LIFE IN EARNEST.
SIX LECTURES,
ON
CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY AND ARDORL
BY THE REV. JAMES HAMILTON,
AUTHOR OF " HARP ON THE WILLOWS," ETC.
NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS;
FERVENT IN SPIRIT;
SERVING THE LORD.
Rom xii. 11
NEW  YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS
285 BROADWAY.
1853.








CONT ENTS.
LECTURE I.
Page.
Industry................................. 21
LECTURE II.
Industry.........................*....    41
LECTURE III.
An Eye to the Lord Jesus..........66
LECTURE IV.
A Fervent Spirit..........................   86
LECTURE V.
The Threefold Cord........................  107
LECTURE VI.
A Word to Each and to All-Conclusion......  131








TO THE
KIRK-SESSION AND CONGREGATION
OF THE
NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH,
REGENT SQUARE.
MY DEAR FRIENDS:IT sometimes adds to the interest,
and even to the usefulness of a book, to
know the reason of its publication. I may
therefore mention in the outset, that it is
for your sakes that the following pages appear in print. As all my efforts can not
secure that amount of pastoral intercourse
for which I long, I felt desirous of sending
1*




6              INTRODUCTION.
to your several homes a word in season at
the opening of this year; and, as an appropriate remembrancer at such a time, I
have selected the following familiar lectures.
You now receive them in nearly the same
homely guise in which you first made their
acquaintance a few sabbaths ago.* For the
directness of the style and the plainness of
the illustrations, I do not apologize.  They
are not more a natural propensity than the
result of conscientious conviction;t for as
I can not be persuaded that, in matters of
taste, anything is eloquent which does not
answer the end in view, nor that in theolo* They were delivered as part of a course of lectures on the Romans, on the morning and evening of
sabbaths, November 17 and 24, and December 1, 1844.
Except the fourth, of which there were no written
notes, they appear with few retrenchments or alterations.
t 2 Cor. iii. 12; Matt. xiii. 3.




INTRODUCTION.            7
gy anything is sublime which is not scriptural: so I can not think that, in preaching, anything is out of place which puts the
truth in its proper place-in the memories
and the hearts of the hearers-nor that anything is mean which can trace its pedigree
back to the Mount of Beatitudes.  But
while I offer no apology for the style of
these lectures, I tender my cordial thanks
to those hearers whose earnestness, or intellectual elevation, or personal kindness,
has made them listen so willingly to a mode
of preaching not the less distasteful because
it can plead exalted precedents; and I own
that it has been not the least comfort of my
ministry, that among yourselves, preaching
like the following specimen has found so
many attentive hearers. There is only one
satisfaction greater-the belief that many are
applying practically what most hear so patiently.




8             INTRODUCTION.
And now, dear brethren, were it not the
restraining thought that colder eyes than
yours may look upon these pages, there are
many things I would like to say. I would
like to commemorate some of the mercies
which have crowned the three and a half
years during which we have worshipped
together; and I would like to give you
some idea of my own affection for you. To
the elders for counsel never asked nor adopted in vain-to both elders and deacons for
days and portions of the night devoted to
labors of love, which but for their painstaking could never have been accomplished
-to the self-denying teachers of the sabbathschool and of the week-evening class-and
to all who have contributed their willing aid
in various schemes of usefulness-I would
tender a pastor's warmest gratitude. And
I would like to mention with gratitude to
God two things which have made my own




INTRODUCTION.               9
heart often glad-the harmony of our church,
and the happiness of your abodes. Wherever I see innocent or holy joy, I try to make
some of it my own; and I believe that most
of my earthly happiness of late has been a
transfusion from your joy. Seldom does a
day transpire without seeing as much indoor comfort and  tranquillity-as  much
mutual affection of heads of families, and
parents and children, and brothers and sisters-with so evident an aspect of God's
blessing on many homes, as are an unspeakable delight to me. Does not God's goodness in this respect often strike yourselves,
and make you sing the twenty-third psalm?
"My table thou hast furnished
In presence of my foes;
My head thou dost with oil anoint,
And my cup overflows.
"Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me:
And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be."




10           INTRODUCTION.
And in some measure the result of domestic piety and peace, I here record with gratitude our congregational harmony. Sure
enough we have hitherto dwelt together in
unity; and as I can truly say for my brethren, your office-bearers, that our anxiety is
your edification, so has your " order" been
our "joy."
But while the acknowledgment of God's
goodness is the delightful employment of a
closing year, it is no less incumbent, with
an opening year, to consider what more we
can do for the God of our mercies in the
days or months to come. As a church, we
have congregational duties, and each member of the church has personal duties. Let
your minister remind you of some of these.
1. Let this new year be a year of greater
activity. Be diligent in your proper calling, in seeking personal improvement, and
in doing good. Ply your daily calling in a




INTRODUCTION.           11
Christian spirit, doing nothing by constraint
or grudgingly, but adorning the doctrine of
God your Savior by your patient, sprightly,
and thoroughgoing industry. Seek personal improvement.  Give yourselves to the
reading of instructive and religious books;
and when friends meet, let them strive to
give the conversation a profitable turn, and
one which may minister to the use of edifying.  The Young Men's Society is an incentive to study, and an outlet for the results of reading; and those young men who
are desirous of mutual improvement should
all be members of it. Engage in some direct effort to do good.  An earnest and
willing spirit will find or make a field of
usefulness for itself.  Ascertaining, in the
course of their visits to the poor, that in
many families the older girls could read
little or none, and were kept at home during the day, attending to the younger chil



12          INTRODUCTION.
dren, a few ladies opened a class at five in
the afternoon, to teach these girls to read
and write, and undertook to conduct it personally. -In a short time the room was full,
and there are now about seventy of these
young people learning to read the Word of
God intelligently, who, but for this selfdenying experiment, must have grown up
in ignorance.  We know of similar efforts
on a less extended scale. And in the same
spirit, several local prayer-meetings have
been opened, and are attended by people
not likely to have found their way to any
other place of worship.  The diligence of
district visiters has been productive of much
obvious benefit in bringing several back to
the forsaken sanctuary, and the affectionate
assiduity of the sabbath-school teachers has
in several hopeful instances reaped its present reward.  Brethren, be ambitious of
doing good.  Seek to leave the world the




INTRODUCTION.           13
better for your sojourn in it. Whatever you
attempt, endeavor to do it so thoroughly,
and follow it up so resolutely, that the result shall be ascertained and evident. And
in your attempts at usefulness, be not only
conscientious but enthusiastic. Love the
work.  Redeem the time.  Remember that
the Lord is at hand.
2. Let this new year be a year of greater
liberality. There are some objects to which
of late you have given very largely; and
there are those among you who give to
every object freely, and with a self-denying
generosity. But by a little systematic forethought and contrivance, begun now and
carried through the year, many might double their contributions without at all abridging their real enjoyments. The maxim " I
can do without it"-if all Regent Square
acted on it for a single year, might build a
school or send out a missionary. If all the
2




14           INTRODUCTION.
money which you children spend on cakes
and toys, and which we grown-up people
spend on playthings and parties, were put
into the Lord's treasury, we should have as
much as we wanted for all our congregational purposes, and a great deal over to
help our neighbors.  And while some are
striving how much they can do, let others
strive how much they can give to the cause
of Christ this year.  Those who excel in
the one are likely to excel in the other; fo.
just as those who have too little faith to
give, have usually too little fervor to work,
so the hardest workers are usually the largest givers.
3. Let this be a year of greater slpirituality.  As the holy Joseph Alleine wrote
from Ilchester prison to his flock at Taunton, " Beloved Christians, live like yourselves; let the world see that the promises
of God, and privileges of the gospel, are not




INTRODUCTION.            15
empty sounds, or a mere crack.  Let the
heavenly cheerfulness, and the restless diligence, and the holy raisedness of your conversations, prove the reality, and excellency,
and beauty of your religion to the world."
Aim at an elevated life. Seek to live so
near to God, that you shall not be overwhelmed by those amazing sorrows which
you may soon encounter, nor surprised by
that disease which may come upon you in
a moment, suddenly. Let prayer never be
a form. Always realize it as an approach
to the living God for some specific purpose;
and learn to watch for the returns of prayer.
Let the Word of God dwell in you richly.
That sleep will be sweet and that awaking
hallowed where a text of Scripture, or a
stanza of a spiritual song, imbues the last
thoughts of consciousness.  Occasionally
read the biography of some eminent Christian, such as Doddridge, or Pearce. or Mar



16           INTRODUCTION.
tyn, or Fletcher, or Charles of Bala, or R.
M'Cheyne: for it will show how much of
Christ's presence may be enjoyed here on
earth, and may stir you up to a more loving,
devout, and watchful life. Do not forsake
any of the stated assemblies for worship;
and let friends, when they meet, often converse on those things which may edify one
another.  See that you make progress; see
that when the year is closing, you have not
all the evil tempers and infirmities of character which presently afflict you; but see to
it that if God grant you to sit down on the
Ebenezer of another closing year, you may
be able to look back on radiant spots where
you enjoyed seasons of spiritual refreshing
and victories ove-;enemies heretofore too
strong for you.  Happy new year! if its
path were so bright and its progress so
vivid, that in a future retrospect your eye
could fix on many a Bethel and Peniel




TNTRODUCTION.                17
along its track, and your grateful memory
could say, " Yonder is the grave where I
buried a long-besetting sin, and that stone
of memorial marks where God made me to
triumph over a fierce temptation through
Jesus Christ. Yon sabbath was the top of
the hill where I clasped the cross, and the
burden fell off my back; and that communion was the land of Beulah, where I saw
the far-off land and the king in his beauty."
"Come, let us anew our journey pursue,
Roll round with the year,
And never stand still till the Master appear.
"His adorable will let us gladly fulfil,
And our talents improve,
By the patience of hope and the labor of love
" 0 that each in the day of his coming may say,'I have fought my way through;
I have finished the work thou didst give me to do.'
"0 that each from his Lord may receive the glad word,'Well and faithfully done:
Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne' "
2*




18           INTRODUCTION.
My dear friends, it is a blessed thing to
know the Savior-to feel that your soul is
safe. You have been in a ship when it entered the harbor, and you have noticed the
different looks of the passengers as they
turned their eyes ashore. There was one
who, that he might not lose a moment's
time, had got everything ready for landing
long ago; and now he smiles and beckons
to yon party on the pier, who, in their turn,
are so eager to meet him, that they almost
press over the margin of the quay: and no
sooner is the gangway thrown across, than
he has hold of the arm of one, and another
is triumphant on his shoulder, and all the
rest are leaping before and after him on
their homeward way.  But there was another who showed no alacrity. He gazed
with pensive eye on the nearer coast, and
seemed to grudge that the trip was over.
He was a stranger, going among strangers;




INTRODUCTION            19
and though sometimes during the voyage
he had a silent hope that something unexpected might occur, and that some friendly
face might recognise him in regions where
he was going an alien and an adventurerno such welcoming face is there; and with
reluctant steps he quits the vessel, and commits himself to the unknown country. And
now that every one else has disembarked,
who is this unhappy man whom they have
Drought on deck, and, groaning in his heavy
chains, whom they are conducting to the
dreaded shore?  Alas! he is a felon and
a runaway, whom they are bringing back to
take his trial there: and no wonder he is
loath to land.
Now, dear brethren, our ship is sailing
fast. We shall soon hear the rasping on
the shallows, and the commotion overhead,
which bespeak the port in view.  When it
comes to that, how shall you feel? Are you




20           INTRODUCTION.
a stranger, or a convict, or are you going
home?  Can you say, " I know whom I
have believed?" Have you a Friend within the veil? And however much you may
enjoy the voyage, and however much you
may like your fellow-passengers, does your
heart sometimes leap up at the prospect of
seeing Jesus as he is, and so being ever
with the Lord?
The Lord send you a happy, a holy, and
a useful year!  Accept this little token of
your pastor's wish to help you, faith and
joy; and believe me
Your ever-affectionate minister,
JAMES HAMILTON.
January 1, 1845.




LIFE IN EARNEST.
LECTURE I.
INDUSTRY.'Not slothful in business."-ROMANS xli. 11.
Two things are very certain-that we
have all got a work to do, and are all, more
or less, indisposed to do it: in other words,
every man has a calling, and most men have
a greater or less amount of indolence, which
disinclines them for the work of that calling.
Many men would have liked the gospel all
the better, if it had entirely repealed the
sentence, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt
thou eat thy bread;" had it proclaimed a
final emancipation from industry, and turn



22          LIFE IN EARNEST.
ed our world into a merry playground or
luxurious dormitory. But this is not what
the gospel does. It does not abolish labor; it gives it a new and a nobler aspect.
The gospel abolishes labor much in the
same way as it abolishes death: it leaves
the thing, but changes its nature.  The
gospel sweetens the believer's work: it
gives him  new motives for performing it.
The gospel dignifies toil; it transforms it
from tie drudgery of the workhouse or the
penitentiary to the affectionate offices and
joyful services of the fireside and the family circle. It asks us to do for the sake
of Christ many things which we were once
compelled to bear as a portion of the curse,
and which worldly men perform for selfish
and secondary reasons.  " Whatsoever ye
do in word or deed, do all in the name of
the Lord Jesus.  Wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the
Lord.  Children, obey your parents in all
things, for this is well-pleasing unto the
Lord.  Servants, obey in all things your




INDUSTRY.             23
masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness
of heart, fearing God; and whatsoever ye
do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not
unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye
shall receive the reward of the inheritance,
for ye serve the Lord Christ."  The gospel has not superseded diligence.  " Study
to be quiet and to do your own business,
and to work with your own hands, as we
commanded you. If any man will not work,
neither let him  eat."  It is mentioned as
almost the climax of sin-" And withal
they learn to be idle, wandering about from
house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy-bodies, speaking things
which they ought not:" as, on the other
hand, the healthy and right-conditioned
state of a soul is-" Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
I. This precept is violated by those who
have no business at all. By the bounty of
God's providence, some are in such a situation, that they do not ner   2 toil for a




24          LIFE IN EARNEST.
subsistence; they go to bed when tney
please, and get up when they can sleep no
longer, and they do with themselves whatever they like; and though we dare not say
that theirs is the happiest life, it certainly is
the easiest. But it will neither be a lawful
life nor a happy one, unless it have some
work in hand, some end in view.  Those
of you who are familiar with the shore, may
have seen attached to the inundated reef a
creature —whether a plant or animal you
could scarcely tell-rooted to the rock as a
plant might be, and twirling its long tentacula as an animal would do. This plantanimal's life is somewhat monotonous, for
it has nothing to do but grow and twirl its
feelers, float in the tide, or fold itself up on
its foot-stalk when that tide has receded, for
months and years together. Now, would it
not be very dismal to be transformed into a
zoophyte?  Would it not be an awful punishment, with your human soul still in you,
to be anchored to a rock, able to do nothing
but spin about your arms or fold them up




INDUSTRY.             25
again, and knowing no variety, except when
the receding ocean left you in the daylight,
or the returning waters plunged you into the
green depths again, or the sweeping tide
brought you the prize of a young periwinkle or an invisible star-fish? But what better is the life you are spontaneously leading? What greater variety marks your existence, than chequers the life of the seaanemone?  Does not one day float over
you after another, just as the tide floats over
it, and find you much the same, and leave
you vegetating still? Are you more useful?
What real service to others did you render
yesterday? What tangible amount of occupation did you overtake in the one hundred
and sixty-eight hours of which last week
consisted? And what higher end in living
have you than that polypus?  You go
through certain mechanical routines of rising, and dressing, and visiting, and dining,
and going to sleep again; and are a little
roused from your usual lethargy by the arrival of a friend, or the effort needed to
3




26          LIFE IN EARNEST.
write some note of ceremony.  But as it
courtesies in the waves, and vibrates its
exploring arms, and gorges some dainty medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly
the same round of pursuits and enjoyments
with your intelligent and immortal self. Is
this a life for a rational and responsible
creature to lead?
II. But this precept is also violated by
those who are diligent in trifles-whose activity is a busy idleness. You may be very
earnest in a pursuit which is utterly beneath
your prerogative as an intelligent creature,
and your high destination as an immortal
being. Pursuits which are perfectly proper
in creatures destitute of reason, may be very
culpable in those who not only have reason,
but are capable of enjoyments above the
range of reason itself. We this instant imagined a man retaining all his consciousness
transformed into a zoophyte.  Let us imagine another similar transformation: fancy
that instead of a polypus you were changed
into a swallow. There you have a creature




