BY
REv. CHARLES  HENRY  PLATT, A. M.
LABTE RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, BINGHAMTON, N. Y.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
AN ADDRESS,
DELIVERED AT WATERLOO, N. Y., JUNE 24, I867.
EDITED BY
R... JOHN  G. WEBSTER,
Rector of Zion Church, Palmyra.
NEW YORK:
MASONIC FURNISHING  COMPANY,
52 BLEECKER STREET.
1872.




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1872, by
MRS. EMMA THEODOSIA PLATT,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
EDWARD 0. JENKINS,
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
20 North William Street, N. Y.




ADVERTISEMENT.
IT  may appear inconsistent for a Society which
specially eschews theological discussions, and
professes to have no creed in religion nor party in
politics, to become the herald of a work like the
present, in which religious views are presented
from the stand-point of a particular church; and
we therefore esteem it a duty to correct at the
outset any misapprehension on this subject. When
the hand of death was laid upon the author, and
his career of usefulness checked at its meridian
splendor, his friends and brethren felt that they hadlost one whose earnest and devoted zeal for every
good work had given him a place in their affections not easily to be filled by another, and they especially desired to have some token of remembrance
that should incite them to imitate his virtues and
lead them to emulate his unselfish devotion to the
right. Under these circumstances, it appeared
(3)




4      A      AD VER TISEMENT.
that nothing could be more appropriate than a volume expressing the best feelings of his heart in a service to which.he had freely devoted his life. In no
other way could it have been so truly said of him
that, "being dead he yet speaketh."
While many will find comfort in perusing the
sentiments of the following pages, which else had
not seen the light, no one need see in them any attempt to make Freemasonry further responsible
than a desire to pay the most fitting tribute to the
memory of one who served the Craft with fervent
zeal, yet never forgot his higher obligations to the
Divine Master whose servant he proclaimed himself
to be.
The press has been aptly described.as a means
whereby thought is made immortal; and in assisting thus to rescue from oblivion the thoughts of
our departed friend and brother, we do not feel that
we are derogating from our often announced conviction that Freemasonry knows no sectarianism.
We may be further permitted to add, that, whatever a brother's religious preferences may be, he
will find nothing in these sermons to disturb them,
but only, it is to be hoped, to increase his reverence




AD VER TISEMENT.             5
to the Deity, and his kind remembrance of one
who'can " no longer extenuate for himself."'
And so we commend this Memorial to the
brethren as the most fitting monument to commemorate the pure life and loving fraternal walk of
our lamented brother.
Fraternally,
JOHN W. SIMONS.








CONTENTS.
I.                       xPAGE
The Laborers and their Hire.. 
II.
The Vision and Death of Moses.                          24
IIL
Ingratitude.......         34
IV.
Forgiveness not Impunity.                                 47
V.
The Warning of Lot's Wife.....                    57
VI.
The Fear of the Lord....                                  66
VII.
The Smitten Rock...  76
VIII.
Cobwebs.85
Ix.
The Broken Heart....
X.
Youthful Conceit....                                   Iog9
(7)




8                        CONTENTS.
xI.
The Miracle at the Red Sea..   8
XII.
The Calumniator and Politician..                         I29
XIII.
No Impossibility of a Resurrection.. 143
XIV.
The Diffusiveness of Grace. I53
XV.
Redemption... 164
XVI.
Glory.......... 175
XVII.
Repentance.....              x85
XVIII.
Moses Chastened on the Mount..                           I97
XIX.
Autumn Homily. 208
go:.
The Glory of the Latter House.. 2I9
XXI.
The Whole Duty of Man..                 23I
XXII.
The Ascent of the Ark...               242
XXIII.
The Pisgah Burial. ~. ~. -... 253




CONTENTS.                           9
XXIV.
Timid Women..                    264
XXV.
The Duty and Meaning of Repentance., 279
XXVI.
Symbolisms, and their Significany...... 293
XXVII.
The Day of the Lord...                                    304
XXVTII,
Heaven                                                     315
XXIX.
The Heavenly Blessedness. No. II.                          ~ 325
Midian Routed....  336
XXXI.
The Ultimate Reward.,                  348
XXXII.
Reliance upon Providence..                           356
XXXIII.
Liberality Rewarded....       370
XXXIV.
Mothers and Brothers.                                     382
XXXV.
Purity.. 394
XXXVI.
Practice vs. Profession.....                       406




IQ                     CONzTEzNTS.
XXXVII.
Young Men Strangers.. 417
XXXVIII.
Great Faith-the Centurion. 428
XXXIX.
The Faithful Rector. 438
XL.
The Faithful Rector. No. II.... 45I
ADDRESS
Delivered at the Dedication of Seneca Lodge, No. II3, Waterloo, June 24, I867,...... 462




PREFACE.
THE publishing of the following Discourses
is briefly explained. On the 25th day of
February, A. D., I869, at his residence in the City
of Binghamton, the reverend author entered
into the rest of the faithful departed in the Lord,
leaving as many warm friends as he had acquaintances, besides an afflicted family, which consisted
of a devoted wife and four children, three of
whom were within the legal age of infancy, and
all were dependent upon his labors for their
maintenance.
As the first prompting of love for an honored
Fra/er, Central City Commandery, No. 2 5, K. T.,
of which order the deceased was a member in
high standing, determined to initiate a movement
for the erection of a monument to his memory.
A committee was raised by that Comman(.I)




12               PREFA CE.
dery, to solicit, from the Fraternity within the
State of New York, the means for carrying that
resolution out.
It resulted in the prompt collection of ahandsome sum. But before anything was done towards the execution of the work, it was suggested
that it would be in better accord with the character of-the deceased, the circumstances of the
case, and the spirit of Masonry, to use a sufficient
amount of the moneys collected for the erection
of an appropriate, substantial, monument, every
way in harmony with the character of the man,
and with the balance or so much of it as would
be necessary, publish "a memorial volume of
his Sermons, the copyright, plates and volumes,
to be the property of the widow and family ofour lamented friend.",
The suggestion met with the unanimous approval of those who' expressed themselves upon
the subject. At-the session of the Grand Commandery held in Albany in October, 187I, the.
matter of publication of such volume was con



PREFA CE.              13
fided to a committee, consisting of John G. Webster, John W. Simons and Orrin WVelch.
To the undersigned the task was given of selecting and arranging the Mss. for the book. It
has been a labor of love to him. He confesses
to have had a melancholy pleasure and to have
derived much profit in following the glowing
and sententious utterances of his departed friend,
still instinct with eloquence and wisdom, although
the hand that traced them, and the tongue that
uttered them, are in the grave.
The Editor would not intrude himself between
the reader and the following pages further than
to add, that these Discourses have been selected
from about one hundred placed at his disposal
for the purpose. His difficulty has been not to
get a sufficient number to make the book, but
rather to determine which to take and which to
leave, when all are of such equal merit.- They are
published just as first writen by the author, in first
draught, not having been revised or copied. The
Address is embodied at the request of several ot




14                PREEFA CE.
the author's clerical brethren, (not Masons) who
listened to its delivery. With these "words of
explanation " the volume is sent forth, companion
of sincere trust that its perusal may benefit many
readers, and that its product may help to lighten
a widow's sorrows, and'to supply the orphans'
needs.                              J. G. W.
PALMYRA, N. Y., February, 1872.




THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.
ST. MATTHEW XX. 6, 7.
"And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others
standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day
idle?
"They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith
unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right,
that shall ye receive."
T    HIS is recognized at once as a fragment of
those strange illustrations used by our Lord,
which we denominate parables. In this instance the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is a householder, hiring laborers into his vineyard.
I take it for granted that our beloved Saviour
always employed his illustrations with adaptation
to the occasion that called for them. He had an
intention to meet the difficulty which was then
pressing.  And the main drift, or if we may so say,
the moral, of His parable is always to be found in
the same region where the difficulty lay that demanded His solution.
The parable of the householder and  his hired
(I 5)




i6      THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.
laborers originated in St. Peter's question, "We
have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall
we have therefore?" Our Lord's first object is to
answer this inquiry as to compensation. He announces that the sacrifice involved in following
Christ never is unrewarded. It is not only repaid,
but comes back with a Divine plenitude, the best
seed best nurtured on the best soil, and is in the
harvest a hundred-fold what it was in the planting.
So much is God's way of caring for those who expend themselves and their treasure out of love to
God. But on man's part there is great diversity
in the disposition with which' such sacrifices are
rendered. There is a calculating kind of close
accountant who demands precise stipulation of his
spiritual advantages before he invests upon Divine
pledges.  And there is generous, whole-souled,
ardent, trustful alacrity, that only hears the Call,
and without beating about for terms, or suspiciously
scrutinizing the'chance of recompense, flings itself
unreservedly upon the righteousness of God, ban
ters not for. a price, but welcomes the chance of
escaping from its useless, fruitless, hopejess inactivity.  That' which grace specially honors is the
disposition' which accepts -it for grace, and not for
debt. God's economy is'not injustice, but it is
stupendous. gratuity. The work. and labor which
He will- not: in the. slightest item- forget, is'that
which cometh'of- love.- -There is- a quality of readiness,:heartiness, in our acts which heaven measures
as. above all amounts. The genuine -quality fascinates the eye of God more than the great bulk fills




THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.        17
it. And, therefore, our Lord's fulness of wisdom
in replying to Peter. expressed itself in a startling
conclusion, " Many that are first shall be last; and
the last shall be first."
But the Apostle could not have understood, nor
could we have interpreted this dark saying without
some illustrative pictures. Jesus paints them with
words. And among the scenes is that of the proprietor seeking in the market-place for those that
should, in the pressing emergency, labor in his
vineyard.  At the eleventh or last hour of the
laboring portion of the day, he would reinforce his
band of hirelings. The men he accosts had not
been exacting exorbitant wages, and conspiring to
interrupt labor. They were not idlers of their own
choice, nor restless, scheming plotters against the
public welfare. They had their excuse for standing all the day idle in the very place where, of all
others, employment was to be found. If any man
had sought their services, no mischievous disposition on their part would- have held them lounging
around this centre of resort. And when the proffer
of employment came, they dictated no terms, paltered not on the score of their claims, but closed
with the simple bargain that whatsoever was right
they should receive.
Now, if this was the original idea which our
Lord's words would paint, we are not justified in
so applying His parable as to militate against this
Divine infention.
We do not propose to ramble through all the
inquiries that have been ingeniously pursued re



I 8    THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.
specting the meaning of those various hours of the
day, when laborers were called into the vineyard,
whether commencing with Abel or with Abraham,
with the Apostles first proclaiming the gospel, or
with the youth of the individual who has heard of
the vineyard of grace. It is the system of mercy
here disclosed, that addresses itself to our spiritual
nature. It is the fact of men first finding themselves
summoned to the duties of husbandry for the soul,
at the eleventh hour, which surprises us into some
solution of this event which may exhibit the mercy
of God.
It seems to me that the point of this application
to eleventh hour souls lies in the simple statement of their apology. They had not labored, because employment did not find them. They were
unoccupied, because where they were likely to be
sought no man had asked them to work.
There are two classes of souls in the spiritual
order, then, to wvhom this eleventh hour encouragement does not belong.
These men that stood waiting for a petitioner
cannot symbolize those unwilling, resisting, inflexible, and unimpressible natures which reject the
calls of grace, and refuse the terms of salvation.
If there was any intended resemblance between
the searchings of the householder for laborers, and
the invitations of the kingdom of heaven to souls
that might be and should be genuinely Christian,
then those that remained unsolicited until the last
hour of the day are no representatives of a class
who deliberately spurn the call of the -gospel from




THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.        19
first to last. If there can be such a spiritual condition as that of deliberate mockery at God's call, it
is not indicated by any class which our Lord here
portrays. But there is too much in human character that runs close upon the margin of this desperation. How far off from a deliberate refusal of
God's call was that trembling Felix, when Paul
reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come?  How far off from refusing the
gospel is the startled conscience that wakes to hear
itself called to. repentance and the confession of
Christ, and then relapses into its slumber of unconcern? How much less than a rejecter of the
gospel was that placid Herod Agrippa, not daring
to disbelieve the prophets, nor daring to believe
them and be a Christian? Is our condition more
pleasing to God than his negative indecision, when
we admit the heavenly birth of the gospel, but refuse to seek in it a heavenly birth for ourselves?
If there is a difference in degree, is there not a
resemblance in aversion from God, whether we
boldly proclaim that we will not heed the call of
God, or whether we tacitly indicate that it is deferred to a more convenient season? The whole
question of surrender to grace resolves itself into
the cardinal inquiry, whether we shall develop ourselves in God's creation after His method or our own
method. The pivot of salvation revolves on this
point. Jesus saved us, so far as God's share goes,
by submitting to the ordeal, " Thy will, not mine,
be done;" and they that follow Him rest -upon the
same decision.  The unsubmissive will, the un



20     THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.
regulated heart, the unresolved purpose, the undevout attitude of body and mind-all of these,
visited by the voice of God's commands and summoned by the appeal of God's promises, are registered for eternal remembrance among those that
hear the word and do it not. They may cherish
some project of ultimate amendment, they may
promise their consciences that the dregs of life at
least shall be holy, though the whole substance
has been without God; they may dream that the
last stroke of doom shall startle them to a contempt
of earth and a love of heaven, but their repeated
rejection of God's counsel, their continued. indifference to mercy's reproof, argue that they are not
intended by those who came at the last hour into
the vineyard, but came as soon as they were
called.
But we are adopting our Saviour's classification
of spiritual conditions. His reaching forth the sceptre of salvation at the eleventh hour is not to be
grasped by the persistent rejecter of, the gospel as
a warrant of hope for some eleventh hour favor to
him. With the same impartiality does that living
truth in the person of Christ crush the delusive hope
of the sluggish and languid'and unambitious recipient of grace. The angel that ushered in eternity
placed his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot
upon the earth. And so, the parable tramples
alike upon the stiff and rocky hardness that will
not answer to God's call, and upon the treacherous
and unstable elements that yield to the impressions
of grace, but drown it in the mere waves of emo



THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.     2 I
tion. There is a view of the gospel in which it is
to be regarded as a call to labor. The householder
was not abroad, from hour to hour through the
day, inviting guests. He did not hurry into the
market-place, where men's cares and amusements
were clustering them, in the morning, and towards
the close of the day, for the sake of finding men
that would refresh themselves with his fruit or his
shade rather than with the jests or the chafferings
of the public concourse. He was in search of men
that felt the need and sought the blessing of industry, of aiming at useful results, and turning their
strength into products. The pleasures and the refreshments of the greatest of kingdoms are very
prominent features in its attractions.  They are
genuine and eternal, and stand thus in contrast
with the transient and the deceptive. But that
pleasurable side of the gospel is only a part
of its demand upon us. That belongs to its upper and unearthly aspect.  It is sure to be a
cross on this lower sinful side of its contact with
the world, and is rather secretly and hopefully a
feast. But one thing it must be to every one of us
that blends grace with temptation, and that is " a
labor." We have not solved the problem of working immeasurable happiness out of these wretched
materials of mortality and sin by simply accepting
the gospel, taking its lovely message to our embrace, and entrancing ourselves in the delicious
consciousness that we love Jesus and are glad to be
saved in his arms. That is the sentimental gospel
which too often takes the place of warfare with the'




22     THE LABORERS AND'THEIR IRE.
crucified, and work with the man that went about
doing good. The echo of grace is not a melodious
song, that sweetly tells the praise of Jesus, but
the voice of a trumpet with the breath of an angel
stirring us up to the rescue, "Work out your own
salvation." The entertainment of a well directed
soul is not idleness, but delight in work, and repose
after work. What man needs for his immortality
corresponds with what he finds imposed upon him
for his enjoyment of this lower garden of God; not
release from occupation, but an object worthy of
his abilities, and a healthful pleasure in their exertion.' God's parable is around us, and speaks
through the whole system of nature. And it pronounces God's salvation to be dependent not only
upon our feeling what He has done, but upon our
laboring at that which we must do. The sentiment
is morbid that expends itself in sentiment. Such a
religion belongs to aerial unembodied creatures,
and nof to these complex beings which Christ
redeemed. Labor for that meat which endureth
unto eternal life, and you shall find your religious
sentiments the more healthful, the more vivid, and
the more disposing you to love your God, and to
love that better image into which He, by your
own labor, would shape you.
Let none of us deceive himself, or permit any
shallow pretender-to spiritual science to mislead us
by any phrase or any theory that cuts the sinews of
exertion, and leaves us languid and helpless recipients of grace, panting in weariness of life and counting upon the raptures of a saintly reward, because




THE LABORERS AND THEIR HIRE.       23
we have once thrilled with the luxuries of a devotional spasm. Serenity, that defied the cross and
the devil, summed up its confidence in this language: "I have finished the work which Thou
gavest me to do."
And if any conceit has lodged itself in our minds
to the effect that our eleventh hour will come, and
nothing shall then deaden us to the call of Godah! who hath revealed to us that any messenger
will then be heard? Who hath encouraged us to
believe that those who refuse to accept the terms
of the gospel, will be importuned when shadows
are lengthened, and the opportunity of grace drifts
beyond even the reach of our vision.
I offer you no mutilated gospel. I proclaim no
scheme of my own devising. I speak for conscience
-for the sanctities of truth-for the wants of our
own truth-seeking souls. And I say to you, in the
name of your own immortality, that whatsoever is
right that shall ye receive-that there is no work
done according to the light we have which shall be
left uncompensated. Go into the vineyard. Enter
the gates where Jesus claims the right and the power
to employ and to reward you; be ye doers of the
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your. own
selves.  "Why stand ye here," in the marketplace, in this thoroughfare where cares and jollities and devils will ever jostle and never reward
you? "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" Jesus
tells me to say that He will give you " whatsoever is
right."




II.
THE VISION AND DEATH OF MOSES.
DEUT. xxxiv. 4.
"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not
go over thither."
1W.;ERE it not for the plain record of Holy
Writ, we should have presumed that Moses
would be transported from earth in some
such excellent manner as Enoch was lured away
to his God, or Elijah was wafted.in the raptures of
prophecy.  We should have expected an equal
sublimity in the close of the lawgiver's career, had
human wisdom dictated -the progress of events, or
had human invention framed a fabulous narrative.
Such was the human hand, uninspired and unhallowed, with which the Jewish historian attempts
to condense the materials of the sacred history.
He ignores entirely the offence, aggravated, public,
and against Deity, which was remembered and
visited upon Moses in his death. Waiving thus
the mention of his signal crime, a gloss of imperfection is laid by Josephus upon all the subsequent
history, and when he comes to describe the departure of this man from the scenes -of life, it is with
(24)




THE VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.    25
an unauthorized effort either to imitate the Christian statement of Jesus caught up from the view
of his disciples in the clouds, or to eclipse the brilliant exaltation of Elijah in his burning chariot, or
to bestow a heathen apotheosis upon the national
hero. In this spurious narrative, he is represented
as ascending Abarim in company with the whole
senate of the Hebrews, as sharing with them in the
view of the land of promise, as dismissing the senate to rejoin the body of the -people, while his successor in the command, and the high-priest wearing the robes of Aaron, remained with him upon
the summit of Pisgah; and (the narrative of Josephus concludes), "as he was going to embrace
Eleazar and Joshua, and was still discoursing with
them, a cloud stood over him on the sudden, and
he disappeared in a certain valley, although he
wrote in the holy books that he died, which was
done out of fear lest they should venture to say,
that because of his extraordinary virtue he went
to God."  Now here, we say, is a transcript of the
plan which human art would have followed in delineating the death of this illustrious man.  It
would have buried from view the crime whose
shadow lies upon the sacred page. It would have
enveloped with the halos of glory the disappearing
body.
We have already discovered the true narrative,
although divested of expected splendors, yet luminous to the eye that looks for moral truths. It
flashes upon us the persiiasion, that God is a
chastening Father-that He' cannot suspend His
2




26    TH'E VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.
moral government —that for our wanderings from
righteousness we must be chastised. It displays,
also, the provision of pity in his. government by
which He prepares the righteous to endure the
severities of chastisement, and opens the prospect
of Canaan before he buries in the valley of Moab.
In the presentation of these truths, the event, as
it occurred, is a thousand-fold more instructive,
and far more in unison with the purport of Scripture and the methods of Divine discipline around
us, than when erilbellished by human ingenuity.
We have, then, a chastisement upon the lawgiver, excluding him from' the honor of completing
the march into Canaan. We have, also; a special
recompense for his former fidelity in the cheering
view of that territory, towards whose fertile fields
he had panted. The blow and its alleviation-the
wound and the soothing-the chastening of a
Father and the pity of a God, are before us. Is
there no other moral truth involved in this event?
Does it display God in no other character? What
other view does it give of man as a moral being?
We see that a righteous man suffers. This is
not strange. It is a sample of life-of life everywhere, in spite of increased refinement. But we
see that he suffers particularly as a chastening for
sin. What does this evince? That there are to
be no penalties in an after life? Not at all. It
evinces just the reverse.  The penalty was not
consequent, but subsequent. It was not an effect
of his transgression, as remorse is an effect of
guilt, or pain an effect of a wound, or loss an




THE VISIaNz AND DEA TH OF MOSES.    27
effect of imprudence. We can see no necessary
connection between the trespass of Moses and his
exclusion from Canaan. His working a miracle
with ostentation and pride did not disqualify him
for a leader of the people-did not destroy their
allegiance or their courage. No doubt there was
a connection between the sin and the penalty, but
the connection rested upon some other principle
than than that of disability for his office, or that of
inward self-punishment. And the principle, which
is thus required to connect two things so far separate as the unadvised speech of Moses, and the
solitary, and premature death of Moses-that principle, we say, is the fact of a moral discipline over
mankind.
We see, also, that a righteous man is prepared
to meet his sufferings-that this preparation was
not a hardening of his heart against fear, nor a
flattering song of commendation, as if angels had
come rehearsing his virtues and entertaining him
with a description of his merits. No, there was
nothing like this mechanical system of recompense
-no such paying of equivalents for his good deeds.
The recompense, when it came, was discerned by
faith, and enjoyed by faith.  It was received and
relished by the same affection which had brought
him towards it-in the exercise of the same faith
that exiled him from the palace of Egypt, that,
braved the wrath of the king, that parted the
waters of the sea, and grappled with his giant
cares in the wilderness. By faith he looked upon
the prospect before hinm, as the certain home of his




28    THE VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.
people. By faith he connected the land of beauty
with the promise of guardianship. By faith he
discerned not only a luxuriance waiting for the
chosen people, but a hand leading them to the possession. By faith he discovered that his word had
not been in vain, but that Divine power and Divine
truth should complete the remnant of his task.
His blessing in beholding the land from his mountain post was dependent upon the exercise of this
faith. It was -not a negative satisfaction with hit
past life, as being on the whole conscientious. Is
was not the hardening of his sinews by reflecting
that he had come safely out of dangers. It was a
positive comfort derived from a positive faith.
What, then, was the principle which made this
vision a recompense and a preparation for the future? It was this obviously-that he was under a
moral discipline. This made the view of Canaan a
strength to his faith. This increased his endurance,
while it rewarded his fidelity.
We are, by these observations, prepared to regard the event of his death -as, in all respects, a
fragment of moral discipline —a specimen of crystal
from the revealed throne of Providence, in whose
hues and pellucid form we may perceive the qualities of the mass.
To the lawgiver the vision was disciplinary. It
was a test of his submission. Could he behold,
and not desire to enter? It was a test of his obedience; for he went up by command, and went up
for the purpose of completing thus his mortal
career. It was a test of his delight in God; for.




THE VISION AND DEA TI! OF MOSES.    29
he could not go over thither. And what was thus
tested was by the testing improved. Apart from
the necessity of bearing the penalties of his sin,
the preparation for his death was, in all its appendages, disciplinary.
For his discipline in meekness, he was summoned
to solitary communion with God, and a death
around which man could array no flatteries.
For his discipline in courage, he was bidden to
ascend the mount and deliberately confront the
penalty of his sin.
For his discipline in faith, he was told to view
the land as a promised possession.
For his discipline in earthly affection, he was
called upon to die with his task undone, and in the
full glow of bodily vigor.
And while his own virtues were thus trained
and illustrated by the course of Providence, it was
so ordered that his death became a discipline to
others. In his removal from the view of the people,
their revolts against his beneficent authority were
punished. In his excision from the earthly heritage of Israel, they were taught to fear the penalties
of transgression. In the favor of God, which presided over his fortunes to the last, they were called
upon to view the blessings of his piety. In the
submissiveness of his spirit, they beheld the triumphs of a nurtured virtue. In the secret burial
of his body, they were saved from the peril of
idolatry.
This, then, is the moral truth to be deduced from
the wearying life and the lone death of the law



30   kTHE' VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.
giver —that the righteous man is under a blessed
discipline. Though be recognize and feel a chastening hand upon him, he is neither hardened
against it, nor lifted in rebellion to complain against
his God, nor broken with fear and sorrow. And
when he counts his sunny days of privilege and
comfort, he reckons them as trusts, and pays his
debt to a bountiful God with gratitude and devotion and trustful joy.
How elevating the thought! How sublime the
victory of a righteous soul! It is not here merely
to accomplish the toils and bear the rigors of life.
It is here under tuition-tried with sorrows, tried
with cares, tried with want, tried with possessions,
tried with ease, tried with success. In all things
and at all times it is under discipline. Animating,
consoling thought! It gives nerve to my race
after an imperishable life; it extracts the poison
from these earthly wounds. Blessed discipline!
How it makes of our afflictions a Jacob's ladder;
and every woe that separates us from the love of
this world is but a round that carries us up higher!
Blessed discipline! How it consecrates our pleasures, and by converting them into thanksgiving
and the love of God, clothes us with the robes of
angels, which are the garments of praise!
But what mean we by asserting this blessedness
of the righteous? Not that they alone are under
moral discipline, for this embraces all mankind.
Not that the righteous are exempt from the calamities of life, for these are essential to the carrying on
of discipline. We mean rather that all the experi



THE VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.    31 I
ence of life, all its accumulation of cares, all its seductions of vanity, tend to discipline the virtues
and amend the defects, and enhance the blessings
of the righteous.
This is the record which God has given. He has
let us so far into the secret of His Providence. H'e
has opened to us this page in the learning of heaven.
" Great are the troubles of the righteous; but the
Lord delivereth him out of them all." He goes, as a
trusting child, that has occasion to fear, but leans
against the Protector and is secure. And this is
his attitude through life. But when life is over,
what shall be the end of his discipline'? He is fitted for the fellowship of God; he is ready for the
study of all wisdom; he is come out of discipline,
and his garments are washed in the blood of the
Mediator, and he passes from the life of discipline
to the rest that remaineth for the people of God,
where temptation has no power, and chastening
does not bruise his soul.
But I hear the murmurs of the human heart, and
it asks why this should be so. Why should this
discipline of sorrow and trouble be necessary to
fill heaven withtear-washed sinners? Why? Go,
ask the aged man. Did he know why his limbs
were exercised in the sports and activity of youth?
Did he foresee the effect upon his muscles, when he
leaped and tasted freedom, while others smiled and
sighed at his merriment? And when the gentle
hand of restraint sets limits to their sportiveness,
do children know what good for them is meant?
And when it comnes to discipline and tasks, and




32    THE VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.
making ready for a life above merry childhood, it is
a hardship that lays its fetters on them. But what
know they of its advantages; what knows any one
so well as that aged man bending down to pick
up shedding memories?
Why should a discipline of temptation be needed
for a world of holiness and rest? Why! Ask the
tenants there. Is it a world of feeble, sickly, timid
virtue? Is it a place -at all congenial with a hesitating virtue?  No, it is the home of exercised and
vigorous goodness. For aught we know, there
may be some necessity in moral nature that it
should attain certain degrees of resistance and
force, before it can stand secure even in a holy
world. We may need to acquire an angel's resolution, a seraphic love, a muscular and winged virtue,
before the soul can get a place in that world. And
when we take the view, which God has, of our own
nature, depraved, prone to sin, impatient, mistaking
most grossly the advantages and disadvantages of
good and evil; that it is a fallen nature which is to be
reared, and not an upright nature to be carried
through one life into another; we may confess that
what discipline we need, it is entirely beyond our
scope to decide. The soul is that bird of Paradise
whose plumage has been ruffled, and the wings clipped, and the joints broken. Ambitious of ethereal
flight, it flutters and wounds itself. Pained with the
healing, it is injured by its own impatience. Let it
bear the discipline of its cure, let it wait till its
strength is confirmed by little acts of daily renewal,
and at the last, unimprisoned, it shall go up above




THE VISION AND DEA TH OF MOSES.    33
the clouds, and bring its plaintive moans into harmony with the melodies of a peaceful world.
Such is the discipline that suspends its obscurities over the righteous. It is a discipline not destroyed but solaced and blessed by the gospel. It
is a great shadow, but to the Christian soul it is a
shadow under the wings of the Comforter. It
came to the lawgiver as an instrument that would
repair his shattered meekness; and when he pray~ed earnestly that God would remove it, the dark
dispensation was not taken away. But it came with
a view of Canaan; it came with repairs to his faith;
it came with unutterable joys in the contemplation
of God; it came with the restoration of his forfeited
character as the meek man. Such was the discipline that stung the flesh of Paul. And he prayed thrice for relief. But it was discipline, it was
his school before the manly life, it was the mending
of a broken spirit, and the answer to his prayer
was a voice, " My grace is sufficient for thee."
And all along through this childhood of the spirit,
we go catching visions of a blessed life beyond, but
the fruition may not come till the discipline is finished; and at every chastening stroke of. trouble,
the voice is heard speaking to faith on its enraptured mount of vision, " I have caused thee to see
it with thine eyes; but thou. shalt not go over
thither."
2*




III.
INGRATITUDE.
ST. LUKE xvii. I7.
"Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?"
O   RDINARILY there is no more reliable test
of character than the measure of gratitude.
It depends so much upon the constant predominance of better impulses, it carries itself so far
beyond any single act of return, it is so essentially
cordial and continuous, and consists so much more
in permanence of feeling than in any one expressive action, that no one can be persuaded into confidence where he discovers ingratitude. I ask if
any other trait so moves our indignant disgust as
ingratitude? What so soon stifles the sympathies
of nature? What so often withers the active hand
of benevplence? What so excites the grudgings,
wherewith we behold another successful?  No;
there is a kind of complacency which we all feel,
in beholding the assurances of merit and virtue, the
buds of gratitude, bursting tokens of fruitful goodness. We witness it in the repayment of a child's
gratitude, and we set a value'upon it not from the
caresses or the ardent expressions or the flatteries
of childish affection, but from the picture of the
(34)




INGRA TITUDE.              35
heart that is spread before us. Gratitude is honesty in paying a debt, but not the cold, rigid, and
proud honesty that renders purchase-money; it is
a generous, unselfish, cheerful integrity that both
confesses the obligation and delights to be paying.
Gratitude is the accomptant that writes the debt
upon the heart, and the sign of gratitude is not in
seeing benefits returned, but in finding them recorded on that inner ledger.
Ingratitude is the reverse, described as a " marble-hearted fiend," upon which cruelty can chisel a
record, but gentleness and the breath of kindness
leave no impression on the cold surface. You
never see ingratitude in one of human kind without inferring a stock of ill-nature out of which the
vice has grown. You look at it as the leper-spot,
which shows disease within. You take it for an
evidence not of corruption merely, but of corruption growing. Great vices, like any other human
greatness, must have attendants to wait upon them,
and minister to their sway. Ingratitude is by this
rule discovered to be a monster-vice, served by mammoth and hideous traits; lifted up by pride so as to
overlook kindnesses; a granite mountain-top above
the lowly acts of common- gratitude, elevated but
proudly barren, and always attended with hardheartedness and want of compassion, as insensible
to other's miseries as to their kindness. See it in
that first rebel against Infinite Love, the Arch-fiend,
whose ingratitude was caressed and crowned by
his ambition, by pride, that prime minister and
great chancellor of hell; and not only by pride, for




36              INGRA TITUDE.
he put on at once, when he put off an angel's virtue,
a devil's cruelty and malignity, dragging down his
enticed army, and stealing, a glistening but venomous thing, into Paradise. See the human career
of this vice in Absalom, the rebellious son of an
indulgent father, with his fingers not only itching
for the sceptre but reaching after the very head of
his exiled and houseless parent.
But as corruptions of the heart are always worst
in those who should by their nature be best, so
human ingratitude has been most horrid in ambition and in cruelty when raging in a woman's
breast. See it in those "unnatural hags," Goneril
and Regan, with their crazed father, a beggar-king,
"a poor old man, as full of grief as age, wretched
in both!"  See it most savage of all, in Tullia,
daughter of a king, married with great dowry to Tarquinius Superbus, then inciting her husband to kill
her royal father, then usurping his throne, then in bedizened pride, instead of funeral weeds, driving for
a spectacle of jewelled splendor through the streets
of Rome, and with no more compassion than a putiid carcass ordering her shuddering.coachman to
crush with the horse-hoofs and the wheels the yet
palpitating and bloody body of her newly murdered father.
Such are the tragedies of filial ingratitude! Such
are the horrors which ungrateful human nature can
enact toward those of nearest human tie.
Let us learn to transfer these suggestions to our
own individual characters as recipients personally
of the Divine blessings.




INGRA TIT UDE.               37
It is evident, in the first place, that the measure
of our religious gratitude will be the index of our
character. We would like to resolve our religion
into a round of devout actions. We are prone to
content ourselves with certain specified acknowledgments, and to regard any extra zeal as rather putting Providence in debt to us. Partly because we do
not meditate on the Divine goodness, and partly because we are unwilling to be counted debtors, our
religious gratitude does not mount above absolute
requirements. We see no need of advancing beyond the termrs of salvation. And while the motives of a generous gratitude would prompt us to
self-denials for the sake of promoting religion, or for
the sake of expressing emotion, we restrain ourselves within the round of necessary duties.
And this sort of religion pleases the world. It
calls itself Christian now, and whatever be its perversions or wrestings of Christian scripture, it
claims the name of all that is good. But this world
is not so utterly thankless as to refuse an offering.
On the contrary, it has festivals and seasons when
it expects to show gratitude. Care is taken, however, that this gratitude does not lessen the means
of enjoyment. Its offering is not even borrowed
from the fund for pleasures. It is put down on the
list of necessities, and a tax of this overruling necessity alone can extract the tribute. Now we
say that these returns to God are no suitable index
of character. They may be urged by various motives not strictly religious. The test that we can
Z-pply with safety is that which will evince. the




3 8             INGRA TIT UDE.
amount of gratitude. This is goodness; this is hope
this is a tie between the Great Giver and the mortal restorer. This indicates the degree of filial feeling. Religious objects are set up in the world for
the purpose of ca'lling out and cultivating this feeling. God's language is by every day's sunrise, and
by every cloud's shedding-by His benefits to the
just and the unjust, "Son, give me thine heart."
We give Him our heart in obedience; that is well.
We give Him our heart in worship; -it is well. We
give Him our heart in gratitude,' and it is all.
Earth can do no more. Here then is the touchstone.
Apply it to your character. What does it reveal?
Are you moved by a sweet gratitude? Are you
delighted with the privilege of testifying a religious
emotion? Do you come into the atmosphere of
praise, as the happy child rushes to the caresses of
affection, to the offices of respect and gratitude?
Do you listen to the voice of God, speaking in His
prophets, as an obliged friend waits upon the counsel of his best benefactor?  Do we seek for occasions and modes of showing what we feel? And
when the spirits flag, and the flesh chills the ardor
of nature, do we still persevere as knowing that we
ought, with all our powers and against all obstacles,
to glorify our God? Let such questioning be the
magnet among the affections of the soul. Watch the
attraction which may exist between your gratitude
and your soul's affections. It will show, as no other
test can show, our real character.
It is evident, in the second place, that as our ingratitude towards men is never a solitary vice, but,




INGRA TITUDE.                39
like a guilty man afraid of remorse, seeks shelter in
society, so our religious ingratitude will carry along
its concomitants.' It grows but of spiritual pride,
as the other out of worldly pride. What is it that
disposes one to be ungrateful but a false estimate of
his rights, as if he had claim to a greater share in
this world than another, and as if he could demand
more than by justice he can earn. And this conceit of a proud spirit makes it insensible to the
kindness and courtesies and the incessant favors of
others. So is it towards the Great Goodness. Our
proud spirit scorns subjection. It claims from  the
Maker all that by which we live. It accepts His
gifts, as a sort of testimony to our deserving. It
challenges the Almighty to withhold from us what
we have fairly earned. It is not thankful for its
faculties; industry and exercise have made them.
It is not thankful for its gains; they came in spite
of hazards. It is not thankful for the gifts of grace;
for God gives us no more than He finds pleasant
and delightful to Himself to give. They are poured, the bounties and the grace of God, upon proud
spirits, like sunlight and showers upon the topmost
crags, which court the earliest and the latest rays,
and draw towards them the passing clouds, but they
produce nothing, they render nothing, and the very
drops that water them are exhaled to heaven from
the valleys below.
I am not saying that the ungrateful soul gives
utterance to all this pride. Far from it! It is, like
that of the nine lepers, discovered by its silence.
They were afraid to return and expose their malady.




40              INGRA TITUDE.
It is a similar spirit that cuts off the feet of gratitude.
It comes halting to the sanctuary of praise. It refuses to surrender itself to the fealty of a redeemed
sinner. It must be lured by the voice of attractive
eloquence to the house where God's mercies are
acknowledged. It comes as a civility to man, where
it should press through storms and through threats
to own and to publish the ceaseless benefits of grace.
It is indifferent and unhumbled, as if God had not
made us debtors, or as if we were under some exception to the law of gratitude. With what loathing do
we look upon the pride that receives the little acts ot
courtesy without an equal politeness. Can we make
these trivial acts articles of faith, and count it of no
consequence whether the Almighty be adored? If
the appearance of humility draws us to so strict observance of ceremonies that shall make society
happy, oh! what constraints are there to humble us
on our knees before the everlasting God, and to
waken the tones of praise in echo of the seraphic
hymns and the eloquence of gratitude above.
Religious ingratitude is not only base through
pride, but hard of heart. It indurates the soul. It
grows upon us, like cruelty upon the heart of passion or avarice. You see it stalking like premature
guilt upon the fields of earth, where the unworthy
offering of the ungrateful Cain was rejected of heaven. He lost the very chance of acceptance by the
effect of his ingratitude. Because he slighted the
benefits of Good, his heart was deserted of God. He
was hardened in the very process of neglecting to
praise. The fear of God was taken away, as the




INGRA TI TUDE.              4I
love of God was stifled. And the same hardening
came upon the heart of Judas. He was ungratefully bartering the life of his Master, and all the
time he was selling himself to a desperate deed.
In this way, the terrible proposition is justified,
" Whom He will He hardeneth."  He pours more
benefits upon their rocky insensibility. Ile makes
their vice to grow by giving it occasion. He wills
to show the inveteracy of corruption, by exhibiting
its resistance to arguments of love. God hardens
by His Providence, but it is kindness and the outpouring of gifts that should soften and melt; and
the ungrateful heart is hardened. It goes on like
the nine cleansed lepers, conscious of benefits, but
conscious of wilfully deserting the Benefactor. So
we harden the offender who escapes thlrough our
clemency and wallows again in the mire. So the
parental indulgence hardens the stubborn tempers
of depraved childhood. So the image of gold hardens the hand that digs for the metal and graves it
with art and cunning device.
But why, we ask, why should human nature be
debased into ingratitude towards God? What
temptation can we have towards this vice? That
it is possible, daily observation evinces. That there
is a proneness to it, every penitent heart confesses,
every tongue reluctant to join in His praise proclaims.. Incredible as it might seem, the reality
stares upon us, when the mere system of worldly
pleasure, empty pleasure, makes drafts much larger
than religion, and finds them honoured; when the
cost of a year's struggle in politics exceeds the ex



42              INGRA T-ITUDE.
pense of religion, and is met without a murmur;
when the decencies of attire are more onerous than
the honours of God's worship, and no one suggests
retrenchment there; when the elegance and the
comfort of our homes far surpass the offerings we
make to God, and no one feels the inconsistency and
the inverted order of things. Is there not some
disease upon the muscles of the hands that get, when
they open to receive, and cannot be lifted up to
bless? Is there not some unhinging of the doors
to the heart, when they let in such a throng of
earthly delights, and send forth so few messengers
to heaven? Is not the heart smitten with a curse,
that admits all tax gatherers except the princely
form of gratitude to our Saviour?
But whlt are the errors or the persuasions that
have converted the heart into a dead sea-?
Why, they are simply these: false ideas of God,
with Whom we have to do, and false ideas of His
control in earthly affairs.
By the former error, we conceive of God as an
Almighty and Infinite Spirit, of all perfection, but
we do not realize in Him emotions suited to His
divine nature. He is to us a Lawgiver, but not a
lover of justice. He is to us a wise God, planning
salvation, but not a Redeemer, yearning over us.
We think of Him as removed from us, and wrapt
in His* own sublimity, when He is near us and
affected by our every moral act. Ye that rely
upon such a high and distant and abstracted intellect for your God, tell me; ye many that live in
Christian lands, and call yourselves believers of the




INGRA TITUDE.              43
Word, tell me, what your Bibles have to do with
such a being as you imagine? What part has that
isolated God in revelations and prophecies and the
gradual uncovering of His glory?  What part in
your cold system has that crowning fact of the incarnation? What need in your philosophy of a
Saviour, Who went about doing good, flesh of our
flesh, touched with a- feeling of our infirmities,
bidding the leprous scales to drop, banishing the
diseases of men, and- remanding the dead to cheer
the homes of desolation? What has that far-off
majesty to do with our services, our homage, the
little act, the suppressed feeling, the struggling
prayer, the vocal praise? Oh, no! you have put
God away from you when He would draw nigh;
you have denied Him the.emotions which He has
come near to ask, come near to encourage. When
IHe bids us cry " Our Father," you have no thought
of the affections He would express.  When He
sends the Spirit of adoption into our hearts, we
choose to live as strangers. When He tells us
that our thanks and praise gladden His untroubled
Spirit, we will not receive the truth. When He
tells us that our actions jar upon the harmony of
the universe, and while our repentance wakes a
melody, in other worlds, we doubt the grandeur of
our being. When he descends and hears our cry
and sweeps the curse from us, we question whether
the Incarnate Redeemer is to be praised. We
receive the benefit and depart from  the Christ
that heals us; we catch at the gospel sound that
God is gracious, but we lose the gospel sound that




44              INGRA TITUDE.
tells us of the Father rejoicing because we obey;
and for our persistency in this erroneous view of
God, the Saviour of man is compelled to inquire,
"Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the
nine?"
The second source of our ingratitude is the
failure to recognize the personal intention of God's
benefits. This applies to two classes.
The-first class are those who count their privileges as so many indications of their safety. They
are not attuned to thanks, because they dread no
danger. They find their houses stand, and their
harvests come, although they live on the sides of a
volcano. They are not quickened into religious
praise, because they have no need of religious
comfort. In the lot of life, they have enough to
do to manage affairs of earth, and carry their
burdens. It is their expectation that- God will
warn, that He will awaken, that He will give them
spiritual gifts when their time comes to receive
them; not considering that now is the accepted
time, and that every joy, as well as every trial, is a
personal messenger, sent to ask for their tribute of
gratitude.
The second class are those who have received
eminent mercies, and permit them- to pass without
a special acknowledgment. See how many are
spared by the blessing of God from " threatening'
graves," and their vows are never rendered! fHow
many have cried unto God in the hours of alarming
sickness, and resolved to consecrate their living
days; but with the glow of health came the chill




INGRA TITUDE.              45
of ingratitude! How many have looked unto God
in affliction, imploring His grace, and in the tumult
of the surrounding world have forgotten their
promises and their duties! What person, educated
amid holy influences, has not at some period
recognized the yielding of his heart to the persuasions of the Holy Ghost? Alas! the many receive the grace of God in vain. Raised from their
distress, snatched as brands from the burning, they
are lured away to their old and stronger habits,
the flames of corruption are kindled anew, and
Christ stands at His altar and asks, " Were' there
not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?"  How
many washed at the font, and cleansed from their
sins by the promised gift of the Spirit, have
trampled upon the crown which God gave, and
counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they
were sanctified a common thing!
The voice of Christ is addressed directly to these
entangled victims of sin. They, above all others,
must be speechless in the judgment. They have
been gathered to the household of the Father, and
ungratefully desert again its shelter. They have
been possessors of the inheritance, and sold their
birthright for a trifle.
Oh! shall the ungrateful heir of God reply that
the treasures were not given, that the title was
contested by temptation, that the inheritance was a
struggle ahd a sorrow, and all its bliss lay far off
among the palaces of the upper world. Child of
God, this is thy privilege. Thy glory in that other
sphere will be fixed by thy patience and thy




46              INGRA TITUDE.
fidelity here. What! shall God buy us with His
Son; shall He visit us with His Spirit; shall He
make a covenant with us; shall He give us the
arms that win the victory; shall lie call us His
sons and His heirs; shall He bring the atmosphere
of heaven around us; shall He give us all that
resolute goodness could need? and, because the
man's estate is not ours at once; because the trusts
of the tried are not ours without trial, shall we
desert Him, and spurn His gifts, and throw our
contemtjptuous neglect back against His grace?
Think how the breath of ingratitude freezes our
compassions. -Think of the odious character which
attaches to an ungrateful child.  Think of the
pierced breast of parental love, wounded by a
child's ingratitude" How much sharper than a serpent's tooth
It is to have a thankless child."
Ah! no tenderly caressing father, no meltingpities of a.mother, can compare with the love of
that Father, can equal the compassions of our
Redeemer. His wounded heart is ever pouring
out intercessions for us.
Bleeding Lamb of God! wound by Thy Spirit,
wound in Thy love, our hardened hearts.
Almighty Saviour! draw us to Thy feet. 0,
our Father! open Thy arms of compassion for ingratitude washing itself in tears of shame. If there
be but one that loves and lives as a child of God,
teach me to be ambitious for this honor.




