come in. " 
 
 If what I have said be true, the practical 
 question with you and me is, What kind of a 
 
82 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 personality are we offering Jesns Christ to be 
 used in His service? How much of Christ can 
 those whom we beseech to become reconciled 
 to Christ see in us? Are we by our personali- 
 ties spoiling the texts of Scripture which we 
 quote, or are we adding power to them? What 
 are we for personal sanctity? Is sin in our souls 
 as an admiration, or as an approval, or as a 
 toleration? If so, it will hinder our effective- 
 ness as Christians. We should keep our souls 
 as the Holy of Holies. Be assured a concep- 
 tion within will some day become a transcep- 
 tion without. We should give no tolerance to 
 sin or to the low or to the second class. We 
 should be pure-souled and pure -handed. We 
 should be men and women of pure eyes. Pure 
 eyes carry in them the flame of fire and the 
 light by which they are able to see the things 
 of God ; now only those who see the things of 
 God can tell them to others. 
 
 But let no one be discouraged at these high 
 things which I now present as needs for effec- 
 tive Christian service. They are possible to 
 all under the indwelling and operation of God's 
 Holy Spirit. Even the humblest saint can be 
 a correct representative of Jesus Christ. The 
 Christ in his soul may be just as true as the 
 Christ in the soul of the greatest saint in the 
 
OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 83 
 
 Christian fellowship. The smallest rainbow in 
 the tinest drop of water, which hangs on the 
 sooty eave of your house, and which catches 
 the sunlight — the smallest rainbow in that tiny 
 water-drop has precisely the same lines and 
 the same colors and the same order of beauty 
 as the great arch that strides in grandeur across 
 half the sky. My fellow-men, having the right 
 personality for effective Christian work is nar- 
 rowed down to just this with us : It is a simple 
 question of complete surrender of self to God, 
 to be moulded and purified and developed and 
 filled with his divine indwelling. It is a 
 question altogether of the human will. Do 
 you will to have that personality? You can 
 have it. 
 
 When we reach these requisites of which I 
 have spoken to-day — what a grand church we 
 shall have! what a power we shall exert in 
 this community! what soul-saving shall be 
 witnessed in our midst — each unit will be a 
 host in himself and in herself, and the united 
 power of all for God will be irresistible. We 
 shall have a full church, a praying church, an 
 indoctrinated church, a united church, a church 
 whose members weep with those who weep as 
 well as rejoice with those who rejoice ; a sym- 
 pathetic church, a worshipful church, a church 
 
84 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 
 
 of saved families — families unbroken in the 
 faith and service of Christ ; a church equipped 
 with power from on high, full of the Holy 
 Ghost and of fire ; a spiritually-minded church, 
 a testimony-bearing church, and, finally, a 
 working church. 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 
 
 * Ye are not [of the world : . . . I have chosen you out of the 
 world." John xv. 19. 
 
IV. 
 
 AM I WORLDLY? 
 
 " Am I worldly? This question has been 
 pushing itself upon me for months. It has 
 been uttering itself over and over again. I 
 am literally compelled to meet it. It has for- 
 mulated itself, and has urgently asked itself, 
 because, in my late reading of the Bible, my 
 mind has been arrested and overwhelmed by 
 the great number of scriptures which refer to 
 God's people and their relations to the world. 
 In these scriptures the world is defined, and 
 the man of God is defined, and the antagonism 
 which exists between the world and the man of 
 God is defined. These scriptures are plain- 
 spoken and are their own interpreters. These 
 scriptures run through both testaments of the 
 Book. You find them in the Old Testament 
 and in the New Testament. 
 
 In the Old Testament they are such as 
 these : 
 
 87 
 
88 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 "Deliver my soul . . . from men of the world, who 
 have their portion in this life." 
 
 "Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God : the 
 Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people 
 unto himself, above all the people that are on the face 
 of the earth." 
 
 "And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am 
 holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye 
 should be mine." 
 
 "In that day there shall be upon the bells of the 
 horses, holiness unto the Lord. " 
 
 In the Old Testament the very names of 
 God's people distinguish them and separate 
 them from the world, and so does their con- 
 stant association with God. When they are 
 worldly, they are failures in life; when they 
 are unworldly, they are a success. Lot was 
 worldly : Abraham was unworldly. You know 
 which of the two men was the great God-power 
 in history and the source of blessing to man- 
 kind. The stories of these two men search 
 us; and we instinctively ask ourselves as we 
 read them: "Am I Lot? or, Am I Abraham?" 
 The great souls of the Old Testament were all 
 separated unto God. 
 
 This was the case with Moses. 
 
 "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused 
 to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing 
 rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 89 
 
 enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season : Esteeming the 
 reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of 
 Egypt." 
 
 This was so in the case of Isaiah : separating 
 himself unto God, he said : 
 
 "Here am I, send me." 
 
 This was so with Daniel ; he was in Babylon, 
 but he was not of Babylon ; and everybody in 
 the kingdom knew it. Everybody knew that 
 he was the prophet of God, and that he be- 
 longed to Israel. This is the sum and sub- 
 stance of the teaching of the Old Testament, 
 viz. : The Covenant-people of God should live per- 
 petually toward the holy place. 
 
 Explicit as are these Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament, and clear as their teachings are in 
 declaring God's people to be a separated peo- 
 ple, the Scriptures of the New Testament are 
 still more explicit and outspoken and mani- 
 fold. In turning the pages of the New Testa- 
 ment, we find that Jesus and all his apostles 
 are one in emphasizing the unworldliness which 
 should characterize the people of God. To 
 begin with, there is nothing that Jesus teaches 
 with greater frequency or with greater posi- 
 tiveness than this fact, that we are to be un- 
 worldly in our Christian life. Our text is in 
 evidence here : " Ye are not of the world . . . 
 
90 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 I have chosen you out of the world. " In an- 
 other place the Master warns us against the 
 Mammon-spirit, and tells us plainly that we 
 cannot live a double life; neither can we re- 
 cruit the devil into the Lord's ranks: 
 
 "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon: no man can 
 serve two masters. " 
 
 There is not room for two master-passions 
 in one heart. It is Jesus who sets forth the 
 profitlessness of the world's service, even when 
 a man is successful in that service : 
 
 "What will it profit a man even though he should 
 gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ; or what 
 will a man give in exchange for his soul ? " 
 
 This must be an important matter — viz., 
 our unworldliness — for Jesus makes it a sub- 
 ject of his prayers. His prayers give us an 
 insight into things. For all Christians Jesus 
 prays : 
 
 " Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those 
 whom thou hast given me : While I was in the world I 
 kept them in thy name. I pray not, that thou shouldst 
 take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst 
 keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, 
 even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through 
 thy truth ; thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me 
 into the world, even so send I them into the world." 
 
 Would Jesus Christ have prayed thus for us 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 9 1 
 
 if our unworldliness were not a matter of su- 
 preme importance? 
 
 Passing from the Master, listen to his apos- 
 tles. Paul, the chief of the apostles, is just 
 as definite as Jesus himself in setting forth the 
 duty of unworldliness. These are some of his 
 words : 
 
 "Be not conformed to this world ; but be ye trans- 
 formed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove 
 what is that good and acceptable will of God." 
 
 "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbe- 
 lievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with 
 unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with 
 darkness ? And what agreement hath the temple of God 
 with idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God ; as 
 God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them ; 
 and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 
 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
 rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; 
 and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, 
 and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
 Almighty." 
 
 There is nothing uncertain about that mes- 
 sage. Its teaching is clear. It declares that 
 God and Belial cannot be reconciled in one 
 brotherhood. They cannot exist together. 
 There is a broad and ineffaceable line of de- 
 marcation between the church of God and the 
 world. They are so far apart that no man can 
 live in both at the same time. To try to do so 
 
92 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 produces an absurd piety and a sham. You 
 might as well try to mix light and darkness. 
 They refuse to mix. Give Christianity the 
 sway, and it will conquer the world and eradi- 
 cate it; give the world the sway, admit it 
 into the church, and it will efface the church. 
 The world once crucified Christ, and if ever it 
 gets the opportunity it will crucify the church 
 of Christ. It proposes a compromise to the 
 church, true ; but its compromise always means 
 death. That is why it proposes it. Men who 
 live in the church of Jesus Christ and men 
 who live in the world live in different spiritual 
 universes, and the difference between the two 
 universes is so great and so radical and so es- 
 sential that no friendship between them is pos- 
 sible. "What fellowship hath righteousness 
 with unrighteousness? " 
 
 Add to the words of Paul the words of 
 James : 
 
 " The friendship of the world is enmity with God ; 
 whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the 
 enemy of God." 
 