INDUSTRY.              27
abundantly busy, up in the early morning,
for ever on the wing, as graceful and sprightly in his flight as tasteful in the haunts
which he selects. Look at him, zigzagging
over the clover-field, skimming the limpid
lake, whisking round the steeple, or dancing gayly in the sky. Behold him in high
spirits, shrieking out his ecstasy as he has
bolted a dragon-fly, or darted through the
arrow-slits of the old turret, or performed
some other feat of hirundine agility. And
notice how he pays his morning visitsalighting elegantly on some housetop, and
twittering politely by turns to the swallow
on either side of him, and after five minutes' conversation, off and away to call for
his friend at the castle.  And now he is
gone upon his travels-gone to spend the
winter at Rome or Naples, to visit Egypt
or the Holy Land, or perform some more
recherche pilgrimage to Spain or the coast
of Barbary.  And when he comes home
next April, sure enough he has been abroad:
charming climate-highly delighted with the




28           LIFE IN EARNEST.
cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus
-locusts in Africa rather scarce this season; but, upon the whole, much pleased
with his trip, and returned in high health
and spirits. Now, dear fiiends, this is a very
proper life for a swallow, but is it a life for
you?  To flit about from house to house;
to pay futile visits, where, if the talk were
written down, it would amount to little more
than the chattering of a swallow; to bestow
all your thoughts on graceful attitudes, and
nimble movements, and polished attire; to
roam from land to land, with so little information in your head, or so little taste for
the sublime or beautiful in your soul, that
could a swallow publish his travels, and did
you publish yours, we should probably find
the one a counterpart of the other' the
winged traveller enlarging on the discomforts of his nest, and the wingless one on
the miseries of his hotel or his chateau; you
describing the places of amusement, or enlarging on the vastness of the country, and
the abundance of the game, and your rival




INDUSTRY.              29
eloquent on the self-same thir.gs. Oh! it
is a thought-not ridiculous, but appalling.
If the earthly history of some of our brethren were written down; if a faithful record
were kept of the way they spend their time;
if all the hours of idle vacancy or idler occupancy were put together, and the very
small amount of useful diligence deducted,
the life of a bird or quadruped would be a
nobler one-more worthy of its powers and
more equal to its Creator's end in forming
it. Such a register is kept. Though the
trifler does not chronicle his own vain words
and wasted hours, they chronicle themselves.
They find their indelible place in that book
of remembrance with which human hand
can not tamper, and from which no erasure
save one can blot them.  They are noted
in the memory of God.  And when once
this life of wondrous opportunities and awful
advantages is over-when the twenty or fifty
years of probation are fled away-when
mortal existence, with its facilities for personal improvement and serviceableness to
3*




30          LIFE IN EARNEST.
others, is gone beyond recall-whlen the
trifler looks back to the long pilgrimage,
with all the doors of hope and doors of usefulness, past which he skipped in his frisky
forgetfulness-what anguish will it move to
think that he has gambolled through such a
world without salvation to himself, without
any real benefit to his brethren, a busy trifler, a vivacious idler, a clever fool!
III. Those violate this precept who have
a lawful calling, a proper business, but are
slothful in it.  When people are in business
for themselves, they are in less risk of transgressing this injunction, though even there
it sometimes happens that the hand is not
diligent enough to make its owner rich.
But it is when engaged in business, not fo,
ourselves, but for others, or for God, that
we are in greatest danger of neglecting this
rule. The servant who has no pleasure in
his work. who does no more than wages
can buy, or a legal agreement enforce; the
shopman who does not enter con amore into
his employer's interest, and bestir himself




INDUSTRY.               31
to extend his trade as he would strive were
the concern his own; the scholar who trifles when his teacher's eye is elsewhere,
and who is content if he can only learn
enough to escape disgrace; the teacher who
is satisfied if he can only convey a decent
quantum  of instruction, and who does not
labor for the mental expansion and spiritual
well-being of his pupils, as he would for
those of his own children; the magistrate or
civic functionary who is only careful to escape public censure, and who does not labor to make the community richer, or happier, or better, for his administration; the
minister who can give his energies to another cause than the cause of Christ, and neglect his Master's business in minding his
own; every one, in short, who performs the
work which God or his brethren have given
him to do in a hireling and perfunctory manner, is a violator of tie Divine injunction,
" Not slothful in business." There are some
persons of a dull and languid turn. They
trail sluggishly through life, as if some pain



32          LIFE IN EARNEST.
ful viscus, some adhesive slime, were clogging every movement, and making their
snail-path a waste of their very substance.
They do nothing with that healthy alacrity,
that gleesome energy, which bespeaks a
sound mind even more than a vigorous body;
but they drag themselves to the inevitable
task with remonstrating reluctance, as if every joint were set in a socket of torture, or
as if they expected the quick flesh to cleave
to the next implement of industry they handled.  Having no wholesome love to work,
no joyous delight in duty, they do everything grudgingly, in the most superficial
manner, and at the latest moment.  Others
there are, who, if you find them at their
post, you will find them dozing at it. They
are a sort of perpetual somnambulists, walking through their sleep; moving in a constant mystery; looking for their faculties,
and forgetting what they are looking for;
not able to find their work, and when they
have found their work, not able to find their
hands; doing everything dreamily, and there



INDUSTRY               33
fore everything confusedly and incompletely; their work a dream, their sleep a dream,
not repose, not refreshment, but a slumberous vision of rest, a dreamy query concerning sleep; too late for everything, taking
their passage when the ship has sailed, insuring their property when the house is
burnt, locking the door when the goods are
stolen- men whose bodies seem  to have
started in the race of existence before their
minds were ready, and who are always gazing out vacantly as if they expected their
wits were coming up by the next arrival.
But, besides the sloths and the somnambulists, there is a third class-the day-dreamers.  These are a very mournful, because
a self-deceiving generation. Like a man
who has his windows glazed with yellow
glass, and who can fancy a golden sunshine,
or a mellow autumn on the fields, even when
a wintry sleet is sweeping over them, the
day-dreamer lives in an elysium of his own
creating.  With a foot on either side of the
fie —with his chin on his bosom, and the




34          LIFE:N EARNEST.
wrong end of the book turned toward himhe can pursue his self-complacent musings
till he imagines himself a traveller in unknown lands-the explorer of Central Africa-the solver of all the unsolved problems
in science-the author of some unprecedented poem  at which the wide world is
wondering-or something so stupendous
that he even begins to quail at his own glory.  The misery is, that while nothing is
done toward attaining the greatness, his luxurious imagination takes its possession for
granted: and with his feet on the fender, he
fancies himself already on the highest pinnacle of fame; and a still greater misery is,
that the time thus wasted in unprofitable
musings, if spent in honest application and
down right working, would go very far to
carry him where his sublime imagination
fain would be.  It would not be easy to
estimate the good of which day-dreams
have defrauded the world.  Some of the
finest intellects have exhaled away in this
sluggish evaporation, and left no vestige on




INDUSTRY.             35
earth except the dried froth, the obscure
film, which survives the drivel of vanished
dreams; and others have done just enough
to show how important they would have
been had they awaked sooner or kept longer awake at once.  Sir James Macintosh
was an example of the latter class.  His
castle-building " never amounted to conviction; in other words, these fancies have never influenced my actions; but I must confess that they have often been as steady and
of as regular recurrence as conviction itself,
and that they have sometimes created a little
faint expectation, a state of mind in which
my wonder that they should be realized
would not be so great as it rationally ought
to be."* Perhaps no one in modern times
has been capable of more sagacious or comprehensive generalizations in those sciences
which hold court in the high places of human intellect than he; but a few hints and a
fragment of finished work are all that remain.
Coleridge never sufficiently woke up from
Life, vol. i., p. 5.




36          LIFE IN EARNEST.
his long life-dream to articulate distinctly
any of the glorious visions which floated before his majestic fancy, some of which we
really believe that the world would have
been the wiser for knowing. And, returning from secular philosophy to matters of
Christian practice, has the reader never met
those whose superior gifts would have made
them eminently useful, and who had designs
of usefulness, perhaps philanthropic schemes
of peculiar ingenuity and beauty, but who
are passing away fiom earth, if they have
not passed away already, without actually
attempting any tangible good? And yet so
sincere are they in their own inoperative benevolence, so hard do they toil and sweat
in their own Nephelococcygia, that nothing
could surprise them more than the question,
" What do ye more than others?" unless it
were their own inability to point out the
solid product, and lay their hands on the
actual results.  To avoid this guilt and
wretchedness1. Have a business in which diligence is




INDUSTRY.               37
lawful and desirable. There are some pursuits which do not deserve to be called a
business. }Eropus was the king of Macedonia, and it was his favorite pursuit to make
lanterns.* Probably he was very good at
making them, but his proper business was
to be a king; and therefore the more lanterns he made, the worse king he was. And
if your work be a high calling, you must not
dissipate your energies on trifles-on things
which, lawful in themselves, are still as irrelevant to you as lamp-making is irrelevant
to a king. Perhaps some here are without
any specific calling. They have neither a
farm nor a merchandise to look after; they
have no household to care for, no children
to train and educate, no official duties to
engross their time; they have an independent fortune, and live at large. My friends,
I congratulate you on your wealth, your
* Quoted in Todd's Student's Guide (chap. v.)-a
book which no zealous student will read without being animated by its vigorous tone, and instructed by
its wise and practical suggestions.
4




38          LIFE IN EARNEST.
liberal education, your position in society,
and your abundant leisure.  It is in your
power to be the benefactors of your generation; you are in circumstances to do an
eminent service for God and finish some
great work before your going hence.  What
that work shall be, I do not attempt to indicate; I rather leave it for your own investigation and discovery. Every one has his
own line of things. Howard chose one path,
and  Wilberforce another; Harlan  Page
chose one, and Brainerd Tailor another.
Mrs. Fletcher did one work, Lady Glenorchy another, and Mary Jane Graham a third.
Every one did the work for which God had
best fitted them, but each made that work
their business.  They gave themselves to it;
they not only did it, by-the-by, but they selected it and set themselves in earnest to it,
not parenthetically, but on very purpose-the
problem of their lives-for Christ's sake and
in Christ's service, and held themselves as
bound to do it as if they had been by himself expressly engaged for it.  And, breth



INDUSTRY.             39
ten, you must do the same. Those of you
who do not need to toil for your daily bread,
your very leisure is a hint what the Lord
would have you to do.  As you have no
business of your own, he would have you
devote yourselves to his business; he woulh
have you carry on, in some of its manifold
departments, that work which he came to
earth to do.  He would have you go about
his Father's business as he was wont to be
about it. And if you still persist in living
to yourselves, you can not be happy. You
can not spend all your days in making pincushions, or reading newspapers, or loitering in club-rooms and coffee-houses, and
yet be happy.  If you profess to follow
Christ, this is not a Christian life.  It is not
a conscientious, and so it can not be a comfortable life. And if the pin-cushion or the
newspaper fail to make you happy, remember the reason-very good as relaxations,
ever so great an amount of these things can
never be a business, and " wist ye not that you
should be about your Father's business?"




40          LIFE IN EARNEST.
2. Having made a wise and deliberate
selection of a business, go on with it-go
through with it.  Persevering mediocrity
is much more respectable, and unspeakably
more useful, than talented inconstancy.  In
the heathery turf you will often find a plant
chiefly remarkable for its peculiar roots:
from  the main stem  down to the minutest
fibre, you will find them all abruptly terminate
as if shorn or bitten off; and the silly superstition of the country people alleges that
once on a time it was a plant of singular
potency for healing all sorts of maladies,
and therefore the great enemy of man in his
malignity bit off the roots in which its virtues resided.  This plant, with this quaint
history, is a very good emblem  of many
well-meaning  but little-effecting  people.
They might be defined as radicibus proemorsis, or rather inceptis succisis. The efficacy of every good work lies in its completion: and all their good works terminate abruptly, and are left off unfinished. The
devil frustrates their efficacy by cutting off




INDUSTRY.              41
their ends; their unprofitable history is made
up of plans and projects, schemes of usefulness that were never gone about, and magnificent undertakings that were never carried
forward; societies that were set agoing, then
left to shift for themselves, and forlorn beings
who for a time were taken up and instructed, and just when they were beginning to
show symptoms of improvement, were cast
on the world again.  But others there are,
who, before beginning to build, count the
cost, and having collected their materials,
and laid their foundations deep and broad,
go on to rear their structure, indifferent to
more tempting schemes and sublime enterprises subsequently suggested. The man
who provides a home for a poor neighbor,
is a greater benefactor of the poor than he
who lays the foundation of a stately almshouse and never finishes a single apartment.
The persevering teacher who guides one
child into the saving knowledge of Christ
and leads him on to established habits of
piety, is a more useful man than his friend
4*




42          LIFE IN EARNEST.
who gathers in a room-full of ragged children, and after a few weeks of waning zeal,
turns them  all adrift on the streets again.
The patriot who set his heart on abolishing
the slave-trade, and after twenty years of
rebuffs and revilings, of tantalized hope and
disappointed effort, at last succeededachieved a greater work than if he had set
afloat all possible schemes of philanthropy,
and then left them, one after the other, to
sink or swim. So short is life, that we can
afford to lose none of it in abortive undertakings; and once we are assured that a
given work is one which it is obrth our while
to do, it is true wisdom to set about it instantly, and once we have begun it, it is
true economy to finish it.




INDUSTRY.             43
LECTURE I1.
INDUSTRY.
"Not slothful in business."-ROMANS XII. 11.
THIS morning we saw how this precept
is violated by various descriptions of persons: by those who have no business at all,
and those whose business is only an active
idleness: and, finally, by those who, having
a lawful business-a good and honorable
work assigned them-do it reluctantly or
drowsily, or leave it altogether undone.
There are some who have no business at
all.  They are of no use in the world; they
are doing no good, and attempting none;
and when they are taken out of the world,
4*




44          LIFE IN EARNEST
their removal creates no vacancy. When
an oak or any noble and useful tree is uprooted, his removal creates a blank. For
years after, when you look to the place
which once knew him, you see that something is missing. The branches of adjacent
trees have not yet supplied the void. They
still hesitate to occupy the place formerly
filled by their powerful neighbor; and there
is still a deep chasm in the ground-a rugged pit-which shows how far his giant
roots once spread.  But when a leafless
pole, a wooden pin, is plucked up, it comes
easy and clean away. There is no rending
of the turf, no marring of the landscape, no
vacuity created, no regret.  It leaves no memento, and is never missed.  Now, brethren, which are you? Are you cedars, planted in the house of the Lord, casting a cool
and grateful shadow on those around you?
Are you palm-trees, fat and flourishing,
yielding bounteous fruit, and making all
who know you bless you?  Are you so
useful, that, were you once away, it would




INDUSTRY.                 45
not be easy to fill your place again: but people, as they pointed to the void in the plantation-the pit in the ground-would say,
"It was here that that brave cedar grew:
it was here that that old palm-tree diffused
his familiar shadow and showered his mellow clusters?"   Or are you a peg-a pin
-a rootless, branchless, fruitless thing that
may be pulled up any day, and no one ever
care to ask what has become of it?  What
are you doing?  What are you contributing
to the world's happiness, or the church's
glory? What is your business?
Individuals there  are  who  are  doing
something, though it would be difficult to
specify what.  They are busy; but it is a
busy idleness.
"Their only labor is to kill the time,
And labor dire it is, and weary wo.
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme,
Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow:
This soon too rude an exercise they findStraight on the couch their limbs again they throw,
Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined,
And court the vapory god soft-breathing in the
wind."-Castle of Indolence.