IV.
FORGIVENESS NOT IMPUNITY.
_2 SAMUEL Xii. IO, I3.
"Now, therefore, the sword shall not depart from thine house.
"And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy
sin; thou shalt not die."
I T may often seem a strange thing to us that in
the Holy Bible, designed to portray examples
of the most exquisite purity, and to inculcate
precepts of the highest virtue —it may seem strange
to us that in such a volume, representing in word
and symbol the Divine perfections, so much space
should be allotted to the history of David, and to
the effusions. of his inspired soul. He stands forth
upon the sacred page as a sort of model approved
by God, as a man (to use the Scripture language),
after God's own  heart.   He  stands  forth  as
quite a solitary example of perpetual devotion,
and the very words which God accommodated to
his experience are transmitted to us all; for our
instruction and for moulding not only our language but our hearts. Yet we behold him, according to the testimony of the same record, implicated
in the grossest crimes, confessing himself a wilful
(47)




48      JFORGIVENESS NOT IMP UNITY.
sinner, and'published to the world as the instigator
and plotter of a treacherous murder. There was
a season in his career when he seemed to be, and
zwas the worst of men-a tyrant, brutal, lewd,
guiltier than any of us, abhorrent even to himself
when Nathan drew his likeness. But the record
that is faithful in these particulars warns us with
the sequel.  Before the monarch had displayed
any compunction, the prophet approaches him
with his ingenious parable. The rich inheritance
of the king on the one hand, and the little treasure
of his servant in the bliss of a happy household,
are plainly pictured by the king's reprover. To
use the words of David, the Lord takes the wicked
in his own net, and makes the king his own ac-.
cuser. And then, without waiting for him either
to extenuate or to confess his guilt, the Almighty
brings forth, from the armory of His justice, a
weapon that may vindicate His own holiness, while
it leaves to the sinner the opportunity of repentance. "I anointed thee king over Israel, and I
delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the
Lord? Now therefore the sword shall not depart
from thine house." Fearful weapon to be wielded
by the Eternal God! Fearful threatening to follow him through all his days, to hang over him in
the appalling remembrances of death, to descend
upon generation after generation, and to stain the
stone of his sepulchre from age to age with the
vengeance and the shame of his f..rgiven transgression! Fearful threatening fearfully fulfilled! How




FORGIVENESS NO T IMP UNITY.       49
that one short season of wickedness changed the
whole current of David's life, and opened a flood
of misery upon his descendants.  "The sword
shall not depart from thine house." You wielded it
in defiance of God, He will wield it in vindication
of His insulted Majesty; you made it the instrument of sin, He will make it the instrument of
vengeance. I know well enough that David was
forgiven, I grant that he was a most thoroughly
penitent man, I remember that he was patient and
that he was ever afterwards a most earnest servant
of God; but his sin never forgot him, and because
he was a penitent, he never forgot it. The sword
was pursuing him, and not only him, but, so far as
the sacred record extends, it was yet piercing his
lineage, and marking its way with blood, and I
know not but its blows are yet hewing in pieces
the house of David, unless its work was done in
the slaughter of the Son of David, as He bore the
sins of the world in His own body on the tree. I
see one of his sons conspired against by another,
and slaughtered with the sword of his own and
his father's punishment.  I see this slaughtering
son rioting in the temporary success of his wickedness, until the darts of Joab pierced his heart, and
"the young men that bare the armor of Joab compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him."
And I see a third son, spared till the burial of his
father, and then slain with the sword of hIs brother.
I see the Edomite and the Syrian raised up as adversaries to.Solomon, and unsheathing the sword
against him all his days, though his whole aim was
3




50      FORGITVENESS NOT IMP UNITY.to live in peace, and though he had an excellent
wisdom for his help. I see the tribes then rent
asunder, and war between their princes all their
days. And afterwards I trace only a history of
confusion and carnage, until I behold the Son of
David pierced on the cross, and His mother, who
was of the house and lineage of David, beholding
the fulfilled prophecies of her royal ancestor with
a sword piercing her own heart also.  Fearful
wages for a few days' sin! Ages did not wipe it
out. God forgave it, but its punishment lingered.
David rested in the arms of God's mercy, but the
world was reading in his children's woes the sentence of unrelieved judgment-" The sword shall
not depart from  thine house."  Observe, here,
that this threatening was a consequence of the sin,
neither founded on the king's repentance nor mitigated by it. It was a part of the penalty laid upon
the transgressor, and only a part. According to
his own judgment, the rich violator of the poor
man's peace must surely die. In the sight of men
he had broken the bonds of society,.and by the
voice of the king he must die. Not so with the
royal offender. By the voice of the law, he was
banished from God, he was shut out from the hope
of mercy. But repentance brings back his soul
from this future doom, while it leaves the earthly
retribution to bow his soul in sorrow all his days,
and to carry the tide of punishment as far as the
sin might reach. For whatever it might imply,
there was a putting away of David's sin, when he
confessed it as sin, whatsoever men might esteem




FORGIVENESS NO T IMP UNITY.
it, and did this with a passionate sorrow. "And
David said unto Nathan, I. have sinned against the
Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord
also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die."
Observe, also, as a part of this history, that the
punishment, which hung upon David, notwithstanding his repentance and God's forgiveness, wee not
only outward troubles, but inward afflictions for
the rest of his days, and sorrows of soul, uttering
their mournful strains upon that harp which had
cheered away the griefs of Saul; and been ever
tuned to praise. His life was spared, but it was,
at the best, a burdensome life, heavy with the
chastenings of God.
From this history we have now -some instruction
to elicit.
In the first place, we see in this history that sin
has a double consequence, partly in this life and
partly in -another: the former in vindication of
God's honor, the latter in the necessity of the
soul's unfitness for heaven. It was so in the very
beginning of transgression.  "In the day thou
eatest thou shalt surely die," was the sanction of
the law; and, in its fulfillment, death has passed
upon all, althpugh all are not irrecoverably out of
the favor of God;. We are daily witnesses of the
temporal penalty of the first transgression, while
we are ever in hope that its full condemnation may
not pass upon all.
In the second place, we observe that forgiveness
of a sin does not include the remission of this
temporal penalty. The truth of God's word de



52      IFORGI VENESS NO T IMP UNITY.
mands this, while the loss of His favor as a consequence of sin is required by His nature. This
favor may be regained by a change of our character
and relations, a change from the love of sin, or indifference. about it, to an abhorrence of it as sin; a
change from an open or careless despiser of God to
an open and earnest searcher for His mercy. This
change, wrought in us by that grace which Christ
died to purchase, may restore'us to a condition of
acceptance, and then only the temporal penalty
remains to be exacted. I know not whether the
drift of this remark is yet understood. My meaning is that God's nature makes a sinful nature by
necessity abhorrent, incapable while sinful of His
joys or. His favor. His grace or gracious gift, on
the other hand, relieves such a nature of its absolute
sinfulness, and if it go so far as to make that will
like His own, truly abhorrent of sin, then the
nature is, though imperfect, yet for Christ's sake
accepted.
It is impossible to illustrate this, because there
can be no such relations between creatures as between God and His creatures. But when we come
to speak of the temporal punishments for sin, we4
see'that the honor of God's law is concerned, and
the truth of His word; and for the sake of these He
will visit every sin of every soul, however good,
however bad,-will visit every sin with a temporal
penalty, whether the sin be forgiven or not. I do.
not say that it is of no avail to seek forgiveness or
to find it in this life. Every moment of delay is
aggravating this world's penalties, while it may




FORGIVENESS NOT IMP UNITY.        53
cast us with unforgiven sin into the world where
grace never enters, and repentance never comes.
I suppose this temporal penalty might be divided
into two kinds, one in the way of chastening, the
other' in the more severe way of'loss of opportunities. And this will be a sufficient answer to those
who inquire after the punishments of one repenting
at his last hour. He loses opportunity of retrieving
his name among men, and doing good in his generation, and gathering rewhrds. David's sin was taken
away; he lived a long life in God's favor, but it was
a life of repentance, chastened and corrected, loaded
with the temporal penalties of sin. If you would
know how a Christian Apostle looked upon this,
hear his appeal to the Christians at Corinth, when
they came with unprepared and unworthy hearts
to the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, "For this
cause many are weak and sickly among you;" whether it were the body chastened or the soul distressed,
it was for this offence. "But when we are judged,
we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not
be condemned with the world." Hence the prayer
of that ancient Christian, " Burn here, wound here,
that Thou mayest spare in eternity." His own
perfect nature does not foreclose a sinner from
hope, while it does exact the chastening which one
man's offences- have deserved, and another's righteousness shall escape. -Thus are mercy and truth
met together in the gospel, the one sealing the
sinner for heaven, the other bowing down the
accepted soul with the Lord's chastenings. I lknow
that it is common to speak with piety of our dis



54       FORGIVENESS NOT IMPUNITY.
tresses and. tribulations as hidden mercies and disguised blessings, and I believe it to be true. But
they are blessings and mercies only because of
overflowing grace, which brings them.home to our
consciences, and uses them to arrest the dominion
of some mastering sin. What, I ask, are all the
woes of this life but so mahy temporal penaltiespursuing men's transgressions, penalties of that
opening sin, which Christ has blotted out while the
temporal woes remain? How else can we reconcile
the sufferings of innocent infancy with the mercies.
of God, sufferings loading the soul with everything
but remorse, and the body even with death? They
have committed no sin, and are exposed to no
eternal vengeance; yet they are racked with tortures, and sometimes taken away from a life which
has been to them worse than death. We believe
that the price which the Redeemer paid secures to
their departing souls the saving grace of God, but
here the temporal penalties of the old transgression
are heaped upon them. For them at least the sin
which was.theirs by the heiitage of Adam, is forgiven by the heritage of Christ, but the temporal
penalty is not taken away.
Lastly, we see plainly in all this, that punishment
is not reformatory, but retributive and in vindication of God's glory. David was thoroughly reformed, was penitent even without punishment, was
laid in his grave ages before the punishment had
ceased from his'house. It was not designed, then,
for his reformation. And if men will still insist
that his example was for the.reformation of others,




FORGIVENESS NOT IMP UNITY.        55
I surely have no desire to dispute it, since this
concedes the whole question, and makes the consequences of his sin punitive towards himself. I
have no desire to doubt that God's chastenings
make the good better, but I cannot refuse to say
that his punishments are nevertheless the retributions of justice and the vindication of His glory to
the sufferer, to alarmed men, to a universe. But
do we not thank God for His inflictions? Do we
not glory in tribulation?  Do we not trace the
birthday of everlasting hope to some occasion of
Providental chastisement?  Has not God reformed
us by our very sufferings,  Truly may we say, on
the cross we found our Jesus. But what erected
our cross?  What brought us beneath it?  What
but the punishments of a Father, Who remembers
our iniquities, and scourges us back to our salvation.''The Lord hath put away thy sin, but the
sword shall not depart from  thine house."  It
speaks to us all. It bids us to recall the past, and
wipe away every little sin by repentance. Our
tears of sorrow shall be our penalty, and mitigate
the judgments of time. Woe to the man, whose
whole life has been a heaping up of punishments!
At one day they will descend in arrayed vengeance,
and write the past in fiery characters along his
path or on the walls of his everlasting prison.- Woe
to him who is greedy of gain, woe to the drunkard,
and the reveller, and the adulterer, and blasphemer,
and scoffer! Even repentance'will not screen him
from the earthly vindications of wrath. Already




56       FOR GI VENE SS NO T IMP UNIT Y.
are beginnings of punishment falling upon us. In
them we hear the accusation of God, "Thou art
the man." In the tortured victim of his passions
we are discovering the fruits of his sowing in sin,
but who hears in his own calamities the voice of
God, " Thou art the man?" In the recompenses of
human law, God's viceregent, we rejoice, but in
the tribulations of our lot, who hears the message
which the past is sending, "Thou art the man?"
In every woe as it fastens upon you, God's messenger is dwelling, and uttering his faithful accusation,
" Thou art the man?"  It is not an accident that
perplexes you; it is not the mere devising of man;
it is an old sin coming back to accuse you, and to'leave its record of warning, "Thou art the man?"
Oh, fling away, I pray you, that proud and selfrighteous habit of boasting that the Lord has
chastened you. He did it for your sin, He did it
in remembrance of the forgiven past, He did it for
your old murmurings, for your secret sins, for your
worn-out and discarded pleasures; He did it in the
faithfulness of a Father's love, but in the truthfulness of a holy God hearkening to the accusations
of His law, "Thou art the man." We hear Thee,
O God, in every joy that crowns our days; we hear
Thee in our daily ills. Grant us grace to repent of
all the past, that ih the struggles of death we may
have no sins to track us then, but go out in peace
as the day sinks into night.




V.
THE WARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.
ST. LUKE xvii. 32.
"Remember Lot's wife."
THERE are two peculiarities in the allusion here
made. The first is the omission of the woman's name. No name is given to Lot's wife
in the sacred record. None of the genealogies, with
all their precision, mention it. The narrative in
Genesis describes her fate, but omits her name.
No sacred writer records it. Our Lord copies
this silence of canon, and cites her history
with no other title to distinguish- her but that
of Lot's wife. The Jewish gloss upon the narrative
assigned to her the name of Adith; but that soundslike an after-thought, for although many names
were prophetic, there is no intimation that God's
foreknowledge had described her as being a testimony of His displeasure.
Another peculiarity in our Lord's mention of
this woman is her sudden emerging from obscurity
by His allusion to her fate. Her righteous husband is borne upon the memory of the inspired
penman, but the woman so signalized in the histo-.
3                      (57)




58      THE WARNING OF LO T'S WIFE.
ry, fleeing with her guiltless husband from the
doom of Sodom, becomes for a moment the object
of chief historic interest, shares with him in the
rescuing love of God-, and in the obedience of hasty departure from the polluted city; reaches with
him the suburbs in the plain amid whose luxuriant
fields.they would fain have found. some equivalent
for the home that had grown too corrupt for human occupants; hearkens with him to the mandate
thati.urried them beyond the coveted fields; trembles with him as the blackened-heavens roar with
tempests of fire, and the quivering earth echoes its
groans, and the clouds that burst from the yawning
plain send up the sulphurous spouts to kindle with
the lightnings that crackle through.the sky. As
suddenly as the flash that heralded the vengeance
of that judgment-day, she is paralyzed-a pillar of
salt. She stood, and motionless and silent and unmentioned she remained - from  that recital of
her fixedness until the lips of Jesus recalled the
warning of her fate, and pointed a moral with the
admonition-" Remember Lot's wife."
The very use of this occurence by our Lord
rescues both the woman and' the whole history of
the vengeance falling on the cities of the plain,
from the imputation of fable or exaggeration.
What wisdom, or what seriousness, what fidelity to
truth, or what authority among men can attach to
a teacher of heavenly morals and a pulpit of divine
rebukes, when the illustration of his weighty
truths melts away into fiction, and his quotations of
divine judgment are falsified as either extravagant




THE WAARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.
or fabulous? To reject the narrative in Genesis is
to impugn the authority of Jesus. To cavil at the
conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah. is to deride the Saviour of mankind. The sulphurous desolation that swept the valley of Sodom, and, first
suffocating, then covered and incrusted the disobedient woman who loitered behind the fugitive patriarch, startling and puzzling as the narrative may
be, is involved in our reverence for Jesus. The
mysterious elements of His character are'so many
attestations of the transaction recorded by Moses.
Every miracle of Jesus argues that Sodom. was
punished and that Lot's wife was an example of
Providence vindicating itself. The Divinity that
was in His messages, the faultless perfection of His
ethics, the sublime tenor of His revelations, the
sanctity of His person, and the intensity of love
that prompted His admonitions, all these conspire
to hush our whispers of distrust and to command
our wayward hearts.
Our Lord's use of this incident throws some
light upon its obscure particulars. He is charging
His disciples not to expect any such indications of
His coming and His day of triumph, as will force
themselves upon men's observation, or divert the
ordinary tides of human care. He tells them that
the Son of man will come under the dynasty of
grace, as the angel of Jehovah came under the
rule  of the Patriarc*hs,-" As - it was in  the
days of Noe; as it was in the days of Lot." He
affirms that the world will be no more concerned as to impending judgment than the corrupt




60       THE WARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.
mass of mankind while the preacher of righteousness launched his church to float upon the deluge,
and that the dominant vices of men will be just as
defiant, and fattened hearts of irreligion just as
heedless, as the populace that vexed the righteous
soul of Lot and wassailed in the pride of their
martial conquests and the luxury of their teeming
acres. He fairly pictures to His disciples the cool,
brave indifference with which men buried their
souls in earthly pursuits, as if there were no God,
no heaven, no laws but those of commerce, no
pleasures but those that perish, and no higher tribunal than the figment of a fashionable etiquette.
He was to come for the purpose of dissolving
these falsehqods. But no gospel sent before Him
would revolutionize the traits of human nature, no
kingdom that He erected would annul the tempers
of depravity. Whether they considered that judicial approach of Jesus as exemplified in the destruction of Jerusalem, or as fulfilled in the crushing of
the Roman conqueror by one more barbarous and
brutal than himself, or as verified to each soul in
the solemn appeal of the gospel to the conscience,
or as completed to the man that dwells in a Christian atmosphere when death palsies the body
and eternity demands his soul; whenever they
regarded'the coming of the Son of man to be
realized, let them heed the admonition which was
sounded in the ears of those imperilled, which
echoed in the ears of those rescued and spared.
The fires of Sodom were a signal to those who
would not amend and could not escape. The in



THE WARNING OFL 0LOT'S WIFE.       6
corrigible and the scorner, the votary of pleasure
and the debauched victim of unbridled lust, saw
pictured before them in the days of the Son of man
the same irreversible judgment that hung over the
splendid opulence and the infatuated vice of Sodom.
But along the borders of the plain, where the
saline waters refused life to vegetation, and where
the belched gases and alkalies of the earth's bowels showed that nature had turned from motherliness to tyranny, from a bosom  of fertility to the
ashes of death, from the loveliest valley of Jordan
to a sea of mockery and to a tomb of sterility,there, upon the margin of this vast burial-ground
stood the monumental pillar that marked the fate
of one captured by mercy, drawn with the cords.
of affliction, extricated from the pollution and the
curse of sin, but overtaken by the floods of returning desire, and transfixed with the penalty of disobedience because she would not hasten where mercy led. Pointing to this monument of relapse, Jesus publishes it as the law of responsibility in the
days of grace-" He that is in the field, let him not
return back. Remember Lot's wife."
My brethren, wve accept this warning as it was intended. It images to us the dangers that attend
even a condition of grace. It is Christ's parable
of salvation defeated. It seems to sayihere are
three robberies of your immortality to be shunned.
We may have in our hands that stupendous gift
of God, eternal life, and may lose it. Catechismally, we say, the world, the flesh, or the devil may
defraud us of what is our' own-life eternal. By




62       THE WARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.
parable, we say, fires may overtake us, stifling,
burning, hardening our souls, like Lot's wife in
the valley.
The figure that warns us is no emblem of a soul
refusing gospels, banishing angels, unwilling to
escape. It is that other side of alarm, that shrieks
to a soul once saved and then lost-once guided
by angels and then loitering for devils-once tasting the powers of heaven and then smothered in
the/ ashes of vanity.
Is this thy own peril, 0 my soul.? Jesus reveals
it. Study it reverently, trace it minutely, 0 heart
so treacherous! Immortality so jeopardized! Note
every shadow of danger which heaven has painted
to your eye, " lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin."
Three sources of peril attend a condition of
grace.
The first is represented by the abundance of
Sodom, the luxurious comfort of those valleyhomes, and the enchanting beauty of nature which
emulated a Paradise lost, in the romantic scenery
and sumptuous clothing of that fertile plain. It
was this that tempted the choice of Lot. And
regaling herself with these enjoyments, the wife
of the patriarch little felt the stifling oppression of
sin that rioted around her ungrateful for the wealth
and the health, the harvests and the homes which
were nestled in that magic valley. Perhaps her
enchantment with this beautiful region had induced
Lot to venture the hazard of his piety amid such
ungodliness. Perhaps her delight in the dissipa



THE WARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.       63
tions or the display of the people had chained the
righteous family to a home hedged with temptation.* And when God's violence tore away the
charm to save her soul, lingering appetites dragged
her back to the scenery of beauty and indulgence.
She could not deny herself, at least, the privilege
of tarrying along the borders of this delight. The
field of pleasure from which loving angels led her,
and her faithful husband fled, still decoyed her
worldly heart. Read the parable, O my soul, of
worldliness re-asserting its dominion-of the trampled lust rising again to conquer thee-of the serpent's eye gleaming beside thy path-of the ease
and carelessness that once betrayed thee, again
inviting thee to tarry and to die.
A second peril lurks in those innocent affections which throb by nature within us, and often
symbolize to us the most that earthly vision can
behold of the purest rapture in heaven. Lot's
wife shared in these joys, and found those emotions exercised amid the Sodomites. Closely allied
with her own family were those who were imbued
with the scorn and the profligacy that dared the
justice of God. Her own sons-in-law mocked when
the gathering storm was foreboded.  No appeal
of the venerable Lot touched their fears; no disclosure of angelic warning smote their consciences.
The patriarch, his vacillating wife, and the two
daughters that cheered his home, weie the only
denizens of the four cities that were worthy to
escape. Ten righteous persons would have averted
the vengeance. But the kindred of Lot, with all




64      THE WARNING OF LOT'S WIFE.
his steadfastness, could not supply that quota of
mercy.
Painful, no doubt, it was to every kind sentiment
thus to be thrust out from associations which nothing but the universal impiety had alloyed. The
test was more than the fond heart of the woman
could undergo. She could cling to her husbandshe could console herself with the daughters that
escaped to the mountains; but when obedience demanded that she should hear the voice of God
rather than the outcry of affection, the sentiment
of the woman was stronger than the faith of the
saint-the love of kindred was greater than the
reverence for God-the promise of heaven to
make duty blessed was treated as a mockery. She
sent her heart back among the contaminations of
unrighteousness, and suffocated amid the fumes of
an over-anxious heart. She felt the bitterness of
that sentence which the Saviour of humanity writes
against humanity, " He that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me."
The fiery ordeal of Lot, and the monumental
fate of the woman, suggest to us the third, the insidious, the deadly danger that besets our salvation.  There was a secret whisper in her heart,
"God will not devastate all this beautiful plain."
"The men of Sodom are sinners before the Lord
exceedingly," but the pleasant fields are not rebels
-the meadows invite not His curse-some vestiges
of this innocent nature will escape. She loitered
because she doubted. She would not charge God
with such indiscriminate justice. It was no harm




THE WA RNING OF LOT'S WIFE.             65
to tarry and see the bounds of His scourge.  It
would be an honor to His mercy to cast herself
upon it amid the quiet tokens of His bounty that
fringed the plain.  Thus crept into Eden the wily
author of unbelief.  Thus whispers to the trembling heart the seducing spirit of affected humanity.
It speaks of mercy, when it means self-indulgence.
It quotes the attributes of God, when it means disobedience.  It argues from the harmless aspects of
nature, when nature itself waits for a redemption.
It pleads for salvation amid the valleys of Sodom,
when God urges us with the decree —" Stay not
thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest
thou be consumed."
"Then let thine angel seize thee by the hand,
And lead thee onward to a happier land,
While thou art able yet to hear his call,
Ere bound within by Passion's secret thrall."




VI.
THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
PROVERBS i. 7.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."
iN mapping out before the mind of his supposed
pupil the ways of safety and the ambushes of
peril, the wise man deduces all the elements of
character from a just sense of our relations to
God.
He indicates at the outset of his instruction the
primary sources of counsel and admonition which
if duly heeded will anticipate for us the harder
lessons of our own experience.  Subsequently he
proceeds to expose the insinuations and enticements
that beset, and inveigle, and mislead men. The
charms of evil company, the plausible promises of
crime, the alluring prizes of recklessness, the glittering purse of the gamester, the disguised snare
of the knave, the guarded confederacy of the profligate, the easy prodigality of the spendthrift, the
cunning smoothness of all that lead the way to
death,-these are the dangers that are sure to lurk
along his path.
As a fortification against these blandishments of
6 6 )




THE FEAR OF THE LORD;          67
woe, God has appointed natural preceptors and
guardians. " My son, hear the instruction of thy
father, and forsake not the law of thy mother."
Remember that God has implanted within their
breasts a natural affection, that they have a conscience over your conduct and a natural longing
for your good, which they can scarcely stifle, and
which prompts them to advise you more wisely
than they admonish themselves. Their dear-bought
experience they willingly give to you. Regard
them as, under God, the nearest keepers'of your
counsel, and the best expositors of your safety.
Extend a like confidence to all who stand in
similar relations of guardianship and affection.
These are the instruments of God's goodness and
care. These are the Providential securities against
those wiles and deceptions of evil that are ambushed
for your ruin.
But before even these, and in order that you may
be disposed to heed your Providential safeguards,
place a principle that opens into the avenues of
wisdom and safety: "The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge."
When we consider what accumulations of experience are condensed in that Book of Proverbs,what depths of the. human heart are there
fathomed, what suggestions of practical wisdom
are comprised in it, what results of experience are
here presented, what precepts of sound morality
are embodied in it, what multitudes have derived
from it the warnings that salved them from temptation,-we may appreciate the importance of that




68         THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
foundation which is here laid for all the instruction
it conveys, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge."
There is perhaps no surer way both to vindicate
and to explain this wise proposition than to expand
into its full sense the principal term which is here
employed.
The terseness of expression is characteristic of the
proverbial language. The expression comprehends,
as a proverb is meant to do, a variety of topics
under some one term. And in like conformity
with proverbial use, the proposition is to commend
itself to the experience of those who are qualified
to judge, and to the faith of those who would learn
in a wiser and a safer way.
It is an every-day proverb that he who will not
be wise by counsel must be left to learn in a harder
way; and so he who expects to attain the knowledge of divine and eternal truths, of things that his
senses cannot grasp, and,his conjectures cannot
certify; he who expects to know the satisfactions
of a good conscience and the value of a religious
life, without the fear of the Lord to guide and to
teach him, must learn by a slow and severe experience that he has disdained the beginning of knowledge.
Most treatises are written with the idea of leading the reader by degrees to a conclusion. The
Book of Ecclesiastes is constructed upon this model.
It seals the result of a life's vicissitudes with the
conclusion, "Fear God and keep -Iis commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." -




THE FEAR OF THE LORD.           69
But the wisdom of the Proverbs is based upon a
disposition to accept the teachings of experience.
It accordingly opens its treasures, as the wise men
opened their treasures before Christ, not waiting
for the sceptre of manhood and the robes of royalty,
but proposing as the suggestion of all experience
that we must be disposed to wisdom by the fear of
the Lord. It assumes that there is a wisdom which
can be learned through no other means. It virtually denies the claim of worldly sagacity, and sets
religion at the threshold, not at the remote and
secret corner of wisdom.  It scouts the whole
system of learning moral truths by tasting the
penalties of disobedience. It unlocks the imposture
with which cunning is apparelled, as if its ways of
caution and evasion were the lessons of wise forethought. It puts us upon the art of defending ourselves by being armed for the assaults of temptation, instead of compromising with sin and practicing on its principles with the reserved right to
denounce them. It disputes the pernicious maxim
of the devil, that none better knows the worth of
heaven than he who feels the bitterness of hell. It
pronounces the evil of sin to be best known, where
the love and the passion for it are unknown, and
like the voice of God in Paradise teaches that the
fear of the Lord and not the flavor of disobedience
is the beginning of knowledge.
In looking at this leading maxim of wisdom, our
attention is first arrested with the term by which a
disposition to learn is expressed.
"The fear of the Lord " is an expression either




70          TIHE FEAR OF THE LORD.
for the predominant character of a person, or for
the occasional sense of guilt and danger. In the
former sense, as denoting the characteristic qualities,
it is used in the text. Its converse is represented
as the life of wickedness and folly, practically
despising wisdom and instruction, or rushing upon
the course of sin without regard to the sense of
guilt and danger.  The term: with which this
practical folly is contrasted, must therefore denote
the bent of the disposition and the life towards a
practical fear of the Lord.
In the sense of character this fear stands directly
opposed to the paroxysm and passion of fear. It
excludes the latter by precluding the occasion for it.
In a similar way, the fear of dishonoring ourselves
by a base action, protects us against the fear that
pursues the conscience of baseness. Fear is an. affection of the soul, and its character depends entirely upon the relations of the person to the object. The fear of a good man's censure supposes our
exposure to blame, but the fear of a wicked man's
enmity supposes only our collision with his passions. The fear of the Lord is therefore an affection of the soul corresponding with our relations
to Him. If we are only the sullen expectants of
His rebuke, it is a tormenting sense of impending
danger. The soul that drowns the reproofs of conscience in the louder demands of sin, is described
as the wicked with no fear of God before his eyes.
But the trembling fugitive before the awakened
wrath of God is represented as hiding in the clefts
of the rocks for fear of the Lord.




THE FEAR OF TIHE LORD.           71
When the same expression denotes the accepted
and tranquil soul, it is not God himself that is transformed, but the relations of the man to Him on
which the affection of the soul is founded. He
stands before the inner eye in both cases, the same
majestic Being, the same infinite wisdom, the same
omniscient God, the same spotless holiness. In the
one case His majesty convicts us of our affront, His
wisdom condemns our resistance, His omniscience
penetrates our guilt, His holiness accuses us with
deserving His punishment; The soul is not in a
condition to regard Him as an object of complacency. It is full of the prevailing thought that there
is a penalty upon it. The greater fear of suffering,
suffering inevitably, possesses it. Its relation to
Him is that of aversion and estrangement. Its inclinations have unfitted it to behold Him  with
sympathy. He is revealed before its perceptions in
all perfection,-but the affection that guilt brings
uppermost is the fear of guilt returning to lacerate
the memory.
Take it as a passion startled by the panics of
bodily harm. What is our fear, then, but the overpowering of all other affections by the sense of
danger. We are driven out of our self-command,
surprised out of our better judgment, and pressed
from every side with the thought of danger. It is
the soul all thrown into one feeling, the twisting of
every faculty into the ohe posture of alarm. So
with the fear that remorse. wakens. The. soul is
disturbed from its slumber, and rousing only in the
sense of alarm gives itself wholly to the affection of




72          THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
alarm. Memory, fancy, speech, and muscle, all
tremble in the overpowering sense of danger.
And that fear shrinks into utter despair, as the
onmipresence of God leaves it no escape, the
omniscient eye leaves no disguise, the omnipotent
arm leaves no shelter.
In the other case, where the fear of the Lord has
already formed and colored the character, it is not a
paroxysm of guilt and danger; it is not a soul
thrown into tumult, and absorbed in the feeling of alarm. It is the sense of God's majesty
and wisdom and omniscience and holiness wrought
into the habit of our thinking and feeling and
acting.
The fear of.the Lord thus expresses the components of a reverent, adevout, a conscientious and
an upright character.
It is reverent, for it recollects that God has a sacred name to be honored, sacred places of His
special presence, sacred offices to testify our homage, a sacred word to be received with meekness
and attention.. It.is affected with the thought that
the Almighty is not only to be spoken of and spoken to, as the Most August of Beings, far, inconceivably far removed from our puny faculties, but
as the Revealed God who has solemnities of place
and act to cultivate our sense and express our awe
of His infinite greatness.
The fear of the Lord is devout, for it knows that
the great' power of God. is His ability to condescend. He can hear us, and accept our tributes,
and enter into our feelings, and yet be supreme and




THE FEAR OF THE LORD.            73
Wise. It is devout, for the treasures of wisdom are'with Him, and they are imparted to them that love
Him, and in this love are likened to Him.
The fear of the Lord is conscientious, for it lives
in the sense of His searching eye. It opens every
chamber of imagination to His scrutiny. It finds
His eye reflected from every thought and intent of
the heart. He is with it at the door of every act.
He is with it in the memory of every hour. It has
no rest, till it abandons every concealment, and
lives with a conscience void of offence. Its first
suggestion is "the eye of God."  It aims to look
upon all things as He beholds them. And such is
the abiding sense of His fear, that every footstep
of the downcast soul, and every vision of the lifted
-thought is surrounded with the legend that Hagar
found even in the wilderness, "Thou God seest
me."
The fear of the Lord is upright. It.recognizes
no fear as equal to that waiting upon the paths of
iniquity. It is upright, for this is the character
which God will protect, which no-evil shall utterly
discomfit, and which His infinite truth is pledged.to reward.
The fear of the Lord is but a synonym~ for that
character of devout and conscientious religion,
which draws its wisdom, its hopes, its desires, its
fears from the source of every noble endowment,
and the object of every salutary dread. Fear is
the passion most deeply planted in our nature. It
commands and controls the soul more than the
milder sentiments, which are pleased with the ex4




74         THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
cellence of virtue, and lured by the splendors of
recompense. It is used accordingly to express the
deep and thorough hold of God's majesty and
truth upon the soul, and it again and again signifies in saints the surrender of the affections to the
fear of those things which offend God, and the pursuit of those things that please Him. Can we wonder that this disposition should be made the first
element of practical wisdom?
If true knowledge is the learning of those
things which we have the greatest use and the
greatest necessity  to  know; if true knowledge is the employment of our thoughts about
things in their own nature the most excellent, and
in their relation to us of the utmost importance;
if true knowledge be the improvement of our
minds with practical truth, and not our amusement
with empty speculations; if the knowledge of a
happy and satisfied conscience be more desirable
than endless anxiety, horror, and despair; if the
study of God's favour be more desirable than the
art of making the friendship of the world; if the
experience,of a blessing from an almighty Benefactor be preferable to the knowledge of companionship with the profane and the vicious; if it be better to know how the happiness of the world may
be promoted, than to know the secret of making
each other miserable without cause and without
end; if true knowledge consists in perceiving and
adhering to whatsoever things are true, honest,
just, pure, lovely, of good report, things that promote the health of our bodies, and secure'the




THE FEAR OF THE LORD.         75
peace and quiet of our minds, things that establish
the order of the world and make other men happy
as well as ourselves, things that make our present
enjoyments easy, and the remembrance of what is
past comfortable, and the hopes and expectations of
what is to come secure; if the knowledge that thus
leads us to God and elevates man, be true and worthy knowledge, then is the fear of the Lord the beginning of knowledge, for without it we cannot know
these things as our experience, our assurance, and
with it, we increase and abound in knowledge and
all judgment.




VII.
THE SMITTEN ROCK.
NUMBERS XX. II.
"And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the
rock twice: and the water came out abundantly."
M EEKNESS tempted, and Christ the fountain
for the thirst of the soul-these are the first
suggestion and the ultimate lesson of the
history whose pith is given in the text.
Moses, betrayed out of his transcendent meekness, hurried into rashness and irreverence towards
God by the justness of his indignation towards
men; the servant of God who had deserted the
palace and the royalty of Egypt for the sake of
his conscience, now when more than a hundred
years had bleached his honorable head, warmed
and transported into hasty speech by the impatience of his people-piety selling itself for a moment to the follies of human infirmity-practiced
and habitual meekness roused into a sally of passion-our expectation of saintly strength and unconquerable prudence disappointed in the exhibition of weakness and precipitancy; man in his best
estate, with Jehovah for his companion and miracle
(76)




THE SMITTEN ROCE.             77
for his daily scene, yet revealed as the victim of
temptation and the defeated wrestler with sinthis is, at first, the picture of discouragement thrust
upon our view.
What confidence shall we indulge, when Holy
Scripture thus confesses the betrayal of the meekest man? Where is the boasted vigor of human
virtue, when the master-spirit of a dispensation is
vanquished on his own field? Where is the security of human perfection, when the aged lawgiver,
neither sustained by his own years of discipline
nor awed by the sullen discontents of his people,
forgets the majesty of his God, the weakness of
his own heart, the gravity of his age and his station?
My brethren, man is the boastful trumpeter of
the greatness which his nature achieves. God is
the teacher of the frailty and the imperfection and
the instability which no strength of man can banish
from himself.
He describes man as the grand argument of discouragement. He pictures humanity, as, in itself,
a life-long weakness. He puts a blemish upon
every human boast. He writes the truth of our
moral infirmity. He records the unceasing dangers of temptation, and displays the human heart
in one continuous panorama of'discouragement in
man, that God may be disclosed as the secret
strength of all His servants.
What an absolute contradiction is.the pride of
our heart to this express verdict of heaven against
us! Tempted, unstable, erring man, where is wis



.78           THE SMITTEN ROCK.
dom  but in the self-abasement and self-distrust
that kneel and hope in prayer?
"The gray-haired saint may fail at last,
The surest guide a wanderer prove;
Death only binds us fast
To the bright shore of love."
We say that such a picture of discouragement attaches to the history with which our text belongs.
The transaction here narrated is, no doubt, a
similar instance of popular murmuriing and of Divine interposition to that which occurred at the
rock Horeb when the smitten rock poured out a
supply for the two millions of thirsty pilgrims.
In either case, it was the outcry of the people
against God's chosen instrument of mercy to them
that gave occasion to the miracle of bounty. In
either case, it was the disposition of man to charge
all the difficulties of a good work upon his leaders
and benefactors and guides in its accomplishmentthe disposition to fault those who conduct us toward great results by great efforts, which woke
the ready tones of censure and complaint, and
challenged the Providence of God.
The miracle of the first supply from  the rock
had its subduing effect. The forty years of wandering were nearly terminated when this second
outbreak of murmuring assailed their lawgiver.
He meets the difficulty by presenting it before
his God.
Heaven assumes the remedy as its own. It regards the voice of rebellion as a denial of Provi



THE SMITTEN ROCK.             79
dence, and moves to vindicate itself. Moses, as its
instrument, shall yet be honored, but God much
more. The lawgiver and the priest are to stand
before this desert rock. They are to speak to it,
and the waters shall gush. In haste and heat of
spirit, Moses wields the rod-God's long-entrusted
token of his authority-and, more strenuous for his
authority than for God's means, exceeds his commission to speak to the rock, and smites it twice,
and " gave them drink as out of the great depths."
But, alas!'he had copied that distrust of God
which his own excited heart would rebuke. And
in the same excess of human passion, " he spake
unadvisedly with his lips." The lawgiver, the type
of human sinfulness in its highest moral achievement-the type of the utmost conscience could
do-the ear that could listen to God and the voice
that could speak for 1Him —the meekest of men
was but a guilty, mortal sinner, and to Jesus alone
of human kind was left the praise, " He doeth all
things well."
When we recollect that the conduct of. the lawgiver at this crisis was the subject of special reprehension from God, and that for his offence herein
Justice was compelled to write its sentence of exclusion from the land of promise against him, we
may be prepared for that typical revelation of
Christ which attended this failure of Moses.
It is no fancy of the rabbies, or of Christian mystics, that has found herein the revelation of Jesus.
The Holy Ghost, by the testimony of Paul, assures
us that the Rock was Christ.




80            THE SMlITTEN ROCK.
With us it is of little regard whether he intended
to say that the power and the goodness which lay
under that mass of rock, and came out abundantly
to refresh the church in the wilderness, was the
hidden presence of Christ, long before His incarnation, giving the refreshments of mercy to men,
or whether the rock was only, at that juncture of
Providence, a sign of what Christ should be at
the great juncture of man's fate in the universe.
It seems to me manifest that the tenor of the
Apostle's argument in the Ist Epistle to the Corinthians, where he makes this allusion, requires us to
regard the waters issuing from this smitten rock to
stay the thirst of Israel, as, at least, representing
those powers and virtues and gifts which emanate
from Christ for the refreshment and invigoration
and salvation of the soul.
And, to my mind, it is beyond dispute that the
Apostle intends its application first to' His gifts in
His Sacrament; but, consequently, all His gifts by
any means of grace.
With the whole scope of significance in this
type, I would not meddle. The briefest experience
in God's word ought to teach us that we cannot
exhaust its resources at a glance. And none but
the disciple of a theory, rather than of Christ, will
essay to limit that testimony of Christ which lay
under the whole system of types as the spirit of
prophecy.
I am constrained by the very stress of this Scripture to concentrate all reflection upon the nucleus
of wisdom here revealed. It sets before us, in the




THE SMITTEN ROCK.            81 
supplemental fullness of Scripture, what nature
could see but blindly, and tell but obscurely. It is
such a concourse of objects —Moses and Jehovah,
-and the people and the gushing rock,-of Providence, and the law, and the Church and Christ, as
brings into contact and into contrast elements the
weakest, and elements the mightiest. The Psalmist
says that he never understood Providence till he
went into the Sanctuary and saw the end to which
it was coming. And St. Austin was a scholar and.
a libertine and a disputatious " know everything,"
until a voice put the Scriptures into his hand, and
told him, " Take and read," " take and read."  So
we come into this shadowy region of types with
the discernment of God's purpose to inculcate
something that nature alone could not have taught.
He is adding here a higher lesson, and showing us
that there was a mystery beyond the great work
of daily Providence.  God was the miraculous
Redeemer of His peopte, but that they easily
learned to disregard. They put it all to the account of His Providence, and when that resource
seemed exhausted, they had no idea of anything
beyond.  This was repeatedly their character.
And now at this time it breaks out again, and in
its re-appearance He puts into typical signs this
truth, that man must have a Saviour over and
above Providence.  Here is the thought, my
brethren. Let it not escape from us. Man is in
absolute need of a Saviour, that shall make up for.him what Providence does not supply. Man is
not only a creature to be kept alive; he is a sinner
4*




82            THE SMITTEN ROCK.
to be saved. Providence does not keep him from
sin, Providence does not remedy the evil of his sin.
Providence places him in difficulties, in temptations;
and he sins the more. He needs a Saviour, a recovering power, a cleansing ocean of love to purify
his nature. He must have-Oh, that mercy would
meet his need! he must have a Saviour. The
drought of the wilderness is parching his soul. He
perishes in the thirst for life, and Moses can bring
him no succor but the dry sands of a natural Providence.
Was not the sign a lucid representation of the
sinner's need, the Saviour's gift?
Moses is deficient, but Christ is sufficient. The
law  can only apply to the Power that acts in
Providence, but grace opens in the desert its fountains. The type of conscience smites the rock,
but the type of the Saviour yields its streams of
refreshment. What were the word of Moses, what
were the power of his staff, what were the virtue
of his smiting, unless that Spiritual Rock had been,
the symbol of a Saviour?
As it was typified in the desert, so is it realized
in life. The open hand of Providence may satisfy
the soul for a season. God is wonderful in nature,
and bountiful and kind; and man may live contented with his conscience and contented with his
lot. But ever and anon the drought comes. Ever
and anon the soul feels its destitution in a barren
and dry land. It drinks of the dews, but it thirsts
again. It drinks of the pools of excitement, but it
thirsts the more. It drinks of earthly satisfaction,




THE S2MITTEN ROCK.            83
but it fevers with the draught. Something to refresh, something to purify and cheer and to quench
the thirst for immortality,-something to be a happiness lasting, pure, and safe,-this is the want.
Who knows it not?  Who feels not the burning of
this desire? Who is not ready to murmur that
Providence withholds the draught?
-Oh, it is not in nature to give,-it is not in the
power of the law.
It must come from the smitten Rock. Jesus, the
wounded and the crucified of Moses; Jesus the
Rock of our salvation, He is the source of that happiness which swells into abundance.
We may hear that such an apostate has abandoned the Saviour as a delusive source of rest; that
such a disciple has shrunk back with the disappointed cry that his religion was more of a hardship
than a comfort; that such a practiced follower of
Christ once rejoiced in the pleasures of his Christian
calling, and now pronounces the whole a delusion.
I doubt none of these things. Thousands are misled; thousands are deluded by their own emotions;
thousands substitute their own schemes for the
gospel of Christ; thousands are saved from some
besetting vice, without living in Christ; and the
evidences are poured in floods, in floods of delusion,
that the life of apparent religion and the life of
Christian integrity are easily interchanged. But I
do deny that ever one soul from the days of Judas'
remorseful confession, from  the days of Peter's
penitent tears, that ever one human soul has truly
and fairly tested the reality, the peace, the blessed



84            THE SMITTEi ROCK.
ness of the pure-minded Christian, and then as
truly and fairly pronounced it to be anything less
than a Divine gift and an unearthly sweetness and.
rest to the soul.  Millions from  their. dreariest
tribulations in this life, millions from their repose
beneath the smile of Jesus, millions from every
tongue unite to beseech us, "Taste, and see that
the Lord is gracious."
And the smitten Rock, Whose head pierces beyond the clouds into the splendors of heaven,
echoes with the assurance, " Whosoever drinketh
of the water that I shall give. him shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him
a well of water springing into everlasting life."




VIII.
COBWEBS.
JOB viii. 13, 14; xxvii. 8.
"The hypocrite's hope shall perish; whose hope shall be cut
off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.
" For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained,
when God taketh away his soul?"
THE language evidently implies that some
satisfactory enjoyment or expectation is already in the possession of the- hypocrite.
Probably the constitution of the human mind is
such that no one could live short of despair unless
buoyed up by some present contentment or some
hope for the future.  It matters little in what path
or in what complicated paths of pleasure tve move
to our destiny, the same law holds throughout this
state of mingled happiness and misery, a decoy of
hope must be our incitement.
It is easy to be sentimental on this topic, but we
choose to be plain and direct, as looking to the
helps of salvation and eternal joy, rather than the
food of transient entertainment. If I wvere standing among the persecuted band of the early disciples, tempted to swerve towards the compliances
(85)




86                COB WEBS.
of philosophy, I should draw my topic from the
heavens and the graves of the righteous, and set
forth the sparkling recompenses of patience and,perseverance unto death.  If I were standing
among the professed disciples of heathenism,
with nature for their teacher and the sibylline
whispers of tradition for their religion, I should
draw an argument from the works of God, and
bring in the gospel as the light issuing from the
home of Deity, and the solemn utterances of the
Divine carpenter in Galilee. But among Christians, and such Christians, I dare not copy the
boldness of my Master-" Woe unto you, hypocrites;" but I must venture upon the wisdom of
the Shuhite, "The hypocrite's hope shall perish;
whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall
be a spider's web."
I will ask you to consider, first, What is understood by the appellation of hypocrite; secondly, To
whom the text may be applied; thirdly, The certainty of a miserable fate, the fate here represented;
and lastly, The measure of the evil that awaits the
hypocrite.
The appellation of hypocrite literally applies to
any one who acts an assumed part. It was first
used to designate those who played a fictitious
part upon the stage. As carried into morals or
into the transactions of real life, the same idea is
retained. A hypocrite is one who wears the mask
of a feigned character. The history of the stage
is the best explanation of the forms which this vice
of hypocrisy may assume. There, as we all know,




COB WEBS.                87
the most profligate corruption may walk in the
majesty and attire of. unsullied integrity. The
cringing coward of the streets struts in the bearing of some ancient hero-lisping ignorance wears
the robe of a Solon-a villain that has cheated the
gallows will play the part of the upright judgelips that never sent a prayer above the ceiling of
the play-house will mouth the supplications of
saints-the profane swearer will wear the vestments of the minister of God, and the painted face
of pollution will mock the blush of maiden modesty. In religion, he is a hypocrite who counterfeits a character which is not his own. It may be
defined as an-affectation of the name joined with a
disaffection to the thing, "a form of godliness,
while denying the power thereof." There are
plainly two classes of men to whom this appellation may be given. He is, in the first place, a
hypocrite who is an intentional and corrupt dissembler, who knowingly and with effort wears an
appearance directly contrary to his inward character, and absolutely disguising his real condition.
Such are they that, under pretences of friendship,
worm their way into others' confidence only to betray and to ruin them. Such are they that make
great professions of simplicity and honesty that
they may overreach and ensnare. Such are they
that put on a religious profession only to further
their worldly interests, and to gain credit among
men. Such are they that make great noise and
ostentation in their public religion, and are Neros
catching flies in the hours of secret meditation.




88                COB WEBS.
The stage, when spoiled of its primitive purity,
and pandering to the most degraded tastes, is
the image of this masked dissimulation. A hypocrite of this description is the very hyena of the
moral world, prowling among the graves, ranging
by night, with every noble trait extinguished.
Meekness itself broke into denunciations against
the outward varnish of such noissome sepulchres.
Another class of hypocrites is far above these
instances of designed dissimulation.  The more
refined hypocrite is not bent upon deceiving others,
but is carried along with the deceiving of himself.
He has a reverence for conscience which thp other
possesses not, and so sincerely aims at some degrees of virtue. He has less idolatry of men's
opinion, and so rises above the pretences by which
the other hopes to win. There is a vast distance
between these two forms of hypocrisy. But both
deserve the name; both await the consequences.
Deceit is the element of corruption in both cases;
but the one is managing to deceive others-the
other has managed to deceive himself, The one
will resist every appeal, and needs, for the good
of others, to be upbraided and unmasked. The
other needs only to pause and seriously to consider
the truth of his condition, when the mask will be
detected, and the illusion that betrays him be
broken.
I think it to be evident that the language of the
text is to be applied to hypocrites of this less corrupted class. Only of such a one could any hope
be asserted. He that persists in a bad course,




COB WEBS.               89
knowing it to be such, can entertain no hope for
the future. His hypocrisy must assume some of
the character of self-deception, or the element of
-hope could not quicken it. It is not the destruction of the hypocrite himself, the designing dissembler, which is here declared; but it is the
hope, the stay. of his soul, the web of his weaving,
that is to perish.'The particulars of this class
need not therefore be explained.  The.general
description is enough to distinguish the subjects
of this moral disorder. Would you see the array
of hypocrisy, thus fashioned into self-deceiving,
which Christian lands present, the name of its victims is Legion. They swarm over desolate Christendom like the plagues of Egypt. Their fabrics
of cunning delusion hang around the structures of
the gospel, as the webs of the spider around the
ruins of a deserted home.'You see the symptoms
of the disease fastening upon minds that err concerning the essential duties of the gospel. What
one has said of eloquence, might be asserted of
repentance or conversion or any other root of
Christian hope, " Many would have been able to
have reached it, had they not deemed themselves
already to have arrived at it." A season of alarm
and trouble concerning the soul has passed for the
foundation-duty of repentance, and the work of
daily anguish over the record, and of momentary
struggle against besetting sin and tendencies to
sin, has been left undone. A temporary change
of habits, or a successful amendment of some glaring faults has passed, for the duty of conversion,




go90              COB WEBS.
and left the hypocrite to a hope strong enough to
buoy him into death, but frail as the web of the
morning, which snaps in the mid-day wind, and
fruitless as the almost persuaded conversion of
Agrippa. You detect the same element of hypocrisy in the perverted promises of Scripture. It
would weary to follow the whole detail of men's
subtle evasions.  Take, for instance, the gloss
which thousands put upon the passages which
record God's scrutiny of the heart, and His acceptance of a willing mind, and His dispensation
of positive precepts.  Know they not, can we
otherwise believe than that God demands the
deed where the performance is possible-that He
requires a law to be observed unless it contravene
some other law of equal obligation? He puts it
into our power to do, as well as to will, and then
expects both the one and the other. Where the hindrances of His providence forbid the act, there and
there only is His majesty sufficiently honored with
the intention and desire. It is one's bounden duty,
as he would live in the favor of God, to read His
Word, to hearken to its instructions, to frequent
the place of public worship, and to bend the knee
in private homage. But blindness may seal the
book of wisdom to our vision, and sickness may
chain us to postures of irreverence and to places
where we, cannot share in the public tribute of
adoration and praise. God will accept the heart
that yearns for the withholden privilege. It is our
duty to remember the love of God who gave His
well-beloved for us'in the memorials of the cruci



COB WEBS.                91
fled Jesus; but if the Almighty cast our lot remote
from the scenes of the sacrament, the pantings of
the soul for the inward communion of Christ will
be supplied from the fountain of compassion. It
is our duty, each of us individually, to see that the
offerings in God's house are sufficient for God's
poor, and His daily praise and His purposes of'
mission to famishing or benighted men. But some
are too poor to bear the whole burden, and the
rich may revel and leave the gospel to languish,
and yet he loses not his reward who longs and
labors in lonely sacrifice for the end; for " if there
be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to
that a man hath, and not according to that he hath
not." But the refined hypocrite neglects all these
duties, and omits that he has the means to perform
under the vain persuasion that God asks no more
than the offering of the heart. The hypocrisy strikes
still deeper. It belies the attributes of God. It
shapes Him to its own desires, and converts Him,
the Almighty Ruler, into a changing patron of
our passions and caprice. If it be only fashionably worldly, and decently averse to self-denial,
and morally negligent of the worship of God, it is
content to acknowledge God's justice, yet as an
attribute that is only aroused against some gross
and flagrant sinner, some offence that is visibly
exposed to the present retributions of misery.
Are not my words the language of soberness?
Is not the mercy, the exceeding mercy of God,
made a daily offset, not only to His spotless holif
ness and His abhorrence of iniquity, but to our




92                COB WEBS.
open and habitual and presumptuous transgressions? Is not grace converted into a bounty upon
sin? Are not children taught to be hypocrites, to
grow up as if religion and obedience were meant
for manhood, and mercy would make a blank of
youth and iron-linked habits? Are not Christian
duties neglected, Christ's commands despised, with
hearts as cheerful as hope can make them, and
with no breach in the delusion of peace, till the
winding-sheet is worn? To whom, then, does our
text apply? It renders its own answer. To the
Christian legions of baptized apostates-to the merry
hearts of civilized and polite ungodliness-to the
many that listen without obedience, and the more
that forsake the house of prayer. " The hypocrite's
hope shall perish; whose hope shall be cut off,
and whose trust shall be a spider's web."  "What
is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained,
when God taketh away his soul?"
The sequel of this hypocritical career now opens:
upon us. As surely as that hope is built upon
false foundations, so surely shall it be removed.
What is the experience of the world in hypocrisy
which regards only the affairs of the world? Dis-'
appointment to the schemes of dissimulation, and
contempt without the pity of mankind.  How
much more certainly, if greater certainty be possible, must the dissembler in religion, and the
builder upon the foundations of sand, find his
refuge swept away by the storms of calamity. The
truth of God's word is pledged to this result. It
originates the appalling question, "What is the.




COB WEBS.               93'hope of the hypocrite, when God taketh away his
soul?" It determines the narrow bound of impunity: "The triumphing of the wicked is short, and
the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment."
Which, then, shall stand, the truth of God, or the
waywardness of men? Which shall prove victorious? Which is sealed for an everlasting security? The'covenant of the hypocrite with his
own soul shall moulder upon his grave- the
judgment of God shall'live to confront the
offender.
Observe on what the persuasion of the hypocrite
rests, and the certainty of the fate awaiting him
will be the more evident. Errors and unbelief
are the only pillars of his expectation. Can these
survive the unmasking of the grave? When God's
nature cannot be misunderstood, when the heinousness of sin can "-t be blinked from our thoughts,
when the happiness of the soul must be a love of
obedience instead of a hope of impunity, when.the
righteous are scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? How is it here, I
ask you? Do designs founded upon errors succeed? Is ignorance successful, because it refused
the guidances of wisdom?  Does. this state of
God's forbearance manifest any such arrangements
of lenity? What ground, then, in reason, what
ground in experience is there.for the hypocrite's
hope? Merely the reason that sin and delusion
will ever travel on, that they love to have it so.
The wisest and the purest hypocrite that breathes
can find no better reason for his hope of heaven,




94                COB WEBS.
than his fear to lose it, and his desire, in spite of
forfeiture, to win his rest at last.
Finally, where shall we look for the measure of
the evil that is rolling upon hyprocrisy? The day
is coming when the besom of wrath shall sweep
from their hold upon the pillars of the temple of
God the cobwebs of human art.  It is the last of
the hypocrite's confidence.  His trust shall be a
spider's web. Systems of religion spun from his
own brain, like the threads of network from the
insect's body, shall not mask him from the eye of
God. Hope is the last relief that misery can use.
What unmigitated woe must swallow souls whose
hopes have parted company with them forever?
Amid the sorrows and discouragements of this
world, whereof the hypocrite shall inherit his full
share, he is accustomed to console himself with the
thought of rest and comfort in another world.
The world is filled with such hope. It is the buoy
of immortality on these tumultuous waters. Imagine the surprise of the hypocrite, as he comes to
his journey's end, and as the wayworn traveler,
where he expects refreshment, finding want and
hatred and slaughter. The language of prophecy
glares, at last, in a terrific fulfilment-" Fearfulness
hath surprised the hypocrites.  Who among us
shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among
us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"
Search, then, your inmost heart, lest your hopes
of heaven be more delusive than your fears of hell.
Keep back thy servant, also, 0 Lord, from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me.