 " True religion before God is to keep oneself unspotted 
 from the world." 
 
 Add to the words of James the words of 
 Peter : 
 " For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 93 
 
 world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 they are again entangled therein, and be overcome, the 
 latter end is worse with them than the beginning. " 
 
 "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pil- 
 grims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the 
 soul. " 
 
 But I wish you especially to add to the words 
 of Paul and James and Peter the words of John 
 the Apostle of love. He talks upon this sub- 
 ject just like Jesus : 
 
 "Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
 the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. The world passeth away and the 
 lust thereof : but he that doeth the will of God abideth 
 forever." 
 
 "Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world. " 
 
 "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We 
 know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in 
 wickedness." 
 
 "As he is, so are we in this world." 
 
 This is Christ's teaching over again. It is a 
 declaration, by the last writer of the New Tes- 
 tament, that the type of the Christian has been 
 permanently fixed. Christ himself is the type. 
 Our relation to the world is his. " As he is, so 
 are we in this world." Our mission here as the 
 people of God is to repeat the life of Jesus 
 Christ. John says: " Study Jesus Christ if 
 you would know the character you should wear 
 and the life you should live in this world. You 
 
94 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 are one with him. " " As he ts y even so are we in 
 this world" We are called by his name; and 
 we are one with him We are here with a 
 message; we are here with a mission. Like 
 his, ours is a mediatorial position in the world ; 
 and this determines our mode of activity as 
 Christians. It is ours to be in the world, yet 
 not of the world. What did Jesus do when he 
 was in the world? " He kept in unimpeded 
 contact with God, and he kept in unimpeded 
 contact with men. " This is what we are to do. 
 We are here to practise the presence of God 
 among men. To represent God. To move 
 among men? Yes; but at the same time to 
 dwell in the secret place of the Most High 
 To converse with men? Yes; but at the same 
 time to keep up a sustained converse with God. 
 In vital touch with God and in vital touch with 
 man — that is the Christian life. But mark you, 
 what this makes out of our companionship with 
 the men of the world ! With the men of the 
 world, whose portion is in this life, and in this 
 life only, we have nothing to do but to save 
 them. We are to be as Christ unto them. For, 
 "as he is, so are zve in this world." When you 
 learn the purpose for which Jesus Christ was 
 in the world, you learn the purpose for which 
 we are in the world. 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 95 
 
 These are some of the Scriptures to which I 
 referred in the beginning of my sermon and 
 which I said started this question in my soul : 
 " Am I worldly ? " They are radical ; they are 
 searching. They measure me ; they weigh me ; 
 they analyze me; they summon me to God's 
 judgment-bar. They tell me what I ought to 
 be ; and reveal the spirit which should animate 
 me. They give me the life of Jesus Christ by 
 which to square my life, and then they push 
 home this question, " Does your life square with 
 his life?" 
 
 My fellow-men, is it right for me to allow 
 myself to be arrested and swayed in my think- 
 ing by these Scriptures? Do they impress you 
 as they impress me? Have you noticed, as I 
 have, the tone of severity with which the Bible 
 names and deals with worldliness? When I 
 am at my best, I do not like the world nor 
 worldlings. Do you? When I look at the 
 world from a high spiritual standpoint, there 
 is nothing in its character or destiny to attract 
 me ; there is everything to repel me. I do not 
 admire its devotees either in their principles 
 or in their aims. Worldlings are the exponents 
 of the world ; but there is not a decent world- 
 ling in the Book. Not that the worldlings who 
 walk the Book are few — they are many. In the 
 
96 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 Old Testament you have Lot and Achan and 
 Balaam ; in the New Testament yon have Dives 
 and Judas and Demas and Diotrephos. But 
 they are a bad coterie. What lives they lived ! 
 What characters they built up! What influ- 
 ences they exerted! What destinies they 
 reached! Do you wish to duplicate them in 
 your experience? Would you be proud to bear 
 their names? Yet in them we see the very 
 best the world can do for man. All who live 
 worldly will certainly be their duplicates. 
 Think of it — all these men held known and 
 nominal relations to God and to God's Cove- 
 nant-people. They were all religious world- 
 lings. That only makes it more imperative 
 for us, who are in the church of God, to ask 
 the question : " Ami worldly ? " The presence 
 of so many worldlings in the Book is indicative 
 of the existence and prevalence of worldliness 
 and is proof of our need of watchfulness on 
 this line of danger. 
 
 I think Bunyan, with his insight relative to 
 human nature and relative also to the religious 
 life, discerned this ; hence in writing his match- 
 less allegory he strikes at the sin of worldliness 
 as at no other sin, and exposes its prevalence 
 by multiplying in his writings the characters 
 who are swayed by it. He reproduces all the 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 97 
 
 worldlings of the Bible, in some form or other, 
 and in fresh lights. They are all in his graphic 
 pages. There is Mr. Worldly-wise-man, who 
 lives in the town of Carnal Policy, and Mr. 
 Talkative and Mr. Formalist and Mr. Hypoc- 
 risy, and Madame Bubble and By- Ends and 
 Hold-the-world, and Demas, the proprietor of 
 Hill Lucre. 
 
 In painting Madam Bubble, Bunyan shows 
 his full skill and his astonishing genius. She 
 is one of his masterpieces. Madam Bubble is 
 simply the vain world personified. She is set 
 forth by mean of a dialogue in which Stand- 
 Fast, Honest, and Great- Heart take part. 
 
 Stand-Fast begins by relating a temptation 
 to which he had been subjected. " One in very 
 pleasant attire presented herself unto me and 
 offered me three things. I repulsed her once 
 and twice, but she put by my repulses and 
 smiled. Then I became angry ; but she mat- 
 tered that nothing at all. She made her offers 
 again and said, ' If I would be ruled by her she 
 would make me great and happy ' ; for said 
 she, 'I am mistress of the world, and men are 
 made happy by me. ' Then I asked her name, 
 and she told me it was Madam Bubble. This 
 set me further from her ; but she still followed 
 me with her enticements. Then I betook m@ 
 7 
 
98 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 to my knees, and cried for help to Him who has 
 said he will always help. This is why you 
 found me praying, gentlemen." 
 
 Honest broke in : " Madam Bubble ! Is she a 
 tall and comely dame? Doth she not speak 
 smoothly, and give you a smile at the end of 
 each sentence? Doth she not wear a great 
 purse by her side ; and is not her hand often 
 in it fingering her money, as if that were her 
 heart's delight?" Stand-Fast replied: "Just 
 so ; had she been before you all this while, you 
 could not more amply have set her forth nor 
 have better described her. " Then Great- Heart 
 said: "The woman is a witch. Whoever lay 
 their eyes upon her beauty are counted the 
 enemies of God. If one be cunning to get 
 money, she will speak well of him from house 
 to house — she is always at one full table or an- 
 other. She promises well. She promises ev- 
 erything. She will cast out of her purse gold 
 like dust in some places and to some persons. 
 This is to give her a cheap reputation. She 
 loves to be sought after. It was she that set 
 Absalom against his father and Jeroboam 
 against his master. It was she that persuaded 
 Judas to sell his Lord and that prevailed upon 
 Demas to forsake the godly pilgrim's life. 
 None can tell the mischief that she doth. She 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 99 
 
 maketh variance betwixt rulers and subjects, 
 betwixt parents and children, betwixt neigh- 
 bor and neighbor, betwixt a man and him- 
 self, betwixt the flesh and the heart." My fel- 
 low-men, this woman who stands forth as the 
 personification of the world is a hollow sham. 
 She blows only bubbles of empty hope in the 
 brains of men. She has only the transitory 
 things of the world to offer ; and the life which 
 she constructs is nothing more than a far-shin- 
 ing, high-soaring bubble, which breaks and 
 disappoints. Was not Lot's life only a bril- 
 liant shining bubble? Did it not break and 
 amount to nothing? Did it not go out of sight 
 in a collapse? Ye who are living for the world 
 and finding your pleasures in it are playing 
 with a bubble. 
 