46          LIFE IN EARNEST.
They think that they are busy, though
their chief business be to get quit of themselves.  To annihilate time, to quiet conscience, to banish care, to keep ennui out
at one door, and serious thoughts out at
the other, gives them all their occupation.
And, betwixt their fluttering visits  and
frivolous engagements, their midnight diversions, their haggard mornings, and shortened days, their yawning attempts at reading, and sulky application to matters of
business which they can not well evade;
betwixt mobs of callers and shoals of ceremonious notes, they fuss and fret themselves into the pleasant belief that they are
the most worried and hard-driven of mortal
men.  Even when groaning in prospect of
interminable hours they have not a moment
to spare; and a chief employment of their
leisure is to appear in a constant hurry.
Could you embody in matter-of-fact all
their sham activity and bustling show, could
you write down a truthful enumeration of
the doings of a single week, I fear there




INDUSTRY.             47
would not be found one act which, were
He saying, "Thou fool, this night shall
thy soul be required of thee," the Judge
of all would accept as a right deed or rightly done. It is possible to be very busy,
and yet very idle. It is possible to be serious about trifles, and to exhaust one's energies in doing nothing.  It is possible to
be toiling all one's days in doing that which,
in the infatution of fashion or the delirium
of ambition, will look exceedingly august
and important; but which the first flash of
eternity will transmute into shame and everlasting contempt.
Then, among those who have really got
a work to do-whose calling is lawful or
something more-perhaps a direct vocation
in the service of God, there are three classes
who violate the precept of the text-those
who do their work grudgingly, or drowsily,
or not at all-the sloths, the somnambulists,
and the day-dreamers.  Some do it grudgingly.  They have not a heart for work;
and of all work, least heart for that which




48          LIFE IN EARNEST.
God has given them.  Instead of that angelic alacrity which speeds instinctively on
the service God assigns, that healthy love
of labor which a loyal and well-conditioned
soul would have, they postpone everything
to the latest moment, and then go whimpering and growling to the hated task as if
they were about to undergo some dismal
punishment.  They have a strange idea of
occupation.  They look on it as a drug, a
penalty, a goblin, a fiend, something very
fierce and cruel, something very nauseous;
and they would gladly smuggle through existence by one of those side-paths which
the grim giants, labor and industry, do not
guard.
Others again, who do not quite refuse
their work, put only half a soul into it.
They have no zeal for their profession.
rhey somehow scramble through it; but it
is without any noble enthusiasm-any appetite for work or any love to the God who
gives it.  If they are intrusted with the
property of others, they can not boast as




INDUSTRY.              49
Jacob (id: "In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my
sleep departed from mine eyes.  God hath
seen mine affliction and the labor of my
hands." If intrusted with the souls of others,
they can not reckon up " the abundant labors,
the often journeyings, the weariness and
painfulness, the watchings, the hunger and
thirst," the perils and privations which, for
the love of his Master and his Master's work,
the Apostle of the Gentiles joyfully encountered.  If scholars, they are content to learn
the lesson, so that no fault shall be found.
If servants, they aspire to nothing more
than fulfilling their inevitable toils.  And if
occupying official stations, they are satisfied
with a decent discharge of customary duties,
and are glad if they leave things no worse
than they found them.  They are hireling,
perfunctory, heartless in all they do.  Their
work is so sleepily done that it is enough
to make you lethargic to labor in their company; and, before they go zealously and
wakefully to work, they would need to be
5




50           LIFE IN EARNEST.
startled up into the daylight of actual existence-they would  need  to be shaken
from  that torpor into which the very sight
of labor is apt to entrance them.  Oh, happier far, to lose health and life itself in clear,
brisk, conscious working; to spend the last
atom of strength, and yield the vital spark
itself in joyful wakeful efforts for Him who
(lid all for us-than to drawl through a
dreaming life, with all the fatigue of labor and
nothing of its sweetness; snoring in a con-.tant lethargy, sleeping while you work, and
nightmared with labor when you really sleep.
And, besides the procrastinating and perfunctory class, those are " slothful in business" who  do no business at all.  And
there  are  such  persons-agreeable, selfcomplacent, plausible persons-who really
fancy that they have done a great deal because they have intended to do so much.
Their life is made up of good purposes,
splendid projects, and heroic resolutions.
They live in the region which the poet has
described:



INDUSTRY.                51
" A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer's sky."
They have performed so many journeys,
and made so many discoveries, and won so
many laurels in this aerial clime, that life
is over, and they find their real work is not
begun.  Like the dreamer who is getting
great sums of money in his sleep, and who,
when he awakes, opens his till or his pocketbook, almost expecting to find it full, the
day-dreamer, the projector awaking up at
the close of life, can hardly believe that
after his distinct and glorious visions, he is
leaving the world no wiser, mankind no
richer, and his own home no happier, for
all the golden prospects which have flitted
through his busy brain.  What a blessed
world it were, how happy and how rich, if
all the idlers were working, if all the workers were awake, and if all the projectors
were practical men!
I trust, my friends, that many among




52          LIFE IN EARNEST.
you are desirous to be active Christians.
Perhaps the following hints may be helpful
to those who wish to serve the Lord by
diligence in business.
1. Have a calling in which it is worth
while to be busy.  There are many callings in which it is lawful for the Christian
to "abide."  He may be a lawyer like Sir
Matthew Hale, or a physician like Haller,
Heberden, and Mason Goode.  He may
be a painter like West, or a sculptor like
Bacon, or a poet like Milton, and Klopstock, and Cowper.  He may be a trader
like Thornton and the Itardcastles, or a
philosopher like Boyle and Boerhaave. He
may be a hard-working artisan like the
Yorkshire Blaclsmith and the Watchmaker
of Geneva; or he may toil for his daily
bread like the Happy Waterman, and the
Wallsend Miner, and the Shepherd of
Salisbury Plain, and many a domestic servant of humble but pious memory.  And
the business of this ordinary calling, the
disciple of Christ must discharge heartily,




INDUSTRY.              53
and with all his might. He must labor to
be eminent and exemplary in his own profession.  He should seek, for the sake of
the Gospel, to befirst-rate in his own department.  But over and above his ordinary
calling as a member of society, the believer
has his special calling as a member of the
church.  He has a direct work to do in
his Savior's service. Some who now hear
me have so much of their time at their own
disposal, that they might almost make their
calling as members of Christ's church the
business of their lives. And each who is
in this privileged situation should consider
what is the particular line of things for
which his taste and talents most urgently
predispose him, and for which his training
and station best adapt him.  The healthiest
condition of the church is where there is a
member for every office, and where every
member fulfils his own office,* where there
are no defects and no transpositions, but
each is allowed to ply to the utmost the
* Rom. xii. 3-8.
5*




54          LIFE IN EARNEST.
work for which God has intended him;
where Newton writes his letters, and Butler
his analogy; where in the leisure of the
olden ministry, Matthew Henry compiles
his commentary, and where in the calm retreat of Olney, Cowper pours forth his devotional melodies; where Venn cultivates
his corner of the vineyard, and Whitefield
ranges over the field of the world; where
President Edwards is locked up in his
study, and Wilberforce is detained in the
parlor; where the adventurous Carey goes
down into the pit, and the sturdy arm  of
Fuller deals out the rope; where he who
ministers waits on his ministering, and he
that teacheth on teaching, and he that exhorteth on exhortation, and he who hath to
give gives liberally, and he who has method
and good management rules diligently, and
he who can pay visits of mercy pays them
cheerfully. And if the Lord has given you
an abundance of unoccupied leisure, he has
along witl it given you some talent or
other, and says, "Occupy till I come."




INDUSTRY.              55
Find out what it is that you best can do, or
what it is which, if you neglect it, is likely
to be left undone.  And whether you select
as your sphere of Christian usefulness, a
sabbath class or a ragged school, a local
prayer-meeting, or a district for domiciliary
visitation; whether you devote yourself to
the interests of some evangelistic society, or
labor secretly from house to house, whatever line of things you select, make it your
"business."  Pursue it so earnestly, that
though it were only in that one field of activity you would evince yourself no common Christian.
2. Make the most of TIME.  Some have
little leisure, but there are sundry expedients, any one of which, if fairly tried, would
make that little leisure longer. (1.) Economy.  Most of the men who have died
enormously rich, acquired their wealth, not
in huge windfalls, but by minute and careful accumulations.  It was not one vast
sum  bequeathed  to them  after another,
which overwhelmed them  with inevitable




56           LIFE IN EARNEST.
opulence; but it was the loose noney which
most men would.avish away, the little sums
which many would not deem worth looking
after, the pennies and half-crowns of which
you would keep no reckoning, these are the
items which year by year piled up, have
reared their pyramid of fortune. From
these money-makers let us learn the nobler
" avarice of time." A German critic could
repeat the  Iliad in  Greek.  How  many
weeks did he bestow on the task of committing it to memory?  He had no weeks
to spare for such a purpose, for he was a
physician  in busy practice; but he contrived to master it all during the brief
snatches of time when passing from one
patient's door to another.*  In the life of
Dr. Mason Good, a feat of similar industry
*ak similar instance of literary industry is recorded
of Dr. Burney, the musician. With the help of
pocket grammars and dictionaries, which he had taken
the trouble to write out for his own use, he acquired
the French and Italian languages when riding on
horseback from place to place to give his professional
instructions.




INDUSTRY.              57
is recorded.'His translation of Lucretius
was composed in the streets of London,
during his extensive walks to visit his numerous patients. His practice was to take
in his pocket two or three leaves of an octavo edition of the original; to read over a
passage two or three times as he walked
along, until he had engraven it upon his
ready memory; then to translate the passage, meditate upon the translation, correct
and elaborate it, until he had satisfied himself."  Proceeding in the same way with a
second, a third, and fourth passage, he entered the translation on his manuscript, after he had returned home, and disposed of
all his professional business. And in order
to achieve some good work which you have
much at heart, you may not be able to secure an entire week, or even an uninterrupted day.  But try what you can make
of the broken fragments of time.  Glean up
its golden dust; those raspings and parings
of precious duration, those leavings of days
and remnants of hours which so many




38          LIFE IN EARNEST.
sweep out into the waste of existence.
Perhaps, if you be a miser of moments, if
you be frugal and hoard up odd minutes,
and half-hours, and unexpected holydays,
your careful gleanings may eke out a long
and useful life, and you may die at last
richer in existence than multitudes whose
time is all their own.  The time which some
men waste in superfluous slumber, and idle
visits, and desultory application, were it all
redeemed, would give them  wealth  of
leisure, and enable them to execute undertakings for which they deem a less worried
life than theirs essential.  When a person
says, " I have no time to pray, no time to
read the Bible, no time to improve my
mind, nor to do a kind turn to a neighbor,"
he may be saying what he thinks, but he
should not think what he says; for if he has
not got the time already, he may get it by
redeeming it.  (2.) Punctuality.  A singular mischance has occurred to some of our
friends. At the instant when he ushered
tham on existence, God gave them a work




INDUSTRY.              59
to do, and he alk  gave them a competency
of time, so much time, that, if they began at
the right moment, and wrought with sufficient
vigor, their time and their work would end
together.  But a good many years ago a
strange misfortune befell them. A fragment
of their allotted time was lost.  They can
not tell what became of it, but sure enough
it has dropped out of existence; for, just
like two measuring-lines laid alongside, the
one an inch shorter than the other, their
work and their time run parallel, but the
work is always ten minutes in advance of
the time.  They are not irregular.  They
are never too soon. Their letters are posted
the very minute after the mail is shut; they
arrive at the wharf just in time to see the
steamboat off; they come in sight of the
terminus precisely as the station-gates are
closing.  They do not break any engagement nor neglect any duty; but they systematically go about it too late, and usually
too late by about the ame fatal interval.
How can they retrieve  e lost fragment, so




60          LIFE IN EARNEST.
essential to character and comfort? Perhaps by a device like this: suppose that on
some auspicious morning they contrived to
rise a quarter of an hour before their usual
time, and were ready for their morning
worship fifteen minutes sooner than they
have been for the last ten years; or, what
will equally answer the end, suppose that
for once they merged their morning meal
altogether, and went straight out to the engagements of the day; suppose that they
arrived at the class-room, or the work-shop,
or the place of business, fifteen minutes be-.
fore their natural time, or that they forced
themselves to the appointed rendezvous on
the week-day, or to the sanctuary on the
sabbath-day, a quarter of an hour before
their instinctive time of going, all would yet
be well.  This system  carried out would
bring the world and themselves to synchronize; they and the marching hours would
come to keep step again, and moving on
in harmony, they would escape the jolting
awkwardness and fatigue they used to feel,




INDUSTRY.              61
when old Father Time put the right foot
foremost and they advanced the left; their
reputation would be retrieved, and friends
who at present fret would begin to smile;
their fortunes would be made; their satisfaction in their work would be doubled;
and their influence over others and their
power for usefulness would be unspeakably
augmented.  (3.) Method. A man has got
twenty or thirty letters and packets to carry
to their several destinations; but instead of
arranging them beforehand, and putting all
addressed to the same locality in a separate
parcel, he crams the whole into his promiscuous bag, and trudges off to the West
End, for he knows that he has got a letter
directed thither: that letter he delivers, and
hies away to the City, when lo! the same
handful which brings out the invoice for
Cheapside, contains a brief for the Temple,
and a parliamentary petition, which should
have been left, had he noticed it earlier, at
Belgrave Square; accordingly he retraces
his steps and repairs the omission, and then
6




62          LIFE IN EARNEST.
performs a transit from Paddington to Bethnal Green-till in two days he overtakes the
work of one, and travels fifty miles to accomplish as much as a man of method
would have managed in fifteen.  The man
who has thoroughly mastered that lessonA place for everything, and everything in
its own place"-will save a world of time.
He loses no leisure seeking for the unanswered letter or the lost receipt; he does
not need to travel the same road twice; and
hence it is that some of the busiest men
have the least of a busy look.  Instead of
slamming doors, and ringing alarm-bells,
and knocking over chairs and children in
their headlong hurry, they move about deliberately, for they have made their calculations, and know that they have ample time.
And just as a prodigal of large fortune is
obliged to do shabby things, while an orderly man of moderate income has always an
easy look, as if there were still something
left in his pocket-as he can afford to pay
for goods when he buys them, and to put




INDUSTRY.              63
somethinc  into the collecting-box when it
passes him, and after he has discharged all
his debts has still something to spare-so is
it with the methodical husbanders and the
disorderly spendthrifts of time. Those who
live without a plan have never any leisure,
for their work is never done: those who time
their engagements, and arrange their work
beforehand, can bear an occasional interruption. They can reserve an evening hour for
their families; they can sometimes take a
walk into the country, or drop in to see a
friend; they can now and then contrive to
read a useful book; and amid all their important avocations, they have a tranquil and
opulent appearance, as if they still had plenty of time.  (4.) Promptitude. Every scene
of occupation is haunted by that " thief of
time," procrastination; and all his ingenuity
is directed to steal that best of opportunities, the present time.  The disease of humanity, disinclination to the work God has
given, more frequently takes the form of
dilatoriness than a downright and decided




64          LIFE IN EARNEST.
refusal. But delay shortens life and abridges industry, just as promptitude enlarges
both.  You have a certain amount of work
before you, and in all likelihood some unexpected engagements may be superadded
as the time wears on.  You may begin that
work immediately, or you may postpone it
till the evening, or till the week be closing,
or till near the close of life. Your sense of
duty insists on its being done; but procrastination says, " It will be pleasanter to do
it by-and-by."  What infatuation! to end
each day in a hurry, and life itself in a panic! and when the flurried evening has closed,
and the fevered life is over, to leave half
your work undone! Whatever the business
be, do it instantly, if you would do it easily:
life will be long enough for the work assigned, if you be prompt enough.  Clear
off arrears of neglected duty; and once the
disheartening accumulations of the past are
overtaken, let not that mountain of difficulty
rise again.  Prefer duty to diversion, and
cultivate that athletic frame of soul which




INDUSTRY.            65
rejoices in abundant occupation; and you
will soon find the sweetness of that repose
which follows finished work, and the zest of
that recreation in which no delinquent feeling
mingles, and on which no neglected duty
frowns.
#




66           LItE IN EARNEST.
LECTURE III.
AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.' Serving the Lord."-ROMANS xil. 11.
" SERVING the Lord."  The title which
James and Jude take to themselves at the
outset of their epistles is, " James-Judea servant of Jesus Christ." The original
is more forcible still. In the inscriptions of
these epistles, as well as in this passage, a
true and emphatic rendering would be, " a
slave of Jesus Christ;"-" Not slothful in
business, fervent in spirit, the Lord's bondmen."  The believer is the happy captive
of Jesus Christ; he has fastened on himself




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    67
Immanuel's easy yoke, the light burden and
delicious chains of a Savior's love; and
though Christ says, " Henceforth I call you
no more servants," the disciple can not give
up the designation; there is no other term
by which, at times, he can express that feeling of intense devotedness and self-surrender which fills his loyal bosom.  "Truly,
0 Lord, I am thy servant, and the son of
thy handmaid."  And far from feeling any
ignominy in the appellation, there are times
when no name of Jesus sounds sweeter in
his ear than " Jesus, my Lord! Jesus, my
Master!" and when no designation more
accords with his feeling of entire devotedness, than James, a servant, Jude, a slave
of Jesus Christ, David, a bondsman of the
Lord.  There are times when the believer
has such adoring views of his Savior's excellency, and such affecting views of his
Savior's claims, that rather than refuse one
requirement, he only grudges that the yoke
is so easy that he can scarcely perceive it,
the burden so light that lie can scarcely rec