IX.
THE BROKEN HEART.
PSALMS lxix. 20.
"Reproach hath broken my heart."
TI   E desolate complaint of this Psalm, and the
imprecation of avenging penalties it contains,
would unquestionably have been applied by
us solely to the person of its persecuted author,
had not the inspired teacher made known its reference to the suffering Saviour. It is His oppressed
and desponding soul that utters the cry of unconsoled and utter grief —" Reproach hath broken my
heart."
We take it to be a literal description of the spiritual suffering He endured. We assume that no
other language can so exactly indicate the actual
cause of His distress, and the actual effect of His
sufferings. In the face of all the incredulity which
may sneer at the proposition, we scruple not to
affirm that our Blessed Redeemer was an instance
of one who died of a broken heart.
The phrase itself is heard with skepticism. Men
of a certain turn of mind cannot imagine such a
thing possible as a broken heart. They put it
(95)




96           THE BROKEN HEART.
aside among the fancies of poets, and the tragical
dreams of romance. Or they class it among the
cases of madness or of imbecility, and note it
among the pitiable signs of disease and defect in
heart, rather than the product of sound feelings
rightly controlled and acting. It seems to them
to be the result of faulty affections, and the needless
consequence of- mistaken grief and undue sorrow.
They regard it as a decided case of mismanagement. They blame the brooding over disappointment, and the laying of troubles to heart. And to
them there is no reality in the imagined breaking
of the heart; but the sufferer and the victim has,
in truth, given up all heart, and ceased to feel as
becomes our nature.
Now, in answer to all this skepticism,. it may
suffice to recall the manifold forms in which this
broken heart is recognized by the Word of God..
It is regarded as that state of feeling which is above
the scorn of heaven-" A broken and a contrite
heart' Thou wilt not despise." And as if to picture
the contrast between" the pitiless cruelty of earth,
and'the tender compassions of heaven, the wicked
man is described by his disposition to be unmerciful and oppressive, carrying his high hand so far
into the excesses of hatefulness'as even to "slay
the broken in heart." And lest- any countenance
should be given to the notion of the worldly votary that the broken heart is a fault, and a triumph
of the worst elements, and an unmanly condition
-that puts one out of the pale of respect for his
heart, it is mentioned as a sort of especial claim to




THE BROAKEN HEART.            97
God's consideration — as a separating ourselves
from what God abhors-as a title to His peculiar
indulgence, a preparation for more intimate privileges, that "the Lord is nigh unto them that are of
a broken heart." And so eminent does this broken
heart rank among the objects of God's regard, that
He sent His Son, as it were the sign of His own
broken heart; and He anointed that Son in the
flesh with all the'gifts of,His Spirit, in order that
He might " heal the broken-hearted;" and as if to
illustrate the reality, and to make it the more certainly incident to human nature, even though innocent, He makes even the spotless man to confess
that this was the calamity which God had ordered
and God's own act produced: "' Thy rebuke. hath
broken my heart."
It is impossible, then, to escape from the conclusion that God's Word, at least, is not ambiguous.
It looks upon the "broken heart" as a reality, al
pitiable reality, a laudable, and, in some degree,
sacred reality. It speaks in contradiction of the
world's surmises. It pities this state, as a noble
and a generous, and, in the highest degree, mzanly
suffering. It makes the "broken heart" such a
misery and such an excellency, at the same time,
that God's compassions were excited by it, and He
was moved to do it honor. And it is so compatible, not only with innocence, but with true greatness of soul, that Christ was never so superior
to common men as when He died of a broken
heart,
The term, however, is so variously employed,




98           THE BROKEN HEAR T.
that we must give different shades of meaning to
it as it is differently applied.
We are led, therefore, to inquire, first, in wh-at
sense it is understood in the world; and secondly,
how it applies to Christ.
In common phrase, the broken heart is expressive
of utter grief occasioned by disappointment in.
that which engages our most intense affections.
It is not possible to one'who does not live in his
affections. It is not possible, unless one is so
eagerly and cordially enlisted in a cause as to
merge all. other objects of desire in it. It is not
possible, except also where one has found some
object which, in a measure, has entertained him
either with the possession or with the hope. Who
wonders that the cold, selfish, scheming soul should
be skeptical?  Who wonders that the man who
puts his heart into nothing save himself and his
own self-sufficiency, who counts nothing beyond
himself really a part of his happiness, that he
doubts whether there is such a thing as a broken
heart? Who wonders that the withered affections
of the heartless voluptuary, or the mechanical earnestness of a calculating charmer, or the schooled
insincerity of the man of the. world, or the woman
of fashion, that these should turn into pleasantry
the silliness of broken hearts?
It is the serious tragedy of life; the life-engrossing and the death-coveting earnestness of
Romeo and Juliet; it belongs to the region of unartificial emotions; and they that only act a part
and wear the dress and speech of sincerity for the




THE BROKEN HEA RT.              99
making up of a scene, can have no faith in others'
sincerity.  Of course, every little obstacle is not
sufficient to crush a strong affection.. And the
heart is not bruised by the mere shadow that lies
across it. To complete this work of violence, the
heart must meet a calamity that offers no alleviation-that neither soothes it with a better hope,
nor leaves it a happy recollection to caress the
wound of disappointment. It must be an affliction
that lays its stroke upon the affections. It is not
loss that makes it, it is not loneliness, it is not privation; for all these are easy to bear when there is
a solace within. It is not the thought that effort
has been a failure; for, while the heart remains, it
will scorn to be subdued. It is not the sense of
shame, or the exposure to derision; for alr this our
natural pride resents as much as it feels. It is not
abject servility of spirit, cowering before a difficulty or a dread; for this is the weakness of one
who begins without heart, and has nothing to hazard, nothing to be injured. It is not the want of
resolve and affection and will, which even, in the
worldly sense, forms or contributes to the broken
heart.  No; the very foundation of the idea is
the intensity of the affection coupled with the
entireness of purpose. There must be emotionthere must be an object that calls for our faculties
and our feelings, and there must be activity and
animation pervading the whole soul, and centering
upon some chief desire, or there is neither a wound
nor the heart to wound.
There are two reasons, therefore, why this mis



100          THE BROKEN HEART.
fortune scarcely receives the respect of the world.
With some it is the most egregious of follies to be
so much overruled by the heart.'And they seem
to deduce this principle from the best of authorities; for wisdom  itself avouches that he -who
"trusteth in his own heart is a fool."  It is presumption to dispute a sentence so loftily derived.
Yet we very much question whether this is, after
all, such a slur cast upon the living and acting with
a -heart. The same charge is laid upon him who
trusteth in his-own wisdom, or in uncertain riches;
and yet not even the sagacious world has taken
this to be an argument against the having or the
using either wealth or wisdom. Perhaps the danger is about parallel in all the cases; and the folly
is not in the possessing, but in being afraid to spend
and to use and to turn to right account, and to
convert into active talents.  And, in this sense,
who is the wise man's fool but he that shuts up his
heart in cold imprisonments of selfishness, or buries
it in napkins of civility, and has no show of its use
to exhibit.
There is a part of the world with whom it is the
original sin to be carried away by zeal, and by
having more heart than is really conducive to our
comfort and our profit. They represent the Arctic
and Antarctic extremes, and, like the greasy Esquimaux, count it a distinction to have the power of
laughing at the ardent natures that loathe the
smooth blubber. They are diverted with the calamities which men bring on themselves, by indulging and strengthening their affections, and they




THE BROKEN HEAR T.            I O
imagine that an affection is worth nothing except
as we can so moderate it as never to suffer any
deep affliction from it. They say that if it must
be wounded, it might better not live-if we'must
suffer in heart, we might better put our pleasure
in such heartless living as to save the suffering.
Need we say that this disposition, flattered, as it
may be, by philosophy, is the remotest from Christian wisdom. That puts the substance, not only of
character but of devoutness towards God in the
heart, and that sets before us, on the pedestal of
super-angelic elevation, the man of purest affections and of most generous sympathies, who wept
at the grave of his friend, owned a beloved disciple, baptized himself in blood. out of love to man,
and consigned himself to the fate of a broken
heart.  O' mightiest of friends, most tender of
brothers! "not as the world giveth, gavest Thou
unto us." It was not for a return, that the life of.
Christ was given for us. It was not that we should
repay this incalculable debt with our miserable
constraints of affection. It was out of the abundance of his own heart, because it was excellent to have affections, though they wrenched
us with anxiety and took our blood for their
cost.
2. By far the greater part of the world shuns
these frozen' regions of glittering heartlessness.
With the most of men, the crime is not that original sin of having a heart and cherishing it, but
the allowing such a great and noble and angelic
part of man to be overpowered and broken. They




102          THE BROKEN HEAR T.
put the very virtue of the heart in its intentness,
and resistance, and superiority to disappointment.
With theni it is only excellent by its strength
against difficulties-its endurance in spite of disaster. They would have a heart within a heart,
and the inmost of all to be the determination never
to feel or confess ourselves baffled. We may be
wounded in the outer circumference of affection,
but this is only to drive us into the entrenchment
that never yields. * This unbroken purpose, to be
above the control of our affections, is what most
men call heart. The broken heart is, in their estimate, a heart demolished, annulled, and they count
it a moral impossibility to make a manly heart out
of one that has been thus despoiled of its integrity;
nay, converted into no heart. It is, to their mind,
an extinction of life, and nothing but a miracle can
give to the shattered material a resurrection. We
reach the very idea with which we first described
the world's skepticism. The broken heart is the
sign of defect. It matters little to the carnal eve
how this misery is incurred. It is not an inquiry
whether the affection has been misplaced, whether
the heart has leaned upon a treacherous staff until
both broke: together. It is enough that there was
a shivering into hopeless abandonment of effort.
The radical defect, the world says, is betrayed, and
the secret is that there was not a genuine heartthat there was not the manly will which defies the
hammer of tribulation. And however the world
may commiserate the sorrow (for we know ourselves to be all of kin in that), yet, for the broken




THE BROKEN HEAR T.           103
heart, the world has no respect-over it chants no
elegies to greatness, rears no monuments of commendation.  It carves an Alas! for the epitaph,
and it symbolizes the broken heart not by a cross
on which heaven and earth meet, but by the broken column, or the shattered vase of ashes, emblems of an unfinished work.
In what sense, then, we inquire, can the broken
heart be predicated of Christ? With deference
to the suggestions of Scripture, and with the conviction that we are representing the spirit of its
testimony, would we enter the mysteries of this
sacred subject.
It is lawful for us to infer that the human soul
of Christ was not unconscious of those hopes and
fears which innocently agitate our own souls. We
have reason to regard Him as ignorant of the
amount of sacrifice to be required of Him in bearing the iniquity of us all. And we have reason,
therefore, to regard some of. the most consoling
hopes of a righteous soul as made to Him the
sources of disappointment and sorrow. The fact
does not at all prejudice the submission'of His
will, but rather explains this, and shows how His
suffering, as it proceeded, was a progressive and
continuous sacrifice of the will to that of the
Father. We say that these were sufficient reasons
for Hiis entertaining some expectations of consolation and success to mitigate the severity of His
sufferings, and vindicate, while He was living His
wronged and execrated name.  Holy Scripture
gives us, at least, two distinct intimations of the




I04          THE BROKEN HEAR T.
sorrow that came in this way of disappointment to
break His heart.
Our text tells us, that it was reproach which
broke His heart; and it has an explanation immediately ensuing, as if the weight of what so surprised His strength was too much for his heart,
and left no room for any consoling thought-occupying and possessing the heart-till it was "full
of heaviness."  And to identify the cause of this
unexpected grief, the Redeemer is represented as
declaring His hope and His disappointment: " I
looked for some to take pity on me, but there was
none; and for comforters, but I found none."
There seems to have been a cherished hope that
some tribute of affection, or some act of gratitude,
would mitigate for Him the agonies of His painful
cross. He seems to have counted upon some exhibition of human affection which might, at least,
suggest that His love as a man and a brother had
not been entirely wasted and frustrated. By the
miracles of healing, by the miracles of supply, by
the raising of the dead, by the drying of the
mourners' tears, by the gladdening of parents'
hearts, by.the light he had diffused over the disconsolate, by His own warm affections, by His
tears for others, and His ever-ready offices to the
sick and the'dying and the dead, He might have
supposed that the cross and cruelty he awaited
from Scribes and Gentiles, would yet be pitied
and comforted with some recognition of the love
and the debt. What God designed for Him to
suffer, He does not seem to have entirely known.




THE BROKEN HEART.            I05
And the hand of God, by His prayer, He would
not stay or limit. But of man what should He
receive?  Would man so utterly forsake Him?
Could man be so heartless as to leave Him without
a sign of gratitude? Was there any barrier so high
and so strong that man would not reach to Him at
this hour of need even one poor word of pity, one
sigh to relieve His own?
It is easy to believe that in the expectations of
His human soul there was all along a comfort in
the thought that mankind, who would not be recovered by anything else, might, at least, be drawn
by affection. So far as human feelings were alive
in Him, He must have been full of confidence that
man could not universally resist love. But when
this last hope of drawing men to Himself and so to
life was dashed-when his desolation uttered that
hopeless language, " Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me and made me to be abhorred
of them. Lover and friend hast thou put far fi-om
me. All my inward friends abhorred me, and they
whom I loved are turned against me"-was it
strange that the work of recovering men by love
seemed to His human soul a failure? With a love
for mankind so intense that life was consumed in
the flame, and yet with mankind so intractable that
neither his innocence nor his sacredness nor his
love could be. a protection-that he must be not
only neglected, but spit upon and scorned, and
reviled, and hated- oh! was it not a reproach-a
reproach upon his life's whole work, his heart's
last hope-which dashed every prospect to hu5~




io6         THE B' OKAEN HE'AR T.
man view into atoms, and literally broke his
heart.
There is, however, a farther intimation of the
cause that desolated His heart. The mention of
reproack carries the eye back to a previous passage
in the same Psalm —" The reproaches of them that
reproached Thee, are fallen upon me." That this
refers to Christ, and how, St. John hath taught" The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," and
the reproaches follow as the consequence of this
zeal. And what this zeal imports, the act of Christ
has made manifest. It seems, therefore, to be the
record of Scripture that the Redeemer's heart was
broken by the reproach which His zeal for the
house of God incurred. It was His demeanor of
authority in driving profanation from the Temple
that awoke the fatal wrath of the priests and elders.
It was His language concerning His authority and
power over the Temple that was produced for His
conviction. In fulfilling the office that was laid
upon Him, He must exercise authority, He must
command obedience. Man resisted. Man would
put religion in the heart only, and not in the Temple. Manll would use the very sacredness of God's
house to shelter his own avarice and minister to
his own aggrandizement. Was it not singular that
a man so despised and so weak should have put to
flight the whole crowd of buyers and sellers, of
great men and holy men? And might not the
hope be framed out of this. fact that His zeal for
God's house commended itself to men's conscience,
and was a source of power, and must give him un



THE BROKEN HEAR T.          Io7
disputed claim to their reverence? But alas! it
was this very zeal that consumed Him. It was the
source that seemed to be full of power, that betrayed Him into the enemy's power. It was the
very authority that God gave Him, and on two
occasions made conspicuous, which was turned
into accusation of blasphemy. Listen to the tenor
of all that taunt and ridicule and invective which
was flung at Him upon the cross. Hear how vindictively they threw in His face His claim to authority over the Temple. Mark the sting that lay in
their words, when they thus laughed at His claims,
and boasted that His great success in the Temple
was the cause of His failure. And He could see
that the work was all in vain-that the Temple He
had cleansed was doomed to ruin. His office as a
man-that which had warmed His soul with its
most glowing zeal-that which had taken up every
fear and every affection into its own surpassing
force-this was a baffled, disappointed work; nay,
by the very death He bore, the very triumph He
gained, this delight of His human heart was crushed. Was it strange that, in the bitterness of an
utter, a certain disappointment, "the reproach had
broken His heart?"
My brethren, there is no need that we should
dilate upon the fact of Christ's thus offering, with
His death, the very sacrifice which heaven exacts
of man. He had no heart of sin to break with
shame and sorrow for what was in it, and so His
innocent heart was broken with defeat and reproach.




Io8         THE BROKEN HEART.
God took that as the noblest offering which
human nature could present. Wait not, then, for
gold or for success-wait not to bring money or
price. The broken heart, that yields the hope of
saving itself except in God-the broken heart is
the frankincense whose perfume is welcomed at
the altar, is welcomed at the throne.
God took the broken heart of Jesus and made it
the heart of the King of Kings. And He will
make the broken heart anew. He will turn its
sense of degradation into the majestic consciousness that the new heart makes us invincible. It
will come to a joy which the world cannot give
and hell cannot take away.
God of all pity, break-though it be by tribulation, though it be by saddening earth to us-break
these hearts of clay, and make us to live as chosen
to be, through the broken heart (of Jesus and our
own), kings and priests unto God.




YOUTHFUL CONCEIT.
LAM. iii. 27,
" It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."
THE best days of life are soon gone; and time,
that stayeth never for man, seems then to fly
with greater speed. Death lingers to the
old, the night is long to the sick man, the freshness
of the morning will not bring him his strength,
and he crieth out in vain for the peace of the
grave.' To all these the sun is slow inr its course,
and they bear the burthen of their days; but
youth is a dream of gladness which comes but to
vanish; it is sweet as a smile that perishes; it is
bright and rapid as'the arrows- of God when He
shooteth His lightnings in the heavens.
If. youth, thus, is the season when the foundation
of wisdom is to be laid, and if that season passeth
away thus rapidly, we must not suffer occasions to
escape us which admit of no substitute; nor neglect
improvements which no other period of life will
ever enable us to attain.'Whether we can see it or
not, it is true beyond all disputation, and God has
not yet in nature or in revelation found it necessa(I09)




I IO          YO UTHFUL  CONCEIT.
ry to make you or me, or any uprising scion of
mankind an exception, nor has He expunged a sylla-.
ble of the record of His truth, " It is good for a
man that he bear the yoke in his youth."
By the yoke, I understand the sacred writer to
mean, in general, a state of discipline; everything
which education teaches; the restraint of passions,
the formation of habits, and the cultivation of faculties. It is not my intention, at present, to launch
into so wide a range as that to which this explanation would seem to lead; but, in pointing out a few of
the characteristic faults of youth, to show in what
manner the young are most likely to prove intractable to that yoke which the pulpit advises them to
bear, and to make it clear what those sins and
infirmities are which present the most serious
obstacle to their progress in Christian improvement.
The first. error I shall notice, and to which I
consideryouth to be more exposed than any other
period of life, is conceit; that which our Saviour
characterizes under the name of self-exaltation,
and St. Paul reproves as being " high-minded,"
not in our modern sense of elevation above any
mean or degrading motive, but in the sense of being" wise in our own conceits,"-an overweening
opinion of our own good and great qualities. The
thorns of life prick these bubbles. Youthful inflation seldom lasts, exceptludicrously. Time brings
a pressure, and conceit collapses. But the wisdom
that gives us insight into the reality of human nature, both the boldly masculine and the modestly




YOUTHFUL CONCEIT.            I I 
feminine, assures us that conceit is not an imaginary peril or error of youth.
The reason of this is very obvious. The comparisons the young have made between themselves and their fellow-creatures are few in proportion to what they must make hereafter. Absolute
standard of excellence there is not. We think ourselves great because we think others little, and the
more human beings we mingle with, and the more
frequently we institute the comparison, the'more
probable it is that we shall find our equals and our
superiors in every accomplishment and in every
virtue.
The Jerome Bonaparte, whom the success and
the favoritism of the first and great Napoleon
made king of Westphalia, because he was a brother,
was a man of less experience and of narrower observation than the emperor, and was amazingly
elated with his importance. He paraded his conceit foppishly and airishly before the Napoleon
whose wit was often as pungent as his penetration.
Jerome imagined that the majesty of his office
must irradiate the very features of his person.
"Travel, my good brother," said the emperor,
"travel and learn something that a king ought to
know. If the majesty of kingsis supposed to be
stamped on their countenances, don't be alarmed.
You may travel through Europe incognito. You
will' not be discovered."
We often observe men, whose sphere of life has
been extremely confined, to be conceited through
every period of their existence, for the saaie reason




I2           YOUTHFUL COXCEIT.
that the young are conceited in the earliest period,
because they have measured themselves with very
few of their species, and mistaking all that they
have seen for all that there is, have so confirmed
themselves in habitual conceit, that the delusion is
totally impregnable to all future conviction.
Growing experience forces upon the young a
perception of their unjust pretensions; they begin
to discover that the world had made some progress
in knowledge before their.existence, and that their
birth will not be hailed as the great era of wisdom
and of truth.
It is necessary to live for a considerable time,
and in various scenes, to perceive fully the wisdom
of those practices which the world has established,
not at the suggestion of any one individual, but
from the gradual conviction of all that they were
best adapted to promote the general happiness.
Our fathers, in their youthful days, questioned
with as much acuteness, and decided with as much
temerity as we can in -ours. If the progress of
life has taught them to respect what in its origin
they despised; if they have traced to the dictates
of experience many things which they at first attributed to prejudice and ignorance; if they have
learned to mistrust. themselves, and to confide
more in the general feelings and judgments of the
world; we ought not to suppose ourselves protected from the same revolution of opinions, or imagine that those early conceptions of human life shall
be permanent now which have never been permanent
before.




YOUTHFUL CONCEIT.            I 3
But I must protect myself against misconstruction. I must beware that I mislead not you. My
remonstrance is against conceit. I proclaim it a
failing as injurious to' the acquisition of Christian
as of human improvement.
My remonstrances are'by no means directed
against the spirit of free inquiry. From this a
strong mind cannot and ought not to be debarred,
any more than a strong body ought to be from
perfect activity and motion. But this let the
young consider. It is not a necessary consequence that no reason can be found because they
can find none, or because they can even obtain
none from a few persons to whom they have proposed their difficulty, and who, perhaps, can see and
practice right without the power of explaining and
defending it.
To incline to the one side or the other is natural
and not blamable in the young; but when you are
so liable to error, do not decide so that you cannot
directly retract; avoid the fatal mistake, the weak
but common mistake of youth, of being so violent
and positive, where good men have not been
unanimous, and eternity is not in the scales, that
you are either tied up. for life to the crude system
or the novel vagary or the untested cause you have
adopted, or are forced to abandon it hereafter with
the imputation of folly or of guilt.
Courage and firmness in -maintaining important
opinions are worthy attributes; but in proportion
as any opinion is marked by moderation and formed upon reflection, it is most likely to be retained




I I4         YOUTHFUL CONCEIT.
with spirit. Inflexibility is then a virtuous steadfastness and not a vicious obstinacy. The granite
has a right to be hard and durable, though it protrudes amid the soft shale of the surface, because
the granite is primitive, and has in itself all the elements of a world's foundation.
Extravagance in opinion is the parent of change,
and frequent change produces at last a profligate
indifference to all opinion. The person who is
firm and consistentin his manhood has most probably been modest in his youth;'so true it is that all
the humility so strongly enjoined by the gospel is
not calculated to repress and extinguish human
powers, but to adjust the degree of confidence
with which they are exercised to the degree of excellence with which they are endowed, and to take
care that whatsoever is fallible should not be presumptuous. All those who judge of the world by
idealrather than actual models of excellence are in
some little danger of becoming too contemptuous;
the imagination can easily represent somewhat superior to what ever existed or ever will exist. By
assembling all the excellencies which nature has
scattered among many real beings into one fictitious one, and by omitting all defects, we have at
once a monster of perfection, to which our sad
medley of good and evil cannot be compared
without disgrace. Such is the case with the
young, who despise imperfection because extended observation has not yet show n them that the realities of life always fall far short of the pictures of the
mind, and that they can easily conceive what they




YOUTHFUL CONCEIT.             I15
never will be able to find. The increase of years,
with many evils, brings this good, that our expectations of life are more accommodated to its true
state; we are no longer surprised at flagrant inconsistencies in character, nor disgusted  that
prejudice and weakness should twine around the
loftiest virtues; we are contented with mixtures of
good and evil, as it has been mingled for us, and
do not despise our species because God has made
them lower than the angels.
Prudence is, perhaps, another cause that checks
the indulgence of contempt as we advance in life.
The world, we find, has inevitable difficulties
enough without the wanton exasperation of our
fellow-creatures.
Contempt is commonly mistaken by the
young for an evidence of understanding. But
no habit of mind can afford this evidence, which is
neither difficult to acquire, nor meritorious when
it is acquired, and as it is certainly very easy to be
contemptuous, so it is very useless, if not pernicious. To discover the imperfections of others is
penetration; to hate them for those faults is contempt. We may be clear-sighted without being
malevolent, and make use of the errors we discover to learn caution, not to gratify satire. That
part of contempt which consists of acuteness we
may preserve; its dangerous ingredient is censure.
Contempt, so far from being favorable to the improvement of the mind, is perhaps directly the reverse. It increases so rapidly that it soon degenerates into a passion for condemnation. The sense




I 6          YOUTHFUL CONCE2T.
of what is good withers away, and the perception
of evil becomes so keen and insatiable -that every
decision we make is satire, not judgment. All
things have a double aspect; the contemptuous
man sees than only on one side, and does not believe they have any other. He has sacrificed an
excellent faculty to a malevolent indulgence.
Wisdom consists in doing difficult things which
the mass of mankind cannot do; there is a much
more compendious road to reputation in doing
nothing and in blaming everything, in pointing out
where others are deficient without proving where
we excel. In this way a contemptuous person
gives himself virtues by implication, as if the opposite perfection were immediately infused into his
own mind the moment he had discovered a defect
in the mind of another. Real wisdom rather delights
in positive exertions, and seeks for reputation by
showing what itself is, not by boasting what others
are not. Contempt and conceit are twins of the
same parentage. Pride begets them; humility
strangles them. Youth in its waywardness fondles
them; age, if it outgrows the errors of youth,
flings them aside, as the experienced and athletic
swimmer discards the bloated bladders that have
given him false appearances of buoyancy and skill.
The contemptuous habit and the conceited mind
are the outer bark and the inner pith of the same
shrub.
The young in their short-sighted fallacies presume with this withe to whip the rock. It staggers
not, but the frail instrument cracks and splinters,




YOUTHF UL CONCEIT.             117
and betrays itself to be contemptible. Thou, man
of virtue, man of sense; thou patient, unresenting
object of contempt and conceit, art the wise teacher to the young; whilst in thy fortitude thou art silent, in thy humility thou pitiest and forgivest.
"They that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee."
It is this sweet morsel of conceit which intoxicates our youth to render our age insipid and morose. It is these dainties of conceit and contempt
poisoning the youthful tongue, which turn to bitterness and sourness as life and God's justice grow
ripe. These are the passions which Christianity so
often condemns, as the likeness of hatred, and the
resemblance of the fallen enemy of man, proud
but miserable, ambitious but cursed, full of accusations against them that seek a good conscience, but
as futile in his complaints as the stone we fling
against a fellow-sinner is futile to stop the flowing
mercy of God.
Surely, if any one has a right to look down upon
the world with contempt, it is not he who has just
entered into it; if great actions, admirable qualities, and profound knowledge are sources of superiority, they most probably will not be traced in that
person to whom so short a period of existence has
afforded little leisure for thought, word and deed.
Whenpride cometh, then cometh shame; but with
the lowly is wisdom. Before destruction the heart
of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.




XI.
THE MIRACLE AT THE RED SEA.
I COR. X. I, 2.
"Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant
how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed
through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud
and in the sea."
THE Hebrews are here claimed as the ancestors of Christians, not on the presumption
of lineal descent, but on the ground of religious precedence.  They were the partakers and
possessors of that covenant which God made with
men.  Natural religion, if there be such a thing,
belonged to all men, holds now the sway over unevangelized lands, and determines the destiny of
those who inherit not the gospel. But the Church,
the visible body with a revealed covenant and special privileges from God, has been always exclusive.
And the descendants of Abraham by the flesh were
" our fathers "as the sole possessors of that covenant religion, once Jewish, but now Catholic; once
limited to a nation, but now as expansive as its institutions; once confined to genealogies, now distributed by universal laws.
There is, accordingly, a practical wisdom to be
(  8)




THE MIRACLE A T THE RED SEA.   119
deduced from the main elements of God's moral
government over " our fathers."
In selecting them as the depositaries of His truth,
miracles attested the fact of His intervention. And
there was something like a compend of all miracles, in those two symbols, the cloud and the seathe sea, that natural power most widely diffused,
first reversing its properties and then rushing back
to its pristine condition to rescue our fathers, and
the cloud, that emblem of perpetual beneficence,
hanging its daily curtain of protection and refreshment and instruction over the tents of Israel. So
nature has recoiled by miracle, and again resuming its order has been the means of rescuing the
church of GQd, and overthrowing its enemies. So
also natural forms, as changeful as the clouds, yet
always returning, have sheltered and refreshed and
conducted the wearied church in the wilderness.
It does not comport with my purpose, to expatiate
on the uses and significations of that miraculous
cloud. The Divine will, as manifested in the control of the sea, is the special subject before us. Its
withdrawal as a solid heap, like rage frozen by
fright, to make a way of escape for Israel; its return, pouring a retaliatory death upon Pharaoh and
his army; these are the materials of our theme.
What were the effects upon the parties interested?
What moral instruction does this event convey?
What typical wisdom was designed by this miPacle?




120     THE MIRACLE AT THE RED SEA.
The effects of this miracle upon Egypt are too
manifest to be overlooked. We need to recall the
fact that the ten plagues inflicted upon that land
had been not only judicial visitations, but blows of
correction obviously aimed at their idolatry, in dirision of the objects they worshipped, in contempt
of their sacred rites, in defiance of Osiris, the god
of light, and, as they thought, of life, and in contradiction to their prevailing superstitions. Their punishments were calculated to disabuse the mind,
while they stung the conscience. It was the glory
of the Invisible, making the creature to proclaim
His praise, after man had converted this instrument
into a Deity. The Egyptians may have argued
like the Syrians in the reign of Abab: " Their
gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were
stronger than we; but let us fight against them in
the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than
they."  They might have questioned whetherthis
conqueror of their magicians could exercise his
art beyond the clime of Egypt. They may have
doubted His ability to command wonders among
the mountains-deities, or near his shepherd-home
in Midian. And at least, while they had feared
His power over the irrational creation, there was
no evidence that IHe could command hosts of men,
and convert fugitives, encumbered, unarmed, unskilled in war, into a resisting army. It was necessary to convince Egypt, that the sea was as subservient as the river to the God of the Hebrews, and
that the very waters which protected their territory on the east were made and moved by the breath




THE MIRA CLE A T THE RED SEA.     I2I
of the Lord. It was necessary to intimidate this
rapacious nation and subdue their recklessness by
terror.
And the effect was in correspondence with this
design. "I will be honoured upon Pharaoh and
upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know
that I am the Lord."
What more appalling lesson, than to read the
helplessness of the army,'on which Egypt leaned?
What higher indications of the Supreme, than to
behold nature changing its uniform laws on behalf
of His people?  What more direct reproof of
their grossness, than to find their nation's last resource turned to very scorn?  What clearer. evidence that neither mountains limited, nor station escaped this Omnipotence?
The pride of Egypt was-effectually shattered by
this overthrow.  During the forty  years, that
Israel wandered in the wilderness, their oppressors
never lifted hand against them. The miracle -was a
merciful restraint, if it proved no more. It prevented the combination of this empire with the Canaanites in resistance to Israel.. And it was a check
upon the Pharaohs, for which the world may be
thankful,-the Waterloo of an Egyptian Bonaparte,
-the disgrace and disaster that saved. the Eastern
World from subjugation by that swarming nation.
Upon the fugitives, the effect was no less remarkable. They had hesitated to own the commission
of their leader, but now " they believed the Lord
and His servant Moses." They had been contaminated by the idolatries of. Egypt, but now they
6




122     THE MIRA CLE AT THE RED SEA.
"feared the Lord." It was the open victory of the
Supreme Being, and sealed upon their memories
forever the certainty of His existence, His power,
His justice, and His truth. It was a plain declaration, that the Lord was on the side of the defenceless, and that He valued the lives of infants, which
heathenism had devoted to the offices of cruelty, or
to the service of superstition. "They were baptized unto Moses in the sea."  The law, of which
he was-the mediator, became by every obligation
of reason and of affection, their only guide. And
the astonished gladness of their hearts was turned
at once to praise. The oldest hymn upon record
was chanted upon the coasts of that sea. It was
repeated by the choirs of Israel from that day onward. Music and the exhilarating accompaniments of skill were on that brink of miracles consecrated forever to the worship of God. And that
oldest hymn, which man now reads, was the monument in the mouths and hearts of sire and son to
show that the first and typical redemption was by
miracle, and in the distant prospects of the Revelation, is the chanting of this hymn by those who
have gotten the victory over the beast, who " stand
on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And
they sing the song of Moses the servant of God,
and the song of the Lamb."
This consummation of Pharaoh's career is replete with warning. The conduct of this monarch
is a continued display of the infatuation of wickedness. His fate is a signal display of the judgment that descends on our obstinate infatuation.




THE MIRACLE AT THE RED SEA.         123
How presumptuous the scheme of his hardened
heart! Soliciting mercy from the Lord, he gains
the desired relief, but no sooner does the answer
of mercy come, than his heart again swells with
folly. Had he not every reason to expect that the
next blow would be aimed at himself and his army?
Had not the judgments that softened his heart,
come so near that himself must be the next victim?
Was there any indication that the Power, which
had compelled him to submit, was exhausted or
withdrawn?'Such is the blind impetuosity of sin.
It swells the veins of guilt by the very breathingspells of mercy. It is hardened-no man can tell
the process-it is hardened by the forbearance
which gives it respite. It escapes a present punishment only to invite a redoubled indignation. The
very rock will yield to continual droppings, but
the hardened heart is like the avalanche that hangs
on the side of Jura, which feels the melting ray
only to precipitate itself into ruin.
The sad infirmity of sin is its weakness of vision.
It is wise for a brief compass, but the looming dangers beyond are hidden from its view. When it is
recalled to the light by some afflictive stroke, it
comes up like a prisoner from a dungeon, or the
miner from hiscshaft. It sees the light, but it is
blinded still. It is in the blaze of a new world, but
the objects of this creation are obscured and distorted. There is a pain in the very novelty. The soul is
restless under this new condition. There is an obligation fastened upon it, which it would shun. It
hates the light, and retreats from the very irksome



124     THE MIRA CLE A T THE RED SEA.
ness of blessings to its own caverns of toil, and gain,
and danger. And the' sentence of Jesus is verified,
"Men love darkness rather than light, because
their deeds are evil."  They may not repent, because they will not stop to reason with themselves.
They may not choose the reproach of Christ,
because they have not paused to gaze upon the lustres of the recompense. They may not see the folly
of sin, because they have not exercised the eye of
the soul to see' its proportions in the open light.
If this braving of the Divine judgments, and this
infatuation, were the ruin of Pharaoh, why may
they not have the same tendency for all? Was he
not raised up, and made eminent and capable of
yielding power, for the very purpose of showing
in him the methods of the Divine -government?
The same moral system under which his heart was
hardened till he dragged the walls of ruin down
upon him, the same moral system now exists, and
will to the end exist. Where there is not the will
to seek unto God, the disposition to love the soul's
health, then will infatuation come, and reason itself
will be confounded, and worldly wisdom  will appear like foolishness, and the punishments of that
soul will illustrate the excellency of God's government. But some one will say, the ways of the
Lord are not equal, for whom He will He hardeneth. Yes, but He willeth to harden only those
that have resisted His government.
God took away the equilibrium of Pharaoh's
faculties, just so often as Pharaoh refused to sanctify those faculties. God was increasing his stupidity,




THE MIRA'CLE A T 7'HE RED SEA.    125
but it wvas because the monarch chose.this, rather
than to forsake his crimes and.passions.
Pharaoh does not stand out in history as a fiend
or a brute. His traits were human, his infatuation
such as man must expect. But he was eminent, he
had the power of great good, or great evil. The
magnitude of the consequences was not in the
atrocity of his offences, but in the elevation of his
position. He towered in obstinacy like one of the
pyramids of his land, and the wrestle with his
heart was a battle with the embodied idolatries of
Egypt. Suppose some fiend had been incarnate to
illustrate the pertinacity of sin. Would it have
touched our case?  Scarcely at all. His crimes
would be monstrous, his spirit would have wanted
human compassions. We could' not analyze the
motives of such a creature. We. would have disclaimed the identity of our temptations. The only
points of. contact would have been in the hearing
of the same'law, and the same certainty of its vindication. But we have in distinct characters upon
the throne of Egypt a man, human in his wilfulness, human in his relentings, human in his covetousness and oppression, in his fears and his promises.
His example is the handwriting on the wall of the
human heart, and God has inscribed there, as if we
were reading it on the lintels of the soul, " Beware lest any of you be hardened througl the deceitfulness of' sin."
If this be the admonition that issues from those
drowning waters, equally distinct is the encouragement resounding in the hymn upon the shore. It




126     THE MIRACLE AT THE RED SEA.
sends its thrill to the heart of obedience, as it celebrates the rescuing and protecting hand. Be not
ignorant that " our fathers passed through the sea,
and were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea." They came out of Egypt by temptations. They were encompassed with fightings and
fears. Could pen have written it more legibly,
than they now read in the waters of the miracles,
"He will also with the temptation make a way to
escape, that ye may be able to bear it."  Temptation is the touch-stone of religion. God has no
place of safety for it in His universe, if it is too
weak for temptation. The hazards of virtue, the
trials of holiness, these are the tests that lay the
foundation of our joys. It is in these that God
manifests Himself, though not by daily miracle, yet
by daily grace. Ye servants of this world, tell me
if the good actions of which you are not ashamed,
were founded upon any other principle, than the
way of escape from temptation. Ye that have persevered in the obedience of Christ proclaim it,
as your rejoicing heart must testify, that " with the
temptation there is always a way to escape."
When there is no other remedy, we may " stand
still, and see the salvation of the Lord." Though
the threatening world, like pursuing Egypt, may
exalt in the hope that you are entangled and the
wilderness hath shut you in, God will make " a way
to escape'" Though the faintness of discouragement may come upon you, and your cries may be
the ejaculations of terror, rather than the petitions
of hope, He will make "a way to escape."




THE MIRACLE A T THE RED SEA.    127
Though you go down to the brink of death, and
walk as it were sentenced to the grave, He will
make " away to escape." Though you are amid
the waters of tribulation, baptized by the clouds
of earthly woe, and walking through the deeps of
new experience, there shall be " a way to escape."
Though you follow your Saviour, as the Israelites
ventured after Moses, into the yawning avenue
of death, you shall find between its congealed
walls of terror "a way to escape," and on the
shore of safety and viewing the scene of triumph,
shall sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb.
I cannot doubt that this miracle was typical of
lofty spiritual truths. St. Paul in our text makes it
the figure of baptism, and our Liturgy has so pronounced it in the prayer before baptism. It was
the act by which God of His own mere grace received them as His church. It was the sprinkling
of the covenant, which bound them by every good
motive to serve the Lord, and which pledged to
their faith His very omnipotence. And, as that
baptism  was effected by the ministry of Moses,
and was the sign of their duty to cling to this ministry, they were baptized unto Moses, so we in the
name of the Trinity, and unto the ministry of
Christ. And as they were by figure buried in the
waters, so we are buried by baptism into death.
And as they passed through the Red Sea on their
way of escape to Canaan, so we through the grave
and gate of death and a joyful resurrection enter
into the inheritance of the saints in light.
We stand then by nature on the Egyptian shore.




128     THE fIRA CLE AT THE RED SEA.
Death must be passed. And it is at our option, to
go trembling but triumphing through its waters
with the people of God, or to enter it with our
worldly schemes upon us, and our delusions fixed,
and in the service of the prince of this world, and
find there the doom of everlasting destruction.
The use made of this type by St. Paul is to demonstrate that no covenant relation will save us, except as we keep our covenant. The covenant was
immensely blessed to the Hebrew, it was his life, it
was the fountain of his after joys, it was the mainspring of his persevering courage. But the cove,
nant did not save the' sinning Hebrew from the
plague and the pestilence of the wilderness.
And our baptism is more blessed than the
sprinkling of those dews from the cloud and those
drops from the sea. For it was not the water then
that gave the blessing, but the power of God,.and
the covenant. And it is not the water that blesses
now, but the resurrection of Christ, and the gift of
the Spirit, and our adoption into God's family.
But when they sinned, it was a double contempt,
nay, it was manifold contempt, a contempt of God
and of their covenant, of their own souls and of
their mercies, of the angel that led them, and of
the land that waited their coming.
Whether we behold the fate of the proud Pharaoh, or witness the vengeance-stricken corpses of
Israel in the wilderness, the warning is read, " If
they escaped not who refused Him  that spake on
earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn
away from Him that speaketh from heaven. For




THE MIRACLE AT THE RED SEA.        I29
the God of our fathers, our God, is a -consuming
fire."
Brethren, I would not have you ignorant of this.
But I would have you to remember, that their deliverance was from the groanings of Egypt, ours is
from'the miseries of eternity. They were saved
from them that kill the body, our rescue is from
them- that strangle the life of the -soul. Their escape left a fiery wilderness between them and rest,
our salvation plants us, among the odors of Eden,
and makes the very wilderness of arid suffering to
rejoice and blossom as the rose. Oh, what rapturous praise, what zealous vows, what consecrations
of every faculty, are due to Him who hath redeemed us from'the hand of the enemy, and leads us
through pleasant places till we pass over Jordan!
6*




XII.
THE CALUMNIATOR AND POLITICIAN.
I SAM. xxii. 22.
" And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg
the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul."
D   AVID  and his cotemporaries; the anointed
shepherd exchanging his staff for the sceptre; the Psalmist flinging melodies upon the
breeze of every clime; the monarch unawed by the
colossal grandeur that overshadowed the East during his reign; the father of Absalom, most impious
of rebels, and of Solomon, most illustrious of sons;
David, the stripling, that defied the lion and the
bear; the ruddy young man that challenged. the
Philistine giant; the applauded champion of his nation taken to the family of the king, beloved of
Jonathan, jealously pursued by Saul; a good man,
so far beyond his times, and yet a passionate, cruel
criminal, falling so far beneath his standard; a man
so amazingly prospered, the very Achilles of numberless adventures not fabulous, and yet a man so
severely and so sadly injured and afflicted; David,
the epitome of all kings and of all vicissitudes;-how
vast, how instructive a theme in himself! yet himself
(130)




THE CAL UJINIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.  I31
but a single source of light in the constellation of human greatness which glimmered around him. David
and his cotemporaries. I have often regarded it
as a subject on which the pen of political wisdom
might guide itself by the- just monitions of sacred
oracle, and write lessons of experience for king and
courtier, for statesman and priest, for reformer and
patriot, for the ambitious aspirant and the corrupted
possessor of power, for scheming and shrewd andlaborious but wilful men like Saul, for conscientious
but unfortunate and injured men like Abiathar; for
the wearers of the temple linen, clothed with prerogative, yet not always inviolate; for the winners
of battles; for the managers of peace; for the arbiters of justice and the counsellors of authority; for
them that accept trusts of power, and for an impatient people in their bestowal of trusts. Grouped
around the royal history of David, how bold and
magnanimous an examplar of the faithful prophet is
Samuel, faithful ever to God, to the people and the
king; beside him towers the athletic Saul, model
of impetuosity; then the affectionate and valiant
Jonathan; and among the pictures of domestic
character, Nabal, rich but penurious, prospered
but. churlish, and Abigail the wise-hearted and
generous but thwarted wife, and Jesse, that royal
father of royal sons, and Michal, that short-sighted
and unhappy woman, proud of her family but despising her own husband; while in the front of public affairs we see such strong outlines of character
as marked Nathan righteous in reproof, Shimei the
cowardly reveler, Joab and Abner jealous rivals




132   THE CAL UMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.
and both unscrupulous, Ahithophel, the cunning
man, capable of great mischief, but dying when the
rcmedy begins, and others a number, each a representative.of a class. Of greatness how many models, of virtue how various examples, of crimes how
abundant specimens; men of profligacy, and men
of integrity, lofty. in purpose as Solomon, and impious in ambition as Absalom; while in the background from the shadows of obscurity crawls forth
that image of sycophancy, of servility and of disgusting meanness, Doeg the Edomite.
David appears to have discerned at once the in.
sidious character of this man. When as a fugitive
from  the wrath of Saul, David was.sheltered at
the house of Abimelech the priest, Do)eg was present, completing his period either of vow or of discipline under the sacerdotal charge. David was suspicious at the time that his traits would render this:
sanctuary no asylum, and that his mischievous pro —
pensities would involve the house of Ahitub in
danger. Passing by the other cotemporaries of
David, we would inspect the character of this
Doeg.
His name indicates his extraction from the degenerate race of Edom. By some insinuating qualities
he had ingratiated'himself with the king, patron
ever of men whose best quality was their readiness to
serve him. He was one of that class who measure
their importance by the amount of' art which they
abet. It was his pride to win a prize from Saul at
the expense of David and of Abimelech. The radical defect in the man was the want of true inde



THE CAL UMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.  133
pendence. He was a mere attachment upon the
success of those from  whom he sought to gain.
Without worth, or without principle, he scrupled
not to employ others as instruments of his own
aggrandizement by lending himself for an instrument of their schemes. His preferment had been
earned by such services to the king, and David
knowing the only point of value in the man, supposed that he would gain as an informer what he
never would have acquired by higher services.
He is a specimen of those creeping, unprincipled,
self-seeking men whose promotion is the reward of
pandering to the caprice and jealousy of their
patrons. Elevated by such means to his position
in the kingdom, there was.no reason to suppose that the habit would forsake him, and no reason to confide in his. sense of honor. "I knew it
that day when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he
would surely tell Saul."
Let us observe more closely the history of this
man, and perceive to what such a dishonorable
character tends.
When David had escaped the fury  of the
monarch, and had gathered around him the disaffected subjects, Saul was incensed at beholding the
alienation of his people, and the want of affection
that displayed itself even among his own bodyguard. Upbraiding his attendants, and eager to
find some object for his revenge, he attempts to
draw aa accusation from the servants that waited
upon him. Doeg rejoices at this chance of reaping the harvest of an informer. Abimelech, odious




13 4   THE CAL UMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.
to this sycophant by his very virtues, is represented
as having assisted David and conspired with him
against the king, to have given the fugitive the
benefit of his sacred offices, to have provided for
his bodily wants, and to have equipped him with
the sword of Goliath taken for that purpose from
the treasury of the Lord. Saul seizes upon this
opportunity for sating his vengeance. The priest
is summoned not to a trial, but to sentence and execution. In vain does he disentangle the falsehoods
of Doeg. In vain does he insist that loyalty and
affection to his rightful sovereign had prompted
every act. In vain does he attempt to appease the
anger of Saul, by protesting innocence. The enraged king dooms Abimelech and his father's house
to extermination. The curse upon negligent Eli
receives its fulfillment. His house falls before the
entail of punishment. Yet note by what instruments this result is attained. Saul commands his
own body-guard to fall upon the priests. The sacred rites and officers of religion, ever venerated
by the true soldier, will not be violated by these
servants of Saul. Grotius tells us that no civilized
nation ever allowed injuries to the priests of their
enemies. The same reverence for religion, as
the real foundation of their allegiance to Saul, withheld the hand of the soldiery from Abimelech and
his father's house. But the king's wrath, kindled by
the breath of Doeg, must now  be fed with fuel
from the bloody and impious hand of Doeg. He
became the executioner, and without reverence for
either the innocence or the sanctity which he him



THE CALUMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.  I35
self had falsely accused and convicted, he murders
four score and five of the priests, and the city of
their habitation he devastated, sparing neither the
brute nor the child nor the mother.
Of the life and the character of this Edomite we
read no more, except the comment of David upon
his barbarous acts, " I knew that he would surely
tell." It appears also from the caption of the 52d
Psalm-, that this man was noted among the Jews,
and is to be regarded by all generations, as a sample of mischievous and false and deceitful wickedness. This Psalm may be read by us profitably as
a comment upon the species of guiltiness which distinguished Doeg. And the close of his career,
though not recorded upon the historic page, is so
distinctly indicated by the prophetic pen, that it
stands out upon the sacred canvas as a picture of
warning. " The righteous also shall see, and fear,
and shall laugh at him."
"Lo, this is the man that made not God his
strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches
and strengthened himself in his wickedness."
With such insight into his character as these
few circumstances furnish, let us first define what
was the real position of the man, and then deduce
the instruction conveyed by his history.
It must strike us in the first place as singular that
David after hearing of the barbarities which Doeg
had practiced, of his profane assault upon the
priests, of his calumnious accusations against Abimelech, and his false testimony, should yet as it were
forget these crimes, and inveigh against none of




I36   THE CALUMNIATOR AND PO~I77CIAN.
these vices, but wander away from the subject of
atrocities to the trifling accusation, " I knew on that
day when Doeg the Edomite was. there, that he
would surely tell." My brethren there was philosophy in that mind of David. He read. men by their
true faults and not by their appearances. Doeg was
a man who relied for everything upon his tongue.
He was a butcher becausehe had been a tattler.
The source of the whole mischief was his disposition to make his fortune by his tongue. He had
no principles to proclaim, no generous emotions to
utter and to impart, but he had ends to serve, and
he knew of no smoother and surer way to reach
them than by his tongue. That was the secret of
his favor with Saul.. He flattered and he profited
the prince. There is no indication of his being a
meddlesome or officious man, farther than his own
advancement required. It was not a pragmatical
or trifling temper that characterized him. It was
the deeper and more ruinous vice of a smooth and
plausible, but deceitful and malicious tongue.
With this he rose upon the swelling tide- ofprincely favor, but rose by trampling every envied object
beneath his calumny. The voluble or the intrusive man mistakes perpetually his own interest or
safety, but the Doegs in all their prolixity have a
first and ceaseless regard to their own aims and
meanings. Habit has made it easy- for them  to
feign the tone and to frame the language suited to
the occasion, He was of that class who emphatically live by their wits, for his conscience or his
usefulness was no measure of his success. By a




THE CALUMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.   137
strict scale of phrenology his character could only
be measured from his brain, not at all from his
heart. David's philosophy rested on the two facts
that Doeg was present.and that Doeg had an end
to gain. His being controlled by consequences of
injury to others, or by self-respect and an unwritten
law of honor, this was no element of the calculation. He would surely tell, for his tongue was his
capital. Hence it is that in the Psalm, he is described as if the tongue had taken the place of a
soul and was itself the seat and source of thought
and device, and with accumulation of invective the
tongue is described as cutting when it seems only
to shine, "Thy tongue deviseth mischief; like a
sharp razor, working deceitfuilly."
Doeg was by trade a politician. His business
was to keep on the winning side. Office and emolument did not at that time come from the popular
majority, and it was easier to decide where the
strong party should be found. So long as the
priests were in the favor of the king he was submissive to their sacred authority, but the moment
they became obnoxious to the king, Doeg was
thirsting for their blood. No doubt he was regarded as a man of the greatest luck, and sometimes as
a very oracle of political sagacity. But the truth
was that he was unincumbered with the unfortunate
burden of principles, and could move. like a wandering Bedouin wherever the largest'caravan was
marching. Let me not in stigmatizing that Edomite as a politician, be suspected of a fanatical antipathy to the business of politics. Not to follow poli



I38   THE CALUMNIA TOR AND POLI TICIAN.
tics as a science, but to be a politician by trade, is
the suspicious, the odious character. It is to have
no theories, no laws, no conscience, except the
platform of policy; to stand as it were upon our
own planks, but these unmoored, unanchored, a
drifting raft steered only by the breeze. Party
alliance is almost a necessity, almost a sacred duty
of citizenship under our system. To eschew it entirely might be only sensitive selfishness. To stigmatize it would be to arm factionism, and leave us
at the mercy of them who make merchandize of
their country. Political attachment and trading in
politics are as far asunder as good and evil. It
was the unprincipled course of Doeg that made
him so pestilent a politician. He resolved it all into a strife of tongues.. The falsest and the boldest
was the best. His representations were coloured
for his cause. The truth was manufactured into a
weapon for his party. Fabrication and insinuation,
enough of the facts to inculpate Abimelech, but not
enough to do him justice, these were the staple of
his trade. Was it wonderful that Saul's throne decayed, when he built it with such materials. Is
there any political security when falsehood is at the
base? Surely as Providence, the forgotten element in the calculations of iniquity-surely as Providence rectifies at last the reckoning of dishonesty,
so surely will Providence baffle at last the cunning
of politicians, D oeg with his falsehood shall sink
into oblivion, as he passes his zenith of success.
Before the kingdom leaves the hands of Saul, the
heartless politician is buried among the ruins of his




THE CALUMAINVIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.   139
schemes. The priestly influence which he envied
is not dead, and its reviving power shelters the
righteous cause of David, while it triumphs over
the unrighteous instruments of Saul. The prophetic language of the Psalms becomes an accurate history, "God shall pluck thee out of thy
dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of
the living."
Such examples of wickedness may be profitable
to us, if we deduce from them the instruction
which wisdom has inscribed thereon.
Thus it is no part of the Divine wisdom to picture the fiendish disposition which could at last
without compunction massacre the whole family of
priests. The Scriptures rather direct us to those
sins which lie at the root of brutal'crimes. A human
trait, a disposition formed of human motives, the sin
which may by habit become familiar and pleasant to
the thoughts of a man, this is the radical depravity.
At these roots of evil we must strike, if we would
reform a soul. It is all in vain to trim the branches, and to lop off the leaves of sin. - And among
those radical sins, which must be extirpated, are
the plausible iniquities of the mischievous and
deceitful tongue. This little member " setteth on
fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of
hell."'It has such resources of evil at its commancq as to be termed- itself "a world of iniquity."
It multiplies vices by its own power, and from its
hiding-place surveys the malice and the mischief it
has called into being. It planned and it effected
the fall of man from his primeval uprightness, and




140   THE CALUMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.
opened through its mouth of deceit and flattery the
whole flood of human woes. Banish this root of
evil, and how quickly would the harvests of misery
dwindle upon the earth. Oh, that the enthusiasts
of reform could look upon sin and woe, as they are
seen from the realm of light! Hlow soon would
their zeal be withdrawn from the futile effort of
damming the rivers of guilt, to the wiser and more
blessed work of purifying the fountains. Give
men an awful reverence for truth, give them a conscience to abhor deceit, give them a desire for the
noble satisfactions of integrity, and you have broken the spell which binds the soul of Doeg. And
so it is with laws, and constitutions, and social order. Not the terror of a bloody penalty, but the
majesty of God presiding in religion, residing in
law, abiding in the faith of men, is the true conservative power.
A warning is also contained in the history of
Doeg's progress from  habitual and natural vices
to acts of unnatural barbarity. His implication in
the persecution of David could not terminate
with the mere part of an informer. He must exaggerate to give his complaint importance. He
must falsify to sustain his accusation. He must assail the character of the priest, he must violate the
claims of hospitality, abuse the weakness of the
king, gain a dastardly advantage over his fellowservants, malign the purest motives of Abimelech,
invade the sanctity of the altar, and bathe in the
innocent blood shed by his own perjury. Each
successive act was but the consequence of the first




THE CAL UMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.  141
crime with his tongue. " Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue!" - The series
was wrapt in the iniquity of the beginning. If the
nature of that initial sin shows it to be. radical corruption, and indicates turpitude at heart, the consequence shows it to be the root of flagrant crime
and indicates a preparation for the most cowardly
and the most cruel excesses. Sin, that has got command of the tongue, asks for no other mastery. If
it can make as willingly profane, we shall unreluctantly carry curses. If it can break the girdle of purity, the drapery of our thoughts shall hang in
shameless looseness. The Egyptians, when sacrificing to Harpocrates, the god of silence, used to
cry out in the midst of their rites-7 ytoraa daLquwv"The tongue is a demon," " the tongue is an angel " —mighty for good, or mighty for evil, as it
may read. And Solomon has expressed the same
idea with a view to its final consequences. "Death
and life are in the power of the tongue."  "Winged words" we praise. "Winged  words" flew
from the lips of the god of eloquence. WVith them
heroism' is nerved, and holiness is wafted to hear
the welcome of its God. But when the same power of language is wielded by a calculating and
ruthless Doeg, it is the lying subtlety of a fallen
angel.
The history of this man serves also to illustrate
the manner in which -the unscrupulous politician
makes a' convenience of religion, lifting himself upon
the prostrate honour.of God, and of the uniform
fact that detraction and falsehood find their first




I42   THE CALUMNIA TOR AND POLITICIAN.
victims and the chief objects of their envy
and their cruelty in the ministry of holiness.
David's times were in this but the prelude of history in every generation of scheming politicians
and faithful priests.
Speech and thought and influence, talents of immortality! How  great their winnings! How
miserable their loss! Consecrate them, take them
from the service of selfishness, and use them to elevate our own nature, and in the regions of a higher
existence we shall have the tongue of the wise,
the lips that speak in accents of harmony the
praises of God.