 One of the richest chapters which Bunyan 
 ever wrote, according to my mind, is that chap- 
 ter in which Christian and Hopeful fell in with 
 a whole bevy of worldlings — all of whom were 
 pilgrims professedly traveling to the Celestial 
 City. First, they overtook a man whose name 
 was By- Ends, who came from the town of Fair- 
 Speech. In the town of Fair-Speech By- Ends 
 said he had many relatives. " Pray, who are 
 your relatives there, if I may make so bold as 
 to question you?" asked Christian. "Almost 
 
IOO THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 the whole town," replied By-Ends; "and in 
 particular my Lord Time-Server and my Lord 
 Fair-Speech; also Mr. Smooth-Man, and Mr. 
 Facing-Both-Ways, and Mr. Anything. The 
 parson of our parish church, Mr. Two-Tongues, 
 is my mother's own brother. . . . The worst 
 that I ever did to give an occasion of offence 
 to any, and for which they gave me the nick- 
 name 'By-Ends,' was that I had always the 
 luck to jump in my judgment with the present 
 way of the times, whatever it was." Continu- 
 ing, he informed Christian that there were two 
 small points in which he differed from the 
 strict sort of religious people: first, he never 
 did strive against wind and tide ; secondly, he 
 was always most zealous when religion went 
 in silver slippers ; he loved to walk with relig- 
 ion on the sunny side of the street and when 
 people applauded." But By-Ends soon tired 
 of the company of Christian and Hopeful and 
 fell behind them in the way. He did not, how- 
 ever have to travel alone, for soon there over- 
 took him three other fellow-travelers of a kin- 
 dred mind, viz. : Mr. Hold-the-World, Mr. 
 Money-Love, and Mr. Save-All. Each of these 
 gentlemen had formerly been school-fellows 
 under Mr. Grip-Man in Love-Gain, a market- 
 town in the county of Coveting. These pil- 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 101 
 
 grims, spying Christian and Hopeful ahead of 
 them in the road before them, began to talk 
 about them. "They are a couple of far- 
 country-men that after their mode are going 
 on a pilgrimage," said By-Ends. "Alas! why 
 did they not stay that we might have their 
 good company? for they and we and you, sir, 
 I hope, are all going on a pilgrimage," said Mr. 
 Money-Love. " We are indeed," answered By- 
 Ends, "but the men before us are rigid, and 
 love so much their own notions, and do so 
 lightly esteem the opinions of others, that let a 
 man be ever so godly, yet if he jumps not with 
 them in all things, they thrust him quite out of 
 their company." "That is bad," said Save- 
 All, " but we read in the good Book of some 
 that are righteous overmuch." "Why," said 
 By-Ends, "they, after their headstrong fash- 
 ion, conclude that it is duty to rush on their 
 journey in all weatheis; I am for waiting for 
 wind and tide. They are for hazarding all for 
 God at a clap ; I am for taking all advantage to 
 secure my life and estate. They are for hold- 
 ing their notions, though all other men be 
 against them ; I am for religion in so far as the 
 times and my safety will bear. They are for 
 religion in rags and contempt ; but I am for him 
 when he walks in silver slippers, in the sun- 
 
102 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 shine, and with applause." To all this Mr. 
 Money-Love and Mr. Save-All and Mr. Hold- 
 the-World most heartily assented, and that for 
 two reasons, i. e. , they had both Scripture and 
 reason on their side. As Mr. Hold-the-World 
 remarked, " Abraham and Job were both rich, 
 and had much of this world." All these men 
 traveled along- until they came to the Hill 
 Lucre with its gold-mine, where they were en- 
 ticed from the pilgrim-way by Mr. Demas, the 
 owner of the mine. But after that Bunyan 
 says, " They were never seen in the way again. " 
 The deceitfulness of riches and the power of 
 the world wholly destroyed them. They sold 
 themselves, their time, their health, their souls, 
 for wealth. " How hardly shall they that have 
 riches enter into the kingdom of God; it is 
 easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
 needle than for a rich man to enter into the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 An old English poem sets into the light the 
 destructive power of the world in the lives of 
 men; I can do no better than give it just 
 here: 
 
 " Three hungry travelers found a bag of gold ; 
 One ran into the town where bread was sold. 
 
 He thought , ' I will poison the bread I buy, 
 And seize the treasure when my comrades die. ' 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 103 
 
 But they, too, thought, when back his feet have hied, 
 'We will destroy him, and the gold divide.' 
 They killed him, and, partaking of the bread, 
 In a few moments all were dead. 
 
 O World ! behold what ills thy goods have done ; 
 Thy gold thus poisoned two, and murder'd one." 
 
 But we have dwelt long enough with these 
 Scriptures and with their solemn warnings. 
 We have dwelt long enough with these charac- 
 ters of John Bunyan and with their ghastly end : 
 Lot stripped of his all; Achan stoned; Balaam 
 slain ; Dives in hell j Judas a suicide ; Demas a 
 traitor meeting a traitor's doom; Mme. Bubble 
 collapsed ; By-Ends and Money-Love and Save- 
 All and Hold-the-World forever lost and seen 
 no more in the pilgrim-path which leads to the 
 Celestial City. We have dwelt long enough 
 with these ; all these have their individual in- 
 fluence with us ; they talk to us ; they search 
 us ; they reveal to us our human nature ; they 
 teach us the great prevalence of worldliness 
 even in professed Christians ; they plant inter- 
 rogation points in our hearts and lead us to 
 ask the question, " A m I worldly ? " They also 
 show how opportune the discussion of worldli- 
 ness is in the Christian pulpit. It is opportune, 
 for the spirit of the world is even in the church 
 of God itself. 
 
1 04 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 
 
 It is in our day as it was in Charles Finney's 
 day. Toward the end of his great career that 
 man of God, Charles Finney, writes : " Oh, if I 
 had strength of body to go through the churches 
 again, instead of preaching to convert sinners, 
 I would preach to bring up the churches to the 
 Gospel-standard of holy living ; for the world- 
 liness of the churches and of the professed peo- 
 ple of God is the great barrier to the progress 
 of the cross with its salvation. It is a disgrace 
 to religion that it is so. " 
 
 At first thought one would think that the 
 world would let the church of God alone ; it is 
 professedly so different from the world ; it is 
 the avowed enemy of the world ; but on second 
 thought it appears that the world's best policy 
 is to capture the church and fill it with worldly 
 Christians. Entrenched in the church, the 
 world is in possession of its mightiest power. 
 There is a policy which is far better than blow- 
 ing up the Maine, and that is, capture the 
 Maine, and turn its guns on America. That 
 is the policy which the world follows when it 
 captures the church and fills it with nominal 
 Christians who are ruled by fashion and pride 
 and carnal ambition, and who live more for 
 themselves than for God ; who make the church 
 a stepping-stone and a gateway into society, a 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 105 
 
 help in their profession and business, a means 
 of getting on and up in the world, who use the 
 church instead of allowing the church to use 
 them. 
 
 But I hear you ask : " How can I tell whether 
 I am worldly or not? " That is the practical 
 question before us, and I am glad you ask it. 
 
 I answer, worldliness is a condition of the 
 heart. It is the inner spirit of the man or the 
 woman. First of all, it has to do with your 
 sympathies, your desires, your loves, your state 
 of heart, your mental and moral and spiritual 
 attitude toward the maxims, the aims, the pol- 
 icy, the disposition, the conduct, and the animus 
 of the world. How do you regard the world 
 in your heart? And how do you regard the 
 people of the world? 
 