68          LIFE IN EARNEST.
ognise himself as a servant. HIe would like
something which would identify him  more
closely with his beloved Savior, some open
badge that he might carry, and which would
say for him" I'm not ashamed to own my Lord."
If Christ would bore his ear to the door
post-if Christ would only give him out of
his own hand his daily task to do-he would
like it well; and ceasing to be the servant
of men, he would fain become the servant
of Jesus Christ.
And going to the Savior in this ardent
mood of mind, and saying, "Lord, what
wouldst thou have me to do?" the Savior
hands you hack the Bible.  He accepts you
for his servant, and he directs you what service he would have you to perform.  The
book which he gives you is as really the
directory of Christ's servants as is the sealed
paper of instructions which the commander
of an expedition takes with him when he
goes to sea, or the letter of directions which




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    69
the absent nobleman sends to the steward
on his estates or the servant in his house.
The only difference is, its generality. Instead of making out a separate copy for
your specific use, indicating the different
things which he would have you do from
day to day, and sending it direct to yourself, authenticated by his own autograph,
and by the precision and individuality of its
details, evidently designed for yourself exclusively-the volume of his will is of a
wider aspect and more miscellaneous character.  It effectually anticipates each step
of your individual history, and prescribes
each act of your personal duty; but intermingling these with matters of promiscuous
import, it leaves abundant scope for your
honesty and ingenuity to find out the precise things which your Lord would have
you to do.  Had it been otherwise-had
there been put into the hand of each disciple, the moment he professed his faith in
Christ, a sealed paper of instructions, containing in enumeration of the special ser



70          LIFE IN EARNELT.
vices which his Lord would have this new
disciple to render, prescribing  a certain
number of tasks which he expected that disciple to perform, and specifying the very
way in which he would have them donein proportion as tils directory was precise
and rigid, so would it cease to be the test
of fidelity, so would it abridge the limits
within which an unrestricted loyalty may
display itself. As it is,, the directory is so
plain, that he who runs may read: not so
plain, however, but that he who stands still
and ponders will find a great deal which the
runner could not read. It is so peremptory, that no man can call Jesus Loid without
doing the things which it commands; but
withal so general, as to leave many things
to the candor and cordiality of sound-hearted disciples. It is precise enough to indicate the tempers, and the graces, and the
good works, with which the Savior is well
pleased, and by which the Father is glorified; but it nowhere fixes the exact amount
of any one of these, short of which Christ




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    71
will not suffer a disciple to stop, or beyond
which he does not expect a disciple to go.
The Bible does not deal in maximums and
minimums; it does not weigh and measure
out by definite proportions the ingredients
of regenerate character; but it specifies what
these ingredients are, and leaves it to the
zeal of each believer to add to his faith, not
as many, but as much of cacih of these things
as he pleases.  Firmly averring, on the one
hand, that without each and all of these
graces a man can not belong to Christ, it,
on the other hand, omits to specify how
much of each a man must be able to produce before Jesus say to him, "VWell done,
good and faithful servant; enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord."  The Bible announces those qualities which a man must have,
in order to prove him born from above; but
it does not tell what quantity of each he must
exhibit, in order to secure the smile of his
Master, and an abundant entrance into his
heavenly kingdom.  By this definiteness on
the outward side, it leaves no room for hy



72-         LIFE IN EARNEST.
pocrisy; but, by this indefiniteness on the
inner side, it leaves large place for the works,
and service, and faith, and patience-the
filial enterprise, the affectionate voluntaries,
and free-will offerings-of those who know
no limit to their labors, except the limit of
their love to Christ.
You will observe, that at the time when
you become a disciple of Christ, your Lord
and Master takes the whole domain of your
employments under his own jurisdiction.
Hle requires you to consecrate your ordinary calling to him, and to do, over and above,
many special things expressly for himself.
Whatsoever you do, in word or deed, he
desires that you should do it in his name:
not working like a worldling, and praying
like a Christian, but both in work and prayer, both in things secular and things sacred,
setting himself before you, carrying out his
rules, and seeking to please him.  One is
your Master, even Christ, and he is your
master in everything-the master of your
thoughts, your words, your family arrange



AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    73
ments, your business transactions-the master of your working time, as well as of your
sabbath-day-the Lord of your shop and
counting-room, as well as of your closet and
your pew-because the Lord of your affections, the proprietor of your very self besides.  The Christian is one who may do
many things from secondary motives-from
the pleasure they afford his friends-from
the gratification they give to his own tastes
and predilections-from his abstract convictions of what is honest, lovely, and of good
report; but his main and predominant motive-that which is paramount over every
other, and which, when fully presented, is
conclusive against every other-is affection
for his heavenly Friend. One is his Master, even Christ, and the love of Christ constraineth him.
Look now at the advantages of a motive
like this. See how loyalty to Christ secures
diligence in business-whether that be business strictly religious or business more miscellaneous.
7




74          LIFE IN EARNEST.
1. Love to Christ is an abiding motive.
It is neither a fancy, nor a sentiment, nor
an evanescent enotion.  It is a principlecalm, steady, undecaying. It was once a
problem in mechanics to find a pendulum
which should be equally long in all weathers-which should make the same number
of vibrations in the sulmmer's heat and in the
winter's cold.  They have now found it
out.  By a process of compensations they
make the rod lengthen one way as much as
it contracts another, so that the centre of
motion is always the same: the pendulum
swings the same number of beats in a day
of January as in a day of June; and the index travels over the dial-plate with the same
uniformity, whether the heat try to lengthen
or the cold to shorten the propelling power.
Now the moving power in some men's minds
is sadly susceptible of surrounding influences. It is not principle, but feeling, which
forms their pendulum;rod; and according
as this very variable material is affected,
their index creeps or gallops, they are swift




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    75
or slow in the work given them to do. But
principle is like the compensation-rod, which
neither lengthens in the languid heat, nor
shortens in the brisker cold; but does the
same work day by day, whether the icewinds whistle, or the simoom glows. Of
all principles, a high-principled affection to
the Savior is the steadiest and most secure.
Other incentives to action are apt to alter or
lose their influence altogether. You once
did many things for the sake of friends whose
wishes expressed or understood were your
incentive, and whose ready smile was your
recompense.  But that source of activity is
closed. Those friends are now gone where
your industry can not enrich them, nor your
kindness comfort them. Or if they remain,
they are no longer the same that once they
were.  The magic light has faded from off
them.  The mysterious interest which hovered round them has gone up like a mountain-mist, and left them in their wintry coldness or natural ruggedness: no longer those
whom once you took them to be   Or you




76       LIFE IN EARNEST.
did many things for fame; and were well
requited for a winter's work when the hosanna of a tumultuous assembly, or the paean
of a newspaper paragraph, proclaimed you
the hero of the hour.  But even that sort
of satisfaction has passed away, and, meager
diet as these plaudits always were, you stand
on the hungry pinnacle, and, like other aspirants of the same desert-roaming school *
you snuff; but, alas! the breeze has changed.
The popular taste, the wind of fashion, has
entirely veered about; and, except an occa.
sional tantalizing whiff from the oasis of a
receding popularity, the sweet gust of its
green pastures regales you no more. Or
you used to work for money-for literal
bank-notes and pieces of minted metal; yes,
mere money was your motive.  And you
would sit up till midnight, or rise in the
drowsy morning, to get one piece more.
And so truly was this money your chief
end-" Where the treasure is, there will
the heart be also"-do you not feel as if
* Jeremiah xiv. 6.




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    77
your money-safe were the metropolis of
your affections? Where your money is, is
not your heart there also? Were your fortune to clap its wings and fly away, would
not you feel as if your happiness had fled
away?  Have not your very thoughts got
a golden tinge?-and, tracing some of this
sabbath's meditations back to their source,
would you not soon land in the till, the
exchange, the counting-room? Is not gold
your chiefest joy? But have not flashes of
truth from time to time dismayed you?"  What am I living for?  For a make-believe like this? for a glittering cheat which
(in the way that I am using it) will be forgotten in heaven or felt like a canker in hell?
How shall I wake up my demented self
from this spell-dream, and seek some surer
bliss, some more enduring joy? For grant
that I shall be buried in a coffin of gold,
and commemorated in a diamond shrine,
what the happier will it make the me that
then shall be?" And even without these
brighter convictions, without these momen7*




78          LIFE IN EARNEST.
tary eaks in the general delirium of covetousntes, do you not feel a duller dissatisfaction occasionally creeping over you and paralyzing your busy efforts?  "Well-is this
right?  This headlong hunt of fortune, is it
the end for which my Creator sent me into
the world? Is it the highest end for which
my immortal self can live?  Is it the best
way of bestowing that single sojourn in this
probation-world which God has given me?
And what am I the better? Am I sure that
I myself am the happier for it?  Dare I
flatter myself that, in bequeathing so much
money, I bequeath to my children consolidated happiness, a sure and certain good,
an inevitable blessing?" And such intrusive thoughts, whose shadows, at least, flit
across most serious minds, are very damping to effort-very deadening to diligence
in business. Merely serving your friends
-in mere pursuit of fame-merely seeking
a fortune-you are in constant danger of
having all motive annihilated, and so all effort paralyzed. But whatever be the husi



AN EYE TO THE LORD.ESUS.    79
ness in hand-from the veriest trifle up to
the sublimest enterprise-from  binding a
shoe-latchet to preparing a highway for the
Lord-if only you be conscious that this is
the work which HE has given you to do,
you can go on with a cheerful serenity and
strenuous satisfaction, for you will never want
a motive.  And it is just when other motives are relaxing into languor, that the compensation we spoke of comes into play; and
the constraining love of Christ restores the
soul and keeps its rate of activity quick and
constant as ever.  The love of Christ is an
abiding motive, and can only lose its power
where reason has lost its place.  No man
ever set the Lord before him and made it
his supreme concern to please his Master
in heaven, yet lived to say, " What a fool
am I! What a wasted life is mine! What
vaiity and vexation has Christ's service
been! Had I only my career to begin anew,
I would seek another master and a higher
end."*  The Lord Jesus ever lives, and
* See Life of R v. Henry Venn, under A. D. 1785.




80          LIFE IN EARNEST.
never changes; and therefore the believer's
love to his Savior never dies. Growing
acquaintance may bring out new aspects of
his character; but it will never disclose a
reason why the believing soul should love
him less than it loved at first. Growing acquaintance will only divulge new reasons
for exclaiming, " Worthy is the Lamb!"
and fresh motives for living, not unto ourselves, but unto Him that loved us and gave
himself for us.
2. Love to Christ is a motive equal to
all emergencies.  There is a ruling passion
in every mind; and when every other consideration has lost its power, this ruling passion retains its influence. WThen they were
probing among his shattered ribs for the
fatal bullet, the French veteran exclaimed,
" A little deeper, and you will find the emperor." The deepest affection in a believing
soul is the love of its Savior. Deeper than
the love of home-deeper than the love of
kindred, deeper than the love of rest and
recreation, deeper than the love of life-is




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    81
the love of Jesus.  And so, when other
spells have lost their magic, when no name
of old endearment, no voice of onwaiting
tenderness, can disperse the lethargy of dissolution, the name that is above every name,
pronounced by one who knows it, will kindle its last animation in the eye of death.
And when other persuasives have lost their
power, when other loves no longer constrain
the Christian, when the love of country no
longer constrains his patriotism, nor the love
of his brethren' his philanthropy, nor the love
of home his fatherly affection-the love of
Christ will still constrain his loyalty. There
is a love to Jesus which nothing can destroy.  There is a leal-heartedness which
refuses to let a much-loved Savior go, even
when the palsied arm of affection is no longer conscious of the benignant form it embraces.  There is a love, which amid the
old and weary " feel" of waning years renews its youth, and amid outward misery
and inward desolation preserves its immortal root; which even when the glassy eye




82          LIFE IN EARNES r.
of hunger has forgot to sparkle, and the joy
at the heart can no longer mantle on the
withered cheek, still holds on, faithful to
Jesus, though the flesh be faint.  This was
the love which made Paul and Silas, fatigued and famished as they were, and sleepless with pain, sing praise so loud that their
fellow-prisoners heard and wondered. This
was the love which burned in the apostle's
breast, even when buffeting the Adriatic's
wintry brine, and made the work which at
Rome awaited him beam like a star of hope
through the drowning darkness of that dismal night. This was the love which thawed
his pen, when the moan of wintry winds
made him miss the cloak he left at Troas,
and impelled him to write to Timothy a testamentary entreaty to " hold fast" the truths
which were hastening himself to martyrdom.
Devotedness to Christ is a principle which
never dies, and neither does the diligence
which springs from it.
Dear brethren, get love to the Lord Jesus, and you have everything.  Union to




AN EYE TO THE LORD;ESUS.    83
Jesus is salvation.  Love to Jesus is religion.  Love to the Lord Jesus is essential and vital Christianity.  It is the mainspring of the life of God in the soul of man.
It is the all-inclusive germe, which involves
within it every other grace.  It is the pervasive spirit, without which the most correct
demeanor is but dead works, and the seemliest exertions are an elegant futility.  Love
to Christ is the best incentive to actionthe best antidote to idolatry.  It adorns the
labors which it animates, and hallows the
friendships which it overshadows.  It is the
smell of the ivory wardrobe-the precious
perfume of the believer's character-the fragrant mystery which only lingers round those
souls which have been to a better clime. Its
operation is most marvellous; for when there
is enough of it, it makes the timid bold, and
the slothful diligent.  It puts eloquence into
the stammering tongue, and energy into the
withered arm, and ingenuity into the dull,
lethargic brain.  It takes possession of the
soul, and a joyous lustre beams in languid




84          LIFE IN EARNEST.
eyes, and wings of new obedience sprout
from lazy, leaden feet. Love to Christ is
the soul's true heroism, which courts gigantic feats, which selects the heaviest loads
and the hardest toils, which glories in tribulations, and hugs reproaches, and smiles at
death till the king of terrors smiles again.
It is the aliment which feeds assurancethe opiate which lulls suspicions-the oblivious draught which scatters misery, and
remembers poverty no more.  Love to Jesus is the beauty of the believing soul; it is
the elasticity of the willing steps, and the
brightness of the glowing countenance.  If
you would be a happy, a holy, and a useful Christian, you must be an eminently
Christ-loving disciple. If you have no love
to Jesus at all, then you are none of his.
But if you have a little love-ever so little
-a little drop, almost frozen in the cold
ness of your icy heart —oh! seek more.
Look to Jesus, and cry for the Spirit till
you find your love increasing; till you find
it drowning besetting sins; till you find it




AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS.    35
drowning guilty fears-rising, till it touch
that index, and open your closed lips-rising, till every nook and cranny of the soul
is filled with it, and all the actions of life
and relations of earth are pervaded by itrising, till it swell up to the brim, and, like
the apostle's love, rush over in a full assurance: " Yes, I am persuaded, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord."