XIII.
NO   I-MPOSSIBILITY   OF  A  RESURRECTION.
ACTS xxvi. 8.
" Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God
should raise the dead?"
THE reason that the Christian Scriptures insist
so strongly upon the doctrine of a final resurrection, I take to be this, that the universality of the resurrection is involved in the office of
Christ. "If Christ be not raised," says one, " vyour
faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." The fact that
Christ was really a Saviour on the cross, implies
that He was really a Redeemer in His resurrection. If He has not risen for mankind, He did not
die for mankind. If He was not bearing the sin of
the world upon His crucified frame, He is not
raising-the flesh of men by HIis own resurrection.
We cannot remove the one without impairing the
other. Either our bodies are to follow the risen
Saviour, or our sins were not expiated in His body.
The question of salvation by Christ is therefore involved in the doctrine of the resurrection. It is
not to be thrust back into retirement, but made a
(I43)




144 NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION.
prominent evidence of our redemption by the Mediator. It is only as we withdraw from Jesus, and
begin to carve out our own way to life, an independent salvation, that this doctrine fades from
view, and becomes first an unessential item of belief, and finally a mere conceit of the philosophers.
Look at the representative office of the Saviour,look at the fact that He has broken from the grave,
and "Why should it be thought a thing incredible
with you, that God should raise the dead?"
One man, subject to death as we are, yielding up
his life as we do to the mastery of pain and weakness,-one such is already lifted by the hand of
God from His grave, and " death hath no more dominion over him." Is not the resurrection possible, then? And if it be possible, why is it incredible that He should accomplish it who has infinite
knowledge to understand the manner, and infinite
power to command the means of executing it.
The question that rises at this day is not respecting.the fact of Christ's resurrection, but respecting
the possibility of a general resurrection which we
predicate on.this fact. To answer this question as
to the possibility of the event, we will glance at
some of the difficulties upon the face of this doctrine of universal resurrection.  And may God
render it profitable to our salvation!
All the difficulties in this doctrine, which are
worthy of notice, must consist in the position that
there are circuLmstances rendering a general resurrection impossible, which were not found in the.
case of Christ. To assert that God cannot re-unite




NO IMAPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION. I45
body and soul, is to deny that He could create them.
While this is absurd of itself; there is the fact that
Christ is risen from the dead, directly in the face
of the assertion. The difficulties of a general resurrection are not found in the impossibility of reuniting the elements of flesh and spirit, but in the
supposed impossibility of commanding the identical elements of the body for the purpose of this
resurrection.
There is a manifest difference between the reviving of a body that saw no corruption, and restoring
elements that have undergone corruption and dispersion,-between the resurrection of Christ's body
wrapt in its grave-clothes and undissolved, and the
resurrection of our dust scattered, perhaps, by the
winds or waves, and distributed over every continent. I say there is a manifest difference in these
resurrections. But it is a difference of operations
only. Whatever operations are possible, are equally
easy to Omnipotence. There is no such distinction as difficult or easy, the moment the act is possible. Those terms belong to creatures whose
powers are limited, and who may be approaching
the extent of their ability. Possibility is one thing
with us, and another with God. With us it is the
measure of strength; with God it is the whole
scope of Omnipotence, compassing every thing except a repugnancy or contradiction. The care of
this globe in its broad orbit, and the care of the
rolling dust in the whirlwind, are equally easy to
the Almighty. It was no more difficult for Him to
build the symmetrical form of Adam out of clay,
7




146 NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION.
than to- create Eve out of the sleeper's rib. It was
no more difficult for Him to breathe a living soul
into the shape of Adam, than to gather the materials of that frame. from, the ground, and accommodate them to the organism of life. Why speak
we then of difficulties, when Omnipotence is the
workman? Omnipotence knows no such thing as
difficulty, save in impossibilities. We should have
pronounced it difficult for God to create a Universe
out of nothing. But does not the very name of
Deity imply that He is the only self-existent Being,
and is not the whole material creation therefore an
argument, that our Maker is impeded by no possibility. Show me then the impossibility of His
collecting the dispersed particles of our body and
replacing them in their order, or you show no difference, so far as God is concerned, between raising the' undissolved body of Christ, and raising the
disintegrated bodies of men. He said " Let there
be light, and there was light;" to remotest worlds
it darted. With one word, with the same power
that created, could He recall the scattered rays
from every sun and every star, darkening all the
fields of space, and collecting every luminous atom
into the dwelling of His glory. Shall He have less
power over atoms that probably never leave this
sphere,-this little dot in creation?  He wields
myriads of worlds, and knows the path of every
grain in all these thousands of globes. And is He
unable to keep watch over the particles that form
our bodies,-unable to track the wanderings of
atoms on one of His myriad globes, when every




NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION. 147
atom here moves by the impulse of His power and
the guidance of His law.  Nay, O worm of the
dust, do not stultify thyself in striving to nullify the
power of God!
What if the components of this body were dispersed everywhere! If- the Almighty were only a
skillful machinist, He surely could reconstruct a
piece of mechanism like this body out of the parts.
And how can the parts be wanting, unless atoms
are annihilated.? Reduce your Deity- to a mechanic,
and one of two things must be proved, or a resurrection is within His power. If matter is constantly annihilated, and so annihilated that the same
matter cannot again subsist,-or if, the bulk of creation remaining as it is, there is no possibility of
atoms returning to the same form they once composed,-then there is a contradiction in the doctrine of a resurrection. But so far are these propositions from being proved, that the exact reverse is
quite demonstrable. All things indicate that no
annihilation of matter occurs; and our living bodies
are examples of identity undisturbed by the changes
of atoms. I know that this mortal frame is a very
intricate piece of clock-work, but the readjustment of
its parts is in the hands of one who knows every
wheel and joint, every pivot and jewel of this ingenious fabric. What would you think of the artificer's
skill, who could not' arrange the pieces of a clock,
because its steel was from Russia, and its wood
from the Indies, and its brass had come from the
crucibles of Tamul? How -then shall we find a
difficulty in the corruption and dispersion of the




148 NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION.
corporeal elements, when they never pass out of
the hand of God?
We are reminded of other difficulties. Not only
are the elements of our bodies dispersed, but they
are, in the constant transmutation of matter, becoming components of other bodies. The moistures
evaporated from the mummy are distilled in the
heavens and swallowed by the thirsting Egyptian.
The dust of Alexander mingles with the food of the
beggar. And I, when I leave this flesh in my
grave, part with portions of other -bodies received
into the blood and humors of my own.
Nay, we read of cannibals living almost entirely'
upon human- flesh, and seventy bodies are digested
by one, and that at last is burned. We propose
the Sadducean question, In the resurrection, which
of the seventy shall be entire?
We' might repeat the reply of our Lord to similar
carping: "Ye do err, not knowing the power of
God."
We might originate a doubt whether cannibals
are not to be reckoned with brutes, whose nature
they have substituted for the human, and are thus
debarred from resurrection as having scarce conscience, scarce soul enough to make men of
them,-to make them either fit for heaven, or capable of remorse.
But with these anthropophagi disposed of, there
is still a residuum of imaginary difficulty.
The elements of one body in the course of change
and dispersion may enter into the composition of a
thousand others. If all are raised entire, what is to




NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION. I49,become of the frame whose elements are distributed
in all.
To estimate the real amount of this difficulty,
consider that no more than a hundredth part of
that which nourishes the' human body enters into
its substance, and that the whole substance of our
flesh is lost and gained in every period of seven
years. What then are the chances that any great
proportion of another body shall enter into the substance of one now yielding to corruption? It is
but one chance out of millions, and is this the kind
of difficulty that men will call impossibilities?
There is one chance out of millions that all of us
shall wake up idiots on the morrow. Is it therefore incredible that any of us should have our senses
on the morrow? There is one chance out of millions that the earth swill refuse to produce either
herb or plant during this season of annual resurrection. It is therefore incredible that the verdure
of the spring will re-appear,-all other things continuing as they are?
Suppose even that the cannibal has been assimilating within his system the devoured flesh of two
hundred human beings. Was this beastly prey his
only repast? Has this alone entered into the fibre
of his muscles?  By no means. The flesh of his
own kind has not been the tenth part of his food.
The substance of his body, though he died in the
very satiety of his horrid gormandizing is only partially composed of his victim's body.
Take away then from each body, all these admixtures,-withdraw from each resurrection-body




NO5 NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION.
all the possible contributions from others raised
with it,-and where, even then, is the difficulty?
It is not at the best so much as the loss of a limb.
It is not equivalent to the wastings of many a sickbed, that. prepares its emaciated possessor for the
grave. What, if God by a sudden exertion of power,
should restore the cwasted frame of the consumptive to full proportion and vigor. Is the identity
destroyed?  Would the soul be a stranger in its
new-garnished tenement? Is it another tree, that
now stands in the dwindled:nakedness to which
winter-has brought it, from that which soon will
spread its leaves to refresh the sight, and ripen on
its boughs the fruit that shows its latent value? If
we measure the power of God by our fears, the
beast of the field is sometimes stronger than Deity.
Behold what He does, and understand the gloriously enacted description of the resurrection to come.
He raises the impaired frame of the invalid to a
life of robust vigor, and he scarce knows the change
except in new powers and new comforts.  He
changes the appearance of the earth from bleak and
buried winter, to teeming and variegated summer,
and nothing has been subtracted from or added to
the number of atoms.. He wakens the helpless and
inactive slumberer with the dawn of each day, and
the body which a very spider might have tied in
his web, bids the water and the air, the energies.of animated nature, and the hidden subtilty of
electricity be harnessed to its service. So shall the
undeveloped bodies of those dying in infancy, and
the mutilated bodies of misfortune, and the emaci



NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION. I51
ated bodies of slow decay, and the ghastly corpses
of the battle-field, and the ashes of the consumed
martyr, and the fragments of the assassinated or
mangled victim, —all re-appear in the integrity of a
complete human form, supplied for its defects, and
endowed for its new destiny, -yet to all intents numerically the same.
I see no difficulty in a resurrection, that is not
answered by the greater difficulty of creation. Do
you believe that this world has an Almighty Creator? I know that thou believest. Then, why should
it be a thing incredible with you that God should
raise the dead?
I tell you whence unbelief comes, whence an
artificial indifference to this subject comes. It comes
from a fear to recognize the true dignity, the true
immortality of these bodies, lest we should -be compelled to cut off the indulgences of the body, lest
we should be constrained to make these bodies
share in our holiness, lest we should feel obliged
to confess our sins in the body, lest we could not
evade the duty of worshipping God with our
tongues and our knees, with prayers as well as
thoughts, with the clasped hands of a petitioner, as
well as the busy hands of honest industry. There
is no good reason why the wicked should love to
think of a resurrection. Though their bodies are
raised from the'dead, it will be. as that Eastern
prince was lifted from  his funeral-pyre. Apparently dead- he was laid upon the customary heap
of faggots. The kindling flame roused him from
his stupor, and in terror he begged for a resurrec



152 NO IMPOSSIBILITY OF A RESURRECTION.
tion from his funeral-pile. He was succored, and
raised, but it was only to protract his misery under
the lingering agonies of disease. So will the unsanctified sinner recover his body,-only to find it a
home of torture, and might better content himself
with the flames of his first death. "Many that
sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting
life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Some to everlasting life!  Yes, the arches of
heaven shall ring with their welcome. The sting
of death shall no more rankle in their purified
souls,-the victory of the grave shall end its putrid
riot over their glorified frames. Friends wasted by
disease shall meet to shine in the splendors of immortality.
The little child that could not speak the
name of its earthly parent, shall be strong to execute the will of its Heavenly Father. The brother
whose noble heart was shut up in a feeble body,
shall be among the mighty ones that cast their
crowns at the feet of Jesus.  The sister whose
gentle spirit fled from the rude contacts of earth's
miseries, shall be happy to share with us forever
the felicities of a holy world.
The beams of intellect shall again dart from the
eyes, and the lustre of joy shall kindle upon the
features, and the charms of kindness shall again
glow in the countenance,-but no tears shall come
to deluge the gladness,-no cares shall furrow the
cheeks of them that are at peace with God.




XIV.
THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.
ISAIAH 1X. 22.
"A little one shall become.a thousand, and a small one a strong
nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time."
THE  language is intended to describe in terms
that shall arrest attention while exciting
hope, the  expansion  and  the pervading
power of the religion brought by the world's Redeemer.'This predicted culmination of God's purposes presented itself to the prophetic eye in various aspects. At times it emerges upon the horizon
of the future as a stupendous Power, breaking the
iron bars, bursting the gates of brass, convulsing
the earth, rending the heavens, bringing deliverance to the captive, and prostrating the formidable
and the grand in its easy victory of force. Anon
it is welcomed among the strifes and carnage of
contending nations as the tranquil dominion of
Peace, appeasing the angered passions of mankind,
calming the native savagery of our inflammable
hearts, and unfolding the scenery of pacified
peoples, smiling lands, affluent harvests, propitious
seasons, mellow moons and cheerful suns; old men
7*                 (53)




I54     THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.
and children grouped in social happiness, arms
and bellowing war forgotten, the sword not even
rusting as a trophy of honor but hammered into
plowshares, and every one, satisfied with plenty,
reclining beneath his own vine. The kaleidoscope
of prophecy -revolves.again, and every object
seems touched with the liberating and disenthralling effects of -the gospel. It is condensed, for a
moment, into such'characteristics' as can only be
denoted by one word-" Emancipation." The sinner is seen dropping his chains. The oppressed of
the devil goes free.' The prison-doors are open,
and the miserable victim of his vices comes forth
to resume the franchises of grace. Where despair.
brooded, is now the brilliant coloring of revived
joy. Where habit, like a huge tyrant'monster,
had been binding men hand and foot, trampling
down their -hopes of rescue, and stealing from.
them every promise of restoration, there appears a
new element in the scene, a mightier Redeemer,
and He proclaims release.
Again the vision of prophecy changes. It assumes not so much a new phase'in the exteriori
view, as a new power to penetrate into the secret.
motives and to descry the inward affections of a
gospel era.'Under this power of insight, human
nature becomes transparent.  The crust of disguises is peeled off, and beneath the outward form
we behold a wide:'nass of better impulses, and
sanctified emotions, and' kindly dispositions, and
inwardly living piety. The tongue of the prophet
calls it "the reign of righteousness;" the penetrat



THE DIFFUS IVENESS OF GRA CE.    I 55
ing wisdom  of Jesus calls it "the kingdom  of
heaven."  Can prophecy add more?  Is not this
sufficient to cheer the waiting patience of the prisoners of hope?  Here is Power, emanating from
God and bringing the promise of all His resources.
Here is Peace, reconciling hostile nations and shaming the blood-red features of conquest. Here is
Emancipation, rescuing the pitiable victim of his
vices and the remorseful conscience of sin. And,
at last, here is the internal splendor of'a genuine
righteousness, that bespeaks man renovated, and
shows itself to be a vital power animating the soul
and kindling heaven within. What more can be
needed? One element alone. We need to know
whether this gift of God is a complete and finished
production as first bestowed, or whether it is endowed with the power to extend and strengthen
itself, and prevail more and more, and acquire new
arguments to prove that it came Divinely, lives
Divinely, and will be Divinely preserved. That
additional light beams upon us through the disclosures of prophecy. We are certified that God has
not left us with a complete gift to incur the responsibility of preserving it perfect, and to depend
upon ourselves for its benefit by our strenuous
effort to keep it intact as it came. No; the greater
grace is not the greater burden. But that which
God confers upon us in the gospel is a growing,
enlarging, diffusive power that attests its own Divine origin by its own increase, and exhibits itself,
not as a blessing once for all given, but as a blessing continued, given more and more, and assured




I56     THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.
to us by these widening testimonies of a goodness
that defies exhaustion. And this is the assurance
involved in God's promise, "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.:
I the Lord will hasten it in his time."
We may put it into a single phrase-it declares
"the diffusive tendency of grace." This at once
presents itself to' our minds in two aspects-what
we may call the intensive and the extensive. Grace
spreads and strengthens and multiplies itself intensively by its inward grasping of our faculties
and feelings. It is sometimes called, in this sense,
an influence, a streaming of power into the thoughts
and affections and motives of a man, the flow of
God's fullness into the first springs of thought and
will. And then it strengthens into more than an
influence, and becomes a commanding element of
our inward being, or, as an Apostle phrases it,
" bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Nor even here does its exertion pause; but it proceeds to reconstruct our
spiritual being, shaping us inwardly after the new,
the perfect model of the man Christ Jesus, till we
almost lose our old identity of earthliness and grossness and ungodliness, and (in Scripture phrase) are
changed into His image from  glory to glory.
These things we do not always realize, because
they are spiritual results, out of the range of sense.
They come not with observation. But they are
the intensive triumphs of that grace which must
diffuse itself and grow and put on beauties, or must
vanish from our hearts.




THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRA CE.    I57
This intensive diffusion of grace is not the aspect
in which our Prophet is regarding the gospel. He
is more intent upon producing before us figures
that indicate the extensive diffusion of grace. Diminutive promise, extending into the force of
thousands, and feeble individuality extending intb
the compactness and numbers and majesty of a
nation —and all this accomplished with such disproportionate appliances and under such abrupt
transitions, that man loses the chance of calling it
his own work-it is the Lord's hastening after His
own order of events-this is the imagery that occupies the prophetic eye. It was pictured of old
to rouse the flagging hopes of a desponding people;
it is rehearsed for our admonition upon whom the
ends of the world are come.
Has this prediction been verified? Does it involve principles worth taking-into our philosophy
or theory of life? These are inquiries that every
serious soul will make (and a soul not serious is a
soul that has forgotten its immortality).
The prophet's words are verified. The kingdom
of heaven was first epitomized in the Son of Man
that came down from heaven. Into what is it extended? If you ascend into the realms of bliss, it
is there. If you descend into the shadowy habitations of the dead, it is there. If you breathe the
odors of Paradise among the disembodied righteous, you inhale a peace for the soul which attests
your residence in the kingdom of heaven. If the
wings of devotion transport you from continent to
continent, you hear the chants of your forefathers




158     THE DIFF USIVENESS OF GRA CE.
in the hundred tongues of our dispersed race, but
it is the. same faith and the same Bible and the
same salvation, all derived from that one Fountain,
that Son of Man "despised and rejected of men,"
but "the pleasure of the Lord prospered in His
hand." Do I recognize no extension of that'kingdom beyond those objects which my own narrowsighted eyes can behold? Here, then, is the obvious fact, challenging the contradiction of my
senses: the crucified Man of Nazareth animating
with His own impulses and uniting by His own
doctrine thousands of thousands, and penetrating
all barriers of empire and exclusion and jealousy
with a system that binds together in Him people
that know not each other's language, people made
by their attachment to this system and by their
undying determination to maintain it and spread
it anid transmit it-made virtually a great nation.
So much the purblind eye of sense observes. But
what is all this compared with the vision of faith?
If the prophet is verified by the outward scene on
earth, what shall we say of the less transient reality that looms in the wider scenery of faith?
Jesus treads the wine-press alone. Single-handed
He wars with the iniquities of the ages and with
the furious armies of spiritual malice. He might
have summoned more than ten legions of angelic
cohorts. But He'battled alone. There was no
intercessor.  The blood of redemption sprinkled
only His own garments. But the triumph, oh,
how boundless! The Blessing! How it sweeps
heaven and earth into one wide embrace! It kin



THE DIF USI VENESS OF GRA CE.     159
dies a new fire in the desolate heart of man, introduces a heavenly light into the chambers of the
dead, calls down angels to discover to them the
manifold wisdom of God, interprets to their understanding the obscure. series of earthly events, and
brings the, sundered worlds of temptation and of
rest into one communion.  The lone victim diffuses a grace that reaches both worlds, reconciles
men and angels, forms these tempted and those
triumphant into one household, for of Him "the
whole family in heaven and earth is named."
The extensive power of the gospel has thus been
viewed by us with reference to the wide regions
of existence it embraces.  Regard it, again, with
reference to its pervasive power, and see what a
diffusive energy resides in this grace. It appears
as a simple doctrine. Its propagation is committed
to artless and unlettered men.  No intricate or
abstruse science is claimed to be embodied in it.
Men disdain it for its simplicity. A brief history
relates the career of its author. It is launched
upon the world without patronage and without
authority, save its claim of derivation from God.
But it spreads into all the movements of society.
It has a wonderful power to pervade the feelings
and laws and customs of stereotyped society. It
penetrates the mass of men. And while it is neither
lawgiver nor ruler, neither revolutionary nor political-while it assails not the emperor and bribes
not the judge-yet it moulds laws and influences
governments, reforms society and actuates policies,
compels emperors to profess Christianity, and in



60o     THE DIFF USIVENESS OF GRA CE.
duces tribunals of justice to mitigate the penalties
that had ignored the brotherhood of man.
Some of us smiled more than two years ago*
when our superannuated chieftain announced that
we should conduct our civil war on Christian principles; and it was derisively asked if we intended
to slaughter rebels according to grace, and to substitute the gospel for Hardee's tactics. Many a
fiercely contested battle-field has been our answer.
We have carried our doctrine of salvation in ironclads and gunpowder, but we have humanized and
ameliorated this dire, this demoralizing, this debauching necessity of war. Of all dreaded provocatives to the most hideous passions of our race,
none threatens such barbarities and atrocities as a
civil war. It is nothing but the power of the gospel pervading our hearts, and thrusting itself
among the frantic excesses of battle, that has put
such a curb of forbearance upon our hostilities,
forced the maddened warrior to remember mercy,
granted such humane indulgences to the prisoner
of war, and rendered the hospital system, in all its
stages of arrangement, from the ventilated cot of
the sick recruit to the invalid corps of maimed
veterans —rendered this whole sanitary provision
just as important and valuable as the ordnance
supply or the recruiting detail.
And herein is but the sample, in our day
and our land, of what that simple doctrine has
been effecting through all Christendom.  It assumes not the power to eradicate the evils of so* This sermon was preached in 1864.-Editor.




THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.       I6I
ciety by command, and instantly, but it introduces
and diffuses a humanizing principle that softens
our asperities and relieves one another's miseries.
And this is a doctrine expanded into a manifold
system-a feeble institution in Galilee become an
influential instrument throughout the world-a
creed of twelve articles developed into a faith converting the hearts, and the laws, and the usages,
and the very ferocities of nations.
We see, then, the verification of the prophet's
words. Do they, then, involve any principle worth
taking into our philosophy or theory of life?
This one idea seems to be involved in every aspect which this subject presents, that grace is necessarily diffusive. It is like the fragrant ointment
upon Aaron's head, that bedewed his beard, and
diffused itself to the skirts of his garment. No
one receives it genuinely and uses it as a Christian,
without becoming a participant in this work of
diffusion. God imparts it to us not to be housed
and secreted in our own hearts by some right of
monopoly, but to be evinced in our lives and to
magnetize society wherever we touch it with the
attractive power of this grace. The property of
diffusing itself is a condition of its abiding with
us.  It cannot survive any system. of Christian
living which treats the gift as only imparted for
the luxury of self-enjoyment. As well might you
attempt to shut up sunlight in a casket and preserve it there, as to take grace into a human heart
and hold it there bright and warm and heaven-like
while it has no outlet for diffusion.




162     THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.
The principle thus applicable to each one of us
indicates the mode of the gospel's operation upon
society at large. It is not intended to develop itself by commotion and ruinous upheavals of the
social structure. It acts by patience and by moderation, by intrepid testimony and by winning
example, by the silent power of consistency and
by pacific methods. Thus it startles without confusing the minds of men. Providence sends alarms.
Events arouse and excite men. The church sooths
and calms and persuades and encourages.  Its
strength is quietness and confidence, and not agitation and clamor. God may send earthquakes and
portents, may'shake the jail-gates at Philippi and
waken the inmates in terror, but the Church quietly
sings praises unto the Lord. And by her very
composure in the person of Paul and Silas, she is
able to convert the agitated subject of alarm, and
to answer the eager inquiry of affrighted conscience, "What must I do to be saved?" The religion
of Jesus has -by this quiet diffusion penetrated society. It is edified, as a visible system, by the diffusive power of love; and it operates to extend
and disseminate its benefits with such orderly exhibition of truth and such tranquil confidence as disarms the antipathies of the world.
Were I speaking of the internal development of
God's life in your soul, I-should tell you that it is
vital religion, not because it is enthusiastic and
suddenly bnrsting upon your consciousness, but
because it is patient and steadfast and growing
from grace to grace, from prayer to perseverance,




THE DIFFUSIVENESS OF GRACE.       I63
from the glow of the heart to the guard of the
tongue, from  the feeble buds of rapture and
ecstacy to the riper fruits of courage and constancy-" first the blade, then the ear, then the
full corn in the ear"-vital religion, not because it
swells into volumes of excitement, but because it
grows into the flavors and tints of a heavenly life.
But I speak of the gospel in its outward actionof the life of God inhabiting and strengthening a
church. And there I discover the same principle
controlling its development.
It is the leaven imperceptibly leavening the mass.
It is the life-blood purified at the vitals and secretly
conveying health and vigor to the debilitated
frame.  It tingles through every member of society, and it imparts vital refreshment to every part
of a nation, from the head to the foot, putting, as
it were, that central heart which travels along in
the blood-putting. that heart into -every muscle,
every throb, every motion, every sensation of the
whole body, and men know not whence it comes,
that vitalizing power-and they atheistically ascribe
it to the management of some party, or the operation of some law, or the effect of some popular
orator, or the vehemence of some selfishness; but
it is none of these. It is God hastening His own
work.  It is society moved by God through the
heart, and that heart is His Church. If that heart
ceases to beat, we perish. If that heart diffuses the
blood of health, we live.




XV.
REDEM PTION.
EPHESIANS i. 7; COLOSSIANS i. I4.
" In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the
forgiveness of our sins."
HE Apostle multiplies words because language
is so inadequate to convey his ideas. It fails
to express the sciences of earth, and new
coinages must be uttered, phrases from one tongue
must be borrowed by another, to put into words
the inventions and devices that concern simply this
narrow world. How much more is the earthly
phrase impoverished and insufficient when it would
declare heavenly things. But the language of men
must be employed to convey Divine ideas, and the
magnificence of heavenly grandeur must submit to
the weakness of earthly words, or God must cease
to speak to men. "The Redemption" is one of those
vast Divine ideas, which comes limited to us in a
word that in vain attempts to grasp the whole
magnitude of the mercy. Paul feels its feebleness,
and without discarding the word attaches an explanation, " Even the forgiveness of our sins." Redemption alone might involve no more than the
(I64)




REDEMP TION.               65
"ccommercial" idea.  It might suggest only the
fact of a hard and unrelenting, though just demand
on the part of the Almighty, exacting the full paynment of the ransom, and buying the opportunity
for man from the cruel and inexorable law of God.
That was the original and natural force of the
word. In this " commercial" sense it was applied
to property. Usage, however, had elevated this
idea of redemption. It had been for ages associated
with the Hebrew's recollection of his nation's deliverance from bondage. It expressed in one word
the lengthened story of a suffering and oppressed
people conducted by God's hand and sheltered by
His presence, until the fierce heathen could be dispossessed and the tribes of Israel peacefully instated
in a land where they perpetually chanted, "He
hath showed His people the power of His worksHe sent redemption unto His people."
There was no difficulty, therefore, in bringing
the religious mind to view the Eternal God as a
Redeemer, as undertaking this office for man's
necessity, as bringing rescue to a vast multitude,
and as comprising in His act of redemption a
promise of unwavering fidelity from generation to
generation. But we needed to associate something
still more heavenly with this thought of redemption.
It was not enough to accept the " commercial " idea
of a sufficient payment made by blood. It was not
enough to accept the thought of its extent, that it
embraced all men, and that it was " eternal re~demption for us." This higher element must be recognized by us as the Christian meaning of the term,




i66             REDEMP TION.
that it was a loving, a compassionate, a pardoning
act of God. We are not permitted to dishonor
heaven and ourselves by simply believing that some
ingenious expedient has been found to satisfy justice, atd so put it into God's power to open heaven
for man. Neither are we permitted to: pause with
the comforting thought that the whole race has
received this favor from God, and that it is an
ample redemption for ever. All this may be true,
and may exalt our admiration of the mercies of
God; but all this is not enough. There is more
involved in our redemption by the blood of Christ,
more that represents to us the glorious excellencies
of God, more that concerns the reality of our own
nature.
It assails our hearts with its representation of
the origin of the. whole scheme of redemption, suggested in heaven, contrived in a counsel of perfection, the emanation of a love that would not desert us, a stream of forgiveness which is but the
gush from the fountain we had been determined to
seal up, God's tender mercy. Ah, how had we
denied it, choked it, refused it! - When it came to us
with Paradise and promises, we scorned it. When
it came with laws and ordinances, we disowned
it and ascribed every command and every prohibition to the hard measures of a rigorous severity.
And when, after all our obduracy, it came asking
of us repentance, moving us to be pitiful and tenderhearted because God Himself was the Father of
mercies, we flung our hard-hearted sins, like great
masses of obstruction, into this fountain of mercy,




RE DEMP TION.             167
as if we had desperately resolved to choke up the
stream we had not been able to exhaust. And yet
the Beloved came and brought the inestimable redemption. The whole of heaven was with Him,
and the utmost of love was in Him. He had
nothing to gain, for all things were made by Him,
and He was the brightness of the Father's glory.
He merely put into clearer syllables that original
fact, "God is Love." There is one word in the
language.of Scripture which expresses all this history of God's manifestation, and that is "redemption."  It sums up what the Apostle elsewhere
expands into this form of theology, " Not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us."
If the term thus condenses so much instruction
concerning God, it is no less suggestive respecting
our own nature. With rapid transition does the
Apostle's mind hurry to the equivalent term that
denotes the most deplorable reality which redemption discovers in us-the reality of inexcusable sin.
Here was the necessity for all that tragedy of blood.
Here was the occasion for God's attributes to be
summoned for the most arduous task. Here was
the evil that strained the heart of mercy to the
last degree, and furnished the problem which none
but God could solve.  It was not some foreign
power that threw the baleful hindrance between
God and our own nature. We were the enemies
by wicked works.  We were our own wilful destroyers. Our iniquities separated us from our
God. Our sins were the barriers between the




I68             REDEMP TION.
trembling heart, and the happiness it lost. It was
corruption that we had invited to inhabit the soul,
and for which we had banished peace and purity.
In ourselves, in the sensual thoughts and the ungodly devices of our own souls, was the misery
that enveloped us, and through this thick shroud
of ruin burst the redemption of God, " even the
forgiveness of our sins."
Was it strange that the mention of God's redeeming act should instantly suggest this its -principal
triumph? No, this is the wonder, that such a picture of God forgiving, and of man despising forgiveness, should be viewed by us with as much
unconcern and apathy as if it were some whimsical
conjecture respecting the fashion of an angel's
dress.
Perhaps there is some explanation of this'indifference, though it be no apology, in the limited
and unworthy sense which we apply to this redemption. Its scope is not appreciated. We narrow it to the few that seem to seize with holy
eagerness upon its entire benefits. And we lose
sight of the greatness of the mercy as embracing
the whole world-as granted to the just and the
unjust-for "God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them." Or we depreciate redemption by not
regarding the multitude of reliefs to our condition
implied in this term. We use it as if no more than
an expression to signify a change in God's purpose toward us, abandoning indignation and concluding to indulge. But it gathers up into one




REDEMP TION.              I 69
phrase far. more than this-Father relenting. It
means that God took upon Himself great humiliation, surrendering His majesty, sending out of
heaven the dearest, noblest, highest being that
heaven delighted in, permitting this puny, daring
enemy of God, this corrupted creature, to shame
and wound and trample on the loving Creator.
It means that God took this cruel, sorrowful payment of tears and blood, which the sinful injustice
of our nature wrung from the tender heart of
Jesus, as if it were a great sacrifice offered by our
nature to the inflexible righteousness of God. Redemption means that all the burdensome and blind
ceremony by which men had been hemmed in to
save them from the pollutions of their own race,
was lifted off their consciences that they might be
saved by the sweet and mild orderings of a Christian life. Redemption means that God substituted
for the dark and hard thoughts of His Provide-nce
which poisoned our hearts, a brighter sense of His
goodness and the clear consciousness that all His
dealings with -us were prompted by emotions of
benevolence.  Redemption means that God had
interposed to rescue this world from the malignity
of'the devil, dispelling the illusions which spirits
of evil had gathered in fatal enchantment around
the souls of men, and sending larger armies of
helping spirits to'minister to the heirs of salvation.
Redemption means that while we deserved to be
regarded as enemies, having chosen that attitude,
and not choosing to make solemn and'bold profession of any more loving allegiance, God has been
8




170             REDEMIP TION.
pleased to shower upon us the favors -of friendship,
to pity our false and ruinous position-to forbear
when a breath would destroy-to forgive when we
persisted in sin —to throw the light around us
when we were too proud to ask for it, and to send
the. Spirit into our hearts, day by day, while we
grieved and resisted and refused His blessed aid.
Redemption takes hold upon our eternal prospects.
It signifies that the work is done for us foreverthat God has sealed an everlasting covenant, and
that there is nothing needed for our salvation
while the woes of earth shall last or the bliss of
heaven can grow, which is not made over to man
by the bond sealed and delivered to Jesus, "in
whom we have redemption through His blood,
even the forgiveness of our sins.''
I am not, my brethren, unconscious of the answer
which our self-vindication renders to this Divine
appeal. We plead that the enjoyment of these
rich benefits does not come necessarily and inevitably, but upon conditions which we must fulfill,
conditions that grind against our wills and provoke
resistance. We plead that the very perversity of
our nature, which must be forgiven by a holy
Judge, renders us averse to the conditions of forgiveness, and sets heaven no nearer to us though
our Great Redeemer hath opened the door.
My beloved brother, in this contamination of
sin-my exalted brother, in this splendid redemption, I feel the power of this plea for the sinner.
It is the voice of my oven heart. Infirmity echoes
it every day. God would confound me as a hypo



REDEMPTION.                7 1
crite if I disguised what this sinful nature must
confess. Let us be just to ourselves, and own that
this is our plea of extenuation. But let us not be
unjust to our Father, our Saviour, our God.
Is there, any perverseness in our nature which
God'does not assist us, does not enable us to overcome? Is not that ample forgiveness, which is
written in Christ's bond, intended to cover just
those deficiencies which lurk around our work,
when we have made the- effort and shown that
there was in us, at least, sincerity and resolution?
Conditions! Yes, there are conditions. Blessed
be God! He has not shut us up in a doleful certainty.  It is a blessed promise that allures us.
No uncertain decree of His secret will is suspended over us. He willeth not that any should perish.
But He does define conditions that test our acceptance of His gracious trusts. He begins with the
least, but His design is to give us the utmost. And
the daily condition with which we must comply is
merely this, to use the little that we have that we
may be entrusted with the more.
Could there be simpler or easier conditions?
Measure the difficulty well, my brother, and then
deal justly with your God. Can there be a heaven,
that is not absurd, which contains elements' not desiring to be free from sin? Can there be a home
with God for the master and the delight, where
the will of God is refused obedience? And do
you suppose the infinite wisdom of God would
make such an incalculable expenditure of labor
and suffering and prophecy and'miracle to save




172             REDEMPTION.
man when, after all, there was to be in man nothing to be saved, no will, no exertion, no power of
loving God, no disposition for heaven, no condition that lay in himself to fulfill?
All that heaven requires of us amounts to no
more than our exhibition of the desire to be blest
of heaven. Redemption brings us all the rest.
Surrender to the love of- God, and the love of God
surrenders everything to thee.
If there had been no compliance to be evinced by
our own nature-if man was not to be persuaded to
work out his own salvation-if the glory of God
was not to be promoted, and the joys of millions of
heavenly beings enhanced by the return of this
lost humanity to the obedience of a'child, to the
attitude and act of religious submission-then that
long drama of redemption might have. been
abridged into a single act, and this hidden among
the secret transactions of God. Eden was needless, and Sinai was superfluous, and Jerusalem -was
built in vain, and Calvary was stained with useless
blood, and the Church has struggled through a
fruitless fight. One instantaneous fiat of the Almighty would have accomplished all. Penitence
was wasted effort. The sighs of devotion would
be but whispers against the tempest. The painful
piety of saints becomes a hopeless struggle against
the edict of Omnipotence.  Such a desolate dominion of arbitrary power is not the lot of man.
Thanks to God! His redemption teaches us that
everytning which has transpired to move the heart
of man is but the addition of arguments inducing




REDEMP TZON.              73
us to flee to those conditions which bind our souls
with that Saviour of the world, " in whom we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of our sins."
Our Christian duty derives illustration from the
sentiments of the hour. We are patriots in our
recollections and our hopes. What the hand of
God wrought for our feeble colonies resolved to
be free and independent States, and what was
enacted by the patience and the daring of men so
like ourselves, these are the themes that teem
upon our memories. It was a political redemption,
achieved by blood. Gratitude recalls its heroes.
Patriotism applauds its success.  We glow with
the recital of the grand principles of liberty and
humanity vindicated and maintained by the redemption of those days of virtue and valor. And
when the heat of momentary excitement presumes
to brand us with some epithet that stigmatizes our
patriotism, is it manly resentment, or is it holy indignation that mantles our cheek and repels the
reproachful- term? Alas! we burn with shame
when some distant allusion charges us with cold
disregard for our country's redemption and our
nation's claims. But neither the sigh of remorse
nor the tinge of shame attests some faint awalkenings of gratitude when eternal redemption is the
theme, and the claim is His who loves us more
than we can love our native land. The blood of
brave men consecrates our nation's claim. But
the precious blood of redemption consecrates the
claim of Christ and His Church-of Christ who




X174            REDEMP TION.
purchased each one of us and has the right.to
claim a thousand-fold more than we render to our
country's cause-of His: Church which claims our
vows of citizenship, claims our submission to its
sanctifying laws;:for the kingdoms of this world
shall- perish, the empires of the East shall decay,
this Grand Republic of the West'in vain shall dip
its wing in either ocean and smile upon a gladdened
and a free people redeemed from every social enthralment, for in the lapse of ages it shall dissolve,
but the Church of the redeemed, undissolving and
undecayed, shall live on forever, and through the
arches of eternity shall: ring her heavenly anthem,
"ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands
of thousands, saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and
glory and blessing."




XVI.
GLORY.
JEREMIAH, iX. 23, 24.
"Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich
man glory in his riches:
" But let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth
and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these
things I delight, saith the Lord.
T HE  text reveals the fact of human experience that glory and boastfulness are near of
kin.  Merit and dignity ande greatness may be
our unconscious possession.  But glory is the resplendence of those qualities and those acts in
which we put our excellence and upon which we
stake our merit. There is something personal, appropriated, and incommunicable in the nature of
glory.  Imagery represents it as a halo that lingers
around a person or a deed. It is the glare which
comes out from a brilliant exploit, or from the presence of the illustrious man. His glory is the showing out of all the splendor that belongs to him.
Carrying up this sense to the exalted perfections of
Deity, our Lord's prayer terminates with a doxolo('75)




176                 GLOR Y.
gy, a giving of glory, and we ascribe the summit
and the source of all that is illustrious in creation,
to God's own original and underived glory. And
in the like use of the term, as signifying the exclusive and personal excellencies of His nature, the
Almighty protests by the mouth of His Prophet,
"My glory will I not give to another."
We may regard it, then, as the shining forth of
an individual excellence so as to attract attention
and direct it upon the source of the glory.
There is accordingly a close relationship between
this possession of glory, and the boastfulness of a
conscious eminence. The.real splendor of character, and the dreamy conceit of brilliancy, are of
the same aspect, and so far as the man himself is
concerned it matters little whether he is glorious in
reality, or glorious only in his own eyes.
It is only in a secondary sense, therefore, that
man can be said to glorify his Maker. God is indeed glorified by all the mirrors and reflections of
His riches and might and wisdom. Though they
be the minute atoms of creation, yet does the
light of His intelligence and power and bounty
shine from them. As through the smallest crevice
the prospect of a vast space may be transmitted,
and with the slender reeds of a telescope the beauty of the heavens may be comprised-; so the glory
of the Infinite is seen, and for the purpose of being
seen is contained in the smallest fabric of His skill
and goodness. It is so with the character of a man.
In great emergencies and under the broad gaze of
ample observation, he may put on the features and




GLORY.                 177
the manner of nobleness, but if he be truly glorious
and excellent, intrinsically and thoroughly what he
then. seems, the least of his actions and the most
retired of his ways will be touched with the hues
of excellence. It was symbolized in that pervading energy of Christ, which sent a virtue of beneficence and health to the hem.of His garment. It
was not necessary to draw the virtue from the gaze
or from the words of Jesus. He was anointed
with power from  on high, and the efficacy was
with his person. We say, then, that God by creating the reflections of His wise and good will
makes Himself in the face of creation to be glorified. "The heavens thus declare the glory of God."
And inasmuch as His law is superior to the gross
form which it governs, and the holy will of God is
better than any and every other image and reflection of Himself, man has the means of glorifying
God above the whole visible universe by doing
His will and delighting in His will, and conforming
to that will, and pronouncing that will wise and
just and glorious. Is it any stretch of exaggeration to say that this - man's glorifying God is more
acceptable, more to the honor of his Maker, than
the whole system of creation? Is it too much to say
that this immortal spirit, putting on the graces and
the nobilities of the new creation, is in His sight
and in his angels' sight, more glorious than the
whole beauty of the sky? And instead of praying
for the greater emanations of creative splendor, is
it not the consummation of all prayer, "Thy will
be done on earth, as it is in heaven?" And is there.
8*




178                GLOR Y.
not something more rapturous, more ecstatic, more
thrilling, than the glory of God in creation, when
a man rises up to glorify his Father in heaven-a
surge of joy stirling that ocean above when one
sinner repenteth?
Man is therefore glorifying God, when the will
of God is the object of his knowledge and the occasion of his delight. He is entering into a possession of glory by reflecting and mirroring from his
soul the perfect law of God. There is an intrinsic
and superlative excellence passed upon his nature,
for it is not only glorious as a creature being the
crown of the material world, the image of God,
but it is glorious as an agent, as a possessor and accomplisher of a self-chosen character, resplendent
and excellent by its own effort.
For I need scarcely discuss the question, whether
glory is that which is thrust upon a man without
his own Awill and consent and seeking, or that
which is acquired and earned and made the appetite and prize of his soul. Which is the glory, to
have been born the heir of a rich estate, or to have
wrestled with poverty and vanquished idleness and
commanded success, and come into the possession
which birth and the world and our own passions
would have denied us? And which is'the glory,
to have struck by guess upon some piece of good
fortune and to have seemed wise when it was an
accident that befriended us, or to have stored away
experience and caught at the straws of wisdom
and made ourselves wiser by the assiduity and patience of learning, by the habit and discipline of




GLOR Y                I179
wisdom? And which is glory, the temporary possession of some envied success, or the name of
having deserved it, and of having been in ourselves
far better than the fortune which was allotted us?
It is not,. then, the glare of what we have, which
constitutes a genuine glory; it is the excellence
and honour, the splendor and the nobleness of
what we were. If the show of the possession was
the glory, Nero was master of a more opulent empire than Augustus, and Judas was the most glorious of all the Apostles. No, there is a secret contempt which a man must have for himself when the
means of his success carry no hallucination of merit, and the shame of enjoying what one does not deserve is more bitter than the sense of defeat.
Glory may follow reverse, and no passing cloud
extinguishes though it may obscure and dim the
light of a character natively glorious.
Well have we said that it is not the passing of
great trusts and favors upon us by Providence, but
our reflections of that will which Providence reads
~and interprets to us, which constitutes the glory
of man. And well has the Prophet epitomized the
whole lesson in the one sentence, " Let him that
glorieth, glory in this, that he knoweth and understandeth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the
earth; for in these things I delight, saith the
Lord."
Now I take it to be here implied that the more a
man commits himself to Providence, the more he
expects all rewards and all penalties to be adminis



I80'LOR Y.
tered by God, the more he so lives and shapes his
character so as to be in league with God's overruling, all-inspecting and righteous Providence, the
more lustre gathers upon his soul, and the more
he has to glory in what he is. The' sentiment is a
paradox. It is like the contradiction of the Apostle, "When I am weak, then am I strong."  It is
the putting of our glory in the hand of God, that
it may be Lnore surely ours. It is the disclaiming
of our own power, that we may claim the power
of God to be ours. It is the putting all excellence
and beauty in Providence, that Providence may
keep it for ourselves. So then " he that glorieth, let
him glor.y in the Lord."
In this topic we discover a twofold suggestion,
the one, that we should not mistake a Providential
trust for an evidence of glory; the other, that we
should recognize a real glory in'the humble office
of working with Providence.
For the first, let the Prophet speak: "Let not the
wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man
glory in his riches."  Now I have no idea that this
is meant for a protest against the haughtiness
which sometimes possesses a man more than all
he possesses. I consider it a warning against -the
delusion of conceit and self-satisfaction which'wisdom and power and riches are so apt to beget and
to cherish. They come to us with a kind of persuasion that we have really been superior to the
thousands who want them. They may not make us
supercilious, or fantastic, or proud. That is only




GLORY.                 I8i
the weak and foolish phase of these possessions.
They may not tempt us into gaudy displays of illmannered affectation, or gross assumption. But
they have a strange spell over our consciousness.
They blind us most wonderfully to- the real ambitions and aspirations of our nature. They decoy a
man into the farthest idolatries of himself, of his
wit and craft and sagacity'and art, while he supposes himself untainted and free. The man of the
world, as the phrase is, keeps his eye- upon the main
~chance, shuns the disreputable deeds which his
own class denounce, hates above all things to be
outwitted or put down in society, plumes himself
upon the standing which he contrives to keep in
the world, and laughs at-the enthusiasm  of the
mere scholar or the niggardliness of the miser, or
the singularity of the serious man of religion. He
makes it a sort of glory to be of the world, up to
its mark, expert in its fashions, glib in its phrases,
great in its ambitions, and successful in its appearances. He ridicules pretension, and scorns awk2
wardness, and so he creeps or dashes or struts up
to a degree of saintship in the diptychs of the
world. There is no suspicion in his mind that all
the glory of his achievement is but the reflection
of that hollow display, that flimsy glitter, that inglorious mockery of nobility, the fashion of the
world. He claims a stock of peculiar qualities on
his part by which he contrives to make himself
shine, and be the envy or the gossip of a circle.
And he measures the' amount of his glory by the
dimensions of his importance in this imaginary




182                 GLORY.
sphere. Poor wreck of a man! or rather ugly distortion of what was meant for a man! He had a
Providential trust of wit, of manner, of perceptions, and he mistook the possession for an evidence of glory, when all the glory was to be in his
way of using and honoring what he had.
Another man is the Providential Trustee of power. God has given him, we will say, the sacred
trust of the priesthood. He has a position of influence and of labor. The elements of might are in
his hand. There is a rampart of official eminence
before him. The confidence of men has entrusted
him, and the confidence of men will allow him to
speak with positiveness and weight. He moves
men with the leverage of his trust.  There is a
willingness of tribute to his character. His opinions carry their force.  Impelled and bewitched
with the idea of his influence, he devotes it to the
ends of prejudice and party; not to his trust of making men better, but to his fancy of making them
like himself; not to the glory of drawing them  towards God, but to the glory of warming them with
his fancies and singularities and opinions. He glories in his might. He glories not in the execution
of his trust, but in the aggrandizement of his personal position. Such a priesthood was foreboJed
as honoring the God of forces. Such a priesthoods
puts its glory in the Providential trust, and not in
the holy exercise of the trust.
My brethren the illustration skims over your
hearts, and alights upon him who for the reason of
his trust and his weakness is always the mark of sus



GLOR Y.                I83
picion. But if neither the sacred trust deters a
man from such vain-glory, nor the reproofs of his
own discourse warn him, nor the engagements of
his life protect him, how much more does the secular heart stand in danger of a deeper delusion, glorying in wisdom, or in might, or in riches.
Our second suggestion is opportune, that. we
should recognize a real glory in the humble office
of working with Providence.
There are two facts which seem to me conclusive
supports of this suggestion.
In the first place, there is no other mode of life
so independent, so thoroughly calculated to bring
out the real, honest elements of a man, as that agricultural life which is a plain, daily, open working
with Providence, and in sight of it. Such a life
transports the most of a man's thoughts, business, hopes, meditations, and. by consequence his
desires, from  the region of conflict with man
to the region of contact. with  Providence.  It
may. look homespun, and have less of the mannerand polish of the world upon its surface. But it
looks into the eye of Providence, it converses with
the clouds and the skies, it meets the daily footsteps of God, it has a glory of His hand to explore
in every rood of soilit touches and in every bud
that swells before its eye.. It works, and has the
blessed strength and.wholesomeness of the vigorous man; but it works constantly and gladly with
Providence, ready to see how God di'rects, and
ready to second what he originates. And if it has
no false and specious splendors upon it, yet it has




I84                 GLOR Y.
the double glory of being useful in the highest
degree-useful to  man, and  independent, for
it is taught, along its whole tread of labor, to
glory in the Lord. I take this to be a demonstration printed. upon the necessities of man, printed
upon the first page of nature, a demonstration that
the glory of a man arises out of his working with
Providence, making that his study, his ambition,
his delight.
There is one other fact which claims our observation. It is the mood and temper to which a life
truly glorious always brings a man. It never inflates him with the thought of great power or
great resources in himself. He is lost in the grandeur of Providence. His genius is felt to be the
inspiration of God.
His glory is received as the answer of God to a
life that trusted in Him. The sense of strength
in working with God's hands, is the paramount
sense of a soul thus schooled in the education
of glory. Pride retreatsas glory enters. The lowly and the meek man is discovered to the soul more
and more as the rightful king of glory. Working
with Providence, as Providence calls us, with the
means Providence gives, let us not fear it, let us
not stand aloof as if it were the nursing of pride;
its anthem will be, "Not unto us, O, Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the glory."