 If in your heart you covet the things of this 
 world, you are worldly. If you are identified 
 with the world more than you are with the 
 church, you are worldly. If you have no time 
 for a prayer each day, no time for a chapter of 
 God's Book, no time for a glimpse of God, not 
 one hour in the week for the prayer-meeting, 
 only an hour and a half for one Sabbath service 
 each week, you are worldly. Some of you have 
 on your visiting-cards : " At home on Monday," 
 or, " At home on Tuesday" ; you need another 
 
106 THINGS OF NORTH FIELD. 
 
 inscription on your visiting-cards : "At prayer- 
 meeting on Friday, and at church morning and 
 evening on Sabbath. " Why not? Are you too 
 worldly to put that inscription on your visiting- 
 cards? Oh, you are trying to be Christians 
 without being odd! Well, you cannot suc- 
 cessfully be Christians and not be odd. That 
 inscription on your visiting-cards will be a 
 recognition of the prayer-meeting which the 
 prayer-meeting well merits; and it will be a 
 timely protest against social entertainments 
 and receptions on the Lord's Day which in our 
 time are obtaining even among professed 
 church people. 
 
 If your associations in life are worldly, you 
 are worldly. You are surrounded by people 
 who do not fear God, who do not keep his 
 Commandments, who are not living as seeing 
 him who is invisible, who have no treasure in 
 heaven, who have no plans or purposes which 
 extend into an existence beyond the grave; 
 they are vain, they are empty of God, they are 
 minus faith, minus hope, minus all spiritual 
 life. What is your attitude toward such? Do 
 you make your choice of friends, in this life, 
 from these professedly worldly men and 
 women? If so, you are worldly. The child of 
 God says, " I am companion of all those who 
 
AM I WORLDLY 7 t°7 
 
 fear and obey thee." I tell you, brethren, our 
 worst foes are our ungodly friends. Those 
 who are false to God are not likely to be true 
 to God's people. The smiling daughters of 
 Moab did more to hurt Israel than all the 
 frowning warriors of Balak. All Philistia 
 could not have bound and blinded Samson, if 
 Delilah's charms had not deluded him. 
 
 "Then we cannot go into society at all; we 
 must live excluded lives!" I have not said 
 that. No; you can go into society, if you 
 wish ; but you must take Christ with you. Do 
 you want to go into society without Christ? 
 If so, what kind of a Christian are you? " Ye 
 are not of the world. . . . I have chosen yon out 
 of the world." You can go into society just 
 as Jesus Christ did. Jesus never struck his 
 colors. Neither should you strike yours. So 
 completely was his religious character the whole 
 of him, and so powerful and victorious were 
 his principles, that there was no fear of any 
 company obscuring his testimony for God. 
 
 While he mingled with men, they all felt the 
 sacredness which was about him. In his pres- 
 ence they felt the shallowness of the world. 
 You go into society. What is the result? Is 
 society influenced by you, or are you influenced 
 by society? What effect has its enjoyments 
 
1,08 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 upon your religious life and your profession? 
 Does it silence your testimony and cool down 
 your enthusiasm? Does it secularize you and 
 unfit you for prayer? In it are you true to 
 your Saviour? Are you known as a Christian 
 and do people respect your position? Can you 
 speak of the subjects which are nearest your 
 heart? Do you mould society, or does society 
 mould you? By mingling with society are you 
 making others Christian? If yours is a fruitless 
 profession, you are a] world. If the worldling 
 can truthfully say of you, " He is no better than 
 I am," you are a worldling. The man who can 
 do business, and not be known as a Christian 
 by his business scruples and method and spirit, 
 is a worldling. A woman who can mingle in 
 society, and not be recognized as a Christian by 
 her modest dress and pure ways and her holy 
 talk, is a worldling. 
 
 If you live as a worldling, you are a world- 
 ling. That needs no argument; that is axio- 
 matic. That is the whole truth in a nutshell. 
 Christian people, if they are to represent Christ 
 and his church aright in the world, must bring 
 to the world lives that are suffused and all on 
 fire with God's presence. They must be men 
 and women characterized by righteousness and 
 honesty ; they must be pure in tone, in speech, 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 109 
 
 in thought ; open and transparent as the light 
 in their ideals and ambitions. They must be 
 men and women of large self-sacrifice. 
 
 I have said that the question " Am I worldly?" 
 is an exceedingly practical question ; and it is. 
 I wish to say now that there is another ques- 
 tion which is just as practical, and that ques- 
 tion is this : 
 
 What is the best way whereby I can overcome 
 my worldliness ? 
 
 This sermon would amount to nothing as a 
 force in life, unless I answered this question. 
 To know that I am worldly would only throw 
 me into despair, if the way of escape from my 
 worldliness were not clearly pointed out. I 
 have three points to give you in this line : 
 
 1. If you would overcome your worldliness ', live 
 positively — i.e., take as your standard in life 
 Christ and Christ's will, and your high calling in 
 Christ. 
 
 Your calling in Christ is separation from the 
 world. " Ye are not of the world. ... I have 
 chosen you out of the world. " " As he is, so 
 are we in this world." That makes Christ and 
 his life our standard. That makes our high 
 calling in Christ our standard. That calls us 
 to be positive. That leads us to live on the 
 line which the Apostle Paul commands when 
 
1 1 o THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 
 
 he says : " Be not conformed to this world, but 
 be ye transformed by doing the will of God. " 
 We are not to spend our whole time in avoid- 
 ing this evil and that evil; in fighting down 
 this and that public sentiment ; in opposing this 
 and that majority — that is negative. We are 
 to spend our time rather re-living the life of 
 Christ ; doing the known and commanded will 
 of God ; planting new principles in our souls, 
 and living the new life — this is positive. If we 
 keep our time filled with doing what we ought 
 to do, there will be no place or time for doing 
 the things we ought not to do. The word 
 " transformed" translated into holy living, con- 
 quers the word "conformed." Stand face to 
 face with the shining splendors of the will of 
 God, and become transformed into the incarna- 
 tion of these, and you will not be conformed to 
 the world. Be spiritual, and you will not be 
 carnal. Be like Christ, and you will not bear 
 in your personality a single feature of Belial. 
 Be honest in business, and you will not be dis- 
 honest. Be a Christian in society, and you will 
 not be a heathen. Be a believer, and you will 
 not be an unbeliever. That is, live your whole 
 life on distinctively Christian lines, and your 
 faith will win the victory over the world. The 
 cure for worldliness is this : in all things and 
 
AM I WORLDLY? in 
 
 in all places be out-and-out for Christ, and live 
 as an unmistakable citizen of the kingdom of 
 God. Try everything you do by Jesus Christ, 
 and measure it by your high calling. In Christ 
 Jesus you are a new creature ; live as a new 
 creature. 
 
 2. If you would overcome your worldliness } 
 analyze narrowly the career of the worldling and 
 make a careful note of his losses in life. 
 
 Use the story of Lot. His is a striking case. 
 He moved out of his simple patriarchal life into 
 Sodom, the world-centre of his age; and you 
 know the result. There was a deterioration of 
 soul ; there was a vitiation of character ; there 
 was the loss of power ; spirituality gave way to 
 carnality. Then came all manner of compro- 
 mises; then low views of high things, and 
 proposals that no man of God should ever 
 make. But leap over to the end and see what 
 is there. Retribution fell on Lot. And it was 
 swift and terrible and tragic. In no drama 
 ever written by the genius of man is there so 
 overwhelming a climax as the last chapter in 
 Lot's history. His family hopelessly worldly. 
 He himself a jest, mocked by his children; the 
 complete loss of all influence and power among 
 men ; his wife overwhelmed with judgment — a 
 poor, broken-down, pitiable old man, without 
 
1 1 2 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 
 
 a single consolation of conscience or a single 
 atom of affection, empty-handed he is compelled 
 to flee for his life. It is true that he was ac- 
 companied by his two unmarried daughters; 
 but they carried in them all the carnality of 
 Sodom and became the mothers of children 
 who were the avowed enemies of God and of 
 God's people. Contrast Lot, whose only abid- 
 ing gift to the world consists in the Ammorites 
 and the Moabites — contrast Lot with Abraham, 
 the friend of God, from whom he parted, who 
 gave mankind Israel with their covenants and 
 oracles and promises and prophets and the 
 great Christ. Lot stands for worldliness; 
 Abraham for un worldliness. Give me un world- 
 liness. Was not Lot saved? Yes; but his life 
 was lost. He went empty-handed into heaven. 
 That is the way it is with worldlings the world 
 over ; they may themselves be saved, but their 
 life of fifty and sixty and seventy precious 
 years — this is lost. Can any Christian afford 
 to lose his life? If not, then no Christian can 
 afford to be worldly. 
 