86          LIFE IN EARNF..S
LECTURE IV.
A FERVENT SPIRIT.
"' Fervent in spirit."-ROMANS XII. 11.
THE description of work which a man
performs will depend very much on the
master whom he serves; but, the amount
and quality of that work will depend as much
on the mood of mind in which he does it.
The master mn/ ne good, and the things
which he commitds may be good; but unless the servant have an eager, willing mind,
little work may be done, and that little may
not be well done.  This is the glory of the
gospel. It not only invites you to be the




A FERVENT SPIRIT.         87
disciples of a Savior, whose requirements
are as worthy of your most strenuous obedience as he himself is worthy of your warmest love, but it undertakes to give you the
energy and enterprise which the service of
such a master demands. Besides assigning
a good and honorable work for your " business," and Him  whom  principalities and
powers adore for your master, the gospel
offers you the zealous mind which such
a work requires, and which such a master
loves.
But what is a fervent spirit?
1. It is a believing spirit. Few men have
faith.  There are few to whom the Word
of God is solid, to whom "the things hoped
for" are substantial, or " the things unseen"
evident.  There are few who regard the
Lord Jesus as living now, or as taking a
real and affectionate charge of his people
here on earth. There are few who yet expect to see him, and who are laying their
account with standing before his great white
throne. But the believer has got an open




88          LIFE IN EARNEST.
eye.  He has looked within the veil.  He
knows that the things seen are temporal,
and the things unseen are eternal.  He
knows that the Lord Jesus lives, and that
though unseen, he is ever near.  He may
often forget, but he never doubts his promise: " And lo! I am  with you always."
This assurance of his ascending Savior, every time he recalls it, infuses alacrity, animation, earnestness.  The faith of this is
fervor.  "Yes, blessed Savior! art thou
present now? and seest thou thy disciple
trifling thus? Is the book of remembrance
filling up, and are these idle words and wasted hours my memorial there? And art thou
coming quickly and bringing thy reward,
to give each servant as his work shall be?
And is this my' work?' Lord, help my
unbelief.  Dispel my drowsiness.  Supplant my sloth, and perfect thy strength in
me."
2. A fervent spirit is an affectionate spirit.  It is one which cries Abba, Father. It
is full of confidence and love. Peter had a




A FERVENT SPIRIT.           89
fervent spirit, but it would be hard to say
whether most of his fervor flowed through
the outlet of adoration or activity. You remember with what a burst of praise his first
epistle begins, and how soon he passes on
to practical matters. " Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away."-" Wherefore
laying aside all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow thereby."-" Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own
husbands."-" The elders which are among
you I exhort, who am also an elder."*  And
as in his epistle, so in his living character.
His full heart put force and promptitude
into every movement.  Is his master encompassed by fierce ruffians?  Peter's ar* 1 Peter, commencement of chapters i., ii., iii., v.
8*




90          LIFE IN EARNEST.
dor flashes in his ready sword, and converts
the Galilean boatman into the soldier instantaneous.  Is there a rumor of a resurrection from Joseph's tomb? John's nimbler foot distances his older friend, but Peter's eagerness outruns the serener love of
John, and past the gazing disciple he bolts
breathless into the vacant sepulchre. Is the
risen Savior on the strand? His comrades
secure the net, and turn the vessel's head
for shore; but Peter plunges over the vessel's side, and, struggling through the waves,
in his dripping coat falls down at his Master's feet. Does Jesus say, " Bring of the
fish ye have caught?" Ere any one could
anticipate the word, Peter's brawny arm is
lugging the weltering net with its glittering
spoil ashore; and every eager movement
unwittingly  is answering  beforehand the
question of his Lord, " Simon, lovest thou
me?"  And that fervor is the best, which,
like Peter's, and as occasion requires, can
ascend in ecstatic ascriptions of adoration
and praise, or follow Christ to prison and




A FERVENT SPIRIT.           91
to death; which can concentrate itself on
feats of heroic devotion, or distribute itself
in the affectionate assiduities of a miscellaneous industry.
3. A fervent spirit is a healthy spirit.
When a strong spring gushes up in a stagnant pool, it makes some commotion at the
first; and looking at the murky stream with
its flotilla of duckweed tumbling down the
declivity, and the expatriated newts and
horse-leeches crawling through the grass;
and inhaling the miasma from the inky runnel, you may question whether the irruption of this powerful current has made matters any better. But come anon, when the
living water has floated out the stagnant elements, and when, instead of mephitic mud
skimmed over with a film  of treacherous
verdure, the bright fountain gladdens its mirrored edge with its leaping fulness, then trips
away on its merry path, the benefactor of
thirsty beasts and weary fields.  So the first
manifestations of the new and the spiritual
element in a carnal mind are of a'mingled




92          LIFE IN EARNEST.
sort. The pellicle of decency, the floating
duckweed of surface-seemliness, which once
spread over the character, is broken up, and
accomplishments, and amusing qualitieswhich made the man very companionable
and agreeable-have for the present disappeared.  There is a great break-up; and it
is the passing away of the old things, which
is at first more conspicuous and less pleasing, than the appearance of the new. In
these earlier stages of regenerate history, the
contrition and self-reproach of the penitent
often assume the form of an artificial demureness and voluntary humility; and in
the general disturbance of those elements
which have long lain in their specious stagnation, defects of character formerly hidden
are perceived sooner than the beauties of a
holiness scarce yet developed. But " Spring
up, 0 well! sing ye unto it."  If this incursive process go freely on-if the living
water spring up fast enough to clear out the
sedimentary selfishness of the natural mind,
with its reptile inmates-if the inflowings of




A FERVENT SPIRIT.            93
heavenly life be copious enough to impart a
truly "fervent spirit"*-come again.  Survey that character when the love of God has
become its second nature. In place of the
silt and evil savor, the mean and sordid
motives which once fermented there, view
the simplicity and godly sincerity, the lightwelcoming transparency, which reflects the
Sun of Righteousness above it and the forms
of truth around it; and instead of the fastevaporating scantiness of its former selfishness, follow its track of diffusive freshness
through the green pastures which it gladdens, and beneath those branches which
gratefully sing over it.t Like a sweet fountain, a fervent spirit is beneficent; its very
health is healing; its peace with God and
joy from  God are doing constant good;
the gospel of its smiling aspect impresses
strangers and comforts saints. And besides
this unconscious and incidental usefulness,
* Compare the original, -co 7rrvsart Seovrs;, with John
iv. 14, and vii. 38, 39.
f Psalm civ. 10, 12.




94          LIFE IN EARNEST.
its active outpourings are a benefit as wide
as its waters run. A Christian who is both
active and fervent is doing perpetual good,
and good in the most benignant way. The
substantial service he does is doubly blessed
by the joyful, loving, and hopeful spirit in
which he does it; and though it were only
by the gladness which skirts its course, and
the amenities which bloom wherever it overflows, beholders might judge how " living,"
how  life-awakening that water is, which
Jesus gives to them that believe in him.
The best, the healthiest, is that calm and
constant fervor we have now described; but
just as there are intermitting springs which
take long time to fill, and then exhaust their
fulness in a single overflow-and as there
are geysers which jet their vociferous waters
high in air, and then are silent for long together-so there are Christians who do not
lack fervor, but it comes in fits. They are
intermitting springs; they take long to fill,
and are emptied in a single gush. Or they
are geysers. Some years ago they went up




A FERVENT SPIRIT          95
in an explosion of zeal-a smoking whirlspout of fervor-but all is cold and silent
now.  The water is living, but the well is
peculiar; it is only periodically filled; it
seldom overflows. But just as you would
not like to depend on an intermitting fountain for your cup of daily water, nor to owe
the irrigation of your fields to the precarious
bounty of a boiling spring-as the well near
which you pitch your tent, or build your
house, is the Elim whose bulging fulness
invites you to plunge your pitcher at any
hour, and whose deep-fed copiousness is
constantly wimpling off in fertilizing streams
-so you may be happy to perceive the incidental usefulness even of that zeal which
comes fitfully; but you would select as the
benefactor of the church, and as your own
resort, the full heart to which you never
can come wrong, and whose perennial redundance bespeaks a secret feeding from
the river which makes glad the city of our
God.
4. A fervent spirit is a happy spirit.



96          LIFE IN EARNEST.
Health is happiness.  Peace with God is
the life of the soul, and joy in God is its
health.  That assured and elevated believer
who enjoys everything in God and God in
everything, must needs be fervent. His inward blessedness makes him bountiful, and
to do good and to communicate are things
which, in his happy mood of mind, he can
not help.  Some Christians are too dejected.  They got under the covert of a peculiar theology, or ensconce themselves in
shadowy caves of wilfulness, or pertinacity,
or unbelief; and then complain that they
can not see the Sun of Righteousness. He
lightens the world.* Let them come out
beneath his beams, and at once they will
feel the fire. Their shivering faith, which
with them is rather the reminiscence of
heat, than a resorting to its unfailing source,
will soon mount up to fervor. To look to
Jesus is to come to God, and to come home
to God is to be happy.  An estranged or
suspicious spirit can not be fervent.  Then
* John i. 9.




A FERVENT SPIRIT.           97
some Christians are not fervent because they
are cumbered with so many things: They
carry all their own burdens, and from their
sympathizing disposition they have charged
themselves with many burdens of their brethren also; but instead of devolving these personal and relative solicitudes on an all-suffering Savior, they carry the whole melancholy load themselves.  A fearful or a fretful spirit can not be fervent; but there is no
need for a believer in Jesus to be troubled
or afraid.*  Let him deposite all his anxieties in that Ear which is gracious enough to
attend to the most trivial, and leave them in
that Hand which is mighty enough to disperse the most tremendous; and relieved of
this incubus, his spirit will acquire an elasticity equal to the most arduous or most
multifarious toils.  And some believers are
not sufficiently fervent, from being straitened in themselves.  They do not open
their souls to those felicitating influences
with which a God of love surrounds them
* John xiv. 1.
9




98          LIFE IN EARNEST.
on every side. There is as much comfort
in the Word of God, and as mnch beauty
in his works, and as much kindness in his
dispensations, as, admitted into the soul,
would inundate it with ecstasy. But many
hearts are perverse; they let gloomy thoughts
and bitter fancies flow freely in, and are almost jealous lest a drop of strong consolation should trickle through on this deluge
of Marah.  Brethren, it depends on which
floodgate you open, whether you be drowned
in a tide of joy or of sorrow. It depends
on whether your well-springs are above or
beneath, whether your consolation or your
grief abounds. If you listen to what the
Amen, the Faithful Witness, is saying,* and
what God the Father is saying,t and what
the Spirit and the Bride are saying,4 and
what a glorious universe is saying, I and
what the gracious events in your daily history are saying,~ your murmurings will sub"
* John xiv.-xvi.       t Matt. iii. 17.
Rev. xxii. 17.       11 Ps. viii., xix., civ.
~ Ps. cvii. Isaiah xxxviii. 19. Gen. xxxv. 3.




A FERVENT SPIRIT.          99
side into silence, and your vexing thoughts
will be drowned in gratitude. Think much
of God's chief mercy, and take thankful
note of his lesser gifts.  And when you
have put on this girdle of gladness, your glory will sing and your gratitude will dance.*
Your soul will be happy, and your joy will
find outlets of adoring praise and vigorous
industry.
5. A fervent spirit is one filled with the
Spirit of God.  When Jesus cried, "If
any man thirst, let him come unto me and
drink," and promised that rivers of living
water should flow through the heart of the
believer, " he spake of the Spirit, which
they that believe on him should receive."
The Holy Spirit is actually bestowed on the
people of God.  He is to them  a better
Spirit, restraining and superseding their
own.  He is the author of that athletic selfdenial and flesh-conquering fervor of which
they are conscious from time to time. It is
he who gives such delight in drawing near
* Ps. xxx. 11, 12.




100         LIFE IN EARNEST.
to God, that the believer at seasons could
" pray and never cease;" and it is he who
gives that transforming affection to the person of Christ, and that heroic ardor in the
service of Christ, to which inactivity is irksome, and silence oppressive.  And whosoever would enjoy the gentle manuduction
which leads into all truth and all dutywhosoever would persevere in the placid discharge of allotted labor, and maintain amid
it all a calm and thankful walk with God,
must put himself at the disposal of this heavenly Visitant.  The heart is " dry as summer's dust" from which the Spirit of God
departs; and that is the believing, loving,
happy, and energetic heart, in which the
Holy Spirit dwells.
6. A fervent spirit is a prayerful spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the New Testament gift
most absolutely promised in answer to prayer*-and though, perhaps, the gift whose
bestowment is least the matter of a lively
consciousness to the recipient at the mno* Luke xi. 13. John xiv. 14, 16; xvi. 24.




A FERVENT SPIRIT.          101
ment, the gift from which, in the long-run
of life, the largest and most important results are evolved, and the gift which, in the
retrospect of eternity, the believer may find
that he enjoyed more abundantly and more
constantly than he himself ever imagined.
As it is, there are times when the presence
of this Almighty Comforter is easily realized.  When the soul is lifted far above its
natural selfishness, so that it can make vast
sacrifices without any misgiving-when fortified against its natural timidity, so that it
can face frightful perils without any trepidation-and when invigorated with such unwonted ardor as to forget its natural indolence, and not feel its inherent weakness,
the soul can readily understand that this
mighty strengthening inwardly is the work
of the Holy Spirit.  And it is this persuasion which brings the believer strength in
weakness.  Conscious of lethargy creeping
over him-alarmed at the declension of his
zeal, and the waning of his love-fearful to
what his present apathy may grow, and re9*




102         LIFE IN EARNEST.
membering how different were the days of
old-he breathes a prayer, at first faint and
desponding, but still a prayer: " Wilt thou
not revive us again? Awake, 0 north wind;
come thou south."  And, while he is yet
speaking, he begins to revive.  As if the
clear weather were brightening the atmosphere, the great realities grow distinct and
near.  The things eternal are seen again,
and the powers of the coming world are felt.
His soul is restored.  Or a great work is
given him to do, and his strength is small.
"   Lord, with thee is the fountain of life.
Lord, pity me, for I am weak."  And the
Lord pities him, and sends forth his quickening Spirit; and the difficulty is surmounted, and the work is done: and, without so
much as feeling the fire and water which
lay between, he gains the wealthy place.
7. A fervent spirit is one which easily
sunders a man from  selfishness, and sloth,
and other besetting sins.  On a winter's
day I have noticed a row of cottages, with
a deep load of snow on their several roofs;




A FERVENT SPIRIT.         103
but, as the day wore on, large fragments
began to tumble from the eaves of this one
and that other, till, by-and-by, there was a
simultaneous avalanche, and the whole heap
slid over in powdery ruin on the pavement:
and, before the sun went down, you saw
each roof as clear and dry as on a summer's
eve.  But here and there you would observe one with its snow-mantle unbroken,
and a ruff of stiff icicles round it.  What
made the difference?  The difference was
to be found within.  Some of these huts
were empty, or the lonely inhabitant cowered over a scanty fire; while the peopled
hearth and the high-blazing fagots of the
rest created such an inward warmth that
grim winter relaxed his melting gripe, and
the loosened mass folded off and tumbled
over on the miry street.  It is possible by
some outside process to push the main volume of snow from  the frosty roof, or chip
off the icicles one by one. But they will
form again, and it needs an inward heat to
create a total thaw.  And so, by sundry




104         LIFE IN EARNEST.
processes, you may clear off from a man's
conduct the dead weight of conspicuous
sins; but it needs a hidden heat, a vital
warmth within, to produce such a separation between the soul and its besetting iniquities, that the whole wintry incubus, the
entire body of sin, will come spontaneously
away.  That vital warmth is the love of
God abundantly shed abroad-the kindly
glow which the Comforter diffuses in the
soul which he makes his home.  His genial inhabitation thaws that soul and its favorite sins asunder, and makes the indolence, and self-indulgence, and indevotion,
fall off from their old resting-place on that
dissolving heart.  The easiest form of selfmortification is a fervent spirit.
S. And a fervent spirit is the most abundant source of an active life.  In heaven
there is a perfect activity, because in heaven
there is a perfect fervor.  They are all happy there. They have a sufficient end in all
they do.  There is no wearying in their
work, for there is no waning in their love.




A FERVENT SPIRIT.         105
The want of a sufficient object would make
any man idle.  A  friend once found the
author of " The Seasons" in bed long after
noon; and upbraiding him for his indolence,
the poet remarked that he just lay still because, although he were up, he would have
nothing to do. But, even in this sluggish
world, there are those whose hearty relish
of their work and sense of its importance so
inspire, that they are very loath when slumber constrains them to quit it, and often prevent the dawning in order to resume it.  It
was mathematical fervor which kept Newton
poring on his problems till the midnight wind
swept over his papers the ashes from his
long-extinguished fire.  It was artistic fervor which kept Reynolds with the pencil in
his glowing hand for thirty-six hours together, evoking from the canvass forms of beauty that seemed glad to come. It was poetic fervor which sustained Dryden in a
fortnight's phrensy, when composing his
"Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," heedless of
privations which he did not so much as per



106           LIFE IN EARNEST.
ceive.  And it was scientific fervor which
dragged the lazy but eloquent French naturalist, Buffon, from  beloved slumbers to his
itill more beloved studies, for many years
together.  There is no department of human
listinction which can not record its feats of
ervor.  But shall science, with its corrup-,ible crowns, and the world. with its vanities,
nonopolize this enthusiasm?  If not, let!ach one consider, " What is the greatest
self-denial to which a godly zeal has prompted me?  Which is the largest or the greatest xork through which a holy fervor has
ever carried me?"*
* It would have been right, had there been room,
to mention some things which are detrimental or
fatal to fervor of spirit. 1. Guilt on the conscience.
2. Debt and worldly entanglements. 3. Sabbaths not
sanctified. 4. Late and frequent visiting. 5. Indulgence in frivolous literature. 6. Restraining prayer.
7. A wrong theology.