XVII.
REPENTANCE.
PSALMS li. 4.
"Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in
thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and
clear when thou judgest."
IT is David's confession. The guilty king, anguish-torn, and heart-sick, with the black
atrocity of his deeds photographed before his
conscience, groans in penitential shame and distress.
He disguises not the perverseness and the guiltiness of his heart. And not contenting himself with
making amends to the persons he had wronged, to
the kingdom he had dishonored, to the social feeling he had sullied, to the prophet he had provoked,
and the station he had degraded, he carries the
whole enormity up to the ear of God, and prostrates himself in the acknowledgment that the
worst feature of all his yieldings to temptation and
passion was that thereby "he sinned against the
Lord." In this was the genuineness of his repentance; in this the possibility of his restoration.
The principle remains the same. It is intrinsically the same on our side; unchangeably the
same on God's side. The mercy that soothed the
(185)




i86             REPENTANCE.
lacerated spirit of the blood-guilty king is the same
Fatherly pity against which our sin-laden bosoms
must lean. And if the crimes of David be not ours,
yet in us is the resemblance of propensity, is the
recollection of a guiltiness that needs the same forgiving remedy from heaven, the same penitential
confession.
What we need is to trample down that selfexcusing, self-justifying habit which disqualifies us
for any gospel born of God, and throws our hearts
into a fatal contrast with the language that befits a
sinner, 4' That thou mightest be justified when- thou
speakest, and clear when thou judgest."
If true penitence and real faith were nothing
more than an acknowledgment of conduct inconsistent with the Divine law, all would be penitent
believers; for we could hardly find an individual
acquainted with the rule set for man to walk by,
who should yet pretend that he had continued "in
all the things which are written in the law to do
them."
But it is one thing to confess that we have transgressed; and another thing to confess, at least to
feel in our hearts, that we are justly condemned for
our transgressions.
On this humiliation, this inward sense of sinfulness, all depends. Yes, eternity depends upon it;
more than I can describe, or you conceive. The
ruin, or the salvation of the soul depends not on
our repeating it in a creed or a catechism, not on
our subscribing to it as an article of religion; for
then I might quote a few sentences from the Liturgy




REPENTANCE.               187
in which you have this day joined, and have done.
But it must be felt, not declared, acknowledged in
our hearts and evidenced in our lives. A person
does not feel guilty, merely because he has been
proved to have offended. He must be persuaded in
his heart not only that he has transgressed a law,
but that it was a law which he ought to have
obeyed. It is easy for me to affirm that " the Scripture has concluded all under sin," and you may bow
to the authority of Scripture, and have nothing to
reply; but no good is done, till you confess the
justice as well as the authority of Scripture;
till you are touched in your hearts, and exclaim
with the repentant king, " I have sinned against the
Lord." When the Holy Spirit has brought conscience to this conviction, Jesus and His Gospel
are welcome to the repentant heart, and no yoke
that mercy assigns to the returning sinner deters
him from grasping the " exceeding great and precious promises" "which are by faith in Jesus Christ
to them that believe."
I ventured the observation-most men readily
allow that they have not lived up to the perfect
Law of God. But they do not so readily allow the
sinfulness of this; they have some e:-cuse in reserve
behind which to shelter themselves. They may
have offended, but they are not guilty; in other
words, it would be unjust in the Almighty to condemn them.
God ought to be vindicated. We ought to be
saved. Neither is He justified, nor are we rescued,-unless we measure the worthlessness of




i88             REPENTANCE.
these excuses. Will you accompany me, then, with
your candor and your attention, while we probe
these excuses and detect their hollowness?
I. One excuse, by which men palliate to their own
minds their neglect of the Divine Law, is the corrupt nature which was born with them.  God, they
think, kno'ws their frailty, their corrupt propensities, their rebellious passions; they derive their being from Him; and will He severely notice what
is wrong in the creatures which He has made?
I enter not upon the inquiry, how far'this very
corrupt nature is in itself the occasion- of'condemnation. I descend from that high ground, and say,
that the force of the excuse depends entirely upon
what you have done to amend this corrupt nature;
whether you have contended against it, resisted it
to the utmost of your power; whether'you have
made it the subject of continual endeavor that your
evil dispositions might be'. reformed and renewed.
Instead of this, can you lay your hand upon your
heart and -say that you have never given willing
way to it? Never indulged in wickedness from
which you could have abstained?  Never encouraged passion?  Never pampered appetite?
Never placed yourself within the reach of temptation? A prudent man, who has some disorder inherent in his bodily constitution, does not argue
that it is useless for him to take care of his health,
because of his constitutional weakness, but by
reason of it he takes unusual care,-he avoids exposing himself, he shuns fatigue, he abstains from
risks which a stronger might encounter without in



REPENTANCE.               I89
jury. Have we acted as the prudent man, with
this corruption infecting our nature?  Look back
to the beginnings of sin, and trace the facts, whether
we have yielded when we ought to have resisted,
whether we have encouraged evil desires and pursued evil habits till their strength became more
than a danger, grew into a tyrannical mastery.
In order to understand the Scriptural representation of man's state, it is unnecessary to believe
that any one will be finally condemned for sin which
he could not have avoided. When the veil is removed which is now spread over the conscience,
every impenitent transgressor will perceive that he
had daily made his nature worse by "hardness of
heart and contempt of God's word," and that he
had used no pains to correct and purify it; that if
he had inclination to sin, he had also power to resist that inclination, unless he has persisted in
breaking the bonds of restraint and provoked God
to withdraw the grieved and insulted Spirit, and
leave him to his worst enemy, his- wayward heart.
The man that truly repents, confesses that he has
truly sinned and deserved to be rejected. Ile cries
out with no affectation of sorrow or of humility"Make me a clean heart, O God! Cast me not
away from Thy presence."  He hates the sins that
cast dishonor on his Lord. He rises up to battle
with the degeneracy of his nature. He writhes
under the venom that taints his soul. And he disdains those ungenerous excuses which acquit himself by accusing God.
II. Another excuse behind which irreligious ex



Igo90           REPENTANCE.
ample shelters itself, is that of want of knowledge.
It is not the way of men to pronounce themselves
ignorant on religious subjects. They are more
likely to assume the air and the tone of great shrewdness, and of very criticising penetration. But they
are none the less prompt to repel the entreaties of
theologians, and of God's own inspired words by
pleading a kind of defect in religious knowledge.
The subject comes to us in this age, must come if
is suitably presented, with much of the result of
study and scholarship. And men will reply that
their scholarship has not run in such abstruse directions, and is not equal to these obscure controversies; that the kind of knowledge which would
make them versed in Scripture is not theirs, and
God will not expect to reap where He has not
sown.
But that very ignorance which some plead -as
their excuse, is, perhaps,- an aggravation of their
sin. An evil heart betrays itself, from.the beginning of life, by an unwillingness to study spiritual
things, and to attend upon what might prove a restraint upon corrupt inclinations. Look back upon
your early days. Did you take pains to acquire
knowledge? Did you always listen. to those who
were willing to teach? Did you never turn away
from warning and'instruction, as if it were an evil
rather than a good? Did you never misemploy
the leisure of the Lord's day, and look for amusement instead of informnation? Even when present
at the worship of God, did you seek after " knowledge of the truth?" Did you reflect upon what




REPENTANCE.                 9 I
you heard? Did you study it, meditate upon
it? Did you' deem it a pleasure and a benefit
when religious instruction came to you in such
forms that you must be earnest about it, and attentive and revolve it in your mind, or the truth would
escape you? In a word, did you act upon the subject of religion, as. you act upon every other subject concerning which you are interested and desire
~to be informed?
If you have not done this, do not believe that the
plea of ignorance will avail. If you have done
this, we may venture to affirm you will have no
ignorance to plead.
God has put this matter of practical and suffi-.cient religious knowledge under such an explicit
promise as He seldom gives on any subject. "If
thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandmerits with thee; so that thou incline thine ear
unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if thou criest after knowledge and liftest
up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest
her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the
Lord and find the knowledge of God." Nay, there
is more than a promise; there is regular provision
made for encouraging us and for fulfilling the'promise. God hath set apart one-seventh of our time
for the acquirement of religious knowledge. A
seventh part of time is sufficient for learning anything relating to this present world. But God's
will is learned with special assistance, and the effort
is success, for " the Lord giveth wisdom."




I92              REPENTANCE.
I speak as if addressing those -of less advanced
intelligence. But that is not the fact. I speak to
those of great advantages, and of enviable attainments. It can scarcely be otherwise where our
beautiful worship is frequented. It will attract intelligence.
But if men, in whatever rank or situation, neglect
the means which God has placed in their hands;
if they reckon anything better worth seeking for,
than the way of eternal life; if they take that season
which God has destined. for the concerns of the
soul and.devote it to amusement, or idleness, or to
worldly cares; then, indeed, they may, they must
be doubtful and deluded,-ignorant of their spiritual needs and uncertain of the remedies; but let
them not bring forth this wanton ignorance as the
cloak for their sin. He that promised has also
threatened, and the penalty is as doleful as the
promise is cheering —" They shall seek me early, but
shall not find me, for that they hated knowledge and
did not choose the fear of the Lord."
III. Another shelter which we find against the
attacks of conscience, is the excuse of evil association; men plead the influence of thoughtless. or'dissolute companions among whom their lot has been
cast from early youth, or the corrupting examples
that surround them, examples of inveterate vice,
examples of venerable years refusing prayer and
sacrament, examples of vain conduct or malicious
motive or treacherous vacillation on the part of
those professing more worthy lives. The retarding and the perverting'influence of such wretched




REPENTANCE.               I93
examples is not to be dismissed as of no account.
It is painful to reflect on the power of evil example,
on the immense evil one ungodly man is able to
effect, on the mountain of obstruction which one
grave and plausible instance of prosperous resistance to the humbling duties of religion will erect
to check and defy the stream of better instruction.
But whatever the acceptance of this excuse among
men, it will not abide the searching inquiry of God.
Before you can plead it there, you must prove that
your own will was not a party in the evil which
you joined, that you have not neglected prayer,
and shunned instruction, and closed your eyes to
Scripture, and rushed upon the dangers of indulgence. Did example ever lead you to that which
you loathed? Did you not submit to be the captive,
before one link of the chain was riveted? Did you
not discard and discredit the good and the safe examples, because in your secret desire, in your
heart's preference, the irreligious and the worldly
example was the unresisted fascination?
Ah! there is another aspect of these charms when
sickness brings better thoughts, and the face of God
is contrasted with " the course of this world." The
miserable imitator of ruinous examples will.find his
vain excuse dissolved, when the secrets of the heart
shall be judged, and thou that scornfully quotest
these guides of destruction shall not be justified in
thy plea.
IV. I will speak of one more excuse by which
many lull their consciences to sleep, and palliate
the guilt of a life without religion;. they are active9




194              REPEN7TANCE.
ly emplaoyed in the business of the world; its affairs
lie heavy upon them; they are constantly occupied
in their calling, and have little time for prayer or
Scripture, for God or their souls. Neither is this
excuse confined to those whose every hour is precious to the subsistence of their families; it is
equally the argument of artisan and statesman, of
physician and merchant, of her that has literary
leisure, and her that toils for weary hours.
The answer is obvious. None ini any condition
or occupation has the right to be thus immersed in
the world. It is not possible where the heart is
right. Many situations give little leisure; but none
legitimately debars us from " working out our own
salvation." If there be such a situation, the question of duty is instantly solved,-let a man leave
it,-abandon this moment a calling in which you
cannot "abide with God."  What! you will say,
abandon worldly hopes, flattering prospects, a position of success? I do not make the calculation.
Your Saviour makes it. He brings in all the powers
of heaven to decide this balance of advantages, and
promises for every comfort thus forsaken, "manifold more in this present time," a huge interest on
this investment in God's everlasting bond. " I have
been young, and now am  old," says David, the
penitent David, " and yet saw I never the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread."
I do not deny that there are some vocations for
which the real reward is in another world, not
among these mysteries of iniquity, not amid this
tribulation that gives such glorious examples of




REPENTANCE.                195
patience and inflexibility. And I do not stand upon
the old Hebrew hope of seeing all of God's. righteousness in this life. But this lends no virtue to
the shallow excuse for sin, that we have preferred
the world that perisheth to the world that fadeth
not away.
My brethren, the subject is not pleasing. It is
difficult to present it without appearances of harshness and of language that is invidious in its tone
of superiority, and ill-befitting one sinner pleading
with another. But neither you nor I must shrink
from duties because they cost.
Consider then, with yourselves, you that have
lived, and are still living such a life as the Scriptures condemn. If you ever look forward to that
judgment which the Scriptures reveal, what plea
are you preparing to offer there? Is it that you
are naturally corrupt? This will avail nothing, unless you have resisted your corruption and sought
God's appointed remedy.
Will you plead the want of religious knowledge?
Neither will this avail, if you have ever missed or
failed to seek the opportunities of learning.'Have you been deceived by. scorners, and en-.ticed by other sinners? Neither will this palliate
the sin to which your heart rushed, and in which
your consent was the great aggravation.
Has this present world, "its cares, its pleasures,
or its riches" engrossed your mind?  Behold,
death and life were before you, which to choose;
and if you have chosen the evil and refused the
good, if "for one morsel of meat you have sold




I96.         REPENTANCE.
your birthright," can you complain of it hereafter,
if, like Esau, you shall "be rejected, when you
would inherit the blessing? "
See, then,. in time the vanity of your pleas; accept the Saviour's offer; "take his yoke upon you,
and learn from him the only way of everlasting
life, and you shall find rest, true rest unto your
souls."
If, indeed, I could prove only the disease, and
point out no remedy, I had better, perhaps, be silent.
But I prove the disease, in order that you may
joyfully and thankfully embrace the remedy; and
I sound no note of condemnation, no echo of alarm,
without pointing to the most glorious of remedies,
the Son of God sent into the world not to condemn, but that the world through Him might be
saved.
You cannot but know whether you have renounced alike all unscriptural excuses, and all unscriptural grounds of confidence, anrd are relying
on —the merits of Christ Jesus, made over to those
who believe in Him  and are sanctified by Him.
To them the pledge is given, "to them there is no
condemnation."




XVIII.
MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
DEUT. xxxiv. part of verse 4.
"I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not
go over thither."
T HE  scene to which this passage introduces
us, is familiar to every one who has perused
the Bible. Coupled in our minds, as Christian readers, with the emblematic significance of
the objects, the elevation of Pisgah taken for the
stand-point of far-seeing piety-the undimned eye
of the lawgiver representing the clarity of vision
peculiar to faith, and Canaan itself being the hieroglyphic of heaven-coupled, also, with the idea of
Moses's solitary death, with the announcement of
his burial by the Lord and the secrecy of his sepulchre, with the revelation of Michael the archangel and Satan wrestling over the body of the
prophet, and with the re-appearance of his body
in audible interview with Christ and Elias, and in
the lustre of the transfiguration-a convergence of
light seems to be thrown upon Pisgah from type
and from miracle, from the promises of the old dispensation and the splendors of Christ- from  the
(197)




I98   MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
face of God, and the sparkling wings of the angel
champion.
And were it not that ditty and ode have degraded the subject —that spurious devotion and
gross imagination have polluted the sacred theme,
our Christian feelings would concentrate, as the
Scriptural light converges towards the lawgiver
upon the mount of vision.
The carnal Israelite was forbidden to stand with
the prophet upon this height, and to witness the
events of his death. We understand that angels
approached with the lowliness of ministers, rather
than the curiosity of spectators. Let us approach
reverently, as spiritual Israelites. Let us draw nigh,
as angels came, bending over the grave of the lawgiver.
In our recent consideration of this subject, we
analyzed the aggravations of the sin, whose penalty
was this premature death of the prophet. We
alluded, also, to the moral furnished by the retribution upon so meek, so noble, so eminent a man.
We return to the view of his intercourse with
God upon the summit of Pisgah.  We behold,
with him, the desert of his life's weary experience
stretched in the distance-the dull, leaden waters
of the Lake of Sodom, and the deep, winding bed
of Jordan before us, and the land of beauty reaching on to the verge of the west. Pleasantly do its
hills and slopes contrast with the remembered
plains of the Nile, and the brick-kilns of the land
of bondage. How cheering to the eye that had
gazed for forty years on sterile deserts and mas



MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.  I99
sive rocks, to behold the land of vineyards and
fountains, the land flowing with milk and honey!
It was, to the patient breast of Moses, an awakening from a dream of famine. It was the viewing,
in its luxuriance, of what he had by faith promised
to others. It threw the glow of certainty back
upon the messages he had faithfully proclaimed.
It was age realizing the castles of youth's fancy.
More than this, the territory in view was the patrimony to whose borders he had led his beloved
people, and whose possessioni they should soon conquer. The bannered army were to celebrate in
this inheritance their festival of peace.  And if
we could imagine the inspired joy with which
some war-beaten patriot would behold his ravaged
country suddenly changed to a landscape of fertility and peace, we may have some image of the
delight with which Moses feasted on the prospect.
But, to complete the picture, we must bring the
higher coloring from heaven. His religious emotions were stirred at the sight. The strongest and
th6 loftiest affections of the soul were drawn into
exercise. The evidence was spread before him,
that his trust in God brought its recompense. His
constancy in virtue had preserved him for this
gladdening sight. His courage and his meek submission to the guiding hand had ensured the reward. And from the privilege of forecasting the
future, which he had now attained, he was assured
that mercy and loving-kindness had watched over
his path of trials.  Rejoicing and recompensed
servant of God! What rays broke now upon thy




200   MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
soul from the dark passages of Providence.!  It
was not in vain that the burdens of office bruised
thy'submissive shoulder. A refractory people had
mufrmured against thee, but the Almighty had
never withdrawn His friendship. And now conscience, th'at master power within, soothed thy
wayworn spirit, and listened for the approving
voice of God-" I have caused thee to see it with
thine eyes."
The scene of Pisgah is, accordingly, a blending
of recompense and chastisement - the meeting
upon one conspicuous spot of the comforts and
the woes of life. The summit of the mountain
gleams in the sunlight, as the prophet kneels upon
it, viewing the verdure of the west, and making
melody'in his heart to the Hebrews' faithful God.
A threatening cloud rolls its shadow up the height,
and enveloped in its shroud the lawgiver sinks before the frown of heaven, and vanishes from the
view of men.
It is the mixture of rewarding and chastening
that obscures the meaning of this scene. And. it
is the disregard of this complexity in the event
that produces such misapplication of its instruction, concealing its moral bearings, and debasing
its use as a type.
We are not warranted in separating the blessing
and the penalty of Pisgah. They are the twin
creatures that manifest the work of God. Moses
is eminently blessed while he is eminently punished.
He earns the vision of Canaan, while he receives
his deserved fate. It is the lot of a righteous man,




MOSES CHASTEN;ED ON TH.E MOUNT.  201
which he exemplifies, but of the righteous under
the rod of correction. Had'he been cut off for his
ungodly and passionate words, without ascending
to this view of Canaan, we should have seen righteousness chastened, but not cheered-corrected in
justice, but' not gladdened with mercies. Had
disease invaded his frame and stolen his life at the
foot of Abarim, we should have heard'of' pomp
and woe among the tents of Israel, and a lamentation because the mediator had died. But there
would have existed no conspicuous proof that the
righteous lawgiver tasted of his reward. Had a
bolt of punishment smitten him with sudden death
upon the plains of Moab, there would have been
signal retribution for his public offence to terrify
the camp.  But this would have destroyed the
testimony of his favor with: God, and of his departure in the joy and peace of the righteous.
He appears in the closing scene of his life, separated from the appendages of earthly station., secluded from the gaze and the admiration of his
people, conducted into solitudes to meet with God,
and to experience both the earthly. gains of his
persevering righteousness, and the chastening for
his example of sin.
We deduce, therefore, from the actual accompaniments of the prophet's death,.a moral instruction
in the methods of Divine' chastisement. We.read
in' distinct characters, as we mount the peak of
Pisgah, the handwriting from heaven, that God
prepares the righteous to rejoice in their chastenings. He would not correct his Hebrew servant
9*




202   MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
till He had showed him the goodly land. He would
not dim the eye of the faithful prophet till it had
gained the prospect of the promised reward.
The necessity of correction runs parallel with
the certainty of our waywardness, and imfirmity,
and surprise by sin. Moral government must be
suspended, and holiness must be the result of arbitrary power rather than gracious discipline, or the
chastisement of heaven must visit the righteous.
The natural eye can have this insight into the wisdom of the Divine judgments.
But to the spiritual eye, to the righteous beholding the face of a reconciled Father, there is a vision
of higher things. It discerns a merciful method
in the course of chastenings.  It anticipates the
recompense, before it feels the temptation.  It
tastes the powers of the world to come, before it
quivers at the fetid breathings of hell.  We are
clothed with the panoply of God, before the destroyer is permitted to come in his onset. Like
Moses preparing for his punishment, we gaze upon
an animating scene, and are elevated in soul to
receive the kiss of the Lord before sin approaches
to wrestle.
The blessed volume is emblazoned with the illustrations of this consoling doctrine.  The very
pages of nature are adorned with the charming
pictures of this Divine method. We may not
unfold all these testimonies. Let us cull instances.
You will have thought, before I speak, of Jacob
surprised in his dream  with the vision of the
angels, and the ladder standing between himself




MOSES CIAS TENED ON THE MOUNT.   203
and the gates of glory. You will have recalled
the dreams of Joseph, and the interpretation given
by his father's prophetic spirit. And that I need
mention no more, you will connect with the name of
the lawgiver, the vision of Christ's body transformed,
and of His.majesty and His conversation with the
buried patriarch and the translated prophet, before the disciples understood that their Master
should die, and that they should be, like Him, baptized in blood. For how could Peter have risen
again from his fall, if he had not seen those splendors on the mount? -Or how could he have made
that confession, which was the Rock of foundation
to the Church, unless he had entered with his
Saviour into the cloud of glory? The vision of
faith preceded the trial of faith. Men were ready
to bear the horrors of darkness, who had occupied
their minds with visions of light.
How is it with the great processes of Divine
discipline now? Look at the uniform history of a
soul bearing the life of God within it. Is it planted
at once in the thickest of the fight? Does it know
at once the severity of temptation? Far from it.
Its early experience is joyous. It is feasted as a
returning prodigal.  It feels the craving of new
appetites, and tastes the bounty of supply. It is a
child in grace, and the very tenderness of its life
brings it into the calm retreats and pleasant engagements of youth. In after years, in the hard duties
of perseverance and hope against hope, amid the
insurrections of passion, and among the disheartening scenes of defection and apostacy, it has need




204   MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
of these early joys, these fresh visions of relief
and satisfaction, to stay its purpose, and keep it
alive for heaven.
Or take an illustration from the universal discipline imposed upon the conscience. We speak
now of experience which comes within the range
of every one of us. Think, then, of the alluring
visions, the beckoning hopes, which uniformly exhilarate the hearts of the young. Think of the
peaceful conscience, the healthful, happy innocence
of childhood, which tinge the future with the
beauties of Canaan, and open to the unsuspecting
heart a far-reaching land of promise. This is the
discipline by which God leads us towards years
of temptation.  The youthful conscience stands
upon the Pisgah of preparation for the hour of
trial.
And when in age and'years of care, sins have
defiled our conscience, and guilt shuts from view
the prospect of a brilliant future, whither does the
soul flee? Where and how does it gather encouragement for the efforts of repentant and restoring
virtue? Oh! it is the conscience of youth, *the
day-dreams and the night-visions of hope and
trust, the resolutions of an unfaltering sincerity,
and the aspirations of an undefiled spirit  it is
these that come back afresh upon the pinions of
memory, and draw the heart up to innocence and
heaven.
Take away the visions of childhood, fling an immortal spirit into the conflict of life without the
discipline that trains the youthful heart, all astare




MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.  205
in this new strange world, and you may have
prodigious energy-strong, resistless purpose; but
it will be the strength of a monster, not of a manit will' be heartless, unrelenting, adamantine solidity-a flesh and blood machine, that crushes
along its way, and not a thing of soul that grows
wiser and better in its trials.
We are bold, then, to assert that the whole economy of God teems with illustrations of the truth,
that God prepares His servants by hopes and
promises and visions of delight for the seasons of
correction. - And the lawgiver is but a figure of
our own experience, when he ascends the mount
of observation to satisfy his hopes and die-to
come in glad familiarity near his God and meet
the blended kiss and curse-" I have caused thee to
see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over
thither."
Fix this encouragement upon thy heart, O mortal
man! From the sportive joys of childhood to the
stooping woes of age, thou art under the discipline
of thy heavenly Father. He foresees thy -ways,
and blesses thy perseverance and thy fidelity to
Him, even while He visits thine offences with a
rod, and thy sin with scourges.
Be persuaded by His own words to put thy whole
trust in Him. Be persuaded by the examples of
His Providence, to rejoice in the certainties of
deliverance. Be persuaded by the chastenings He
has inflicted on the righteous, that He will by no
means clear the guilty. If the unadvised speech
of Moses must be so signally punished, what woes




206   MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.
must chase our transgressions in word and deed!
If one sin was so remembered by the justice of
heaven, what memories of terror may we expect!
There are cheering words echoed from Pisgah to
the patient and struggling servant of God. But
the alarms to our impenitence and indevotion are
muttered from that height.  The body of the
righteous man is prostrated there, the victim of a
single sin. Years of eminent holiness could not
avert the death. Angels that blushed at the fall
of the meek man, could not spread their wings between him and his penalty. Virtues that had kept
their habitation in his heart through every assault,
could not screen him from the chastening shaft.
Where, then, is the hope of the profane, the
prayerless, the unbelieving?  What mercy shall
interpose for them, when the patient and earnest
child of God must feel the scourge of God? If
the diseased and tortured souls, who flee to the
Almighty Helper, are but spared from death, and
drawn into heaven by the discipline of pain, what
shall become of the. hopeless and the helpless impenitent?  " If the righteous scarcely be saved,
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
Let us be moved, while we may be moved, by
the persuasions and the commands of God. He
utters it with irreversible truth, "The soul that
sinneth, it shall die."  The righteous shall die
within the very sight of Canaan, but the resisting
creature of God shall be forever dead. "If judgment begin at the house of God, what shall the
end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"




MOSES CHASTENED ON THE MOUNT.  207
Turn to that scene of death upon the mountain
of Moab, ye that groan waiting for the redemption
of your body. It is wounded and crucified to the
world. It is weighed with the oppressions of life.
But it shall not perish. It shall not meet the fires
of vengeance, though it is touched with the woes
of correction.
"Snatched sudden from th' avenging rod,
Safe in the bosom of thy God,
How wilt thou then look back, and smile
And bless the pangs that made thee see
This was no world of rest for thee!"




XIX.
AUTUMN HOMILY.
GENESIS Viii. 22,
"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
THE waters of the deluge are subsided. Into
the crevices and caverns of the globe, the
huge waves have crept.  The drifted ark,
that had breasted for a year the boundless flood,
lies an empted monster upon the sides of Ararat.
A cleansed earth is repeopled with the tenants
of that floating church.  The patriarch rears at
once the altar, fit symbol that the first labor of man,
in the new world rescued from curse, should be in
the offices of religion.  With the smoke of the
offerings curling aloft from the plains of Armenia,
ascended the more grateful odor of man's thanksgiving and prayer.  "Are these fields to be desolated again for the sins of man?" asks the suppliant patriarch, with his spared household before
the altar. "Are the fountains of the deep, and the
windows of heaven again to pour out the depopulating ~treams of wrath? Shall the seasons, broken
with the deluge, resume their pleasant circuit?
(20o8)




A UTUMN  OMI Y.             209
Shall the husbandman plant again in hope, and
the harvestman reap in joy? Shall the regarnished
earth be the happy home which successive toil and
rest shall bless?"
And the Lord smelled the sweet savor, when
earth's restored face was consecrated anew by the
altar and the prayer, and the bow of mercy spanned
the baptized globe with the response of promise" While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest,
and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and
day and night shall not cease."
It is possible that in this sixfold division of the
year, reference was had to the diversities of climate
upon the earth. The post-diluvian seasons in the
region of Armenia, where this promise was received,' may have required this number of divisions. Most European nations have adopted the
division into four seasons, transmitted to us, and
easily applicable to our western climate. But there
is scarce a tyro in geography who cannot tell us
where the year is distinguished only by summer
and winter, or only by seed-time and harvest, or
only by alternating cold and heat, and where,
again, besides the four regular seasons, intermediate periods of rain or parching heat annually
recur. And where the same divisions are observed,
yet the order is inverted, the seed-time of Palestine coming with the autumnal equinox, and the
harvest falling in March, while an almost contiguous people, the Copts, have the same seasons as
ourselves, with the only variation of beginning
them at the middle of the respective months.




210              A UTUMN HOMIL Y.
The import of the promise, therefore, is not the
assurance of either order in the seasons, but that
these alternations shall occur.  Especially shall
those seasons most needful to man, and necessary
to vegetation, never cease. The seed-time may be
less propitious, but never wanting; the harvest
may be smitten, but its period shall come. Seasons
may advance mantled with that uncertainty which
bids us lean on God, yet moving in that order
which shows the power and the benignity of God.
"Mysterious round! What skill, what force Divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! A simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd,.with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That as they still succeed, they ravish still."
"The rolling year is full of Thee."
This diversity has its influence upon man. As
the varieties of landscape, the multiplied changes
of natural scenery, the aspect of the earth, and
the movements of the rivers, and the very shapes
and colors of the clouds, have modified the tastes
and dispositions of men, so still more does the
order of seasons affect the traits of nations. The
dweller under perpetual suns is languid, but inflammable-a very beast in his idle luxury, and a
paragon of saints in his endurance of fasts and
hermitage. The robust Laplander is, by sheer necessity, frugal. Ockley in his history of the Saracens, tells us that most of the Arab traits are to be




A UTUMN HOMIL Y.            211 I
referred to the influences of climate and habit, and
the productions of their territory. Where nature
rolls her car of profusion, and decks herself in all
the varied beauty of the seasons-where the provident insect has taught industry, and the skies have
given men lessons in colors — where inspiration
seems to float upon the air —n Egypt with her
uncorrupting atmosphere, in Assyria with her plethora of fertility, in Greece with her shaded vales
and streams and sounding shores and sunny hills,
under the tinted skies of Italy, this side the heavenclimbing Alps, among the mingled rigors and,
blandness of the British Isles, and here in our own
all-sustaining garden-land, the arts, the refinements,
the inventions of men have found their culture,
belting the more genial and diversified regions
of the earth with civilization. It is not chance
that has steered the progress of human development, but Providence; and Providence works with
no mightier machinery than the steady influences
of nature.
It accords with our belief in the original unity
of the human races, to assign many of the types of
mankind now existing upon this earth to climatic
causes. We are not, indeed, to suppose that the
same plastic power exists in all ages, that the
European would now become a red man by acclimation in America, any more than we are to suppose that a full-grown man is to recover the developing power that works so constantly in childhood. The human system may grow beyond the
influence of climatic causes, and man, when fully




212            A UTUMN HOMIL Y.
developed in body and soul, may live in such electric, instantaneous connection with his brother
man-space and time may be so annihilated, that
all people shall see eye to eye; but the interval fills
the earth with diversities corresponding with the
diversities of the seasons.
Our purpose, however, is not to dilate on the
periodical changes which have in perpetual succession ensued upon the Divine promise.
We would rather take wisdom on the wing, and
hearken to her voice as she passes by clothed in
the sad raiment of the present season. The autumnal season is, in many respects, peculiar to our
land. Those who have traversed the globe, pronounce it the glory of this western world. There
is a tinting thrown by nature over our forests, a
haze enveloping our horizon, a drapery in our
clouds, and a brilliancy in the sunsets peculiar to
the season and the territory. Autumn is a lingering and marked portion of our year. It slowly
impresses upon us the philosophy of its teachings.
It reluctantly leaves us to the rude assaults of winter. Its discipline is like that of wisdom itself,
preparing us for the future, bracing us against
shocks to come, warning and encouraging, besetting us with storms, and yet tempering them  to
our tenderness. There are those who are charmed
with the' bursting life and struggling promise of
the spring. It is eloquent of resurrection and the
putting on of glory. But the heart, after all, feels
dissatisfied with its mockery.  It fails to realize
eternity. Men spring up to work with it hopeful




A UTUMN HOMIL Y.             213
but fearing. We look for some higher teacher than
nature, when things supernatural are studied. We
ask some more brilliant type of the resurrection
than the perishing flower or the bloom of the fruittree. But autumn is full of realities. It teaches
what nature is adapted to teach, and no more.  It
is full of those things which correspond with man's
present position midway between birth and joy,
and death and gloom.
Autumn has its moral aspects. As nature is a
parable of God, the season of dying nature is the
parable of man's transitoriness as a creature of
God. The fall of the leaf, from which this season
derives a name, is the natural symbol of man's frail
hold upon life. He flutters through a deciduous
existence. On all the garniture of his life decay is
written. The grave-yard gates are opened daily
to admonish him  of this.  His senses fail, his
friends are dead, his grand schemes are blasted.
The seasons are to roll on, the livery of verdure
is to clothe the earth, the gay mantle is to be
thrown over hills-and valleys, but not for him.
The seed-time of the corruptible is at hand. Like
the acorn swinging on the strong oak he must.
drop, a helpless thing; and the dust shall overlay
him, and the winds of winter shall gather their
wreaths of glittering fleetness above, and the
grass shall spring, and the wild flower shall waste
its fragrance above him; but his winter turns to
no spring, his seed-time yields not to the harvest
till the seasons shall grow weary of their round.
The myriad leaves that go trembling to their




214            A UTUMN HOMIL Y.
autumnal grave are monitors to us all. Do we
discern the signs of the times? Do we see what
our lives must be, were there no resurrection promised? Our lives sparkle for a season, but their
very memory shall soon be gone. Our autumn is
at hand.  The winter of oblivion hastens on behind it. To what shall we liken our mortal life?
What image shall we find in nature?'Tis like
"To snow that falls upon a river,
A moment white-then gone forever."
We must not pause with this melancholy view
of the season. Its own dismal days are too apt to
fill us with these oppressive thoughts.  Sadness
without a promise and a duty to relieve it, is
never a blessing, and ought never by us to be
cherished.  Those pleasant reveries of grief are
the bane of the soul, unless they are cheered by
promises and thoughts of duty. The autumn has
other messages than those of sure decay. It is the
garnering season of industry. Its burdened fields
bowing to the reaper-its ripened fruits regaling
the eye-its sum of gains poured into the contented
heart of toiling men-these are the lessons printed
on the autumnal leaf of nature. The harvest-home
fills up with joy the cup of industry. Rewards to
them that work, to the laborer his hire, to the persevering husbandman his abundance and his restthese are the maxims echoed from the breast of
the harvest-field. There may have been days of




A UTUzMN HOMIL Y.           2 5
anxiety, days of panting toil, days of discontent
and reluctant industry, but the harvest is come,
the work is recompensed, and so far as human infirmity will allow, industry is satisfied with its rewards. It has not~been in vain that the plowman
turned the early furrow, that the planter sprinkled
his fortune over the kindly earth, that the laborer
watched, and the sickle or the cradle was swung,
and the patient beast dragged God's bounties to
the granaries of man. All people wait for these
fruits of industry. On these rewards of the laborer,
all nations are built.
How plainly does the recompense of autumn
discourse to man that the hand of the diligent
maketh rich. The fields themselves proclaim, " As
a man soweth, so shall he reap." It was but little
that was scattered, but it was ventured in the
hands of God, it was tended by the hand of industry, and it hath come to much. In other labors
Providence is disguised; but here the harvest is
the result of that wisdom which controls the
heavens and made the earth, and man feels that
he comes close up to the Omnipotent, and that,
with the fruits He gives, He says-" Work while
the day lasts, for the night cometh when no man
can work."
The returns of autumn have their moral influence. The voices of the fields are heard in workshops, in all the laboratories of art, in every nook
where man finds his chance to toil; and these
oracles that come each year, like. nature's apostles
clothed with riches, bid men to labor in hope that




216             A UTUMN HOMIL Y.
they may reap-to sow for the incorruptible, that,
when the harvest comes, they may have not the
shame of the sluggard, but the joy of the immortal
reaper.
We cannot picture to ourselves the teeming
fields of autumn without recalling the words of
bounty it proclaims, " He that soweth sparingly,
shall reap sparingly." For His own glory, God
sowed the seeds of vegetation over the face of the
earth, and every season now tells of His goodness.
Be'it ours to fix this axiom in our heart, "He that
soweth sparingly, shall reap sparingly." Autumn
is the season of bounty. It feeds the millions of
animated beings that must perish without its liberal
hand. It does not live for itself. Its existence is
lengthened to another harvest by the liberality
with which it dispenses to the beasts and fowls
that toil not nor gather into barns. It makes no
complaint that the numbers dependent on it are so
many. The harvest-field waits for the gleaner as
well as the reaper.
"Be not too narrow, husbandman! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth
The liberal handful."
The bounty that always rolls in upon one's self,
that, like the gulf of hell, is always receiving and
never returning, has no use upon earth. When it
is gone, it is not missed. The bounty of autumn
survives its own departure. It is the symbol of
that Fatherly hand which
"Spreads a common feast for all that lives."




A UT UMN HOMIZ Y.            217
Autumn writes also its monitions in letters of
light across the sky. In this season, as the verdure
of nature is yielding to the advance of desolation,
the heavens themselves are brightened with those
meteoric wonders which so brilliantly betoken the
consummation of this earthly scene.  The wide
expanse of the universe is seen to be thronged
with material existences that may sweep in devastating showers of fire. over this earth. For though
the promise be true that the seasons shall wait as
handmaids of mercy upon the rolling earth, yet
the promise is linked with a warning that the earth
shall not always remain. The elements that vivify
shall themselves melt with fervent heat.  This
teeming depository of God's wisdom.shall be rolled
together as a scroll. On earth angels shall write
an epitaph, when beneath its ashes shall be buried
the hopes of the wicked; while a home more
gorgeous in its pavement and in its roof, more
plentiful in its comforts, more unsullied in its
pleasures, shall receive the righteous to eternal
recompense.
My brethren, in every season of the annual
round, to the discerning soul of the God-fearing
and the Christ-believing and the man-loving Christian, is verified the allegory that leads the pilgrim
to the "' House of the Interpreter."
Hoarse winter pipes through rattling reeds his
plaintive cry, "Memento mori," " Thou must die.":
The warbling notes of spring thrill us with the;
cheerful bidding to arise, and look upward and
/zope. Summer-tide swells the acclaim of nature,
IO




218               A UTUMN HOMIL Y.
and  shouts from  laden  boughs  and  exuberant
fields-" Praise the Lord, for he is gracious, and
his tender mercy is over all his works. But the
soothing season of the year, that bends the fervid
sun askance, preaches the calmer lesson of content.
It rehearses the annual mercies of'" Him who
doeth all things well." And by its very drapery
of gloom, as by its brilliancies of changing leaf or
meteoric sky, it pictures sermons on the happiness
of sweet content.
" Some murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of-dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.
" And some with thankful love are fill'd
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God's good mercy gild
The darkness of their night.
"In palaces are hearts that ask
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied.
"And hearts in poorest huts admire,
How love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire),
Such rich provision made."




XX.
THE GLORY OF THE LATTER HOUSE.
PHIL. iii. 21.
"Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is
able even to subdue- all things unto Himself."
HE mighty working of Christ! The achieveT ment of the Omnipotent! He that was like
us, putting forth the energy of Divinity, that
we may be like Him! Is this our hope, our destiny,
the end of God's hidden designs with this soulbearing flesh? Then, argues the Apostle, our
home is not in this banishment of suffering, our
citizenship is in the country of God's uncovered
glories. But with. what body shall we come?
The same that here executed the will of God, or
here lived for the gratification of self. The same
that was here abandoned of its immortal partner,
and left to the dishonour of perfect helplessness, as
the clod of the ground; the same that was buried
amid the woes of afflicted hearts and the pompous
ceremonials that signified the respect or the flattery
or the hopes of men; the same body that was corrupted in,the grave, or dispersed by the winds, or
(2I9)




220   THE GLORY OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.
swallowed in the waters. No difficulties can be
alleged against this, which do not disparage the
power and the truth of God, which do not in fact
leave man the sport of nature and the victim of arbitrary and contradictory powers. But if the restored body be the same as that which here perishes, is it not loaded with infirmities, perishing, and
gross, obstructed with disease, exhausted in weakness, and filled with pain? Must not the same energies revive, and the same want of energies continue? Must not the same necessities oblige it by
the same laws for sustenance, for relief, for health
and strength? Must we not come up again from
the grave destined to the same decay, or else lingering in a frame that sinks perpetually in an ocean
of miseries, and never reaches bottom? These
questions, arising out of the identity of the present
and the future body, are those which now demand
our attention. And yet we are aware that we are
trenching upon subjects which transcend the understanding of man, much more the ability of our
powers. Curiosity has loved to pursue with the
maddened brain of the Italian the phantoms of
Paradise, and the glittering forms of heaven. An
oriental fancy has prepared for the Mussulman his
resting-place of sensual delights. There are the
angels, "many of whom have seventy thousand
heads, each head with seventy thousand faces, each
face with seventy thousand mouths, and each
mouth with seventy thousand tongues, each of
which praises Allah in seventy thousand languages."
Such are the monsters of exaggerated qualities,




THE GLORY OF THE LATTER HOUSE.   221
which imposture and hallucination have framed in
the imaginations of half imbruted minds for the
tenantry of a huge palace of luxuries. The savage
hunter, that once chased his prey over these evangelized regions of civilization, painted for himself
a rest in the warriors' land of triumph, where the
red-man was still the hunter and the savage, and
the war-song of his barbaric delight was the anthem of his everlasting praise to the Great Spirit.
Thus has each phase of human character descried
for itself the landmarks of a congenial Paradise.
We must beware that we walk not in the same
tracks of dreams and conjecture, and design for
ourselves the architecture of a new home for this
unforsaken spirit. Consider, if you will, the temerity of such attempts. We know little of the body,
as it now exists. Centuries upon centuries have
rolled upon men, organized with the same constitution, conformed to the same original model, and
possessing precisely the same physical powers, and
yet the simplest principles of anatomy, the most
ordinary laws of our physical system, the very palpable fact of a circulation of the blood-such common facts of the body's present nature have been
unknown until the last century. And we have
reason to believe that principles equally simple are
yet to be ascertained as regulating the ordinary
functions of the nervous system. The seemingly
supernatural results of mesmeric influence, authenticated as they are by the wonder of all ages, by
the recorded confusion of philosophy, and by the
unaccountable fickleness of human attraction and




222   THE GLORY OF THE LA TTER HO USE.
repulsion, are so many indications of subtle principl6 pervading our flesh, which delight in exhibiting themselves to our amazement, and concealing
themselves from our scrutiny. Is not the confession of science amid all its progresses in discovering
the mysteries of the human organization, a confession of imperfection? Does not the triumph of
disease and agony witness that the body, so well
known in its features and its weakness, is yet in its
capacities and  its possible energies unknown?
Has not the Almighty in writing the decree of
death upon the door-posts of this earthly tabernacle,
written there also the decree of imperfection in
our knowledge of its attainable endowments?
What, then, have we to hope as to our unaided and
conjectural framing of a newly-endowed body?
Temerity alone could rush  into  such explorations of the future. As God hath drawn aside'
the veil, we may gaze upon the image of the glorious body, but where He has curtained the scene,
we may not venture-ignorant and baffled adventurers as we are, in this vessel of a vile body-we
may not venture to imagine the nature of the glorified body. Such particulars as are furnished for
our instruction and incitement will be presented under these three points. First, the contrasted endowments and qualities of the present and the new body.
Second, the objections to the mode of treating the
subject we have adopted. And third, the practical
reflections suggested by these considerations.
The degree of change that is to pass upon this
flesh, is sufficiently intimated by the comparison




THE &LORY OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.   223
which the Apostle presents between the present
body of our humiliation, as the original strictly
may-be expressed, and the body conformed to the
glory of Christ. The contrast has been elsewhere
exhibited in four particulars, which mav be regarded as the guides of our study, and the limits of our
curiosity. This present condition of suffering, of
pain and dissolution, has been contrasted with a future exemption from these distresses; "it is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption."  Our present heritage of deformed or disgraced bodies, of
shame and immodesty, of degradation to the fellowship of brutes and. reptiles and animals that
walk this lower earth, of humiliation to dwell in
tabernacles which express almost nothing of our
true character and our excellence, is to be exchanged for an inheritance undefiled, for a body no longer deformed by the maiming consequences of sin,
but reformed after the image of perfection; for a
state of conscious purity and dignity, for the company of the unblemished and the undissolving, and
for a frame that by its clarity and the impression
of the Divine seal without, shall express the secrets
of Divine favor and the beauty of the soul's virtues recorded and living within; " it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory." Our energies here
repressed, our capacities now limited, our subjection to hampering bonds of infirmity, are to yield
to the acquisitions of new powyer, power commensurate with our wilts; "it is sown in weakness, it
is raised in power." Our present animal body,
likened in its necessities to the beast, depending for




224   THE GLOR Y OF THE L A TTER 10 USE.
its support upon food and sleep anrid the unobstructed movements of the breath, is contrasted with a
body of a different nature, exempt from these necessities, and adapted to the wants and the undertakings of the tenanting spirit; " it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Study the contrasts, as marked as the contrasts between this inert
globe, and the overarching canopy of heaven. For
the new bodies, that like Christ's have once suffered for sin, are no more exposed to pains and grief and
tears. They are forever impassible. Patience, here
the crown of virtues, because here the virtue that
grows out of our humiliation-patience has had her
perfect work, and is there superseded by the exhilarating virtue of a happy activity. We suffer in this
present land of groanings as prisoners upon the rack,
knowing that only by suffering is our penalty to be
completed, and that an extremity of agony carrying us down upon the point of the lance of death
to lie with the vermin or to feed the fishes of the
sea, is to be the end of these bodily afflictions.
The glorified body has none of these miseries to
endure, and no future struggle, no couch of loathsomeness and corruption to dread. Even in the
season of animated spirits and robust health, there
is ever in this life some joint displaced, some nerve
uneasy, some muscle strained, some oppressive
weariness, an ache or a twinge or a languor, or a
restlessness that disturbs and mangles the integrity
of our pleasure; or, at the best, there is a fly in
the ointment, there is a doom  of dissolution and
putrescence stamped on the clear front and the




THE GLOR Y OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.   225
sturdy limbs of health. In the glorified body not a
vestige remains of this doom, of these broken joints,
and shattered nerves, and desperate diseases.
Contrast again, as God has summoned us to do,
the dull uncomeliness of the present frame, with the
clarity and the beauty of the glorified body. The
change has been feebly represented in the apparitions of angels, in the appalling splendors of the
upper world, in the transfiguration of the Redeemer's body again restored to its destiny of humiliation, in the visions of the rapt evangelist, in the
brightness above midday which prostrated the
bloody Saul, and in the prophetic promises of a
lustre like the brightness of the firmament. Among
the scenes of heavenly reality, there was a sign in
heaven, " a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars."  But this is to the glory of the
saints, as twilight is to the glare of the sun. For
the excellent ornaments of the woman were the
borrowed splendors of other creatures, like the
costly brilliancy of a queen's robe and diadem.
But the lustre of the glorified body shall be intrinsically its own, carrying the light of seven suns
wherever it moves, and attended with the shining
of the stars, as if the sun were making a pageant
with a supplement of torches. In vain does imagination lift its wing to look over the battlements of
heaven upon those forms of splendor. We cannot
picture to ourselves the comeliness and the loveliness, the sweetness and the dignity, the milrdness
of aspect and the awfulness of majesty which every
10o




226   THE GLOR Y OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.
saintly body shall then assume. "From dishonor to
glory " is the most that language can compass, from
the earth and the worm to the pavement of gold
and the music of angels is the extent of the contrast. I represent to myself my ideal of bodily
perfection, the most exact symmetry, a complexion
more pleasant than the light and the gayest combinations of art and nature, clothed with the clustered beauties of the visible universe, and surrounded
with all that could please the senses or charm
the fancy, and yet I am imagining a clod instead of
a saint, and representing a sunbeam that darts from
world to world by a mere stroke upon the canvas.
Could we once catch the vision of the glorified
body, we should even blush at our imaginings, we
should sink confounded as Moses'must even look
through a rock to behold the fringes of such glory,
we should imitate the idolatry of St. Peter and be
building tabernacles of worship for such a personage, we should bow in the act of St. John worshipping the ministering angel. Contrast again the
natural weakness of this vile body, with the natural powers of the glorified body. Here it wrestles
with the obstacles of physical and visible nature;
there it commands every energy which its will would
possess. Here it is dependent upon daily refreshments, and the restorations of quiet, and the protections of ingenuity and law; there it is too vigorous to need recreation, and too mighty to be subject
to any external injury. All power is in covenant
with"it, all weakness is in humiliation beneath it.
We shall fail to gauge the bounds of this power.