 3. If you would overcome your worldliness look 
 after your environment, and live in spiritual 
 associations. 
 
 The unworldly company of the Book is a 
 glorious company. Live in that. It is hard to 
 
AM I WORLDLY? 113 
 
 surpass the personalities who live in the elev- 
 enth chapter of Hebrews. The goodly fel- 
 lowship of the Apostles and Prophets, this has 
 no superior. Protect God's Sabbath with its up- 
 lifting fellowships. You need its communion 
 to re-spiritualize and re-charge your depressed 
 Christian life. It should be a day of strength- 
 ening insight and vision and communion. 
 Make some man of God your special comrade 
 and confidant in holy things. Lot failed just 
 here. He left Abraham the friend of God, 
 and when he lost his fellowship he lost his re- 
 ligion. Do not attempt to live without your 
 Abraham, your trusted friend, who is also 
 God's trusted friend, and who has power with 
 God, and to whom God is continually commit- 
 ting his great and wondrous secrets ; who can 
 instruct you and comfort you and pray for you. 
 For the purpose of real, intimate, spiritual 
 companionship, the having such a friend with 
 whom you can freely and unreservedly talk is 
 the very next thing to having God with whom 
 you can talk, and in whom you can confide, 
 and with whom you can consult. It is a great 
 thing to know a man of God ; to get into the 
 secrets of his heart ; to enjoy the benediction 
 of his presence. God is in that man, and 
 through that man is protecting us, and is in- 
 
1 1 4 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 
 
 structing us, and is enfolding us with a divine 
 and life-giving atmosphere. " He that walk- 
 eth with the wise shall be wise" ; even so he 
 that walketh with the unworldly shall be un- 
 worldly. 
 
"Run, speak to this young man." — Zechariah ii. 4. 
 
 OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG 
 MEN. 
 
V. 
 
 OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 
 
 Let us get the Scripture location of this 
 text. Let us reach its first meaning. By do- 
 ing this we shall be able to find our way to the 
 proper use of it in the times in which we now 
 live. It carries in it an inner principle; by 
 locating it we shall be able to reach that inner 
 principle and make it a practical force. Its 
 inner principle is this : " The young man car- 
 ries in him the future ; if we are to take care of 
 the future we must take care of the young 
 man." 
 
 The text is part of the book of Zechariah. 
 Zechariah, the writer of the book, was a col- 
 league of Haggai, and was contemporary with 
 Zerubbabel the prince, and with Joshua the 
 high priest, during the rebuilding of the 
 Temple of Jerusalem. He and Haggai were 
 prophets of God during the restoration of Israel 
 from the Babylonian captivity to the Holy 
 
 Land, the old home of the fathers. Israel had 
 117 
 
II 8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 a great work to do in reclaiming Palestine, and 
 Zechariah was their God-sent inspiration in 
 pushing that work to a successful and glorious 
 issue. He saw a grand future for Israel, and 
 this he lifted up before the people as a cheer 
 and a stimulus and a source of strength. A 
 shining future, beckoning one on, always puts 
 nerve and power into a workman. 
 
 God gave his prophet a revelation of the 
 grandeur of the future in the form of striking 
 visions, and his book consists of these visions 
 put into type. These visions were a series of 
 pictures proclaiming the advent of one glory 
 after another. When God wants to think 
 grandly he thinks in pictures. The text is part 
 of a vision which sets before the mind a picture 
 of the rebuilt Jerusalem, "The City of Peace." 
 God meant the restored Jerusalem to be the 
 joy of the whole earth. " Glorious things are 
 spoken of thee, O city of God! " 
 
 In the vision of Zechariah the prophet sees 
 a young man all on fire with zeal for the future 
 of Jerusalem going forth to the old site of the 
 city, now in ruins; and, as he watches, the 
 young man begins to take the measure of the 
 foundations of the city as a preparation for 
 rebuilding. The great mass of the returned 
 exiles were young men, and this young man 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 119 
 
 was one of their leaders. Two angels are in 
 company with the prophet watching the young 
 man, and as they watch him they discover that 
 he is taking the old measurements and is plan- 
 ning to build Jerusalem on the old model, and 
 according to the old size. This was not ac- 
 cording to God's mind. God had a new model 
 for the coming Jerusalem; he had much larger 
 plans. He meant the coming Jerusalem to be 
 a much greater city than the old Jerusalem had 
 been, and he meant that he himself should 
 be its defence, " a wall of fire about it. " God 
 had for Jerusalem grander things than the 
 young man ever dreamed of. Seeing the young 
 man's misconception and want of knowledge 
 and low ideals and absentee hopes, the first and 
 leading angel cries unto the second and sub- 
 ordinate angel : 
 
 " Run, speak to this young man ! Show him 
 the boundaries of the new city of God, how far 
 they are to exceed the old limits. Broaden the 
 young man ; broaden his conceptions and his 
 ideas. Put an excelsior into his heart. See 
 that he does God's work in God's way and up 
 to the measure of God's grand purpose. Cor- 
 rect him; inspire him; strengthen him; pro- 
 tect him; protect him against low and small 
 and antiquated ideals. Make a noble workman 
 
1 2 o THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 
 
 out of him. That young man carries the fu- 
 ture in him ; run to him and enter into sym- 
 pathy with him, and appreciate him and make 
 him right, and take care of him ; by so doing 
 you will make right and take care of the future. 
 Do this, and do it at once. 'Run' ; make 
 haste ; the interests of Jerusalem are at stake. 
 ''Run ' / make haste ; the interests of the nation 
 are at stake. * Run. ' " 
 
 My fellow-men, the text makes plain the fact 
 that there is a duty which we owe our young 
 men ; and it makes plain also what that duty 
 is. It is our duty "to go for them." "Run, 
 speak to this young man." 
 
 In unfolding before us our duty to our young 
 men our text makes our duty to consist in three 
 things : 
 
 i. It is our duty to appreciate our young 
 men, and recognize what they carry in them. 
 
 2. It is our duty to safeguard our young 
 men and instruct them. 
 
 3. It is our duty to welcome our young men 
 as part of the great church of God, and com- 
 mit the future to them. 
 
 These three things the angel of God did in 
 dealing with the young man of our text, and 
 these three things we have learned by locating 
 the text, and by getting at its inner principle. 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 121 
 
 Our subject is now fairly before us, that we 
 may search ourselves by means of it, and may 
 seek stimulus, and may get into closer touch 
 with our young* men, and may make holy reso- 
 lutions in the line of our duty toward them. 
 Brethren, there is no theme more important 
 that this very theme. 
 
 1. It is our duty to appreciate our young men 
 and recognize what they carry in them. 
 
 They carry the future in them. I hear you 
 say : " That is a truism, everybody admits that. 
 It is not worth while making a point out of it." 
 Still I make a point out of it, and I dwell upon 
 it. For, truism as it is, the majority of us do 
 not realize it. If we realized it as we should, 
 we wotild treat our young men differently. 
 We would put the stress of our labor upon their 
 interests. We accept this point in a general 
 way: "Oh, yes, certainly; our youth carry the 
 future in them." But we do not particularize 
 this point; we do not individualize our boys, 
 and see in this boy a future and a coming lead- 
 ership on this line, and see in that boy an alto- 
 gether different future and a leadership on an 
 altogether different line. We do not treat each 
 and every young man as important. Truism 
 as our point is, we have not gotten a right hold 
 of it yet. Our underestimation and our neg- 
 
1 2 2 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 
 
 lect say that we do not rightly appreciate our 
 young men. Let me illustrate. 
 
 In Scotland they held a communion some 
 years ago in one of their Highland churches. 
 At this communion there was only one member 
 received into the fellowship of the church. 
 They held their communions in those days but 
 once every six months. Six months, and only 
 one convert! There was no thanksgiving to 
 God for that increase. There was grumbling 
 everywhere instead. The talk on every lip 
 was: "At the last communion there were 
 twenty received into the fellowship of the 
 church; at this communion we have received 
 only one, and he is nothing but a growing lad." 
 If the people had foreseen the future of that 
 lad, there would have been no complaint ; they 
 would have sung one of their loudest songs of 
 thanksgiving to God. That lad was the com- 
 ing David Livingstone. He was worth that 
 whole church lumped together; he was worth 
 twenty such churches. That was the largest 
 accession to its membership that church ever 
 had. The future of the Kingdom of God in 
 Africa was in that lad; but nobody saw it that 
 day. David Livingstone was not appreciated 
 on the day he made his public confession of 
 Christ. We say that we believe that our 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 123 
 
 young men carry in them the future, but our 
 actions and our treatment and our underesti- 
 mation of our young men say that we do not 
 believe it. 
 