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         107
LECTURE V.
THE THREEFOLD CORD.
N'ot slot}ful in business; fervent in spirit; servisn tie
Lord."-ROMANS XII. 11.
WERE you ever struck with the sobriety
of Scripture? There are many good thoughts
in human compositions, and many hints of
truth in human systems; but in proportion
as they are original or striking, they border
on extravagance. You can not follow them
fully till you find yourself toppling on the
verge of a paradox, or are obliged to halt
in the midst of a glaring absurdity.  There
are many excellent ideas in the old philosophy, and some valuable principles in the




108          LIFE IN EARNEST.
ethics of later schools; but they all show,
though it were in nothing but their extremeness, their frail original, their human infirmity their wrong-side bias.  And so is it with
many religious systems, built on insulated
texts of Scripture.  They are not without a
basis of truth, but that basis is partial.  The
extremeness of religionism  pounces on a
single text, or a single class of texts, and
walls them off from the rest of revelation,
and cultivates them  exclusively-bestows
on them the irrigation of constant study, and
reaps no harvests except those which grow
on this favorite territory-and looks on all
the rest of the Bible as a sort of common,
an unenclosed waste, a territory good for
little or nothing, except a short occasional
excursion; ay, and perhaps frowns on another class of texts with a secret jealousy,
as texts which had better never have been
there-a dangerous group, whose creeping
roots or wafted thistle-down threaten evil to
the enclosure of their own favorite little system.  If the texts so treated be doctrinal.




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         109
the result of this partiality, this exclusiveness or extremeness, is sectarianism; if the
texts so treated be practical, the result ik
religious singularity.  But sectarianism of
doctrine and singularity of practice, whatev
er countenance they get from single clauses
and detached sentences of Scripture, are
contradicted and condemned the moment
you confront them with a complete Bible.
Hence it happens, that while there never
was a doctrinal or practical error which had
not some text to stand upon, there never
was one which dared encounter openly and
honestly the entire Word of God. In other
words, there has seldom been an error which
did not include some important truth; but
just as surely as it included some truth, so
it excluded others.  And just as oxygen
alone will never make the atmosphere, or
hydrogen alone will never make the ocean,
or red beams alone will never make the
sun, so one fact, or one set of ideas, will
never make the truth. A truth, by abiding
alone, becomes to all intents an error.
10




110         LIFE IN EARNEST.
Nothing can be more different form the
partiality of man than the completeness and
comprehensiveness of Scripture.  Nothing
can be more opposite to man's extremeness
than the sobriety of Scripture. It does not
deal in hyperbole or paradox; it puts the
truth, calmly, fully, and in all its goodly
proportions. Unlike the systems of man's
invention, its ethics do not flutter on the
solitary wing of one only virtue, nor do they
dot along on the uneven legs of a short theology and a longer morality. Its philanthropy does not consist in hating yourself,
nor does its love to God require you to forget your brother.  Its perfection of character is not pre-eminence in one particular,
nor does it inculcate any excellence which
requires the annihilation of all the rest.
Though neither a see-saw of counterpoising
virtues and vices, nor a neutral mixture of
opposing elements, there is a balance of excellence, a blending of graces, in the gospel
ideal of character.  It forgets neither the
man himself, nor the God above him, nor




THE THREEFOLD CORD.          11-1
the world around him.  It teaches us to
live godly, but it does not forget to teach us
to live righteously and soberly.  It urges
diligence in business, but it does not omit
to enjoin fervor of spirit and devotedness to
the Lord.
I do not know that we can select a more
opportune exemplication of these contrary
principles-the partiality of human religion
and the comprehensiveness of scriptural religion-than the text with which you are
now so familiar, and the treatment which its
several precepts have received at the hands
of men. I think it may be very easily shown
that each separate clause has been the motto
of a several sect, the watchword of a separate party: each right, so far as it remembered that special clause-each wrong, so
far as it forgot the other two.
1. First, " Not slothful in business."There have been in all ages those who were
very willing to sum up religion in discharging the duties of their calling. If they were
servants, they were conscious of great in



112         LI E.N EARNEST.
dustry, and a real attention to their employers' interest.  If wives or mothers, they
were notable for keeping at home, and caring after their own concerns. They looked
well to the ways of their household, and ate
not the bread of idleness; and could the
trim threshold and each tidy arrangement
of the well-ordered dwelling tell the full
tale of anxious thoughts, and early rising,
and worrying bustle, which have been expended upon them, happy the empire which
had such prime minister as rules this little
realm.  If men of business, they feel that
they are busy men.  They mind their own
affairs, and do not interfere in other men's
matters.  They are at it late and early; the
summer's sun does not seduce them from
their dingy counting-room, nor do the amenities of literature bewitch them  from  the
anxieties of money-making. They seldom
treat themselves to a holyday, and, what is
more to the purpose, they do not despatch
business by halves; they work in good earnest.  They feel as if the chief end of man




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         113
lay somewhere about the terminus of their
own trade or profession, and they push on
accordingly.  Then there mingles with it
all a complacent feeling.  "It is not for
myself I thus tug and strain, and grow prematurely old: it is for others.' He that
provides not for his own house, hath denied
the faith, and is worse than an infidel.'-' If any man will not work, neither let him
eat.'  We are commanded to redeem the
time, and are forbidden to be slothful in
business."  And if to this again should be
superadded a certain amount of overt and
ostensible religion-if this busy man or cumbered housekeeper should withal read a
daily chapter, and maintain the regular form
of family worship, and the equally regular
form of churchgoing-above all, if his business should prosper, and nothing occur to
vex his conscience, he is very apt to feel"What lack I yet? True, I pretend to no
peculiar sanctity; but I believe I am  as
honest, and industrious, and sober, as those
who do.  I may not get into the raptures
10*




114        LIFE IN EARNEST.
into which some try to work themselves,
nor do I fuss about from sermon to sermon
and from meeting to meeting, as many do;
but I believe -my respect for religion is as
real, and my intentions as good, as theirs.
And though I do not lay the same stress on
speculative points and matters of faith, no
man can accuse me of neglecting the weightier matters of the law."  Now the industrious element in this character is good, but
if this be the whole of it, in the Bible balance it will be found deplorably wanting. A
man may be all that you describe yourself,
without being born again; he may be all this,
and his heart never have been made right with
God; and of all the work he has done so
heartily, nothing may have been done as unto the Lord-in the animation of that love,
and in the singleness of that loyalty, without
which the most fagging toil is but an earnest
self-idolatry. And he may be all this without any of that fervor of spirit which will
make a man happy in that world where the
things of our present faith are the visible




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         115
sources of joy, and where psalm-singing and
the other outpourings of ecstatic hearts are
the exercises most congenial.
2. But then again —  Event in spirit."
Others have erred in sublnming the whole
of Christianity into fervor. They fancy that
there is no outlet for piety except in emotion.  They forget that the engine may be
doing most work when none cf the steam is
blowing off; and therefore they are not content except they feel a great deal, and live
in constant excitement.  They forget that
the best form that feeling can take is the
practical form-the praying, praising, working form.  Or if it should take this form,
their fervor is ill-directed.  It is not fairly
distributed; they are fervent in secret or in
the sanctuary, but not fervent in society;
they are fervent in controversies, but not in
truths conceded; they are fervent in the
things of their own denomination, but not
in the things of Jesus Christ; or if fervent
in HIS cause, they fix on the fields of labor
far away, and contemn those nearer home.




116         LIFE IN EARNEST.
Their fervor is reserved for hallowed places
and devotional hours, and does not pervade
their daily life. They will rise from a prayer
in which they h.- expatiated on the glory
of the latter day —" Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,"
and some ordinary duty is awaiting them;
they are asked to fulfil some prosaic service, to do some such matter-of-fact employment as angels in heaven are apt to do;
and the sight of actual labor disperses their
good frame in a moment. their praying fervor is not a working fervor. Or they have
just been singing, under some extraordinary
afflatus, a hymn about universal peace or
millennial glory; but the unopened letter
turns out to be a despatch from some villanous correspondent: or the moment the
worship is over, sorme gross negligence or
some provoking carelessness accosts them,
and the instant explosion proves, that were
they living in the millennium, there would
be at least one exception to the universal
peace. Or they have come back from some




tHE THREEFOLD CORD.         117
jubilant missionary meeting, where their
hearts were really warm, where they loudly
cheered the speeches, and where their ears
tingled at the recital of some affecting instance of liberality; and they are hardly safe
in their homes, when the ill-favored collector assails them, and they are asked for the
solid sympathy of their substance.  Yesoh ignominy! oh bathos!-after they have
given their tears, asked for their gold! And
they feel as if it were a fatal transition, a
most headlong climax, from delicious emotion down to vulgar money.  And thus it
is that they continue to let as much feeling
vanish in inaction, as much fervor fly off in
mere emotion, as, if turned on in the right direction, might have propelled some mighty
enterprise, or conducted to a safe and joyful conclusion many a work of faith and
labor of love.
3. " Serving the Lord." In Old-Testament times it was not unusual for persons
of eminent piety to dedicate themselves entirely to temple-service, waiting on God in




118         LIFE IN EARNEST.
prayer continually night and day. Thus
Samuel was dedicated to the Lord all the
days of his life: so we presume was the
maid of Gilead, Jephthah's daughter: and
so was Anna the prophetess, who departed
not from the temple the eighty-four years of
her long widowhood.  In seeking. this seclusion they were practically carrying out
the psalmist's devout behest: " One thing
have I desired of the Lord, that will. I seek
after; that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life, to behold the
beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his
temple."  And a pleasant life it were, away
from a stormy world in the calm pavilion
of God's own presence, and away from the
tantalizing phantoms, vexing cares, and stunning noise of delirious mortality, to see no
beauty less soul-filling than his own, and
hear no voice less assuring than His who
says, " My peace I give unto you."  But
the gospel dispensation is not the era of anchorets, and recluses, and temple-devotees;
or, more properly speaking, every disciple




THE THREEFOLD CORD.        119
of the Savior ought to be alike a devotee.
He should live not to himself, but to Him
who loved him.  He should be a seif-devoted, a dedicated man-a living sacrifice,
but a sacrifice diffusing its sweet savor in
the scenes of ordinary life, and regaling, not
heaven alone, but earth, with its grateful
exhalations.  He should seek to behold his
Lord's beauty and dwell in his Lord's presence all the days of his life; but now that
neither Jerusulem nor Samaria is the temple, his believing heart should be the shrine,
and his ascending Savior's promise-" Lo,
I am with you"-sbould be the Shekinah.
Wherever he goes, he should carry his
Lord's presence along with him; and whatever he is doing, he should be doing his
heavenly Master's work.  However, this
life of active devotedness does not suit the
taste of many. In order to serve the Lord,
they feel that they must leave the living
world.  They must off and away to some
cleft of the rock, some lodge of the far wilderness, some



120         LIFL, IN EARNEST.
CC sacred solitude,
"Where Quiet with Religion makes her home."
To be diligent in business they feel incompatible with serving the Lord; and even that
more hallowed business which is occupied
with ministering to the bodies and souls of
men is a rude break in their retirement, a
jar in their contemplative joys.   They
would  rather be excused from  anything
which forces them into contact with unwelcome flesh and blood, and reminds them of
this selfish world and its gross materialism.
Their closet is more attractive than the cottage of poverty; meditations of the rest
which remaineth are more congenial than
toils in the work of the day; and pensive
lamentations over the world's wickedness
come more spontaneous than real earnest
efforts to make this bad world better. Now
it is impossible to be too devoted, if that
devotedness make you correspondingly fervent in spirit and diligent in business. You
can not pray too much, though you should
pray without ceasing, if your prayer take a




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         121
practical direction, and lead you to do goodl
without ceasing.  But it is just as possible
to run away from  the Lord's service by
running into retirement as by running into
the world. In the retirement of the ship,
and then in the completer retirement of the
whale's belly, Jonah was as much a rebel
and a runaway as in the noisy streets of
Joppa.  Had he wished to "serve the
Lord," his " business" was to have been at
Nineveh.  And it little matters whether i\
be the recluse of the desert who absconds
from his brethren, and leaves the sick to
tend themselves, and the ignorant to teach
themselves, and the careless to convert
themselves-or the recluse of the closet,
who leaves the neglected household to take
care of itself, the slipshod children to look
after themselves, and the broken furniture
to mend itself: each in his own way is slothful in business, under a self-deceiving pretext that he is serving the Lord.
Thus you perceive that each of the three
classes-the mere bustlers, the mere feel11




122         LIFE IN EARNEST.
ers, and the mere devotees-by being right
in only one thing, are altogether wrong.
These are not fancy sketches, nor are they
studies from the antique. True, you may
find the counterpart of the first class in the
correct morality and heartless formalism of
that worldly professorship, that "Whole Duty of Man" pharisaism which once abounded
in these very lands.  And you may represent the second by that fifth-ronarchy fervor, that unproductive zeal, which has marked some periods of the church, which possibly marks some sections still. And you
will find the third exemplified in all the mystic devotion and day-dreaming quietism of
world-weary recluses, popish and protestant,
in every age.  Though all can quote one
fragment of this text, all are wrong, by not
being able to quote the whole. Those who
are diligent in business, but in that business
do not serve the Lord, their selfish diligence
is but a busy idleness, a hypocritical activity. Their time-bounded and self-reverting
work is the ineffectual labor of the convict




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         123
who digs the pit and fills it up again-who
draws water from the well and pours it back
again.  And so the devotedness which results in no diligence is like the planning of
a house which is never built, the daily purposing of a journey which is never set about.
The fervor of spirit which, withal, is slothful in business, is like the stream falling on
the mill-wheel, but the connecting shaft is
broken-and though the wheel turns nimbly round, the detached machinery stands
still, and no work is done; or like the disconnected engine and tender, which bolt
away by themselves, and leave the helpless
train still standing where it stood.
Now in opposition to all these defective
versions, these maimed and truncated representations, this verse delineates the Christian character in its completeness, hardworking, warmly-feeling, single-eyed, " not
slothful in business" —" fervent in spirit"" serving the Lord."  And if you look at
the Christian philosophy of the subject, you
will find that it is the single eye which




124        LIFE IN EARNEST.
awakes the fervent spirit, and the fervent
spirit which sets the busy hands and feet in
willing motion.
1. It is an eye fixed on Jesus which kindles the fervent spirit. An unconverted man
is not happy. There is a dull load on his
spirit-a dim cloud on his conscience —he
scarcely knows what he would be at-but
he certainly is not happy. If a considerate
man, he is aware that there must be a joy
in existence which he has not yet struck out
-a secret of more solid bliss which he hitherto has not hit upon. He is not at peace
with God.  He has not secured an explicit
reconciliation with' his Creator and Sovereign.  God's frown is upon him-a frown
as wide as is the sinner's universe.  Go
where he may, he can not get out into the
clear daylight of a glad conscience and a
propitious heaven.  And it is not till he
finds his way into the Goshen of the gospel,
the sun-lit region on which the beams of
God's countenance still smile down, through
the doorway by which an ascending Savior




THE THREEFOLD CORD.        125
entered heaven-it is not till, from the gross
darkness and palpable gloom of a natural
condition, a man is led into the grateful light
and glorious liberty of the sons of God-it
is not till then that he knows the ecstasy of
undiluted joy and the perfection of that
peace which passeth all understanding. It
is not till the Spirit of adoption makes him
a child of God that he thoroughly feels himself a man; and it is in the sweet sense of
forgiveness, and in the transporting assurance that he is now on the same side with
Omnipotence, that he first breathes freely.
The thrill of a sudden animation sweeps
through all his frame; and, encountering an
unwonted gayety all around him, he perceives an unwonted energy within him.
Peace with God has brought him  power
from God, and with the Lord he loves to
dictate, there is no work which he is loath
to do; and with that Lord upon his side,
none which he can not hope to do.  The
convict-labor and hireling-tasks of the alien
and bondsman are exchanged for the free11*