THE GLORY OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.   227
We shall look at it only to see it extending beyond our imagination. For instance, you observe
what the power of God exerted upon this inert
earth does already effect. Why, the power that
He hides in the-dust is the agency of all that reason can calculate. It heaves up its constant successions of vegetation. It throws out its myriad upon myriad forms of ephemeral life. It brings up
from its magic receptacle the food of millions. It
hurls the waters from  its embrace. It rends the
ribs of rock, as the withes upon' a Samson, and
vomits from its basaltic throat the burning streams
of desolation. This torpid earth is such a vehicle
of power. And who is the reasoner that could not
be forced by logic to admit that each atom of dust
must, for ought we know, contain within itself the
principles of all these powers? When we urge
upon you these powers of matter, you begin
your philosophical analysis, and speak of assimilations and combinations and resultant forces. But
resultant forces are always products and not new
creations. A resultant force in one direction'requires still greater forces in other directions. And
so your divisions and combinations and concretions
of powers, instead of diminishing the adaptations of
matter, only serve to exhibit the fact that each
grain, each least element of matter. may be by
God's appointment the bed of repose for all imaginable power. Think then of -a body built of this
dust, with these atoms most skilfully and mysteriously'arranged, in the very shape which angels
choose and which God Himself wears in their




228   THE GLOR Y OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.
midst for them to adore; think of this body raised
from this condition of restraints and impotence to a
condition of freedom and power, where the recondite energies of matter may all be developed, nay
where the adoption is the redemption of this body,
and the marvel is the creature's emerging into glorious liberty and the manifestation of the sons of
God, and what limit shall we dare assign to the
unencumbered powers of the dust awaking from
its sleep! The whole doctrine of the resurrection
implies that as it is the body and not the soul
which sleeps and rises, and as even in this slumber
of the body its elements are enacting wonders, those
same elements when awaked, and their powers
elicited, must possess energies transcending all the
reckoning of the human mind. It must be the fulfilment of the anticipated power, which shall make
nature our handmaid as she is the instrument of
God, when the Divine power of the human body
shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body according to the
working whereby He is able to subdue all things
unito Himself.
Contrast, finally, the present nature of the
body, animal, sensual, growing and decaying by
the laws of nature, with its future nature as a
spiritual body, whether by this be meant the constant indwelling and possession of the risen frame
by the Holy Ghost, as an everlasting temple of
God, or rather be meant. by it the enduing upon
the flesh of such qualities as we attribute to spirit.
No, doubt both these senses are included, and the




THE GLORY OF THE LA TTER HO USE.   229
latter because of the former.  A spiritual body!
No longer chained to this earthly ball, but free to
range the climates of successive glory. A spiritual
body! Not such-as drags its form from scene to
scene, or holds its perilous speed over the waters
or after the vaporous charioteer of man's enlistment, but more agile even than the electric power
which man would now in his weakness harness to
his service. For this gift of agility, this spirituality
of the body, shall make it move as quick as thought,
the perfect instrument of the soul, traversing in the
twinkling of an eye the remotest heavens, and observing in one moment the wreck of this shattered
sepulchre and the beauty of the empyrean. A
spiritual body! Light, and subtle, and wafted upon the air. No element shall obstruct its motions.
It ascends upon the clouds, like the glorious body.
It walks upon the waters like the glorious body.
It stands in the midst while the doors remain shut,
like the glorious body. It emerges from the tomb,
before the stone is rolled away, like the glorious
body. It vanishes in a moment from human sight,
like the glorious body. It walks invisible in the
midst, where two or three are met together, like
the glorious body.  It communicates its power,
while it livesundiminished, like the glorious body.
A spiritual body, like that which here hides itself
under the symbols of matter, to convey the pledge
and the means of everlasting life, the bread to signify the power of the risen body, the wine to signify the cleansing of the poured blood, both received
into both body and soul, both entering into the mor



230   THE GLOR Y OF THE LA TTER HOUSE.
tal and corruptible frame, as the seed of resurrection
and immortality and incorruption, as the sacrament
of His omnipotence, who shall change our vile
body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body according to the mighty working
whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.




XXI.
THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
ECCLESIASTES Xii. I3.
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God,
and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of
man."
F in anything pertaining to ethics, Pagan-philosophy became "elevated and magnificent,"if in anything uninspired reason, while doing
greatest honor to itself, fell far below the sublime
anticipations and the terse solidity of Scripture, it
was in the effort to work out the problem whose
result the preacher has here condensed into a pithy
proposition. What is man's sovereign good? What
is his ultimate happiness? What precept, or what
law, or what object shall he set before him that
will not mislead, and shall not fail to conduct him
into true satisfaction? These were the questions
on which human wisdom  expended its strength,
reaching no clear and undisputed conclusion. Even
the divine Plato staggers beneath the task, and
covers his defeat with pompous words and wild
speculations.  The solution of these momentous
questions was beyond the unaided ability of man.
(231)




232       THE WHOLE DUTY OF AIAN.
The Epicurean confounded pleasure with happiness,
and teaching men to please themselves, contradicted his own theory by showing that pleasure
was only a relative term, and that man must, after
all, be instructed how to discern the sources of a
true and permanent pleasure. If he pleased the
clamorous appetites of nature, he incurred calamity.
If he sought the higher pleasures of intellect, he
was happy only by self-denial. The philosophy
might be true that we were to make pleasure the
aim of our life,-but the question was still revolved,
What is the source of most enduring pleasure?
What is the sovereign good that eclipses all
others?
Then came up the Stoic, telling us that virtue
was its own reward, and that virtue was to live indifferent to all pains and pleasures. I would not
represent stoicism as the sublime absurdity it
is sometimes described.  It came near to the
beautiful patience of Christ. It was a lofty flight
for Pagan ethics. But after all it was a wretched
failure. It put all virtue in the conformity of actionfs to reason. The consequences were not to be
considered. Antecedent reason must decide what
conformed to nature, and that must be chosen as
excellent in itself.
Mark the struggles for a law that should define
the sources of true happiness. How captivating
the theory that virtue is to be chosen for itself, and
that without regarding sensations of pain or pleasure we must conform to reason. Still the profounder suggestion ens.ued,-What makes reason for




THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.          233
us, but the law and the true end of our being?
Philosophy proved itself inadequate to the inquiry
it had commenced. Htuman reason was not independent, or self-originated, and it must look to the
relations in which our nature stands. Stoicism was
solitary and egotistic. Reason must be the exponent
of our relations with our fellow-creatures and with
God. Philoscphy might analyze, might propound
inquiries, might consider wants, might unfold page
upon page of human feeling. Philosophy was but
the servitor of reason. Religion was our needreligion to answer the interrogatories of the troubled
soul-religion to manifest the law and the end of
our being.
One who had sounded all the depths and shoals
of ambition,-one who had sought for happiness in
every resource of epicurean delight,-one who had
collated all the testimonies of diversified experience, sums up the maxim which philosophy had
fruitlessly attempted to frame, " Fear God, and
keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty
of m an."
It appears to be the conclusion of the wise man,
that our happiness (I say happiness, for he only
speaks of duty as conducive to this end)-our happiness is determined by our religion. It is not dependent upon any degree of prosperity,-upon any
amount of earthly power,-upon any proportion
between our desires and enjoyments; but upon our
religion. I am not speaking now of the Christian
religion exclusively. I am only approaching the
conclusion of all experience; that the reality and




234       THE WHOLE D)UTY OF MAN.
the quality of our happiness must be graduated by
our religion. If this be pure, and steadfast, and aspiring after God and the godlike, we shall be
treasuring to ourselves where neither the worm
nor the thief can come, the most of the best pleasure. If our religion is of lower aim, and of meaner
desire, our happiness will be depreciated, and its
permanence entirely forfeited.
Now  what do we mean, when we speak of a
man's religion? Certainly we do not mean that of
which he has the most, or makes the most. It is
often an uneasy appendage to his life. It is often
left to odd moments, or marked occasions. It is
often a flat contradiction to the bulk of his character,-neutralized by acts more significant of the real
man within. One's religion is not known by his
prayers,-is not apparent on the surface of his life.
It belongs to the principles that govern him. It is
the secret sense of power and majesty to be feared,the secret sense of a will and a law to be obeyed,
that originates our religion. The thought of happiness hugs this religious sense.  They are twin
children of the heart, and in the heart they clasp
each other in promise of mutual defence. Every
man, therefore, has his religion. He cannot escape
responsibility by claiming that he makes no Christian profession.  There is in his mind, unless
thoroughly idiotic, a religious sense of power and
law. There is in his mind a sort of allegiance to
some one object of supreme honor and supreme desire. There is some idol, some deified image that
receives his secret homage, and seems to smile or




THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.           235
frown upon his prostrations of soul. Happily for us,
conscience is the unsilenced monitor who.with terrible whispers recalls the true object of all reverence and all submission. But conscience is not always admonishing, and conscience may disturb
without nullifying our religion.
Let us bring out to view some of the manifold
forms of religion which may thus be enlisting our
homage, and laying limits to our happiness.
I may be allowed to place in the foreground
what appears the most innocent, -and the most
nearly genuine. It is almost ludicrously true that
some souls are betrayed into the error of putting
all their religion in the fact of feeling happy. The
twins are confounded by them. The religious feeling and the happy feeling are with them identical.
Whatever exercise of religion has brought them
into this ecstatic frame of mind is the highest act
and the best gain to which they can devote themselves. With them it is not so much happy to be
religious, as it is religious to be devotionally happy. From some period when this transfusion of
ecstacy poured across the soul, they. date their
getting of religion. In the return to some such
condition of devotional excitement, and relief from
dull common-place, they are to find the renewals of
their lapsed religion.
The object of fear is not the majestic purity of
Jehovah, burning into the crisped writhings of consternation and remorse the guilty spirit,-not the
offended glories of the Divine holiness, but the
languid inertness of -the wearied and unthrilled




236       THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
soul. They fear the paroxysms of their own nature, and are not aware that the very dread which
they call religious is in distrust and dishonor of
God. He asks for our reasonable service, and He
gives happiness not that we may make it our religion, but that our religion may be commended by
its fruits.
Fantastic piety tracks the path which this religion of ecstacy has opened. With it Loyola stood
upon the steps of the church of St. Dominic, at
Mauresa, and wept aloud, because he beheld the
mystery of the Trinity visibly revealed to him at
that moment, under the figure of three keys of a
musical instrument. He got religion, as he thought,
when sitting one day beside a stream and watching
the running water, while on its surface played the
symbols of the Christian faith, and the Popish dogmas. He was great, and he had visions which decoyed him on to an earthly glory.
But, alas! neither his Jesuitism nor his fanaticism have perished with his greatness. Little souls
have as huge visions, and the imagination which
could never dream so much as he acted, has sucked
in the intoxications of happiness through the same
channels. So nearly genuine, and so nearly false a
religion has always enlisted, will always enlist the
homage of our vitiated nature, —has always begotten, will always beget the sneer and the opposition
of men.
At a remote distance from this class, kneeling
devotees pay their' homage around the shrine of
wealth. Note the throng that press to the offices




THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.          237
of this mammon religion. They are not only clad
in silks and bedizened with jewels,.but from every
rank of life appears a representative at this worship
of wealth. Some that possess it, and some that
hope for it, and some that count upon legacies, and
some that wonder why the rich righteous are not
withdrawn by a good Providence from this scene
of temptation. Money is of all things the most
natural, and yet the most paltry of gods. Was there
not a moral in it, when the people who rejected
Jehovah, made a golden calf? And was it strange
that Moses should have a congregation before him
worshipping the golden god, when even Christian
precept cannot obliterate this idolatry?  "Covetousness is idolatry," on the authority of an Apostle. And the moral law which began by denouncing idols ends with condemning covetousness, the
last vestige of idolatry which will linger through
every commandment to pollute the soul of man.
Wealth is not so strictly an idol, as an effigy. It
wears the clothes of a living God, but it is powerless to act the part of Deity. It neither allays a
fear, nor utters a worthy law. And among the
votaries of this religion, it is impossible to discover
one soul that derives any solid happiness from his
homage.
Here, for instance, is Sir Mammon Money-Bags.
He is one of those strong-minded men that bar the
heart against the whimpering approaches of piety,
and grasp with most heroic fortitude the better
side of a bargain. He has a career of most glorious
success. His investments are answered as if they




238       THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
were prayers. He chants in his heart a daily anthem, and the chorus is compound interest and ten
per cent. He becomes the lion of a new prey at
every turn. This baffled speculator envies him. This
honest bankrupt dreads him. This poor man votes
for him. This priest tells him that he is generous,
and accosts him as an influential brother. On all
sides, he feels the rising tide of fortune. But rich
Sir Mammon is a poor, miserably poor man. His
taxes are enormous. Everything is expected of
him. He has to eat his god, and distribute h-is god,
and exchange his god, and pay for two religions at
once. He is Achilles, but the spear is in his heel.
And because he makes the having money his only
ambition, and the fear of its loss his haunting
terror, he is like the troubled sea, whose waters
cannot rest.  He lives complaining of poverty,
he loses and is wretched, he trembles at the shaking of stocks as a reed -shaken with the wind, and
he dies more forsaken of his God, and more destitute of all in which he trusted, than the beggar who
thanked him and God for the crumbs.
Under the shadow of this plethoric child of fortune creeps -to his daily devotions in the worship
of riches, a shrivelled form of meanness, too earthlyminded to carry the head erect, too abject in his
homage to ever fling away the look of baseness
and cunning. He is the tool of others' covetousness. By him the very foibles of the rich are flattered. He humbles himself that the congregations
of the poor may fall into the hands of his captains.
All his suavity and obsequiousnes,-all his honeyed




THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.          239
words and courtesies,-all his airs and manners are
but tribute to the image of wealth on whose excellency he dotes. Plausible where a favor is to be
earned from this power, he is rude and heartless
towards the defenceless and the crippled sons of
want. He beholds in every man a brother, if as a
brother he can be of any profit. Men whom the
rich patronize, he courts. Men who can help him
to the magic power which he supposes to lie behind the care of earthly substance,-and little stratagems that can endear him  to this Plutus,-and
costly civilities that make him one of the favorites
of this power,-these are his study,-these the lessons he reads in every manifestation of human
character. At last carried away with the fervor
of his religious devotion to the homage of wealth,
he scouts all religion but this, and pronounces the
power he has idolized to be the master-force in
every human breast.- Pity mourns for the bartered
soul with the plaintive elegy, " Ephraim is joined
to his idols; let him alone."
Another form  catches our eye, mantled in the
costly ensigns of wealth,-a feminine gentleness
buried under the too evident display of an ungraceful pride. The head is bowed before a Saviour's
cross, but the wandering eye searches for the gaze
of admiration and the leer of envy. With disdain
she shuns'the crowd who ape her finery, and looks
for the recompenses of her religion not among the
cheered and comforted hearts of earthly tria.l and
want, but among the welcomes and the compliments
of those who would rival her own power of display.




240        THE WHA~OLE DUTY OF MLAN.
No dread so unconquerable with her, as that of
losing the name of wealth. No sacrifice so eagerly
offered, as that of riches and pains to wield the
power of reputed wealth. With a complete infatuation, she chases this imaginary power. Ignorant of the pity that warms many a heart she
crushes, and of the contempt that. repays her hol-.
low civilities, she worships a power that is forever
deceiving her, and lingers into an old age of tawdry
uselessness, or of ridiculous conceit.  We leave her
with the hands clasped in- mimicry of prayer,
while the eye'steals around for tributes to her gay
importance,-and the sigh of her heart is a fear not
of Jehovah's searching eye, but of the greatest evil,
to bear the unflattered trials of poverty,-unfit for
the ministries of feminine mercy, —unfit for the offices of love to Jesus,-unfit for the purifying assiduities of a sister's affection,-unfit for the winning
modesty of a wife,-unfit for the charities of
he ven.
Time forbids us to pursue these delineations of
human character exhibiting a religious devotion,
that loses its sacrifices, and wastes its substance before the imagined power of wealth. Wealth is at
the best an instrument, endowed with power only
to serve the cause of God-worse than lost when
abused to be either feared or trusted. It is our
trial to need it, and our trial to have it. Its use is
to make us instrumental in pleasing God and profiting men by bounty and charity-by managing in
honesty and in mercy-by neither dreading its loss,
nor coveting its possession-by neither expending




THE WHOLE D UTY OF MAN.        241
in wasteful luxury, nor hoarding in distrust of Providence, and in love of power.
"If riches increase, set not your heart upon
them.
"God hath spoken once; twice have I heard
this; that power belongeth unto God."
From this power comes our true misery-from
this must our real happiness come. Its greatness
challenges our awe-its anger shakes our soulsits favor beams upon us the dawning of a clear
satisfaction here, and a brilliant inheritance among
the saints in light. " Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."




XXII.
THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
I CHRONICLES XV. 29.
"And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the Lord
came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul, looking
out at a window, saw King David dancing and playing; and she
despised him in her heart."
XJOU  will find a verse very similar to this in
another account of this transaction, in the
sixth chapter of the second Book of Samuel.
You will observe, also, that the history of the ark
of God shows how intimately it was connected
with the tokens of the Divine presence. Kept and
bandied from city to city by the profane Philistines,
the manifest strokes of Divine indignation followed
those who dishonored the sacred emblem.  Reclaimed from the Philistines, or, more strictly, dismissed by them, as too heavy with curses for such
ungodly hands, it was harbored by the house of
Abinadab in Kirjath-jearim.  For twenty years it
was left in a state next to sacrilegious neglect.
David, who had risen above the indifference of the
times, thought it not good to leave the ark of God
in Gibeah, but designed to bring it into his own
city -to secure there the blessing. With piety that
(242)




THE ASCENT OF THE AR. I       243
looked around for occasions of zeal and service, he
prepares a new tent for the awful symbol. Conrad
thinks that the tabernacle of Moses was ruinous,
and that, on this account, the king substituted a
new tent for the ark. In removing the token of
Divine presence, a hand of presumption was put
forth to stay the tottering carriage, and the invaded
majesty of God flamed forth the sign of the trespass in a death-stroke upon Uzzah. Alarmed at
this interposition of Providence, David arrests the
march of the company, and lodges the ark in the
house of Obed-edom, " and the Lord blessed Obededom and his household."  With more deliberate
preparations, with every arrangement of honor
and decency, with the proper officers assigned to
each part of the duty, tlie covenant-treasury committed to the shoulders on which God had placed it,
with human devices of security entirely abandoned,
and human methods of respect and praise most
ingeniously accumulated, the royal penitent proceeds to complete his design. "And David was
clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chen
aniah the master of the song with the singers:
David also had upon him an ephod of linen." Not
that the king assumed the sacerdotal dress, but
that as all the singers, so he who rejoiced with
them put on robes such as the child Samuel wore,
and Levites wore, differing from' the fine linen
ephod of the priests, and not, like theirs, commanded of God. And this explains the taunt of
Michal, that the king uncovered himself; for so to




244~       THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
her pride it was, when, for honoring. the presence
of God, he put off his royal apparel, and was no
better than the commonest of the people. "Thus
all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of
the Lord with shouting, and with sound of the
cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps." It was at
this time that the scene occurred which is described
in our text. David so lowered in his dress-so
overcome with joy as to sport in childish exultation (so it seemed to the irreverent spectator)-so
transported as to mingle himself with the crowd
and share in their rejoicings, was an object of contempt to Michal.
In explanation of this occurrence, it is to be
noted that " this sort of,rejoicing is at this day
used by the Abyssinians in the evening of our
Lord's resurrection, when men and women clap
their hands and dance to several instruments of
music, till morning light, and all this in their
churches; which in all likelihood came from the
Jews, who still dance in some of their festivals."
These dances in sacred worship were universal in
early and barbarous times. The Lacedaemonians
had their choirs of boys and their choirs of old
men, whose songs of obscure terrors or joys were
accompanied with the measured movements of a
dance. The savage of America was never so inspired with the solemn impressions of his terrific
religion, or so subdued by and absorbed in his
expectations of a future, as when the dance around
the medicine-man witnessed the wild yearnings of




THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.         245
a benighted conscience within him. Callimachus
tells us of the youths that danced around the altars
of Apollo, and Plato witnesses that among the
Egyptians all kinds of music and songs and dances
were consecrated to their gods. The methods of
homage, and especially the acts of jubilee, are determined by the times and the customs of a people.
You expect different solemnities as you pass among
people in different degrees of civilization. Their
faith is venerable, so far as it is true; but their
manner of expressing joy or reverence will depend
upon their habits in other particulars. Nero and
Caligula went out into the streets of Rome and
publicly displayed themselves in the dance, to their
great dishonor and the disparagement of imperial
majesty, without any counterbalancing impression
of veneration for the Supreme.  With them  it
was puerile; but David expressed his joy and
thankfulness in a way best calculated to exhibit his
earnestness, most significant of the honor due to
God, and conformable to the customs of the times.
The twenty-fourth and forty-seventh Psalms of
David were probably composed for this occasion.
Any one who peruses them will perceive how
solemn and majestic the joy that glowed on this
occasion. The language of mere human exultation never abounds with such severe expressions
of reverence as are found in these Psalms. And
when royalty laid aside its appendages of earthly
dignity, and, clad in the garments of a servant,
expressed at once its awe and its rapture, nothing
could more fully demonstrate the king's sense of




246       THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
the Divine presence with the ark, and the Divine
blessing upon the place of its abode.
We must remember, however, that this transaction was not in itself all that was intended by
these words. The opening of everlasting doorsthe lifting up -of the gates for the entrance of the
King of glory, expressed far more than the song
of joy as the ark of the covenant approached to
its new tabernacle.  To catch the spirit of the
Psalm we must suppose the procession moving
with solemn steps from Obed-edom to Zion. A
serious acknowledgment of God's universal dominion stays the beginnings of levity-a recital of
the qualifications for those who would walk in the
procession of praise toward the upper courts of
God, is added to this solemn acknowledgment;
and as the guarded ark ascends the hill to the
height of its sacred deposit, joyfully and with animation the cry,. rises from  a happy multitude,
" Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory
shall come in." The shadow only was this of the
substance that we commemorate. Jesus Christ is
the true ark of the covenant. He was the angel
of the covenant, whose presence led the people of
Israel; and the cherubim whose wings overshadowed the mercy-seat, were but signs of His
angelic attendants. In Him the promises of God
are yea and amen. He is the mediator of a new
and better covenant, that takes into its reconciling
terms heaven and earth, angels and men, the remotest Gentile and the God of all. By His pre



THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.         247
sence in the church, and by it alone, is it the kingdom of God, the sanctuary of blessing, and the
guide of salvation.  As the ark was enshrined
within the sanctuary, so is Jesus Christ enshrined
within the sanctuary of the church, embracing the
living and the dead, and' so is He set forth as
enshrined within the symbolic sanctuary of the
-Christian temple.  If we have any promises to
plead, they are contained in the ark of the covenant, in Jesus Christ revealed to us. The Father
is manifested in Him, and He that -hath seen Him
hath seen the express image of God, so far as God
can be manifest to mortal sense.  The cloud of
Divine glory was, as it were,'coffered in the incarnate Christ, and the covenant is laid up in
the power of Christ.  To whom  He will He:
giveth life, and whoso entereth into everlasting
life does it by believing in this only-begotten Son
of God, and reverencing in Him the very presence
of Deity.  He, ascending to the tabernacle of
celestial fabric, was so welcomed as we shall see
Him come again. As, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of a trump, with thousands
of His saints, in the glory of His holy angels, shall he
appear-with these attendants must He have been
exalted to the right hand of the Father. No splendor of earthly triumph can equal the scene which
must then have been presented to the spectators in
the spiritual world. To see on the one side a throne
prepared for man in very union with the seat of
Deity Himself-to see the ranks of the brilliant and
mighty apparelling themselves with the tokens bf




248       THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
human innocence, in white garments, and descending to the clouds of earth-to see a Conqueror
stained with no blood but His own, trampling
upon a chief adversary and million potentates that
had defied both man and angel-to see a Saviour
carrying the pledge of mercy to a ruined world in
His compassionate hand-to see the ark of the
covenant going up from this country of Philistines,
through the Kirjath-jearim of the grave whither
sacr:ilegious hands hurried Him-by the house of
Paradise, which He blessed as Obed-edom by His
sojourn-to see the fellowship between spirits and
flesh restored by this Reconciler of things visible
and invisible, and all weaknesses of earth divested,
and the dull blemishes of transitory glory all
omitted in this triumph - this was it that drew
from the chanting angels that buoyed up the cloud
to heaven, the shout —" Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in."
Ye iron doors, that barred the face of man from
scenes of heaven, burst before'the Conqueror that
broke the grates of death.  Ye gates that shut
against the banished pair, and hung immovable,
pressed with the burden of presumptuous sin, and
bolted with the curse of God, lift up, for the sin
is borne away upon the Conqueror's shoulder, and
the bolt of the curse is riven by the omnipotence
of the covenant.
Such was the true import of the songs which
David was inspired to prepare for the removal of
the ark to its resting-place. And as around the
ark thus exalted, the son of David, the heir of




THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.        249
all human wisdom, was moved and enabled to
build afterwards a gorgeous temple, adorning it
with every beauty that nature could furnish or
art could fabricate; so around the body of Christ
gathers the lofty structure of men built up as lively
stones into a spiritual $emple, showing some of the
foundations here upon earth, but resplendent and
completed in that upper world. Whether the
Psalmist foresaw all this, we cannot decide. We
have reason to suppose that the resurrection was,
as it were, present to his mind. His graphic description of the ascension, fuller even than.the
simple narrative of the gospel, looks like the enraptured language of one who beheld afar off the
achievement of this triumph. Possessed with such
hopes, if not with such visions, David strips himself of a monarch's attire, and walks with high and
low as a servant of God. He rejoices in the procession, and stimulates the people to exult in the
approach of so great a blessing as the Divine presence in the ark.
"But Michal despised him in her heart." She
was of that caste which were nursed in the days
of Saul. They had not much reality in their religion, except when they were frightened to it,
and then a witch or a prophet-sacrificing with
their own hands, or impatience at God's commands-either was the resource, as the mood was.
When Saul was ruling, the ark was not inquired
of- the tabernacle at Gibeon was enough, any
place of worship, though God was not there in
His covenant presence. Michal was a woman
T TX




250        THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
nursed in the lap of such religion, at her father's
house. The covenant presence of God, in a peculiar manner, did not suit her philosophy. She was
very glad to see the king honor religion, but not
to make so much of it, not to see him such an enthusiast-to see him forgettiig his painted royalty,
and abusing himself to honor a gilded chest. She
thought meanly of him, and expressed her contempt of his superstition, showing the root of her
feelings in the language of pride. So was it when
the Ark of the Covenant went'up to the tabernacle
and. the holy place where angels dwell. Apostles
were emboldened and thrilled by the gifts of this
ascension, and the mockers despised them in their
heart, and said, " These men are full of new' wine."
Paul is obliged to vindicate himself, because he
spoke of the resurrection, and to declare to those
who despised him in their heart, " I am not mad."
The kingdom of the covenant spreads, and'the
historian records it with contempt, as the diffusion
of " a pestilent superstition." And the same feeling that nerved the Pagan against Christianity,
now swells the bosom of many who despise the
Church in their heart. They can acknowledge a
state religion, but they cannot honor the ark of
the covenant,  Such spirits are Jeffrey in the
Scotch Court of Sessions, and Hobbes in the school
of philosophers, and Macaulay in the list of statereligionists, and the hundred echoes from this land
of Sauls.
It is, too, true that the same feeling has overspread even the Church itself. You will observe




THE ASCENT OF THE AR.          251I
that, by the appointment of the Church, this is one
of the principal festivals in the year; it is made equal
with Christmas in every respect-special psalms,
special lessons, special days of preparation-the festival joy carried through many days and impressed
upon the Sunday that follows, and the communion
expected to be administered in its celebration.
But just in proportion as the Divine presence in
the Church has been forgotten, just so far has this
day been neglected.  I know no name for such
Christianity, but to call it the faith of Michal,
which was the unbelief of Saul. It was the direct
antagonist of David's faith. Saul was no more
strictly the enemy of David, nor David more
strictly the preserver of Saul, than the religion of
the day is the contemner of holy places and sacred
events, and the Church is the maintainer of Christian religion in the world. The ascension of Christ,
to be at one and the same time present in heaven
for us, and present with us by covenant, is virtually
lost from doctrine. Common Christianity is but
common morality. Reverence for holy places decays. Observance of Christian events diminishes.
Knowledge of Christian truth vanishes. It is no
shame to be an unbaptized Gentile. It is no terror to hear that he who believeth not shall be
damned. It is no persuasion to hear that " except
one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see
the kingdom of God," and to hear the answer of
Jesus to our delays and doubts and wanderings,
" He that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast
out."




252        THE ASCENT OF THE ARK.
Upon us rests the hallowing of these days-the
commemoration of these cardinal facts. Let us
be elated with joy and animated to all diligence in
the praise of God, for our Saviour is in heaven,
and here with us.  He comes among the two or
three, as cheerfully as He ascends among the
throngs of angels.  "0  clap your hands all ye
people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph!"
A king is gone up to possess the empire of the
universe, and we are heirs with Him. Death is
vanquished, and the doors of heaven opened to all
believers, and we are followers by the same pathway. Sin, that binds and tortures, and drags to
earth, and howls and jeers around us, that is now
the voice of a multitude to intimidate, and now
the voice of enchantment to allure-sin, that rages
and triumphs around and struggles within us, that
makes hasty words and bitter thoughts, that cools
our affections and obstructs our prayers-that
threatens our salvation, and intercepts the view of
the recompense-sin is carried to the gates of
heaven in bondage, "captivity captive."
"Chains of my heart-Avaunt.! I say.
I will arise, and in the strength of love,
Pursue the bright track, ere it fade awayMy Saviour's pathway to His home above."




XXIII.
THE PISGAH BURIAL.
DEUT. 34, part of- 4th verse.
" I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not
go over thither."
P}RE-EMINENT among the evidences of accuracy in the Sacred Scriptures, and among
the admonitions of Divine retribution, are the
inspired records of infirmities and sins charged
upon the heroes and exemplars of the narrative,
and of punishments surely and severally ensuing.
The great legislator of the Hebrews, the miraculously preserved and guided liberator of his nation,
the hero of one hundred and twenty eventful years,
is dismissed from our view, ascending the craggy
heights of Abarim  to behold along the western
horizon the promised domain towards which his life
of pilgrimage had panted, and gifted only with the
glimpse, to lie down and die. Nor is this represented as a mere parable, preaching human disappointment, effort struggling through life only to
reach the vision of unattained objects. It is the
retribution of heaven, and not the calamity of
earth. The hero stands upon Pisgah, a monument
(253)




254          THE PISGAH B URIAL.
stationed upon that height, to commemorate not
success, but defeat,-not the advance of the tabernacle displacing the barbarities of Canaan, but the
baffling of hope and energy and merit by the sinfulness of man. Upon the plain at the foot of Nebo
was spread out the camp of the covenant. The
hopes of mankind,- the promises which cheered
philanthropy, were deposited in that camp. Within its shelter were oracles published by the great
Creator,-lessons which were to transmit principles
of wisdom to all ages,-histori'es that contained the
facts of twenty-five centuries, and traced the motions of the finger of God from the building of a
world to His last guidance of this wandering
people.. Imagine the emotions. of such a man as
the Hebrew Prophet, forsaking this people at the
borders of Canaan, and mounting the steep of Pisgah to descry in the distance the land of their future rest, while he must now part with them, and
in the solitudes of the mountain find his burial. If
there be such an impulse as disinterested patriotism,
-(and who can dispute it without betraying his own
incapacity for it?)-if patriotism can take root and
grow in the human soul, he must have felt its
power. If sympathies and gentle affections are
formed between old and tried friends, and the
participation in the fortunes of a neighborhood
fastens links of attachment upon the familiars of a
quarter century, with what intensity must affections have glowed in a man so pure, so meek, so
compassionate, towards the intimates of forty years,
partners in a weary journey through a strange land.




THE ZPISGAH BURIAL.         2 5
In many a sorrow, they had grieved together.
They had witnessed, as groaning brethren, the
haughty insults of Egypt. ITn periods of alarm
they had trembled as one frame, and over victories
achieved by Omnipotence for them, they had
chanted as one voice, their hymns of thanksgiviing.
Their leader out of bondage had been their protector from the hour of escape. He had averted destruction, and drawn them to himself, as the purchase of his own intercession. They were, to human
view, his people, saved by his patriotism, indebted
to his mediation, dependent upon his direction, sustained by his encouragements, and restored by his
patience and firmness.
Why, then, could he not be spared to pass with
his trust over Jordan? Why must he leave them
at the threshold of their habitation?
There is no cloud of death upon his -eye, —no
ravage in his frame, to make desirable a release
from his misery. Decrepitude has not disabled him
for the marches of the army, nor timidity disturbed
his purpose. "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated."
In the midst of his vigor, God summons him to
die. The voice, which had conducted him through
so many deaths, bids him take his farewell of life;
and within sight of the delightful home for his
people, to surrender his soul to his Maker. He
treads the acclivities of Abarim; the tents of
Israel are stretched upon the plain below; no human sorrows dim his eye; heroic through life, he
dares to be composed in death; the thought of




256          THE PISGAH B URIAL.
Hor and of his brother who went up its sides
never to return, comes upon him, and it revives
the memory of the sin in which they both partook,
and for which he, like Aaron, must die in the
mount. But an earthly reward and pleasure are
still before hini. The land he may not enter, he is
to'behold. The inheritance not possessed, he is
yet by vision to enjoy. With alacrity he climbs
the farthest peaks of the ridge, and from the summit of Pisgah, gifted perhaps like Christ, on the
pinnacle of temptation, with new powers of vision,
he surveys the length and breadth of Canaan.
"And the Lord said unto him, This is the land
which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto
Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have
caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt
not go over thither."
His earthly recompense was ended. The eyes,
regaled with this glance at the fields of promise,
closed upon the scenes of earth. He was alone
with God, rapt in the memories of the past, in the
prospects of a brilliant future, and the soul eager
to hide itself from fellowships of sin, and bury itself in glory, was carried to its God. It is said,
that angels waited. upon the obsequies due to his
body. His sepulchre was never violated by the
hand of idle curiosity. We read, that the Lord
buried him.  Perhaps it was that angel of the
covenant, the Lord, manifest in these latter days,
on whose' transfigured body in the mount Moses
was, an attendant,-perhaps it was this Son of God,
who then appeared in his human form to solemnize




THE PISGAZ BURIAL.           257
the rite of burial, and honor as a Saviour the lifeless flesh of the lawgiver. I would not pause,
however, to unravel the conjectures respecting this
event. It is enough to leave the great man to his
rest, with the instruction derived from the pious
and harmless gloss of the Rabbins. The record is
that he died " at the mouth of the Lord," which
the Chaldee paraphrast renders, " by a kiss of the
Word of Jehovah," and which the Jews interpret,
"that God embraced Moses,. and drew his soul out
of his body by a kiss," as it were, charming his
soul out of the body in unutterable raptures, such
as Paul experienced, transporting visions of God,
and of the Canaan where no sorrow comes. He
saw the. better land, and his soul went over
thither.
The occasion of his death at this time is no
secret to us. He was forewarned of his disappointment, and instructed to regard it as the retribution
pursuing a public and aggravated offence.
To obtain such a view of his transgression, as he
must have found in the moments of repentance, we
must retrace the last forty years of his life. We
must behold him just emerging from the scene of
deliverance at the Red Sea, and conducting a degenerate and rebellious people through the parched and terrible wilderness. Drought oppresses
them. A madness spreads among the thirsting
multitude. A horrid death stares upon them. In
alarm and vexation, they accuse the daring man,
who had led them from the graves of Egypt to the
heats and thirst and maddened death of the desert.




258, THE PISGAH BURIAL.
God bids him strike with the rod of so many miracles the granite side of Horeb.
"From its disparted side
Adown the mount the gushing torrent ran."
It was the typical Christ,-the fountain opened
in the desert for him that thirsts for righteousness.
Moses was by the act reinstated in the confidence
of his people. On this miracle, his power to supply in any exigency was established. For forty
years, amid their murmurings, no renewal of this
miracle was needed. Finally, as their tedious circuits brought them  nearer to their rest, and the
last year of wandering was begun, in waiting upon
the funereal honors for Miriam, at Kadesh-barnea,
there was no water for the congregation. Rebellion was muttered from their faithless hearts. They
knew not that the same Rock followed them, which
poured forth its refreshing stream at Rephidim.
Moses and Aaron are bidden again to speak to the
rock in Meribah, and behold the perpetual fountains of Divine forbearance.
The lawgiver was for once transported with passion. His meekness forsook him, and with the
raging eloquence of pride and disdain and anger,
he addresses the people as "rebels,"-he flings out
a vaunt of his miracle at Horeb,-he assumes the
power of commanding the streams from the rock
at his own option, and smites it once and again,
when bidden to speak to the rock. Alas! The
mighty is fallen. The meekest man is the public
spectacle of proud, and irreverent, and presump



THE PISGAH B URIAL.        259
tuous passion. The lustres which had illumined
his face, were obscured. The man who had spoken
with God upon Sinai, and came down burnished
with the lingering splendors of his Divine communion, was overtaken by infirmity when he dealt
with man, and the cloud of human woes gathered
over him from this sin at Meribah. And this sin
shrouded him with its penalties. It was the barrier, more formidable than the flood of Jordan,
which excluded him from the promised land. It
was the enemy that robbed him of -his brother, and
buried the companion of'his whole career upon the
heights of Hor. It was the avenger that chased
him to the mountain-top, and as he gazed upon the
landscape of Canaan and the home of peace and
abundance provided for his people, laid the fatal rod
upon him, and left his body in the dust of Moab.
Because he had not sanctified the Lord in the
presence of the people, because he had substituted his own indignation for the denunciations of
the Almighty,-because, as inspiration notes it,
"he Spake unadvisedly with his lips," his sin pursued him, and with the object of his earthly hopes
before him, his sin appeared to baffle and upbraid.
The voice, whose utterances had been encouragement and might to his harassed spirit, came at last
like the cruelties of remorse, " Ihave caused thee
to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over
thither."
Let us view this infliction, then, in its moral
bearing, and in its uses as a type or figure of our
lot under Providence.




.260         THE PISGA H BURIAIL.
We are to regard this Hebrew lawgiver as a
man actuated by exalted motives. His whole history is a living verification of this remark. He
was an example of most eminent virtue. With unsullied character he broke from the charms of the
Pharaonic court, and with most generous and persevering philanthropy and piety, he espoused the
cause and shared the reverses of the people of
God. We challenge the instance of such virtue
beyond the pale of Christian grace. He rose out
of a world of festering corruption, in an age when
nothing was to be borrowed from the past, nothing of the present to be imitated, and he displayed
a system before which the institutes of man sink
to puerility and fable, and a character which Minos and Lycurgus, Solon and Zaleucus may have
striven to emulate, but could not eclipse. His aim
was not to found a religion, but to lay the foundations of virtue. He would have erected no empire, but that of allegiance to the author of wisdom
and of holiness. "Sparta formed soldiers; Rome,
conquerors; Carthage, merchants and navigators;"
but Moses would have formed saints. We pronounce him, in a mere worldly view, the most
celebrated and the most beneficent lawgiver, that
preceded the grace of Christ.
We see him aiming to conduct his charge into
the land of Canaan.  We see him  preserved
through manifold perils, and more invulnerable
than the charmed favorites of poetic fable. His
purpose is almost accomplished. We look to see
his entrance of triumph into the land beyond the




THE PISGAH B URIAL.          26i
Jordan. A single act dashes from his hand the
possession he had almost grasped. He died, with
his worlK unfinished. That is the moral of his life,
and of his punishment. He wrought well, but he
did not attain his end. He moved in the paths of
piety and of hope, but he reached not the promise.
Virtue was his, and victory, and communion with
God, and a glimpse of Canaan, and the kiss of Jehovah, and the tranquil sleep of holiness, and angels
to fill his grave, and clusters of rewards waiting
his soul beyond the Jordan of death, but in this
life he was baffled. He was taken away in the
midst of his days. The Son of man came, while
the garments of the prophet were laid aside for
work.
And this was the penalty of his unadvised speech.
He could foresee, as every heroic philanthropist
can foresee, the desirable object yet to be attained,
but he cannot taste the fruits of his journeyings in
the abode of rest. Happier far was his repose in
the cemetery of the patriarchs' souls. But his
earthly aim was left unsecured.
For our admonition are these things written,not for wrestlings over the conjectural passages of
the narrative, but for profit by-its moral.
Holy and beneficent though our purpose be,ardently and courageously though we pursue it,discomfited and thwarted though we appear,-we
must not yield to the tempter. We may mourn in
the ears of.God, but we must not rail before men.
A single offence breaks the cord of blessings, and
dismisses us from earth with our work undone.




262          THE PISGAH BURIAL.
There is, unquestionably, before every soul that
liveth, a certain task-work within its capacity, and,
by the help of God, within its reach. " To one five
talents, to another two, and to another one; to
every man according to his several ability." - S.
Matt. xxv: I5. We are protected through infancy,
and nurtured in virtue, and endowed by grace, for
the purpose of directing us to this work. And if
the eye could be kept single, so that the whole
body should be full of light,-that is, if our conscience could be kept pure so that beams of illumination could shine from the Spirit upon our understanding, we should proceed directly to our desired
task, and accomplish it manfully. But so many indulged passions, so many earthly interests, so many
untamed desires swerve us from rectitude, that'our
doom is disappointment. And what is the result?
How does it affect the termination of our career?
Alas! we read the answer in the announcement of
departing souls, - they are summoned away in
peace, but they groab under an oppressive consciousness that their work is not finished. And thethought that comes, as they look off from Pisgah,
is that they needed not the wisdom of age, but the
conscience of innocence. The folly that leaves its
sting, is the want of uprightness, and not the want
of craft. If we would depart in the sublime confidence of Christ, " I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do,"-we must with cleansed
conscience sanctify the Lord in our hearts, and
fling away the wilfulness and vexation that betrayed and slew the meekest man. Our perseverance




THIE PISGAH B URIAL.           263
will bring us to a mountain-height, whence we may
descry the inheritance of the people of God,-but
the vigilant,-the consistent Christian shall here on
earth taste the vintage of Canaan,-he shall experience the calm that betokens an eternal rest, and
while in death angels caress his released soul, he
will find no chilly Jordan to cross; but exchange
the Canaan of an earthly reward for the surrounding delights, the descending raptures of his heavenly rest.
Now, my brethren, is the season of preparation
for this happy event, Mock not at the entreaties
of God. He would draw you towards the fields of
promise. Hearken to His voice, and you will find
it decoying you' from pleasure to pleasure, and
from glory to glory.- It is a Father that speaks.
Does not your heart echo to the poet's wish?
" O, that without a lingering groan
I may the welcome word receive;
My body with my charge lay.down,
And cease at once to work and live."
Choose vlith Moses, rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season,-and a home with which earth's
comforts are as dust compared with the stars, shall
open to your vision,-open to your admission,He shall cause thee to see it with thine eyes, and
to go over thither.




XXIV.
TIMID WOMEN.
ST. MARK XVi. 5, 6, 8.
"And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting
on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were
affrighted.
"And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of
Nazareth, which was crucified; he is risen....
" And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for
they trembled and were amazed; neither said they anything to any
man; for they were afraid."
T ANG UAGE seems here to accumulate itself in
the effort to express timidity.  Other evangelists brighten up the coloring by throwing
a streak of joy along the margin of alarm, when the
women fled from the sepulchre to announce the
angel's message of resurrection. BlIt St. Mark
obviously aims at giving prominence and emphasis
to the fact that these morning visitants at the
birth-place of our triumph were agitated with fear,
and that this timorous, startled, unnerved condition
of mind prevailed over all other feelings. This
commotion in their minds was produced by two
facts, either of which would occasion some trepidation; and was increased by the surprise that met
them with new wonders at every step. One needs
(264)




TIMID WOMEN.               265
habitual presence of mind, and he needs a good
degree of strength of character to be always wellbalanced and secure against a tremulous feeling
under abrupt and repeated surprises. Mere goodness that keeps the conscience quiet-or mere ardor of affection, throwing all the emotions into the
one posture of excited affection, will not secure one
against a timidity under surprise.
Had these women been schooled in self-possession;-however, two alarming facts woke their reasonable fears.
The body of their Redeemer was missing from
the tomb.- They supposed that rancor: had ex-hausted itself in consigning Him to death, and in
placing the soldierly watch around His sepulchre.
What new indignities for this harmless majesty had
been devised? Was not even love to be permitted
to express its sorrow?  If they could not screen
the living, are they to be forbidden to bemoan the
dead?
Unconscious of any rescue for that inanimate
body, their only hope was that the intensity of
their grief would so far be respected as to admit
the last offices to the lifeless, for which their spices
and ointments had: been prepared. With all their
thoughts concentrated upon this duty, and without
a film of doubt to change the direction of their feelings, they discover an utter disappointment, so unaccountable, so confounding with its obscurity, so
crushing to the last foothold on which their hearts
had stood, that there could be no emotion left for
them but vague -alarm-that frightened, shattered
I2




266            TIMrID WOMEN.
state of soul when all is excitement, and danger is
known to be on every side, but how and when it
shall fall upon us, or how disastrous it may become,
the howling darkness will not tell.
The' narrative introduces another circumstance
that agitated these mourning women. Within the
rocky cavern where they sought to embalm the
beloved dead, they find a living stranger. The
linen shroud of the buried is not upon him, —the
napkin that covered the head of Jesus is folded- and
carefully laid aside, as if there had been no haste and
no perturbation in conquering that rigidity of death;
but,' sitting calmly there, was the "young man,
clothed in a long white garment," whose presence
gave occasion to a new whirlwind of fears.
We that know the magnificence of the event can
see a propriety in such angelic attendants waiting
around the tomb of a heavenly Master, and we find
no difficulty in the alarm of the women at this'.
strange apparition, because we have -already imagined the scene of the breaking twilight, when the
angel came upon the wings of the morning, shaking the earth with his footsteps, flashing terror
from his eyes that prostrated the armed soldiers,
and with the touch of his hand snapping the clasp
upon the stone and rolling its huge mass from the
mouth of the sepulchre. When the vision made
those sworn and vigilant keepers to shrink and
swoon like dying men, is it wonderful that two
timid women should have been startled into fright?
We admit that "there was no such portent in' the
quiet object before them, as in the giant power




TIMID WOMEN.              267
which had felled the guards before the tomb. But
the visitation was on the same errand and from the
same source. It was the ministry of angels that
was so terrific to men who confessed no fear, and
so mild to timid women who made no concealment
of their fright.
And herein is a great part of the mystery, and
the greater part of the mo-dal.
Thus it was mysterious that a set of armed, hireling, dare-devil men should be hurled shuddering
to the earth by the mere glance of that angelic eye,
and yet that the placid features and the soothing
tongue of a similar being should simply have affrighted women who were already smitten with
panic. I say, that this is unaccountable except upon
the principle' of God's presence, and conscience
realizing that appeal-the inward' nature of the
men feeling that power " which makes cowards of
us all," and the natural timidity of the women not
being eradicated by the pouwer that was mildly revealed to comfort and cheer.
It was so surprising, as to be in a certain sense
mysterious, also, that this angelic apparition should
have been disclosed to the view of the women on
three occasions at this sepulchre, but never once to
the disciples. Sometimes it is two angels, "the
one at the head and the other at the feet where the
body of Jesus had lain," and again one sitting at
the door; they seem to appear and to vanish at
pleasure; Magdalen sees them both in the very
spot where Peter and John discovered no one.
And Magdalen at her first approach to the sepul



268            TIMID WOMEN.
chre had not beheld them. No hypothesis of a
phantasm meets the case. The flitting phantom
does not assume the ordinary human features, but
here was always a guise which was neither lustrous
nor horrid, as mere imagination would discern.
The painted illusion of the mind does not wear the
same form to both beholders, as this appeared to
Mary and Salome. It does not speak to two hearers
at once, as the young man soothed the startled women. And that was not imaginary, which was one
form to the two spectators, and two forms to the
Magdalen, which at one time says, " Be not afraid,"
and at another, " Why weepest thou?" addressing
different emotions; which at no time suggests to the
imagination that it may be the revived Jesus, and
yet declares what hundreds of witnesses afterwards
verified, that the form which imagination would
have conjured at the tomb, should be seen upon
the mountain in Galilee.  The indications of a
phantasm are not present. And yet the heavenly
messenger announces the resurrection of Jesus,
sends special messages by the women to the disciples, proves by his very language that he comes
from the source of revelation, and then leaves disciples to take this triumphant gospel from the lips
of women.
Is there anya mystery here to confound our
reason? Nay, it rather accords with our expectation when we read by the light of a compensating Providence. She that showed forth the glory
of her sex by being "last at the cross and first at
the sepulchre," was rewarded by the first hearing




TIMID WOMEN.               269
of the gospel in its victory, and that from the lips
of a heavenly preacher. She that lent her ear to
the breath of the evil angel, and imported death by
her tongue, listens first to the good angel and conveys upon her lips the sweet message of eternal
life. She that began our woes by not fearing the
wily stranger, crowns our joys by trembling at the
presence of the innocenrt angel. Or if we fling from
our hands these threads of allusion that bind together the grave yawning in Eden and. the tomb
unlocked by Christ, yet we cannot dismiss the
physical fact that so much of heaven appeared to
the affection of women, which was denied to the
harder and more critical disposition of disciples
that were men. It is the Easter parable, taken from
the traits of our sexes. It puts the seal of the resurrection on the fact that there are elemental differences of.soul in the sexes, and that heaven addresses
itself differently to them  here on earth, and may
comfort- them with just as marked diversities after
the resurrection. Some have adopted an interpretation still more derogatory to man, or rather
showing why he is adapted to a dominion among
the earthly elements which may be his no more
among the heavenly.
"Passionate sorrow, strong feeling, ardent devotion, these have eyes to gaze into the unseen world;
while sounder or sterner sense and discerning judgment, that sees and weighs difficulties and human
consequences, does not pass beyond the veil; the
former'qualities are more characteristic of women,
~the latter of men."




270             TIMID WOMEN.
My brethren, it is not to be disputed that there
is always this abundance of mystery, and of corresponding speculation, whenever the vaster and better
universe droops into contact with our lower sphere.
But there is a moral instruction intended always to
reach us by this condescension of the higher intelligence. The greater humbles itself to instruct the
less exalted. The mightier, touches us to impart
of its strength. Heaven comes to us not that we
may tremble, but that we may learn. It is the
method of things in the very order of the earthly
elements. The blessings which would plant themselves in the ground, roll themselves first in mantles
of the air. They harness the lightnings to their car.
They yoke themselves with power, and brandish in
the sky the tokens of swiftness and force. They
come thundering and startling, but their object is
to refresh, to fertilize, to show the springing up of
blessings by this descent of wonderful power.
And herein is a symbol of what was proposed by
that exertion of Divinity which met the timid women at the tomb.
It was power, superior heavenly power-the
vague, the unmeasured, the boundless —which fell
upon their view, and turned all their other strong
emotions into fear. That w-as for the moment the
prevailing sense, which excluded all -other sensations.
And they received the gospel of resurrection,
the consolation of Christ, only by first recognizing
and trembling before a power adequate to this victory over the greedy grave.