 We see very little ways ahead in weighing 
 and judging our young men. In judging and 
 in weighing them we are partial. We give the 
 preference to those born in the home of 
 wealth, and slight the poor-born. We look at 
 the face and form and not at the heart. Even 
 the prophet Samuel did this, and, doing this, 
 chose Eliab in preference to David. 
 
 We are very slow in seeing a future for the 
 hayseeds who come to our community; yet 
 the hayseeds have made New York the great- 
 est city in the United States. Most of the 
 men in New York to-day who are prominent 
 and successful in the various walks of life are 
 not New York born, but are importations from 
 the country. They were at one time hayseeds. 
 When they started out in life, probably nobody 
 believed in them, and nobody saw a future for 
 them except their fond mothers and their own 
 selves. 
 
 A man, writing to his country home from 
 the city of New York twelve years ago, wrote 
 this paragraph for the encouragement of coun- 
 try boys : 
 
1 24 THINGS OF NOR THF1ELD. 
 
 "Every day in this city at one o'clock three hundred 
 million dollars sit around a little mahogany table in an 
 upper room in the Western Union building, and eat a 
 plain but substantial lunch. The millions belong to 
 Jay Gould, Sidney Dillon, Russell Sage, and ex-Gov. 
 Alonzo B. Cornell. All were country boys, and wore 
 shoes only on Sunday. Mr. Gould and Mr. Sage got 
 their ideas of finances in village stores, and Mr. Dillon 
 and Governor Cornell were day laborers, and were 
 thankful when they trudged home Saturday night with 
 six dollars in their pockets. " 
 
 Three hundred million dollars! That was 
 the future which these young men carried in 
 them, yet nobody surmised it when they were 
 young men. But the fact that nobody sur- 
 mised it did not alter the case ; the future was 
 there. 
 
 Who, think ye, saw the Apocalyptist in the 
 country lad of Judea, familiarly called John? 
 Or who ever dreamed that he would write that 
 wonderful roll of the Gospel, or those Epistles 
 of love, or that marvellous Apocalypse? But 
 these things were all there, awaiting only the 
 coming of Jesus Christ into John's heart and 
 life. 
 
 Who, think ye, saw the great apostle of Je- 
 sus Christ in the lad who played in the streets 
 of Tarsus ; or the great man of the future who 
 was to fill " The Book of the Acts," and who 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 125 
 
 was to pen the ever-living Epistles? Yet that 
 boy's hand was the hand destined by God to 
 hold the inspired pen, and that boy's brain was 
 the brain that was destined to think the grand 
 thoughts that gave Christianity a second and 
 larger life; and that boy's personality was the 
 personality which was to contain the Son of 
 God, and be his temple, and the medium 
 through which Jesus Christ would live over 
 again his holy life among men and give it a 
 second incarnation. 
 
 Illustrations on this line crowd the mind be- 
 yond number — viz., illustrations of great fu- 
 tures growing out of obscure boys. Christo- 
 pher Columbus was the son of a weaver, and 
 himself a weaver. Claude Lorraine was bred 
 a pastry cook. Cervantes was a common sol- 
 dier. Homer was the son of a farmer. De- 
 mosthenes was the son of a cutler. Oliver 
 Cromwell was the son of a brewer. Howard 
 was apprenticed to a grocer. Franklin was a 
 journeyman printer. Daniel Defoe was the 
 son of a butcher. Virgil was the son of a por- 
 ter. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. 
 Shakespeare was the son of a wool-stapler. 
 Robert Burns was the son of a plowman of 
 Ayrshire. 
 
 In the young men about us, greatness is 
 
126 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 slumbering unrecognized; for history shows 
 that young men in all the walks of life — even 
 in the humblest walks — carry in them magnifi- 
 cent futures. You cannot discriminate and 
 pick out the geniuses, and care for them and 
 train them; therefore you must care for all and 
 train all and value all young men. 
 
 There is a fact which I should like to bring 
 forward and emphasize at this stage of our 
 thought; it is intimately connected with the 
 point before us, although it has an application 
 to young men themselves and to their course 
 and conduct. In this sermon, I am not so 
 much speaking to young men as I am speaking 
 for and on behalf of young men. The fact I 
 wish to present now is for young men them- 
 selves directly, and only indirectly for their 
 friends and helpers. It is this : 
 
 Young men, while you carry in you the fu- 
 ture, and while you are getting ready for the 
 future, you must not throw your lives so far 
 forward as to forget the present. Your future 
 is not so far away. Your future zvill soon be 
 present. 
 
 I am afraid that when we lay our stress upon 
 the responsibility of young people for the fu- 
 ture, there is a danger lest, in thinking too 
 intensely about the future, they forget alto- 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 127 
 
 gether about the present. I want to say to our 
 young people : While you are getting ready for 
 living, remember this — you are living now. 
 You are living now as much as you will ever 
 live. You are responsible now — as much re- 
 sponsible now as you will ever be. I want to 
 say also that probably the very best work 
 which you will ever do in life will be done 
 while you are young. So I advise you to get 
 into your future at once. Goethe says: 
 
 "We must be young to do great things." 
 Schiller says : 
 
 "Keep true to the dreams of thy youth." 
 
 Both these poets teach that it is the thoughts, 
 ambitions, darings, and enterprises of youth 
 that stand for strength and achievement in the 
 world. And this is true. As a rule, it is 
 young men who achieve. It is young men who 
 fight the battles of the nation. The average 
 age of the men in the Union army during the 
 Civil War was twenty-five. Gladstone, and 
 Holmes, and Whittier, and Longfellow are ex- 
 ceptions to the rule of achievements; they 
 were great in old age and active in old age be- 
 cause they retained in a large measure the 
 spirit of their youth. Even in their case, com- 
 paring them with themselves, their best work 
 
1 2 8 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 
 
 was not their old-age work; their superior 
 work was their more youthful work. 
 
 Young men, do not let there be too much 
 future in your life. Put plenty of the present 
 into it. This story is told by the press : Some 
 speculators sold lots to a Chinaman over in the 
 New Jersey swamps. The Chinaman thought 
 he had made a bargain; but when he went 
 over to see his purchase and found that it was 
 all covered with water, he was grievously dis- 
 appointed and expressed himself quite strongly. 
 The real-estate agent, trying to comfort and 
 pacify him, said to him : " These lots, sir, have 
 a great future ; and that is where the bargain 
 comes in." The Chinaman shook his head and 
 replied: "Too much future." Young men, 
 see to it that there be not too much future in 
 your lives. Carry in you the present as well as 
 the future. You are living now ; you are re- 
 sponsible now ; realize this, and, realizing this, 
 live your very best now and meet your pres- 
 ent responsibility up to its full measure. 
 
 If you are to live well in this world and ac- 
 complish anything great, you must live well 
 while in youth. The men who have made their 
 mark in the world have for the most part made 
 it while young. Jesus Christ was a young 
 man. He died at thirty- three. At thirty- 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 129 
 
 three he had redeemed the world. At thirty 
 Alexander had conquered the world. At thirty 
 Napoleon was emperor of Italy. At twenty- 
 nine Patrick Henry made his great patriotic 
 speech, which inaugurated the American Revo- 
 lution. At thirty-three Thomas Jefferson 
 wrote the Declaration of Independence. At 
 thirty-five Martin Luther had successfully in- 
 augurated the Reformation. At twenty-six 
 Whitefield filled both hemispheres with the 
 fame of his sacred eloquence. 
 
 The moral of all this is : There is no time to 
 be lost, either upon the part of our young men 
 — they must begin to live at once ; or upon the 
 part of those who would help in preparing 
 young men to get ready for life — they must 
 give the help they intend to give at once. The 
 word " run" in the text must be italicized and 
 magnified: "run, speak to this young man." 
 