126         LIFE IN EARNEST.
will offerings and affectionate services of a
son and a disciple. Reconciled to God, he
is reconciled to everything which comes from
God; and full of the love of Christ, he
courts everything which he can do for Christ.
" Come, labor, for I rather love thee now.
Come, hard work and long work, I am in a
mood for you now.  Come, trials and crosses, for I can carry you now. Come, death,
for I am ready for thee now." His relation
to Christ has put him in a new relation to
everything else; and the same fountain
which has washed the stain from his conscience having washed the scales from his
eyes, an inundation of light and of beauty
bursts in from the creation around him,
which hitherto was to him as much an unknown universe as its Creator was the unknown God; and the boundless inflowings
of peaceful images, and happy impressions,
and strong consolations, dilate his soul with
an elasticity, an enterprise, and courage, as
new as they are divine.  He has found a
Savior, and his soul is happy. The Lord




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         127
Jesus is his friend; and his spirit, once so
frigid, is become a fervent spirit. His new
views have made him a new man.
2. The fervent spirit creates the industrious life. Sulky labor and the labor of
sorrow are little worth.  Whatever a man
does with a guilty feeling, he is apt to do
wrong; and whatever he does with a melancholy feeling, he is likely to do by halves
Look to that little boy sitting down to his
hated lesson after a burst of passion. Do
you notice how  long the same page lies
open before the pouting student, and how
solemnly he watches the blue-bottle raging
round the room and bouncing against the
window?  Look at his blurred copy-book,
its trembling strokes and blotted loops a
memento of this angry morning.  And the
sum upon the slate, only here and there a
figure right, an emblem of his rebellious
mind, all at sixes and sevens with itself. It
is guilt that makes him a trifler. It is guilt
that makes him blunder. Guilt makes him
wretched; and therefore all he does is




128        LIFE IN EARNESr.
wrong.  But sometimes grief disables or
disinclines for exertion as much as guilt.
You may remember times when such a sorrow possessed you, that you not only forgot
to eat your daily bread, but had no heart to
do your daily work. You did not care to
set your house in order, for some stunning
intelligence or fearful foreboding had paralyzed all your energy. You did not care
to hear your children's tasks, for the shadows of yon sick-room had diffused a look
of orphanage on them and on everything.
And the more delightsome the recreation
once had been, the more congenial the labor, so much the deeper was the funereal
die it had now imbibed, and the more did
your heart revolt from it. Sorrow makes
the eyes heavy, even when they can not
sleep; and, for inefficiency, next to the
blundering work of a guilty conscience, is
the dull work of a weary or wounded spirit.
If you could only shed tranquillity over the
conscience, and infuse joy into the soul, you
would do more to make the man a thorough




THE THREEFOLD CORD.         129
worker than if you could lend him the force
of Hercules or the hundred arms of Briareus.
Now, the gospel, freely admitted, makes
the man happy.  It gives him  peace with
God and makes him  happy ii God.  Its
strong consolation neutralizes the sting of
reluctant labor and the curse of penal toil.
Its advent of heavenly energy takes the languor out of life, and much of its inherent
indolence out of lazy human nature.  It
chases spectres from the fancy and lions
from the street.  It gives industry a noble
look which selfish drudgery never wore;
and from the moment that a man begins to
do his work for his Savior's sake, he feels
that the most ordinary works are full of
sweetness and dignity, and that the most
difficult are not impossible.  " Through
Christ strengthening me, I can do all things."
And if any one of you, my friends, is weary
with his work-if dissatisfaction with yourself, or sorrow of any kind, disheartens you
-if, at any time, you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing in



130       LIFE IN EARNEST.
fluence of vexing thoughts-look to Jesus and be happy. Be happy, and go to
work.




A WORD TO ALL.           131
LECTURE VI.
A WORD TO EACH AND TO ALL-CONCLUSION.
"Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the
Lord."-ROMANS xii. 11.
CHRISTIAN industry is just the outlet of
a fervent spirit, a Christ-devoted heart.
The industry which is not fervent is not
Christian, and on the other hand, the love
which does not come out in action, the fervor which does not lead to diligence, will
soon die down.  He who has an eye to
Christ in all he does, and whose spirit is
full of that energy, that love to his work
and his brethren, and his Master in heaven,




132        LIFE IN EARNEST.
which the Holy Spirit gives, will not soon
weary in well-doing.
1. Some of you are SERVANTS.  Some
of you are in families where there is no
fear of God, and some of you serve employers who take no interest in you, who,
however hard you toil, and however well
you do your work, never thank you nor
notice your exertions. This is discouraging; but before you entered that family,
had you not entered the service of the
Lord Jesus Christ? and when you came to
this new place you surely did not leave this
higher and nobler service. Very true, the
individual from  whom  you receive your
immediate orders may be very unreasonable, and exceedingly unamiable, and the
thanks you get may be sorry remuneration
for your conscientious industry. But have
you not a Master in heaven, whose eye is
always upon you, who takes interested note
of all you do, and who, whatever you do
in secret for his sake, will reward you openly?  You do not mean to say that all your




A WORD TO ALL.           133
end in working is to get so much wages,
with a kind word or a look of approval now
and then. If you carry the spirit of discipleship into your every-day duties, you
will find that there is a way to make the
meanest occupation honorable and the most
irksome employment easy.  Work which
you do for the Lord's sake, will never be
wearisome, and however little man may notice or acknowledge it, your labor in the
Lord will never be vain. And I know not
if there be any department of life where
there is more abundant room for a truly
Christian ambition than the calling which
you occupy.  Wh ther like Eliezer of Damascus, you serve a ] c.her of the Faithful,
or like Joseph and the Israelitish maid, be in
the household of a pagan or a worldling;
you have singular opportunities for adorning the doctrine of your God and Savior.
Good man as Abraham was, and good man
as Eliezer was, there was once a time when
Abraham, in a tone of evident disappointment, said, " Behold, to me thou hast giv —
12




134         LIFE IN EARNEST.
en no seed, and lo, one born in my house
is mine heir." But so completely had the
consistent kindness and fidelity of Eliezer
won the affection of his chief, that at the
last Abraham could scarcely have wished
a better heir than his servant, or Eliezer
found a more indulgent father than his master.  Joseph had no motive for serving
Pharoah, except that anxiety to fulfil an important office well, and that hearty love of
labor which distinguish men of a healthy
mind and conscientious spirit. But such a
zealous charge did he take of Pharoah's
interests, so intelligently and sleeplessly did
his eye travel through.'e realm, that Egypt
wore another aspect inder Joseph's rule,
and its revenues became as rich as a provident and benignant administration could
make them.  The little maid of Israel was
a captive, and if the joy of the Lord had
not been her strength, she would have had
no spirit to work. She would have pined
after her home among the hills of Samaria,
and when she thought of the pleasant cot



A WORD TO ALL.           135
tage from which fierce ruffians had torn her
away, and named over to herself, one by
one, the playfellows whom she would never see again, she would have broken her
young heart and sat down in sulky silence,
or perhaps have died. But she loved the
Lord God of Israel; and as he had sent
her to Damascus and into the house of a
heathen lady, she made up her mind and
set to work right earnestly, and soon got on
to take a real interest in her new abode.
She loved her mistress and was sorry for
the deplorable sufferings of her afflicted
lord, and suggested the visit to Elisha which
resulted in his wondrous cure. And both
Joseph and the little maid, by serving the
Lord with a fervent spirit, not only made
their own life pass pleasantly in a foreign
land, but they made a great impression on
those around them.  Joseph's God was
magnified in the eyes of Pharoah, and the
little maid soon saw Naaman a worshipper
of the true Jehovah.  And you who are
in the service of others, seek to serve the




136        LIFE IN EARNEST.
Lord.  Perhaps like Joseph and the Little
maid you are far from home. Perhaps like
them you are doing work for those in whom
yeu had no interest formerly, and who even
now have not the fear of God before them.
But your Lord paramount is the Lord Jesus himself; the real Master who has sent
you here and given you this uphill work to
do is Christ; and if you only set about it
for his sake, with a happy, interested, resolute mind, your work will grow every day
easier; your conscience will sing; the light
of the Lord's presence will gild the dim
passages and stranger-looking chambers of
your place of sojourn; your character will
ere long commend itself, and better still,
may commend your Master in Heaven.
" For he that in these things serveth Christ
is acceptable to God, and approved of
men."
2. Some of you are SCHOLARS either receiving the education which fits for ordinary
life, or which may qualify you for some
particular profession. Here too you have




A WORD TO ALL.          137
need of industry. I hope you love learning for its own sake; I hope you love it
still more for the Lord's sake. The more
things you know, and the more things you
can do, the more respected, and consequently, the more influential and useful will you
hereafter be. If you grow up an ignorant
man few will care for your company. People will be laughing at your mistakes and
your blunders.  And even if you should
be wishful to do good, you will scarcely
know how to set about it. The usefulness
and happiness of your future life depend
very much on the amount of solid learning
and graceful accomplishments, and above
all, on the extent of bible knowledge which
you presently acquire, and if you be only
willing you may acquire as much as ever you
please.  To use the words of the most
philosophic of British Artists, "Nothing is
denied to well-directed diligence." Long
ago, a little boy was entered at Harrow
School.  He was put into a class beyond
his years, and where all the scholars had
12*




138         LIFE IN EARNEST.
the advantage of previous instruction denied to him. His master chid him for his
dulness, and all his own efforts could not
raise him from the lowest place on the form.
But, nothing daunted, he procured the grammars and other elementary books which his
class-fellows had gone through in previous
terms.  He devoted the hours of play, and
not a few of the hours of sleep, to the mastering of these; till in a few weeks he gradually began to rise, and it was not long till
he shot far a-head of all his companions,
and became not only dux of that division
but the pride of Harrow. That boy, whose
career began with this fit of energetic application, you may see his statue in St.
Paul's cathedral to-morrow; for he lived
to be the greatest oriental scholar of modern Europe, and most of you have heard
the name of Sir William Jones.  God denies nothing in the way of learning to welldirected diligence.  It is possible that you
may be rather depressed than stimulated
when asked to contemplate some first-rate




A WORD TO ALL.           139
name in literature or science.  When you
see the lofty pinnacle of attainment on
which that name is now reposing, you fee
as if it had been created there rather than
had travelled thither. No such thing. The
most illustrious in the annals of philosophy,
once on a time, knew no more of it than
you now do.  And how did he arrive at his
peerless proficiency? By dint of diligence,
by downright painstaking.  When Newton
was asked how he came by those discoveries which looked like divination or intuitions
of a higher intelligence rather than the results of mere research, he declared that he
could not otherwise account for them unless
it were that he could pay longer attention
to the subject than most men cared to do.
In other words, it was by diligence in his
business that he became the most renowned
of British sages. The discovery of gravitation, the grand secret of the universe, was
not whispered in his ear by any oracle. It
did not drop into his idle lap a windfall from
the clouds.  But he reached it by self-deny



140         LIFE IN EARNEST.
ing toil, by midnight study, by the large
command of accurate science, and by bending all his powers of mind in the one direction, and keeping them  thus bent.  And
whatever may be the subject of your pursuit, if you have any natural aptitude for it
at all, there is no limit to your proficiency
except the limits of your own pains-taking.
There is no wishing-cap which will fetch
you knowledge from  the east or west.  It
is not likely to visit you in a morning dream,
nor will it drop through your study roof
into your elbow chair.  It is not a lucky
advent which will alight on your loitering
path some twilight, like Minerva's owl, and
create you an orator, an artist, or a scholar
on the spot. It is an ultimatum which you
must make up your mind that it is worth
your while attaining; and trudge on steadily toward it, and not count that day's work
hard, nor that night-watching long, which
advances you one step toward it, or brings
its welcoming beacon one bright hope nearer.




A WORD TO ALL.           14i
3. Some of you are TEACHERS.  It is
much to be lamented that there are so few
enthusiasts in this honorable and important
work.  Many who are engaged in it regard
it as a bondage, and sigh for the day which
shall finally release them from its drudgery
and din.  They have never felt that theirs
is a high calling, nor do they ever enter the
school-room with the inspiring consciousness, that they go as missionaries and pastors there.  They undervalue their scholars. Instead of regarding them as all that
now exists of a generation as important as
our own; instead of recognising in their
present dispositions the mischief or beneficence which must tell on wide neighborhoods ere a few short years are run; instead of training up immortal spirits and
expansive minds for usefulness now and
glory afterward, many teachers have never
seen their pupils in any other light than as
so many rows of turbulent rebels, a rabble
of necessary torments, a roomful of that
mighty plague of which the Nile of our




142         LIFE IN EARNEST.
noisy humanity is all croaking and jumping
over.  And many undervalue themselves.
Instead of recollecting their glorious vocation, and eying the cloud of teacher-witnesses with whom  they are encompassed;
instead of a high-souled zeal for their profession, as that which should form the plastic mind after the finest models of human
attainment and scriptural excellence, many
regard their office as so menial that they
have always the feeling as if themselves
were pedants.  To prescribe the task, to
hear the lesson, to administer monotonous
praise and blame, is the listless round of
their official perfunctoriness. But there are
few fields of brighter promise than the calling of a teacher. If he give himself wholly
to it, if he set before him the highest object
of all tuition, the bringing souls to Christ; if
he can form a real affection for his scholars,
and maintain a parental anxiety for their
proficiency and their principles; if he has
wisdom  enough to understand them, and
kindness enough to sympathize with them;




A WORD TO ALL.          143
if he has sufficient love for learning to have
no distaste for lessons, he will be sure to
inspire a zeal for study into the minds of
many, he will win the love of all except
the very few whose hearts are deaf-born,
and in a short time the best features of his
own character will be multiplying in spheres
far-sundered in the kindred persons of
grateful pupils.  Should  he  live  long
enough, they will praise him in the gate of
public life, or cheer his declining days in
the homes which he taught them to make
happy.  Or should he die soon enough,
the rest from his labors will ever and anon
be heightened by the arrival of another and
another of the children whom  God hath
given him.
But without descending to more minute
particulars, let me remind you, my friends,
that all of you who are members of this
church have got a special " business' as
the professed disciples of Jesus Christ.
In the day when Christ said to you, " Arise,
follow me,' he called you to a life like his




144         LIFE IN EARNEST.
own, a life of industry and self-dei:ial, and
continual doing good.  You are a consistent Christian in proportion as you resemble
him  whose fervent spirit poured out not
more in his midnight prayers than in his
daily deeds of mercy, and who, whether he
disputed with the doctors in the Temple, or
conversed with the ignorant stranger at the
well, or fed the five thousand with miraculous loaves, or summoned Lazarus from the
tomb, was still about his Father's "business."  They little understand the Christian life, who fancy that a slothful or languid profession will secure an abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom.  If the
believer's progress from the cross to the
crown be, as it is again and again represented, a race, a wrestling, a warfare, a fight,
a continual watching, and a constant violence, there is good reason for the exhortations, " give diligence to make your calling and election sure.  We desire that every one of you do show  diligence to the
full assurance of hope unto the end; that




A WORD TO ALL.          145
ye be not slothful, but followers of them
who through faith and patience inherit the
promises.  Wherefore, brethren, seeing that
you look for such things, be diligent that
you may be found of him in peace, withoaC spot and blameless."
It needs diligence to keep the conscience
clean.  "Herein do I exercise myself, to
have always a conscience void of offence
toward God and toward men."  It needs
diligence to keep up a happy hopefulness
of spirit.  "Gird up the loins of your
mind, be sober, and hope to the end." It
needs diligence to maintain a serene and
strenuous orthodoxy.  " Watch ye; stand
fast in the faith; quit you like men; be
strong." It needs diligence to maintain a
blameless life. " Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin." It needs
diligence to lead a life conspicuously useful and God-glorifying.  "Seeing we are
compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses (as Abel, and Enoch, and Noah,
13




146         LIFE IN EARNEST.
and Abraham, and Moses), let us lay aside
every weight, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus."  And it needs diligence to attain a
joyful welcome from  Jesus and a full reward.  "And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue [fortitude];
and to fortitude, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to
godliness, brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your
calling and election sure; for if ye do
these things [fortitude, &c.] ye shall never
fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered
unto you abundantly into the everlasting
Kingdom  of our God  and Savior Jesus
Christ."-" And  I heard a voice from
heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may
rest from their labors, and their works do




A WORD TO ALL.            147
follow  them."-" Let us labor, therefore,
to enter into that rest."*
To labor in the word and doctrine is the
business of one; to feed the flock of God
and rule the church of Christ is the business of others; to " serve tables," to care
for and comfort the poor, and see that all
things be done decently and in order, is the
business of yet others; to teach the young
and instruct the ignorant is the business of
some; and to train up their households in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord is
the business of others; to obey their parents
and to grow in wisdom-in favor with God
and man-is the business of many; and to
do work for others, with a willing hand and
a single eye, is the business of many more.
The work of the day needs diligence: much
more does the work of eternity.  It needs
fervent diligence to be constantly serving
our fellows; and it needs no less diligence
to be directly serving Christ.  To tend the
sick, to visit the widows and fatherless in
* 2 Pet. i. 5-7, 10, 11. Rev. xiv. 13. Heb. iv. 11.