TIMID WOME N.             2 71
The instruction thus looms upon us — first, to
this effect; that the timidity of the women was
nothing more or less than the usual effect of heaven
revealing its presence to our human nature. Woman, as the weaker being, is presumed to be more
naturally fearful, on the keener watch for dancer;
and, unless driven beyond herself by some other
passion, the most subject to the sense of fear. And
for this reason the heavenly power when revealed to
woman, indulges her timidity and hides its majesty
under gentler forms.
Fear is the tribute of our human nature to this
superior grandeur.  And fear is the posture in
which the best and bravest of men have encountered
heavenly visions.
You will think of Saul of Tarsus, a man of unblenched courage, quailing before the light and
voice that threw a heavenly reproof into his soul,
and left him trembling and astonished. You have
admired the defiant bravery of Daniel, afraid of
neither edict nor conspiracy, neither of the frowning monarch nor of the growling beast, but, with
sinews hardened in prayer, withstanding terrors.
But behold this unflinching champion, when the
heavenly visitant drew near, and, as if he were but
a timid woman, put on the form of the courteous
gentleman. It was as the appearance of a man, and
there was not even a sound to inspire terror-for
he says, "it was a man's voice between the banks
of Ulai;" yet he confesses "I was afraid, and fell
upon my face, and I, Daniel, fainted and was astonished at the vistn."




272             TIMID WOVMEN.
And this was the hero that challenged all Babylon to shake his nerves. This was the.man that
dared to decipher those letters which blanched the
cheeks of Belshazzar, and dared to utter scornful
messages to haughty and debauched monarchs.
How weak, how frightened, how womanly this
man of prowess, when by the side of Hiddekel that
heavenly angel re-appears, and the trembling prophet confesses his fear-" By the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no
strength."
It is just as if the glorious heaven which first
came near to breathe into us the living soul, could
not again even by one of its deputies approach us
without attracting that life into a shiver and a sigh.
The three choicest Apostles converse with their
heaven-descended Master day after day, and all his
utterances, all his acts are wonderful, but there is
no tremor in their hearts; they attend him up the
mountain, where the heavenly origin of.'the man
illuminates His transfigured body, and the ancient
tenants of Paradise hold their permitted interview
with Him that holds the keys of death and helland where are your intrepid Apostles? Trembling
on the ground, afraid to speak, afraid to be silent,
confounded in their speech, and disconcerted in
every faculty. Years of experience roll on. Miracles have made the supernatural familiar to them.
The risen Jesus has disarmed the grave of its terrors, and-the ascending Jesus has made that heavenly home a welcome theme, an awaited refuge. You
would expect the beloved John, thebosom Apostle,




T/IMID WOMEN.              273
the eagle-eyed observer of heavenly things, to catch
the view of that stupendous scenery without one
nerve disordered, with no other thrill than the
ecstasy of pleasure. Lo! he sees the gorgeous form
in heaven; he sees his departed Master, no longer
the weary man of sorrows, but with the grander
life now owned by Him forever, and the paralyzed
Apostle yields his breath in terror,-and "falls at.his feet as dead."
We cease to be surprised that the women meeting heaven at the sepulchre showed themselves
timid. We are only assured that the heavenly apparition disguised its glory, and moderated its
aspect into mildness, lest the womanly fear should
have disqualified them for the heavenly announcement.
The ulterior, perhaps the ultimate instruction is
the logical sequel of our course ofthought -to this effect-that a certain degree' of timidity is the preparative in a woman's disposition for the favors of heaven,
and for more and more of that heavenly favor which
beautifies her to the angels, and is better than life
itself. She gains nothing truly, though she gains a
platform or a ballot, when she loses this weaker grace
of retirement and quietness. Her strength is in the
attitude of soul which relies upon virtue and'God.
She is like the weakest of nations that may be the
most invulnerable because its alliances are the
strongest. We have called her timid, so that we
may discriminate between her that shrinks from
the shadow of danger, and "the bold bad woman"
who is proverbially dangerous. Fortitude is no slight
12*




274             TIMID WOMEN.
element in the pure womanly character. It is in some
of its aspects more conspicuous in the weaker than
in the master sex-more noted in her because she is
weaker, less advantageously placed in society for
exhibitions of bravery; but also more eminent in
the serenely enduring woman, than in her vaunting, self-asserting, and enthusiastic but impatient
and irritable partner. Man will nerve and solidify
his masculine energy to breast the great evil which
he is proud to resist, and deems it glorious to defy;
but the meek, all-enduring, unexhausted fortitude
of the woman sustains the fret, and charge, and perpetual sting of a thousand minute evils which would
hector us out of our patience. And not the least
of these evils for her helplessness is the fact which
our manliness fails to appreciate, that she cannot
help herself by assumption, and boldness, and selfassertion without forfeiting more than her arrogant
victory will gain.
Perhaps we have departed from modern phrase,
and from ancient precept, in commending feminine
excellence because it is. timid. ~ We would describe
that which in the phrase of the times, is patient but
modest.  We place a gulf between the stronghearted and the strong-minded-a gulf like that
which Lazarus could not cross, nor could the
wearer of purple and fine linen cross to him.
We employ the most impressive term, and insist
upon a virtue so opposite to the fashion of the day,
that the false ambition for unsexing modesty would
stigmatize our very virtue as timidity. We purposely fling our protest  into the arena, when the




TIMID WOMEN.               275
scheme is to make the twenty-four hours neither
daylight nor dark-to render society one huddled
mass of virtues neither generously masculine, nor
sweetly feminine-but all of life one even twilight,
the witching hour for purblind bats, with neither
courtesy nor modesty to elevate the honor of each
sex.
The theme itself unwraps a series of valuable
propositions for young women.
They will not so exceed in modesty as to deem
nothing intended for them, when I speak for their
benefit.
You ask me to expand my definition of the modest grace that is a heavenly cosmetic. Perhaps I
shall speak prudently,,though I speak as a man. It
is to seek for wisdom from the experienced; in
lowliness of mind to esteem others better than yourself; to flee the haunts of temptation; to repress,the sallies of vanity; to nip affectation in the bud;
to recoil from the voice of flattery; to turn a deaf
ear to the persuasions of ambition; to hush the flippant voice which carps at the merits of others; to
banish from the thoughts the syren that whispers
elegant words of extravagance, and honeyed words
of aspiration; to honor all men and dishonor no women; to make yourself the friend 6f the poor and
the suffering, not by sentimental sighs over pathetic
novels, but by good deeds that abridge your own
finery and clothe the naked; to scorn the mean advantages of artfulness; and to uphold with due re-,
gard them that uphold the virtues of society. I am
not a fanatic, I am not an inconsistent advocate of




276             TIMID WOMEN.
ostentatious plainness, when I ask for the outward
tokens of feminine modesty in propriety and becoming simplicity of apparel. So pronounces St. Paul,
when, in contradistinction to decorations consisting
in " gold and pearls, and costly array,"' he directs
that "women" should "adorn themselves with
shamefacedness."  You revolt against this sumptuary law of St. Paul. You deem him often severe
against your sex, and transported by his own zeal
against a gaudy world. Take then the counsel of
St. Peter, modernized for the times: "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of frizzing
the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of
apparel, but the ornament of a meek and quiet
spirit,"-poor passports to the purlieus of pride,
but beautiful jewels to win the admiration of angels,
" in the sight of God of great price."
Why, my young friends, nothing can be plainer
than that the Scriptures propose for the female sex
a retiring character. To be "keepers at home,"
which means not only sufficiently staying within
doors, but "keeping" the things that belong in
doors; to "guide the house," which is something more than doing small tallt in the drawingroom; to be "obedient to their husbands," if they
have one, and if not, then obedient to some law of
usefulness; to "bring up their children," and not
wonder why the parson or the schoolmaster has
not done it; to unite "fear," i. e., modesty, and respect, and humility, with "chaste conversation;"
not to be "idlers," nor "tattlers," nor "busybodies," nor "wanderers from house to house;"




TIMID WOMEN.             277
these are the sharp outlines which  Scripture
draws.
" Against that dharacter the prevailing'system of
modern education and modern proceedings declares
war."  "Adorning with shamefacedness," how old
fashirned. The superior taste and breeding of a
polished age have annulled this maxim. Derision
hoots at the antiquated grace of " shamefacedness."
The pupil who is unfortunate enough to betray
symptoms of a tendency to exemplify it, hears her
conformity to a scriptural model, her observance
of a scriptural duty, pronounced vulgarity, and
ignorance of the -world; and is taught that the
" adorning " which God has bestowed and enjoined,
is, in the eyes of enlightened fashion, a blemish
and disgrace.  The leading.concern of aspiring
and misjudging guardians seems too often to be
first to train up the pupil in accomplishments
for the purpose of display; and afterwards to
push her into situations contrived for display.
Is it wonderful that effrontery comes' to be
termed politeness; that general and unabashed
familiarity is misnamed ease and perfection of
manners; that frivolous youth runs into insipid
age; that womanly charms are the bold manners
of unmanageable maidens and undomesticated
wives.
Rise up, ye careless women, to behold the dignity which God and His angels see in the meek and
quiet spirit.
Be ashamed of the fashionable customs-be
ashamed of the social revolutions, which dethrone




278            TIMID WOMEN.
your modesty, and cast contempt upon your pure
and holy fears.
"Be not ashamed when it concerneth thy soul.
For there is a shame that bringeth sin;... and there
is a shame which is glory and grace."." Be thou
not ashamed of the law of the Most High."
It is that law which assigns you your place and
your privileges in this society of earth, and shall
allot you infinite rewards if God's will shall be with
you paramount to every passion and every pride,
every rubric of pretension, and every bye-law of
despotic fashion. " Accept no person against thy
soul; and let not the reverence of any man cause
thee,to fall."
Remember, above all things, that Christianity has
been the rescue of woman from degradation and
from shame-from bedizened debauchery and from
sordid servility-and that woman never looks so
magnanimous, and grateful, and brave, as when she
bows at the. feet of Jesus, and with the natural
fervors of her piety confesses Him before man.




xxv.
THE DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE.
ACTS xvii. 30.
"God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."
T HE sun flashed upon the rock-ribbed hills of
Athens. The splendor of his rays gleamed
like a diadem from heaven upon the bald head
of a preaching philosopher, Paul the aged. The ensigns of idolatry flaunted around him. He stands
among the majestic temples, the costly altars, and
the piled offerings, which the heart of a people had
devoted to their unknown God. The learned of
the earth were gathered beside him, the proud
moralist was his hearer, the reckless epicurean and
the iron stoic were listening for the terms of his
new philosophy; from the eminence where the sunlight had found him, he glances out upon a land
whose hills and vales and every acre were consecrated to the deities of a mythic religion, upon the
monuments reared by pious hands over the graves
of heathen virtue, and almost beneath his feet upon the rustling crowds that thronged the streets of
Athens in their daily tasks and pleasures. What
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280  DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE.
language shall he utter?  Ages had hallowed the
religious feeling that lay embosomed within this
people. Mouldering rust had long gnawed upon the
trophies, which hung as sacred charms, untduched by man, within those temples. How shall the
preacher from Damascus open his message within
this citadel of heathenism, fortified, and wise, and
hallowed? There were eyes fastened upon him,
that had danced in the glare of midnight revelry.
There were hearts before him elated with the
pride of success, and suspicious of some new design against their wealth and power. There were
trained and disciplined intellects waiting for some
syllable that should flatter their attainments, or for
some doctrine on which the curse of novelty
might be written, or the battle-ax of their censure
might. demolish. Ferocity and learning, craft and:
simplicity, power and servility, the array of human
nature in its refined and debased forms was assembled around him. He directs his finger to the inscription of their own bewilderment " To the unknown God," he points to the witness within the
breast of each that this God had been insulted and
wronged, he stands upon the foundation of a spiritual philosophy that the Godhead is not like unto
the graving of art and man's device, he asserts
the lofty dignity of man as the child of the Almighty, and adduces the testimony of their own
learned oracles; he recalls their long midnight of
impiety and blindness, and concludes with the mercies and the message of this revealed God, " The
times of this ignorance God winked at, but now




DUTY AND MEANI1NG OiF REPENTANCE. 28 I
commandeth all men everywhere to repent." It
was useless to detail the precepts of Christ, it was
useless to argue of grace and the motions of the
Holy Spirit, it was worse than useless to delineate
the beauty of holiness, unless the admonition of
conscience was heard, and the voice of God was
obeyed,. commanding all men everywhere to repent.
A new destiny, O Athens, was thrust upon thy
walls and hills and altars, when God commanded
thee to repent. The word of life was the message
of repentance. Centuries were waking from their
dreams at the call from heaven which summoned
them to repentance. Once along the margin of
the Jordan it was a man in camel's hair, uttering to
the people that were versed in the law, " Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is -at hand."  A prison
and the ax of the headsman repay his boldness,
and ",from that time, Jesus began to preach, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  The
clouds receive Him, the gift descends in tongues
of flame, and the answer -to alarmed souls was,
"Repent, and be baptized every one of you." An
Apostle departing from Ephesus to his persecuted
fate, leaves the warrant of his faithfulness in the
declaration that he had kept back nothing which
was profitable, " testifying both to the Jews and
also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Among the Jewish worshippers at Pentecost gathered from every
land, to the corrupt magician assuming the garb of
Christianity, to the centurion with his escort of




282  D UTY AND 1IAfENING OF REPENTANCE.
mercenary followers, to the haughty denizens of
imperial Rome, to the believers entangled with
the crimes and pleasures of the luxurious Corinth,
to the apostates in the churches of' Asia, before
the half-persuaded tetrarch of Galilee, and in the
presence of the polished Athenians, the voice of
the apostle was the gospel of his Master, " God
now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."
We need not therefore, insist upon the obligation of
this duty under the gospel, that it is the aim of
God's merciful dealings, the goodness of God being designed to lead thee to repentance; that it is
the.beginning of return to peace, the foundation of
the gospel being " repentance from dead works;"
that it is a universal duty, to the Jew with his
ceremonies, the Gentile with his conscience, repentance towards God being testified; that it is an indispensable obligation, "Except ye repent ye
shall all perish;" that it is a positive and imperative
duty, " God commanding all men to repent;" that
it is an awaited, a blessed, and a rewarded duty,
the Father welcoming and " the angels of heaven
rejoicing over one sinner that repenteth."
We pass on rather to consider, with the help of
God, what is implied in this act of repentance,
what is its value, and what the evil of its delay.
In expressing the act of repentance, the writers
of the Scriptures have employed two species of
terms, the one expressing a change of mind or intent, and implying a corresponding change of life,
and the other expressing a change of feeling or. concern, and implying an excited affection and a




DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE. 283
degree of affliction and oppression of spirit. These
terms are applied indiscriminately to that repentance which is real and thorough and accepted,
and to the partial and rejected counterfeit of the
same, which bears the name of the genuine only
from its designed resemblance.
As the whole of religion has ever been made the
occasion of spurious pretences, of prejudiced misrepresentations, of corrupt counterfeits, of delusion
and of hypocrisy, so especially that foundation of
true religion, true repentance, has been misrepresented,  pretended, perverted, and dishonored.
Partly men have through ignorance mistaken the
duty required, partly men have through bias feigned the spirit of repentance, partly men have through
natural fear or shame displayed the compunctions
while they lacked the pure desires of repentance,
and the repentance of some has been the vain and
desperate struggle to regain by sorrow a privilege that had been bartered and lost by sin. The
tears of. Esau fell like the droppings of the
storm-cloud upon the ocean and upon the plain,
swelling only the depths of his woe, but enriching
the inheritance of his brother; " he found no place
of repentance though he sought it carefully with
tears." There is a natural degree of repentance,
which can scarcely be called a virtue, because it is
involuntary and universal, and yet it is a testimony
to our moral. capacity, inasmuch as it consists in a
guilty reflection upon ourselves. 4For this reason,
even heathen philosophy has pronounced repentance
a human affection, a passion implanted in man, "a




284  DUTY AND MiEIANING OF REPENTANCE.
suffering of the soul which comes from being
troubled at our former course."  It is manifest,
that when the gospel'addresses itself to all, and
enjoins upon all a positive act of repentance, it is
not a requirement of this mere natural emotion,
this inevitable and passionate sorrow, which the
consequences of crime are sure sooner or later to
bring, and which is rather the issue of recklessness
in offending, and bitterness in suffering, than of
change and tenderness in heart. The repentance
of the gospel is sorrow for those things which the
gospel condemns, and the change of mind and
heart to the choice and pursuit of those things
which the gospel approves. The repentance of na~ture is the power of memory allied with the shrinkings of the flesh. The repentance of nature fears
suffering more than the law, and idolizes self without adoring the- Maker. The repentance of nature
is the weapon of justice, the repentance of the gospel is the instrument of mercy. The repentance
of nature is the wound to the heart in the breaking
of some link of natural affection, the repentance of
the gospel heals where it bruises, and soothes
where it tortures. The repentance of nature sinks
towards the verge of despair, the repentance of the
gospel rises upon the wings of peace and hope.
By observing some of the -characters which a
false and imperfect repentance possesses in common with that which is true and effectual, we shall
be better able to distinguish the nature of this universal duty.
A change in one's. habits is a feature of true re



DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE. 285
pentance found also in that which is fallacious and
imperfect. The escape from some domineering appetite, the rending of the shackles of habitual indolence, the devotion of one's energies to some newvly-exciting employment, the change of association
and purpose and manner of life are all compatible
with a mere regard to one's interests in this life.
A reputation to be retrieved, a wreck of a squandered fortune to be -saved, the emoluments of industry and integrity to be secured, or the misery
of a destitute life and an ignominious death to be
shunned. These are sufficient inducements to restrain the habits of licentious indulgence, or to
arouse the torpid limbs of idleness. They reach
motives. They foster virtues. Habits are controlled, life is moulded, character is transformed by
them. They are the badges of outward reformation. They are the key-notes of a moral change.
Thanks to God that our race is not abandoned,
that such repentance is vouchsafed to the victim of
passion. But all this is not the substance of required repentance. To the Jew, far as he was removed from dissoluteness-to the Greek disciplined
in the virtue of his schools, God's unmitigated
command was repentance. A life reclaimed from
a den of debauchery, and elevated to the posts of
worldly honor, may yet spurn the name of Jesus,
and linger through a career of blasphemy to the
doom of impenitence. No, it-is not the mere refusal
of one sin, nor the mere reformation of certain lawless habits, the sum of the repentance which thousands ever attempt to attain; it is not this that is




286  DU7TY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE
to win the blessings of the entire reformation comprised in the demand of Christian repentance. Another characteristic of imperfection in this duty,
belonging equally to its proper discharge, is regret
and sorrow for the past. What miserable victim
of indulged vice does not lament the consequences
of his crime, as they hang in clouds of distress
around him? What abandoned drunkard does not
drown the horrors of his soul in new draughts of
drugged oblivion? The culprit curses at the gallows the infatuation of his youth, and weeps in anguish for the happy home he deserted and the confidence he betrayed. Oh! how often have we seen
the hoary head of age. pour forth the tears of sorrow over a misspent life, and yet descend without
repentance into a'hopeless grave. Encompass any
soul with the penalties of its transgression, let pains
and agony be laid upon itself and the body, awaken
the reflection that these are the just issues of its own
errors and crimes, abstract one by one the hopes of
relief and rescie, and you are sure to behold the
features of a fallacious repentance, the memories of
the past odious and bitter, a heart harrowed with
regrets, or steeped in desperate oblivion. Wrenched by such repentance, the soul of Judas rushed
from the memory of his betrayed Lord to the release of violence.
And if his bloody fate testifies that a false repentance is filled with sorrows for the past, and that
this remorse does not withhold the guilty soul
from rushing on into dismal atrocities, it also instructs us that the ipere sense of guilt is no assur



DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE. 287
ance of accepted repentance. The confession is
wrung from the guilty traitor, " I have sinned in
that I'have betrayed the innocent blood." Does the
daring lip of perjury never tremble, as it covers
guilt with guilt, and acknowledges its dread of the
ont by hiding it with the veil of another offence?
Does the soul convicted of its guiltiness before God
and startled into a momentary uneasiness amid the
echoes of Divine warning, does that soul repent
when it sees as in- the midday the handwriting of its
condemnation, and yet refuses to supplicate for the
sinner's pardon? No, there is a deathless rankling
of remorse, that confesses guilt, and never repents.
There is a faithful conscience that rouses itself to
reprove and to thunder its sentence of guilt, only to
be mocked and crushed and silenced by the impenitence of the proud and obdurate heart. There is a
voice that crieth to our souls, "Unclean, unclean;"
that finds its echo here when it proclaims that
God commandeth all men to repent; that comes
with a fearful stillness in the season of recollection
and sorrow, and whispers, " Guilty, guilty," but it is
hushed into silence without completing its work of
a saving repentance.
A  false repentance will sometimes restore the
fruits of sin, and disown its fraudulent gains. The
thirty pieces ringing upon the pavement of the
council chamber were the abandoned wages of iniquity, but the putrid corpse of the suicide -was the
condemning sequel of this repentance. Many an
obstinate rejecter of God has'purchased his recovery from the misery of his covetous choice if the




288  DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE.
restitution of the last hour can supersede the necessity of a new heart and a holy life.
The fear of punishment is also an ingredient in the
cup of an imperfect repentance. It carries alarm
to the soul of the sturdiest criminal. It pursues
with its scorpion lash the profligate and oppressive.
1The fear of punishment lingers, when the tinge of
shame has long faded from the face of crime. The
fear of punishment brands its characters upon the
countenance of the murderer, and.seizes upon the
hand.that trembles to imbrue itself in blood. The
fear of punishment hangs like a charmed chain upon
the neck of the wicked, and penetrates with its dismal
shudderings to the world where repentance is unknown, but the chained prisoners believe and tremble. Neithera mere change in habits, nor a sorrow
for the past, nor a sense of guilt, nor a passionate effort
at amendment and restitution, nor the foreboding of
punishment, and the longing for impunity, make up
the act on which the Holy One shall beam the smile
of acceptable repentance. This implies a sense not
only of guilt, but of a nature prone to sin, and by
its very inclination and the corruption of its goodness, guilty; it implies a feeling of helplessness
and utter abandonment, unless the Almighty interpose; it entertains no compromise with sin, but abhors and flees from its every form, and its subtle enticements; it rejoices in the service of God as our
true allegiance and our only happiness; it resolves
in dependence upon H'is might no more to break
the bonds of His law and His love; it proportions
its sorrow to the quality of its offences, and the




DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE. 289
stubborness of its resistance, and the former vielence of passion, and the impetuosity of the tempers it would amend, and the magnitude of the
mercies and deliverances it has despised. True repentance does not expend itself in alarm and tears,
but in the revenges of self-denial and humiliation
to our crested pride. True repentance leans, in
shame of our disease and ingratitude, and with full
trust in God's mercy, upon the staffof His methods.
True repentance engages the affections, in its undertaking of amendment, and devotion. As the vapors from the ocean wander in capricious and
fantastic forms to the distant mountains and the
regions of perpetual storm, and then descend to
their original home, sometimes in noisy rivulets,
sometimes in deep, majestic rivers, so the souls that
sprang from the will of creating Love, return to
their home in the flowings of repentance, sometimes
in swift and murmuring motion, and sometimes in
the majesty of deep and overwhelming force.
I have seen one whose hairs were whitened In the
compliances of sin, in the deliberate rejection of
the gospel, in the courses of vice and profligacy.
I have seen such a soul arrested in its madness,
humbled in memory of a heedless and ungodly life,
prostrated with grief, groaning for very affliction
at its hardness and insensibility, and presenting the
very picture of penitent wretchedness; but its eemotions of compunction vanished without the proimise of obedience and the resolution of surrender to
the'armament of grace, and an impenitent grave
enclosed his last remains.  I have seen another
13




290  DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE.
calmly resigning his soul to the vows of duty, visited with no tempest of grief, but patiently imploring the Divine help for his helplessness; awaiting
no shock of Providence to alarm his slumbering
soul, but seeking the gift of a sincere repentance;
completing not his repentance with the first essay
of amendment, but carrying it on from failing to
failing till it should adjust and finish every virtue;
I have seen him strengthening in his character, unfolding grace upon grace, and lying down in peace
to wait for the consummation of glory.
Let us hearthen the voice of the Almighty, as
if he stood here addressing each one of'us. God
now proclaims His will, God now demands the
acknowledgment of His goodness and His dominion. God now opens the avenue of return to everlasting life, commanding all men everywhere to repent. Who shall retort upon Him, that repentance
is impossible-that repentance is shut up within the
secrets of election, when He willeth that none
should perish, but that all should come unto repentance? Who shall despise the riches of His forbearance, when He tenders salvation upon the condition of repentance? Is there anything in the act
of repentance that can undo the past, that can restore the ruins strewn along the piathway of iniquity? Can repentance summon the victim of the
murderer from his bloody grave? Can repentance
recall a wasted youth, and regain for the enfeebled
frame of age the vigor and the days of strength
lost in lust and dissipation? Can repentance
snatch the offender from the arm of justice, and re



DUTY AND MEANING QF REPENTANCE. 291
prieve the violator of his country's laws? - Can repentance restore the blush to the cheek of violated
innocence? Can it erase -the lines of affliction that
sin's desolating course hath marked upon the heart
of the mourning wife, or the dishonored children
of a guilty parent? Repentance cannot remand to
the hope of salvation, the souls that have entered
before it into their portion; it cannot reanimate the
dust that was hastened by crime to the bed of corruption; it cannot recall the afflicted spirits of a
parent whose reproof was despised, or a friend
whose sympathy was touched' and wounded; it
cannot atone for the past, it cannot arrest the consequences of sin.
Yet God accepts it, " He visits oft the humble hallowed cell, and with the penitent who mourn,'tis
His delight to dwell." It is He that makes the
atonement, it is we that follow the condition. It is
He that blots out the record of condemnation; it
is we that lament its long array. It is He that
waiteth to be gracious; it is we that are to perfect
holiness in the fear of God, enlarging our repentance as we increase our days.
It was the prayer of one in ancient days, who
stood forth in his riper years as the champion of
the faith and the agonized wrestler in repentance,
whose youth had through the ambition of parents
been furnished with all the brilliancy of learning
and accomplishments, but whose body was polluted
with the vilest excesses, and his soul corrupted into
the most abhorrent blasphemies-it was his constant
prayer, as the past rushed back upon his con



292  DUTY AND MEANING OF REPENTANCE.
science, and the future was realized in its revealed
terrors; it was his constant prayer, saint though he
was, wise and learned as he was, victorious over
temptations and over the oppositions of error as
he was: " Give me, 0 Lord, give me the grace of
tears."




XXVI.
SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.
EZRA VI: II.
" Also I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word,
let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let
him be hanged thereon."
T O one who regards the edifice constructed by
the piety of Israelites, and dedicated by the
faith of Solomon, as itself the end and the
object of all the care and solicitude of heaven, the
result must appear entirely incommensurate with
the Divine majesty interested, and the Divine vigilance exercised. Our estimate.is entirely reversed when the Christian intent of the structure
and of the Providence over it enlarges our sense of
God's purposes and exalts each item of the fabric
and of. its history into a sign of spiritual and eternal things. It is beyond dispute that our Lord
recognized this significance. He transferred the
very name of the temple to His own body, and
thus authenticated the Jewish idea that this structure, though doomed to demolition, was a consecrated residence of Divinity. Its designation to
honor, however, was not occasioned solely by its
(293)




294 SYMBOLISMS, AiVAND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.
being intended to typify something to come, which
should be grander and more enduring. It was the
repository of oracles which claim our veneration.
It was the symbol of that religion which contained
the transcript of Divine perfections. It was the
centre of a worship more dignified and more puri-.
fying even in its moral effects than any nation by
philosophy or by refinement had yet attained.
The guardianship of God over it had not been that
of mere preservation, but was the token of a sovereignty consulting moral ends, and not so much
occupied with the sanctity of the place, as with
the integrity of the religion and the perpetuation
of the truth.'When man ventured to brutalize his own conceptions, and to make the sacredness of the Temple a protection for his perverseness, the Almighty
beckoned to the remorseless devotee of Baal that
he should invert this decayed sanctity, and prove
that Providence was aiming at truth rather than
magnificence, that God'was authorizing what
should elevate and glorify this human nature,
rather than pollute and degrade this equivocal
image of God.
But God's truth was vindicated when the.seventy years of His frown had eradicated the last doubt
concerning His jealousy. Under the auspices of
Cyrus the search -had been successfully made for
the foundations of Solomon's'structure, and the
labor of re-erection had been initiated with the
glowing zeal of the Jew, and with the countenance
of the Great Empire of the East. Samaritan hos



SYMBOLISMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.  295
tility contrived to impede this enterprise by machinations, bribes, menaces, and calumnies, until
fifteen years of this struggle brought the restored
Jew to the second year of Darius, and to his active
and decided intervention.
We must not infer that these happy turns of
events revolved only upon the axle of the royal
will. God was touching those secluded agents in
their arbitrary power. But was He not stirring
the other earthly elements that contribute to His
purposes? Does He ever accomplish any such reviving of the depressed piety of man without exerting that power of prophecy which is the token
of God's presence?
Read those memorable words of Haggai,-terse
and crisp and glowing, when, on Thursday, the
24th of August, he argued with a people who
dared to call themselves covenant-keepers, while
the cedar of Lebanon was carved to embellish
their own homes and the house of God lay waste.
Hear him again with the haste of prophecy that
would not tarry, on the I3th of October, cheering
the people who were roused to build, with those
sharp outlines of a glory that should fill God's
earthly temple, and be the desire of all nations.
Or note those strange pictures in the gallery of
Zechariah, who painted not ideals, but visions, and
whose imagery was not the hot hopes of human
ardor drawn out into color, but God's designs
thrown into view.
These were the stimulants that inflamed the
hearts which had faltered. With these testimonies




290 SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.
of prophecy, these chidings to spur the nerveless,
these incitements to animate the desponding, God
himself inaugurated and furthered the templework. The recovered zeal of the Jew was the signal for the renewed intrigue of the Samaritan. He
whispered his malignant surmises into the ear of
Tatnai, the deputed viceroy of Syria and Palestine.
But the Governor, well interpreting the devices of
Samaria, referred the question to the magnanimity
of the monarch. Darius, partly influenced by his
personal friendship for Zerubbabel, and still more
by his regard for the memory of Cyrus, whose
daughter he loved and married, ordered the edict
of Cyrus to be produced from the archives, and
confirmed it by a new decree. To every.hinderer
of the temple restoration he proclaimed his royal
warning, "Let the work of this house of God
alone." To his satraps he commanded that the
Samaritan tribute which their bribery had diverted,
should be restored to this sacred work. Upon his
own revenue officers he enjoined liberal payments
in aid of the Jews, and ample supply of all materials needed for their sacrifices. And that these injunctions might be not only ratified as irrepealable,
but sealed with the invocation of Providence, he
appends his prayer to the God who had placed His
name in the house of Jerusalem, and fortifies one
decree with another, denouncing this penalty,
" Whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be
pulled down from his house, and being set up, let
him be hanged thereon."
To appreciate the actual stage of human civiliza



SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIzR SZGNzFIC4ANCY. 297
tion at the era of this favor from a Gentile king
to the. humiliated nation of God's covenant, we
must cast our eye over those portions of the globe
which have transmitted to us so ancient a history.
Egypt, as representing all the cultivation ofNorthern Africa, was now a province of the Persian
monarch;  The vast Assyrian empire had for
twenty years' been a gem in the diadem of conquest which now graced the brow of Darius. The
puerile fables and the gross traditions that had
amused'and debased the millions of the far east,
were vanishing before the wonderful ethics and
the high conceptions of the Chinese sage, Kongfuh-chuh, who had just propagated a new philosophy, the elements of which are suspected to
have been transported eastward by the scattered
tribes of Israel. Towards the west, that Macedonian kingdom which Alexander two hundred years
afterwards enlarged into a mammoth empire, was
at this time tributary to Persia. The vaster Roman empire was then no more than an emporium
upon the Tiber for a feeble Latin confederacy,
not yet pretentious enough to invite the cupidity
or match the strength of Carthage, although that
was little more than New Jersey. Learning had
reached its scientific climax at Athens, and deemed
itself perfect because it had invented charts and
guessed at globes. In one word, Darius was the
master of civilization. His act was the tribute.
rendered by the possessor of supreme earthly
authority to the majesty of God. His empire was,
more than that of Cyrus, the summing up of GenI3




298 SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.
tile forces. Everything else was too diminutive to
be then alluring, or too barbarous to be capable of
interpreting the spiritual system which the Hebrew's tenacity could not be forced to abandon.
This, then, is the moral of the facts. When the
chance of saving God's Church, and the means for
maintaining high spiritual truths appear to human
calculation most desperate, then God shows that
it is His hand which rescues, and His Spirit that
moves the hearts of men. By the aged Daniel,
uncorrupted by the caresses, as -he had been unshaken by the cruelties of Babylon, the Almighty
wins the homage of Cyrus. He sends prophetic
fire from above into the souls of Haggai and Zechariah, and they warm the chilled hopes of the temple builders. He aggrandizes the dominion of
Darius, and, at the same time, breathes into his
soul the reverence which persuades the monarch
to stand in awe of the Eternal One, who had
avenged' Himself upon Egypt, Nineveh and Babylon.
The language of Darius, when it concerns these
topics of God's honor and spiritual worship, is no
longer the voice of superstition. He speaks as an
interpreter of Providence. He becomes like one
of God's anointed. We hear him, as a potentate,
addressing not his own generation only, but echoing through all the ages.  It is the utmost of
earthly power speaking to the last generation of
earthly pride, and commanding it not to forfeit its
earthly ambitions by impeding him that builds thehouse of God. It' is the tone of. prophecy blend



SYMBOLISMS, AND TIHEIR SIGNIFZCANCY. 299
ing with God's ordinance of power, and bidding
the world abstain from hindering the sacred labor
which pertains to the worship of God. It is the
anticipation of the voice of Christ, proclaiming
Himself the corner-stone of Providence, the foundation-stone of grace, and "on whomsoever it shall
fall, it will grind him to powder."
The trumpet that sounds may be Persian, but
God's breath fills it. The proclamation may fit
that era and the temporary shrine of truth, but the
principle of God's government is intended for all
ages and for this Christian consummation of religion.
Put the spiritual interpretation upon it. Bring
it out of the old. shadows, and let it apply itself in
this daylight of man's history. What is its voice
to us? What is the offence it condemns? And
if we thus offend, what is the penalty that justice
denounces and pardon alone can avert?
Now, it is the property of all. well-adjusted and
perfected law, clearly to define offences. It scorns
the ambiguity which entraps one in guilt unawares.
There must be reasonable presumption that one
knows his act to be criminal, and sufficient opportunity for him to shun it without a greater felony,
or even-handed justice will be as blind to discover
as she is impartial to adjudge upon the offence,
We must be equally just in admitting that the
offence of obstructing God's temple work is to be
measured not by the arbitrary demands of our
prejudice, nor by the imaginary standards of our
orthodoxy, but by the clear statutes of Divine




300 SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY.'
authority.  These statutes reach far and wide
through thie ranges of human action; they pursue
the devices of the heart with a search that will
not be baffled; they are so exceeding broad that
no ingenuity can escape them; so minute in their
penetration that no intent of our meanness can
be too small for them to grasp. But when they
treat of this everlasting temple which God constructs among men, there are four particulars
concerning which our conscience cannot be at a
loss, unless it has first guiltily plunged itself into
the penalty of darkness, and hardness, and impenitence.
The decree of an unchangeable God describes
His foundation of this work, defines the plan of its
construction, appoints His agents to further it, and
devotes it to His honor, Its foundation is Christ"Other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid;" its plan is the revealed word —" See thou
make all things according to the pattern showed
thee in the mount" " Flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in
heaven;" His agents, in its prosecution, are the
ministry of Christ-" We, then, as workers together
with Him beseech you;" its object is to erect a
ivisible structure where God's presence is to be
recognized, because His Spirit pervades and consecrates the work-" Ye are builded together for
an habitation of God through the Spirit."
The statutes are unequivocal. They impose upon
us the necessity of building all our character and
all our hope upon that one foundation-stone, Christ




SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY. 30I
Jesus. They bid us banish theories, crush inventions, disdain substitutes, and pause from vain
attempts to find another rock; for God Himself
lays the foundation-stone, lay.s it in Zion, and seals
it as elect and precious, on which time and eternity can find their true angle; God and man can
build their united wall; justice and truth can
meet together.
The statutes of the Lord presuppose the sufficiency and the unqualified obligation of the inspired
Word. Pluck the heavenly marrow from the revelation of truth, and the statutes fall lifeless at
the door of your heart. It is the living and powerful Word that smites the conscience. It is the Word
out of heaven that interprets the Providence upon
earth. It is the truth of the Word, superior to all
our conjectures, as it is more soothing than all
our consolations, which discloses the proportions
of the temple we are summoned to build. If we
offend at the foundation, when we reject Christ,
so do we offend against Christ when we propose to
do His work while spurning the Word of God.
But that Word affixes a permanence to the visible agency for erecting this earthly temple of
God's praise. It declares, by the statute of the
Saviour Himself, that He sends mortal men as the
Father sent Him. While they come by His authority, speak His truth, minister His sacraments,
proclaim His salvation, are building His Churchmen do deride their message, men do turn from
them with indifference; men allege that the foibles
of this ministry repel them from fellowship, and




302  SYMBOLISMS, AND THEIR SIGNVIFICANCY.
justify the alienation of their hearts from the
Church, of their tribute from the work of religion,
of their lives from the obedience of Christ; but
the edict of mercy charges them with attempting
to alter the statutes of Christ, and replies to this
most flimsy evasion-" He that is not with me is
against me."
Let me assume, however, that I have in none
of these things offended, that I cry out with purest
steadfastness, " Christ only is my rock," that I live
not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord, that I cling
with the most exemplary consistency to the fellowship of Christ and His Apostles in the lineal
Church; yet may I be amenable to the penalty of
one who hinders the work of God. If upon my
thoughts shall not be inscribed, "Holiness unto
the Lord," I destroy what I had begun to build.
If unholy angers tenant this breast, I grieve away
the consecrating Spirit of God. If impure passions defile this heart, I resist the Holy Spirit of
God. If days without thanks and nights without
prayer roll over my worldly spirit-if the gains of
filthy lucre engross my attention -if the fashion
of this world dictates the precepts and maxims I
observe, the glory deserts the inner temple, the
voice of praise grows fainter and fainter in my
soul, and so far as my immortality is concerned, I
am quenching the Spirit of God.
But the penalty!  What shall we pronounce
that to be?
Why, like all moral enforcements, the sanction




SYMBOLIS~MS, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCY. 303
of the law resides in the very crime. The consequence of violating moral law is imoral degeneracy.  There is no need of invoking outward
nature. The offender is punished in himself. And
all the war and league of outward things against
him is but the echo of the sentence that is executing itself within him. He' has not any consciousness of impunity. He affects such a dream. He
attempts to produce such a philosophy.  But
there is a living protest against it in his own convictions. And this is the recoil of self-condemnation that falls upon the spirit that hinders the
work of God's temple. It attempts to. obstruct
the work of God's house; it destroys its own
house. That is the moral effect flung back into
-its own nature. It aims at the house of God and
ruins its own. And the work of Providence corresponds with this result. No man can wilfully
war against the Church without finding sooner or
later that the retribution is in his own house. If
his hostility proceeds beyond the mere neglect of
his own religious duty-if it be the array of his
craft or his influence or his power against the instruments of Christ, the open retort of God will
be as manifest as the open defiance-the timbers
of his house will be the instruments of his shamehis domestic affections will retaliate torture. The
law of Darius was the prophecy of Providence.
But the prophecy of David is the law of grace"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee."




XXVII.
THE DAY OF THE LORD.
2 ST. PET. iii. IO.
"The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works
that are therein, shall be burned up."
T     HE  calendar of Christianity expires not till
time shall be no more. It throws solemnity
over all our days by referring the result of
what is daily transacted to the issues of that final
judgment-day.   God's wisdom  could not content
itself with holding forth some vague premonition
that wrongs would eventually be righted, or that
disguises must finally decay, and leave the, realities
of character exposed. But a positive, defined, and
exact period has been determined and announced,
within which this riot of wickedness shall be limited, and beyond which our trials and sufferings
and uncertainties shall not extend. It is so intirrately connected with the full and legitimate development of that government which our blessed
Lord is conducting, that it shall appear as "the day
of the Lord."  It is to be so little indicated by
precursors and portents, by addresses to the mere
(304)




THE DA Y OF THE LORD.           305
senses of those who darken their sight and corrupt
their hearts by immorality and irreligion, that it
cometh as a thief in the night.  We are not so elated with conceit of our own sagacity as to presume
that all the grand preparatives for that sublime
conclusion of the world can be measured by our
foresight, or depicted in the language of our aspiring fancy. The theme belongs to higher intellects.
It asks angelic power to imagine the startling
scenery. it demands a spotless purity to put the
faithful colors upon the vast picture. We shrink
from the temerity of portraying what is so transcendent.' The fact itself suffices for our faculties-the fact
that this catastrophe of the globe is impressed upon our attention by Holy Scripture as the marked
event; the signal date, the momentous day in our
Christian  calendar.  To  dismiss  it from  our
thoughts is to divest all our earthly days of their
value and their meaning. This is our day, this life of
opportunity, this period of temptation, this lingering of gracious help, this waiting time for us and
God; but the Saviour's glory shall be revealed, the
triumph of faith shall be celebrated, the heavens
and the earth shall be the parchment in the Redeemer's burning hand, and that shall be " tlhe day
of the Lord."  For this the seasons hasten; for this
the hidden fires roll their billows beneath us; for this
the meteors display their myriad torches; for this
the glorious sun treasures his unquenchable furnace,
and the oceans hide their expansive and explosive
forces in  their cool waves.  Earth  has gone




306         THE DA Y OF THE LORD.
through its long strange cycles of diversified appearance before it was robed in such beauty and
fruitfulness for the gratification of man; it waits
the change of purification that shall be ushered by
no common day of volcano blistering an island, or
flood cleansing a continent, but by-the day eminent
throughout all time that shall shrivel the skies and
turn the seas into steaming clouds, and melt the
mountains into streams of flame. Every revolving
day, as it leads us towards, so it intimates this last
of earth's days. Because it belongs to that order
of nature which now gives us the "few and evil"
days of mortality, it is put upon the record of man
as a " day;" but in recognition of Him who makes
it illustrious it is recorded as "the day- of the
Lord."
We shall enter with reverent research into the
uses of this subject by considering the signification
of this peculiar phrase, then its expressiveness, and,
finally, the associations it is intended to suggest.
An inquiry is prompted in the mention of "the
day," similar to that which has interrogated Moses
as to his meaning in recounting the progresses of
creation on six successive days. Whether both in
the beginning and in the ending- of this world's
history, " the day " comprises merely our measurement of twenty-four hours, or is to be extended over
a period of time varying as the subject varies, we
may lawfully inquire. Let it be assumed, even,
that the " days" of creation were no more than our
work-day week, yet are we not thereby concluded
to the same narrow sense when St. Peter mentions




THE DA Y OF THE LORD.         307
" the day of the Lord." There might be a presunmption in favor of the same usage in both relations.
But if we consult the whole description of the
earth's conflagration, we shall find the Apostle
pausing as soon as he alludes to the day of judgment
and destruction, and interposing this cautious sentence: -"Beloved, be not ignorant of this one
thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day."  He uses
it no doubt as a corrective to the impatience
which frets at the slowness of God's- promises and
mocks at the delays of His justice. But it introduces an inspired idea concerning the methods of
God's economy. It removes Divine things from
our measurements. It leaves us to our dimensions
of days because they best serve our moral benefit
in this narrow span of life. But shall God be hampered with our short tether?  Must He cut His
great day to our cramped fashion? When the sun
ceases to kindle, and the face of God makes the
day; when the globe forgets her motion, and the
light is seven-fold, all the glories of the creation
being merged in the radiance of the Creator's appearance, our moments of hurried breath shall no
longer define the time, but the grandeur of the occasion shall make the throbs of the universe take
the place of our feeble pulses, and the movements
of God's stupendous plan shall measure out the
day. Expand your mind, says the Apostle, into
some correspondence with that Eternal Being who
scans a thousand years as if they were but one day,
and in that elevation above these earthly views con



308         THE DA Y 0O' THE LORD.
template that coming " day of the Lord." There
is one-feature of this closing scene which will be instantaneous and in defiance of nature's slow course,
for " we shall all be changed in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye." There is another act in this
tragedy of humanity which moves like the slow
torture of ages, when the mighty men hide themselves in dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and
bid the mountains and the rocks " Fall on us and hide
us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne,
and from the wrath of the- Lamb; for the great
day of His wrath is come."
The very description of that day by our Lord
Himself expands it over a period of undisclosed
duration. He seems to embrace within that day
the season of panic and convulsion, when the
powers of heaven shall be shaken, as the fig-tree
trembles in the tempest, and when men's hearts
shall be failing them for fear.
The most cursory reader of the Scriptures will
recollect this as a favorite prophetic phrase. Its
use began with that era of prophetic gifts which
was opened about eight centuries before Christ,
and it was continued in almost every prophetic
announcement for three hundred and fifty years,
being the central object in the last syllables of
Malachi.  Upon the lips of our Saviour it is
phrased " the last day," or " the day of judgment,"
or " the Son of man's day." It reappears among
the Apostles, retaining its prophetic significance
with additions of sublimity and clearness.
In the olden era it was a prophetic term to de



THE DA Y OF THE LORD.        309
note some signal exhibition of God's presence to
vindicate His own word and to display His resistless power. Christianity adopts it to express the
same idea. Sometimes it'may imply an allusion
to that judgment-day which determined the fate
of Jerusalem. But its full intent is not satisfied
except by that great and dreadful day, of which
the visitation upon Jerusalem was both an omen and
a type. In the transition from a system of religion
that was national to one that is catholic, this double
signification was inevitable.  The justice that
doomed the privileged people was the same justice
that should visit the whole earth when all nations
had been privileged. And the shattering of all
their trusts and all their strength, which was the
Lord's coming in power and majesty to visit the
people who rejected Him, must sometimes appear
in prophetic words as their first and feeble meaning, when their great import is the gathering of
all nations and the judgment upon quick and dead
in the day of the Lord.
Its signification thus opens upon us from the
harmonizing of all the Scriptures, as that time of
manifestation when God will be vindicated and
our fallacies shall end.
We have grasped the elemental idea in this
phrase. We make our second inquiry-Is it not
peculiarly expressive?
You perceive that it is almost identical with the
name given to the sacred day of Christians, substituted for the Sabbath of the Jew. It accordingly
carries along, and lifts into a prophetic importance,




3IO         THE DA Y OF THE LORD.
that primeval Sabbath of the Lord. It came as
the sign that work was ended. It was God retiring from these scenes of unfolding beauty and
utility to group all the occupants of heaven around
Him, and pronounce judgment upon the product
of His power. In the rest, not of blind slumber
or useless inactivity, but in the rest of peace and
of contemplation, He saw everything that, He had
made, and it was very good. So shall the work of
all time be reviewed and pronounced upon, when
the Son of Man shall-come in the glory of His
Father and the holy angels. Each sentence uttered
by the lips of Jesus shall be the verdict applauded
by the universe. The entire course of Providence,
the whole scope of grace, shall be under the inspection of righteousness. Its work of patience.and
hope shall be ended. The product of this human
heart shall be finished. The experiment of mortality shall be consummated. The week of sin and.
trial shall be over. It will be time to survey the
scene, and to tell the sum of God's wonders and
mercies. It will be the festival of recollection and
praise. There will be no new experience of these
conflicts between good and evil. The period of
rest will have succeeded upon this long struggle.
That original rest of God will show itself to have
been the prophecy of His purpose. Those sacredly
guarded Sabbaths of the law will reveal themselves as preparatives for the great event. And
we shall understand why, with Christianity, the
putting of holiness upon all our employments
transferred the sanctity from a seventh day of




THE DA Y OF THE LORD.        3 I
mere restriction to a feast-day of religious delight;
for the object from the beginning was not to sanctify the day, but to sanctify the man-not to cast.disparagement upon labor, but to sweeten it by
worship - not to picture heaven as the Paradise
of idleness, but as the home of delight in serving
God. It was the wisdom of the Lord of the Sabbath, therefore, which preserved the idea of rest
within that perfect number of seven, but showed,
by giving the sanctity to the first day, that in His
majestic coming all days and all years would be
but one prolonged " day of the Lord."
Is not the phrase of the prophets and apostles
peculiarly expressive?  It shows the end of time
and the rest of righteousness. But its aptness is
concluded from another view. That summoning
of mankind to behold the Son of God in His majesty involves the stupendous exertion of His
power in raising the generations of the dead.
Each Lord's day reminds us that He burst the
fetters of death, and, though breathless and lifeless,
once emerged from the sepulchre with inconceivable power. Blessed encouragement to our quivering flesh is the memorial of the Redeemer's resurrection, as each Lord's day renews the sacred sign.
Yet what are these but shadows and glimmerings
in comparison with that emphatic day of the Lord
when He shall summon the millions that have slept
beneath the hillock of the grave-yard or in the
deep cemeteries of the sea, and every human form
that has breathed since man became a living soul
shall appear upon that resurrection-day.




3 12       THE DA Y OF THE LORD.
Some have expended learning in the proof that
"the Lord's day," on which St. John was in the
Spirit, was the annual Easter, and that, in this act,
our sovereign Saviour, revealing heavenly things
to His Apostle, put the highest honor upon His
own day. But how shall we compare even these
visions in Patmos, and that Easter which opened
heaven to the Evangelist, with the magnificence
that shall break upon our vision and the morning
that shall awaken our dust, when all Sundays shall
find their glorious fulfillment in the day of the
Lord.
The expressiveness of the phrase beams upon
us in the last and greatest of Sundays realizing
universal resurrection. This does not exhaust the
propriety of the phrase. The personal relation of
that day to our heavenly Lord renders it eminently
His.  Until those hours of triumph shall come,
His beauty and majesty and the gracious purposes
of His dominion will be comparatively unknown.
Glances at His glory have been permitted. Faint
traces of His hidden excellence were discerned
by astonished believers when He illustrated His
mission by miracle, His destiny by transfiguration,
His defiance of nature by walking over the waves,
and His rightful residence by soaring into the
skies. To a few eye-witnesses of His majesty were
these indications of the Lord's inherent sublimity
granted.  By innumerable witnesses shall His
glory be viewed in the coronation-day of the King
of kings, when "thine eyes shall see the King in
his beauty;" " when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed




THVE DA Y OF THE LORD.        313
from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not
God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and
from the glory of his power; when he shall come
to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in
all. them that believe in that day." How could
language be more explicit in pronouncing that
day of manifestation to be the allotted time for
bringing into view the attractions and the fearful
splendors of Christ? And who so obtuse as not to
perceive that this culmination of days inscribes
itself by anticipation upon the whole " calendar of
Christianity?"
It may seem to linger among the tardy triumphs
of a forbearing God. It may seem to be vanishing
into the distance of ages.  It may weary the
eagerness of the faithful Christian by its long delay.  It may grieve our hearts with "hope deferred," and give occasion for the scoffing taunt,
Where is the promise of His coming? Yet in the
scheme of Providence it shall not tarry. If we
could view all the events that promote this display of what is in man, and of what God's penetrating wisdom proposes, we might discern forbearance, we might be delighted with the exercise
of His mercy, but we should never dream that
there was any failure of His purposes, that there
was any slow delay in working out the utmost for
the joy of His chosen ones. His chariot of grace
rolls upon vast wheels. We see the motion of
I4




314        KTHE DA Y OF THE LORD.
some spot upon the rim, and to us there is no sign
of rapidity. Btt the vehicle is grand. The circumference of its wheels reaches through. remotest
space. And as we stand upon this globe and feel
not the velocity with which it rolls upon its centre
and swings around its enormous orbit,.so we heed
not the speed with which time is rushing into the
blaze of that day when time shall be no longer.
It steals upon us, that day of the Lord, as a thief
in the night. We are not unconscious of the instability that besets the solid ground, the strongarched firmament, But we are ignorant of the
processes that hasten their destruction.  We are
not unconscious of the law of dissolution that pervades the earthy fabric, as it wastes away the uust
in which we live and crumble. But we are ignorant of the elements that fill the circuits of space,
and may, at any moment, crush this shell of earth
and send the shrieking missiles of a hundred blazing worlds into our beautiful canopy.
Not I, but the repenting Peter utters the exhortation-" Seeing, then, that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought
ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
looking for and hastening unto the coming of the
day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat?"