 2. It is our duty to safeguard our young men 
 and instruct them. 
 
 To this duty the Christian community should 
 at once awake. Our youth shovtld be safe- 
 guarded by means of instruction. Methods 
 should be adopted whereby the large and va- 
 ried experiences of those who have succeeded 
 in life may be placed at the disposal of those 
 who are just starting in life. One large church 
 9 
 
i$o THINGS OF NORTHFIELti. 
 
 in New York seems to have awakened to a 
 sense of its duty on this line. I use it as an il- 
 lustration. Last season it arranged a course of 
 Sabbath-evening lectures, in which prominent 
 men in the different professions and trades of 
 America gave their experience and their ma- 
 tured counsel to young men. Physicians spoke 
 there, and eminent lawyers and judges, and 
 successful railroad men, and world-known liter- 
 ary men, and millionaire financiers. Take, for 
 example, Andrew Carnegie, the self-made capi- 
 talist ; he spoke, and his millions back of him 
 emphasized every word he uttered and carried 
 his message home to thousands of young men 
 through all the land, for his words were taken 
 down and printed. What did he say? In brief, 
 he gave these seven counsels, and I give them 
 here as an object-lesson to chow how those of 
 you who are older can safeguard those who are 
 younger. 
 
 "i. Never enter a barroom, nor let the contents of a 
 barroom enter you. 
 
 " 2. Do not use tobacco. 
 
 "3. Concentrate. Having entered upon a certain line 
 of work continue and combine on that line. 
 
 "4. Do not shirk; rather go beyond your task. Do 
 not let any young man think he has performed his full 
 duty when he has performed the work assigned him. 
 A man will never rise if he acts thus. Promotion comes 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 131 
 
 from exceptional work. A man must discover where 
 his employer's interests lie and push for these. The 
 young man who does this is the young man whom Capi- 
 tal wants for a partner and son-in-law. He is the young 
 man who by and by reaches the head of the firm. 
 
 "5. Save a little always. Whatever your wages lay 
 by something from them. 
 
 " 6. Never speculate. Never buy stocks or grain on 
 margin. 
 
 "7. Never indorse. When you enter on business for 
 yourself never indorse for others. It is dishonest. All 
 your resources, and all your credit, are the sacred prop- 
 erty of the men who have trusted you. If you wish to 
 help another, give him all the cash you can spare ; never 
 indorse. It is dishonest. " 
 
 It is a grand thing for our youth that our 
 leading men are willing to step from behind 
 their millions and look large audiences of 
 young men in the face, and talk thus. This is 
 throwing safeguards around our young men 
 and instmcting them. 
 
 The chief part of safeguarding and instruct- 
 ing our young men, however, I believe is laid 
 upon the home. And I wish to make this 
 statement as prominent as possible. This is 
 where I feel impelled by the Spirit to lay my 
 stress. The family is the oldest institution 
 pertaining to mankind. God gives the boys 
 and girls first of all to the home to train them 
 
1 3 2 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 
 
 and place them in the state, to train them and 
 place them in business, to train them and place 
 them in the church. He puts them in the 
 home to be guarded against temptation, to be 
 counselled and instructed, and to have Jesus 
 Christ built into them. Parents, yours is the 
 first responsibility, and yours is the last re- 
 sponsibility, and yours is the eternal responsi- 
 bility; and of this perpetual responsibility 
 there is not a solitary creature or agency on 
 earth that can relieve you or answer to God for 
 you. God held that good man Eli responsible 
 for his two sons, Hophni and Phineas. Why? 
 Because he was their father. And God visited 
 the father with judgment on account of the 
 sins of those two sons. God always does that. 
 The boys are not found in the church : who 
 is held responsible? The parents. The boys 
 desecrate the Sabbath by spending God's day 
 in riding the bicycle: who is held responsible? 
 The parents. This is the rule, until the sons 
 are in homes of their own; and even then a 
 large degree of responsibility rests upon pa- 
 rents for the conduct of their sons. What is 
 the home good for if not to safeguard and pro- 
 tect the children. Agonize until your chil- 
 dren are brought into the church; agonize 
 until your children are kept from Sabbath dese- 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 133 
 
 cration. Let there be an uprising of the home 
 against Sunday bicycling. When God gave 
 you your children, you had wellnigh absolute 
 omnipotence over them. You had the power 
 to put into them just what you wished. If you 
 have lost your influence over them for good, 
 you have sinned it away ; and for that you are 
 responsible. Your duty now is to agonize until 
 you get that influence back. I stand here to 
 assert and re-assert this solemn truth, that God 
 holds the home responsible for its sons. And in 
 God's name, I look the fathers and mothers of 
 this church in the face, and ask, Where are your 
 boys ? They should be with you here by your 
 side, to be safeguarded and instructed. 
 
 What is the first and chief duty which we 
 owe our young men? The first and chief duty 
 which we owe our young men is to get back a 
 keen and burning sense of our parental respon- 
 sibility for our sons. Parents, from this posi- 
 tion which I solemnly take here this day, I re- 
 fuse to budge a single inch. God holds you 
 responsible for these boys of yours who have 
 grown up into young manhood ; he holds you 
 responsible for their absence from the church ; 
 he holds you responsible for the characters 
 which they ought to have; he holds you re- 
 sponsible for the grand work which they ought 
 
134 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 to be doing for Jesus Christ and his kingdom. 
 God is here to-day, in the midst of the holiness 
 of his house, and he is pushing this question 
 upon every parental heart: " Your boys : 
 Where are they ?" " Your hoys : Where are 
 they?" "Are they safeguarded and instruct- 
 ed ? " " If not, why not ? " 
 
 3. It is our duty to welcome our young men 
 as part of the great church of God, and commit 
 the future to them. 
 
 I have spoken of the duty and responsibility 
 of the family. I must now speak of the duty 
 and responsibility of the church, for this pres- 
 ent point which is before us treats of our duty 
 individually as part of the church. The church 
 has a great work to do here ; for the number of 
 our young men is great. Statisticians tell us 
 that there are in the American republic no 
 less than fifteen million of men between the 
 ages of eighteen and forty-four. If the Chris- 
 tian churches were reaching these men with 
 any degree of success, what mighty powers for 
 God our churches would be ! What an attend- 
 ance of men we would have at our services! 
 Is it not worth while for the churches to put 
 forth their full strength that they may reach 
 these? If these men will not of their own ac- 
 cord come to our churches, then it is the duty 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 135 
 
 of our churches to go after them. Churches of 
 God, reach these fifteen millions, and you will 
 take this great republic for Jesus Christ and 
 will make our civil future safe for centuries. 
 It was between these ages, eighteen and forty- 
 four, that Christ and the school of his apostles, 
 a band of young men, established Christianity 
 and gave Christendom to the world. We want 
 these very men who are between these ages, 
 eighteen and forty-four; we want them for 
 work and for enterprise. They are men at 
 their very best. 
 
 The question suggests itself just here : How 
 largely are the young men being reached by 
 the churches and by the agencies of the 
 churches? I answer: The results are equal to 
 the efforts expended. No seed-sowing yields 
 a grander harvest. Young men are reachable. 
 They are largely susceptible to the influence 
 of Jesus Christ. They respond as heartily as 
 any other class of mankind. Take the statis- 
 tics of the great religious movements of our 
 day as the evidence — I mean the movements in 
 which the church is seen at its best ! There, 
 for example, is the Christian Endeavor move- 
 ment, with its 40,000 societies and its 2,000,000 
 members. A fair proportion of these 2, 000, 000 
 are young men. Take the Young Men's 
 
136 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 Christian Association, which celebrated its ju- 
 bilee in London four years ago. It shows a 
 brotherhood of 500 associations, with a total 
 membership of over half a million young men. 
 Take the Students' Volunteer Movement, 
 working on missionary lines. It has a roll of 
 4,000, three-fourths of them young men, and 
 all offering themselves for mission work for all 
 the fields of the world. There has been noth- 
 ing like that since the day of Pentecost. 
 