148         LIFE IN EARNEST.
their affliction, to frequent the abodes of insulated wretchedness or congregated depravity, to set on foot schemes of Christian
benevolence, and, still more, to keep them
going-all this needs diligence.  To put
earnestness into secret prayer; to offer petitions -so emphatic and express, that they are
remembered  afterward, and  the  answer
watched for and expected; to commune
with one's own heart, so as to attain some
real self-acquaintance; to get into that humble, contrite, confessing frame, where the
soul feels it sweet to lie beneath the cross,
and " a debtor to mercy alone, of covenant
mercy to sing;" to stir up one's soul to a
thankful praising pitch; to beat down murmuring thoughts and drive vexing thoughts
away; to get assurance regarding the foundations of the faith, and clear views of the
truth itself; to have a prompt and secure
command of Scripture; to possess a large
acquaintance with the great salvation, and a
minute acquaintance with all the details of
Christian duty-all this needs no less dili



A WORD TO ALL.           149
gence on our part, because God mut give
it or we shall never show it. To put life
into family worship; to make it more than
a duteous routine; to make its brief episode
of praise, and prayer, and bible-reading, a
refreshful ordinance, and influential on the
day; to give a salutary direction to social
intercourse, and season with timely salt the
conversation of the friendly circle; to drive
that" torpid ass,"* the body, to scenes of
duty difficult and long-adjourned; to make
a real business of public worship; to scowl
away all pretexts for forsaking the solemn
assembly; to spirit the reluctant flesh into a
punctual arrival at the house of prayer, and
then to stir up the soul to a cordial participation in all its services; to accompany with
alert and affectionate eyes the reading of
God's word, and listen with wakeful ear to
the exposition and application of its lively
oracles; to contribute a tuneful voice and a
singing heart to our New-Testament offer.
ing of praise, and to put the whole stress
* Calvin in loco.
13*




150         LIFE IN EARNEST.
of an intelligent, and sympathizing, and believing earnestness into the supplications of
the sanctuary, so that each petition shall ascend to the throne of grace with the deliberate signature of our Amen-all this requires a diligence, none the less because
unless God work it in us, we shall never of
ourselves muster up sufficient fervor thus to
serve the Lord.
Dear brethren and Christian friends, consider what I say.  There is little time to
apply it; but you have heard from this text
some hints of important truth —apply them
for yourselves. As reasons why we desire
to see a church more industrious and not
less fervent and unworldly than the church
has usually been, and as motives why each
right-hearted man among you should this
night start afresh on a career of busy devotedness and fervent industry, let me remind
you1. Herein is the Father glorified, that ye
bear much fruit.
2. Herein will you truly resemble, and




CONCLUSION.           151
in measure re-exhibit the character of your
blessed Lord and Master.
3. Hereby will yourselves be made far
happier.
4. Hereby will the world be the better
for your sojourn in it.
5. Hereby will the sadness of your departure be exceedingly alleviated.
6. And hereby will your everlasting joy
be unspeakably enhanced.
Forbearing to dwell on these different
considerations, let me revert for a little to
the latter two.
A life of diligence and holy fervor prepares the believer for a peaceful departure.
"Father, I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do; and now I come to
thee." It was with unspeakable satisfaction
that the Savior contemplated his return to
the Father's bosom; and the reason was,
because he knew so well that he had finished his Father's business.  He could
look back on the weary days and sleepless
nights of his ministry, on the long years of




152        LIFE IN EARNEST.
his incarnation; and he saw that there was
no righteousness which he had not fulfilled,
no precept of the holy law which he had
not magnified. His memory could not recall an idle word or a wasted hour; and
even from the solemn twilight of Gethsemane his eye could trace serenely back the
whole expanse of his earthly history, and
see not one word which he would wish to
recall, not one act which he could desire to
alter; no sermon which, if he had to preach
it over again, he would make more plain or
more importunate; no miracle which, if it
had to be performed afresh, he would do in
a more impressive or effectual manner. He
knew that there was no omission, no defect,
and though the whole were to be done anew,
ne felt that the words could not be more
gracious, nor the works more wonderful,
than they had actually been.  " Father, I
have glorified thee on earth. I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do; and
now I come to thee."  The Lord Jesus
was the first and the last who was ever able




CONCLUSION.             153
to say this; but through his strength made
perfect in their weakness, some have made
a nearer approach to this blessedness than
their more remiss and indolent brethren. It
was the grief of the pagan emperor Titus,
when a day transpired in which he had
learned no knowledge or done no good" I have lost a day!" And"'Tis a mournful story
Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell
Of morning's firm resolves the vanished glory,
Hope's honey left within the with'ring bell,
And plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed
so well!"
But it is a far more mournful story when
the eve of life arrives, to be constrained to
sigh, "I have lost a lifetime!"-" God gave
me one lifetime, and it was once in my power to spend it as Aquila and Priscilla spent
theirs-as Paul spent his-as Phebe spent
hers. But now, that only life is closing,
and, wo's me! how have I bestowed it? In
making pin-cushions and playing the piano
*Mrs. Sigourney.




154        LIFE IN EARNEST.
-in paying morning calls and evening isits."-" And? —I have spent it in reading newspapers and novels-in dancing and
singing songs, and telling diverting stories."
— "And I have spent it in drinking and
smoking-in games of cards and billiardsin frequenting taverns and theatres-in reading coarse tales and books of blasphemy."
Yes: and though you should not need to
look back on a life thus sinfully spent, it
will be sad enough to review a life let idly
slip. To think that by a right starting and
a persevering continuance in well-doing, it
was once in your power to have proved the
large and permanent benefactor of your generation-to think that had you only begun
with the Lord and held on in fervor of
spirit, you might by this time have finished
works which would make many bless your
memory, and planted seeds of which hundreds would reap the pleasant fruits when
yourself were in the clay; and then to remember that once on a time you had it in
contemplation-it was all planned out and




CONCLUSION.            155
resolved upon, and day-dreamed over and
over, but never resolutely gone about-to
recollect " the morning's firm resolves" and
sunny purposes, and then look at" the vanished glory,
Hope's honey left within the withering bell,
And plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed
so well"how dreary it will make your deathbed, if
capable of deliberate reflection then! How
disconsolate it will render the retrospective
evening of your days should you reach old
age! And how different it will make your
exit from his, who, looking back on his
eventful career, could say, " I am now ready
to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me
a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that
day."
A life of Christian diligence is followed
Dy an abundant entrance and a full reward.




156        LIFE IN EARNEST.
There are two principles deep-seated in our
nature: philosophy has got no name for
them, but the Bible has an eye to each of
them, and the gospel speaks to both of
them.  The possessions which we chiefly
prize are either those which we have earned
by our own industry, or gifts we have got
from those we truly love. Perhaps there
is some little slide in your desk, some secret drawer in your cabinet, which you do
not often open-but when on a quiet holyday you pull it gently out and look leisurely
at it, your eye fills with tears.  You read
the date on the faded book-marker with a
pensive smile, or you press the little picture
to your lips and drop upon your knees, to
pray for him whose image that little picture
is. But a hard-visaged stranger peering
over your shoulder might marvel what all
this emotion meant; for he would not give
a few shillings for the whole collection, and
would think it liker the thing to be affected
by the bunch of bank-notes, and bills, and
government-securities, in the adjacent lock



CONCLUSION            157
er.  And why do you prize it so?  That
picture was a keepsake from your brother
when he crossed the Indian main ten summers since; that broidered riband is the
only relic of the sister's love, who made you
many a like remembrance, but whose mouldering fingers will make no more. Love
lingers in these relics, and that is the reason
why, when you stuff the bank-notes in your
pocket, you clasp these trifles to your heart.
Far more, if the gift or the bequest be one
of vast intrinsic value.  The estate, the
house, the lands, which a fatherly kinsman
or a dear friend conveyed to you-you prize
them infinitely more than if they had come
to you in the course of nature or by the
laws of ordinary succession. You delight
to show people over these grounds; and
when they ask how long they have been in
your family, your voice falters when you
tell how they came to be yours. Sometimes
when you look over the pastures and cornfields, the water tingles in your eye; for you
feel that you are looking not at vulgar roods
14




158         LIFE IN EARNEST.
and common enclosures, but are gazing on
acres of affection, on an expanse of unaccountable kindness. You commemorate the
unusual gift by the giver's name. By some
adjective of gratitude you connect it with his
dear memory; and much as you may value
it for its intrinsic worth, it is more precious
still for the beloved donor's sake.
Then next to the possessions round which
there hovers some symbol of living affection
or departed kindness, we prize those possessions in which we recognise the fruits of
our own diligence, the purchase of our own
pains-taking. Next to the keepsakes of
friendship, we delight in the rewards of personal industry.  What a bright coin was
that first sovereign which your own diligence ever earned! How solid and weighty
did it feel! How fair did the monarch's image and superscription shine on its freshminted face, and how endless did its capabilities appear! Was there anything which
that wonderful coin could not accomplish,
any object of desire which it could not pur



CONCLUSION.           159
chase?  And wherefore such overweening
affection for that one golden piece, for had
you not possessed from time to time pocketmoney of your own before?  Yes-but it
came too easily; it wanted the pleasant zest
of industry; it did not bring into your bosom, as this one does, a whole freight of
happy recollections, frugal hours, and selfdenying labors, condensed into one solid
equivalent, one tangible memento.  What
are the books in your library which you
chiefly prize? Next to the gift-bible which
solemnized the first birthday when you could
read it; next to the book which your dying
friend lifted from his pillow, and with your
name tremulously inscribed, handed you on
your last visit, when he had strength to do
it; are they not the books which rewarded
your blushing proficiency at the villageschool, or commemorated your nightly labors in the first and happiest years of college-life, or those which your long-hoarded
savings first enabled you to purchase? Why
do you look with a kindlier eye on that ju



160         LIFE IN EARNEST.
venile literature than on the long rows of
glittering learning and august philosophy
which fill your crowded shelves? Why,
but because there is something of a pleasant personal peculiar to them?  The light
of early days and industrious hours still
floats around them. They are the sunny
sepulchre in which much of your former
self lies pleasantly embalmed, ready to start
into a mellower life the moment memory
bids it.  Or why-to take the case already
supposed, the opulent possessor of estates,
which the love of another gave him-why
is it that in the midst of luxuries and accommodations as abundant as wealth can purchase or ingenuity suggest-why is it that
fruit from trees of his own planting, or from a
garden of his own tending, tastes so sweet?
Why is it that the rustic chair of his own
contriving, or the telescope of his own constructing, so far surpasses any which the
craftsman can send him? Why, the reason
is, those apples have an aroma of industry,
a smack of self-requiting diligence peculiar




CONCLUSION.            161
to themselves.  That rustic seat is lined
with self-complacent labor, and the pleasant
consciousness of having made that telescope
himself has so sharpened the maker's eye,
as greatly to augment its magnifying power.
God has so made the mind of man, that a
peculiar deliciousness resides in the fruits
of personal industry.
I repeat that the possessions which we
chiefly prize-those of which the heart
keeps the most tender yet tenacious hold —
are not the windfalls of fortune, nor the heirlooms of regular succession, but the gifts
of affection and the fruits of pains-taking;
those in which something of ourself, or a
dearer than ourself, still lives, and speaks,
and feels.  Now in regard to the supreme
possession, the inheritance of heaven, the
God of Love has consulted both of those
deep-seated principles of the human soul.
The heaven itself, the passport through its
gates, and the right to its joys, are the purchase and the gift of Another.  Nor is it to
the believer the least enhancing element in
14*




162         LIFE IN EARNEST.
its priceless possession that it is entirely the
donation and bequest of his dearest friend.
Looking forward to the pearly gates and
golden streets of the celestial city, its lovebuilt mansions and its life-watered paradise,
the believer in Jesus delights to remember
that they are purely the purchase, and as
purely the gift of Immanuel. To think that
he shall yet have his happy home on that
Mount Zion; that with feet no longer sindefiled he shall tread its radiant pavement
and stand on its glassy sea; that with fingers no longer awkward he shall tell the
harps of heaven what once he was and who
made him what he is; that with a voice no
longer trembling he shall transmit along the
echoes of eternity the song of Moses and
the Lamb; that his shall yet be a brow on
which the drops of toil will never burst, and
an eye which tears will never dim; that he
himself shall wear a form that years shall
never bend, and a countenance which grief
can never mar; that his shall yet be a character on which the stains of time will leave




CONCLUSION.           163
no trace, and his a conscience pure enough
to reflect the full image of Him who sits upon
the throne-the thought of all this is amazement, ecstasy. But there is one thought
more which puts the crown upon this blessedness-the climax on this joy:" These glorious hopes we owe to Jesus' dying love."
The name of this fair inheritance-Free
Grace, God is love, Jehovah-Tsidkenuidentifies it with that name which the believer loves beyond all others. Heaven is
doubly dear, as the heritage purchased for
him by his Divine Redeemer; and all its
glory is so heightened and solemnized,
when he connects it with that adorable
Friend who acquired it for him and conveys
it to him, that though another heaven were
in his offer, that other he would not accept.
That heaven to which Immanuel is the living way-on whose earthward entrance atoning blood is sprinkled, on whose many
mansions and amaranth crowns are the symbols which connect them with Calvary, and




164         LIFE IN EARNEST.
amid all whose countless joys the river of
deepest pleasure is the love of Jesus-this
is the only heaven to which the believer expects an entrance, and is the one of which
his intensest longings say, "Would God
that I were there!"
But even in this purchased possession
there are ingredients of delight of an origin
more personal to the believer himself-details of special blessedness, for the germe of
which he must go back to his own earthly
history; and just as the sweetest surprisals
here below are those in which some effort
of benevolence long bygone reverts upon
you in its happy results-when you meet a
stranger, and are charmed with his Christian
intelligence and spiritual congeniality, and
lo! it turns out that his religious history
dates from a casual conversation with yourself in the guest-chamber or the public conveyance; or when you take refuge from the
storm in a wayside cottage, and surveying
with eager interest its arrangements of unwonted comfort and tastefulness, or listen



CONCLUSION.           165
ing to the bible-lesson of its little children
fresh from school, mysterious hints of some
similar yet different scene steal in upon your
memory, till you begin to think, " I have
surely been here before;" and anon the full
truth flashes out: you have been there before, when it was a very different scenewhen a drunken husband, and ragged children, and broken furniture, aroused your
desponding commiseration; but the tract
which you that day left has introduced sobriety, and a sabbath, and a family-bible,
into that abject home, and made it what
your grateful eyes now see-so the sweetest
surprisals of eternity will be similar resurrections of the works of time.  When the
disciple has forgotten the labor of love, he
will be reminded of it in the rich reward;
and though he never thought any more of
the cup of cold water which he gave, or the
word in season which he spake in Jesus's
name —though he made no memorandum
of the visits of mercy which he paid, or the
asylums which he found for the orphan and




166         LIFE IN EARNEST.
the outcast —it seems that they are registered in the book of remembrance, and will
all be read by their happy author in the reviving light of glory.*  To find the marvellous results which have accrued from feeble
means-to encounter higher in salvation
than yourself those of whose salvation you
scarcely ever noped to hear, and learn that
an entreaty, or prayer, or forgotten effort of
your own, had a divine bearing on the joyful consummation-to find the prosperous
fruit already growing on the shores of eternity from seeds which you scattered on the
streams of time-with what discoveries of
unexpected delight it will variegate the joys
of the purchased possession, and with what
accessions of adoration and praise it will
augment the exceeding weight of glory! Oh
brethren! strive to obtain an abundant entrance and a full reward. Seek to be so
useful, that the world will miss you when
away: or whether this world miss you or
not, that in a better world there may be
* Dan. xii. 3; Matt. xxv. 34-40; Matt. x. 42.




CONCLUSION.          167
many to welcome you as you enter it, and
many to follow you when you have long
been there.  And above all, so live for
Christ, so travail in his service, that when
you fall asleep, a voice may be heard from
heaven, saying, "Blessed are the dead
which die IN THE LORD: yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their LAnORS, and their WORKS do follow them."
THE END.