 Among the later movements of the day, we 
 must not forget the Young Men's Christian 
 Association work among the colleges and uni- 
 versities. Work done here has been most 
 fruitful. In less than twenty years, in the in- 
 stitutions of North America, 500 associations 
 have been established, with a membership of 
 30,000 students. Over sixty thousand young 
 men have been educated in methods of Chris- 
 tian work by these associations, and these 
 young men are our coming lawyers, physicians, 
 teachers, and business men. This is the devel- 
 opment of the laic element of the church. 
 This is great. This is great, when we compare 
 the present with the past. Go no farther back 
 than the days of Dr. Dwight. When Dr. 
 Dwight entered the presidency of Yale Univer- 
 sity, he found a large number of young men 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 137 
 
 there who were open and avowed atheists. 
 They actually assumed the names of the noted 
 atheists of the times. One called himself Vol- 
 taire, another Paine, a third Hume, and a 
 fourth Bolingbroke. To-day Yale is a distinc- 
 tively Christian university, with the majority 
 of the students fearless Christians. As it is in 
 Yale, so it is in our other colleges. At Cor- 
 nell, Princeton, and Colby universities, 50 per 
 cent of the students are church-members; at 
 Williams, 60 per cent; at Brown, 65 per cent; 
 at Amherst, 75 per cent; at Boston University, 
 85 per cent. 
 
 Dr. Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), in his biog- 
 raphy of Henry Drummond, who worked for 
 Christ in colleges, says: "When Drummond 
 began his work in Edinburgh University, there 
 was no religion outside of a dozen men. Twenty 
 years afterward six hundred young men met 
 every Sunday evening for worship. There 
 was a new breath in academic life ; men were 
 now reverent, earnest, clean-living, and clean- 
 thinking, and the reformer who wrought this 
 change was Henry Drummond." 
 
 The results of the work done for young men 
 in our colleges affords the greatest satisfaction. 
 It has brought into the church of Christ the 
 brain-power of the future and the future lead- 
 
I3& THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 ers of thought. It has consecrated scholarship 
 to the Kingdom of God. The net results here 
 are great for one reason, and that is, the young 
 men are here together and can be reached. It 
 is easy to go to them. 
 
 The question with us now is, Are the young 
 men out of our colleges reached by the church 
 as effectively as the young men in our colleges? 
 That is the practical question. We must an- 
 swer honestly: No, they are not. Here we 
 are face to face with the individual church. 
 The individual church is not reaching our 
 young men. What young men? The young 
 men who come among us from the country, 
 and from rural villages, and from other cities. 
 I am not now speaking of the young men born 
 in our homes in the city. I have already put 
 the responsibility for them where it rightly be- 
 longs, and I am not going to change my ver- 
 dict : the responsibility for them belongs with 
 the parents. I am speaking now of the young 
 men in our midst who are away from their 
 home. There are probably fifty thousand such 
 in the borough of Brooklyn alone. They are 
 young men who are strangers. 
 
 Of all young men, these are the young men 
 who need our care. These are the young men 
 whom the churches should seek out and be to 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 139 
 
 them both father and mother. The more 
 generous, and noble, and large-hearted they 
 are, the severer their temptations and the more 
 in number their tempters. The mean, miserly, 
 small-souled, despicable young man is compar- 
 atively safe. Tempters are choice in their 
 tastes ; they pick the best as their victims. 
 
 Now, I believe that God cannot and will not 
 forgive the churches of our city if they are in- 
 different and cold and neglectful in their duty 
 just here — i. e. , if they let these young men go 
 to destruction without doing all in their power 
 for their rescue. Churches of God, if you can 
 save these young men and refuse to do it, how 
 can you look God in the face or how can you 
 ask the blessing of God? What reason is there 
 that God should bless you? God ought to blot 
 you out of existence and plant other and faith- 
 ful churches in your places; and he will. 
 
 Brethren, have you considered your duty on 
 this line? Do you think of these young men? 
 Have you done anything yourself personally 
 for them? You are part of the church. Think 
 of it for a moment ! 
 
 A young man leaves home for the first time ; 
 he reaches our great city an absolute stranger. 
 He was never so lonely. He is homesick. He 
 goes to his work, glad that he has work to 
 
14© THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 
 
 make him forget himself and his loneliness. 
 Oh, how long the nights are ! That little up- 
 per hall-bedroom is not home. He is glad 
 when Sabbath comes and he can go to church. 
 There meet the friends of God; there is the 
 household of faith; and he has been taught 
 that he is a friend of God and a member of the 
 household of faith. He will see whole families 
 there, and they will remind him of his father's 
 family. Perhaps some one will speak a kind 
 word to him. He expects this. He expects a 
 welcome. I think that it is often here at 
 church that the young man, a stranger in the 
 city, gets his first through and through chill, 
 which freezes the love out of his heart, and 
 puts even God at a great distance from him — 
 puts God almost, if not altogether, out of his 
 life— certainly puts the church of God out of 
 his life. He comes into the great congrega- 
 tion, and not a soul recognizes him, and not a 
 hand is put into his in welcome. It is a queer 
 family of God, such a church. It is a refriger- 
 ator household of faith. 
 
 But this does not occur often. // does occur 
 often. I have been told of such young men, 
 strangers in the city, who have come into this 
 church one Sabbath, two Sabbaths, three Sab- 
 baths, four Sabbaths, five Sabbaths, six Sab- 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 141 
 
 baths, seven Sabbaths; and there was not a 
 single hand-shake, not a single word of wel- 
 come, and not a single invitation, " Come 
 again." It is a shame. A queer family of 
 God! Who is to blame? We are all of us to 
 blame. Let us resolve that such a thing shall 
 never again be possible in our household of 
 faith. "Run, speak to this young man" Let 
 the old acquaintances in the pews wait for their 
 salutations until you, in God's name, have bade 
 him welcome. As a church, are we doing any- 
 thing for these young men who have come into 
 our city? What are we doing? In the church 
 to which I ministered in Boston, we had a bu- 
 reau of information and reception to deal 
 with just such. It was organized at my sug- 
 gestion. We advertised our existence and 
 purpose in The Congregationalist, and paid for 
 the advertisement. That advertisement went 
 into hundreds of New England homes, in coun- 
 try and villages, and parents wrote us on behalf 
 of their sons in the city and their sons about to 
 come to the city, and felt glad that there were 
 Christians to look after them. We helped 
 these sons to get homes in Christian boarding- 
 houses, and we located them in the church. It 
 was a benediction to read the letters of thanks 
 which we received from Christian homes and 
 
142 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 
 
 hearts. As a church, are we doing anything 
 like that? 
 
 One man in that church, a rich man, who 
 came when young as a stranger to Boston, 
 made this rule: Every Sabbath he had three 
 extra plates put upon his dinner-table. These 
 three plates were for young men without 
 homes, strangers in the city. He entertained 
 one hundred and fifty strangers every year, 
 and gave one hundred and fifty young men the 
 privilege of seeing how a home looked from the 
 inside. He was a busy man, but he taught a 
 Bible-class which numbered from one hundred 
 to one hundred and fifty young men. That 
 man did more for that church than any minis- 
 ter ever did. The young men loved him, and 
 loved God through him, and loved the church 
 of God through him. It was an impressive 
 scene the day we laid that good man away in 
 the churchyard at Andover. A trainload of 
 young men attended his funeral, and young 
 men carried his silent form upon their strong 
 shoulders to its last resting-place. Have we 
 anything like that in this church? Certainly 
 we have men among us, in these pews, who 
 could do this kind of work, and do it effectively 
 if they but once whole-heartedly consecrated 
 themselves to it. They could thus serve the 
 
OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 143 
 
 church, and the young men, and their own 
 selves, and their God. A Sabbath-school class 
 of one hundred or one hundred and fifty young 
 men, strangers in the city ! God is calling for 
 that this day. Who will hear the call of God? 
 Who will inaugurate this class? Who will 
 build it up? Who will pray for it? Who will 
 teach it and lead it? Christian homes opened 
 to Christian hospitality! That is what God 
 wants for these strangers. Who will respond 
 to that call? God forgive us that we have not 
 done more of just such work for our young 
 men! 
 
 Brethren, as Christian parents, do for these 
 young men, away from home, what you would 
 that others should do for your sons, if they 
 were compelled to leave you and go to a 
 strange city to push their callings in life. As 
 part of the church of God, I call upon you to 
 welcome them and make them feel at home 
 with us in this church which God has so hon- 
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