XXVIII.
HEAVEN.*
REV. xxii. 3-5.
"There shall be no -more curse; but the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him; and
they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither
light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they
shall reign forever and ever."
I'MMORTAL  beings, here is the prize of your
high calling!  Here is the glorious recompense
held out for your attainment. To assist you to
gain this is the noble object of the Christian ministry. For this we are ambassadors of Christ to you.
Do you help our arduous work? Does your whole
heart, your unreserved confidence, your unqualified
respect accept us as such helpers of your joy?
May it never be our example that obstructs your
attainment of this holy and eternal happiness.
Let us fix our thoughts, then, for these few moments of this sacred day, on the theme so exalted,
* NOTE BY THE EDITOR.-There is evidence that this, and the
following are among the last discourses that the Rev. Author ever
prepared. If so, how appropriate that his last pastoral utterances
should have been those touching the blessedness of the Heavenly.
City!                                             j. G. W.
(3I5)




P36I6              HEA VEN.
so far superior to our multitudinous cares, our petty
ambitions. We are to elevate ourselves into some
reverent contemplation of "the inheritance of the
saints," " the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him." You ask yourself, Is such a
pure and blissful state attainable by us, frail and
tainted creatures? May I be welcomed in those
happy regions? Answer yourself. Do you so desire it as to  take God's pathway towards it?
Will you sacrifice everything that obstructs your
progress and your preparation? Then are you
not only ready to march towards the better land,
but are already tasting the flavor of its fruits. Oh!
that the Holy Ghost would -form within us all the
desire, excite in us the ambition of being forever
blessed in that heavenly home.
This blessedness comprises the entire removal
of evil, the full possession  of good, delightful
occupation, the beatific vision, and perpetual glory. Let us view each element of this bliss in its
order.
It is first realized in the entire removal of evil.
Without this no happiness can be complete; there
must be no root of bitterness to disturb and trouble
the pure streams of enjoyment. This great feature
of happiness presents itself under two terms, " No
more curse," and, " No night there."
There will be no curse in that territory of peace,
no remains of God's displeasure, not one frown on
His brow. There will be nothing to occasion a
curse; not one sin remaining, no temptation even to
ruffle our tranquil minds; no conflict with indwell



HEA VEN.                3I7
ing corruption; no warfare with spiritual enemies.
From that happy dwelling-place of the unenvying
and the unembittered, every emissary of the wicked one is barred out forever.
Nor is there any'remnant of remorse, or dread
lest God's anger should waken against us. The
soul adorned with the Redeemer's beauties, and enriched with the lovely graces of His Spirit, takes
up the inspiring strain, " I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He
hath clothed me with, the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." And if some frightened memory of a past
transgression should be startled by the scene, immediately the whole canopy of heaven would echo
the soothing promise of God: " Their'sins and
iniquities will I remember no more." All those
temporal sufferings which follow  the curse, will
also forever have terminated. "There is no pain
there, nor hunger, nor thirst."  The soul is beyond
maladies, the body above suffering. It is raised in
power. And the inhabitant of that land shall never
say " I am sick."  Now the Christian is vexed day
by day with the filthy " conversation of the wicked;"
he sees the God whom he serves dishonored, his
laws  trampled  upon, his promises  despised,
his warnings defied, his day profaned, his ministry rejected, his church derided, and the ungodly triumphing; but no sinner shall "stand in the
congregation of the righteous " there. In hell all
curses meet, concentrate, and there are confined.
But in heaven is nothing that defileth. How then




3I8                HEA VEN.
* are sinners, once touched with guilt, once wallowing in shame, now freed from sin and fear and
shame, to dwell in those holy places? Ah! there is
the mystery of the gracious gospel. They are
" washed in the blood of the Lamb," they have
" purified their consciences by faith," they have " renounced the hidden things of dishonesty," they
have "loved not the world," they have cast themselves upon the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and He hath kept them from falling. He has presented them "faultless before' the presence of His
glory with exceeding joy."  "In Him, my soul, be
cleansed from stain; in Him thy righteousness be
found."
But the removal of evil is indicated by a second
expression, " There shall be no night there." No
absence from  God, the true light, nor any of the
evils consequent qn that. If here we find the night
as well as the day, a blessing, it is because we need
its quiet and repose, it is on account of our infirmities.  If perfectly happy and unwearied, night
would only be an interruption, depriving us of a
portion of our bliss.
Truly " the light is sweet;" it spreads beauty
and glory in its track over regions which without
it are all gloom and obscurity. But the brightest
day on earth with all its lovely scenes, its waving
grain, its verdant fields, its shaded slopes, its beautiful rivers glittering in the sun, and all the richness of the expanded prospect, beaming with light
and sweet objects to regale the eye, are but as the
dark night compared with the surpassing glory of




HEA YEN.                39
that heavenly day. "The night is far spent, the
day is at hand."
And truly there will be no occasion for night
there. Our bodies will be too powerful and act;ve
and strong, either to admit of fatigue, or to require
rest. We shall be too happy to desire for a moment cessation or change. They who are "before
the throne of God and serve Him day and night in
His temple," rest not from their blissful employment. Earthly delights fail, but heavenly delights
are the sweeter in their use. The palate of sin
hankers for poison and sickens with its pleasure,
but there shall be no more death nor pain, for the
former things are passed away.
The expression, " no night," seems more immediately to convey the idea of the absence of all
evils incident to a state of darkness, whether spiritual or temporal. There will be no sinful ignorance,
no error in our conception of things. There will
be no guilt desiring darkness to veil its criminal
conduct; no concealment requisite to hide anything from observation; no danger of deviating
from the right path, nor reason to dread the approach of enemies to invade our tranquillity.
In the Divine dispensation on earth, there have
been darker and brighter days. The Jewish dispensation, compared with the Gospel, was a period of shadows.'The Middle Ages were dark ages
in some senses. But in all dispensations, as contracted with the state of heavenly glory, "now we
see through a glass darkly." In that glorious rest
there is the brightness of one everlasting day, a




320                HEA VEN.
cloudless and eternal lustre; with full capability of
body and mind for all its glory. As in hell there is
" the blackness of darkness," and all is night forever-horrid, fearful night, whose ghastly dreams have
no morning to vnd them; so in heaven there is
the noon-day blaze, and that forever; but a blaze
that never wounds the eye and draws a tear, that
never burns the painless body; for ignorance and
sorrows alike are banished, where "God shall
wipe away all tears, and the Lord giveth them
light."
My brethren, is there nothing to awaken a desire, nothing to exhilarate a hope, even in this view
of-heaven, as an everlasting life from which every
evil is entirely removed? Yet this is but a glimpse
of the awaited blessedness. It comprises, secondly,
the full possession of God.
Exquisite imagery symbolizes this transporting
hope. For the sustenance of eternity is the communication of God to the godly. At one time it
is the manna of angels that nourisheth; and what is
that bread from heaven, but the Living One that is
glorious in the perfections of the Son of God? At
another time the figure of perpetual refreshment is
"a pure river of water of life proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb." And what is
this but the fresh communication of the Holy
Ghost, whose flood poured over the soul is life and
peace and abundance of refreshment? Where the
vision cf God is a perpetual ecstasy, and where He
gives us the utmost by nurturing our life, not with
some productions of His hand, but with Himself




HEA VEN.                321
imparted unto us, are we not in the highest degree
heirs of God Himself, the giver and the gift?
Let the miser rejoice in the possession of an unsubstantial wealth; let the sensualist have his momentary joy; let the ambitious, or the men of
science, or of human wisdom, pride themselves
in the attainment of their several objects; oh!
what is their happiness compared with that of him
who has for his portion the God of true riches, of
true glory, of true pleasures, and can bathe in that
ocean of Divine fullness for ever and ever.
Two forms of language are employed to indicate what this possession of'God becomes to the
blessed. One figure denotes what they need not,
the other signifies what they possess. " They need
no candle, neither light of the sun."  They need
no borrowed or artificial light, invented to supply
the absence of a better and greater. All human
means are imperfect; all sensible things to supply
our necessities, as they are but remedies for defects,
so they are themselves defective.  They waste
themselves in serving us —the raiment we wear,
the fire we kindle, the food we consume, the artificial light that cheers our darkness.  When that
which is perfect is come, these defective and perishing aids shall vanish away.
"They need no sun." No indirect light through
the creations of God. We catch but glances of
the glory of God; we know Him simply by touching the fringes of His, garments. The heavens
teach us, and the unseen beauties of the Creator
are faintly sketched to us in the outlines of His
I4



322               HEA VE.N.
work and of His Providence. But then we shall
see Him as He is; and all the grandeur and beneficence which stare upon us'now like the sun
that makes our day, shall be but pale and dim
shadows when God discloses His glory, and we
have the faculties to behold it.
For this is what the blessed shall possess. The
Lord giveth them light.  We learn, we live, we
are happy, not from these creations, rich as they
are with knowledge, with nourishment, with contributions to our delight,-but from God Himself.
" In Thy light shall we see light." Who, of mortals, shall presume to define the amount of this
possession-this that waiteth to be ours. At least,
it embraces knowledge, holiness and happiness.
Perfect knowledge shall be there. Now we
know by faith-then by sight and by enjoyment;
now we learn laboriously, slowly, imperfectly,
climbing rugged tasks to know a little, and then
beholding taller mountains and harder paths beyond, more convinced of our ignorance the more
we learn, and compassing great attainments with
means exhausted and health impaired. But there
at a glance we shall take in more knowledge than
years of study and experience can give the most
laborious student here. We shall see the beauty
of God's ways, the infinite wisdom and the boundless love displayed in our heaviest sorrows and
severest trials. Oh, the glories of that history of
histories, the developing and unfolding of the providential dispensations of God with his people, when
each saint in glory will be as a mirror, reflecting




HEA VEN.                323
another and another view of the graces and beauties of Immanuel!"
Perfect holiness will be our portion, when " we
walk in the light as he is in the light." No sin left
to defile, no habit laying its unholy bondage upon
us, the last Egyptian dead upon the sea-shore, and
degradation never more to pass upon our liberated
and exultant spirit.
Is it strange that perfect happiness should be the
sequel? With rapture does the prophet behold
the glorious throng, though seen through distant
ages. With pictures of untarnished brilliancy
does he delineate to our admiring eyes the scene
of perfect happiness when the redeemed come
with singing unto Zion, when they shall possess
gladness and joy, and "sorrow and mourning shall
flee away."
And all this with no alloy of fear that the source
of the blessedness may fail. It flows on like the
grand movements of universal power, unchecked
and unexhausted forever. For it is not the palpitating heart of man that has begotten this -hope;
it is not the wearying arm of some archangel that
has lifted up the dejected soul, the corrupted body;
"the Lord giveth them light."
Who, then, shall restrain that song of praise
which tells of the rapture that fills those heavenly
breasts? Dull and lifeless are our warmest strains
when compared with the' fervor of the heart that
finds felicity its unceasing draught, and the Lord
its everlasting fountain.
Could we hear but some echo of those songs




324               HEA VEN.
wherewith the heaven of heavens resounds, some
remains of those voices wherewith the saints above
triumph in the praises and the solemn adoration
of the King of Spirits, how would it inflame our
desires to be joined with them! " Blessed are -they
that dwell in Thy House-they will be always
praising Thee."
O, that I could in any way stir up all earnestly
and zealously to seek heaven! Sacrifice me, fling
me aside as but the rubbish and scaffolding of the
structure, if you will be yourselves built up into a
temple of the Lord. Honestly and heartily -turn
your back on all that drags you away from heaven,
and set your faces Zionward, and you shall reach
those heavenly heights, and that blessed city whose
"walls are salvation, and all her gates praise."




XXIX.
THE HEAVENLY BLESSEDNESS.
NO. II.
REVELATIONS xxii. 3-5.
"And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and
of the Lamb shall. be in it; and his servants shall serve him.
"And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their
foreheads.
"And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle,
neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and
they shall reign for ever and ever."
C OULD  heavenly happiness be seen in all its
blessedness, there would be no room for the
full exercises of faith, and comparatively little
display of the excellency of Divine grace in the
hope and patience and holiness of God's people.
To exercise faith, it is only revealed in prospect;
to excite hope, it is but partially developed, and it
"doth  not yet appear what we shall be."  The
brief delineation of our text suggests to us some
features of the heavenly blessedness which we are
warranted in contemplating.  Two of those impressive particulars have occupied our attention.
That heavenly state addresses our desires as a
condition from which evil is entirely removed. It
captivates our imagination in being the full posses325




326     THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.
sion of good, of God Himself, and in Him of all
knowledge, holiness and happiness. It now presents itself before us as a life of delightful occupation. Four words fasten this thought upon our
hearts- " His servants shall serve Him."
Notice the glorious being who is served. No
Gabriel or Ariel, that drew his being from another,
and is resplendent and lovely simply by that which
a greater' hath bestowed.  No potentate among
the heavenly powers, who awes us by his majesty
and puts us in jeopardy of yielding a service too
humble or too ardent, leaves us dallying between
his own demand and the claim of the Supreme and
All-lovely. But it is the Mighty God, the Most
HIigh and the Most Lovely, to whom our every
feeling, our every act will be well-pleasing homage.
It is not clear whether St. John designed to refer
to the Father or the Son; nor is it material. "He
that honoreth the Son honoreth the Father also."
The being served is He to whom all service is due.
Created by His power, redeemed by His blood,
sanctified by His Spirit, shall they not forever consecrate every power to Him whose they are, and
to whom  all they can render is infinitely due.
To serve a. noble- cause is nobility to the servant.
To serve with his regard and confidence some man
of superior endowments and of lofty character is
to imprint upon our own acts the merit of our
exalted pattern- and commander. What must it be
to have the million tenants of millions of worlds
pointing to us, and exclaiming-Lo, these' are the
chosen servants of the Master of us all!




THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.       327
But did they not serve God below? These frail,
wayward sinners made to be the choice ministers
of the universe! What is the difference between
their serving Him here and their serving Him
there?  Here we soon weary; our spirits flag;
we require rest. But there the mind is ever lively
and awake; the body ever active and alive; the
service is unwearied. Here our service is blotted
and lame, amenable to criticism, and consciously
imperfect; our faith is weak, our hope dull, our
praises feeble-all is disproportioned and imperfect;
there all is proportioned and perfect, the heart a
burning altar, the tongue a living harp, the charity
intense, the praiSe such as pleases every heavenly
ear.
And that which gives the climax of completeness
to our service above is the enjoyment there of a
perfect communion with all our fellow-servants.
Our own fcorruptions, and the infirmities of all
God's servants here hinder full and entire union
of heart; but there will be no alloy of this kind
there. No envy or jealousy at each other's gifts
and graces, happiness and glory. Just as the eye
envies not the ear, and the hand envies not the
foot; but all the members of the body are exalted
in the happiness of each, so will it be there. The
happiness of another will be mine in his possessing
it. As the wife is exalted in the husband, and the
child in the parent, so shall there be joy in the
presence of the glorified servants of God in every
joy that every servant possesses. What a home,
what a nation, what a Church, when you shall be




328      THE HEA VTENL Y BLESSEDNESS.
one of a happy company, where you have the full
assurance that you love every individual there,
and every individual loves you, and this not selfishly or hesitatingly, but purely, fervently, perfectly and forever! Glorious contrast with the
tremulous attachments and the grim  jealousies
of this territory, where selfishness curdles our best
affections, and treachery lurks amid the prayers
and praises of the Christian Church.
Let us mount from this sorrowful world to contemplate another element of the heavenly blessedness-the beatific vision of God. " They shall see
his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads."
The promise embraces two topics-the nature of
that heavenly vision, and its efficacy. IHow tender
and how delicate the organ of sight in this perishing frame!- Perfectly affluent as it is in delights
to pour upon the mind, gleaning exquisite discoveries from minutest specks, and ravishing the
heart with beauties caught from the fleecy skies,
drawn instantaneously from remotest stars, yet that
starlight may smite it with pain, that faint speck
may destroy it. But in the heavenly scenery it
never shall be blind. Undazzled and uninjured it
shall look even upon that origin of all charming
hues and all flashing suns, "the face of God."
When Adam was innocent, he lived in the immediate presence of God. Expelled from Paradise,
he lost the sight of God. The gospel is a process
for man's recovering.more than Adam lost. In
order to -this recovery, God gives His people the
grace of faith, " the substance of things hoped for,




THEE:IEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.    329
the evidence of things not seen." We walk by
faith, and in the exercise of faith have comtmunion
with God, but it is with many interruptions and
much obscurity.
God is, indeed, everywhere throughout His
infinite universe; higher than the heavens, deeper
than hell, wider than the east from the west, indivisibly immense and eternal. But in what the
Scriptures call the third heavens, He peculiarly
manifests Himself to His creatures.  There are
the first heavens, the region of the air; the second
*heavens, the starry firmament; and the third
heavens, the special residence of God.
O how glorious that Jerusalem above! With
allusion to the brightest things here below, it is
said to have a wall of jasper, buildings of gold, a
foundation of precious stones, and gates of pearls;
being clear as crystal, shining like unto glass,
and transparent in brightness; and if the gates be
of pearl and the pavement is of gold, what are the
inner rooms?
But the chief glory is this-there God manifests
His immediate presence. To see God perfectly,
is often described as the special happiness of His
people hereafter. " Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God."  " Now we see through a
glass darkly, but then, -face to face, we shall see
him as he is."
It has been the high privilege -of some to have
such communion with Good on earth, that they
have been said to "see him face to face." Jacob
wrestling with the angel, Moses in the mount, and




330      THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.
the Israelites until they shrank appalled.  All
these, however, were limited views of God. When
Moses asked to behold the glory, the answer was,
"Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no
man see me and live." In all these privileged interviews there was the voice, but not the vision
of God. This is reserved for the heavenly faculty;
the earthly weakness would quiver and dissolve.
There " every eye shall see him," and the vision
shall be the summing up of all that gives enchantment to the delighted eye, and sends through the
eye whole deluges of light over the soul.
For this is that grander wonder' of the blessedness, that the vision of God has sudh a transforming effect.
Few words describe it, "His name is on their
foreheads."
That is, they become manifestly and obviously
like the glorious God. Even this earthly and imperfect glimpse, given us in the Gospel, is assimilating
and transforming. Our very look at that prism of
love, God in Christ, sends heavenly colors into
our affections, and heavenly likeness into our lives.
"' We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord, are changed into the. same
image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord." Moses experienced it, when he descended from the mount with the brighter features.
But with us in heaven, the effect will be immensely
greater. Then at last shall "the beauty of the
Lord our God be upon us."
The name or character of God is even now visi



THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.       331.bly stamped upon the faithful Christian: Its token
touches his forehead, when he begins the Christian
vow, traced in that most loving language, the form
of the cross, one upright mark betokening that the
direct ray of love begins it, the transverse mark
spanning the brow or crossing the breast to signify
that every thought and every emotion is sacrificed
upon that altar of love. And what we thus print
with a single letter, imitating Him who puts in
hegaven a sacred sign upon the forehead, that the renewing and transforming power of God reveals as
His gracious work, visible in the very lives of
them who put on the new man, created after God
in righteousness and true holiness-yet here, alas!
how dimly discerned in ourselves or in others,
amid manifold infirmities, under the shadows that
hide our better motives. But in heaven the name
of God will be distinct and legible. They will be
"pure as He is pure," not one jarring note of discord, not one imagination of evil. And the incorruptible body, now the powerful vehicle of a spotless soul, "shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father."
This mention of the kingdom  conducts us at
once to the final particular in the triumphant state
of the blessed, "they  shall reign forever and
ever."
The endless dominion here described is by the
very form of expression distinguished from  any
reign of a thousand years, and from any limited'reward that mngpht attach to this dissolving world.
And yet the mind pauses before presuming to de



332     THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.
fine the precise idea of this great allotment to the
saints. Theirs indeed it is to reign; but it is in
conjunction with the King of kings, and as the representatives of His supreme and indefeasible authority.
Conjecture may be lawful upon a theme which is
purposely left obscure.  It may be designed to
rouse and expand the imagination, that the everlasting reign is clearly announced, but the region
and conditions of the dominion are not defined.
Certain it is that the elevation of us poor mortals
to a royal dominion is continually displayed as the
destiny that has always been intended by our
Heavenly Father. The Great Judge of the universe embraces it in the verdict of His approval,
"Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world." And conspicuous among the figures that
indicate the recompense to come is the crown
which shall adorn the sovereign saint, " the crown
of righteousness," " the crown of life," " the crown
of glory." We cannot dismiss this idea of kingly
dominion hereafter as a chance embellishment. It
is a reality, which the earthly figure attempts to
make vivid and. impressive.
It implies authority, the unquestioned command
over some department of the universe, the subjection of agents and instruments to our royal bidding,
the rendering to us of honor and of tribute from
powers and beings that take pleasure in our sway.
In the moral throne we are to occupy, powers of
intellect and emotions of the heart and unweary



THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.       333
ing muscles of the undecaying body are to be no
Inore the rebellious and mutinous tortures of our
better life, but willing and obsequious vassals in our
holy realm. Immensity will furnish the million regions where the glorious reign of God shall be
maintained with a redeemed and exulting sinner
as the deputy of Omnipotence in each province of
His love. As each star in the heavens now twinkles to show a separate globe where creation is
wondrously exhibited, so each rejoicing monarch,
saved from this coast of mortal wrecks, shall be
a star in the more stupendous canopy of grace,
and shine in royal lustre as one more trophy of
redemption's victory, while all the blessed shall
form that vast clustered constellation which beautifies the heaven of heavens as the Redeemer's
crown.
And in that blissful height, with kingly power in
their hands, and the blbod of heavenly nobility in
their veins, and hierarchies of the skies listening for
their edicts, and all the elements of nature waiting
upon these royal favorites, these ransomed children
of the dust shall reign forever.
Aye, forever and ever, inconceivable and interminable perpetuity. So runs the sublime promise.
Kings of the earth must perish. Dynasties may
gleam for centuries, and then must sink to dust.
The pure endearments of the earthly home hurry
to. their grave. Wealth cannot ransom from death,
and the tongue of the learned is palsied silence,
when life's fitful dream is o'er.
But on every throne, on every joy, on every




334      THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.
faculty which God imparts to His blessed, Hle
places this indelible signet, " forever and ever."
Hlow human happiness below trembles in the balance! Who knows that it can outlive the day?  If
we enjoy communion with God, how soon we lose
the sense of His presence! If the light of His
countenance shine upon us, it is but for a moment.
But there it is wave after wave of joy that never
ceases to bathe the peaceful soul. Oh, the glories
of those words, " forever with the Lord!"
Here the agitated heart ever and.anon is startled
with the thought, "I may perish at the last."
"What, if this never-dying soul should fail. of
heaven?"
Once enter there, and anxieties die at the threshold. Fear is banished, perfect love has cast it out.
Oh, my God, shall the thought of losing Thee,
through the million million ages of eternity, ever
once for a moment fling its shadow over my tranquil breast? And He answers in the tenderest
tones, " Never, no, never."
I speak to those who undertake no effort for
the obtaining of this glory. Strange infatuation!
How like to madness; how like to mournful, desperate folly! You drag these burdens of care, you
chase these phantoms of pleasure, you gather
these treasures which a breath blows from your
grasp. But the realities, the eternities, the sublimities of heaven, languidly do you desire, recklessly
do you neglect. Thrwxv but a fraction of that
eagerness which struggles for the earthly, into your
pursuit of faith and holiness, and you will (most




THE HEA VENL Y BLESSEDNESS.       335
blessedly for yourself) be welcomed as meet for
the inheritance of the saints in light.
And you, my beloved brethren, that live in the
hope and prayer for this glory. Oh, why do we
spend so few thoughts upon it! Why do we permit these sacred hours to pass, week after week,
with such faint and infrequent meditation upon our
heavenly portion? The wanderer dreams and lives
in constant imaginings of his home. The lonely. one keeps up sweet communings with the absent
and the loved. Oh! let us think more perpetually
of our Jerusalem, our Saviour, and our Father's
house. Let us long to enter that city of the Great
King, of which such glorious things are spoken;
and since it is our chief good, our last home, the
end of all our troubles, and the meeting-place for
friends that never shall part and never shall feel
the agony of distrust, let our affection be set upon
it, our conversation be there already, and we, as
strangers and pilgrims, pressing on, till through the
gates we enter in, to dwell there forever.




XXX.
MIDIAN ROUTED.
JUDGES vii. 20.
"And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the
pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets
in their right hands to blow withal; and they cried, The sword
of the Lord, and of Gideon."
IT might be anticipated that a people nursed by
miracle could need no subsequent testimonies
of Divine interposition to establish their faith
in God. But with the same reason might we suppose that a good Providence sustaining the infancy
of a people could not be forgotten in their days of
strength, or repaid with ingratitude and impiety.
Need I say that the uplifting of. this, the great
Western, and the last empire upon the earth,-a
nursling of propitious heaven,-a child whom civilization and faith in man-were employed as governess and instructor to guide and teach; that the
uplifting of this empire through the perils of infant infirmity has betrayed the same seated corruption in human nature. It seemed that wonderworking Heaven might grow quite weary of
inventing miracles to persuade that chosen people
in Palestine. In spite of the awe that lay upon
(336)




MIDIAN ROUTED.       337
their forefathers, they were a stubborn generation.
Taught by the trembling piety of the pilgrim ancestor to venerate the Jehovah.that dwelt invisible,
and would have no image of His majesty upon
earth, they carved the stone and hid their idols
in the grove, and hewed out, like, primitive politicians, only half devils, a bargain between God and
Baal.
It was with them the pretence of being under a
theocracy, when they really chose and served the
government of cunning. They -had hymns for
God, and priests and tithes, but they kept up these
as a kind of charm. What truly reigned in Israel
was cunning, that bestial counterfeit of wisdom, —
or, as Lord Bacon calls it, "wisdom's bastard
brother."
And it is the same element that overreaches the
honesty of -the people in our own land, and, with
its caucus rites deifying the means in the grove, it
preaches the glories of democracy to the people.
And we are all aware of this; and because we
cannot help it, or because we are cunning, and
give our hurrahs to grace a triumph, the aristocracy of cunning prevails.
The consequences to the people in Palestine
were most righteous. They loved heathen gods,
and they had the life of Gentiles,-desolation, dissension, war. They losf the ligament of duty, and
their nation fell into fragments. They went hunting after their interests without inquiring of God,
and their interests drove them back in dismay to
the unity they had broken, and fromn that lawless
I5




338            MIDIAN ROUTED.
and godless state in which every man lived by
cunning, and did what was right in his own eyes.
In one of those revulsions the Midianites were
the invaders. They came up from the south and
east-the natural seed of Abraham, descendants
of Keturah and Hagar, against the spiritual seed,
the heirs of the promise. They were such as the
Bedouin Arabs, that now inhabit the same territory-wanderers, reckless, marauding, looking to
the harvest more than the slaughter. Over the
fields of Israel these roving heathen poured their
plundering hordes whenever the grain was ready
for the sickle. Enervated because conscience was
dead, and unresisting because union was sacrificed
to selfishness, the industrious Israelites fled before
the Midianites, and hid in dens and caves of the
earth. For seven years these incursions had disheartened and impoverished the people. They
were in virtual servitude to the spoiler, who came
up at his pleasure to pillage.
At this juncture, Deity again descended amnong
them. The Son of man, the angel of the covenant,
appears to a laboring man, of the half tribe of Manasseh, while this poor man was hastening to
thresh his wheat, and hide it from the Midianites.
This person was the instrument selected by God
for averting the dreaded incursion, and chastening
a greedy race.
I need not detail what you have often read,-of
Gideon visited by an angel at the threshing-floor;
of the staff in the angel's hand touching the flesh
and cakes of Gideon's repast, and fire out of the




AIIDIAN RO UTED.           339
rock rising up to consume them; of God's commanding this prepared instrument to throw down
the altar of Baal that his father had built, and to
cut down the grove by it; of his remonstrance
with the people of the city, and his call upon Baal
to plead for himself as God had done, whence his
name was changed to Jerub-baal; of the miracle
of the fleece, and all the process by which God
put this man in the school of temptation.
Inspired with courage, Gideon collects the forces
of the Israelites. An army of thirty-two thousand
men answered to his call. But the Lord orders
him to dismiss the timid from his ranks. Only
ten thousand remained to protect their territory.
Again the trusty men are culled by the command
of God. And only three hundred were selected to
achieve the victory. A night attack was projected,
and a stratagem was to render this successful.
Three companies of one hundred each, came down
upon different points of the enemies' camp, "and
the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake
the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands,
and the trumpets in their right hands to blow
withal; and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and
of Gideon." Aroused from sleep with the clangor
of arms, and the cry of forces rushing upon them
from various quarters, the Midianites turned their
weapons upon each other, and taking the flash of
the torches for the signals of victory, and the trumpet of each man for the token of a column, they
fled in confusion. Victory was easy. The reanimated Israelites rushed in from the adjacent region,




340            MIDIANg RO UTED.
and pursuing the Midianites captured their princes,
and rejoiced in the.trophies of a victory effected by
the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
In the use to be made of this narrative, it is to be
regarded, as typical of the means which God employs in His warfare with evil.
Regarding these events as types, we must connect with them the facts from which their typical
value is derived.
And here let me make the remark that a type
is no less. to be expected in revelation, than in nature. And nature, we know, is a perfect complex
of figures and images representing the spiritual.
On this principle rests the propriety of the parables, the genius of poetry, the expressiveness of
art, the essential majesty of nature, the superiority
of man as a discoverer and applier of these types.
It is an established fact that the chosen people
brought from bondage into Canaan, were not only
the existing Church of God, but were in their temporal and earthly lots types of the spiritual and
catholic Church under the government of the Redeemer. St. Paul has amplified this fact in his
epistle to the Corinthians, and has in his epistle to
the FIebrews.given us intimations of various types
in the fortunes and the legal ceremonies of ancient
Israel.
With this warrant, we may pronounce the temporal condition of the covenanted people in Canaan, as typical of our own spiritual state. Their
vacillations and' corruptions, their weakness and
defeat in periods of discord, their triumph by




MIDIAN RO UTED.             341
means that seemed inadequate, their resistless progress when the banner of God was held aloft, their
discomfiture when relying upon human policy or
cowardly alliances; these notable facts in their temporal history are figures of the destiny awaiting
our spiritual condition.
In this aspect, they appear before us in the days
of Gideon, as types of a disunited, perplexed, and
enfeebled' Christendom. Keepers of the oracles
of God, and dwellers among the riches of His
promise," they were yet faint-hearted and distressed.
Their harvests were reaped with the sword of the
spoiler. Their possessions were invaded by the
uncircumcised. Their Canaan was turned to a
desolate region of violence and alarm.  And the
ravage was committed by brethren of the same ancestry, by a people boasting the lineage of Abraham.
If the Israelite was at this period a type of the
Church spoiled and terrified, incapable of united effort, and paralyzed in many a member, then the
Midianite is the type of those errors and half
truths, those loose and plausible opinions, those
doctrines of-mingled Scripture and Satan, which
resemble the truth, and boast of their origin in the
word of God, and yet are hostile to the Church,
hostile not with the design of ruining religion, but
in their constant incursion upon the privileges of
the Church.
Such is the doctrine, that religion consists in
practice and not in believing. Such is the doctrine, that the Church depends upon no visible




342            MIDIAN RO  UTED.
rites. Such is the -doctrine, that sacraments are
only empty ceremonies, and that their right use
makes us no better than their disuse. Such is the
doctrine, that the authority of a ministry is derived from the law of the land, independent of any
other visible power.  Such is the doctrine, that
conscience is the true teacher, and nothing is to be
received more than it requires. Such is the doctrine, that man can settle his own account with
God and has no need of a Saviour. Such is the
doctrine, that our wisdom is to make the most of
this world- and- run as far in self-indulgence as we
can without trespassing upon the rights of others.
Such is the doctrine, that God will not observe
our little sins, and will not call every secret thing
into remembrance, but after all count us good
enough for heaven.  These doctrines are the
Midianites that roll over the borders of the Church
and sweep away the harvests.
In selecting the means of resistance, God does
not adopt the schemes of men. He has a wonderful way of His own. We might expect the whole
Church to be- roused by such invasions and rallied
to repel. Not so. The faint-hearted are released
from the war. Inactive to resist, they only mourn
the depredations of Midian.
And when ten thousand men who will not bow
the knee to Baal, when a force of determined spirits
remains, God reserves them till a chosen band have
wrought, by His power, and opened the way of
victory. It may be that the separation of these
three hundred into three companies has some




MIDIAN ROUTED.            343
typical reference to the three orders in which it
pleased the Apostles of Christ to arrange the ministry of the word.  Certain it is that the Church
of God has never repelled the invasions of false
doctrine and saved itself in the integrity of true
doctrine, except when it has followed the advance
of these three companies.
But what are the weapons committed to these
companies? What are we to understand by the
pitchers and the lamps and the trumpets and the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon? These are the
types of strange means made mighty by God to
the dismay of Midian and the subjection of earthly
minds to the law of Christ. And as if carrying
along this type in his mind, the Apostle describes
the war in which he battled, " casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of
Christ." The routing of the Midianites was not
by the lance and the battle-ax, by the arrow and
the javelin, but by the sound of the trumpet, and
the glare of the torch, and the vehement shouting.
The trumpet signifies the herald.  It was the
sound of the trumpet that broke from the smoke
and flame of Sinai and heralded the approach of
God. The watchman stationed on the walls was
warned by Ezekiel to sound the trumpet at the
approach of danger, or the blood would be upon
his own head. The entrance of the year of jubilee
was proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet.
The angels revealed to St. John, heralding the




34;4          MIJDIAN ROUTED.
woes Qf earth, sounded the trumpet of alarm. And
in the heralding of Christ's coming in judgment,
the archangel's
" trumpet shakes
The mansions of the dead."
We may regard this portion of the stratagem as
typifying the proclamation by the gospel heralds.
And these trumpets in their right hands took the
place of offensive weapons.  Grace conquers by
the sound of the trumpet. The gospel spreads its
victories by boldly heralding the jubilee of release, the woes of earth, and the condescending
power of heaven.
But the trumpet alone could not have availed,
were it not for the brilliancy of the lamps in their
left hands-apt symbols of that illumination which
beams into and radiates from the souls of valiant
Christians. Here was the type of that fire which
descended at Pentecost with a sound from heaven,
and which kindled a light to shine before men.
And this beaming of the Holy Ghost is the dazzling light that confounds the enemies of Christ.'This it is that gives success and makes the courage
of a few more effective than the flickering cowardice
of the whole army. One who experienced this
success has recorded the secret of the power"God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ."
And these lamps were inclosed in'pitchers, and




MIDIAN RO UED.             345
the breaking of the clay was the signal of victory,
to typify that we have the Spirit of God in bodies
of clay, that we have "this treasure in earthen
vessels, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us " and to foreshow that the
breaking of the body only increased the lustre and
insured the victory, that " the blood of the martyrs
was the seed of the Church."
And the weapon whose force was invoked, and
the appeal to which was a terror to the Midianite,
was "the sword of the. Lord and of Gideon,"~
typifying "the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God," and the sword of spiritual authority
cutting off the members that offend. It is not a
cunningly devised religion; it is not the hewing
sword of arbitrary orthodoxy; it is not the armory
of human wisdom, with any of its'glitter or its keenness, that disperses error and conquers for God.
It is the sword of the Lord and of Gideon-the
word of God and the commission from God-the
searching blade that cuts the heart, and the inflexible steel' of indefeasible authority.
My brethren, these things happened for ensamples unto us. They were not recorded-they are
not expounded for entertainment, but for instruction. Apply this type to the fortunes of Christianity. Has not the unaccountable victory been
always granted to the three hundred men that
lapped? Was it not so in the kindlings of apostolic
zeal? Was it not so in the burnings of martyrdom?
Was it'not so in the ardors of missionary enterprise? Was'it not so in the light and the trumpet
15*




346           M1IIDIAN ROUTED.
of Reformation? Tell me, who have done most
good upon earth, the warriors with their blood,
or the missionaries of grace with their lamps and
the battle-cry of the Lord of Hosts? Whose work
shall tell upon the generations that tread upon our
ashes, the glittering thousands that fear the Midianites and live in pleasure, or the three hundred
that bear the trumpet in the right hand and the
lamp of life in the left, heralds of the King of
kings?
Let us remember, then, where the pledge of
victory has been given from God. With a faithful
sounding of the evangelic trumpet-with the
light of the Spirit kindling rays of living holinesswith the word of God and the commission of
authority, what matters it whether we be three
hundred strong or banded thousands? The battle
is not given to the strong. It is given to the companies that advance in the name of the Lord.
It is not numbers that we want; it is not the aid
of a timid multitude; it is not human strength.
Courage and faith-these are the charms that bespeak victory to each soul battling with evil.
Courage and faith  these are the sinews which
trembling, faltering Christians cannot possess.
Courage and faith-these are the powers which
put to flight the enemies of the Church. Courage and faith-these are the wise weapons that
"put to silence the ignorance of foolish men."
Courage and faith-these are the arguments that
convince- gainsayers-these, the giants that capture
armies — these, the three hundred on whom all




MIDIAN ROUTED.           347
hope depends.  Give me such leaven and I can
leaven the lump. Give me such armor and I can
be the champion of God. Give me the three hundred, such as consumed in the flames of the Reformation, and I can kindle a light that will burn up
the dross of the Church and send its rays to
remotest lands and ages long to come.




XXXI.
THE ULTIMATE REWARD.
ROMANS Viii,  8.
"I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
V    IRTUES are sometimes distinguished into
the two classes of active and passive, and between the two a comparison is sometimes instituted, as if it were in our power precisely to
measure the dimensions, the power, and the value
of a virtue. In fact, our moral nature is always
tending towards the mechanical. We are morally
-strong, as a general rule, only by being mechanically habitual. And the apologist for his own delinquencies and vices, bases his excuse upon the mechanical principle of being tempted with some
force superior to his judgment. And in spite of all
that we profess, concerning faith and salvation by
the merits of Christ, there is a perpetual leaning towards the mechanical measure of character. It is
made up to us of combinations, a dignity here and a
meanness there, the pared nail of a Pharisee on his
finger end and the coarse provender of a Nebuchadnezzar between his teeth, scruples tender as
the gout on this point and scruples as loose as a pub(348)




TIHE UL TIMA TE RE WARD.        349
lican's in other respects, and we are willing to praise
a character palpably defective, so long as it is not
palpably corrupt. We take a mechanical measurement of souls, and they are righteous to us in proportion'as they square with the fashions of our
party, or weigh in the balances of a human opinion.
The eye of God is no part of our calculation, or if
it be, that eye is made to look with all our dimness
and cloudiness of vision.
The tendency of this dynamic philosophy is apparent in the whole drift of our age. All ages of
mankind have manifested it, but it floats upon the
surface of society in an age of unparalleled physical
development. What are termed the active virtues
rise at this time into most conspicuous prominence,
and character is decided more by what one does
than what he is. The passive virtues, always least
glorious among men, are at this time thrown into
greater disparagement. When society is rude, and
the selfishness of the world, unretined and unglossed, is exposed in its natural ugliness, the active benevolence of the Christian becomes heroic, his
integrity as a man, his ardor —as a Christian, are.
staked upon the activity of his better qualities.
He is superior, to his age only by being goodness in
living action. In such an exigency we look for a.
contrast in his energy and enterprise for the cause
of -God and his soul, which marks his consciousness of some high reward to be sought. But in the
transformations of refinement, and above all, in
the activities of Christian society, we look for the
contrast of those passive virtues, which bloom




350        THE ULTIMA TE RE WARD.
amid the shadows of contented and patient suffering.
In an age when charity is denied, and sluggish
sensuality engrosses the soul, the higher ambitions
of the Christian are forced into action, into struggle.
It is the season of fierce danger, when David wrestles with the lion, and the strength of his arm
works the victory. But the time comes when the
moody passions of Saul must be soothed, or the reproaches of the blaspheming Goliath must be silenced, and then it is the harp that gives him the
victory, or the pebble from the brook that weighs
down the boasts of the giant-the harp whose
strings tremble in the peaceful sounds of private
praise and melodious patience-the sling armed
with the unwarlike virtue of trust in God. The
active and passive virtues, twin-dwellers in the same
soul, we may distinguish them, but how shall we
separate them? They are but the two sides of the
same object. And in their united excellence they
form that glory which shall be revealed in us.
The sufferings of this present time are demands
for both classes of virtue, and as the grace of God
within us responds to the demand, we are prompted to adopt the reckoning of the Apostle, " that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." He excludes the mechanical by introducing the moral reckoning. There is no such
idea as that of compensation admitted by him.
The future is not measured by the proportion of
the present. Righteousness and equity are the




T'E ULTIMATE RE WARD.          3S1
habitation of God. But when justice has pronounced its decree, and the subject is remitted to
the hands of Infinite Love, then comparison loses
its power. The work of grace exceeds the trial of
virtue, as the work of the Creator surpasses the
work of the creature. There may be some elements of resemblance, but in magnitude, comparison itself is forbidden.
The language of the Apostle takes a still higher
range. The sufferings and the glory cannot be
compared when their magnitude is taken into
view. They cannot be compared, he adds, when
our interest in them is considered. The glory is
not some foreign possession, some chance inheritance which we may seize, or may miss. It is glory
hidden away in the gift which we already possess;
it is glory that resides in us, and belongs to the
perfection of our nature, and shall be known and
acknowledged of all beings as our own, when we
come to be more perfectly ourselves. It is glory
that shall be revealed in us. It waits for manifestation. It waits? Nay, the whole creation waiteth
for the manifestation of the love of God. The
glory that is in us struggles for its display; and
the virfues which we by effort here maintain and
here exhibit, are but the flashes of that glory which
waiteth to be revealed. There is that passeth understanding in the gift of God to man. He communicates Himself. He tells us that we are made
partakers of Himself. He calls us heirs of Godnot of heaven, not of treasures that waste, but
heirs of God, because He is Himself both the giver




3 5 2      THE UL TIMA TE RE WARD.
and the gift-both the Father and the inheritance.
He promises that by -the mere fidelity of our
earthly patience, we shall be changed into His
image from glory to glory.
On the contrary, how accidental, how foreign to
ourselves, the sufferings of this present time. They
come and depart, and they are no longer parts of
ourselves. They are put on and off, like the raiment,
not the substance of the soul; and let their impression upon us be the utmost they can give, yet it is
not they, but we that remain. - There is no uniformity in their effects; the soul it is that must decide
their influence. Pharaoh was hardened where Israel was awed; and in Ephesus the same Apostle
that comforted disciples disputed until divers were
hardened. There is a spirit which wiil not receive
correction, whose goodness is as a morning cloud
and the early dew. And there is a spirit, how
blessed in its sorrows, how affluent in its losses!
which can petition heaven for a suffering, " Correct
me, but with judgment, not in thine anger." My
brethren, there are a thousand losses which seem
to us in the prospect irreparable, but we may be assured that there is no calamity like his who loses
the blessing of his losses. They must be counted
among those transient elements which discipline
the soul, and which are only of interest to ourselves, so far as they affect that immortality which
cannot be disowned.
Here, then, is the alternative: a glory which is to
be given us, to be the substance of our being, and
to be eternal; or a suffering which is merely- to




~THE UL TIMA TE RE WARD         353
touch us as it passes, which can only reach us
under alleviations, and at the utmost is for a moment present, and then vanishes forever.
" I reckon that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us."
The first deduction from this comparative value
of the present suffering and the future glory, is that
which it was the Apostle's main object to inculcate.
He was fortifying a beseiged church against the
invasions of suffering. What comes to us in scattered fragments of tribulation, was descending
upon them in storms of persecution. The jealous
empire of the world was rousing itself into hostility
against the kingdom of God.; the Apostle himself
was, soon to lay down his life as a sacrifice at the
gates of the imperial city. Out of love to those
disciples who had braved already the threatenings
of power, he depicts, with the masterly hand of
an experienced traveller, the perils and the fruits
of the journey. There is no deception of concealment smoothing his discourse; but there is the
fervor of genuine honesty in his language, as he
throws the glow of assurance upon his convictions
of the truth. Let no dread of the'outer violence,
let no cowardly surrender to an inward weakness,
betray the immensity which rests within your
trust. It takes a canopy full of worlds to declare
the glory of God; and that glory is yours, shall
be revealed in you, if you but withstand and hope
to the end.
I know, he would seem to admit, that the sor



354        THE ULTIMATE REWARD.
rows of this life are surges that never cease to lisp
along its coast, that suffering is in its very nature
grievous to be borne, and seems to be the farthest
from the happiness we desire. But there was another reality which he could not forget, and must
not conceal; the life of suffering teemed with its
own blessed fruits of patience, of humility, of
weaning from the relish of this'present bondage.
I speak as Padl the aged. I speak as Paul the disputant with the Greek, the scholar of the Hebrews.
My-years, which have harvested blessings as they
planted griefs, have been the chain of witnesses
that the suffering here and the virtue revealed
here bear no comparison. And when I wrestled
with the wily Greek, my voice was but the echo
of his own philosopher, his divine Plato, ".that
neither the happiness of good men nor the sufferings
of the wicked, are in multitude or magnitude to
be compared with that which awaits them both in
another state." And the accents of Hebrew piety
that float upon the memories of my boyhood are
the testimonies of the suffering Apostle, "It is
good for me that I have been in trouble. Before I
was afflicted I went wrong, but now have I kept
Thy statutes." -But when above all this he mounted,
a pilgrim to the land of promise; when he recalled
the grace that had rescued him in Christ; when
he realized what God had manifested to man in
the sufferings "of Jesus, what man had manifested in the new life that came by this Divine
Jesus-was there'any comparison possible between
this brief moment of suffering, and that suffering a




THE UL TIMA TE RE WA RD.        355
triumph through grace, and that untold and unspeakable glory? This was the man that had visions to glory in; this was the man that had gazed
on the splendors of Paradise; this was the man
that glanced across the fields of promise, and anticipated the knowledge which shall break upon
our souls "out of the body." He testifies as one
that had seen, he stands in the place of that parent
whose spirit would speak to us from the regions
of future glory, he stands in the place of that
friend whose voice is divided from us by the dark
curtains of the silent grave, and his language is a
bold and sublime figure. The scale-beam of eternal justice is poised before him-; angels heap into
the balance their splendid trusts for the enriching
and ennobling of eman —man, the faithful, man the
persevering, the angel-like. Upon the nearest balance of the beam, the fabled Pandora, lays her
deceptive casket. Sufferings throng within it;
woe lies upon the top of woe; maladies of the
body and melancholies of the soul are gathered
there. It is one vast receptacle of evil, such as the
fable described. But Epimetheus discovers beneath them all the remedy, the healing balm of
hope, and tasting of this heavenly gift of hope, the
vision interprets itself in the encouraging conclusion that the sufferings of this present time are not
worth weighing in the balance against the glory
that is to be revealed in us.




XXXII.
RELIANCE UPON PROVIDENCE.
ST. MATTHEW Vi 34.
"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof."
THE  plainness of the sermon from  which this
text is taken, forbids any other kind of sermon upon it. Before entering upon the simple truth taught us by these  words, we cannot
help pauging to notice how thoroughly doctrine
and practice are mingled in the teachings of our
Blessed Lord, how happily deep principles of religion are wrapt up in plain rules of life, and so
the wisdom of heaven taught in the language of
earth..So in the case before us, instead of discussing the cause of evil, or the vicissitudes of life, or'the frailty and dependence of man; or instead of
vindicating the schemes of Providence, and the
goodness of God, He gathered them all together in
a plain rule of duty with plain reasons for it, "' Take
therefore no thought for the morrow: for the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Following the same course, let us learn to apply the
(356)




RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.        357
rule our Divine Master has given, and to settle
among our first principles, the reasons of that rule.
We shall at this time enlarge on the meaning and
application of the rule itself, without treating of
the reasons which our Lord added to it.
I. " Take no thought for the morrow," was the
Christian rule given to the first disciples. It is
not to be understood from this, that no regard is to
be had to the morrow, no heed taken of its probable demands, or its sure duties. Neither is it to be
supposed that only the coming day with its prospects and concerns is embraced by this rule. The
whole season of this short and uncertain life is to
be awaited with the same patience and composure
as we are bidden to observe -in regard to the
morrow. And the degree of our concern is expressed clearly enough in the original, which in its
true force does not forbid the shaping of any plan
with earnest attention to the future. It does not
propose a duty so impossible to man as the entire
neglect of wants and trials yet to come. This
course would be as far from the blameless -example
of Him who uttered this holy precept, as it is from
the plain sense of the words in the gospel. Our
L od's declaration -was, Trouble not yourselves, or,,
Ye may not trouble yourselves about the morrow.
Burden not yourselves with its cares. The rtle in
any less sense would urge to its own breach, for
the very effort, since effort it must be, the very effort to drive away all thought of the future would
only unfold its dangers, startle our own doubts, and
keep both the dangers and the doubts always up



358     RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.
permost in our thoughts. Sucha struggle against
the dictates of common prudence would little help
our usefulness to one another, or that peace of mind
which Christ so often promised to His followers,
and so freely bestowed upon them.
According to the proper import of the words, on
the other hand, this bidding takes off the pressure
of the future and requires us to seek a high and
mighty principle which may bear up under all
cares by lifting them up to God. The rule of
Christ is not one of senseless slumber, but of pious
watchfulness. He never urges men to drown their
cares, but to bear them. His precepts were not
meant to force us down to the rank of brutes, but
to lift us up among the angels, in His own' likeness,
unto the very glory of God. " Be ye therefore perfect" was His literal command. " Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." It is not the design of Christ's religion
to check our thoughts, but to control them; it does
not throw away our powers, but guides them in
the wisest way towards the best ends. It begins
and ends with one great principle, the root and
substance of the rule now before us, the very
spirit and strength of that rule, and that principle is
trust in God. Such trust alone can ease the anxieties of the day, and carry the burdens of the morrow. The temper maintained by this principle is
that of reliance upon God-full, open, cheerful, fixed
reliance upon God. Such confidence in a Father's
love and power makes all troubles and pains alike,
and finds in the promises of Divine succor relief




RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDEACE.        359
firom the dangers of our own weakness and blindness. This temper of mind is the secret of all true
contentment, and the buoyant upholder of industry
and faithfulness among men. It fits us to our condition, keeping always in mind both our wants and
our abilities. The whole avail of life for our own
good depends upon this rule. It rests upon our relations to God, and these relations are the source of
our whole being, our powers, our fortunes, our
hopes. Trusting in the Almighty is leaving ourselves in the hands of Infinite Love, al(d-  Wisdom,
and Power. It is the highest duty of the creature to the Creator, drawing all other duties in
its train, and reaching the least desires or the
humblest acts of him that aims to display it. Such
is the range of that plain rule of Christ, " Take no
thought for the morrow."
II. For the better appreciation of this rule, we
shall now consider what is condemned by it. This
condemnation assumes a double form. It is directed both against those habits which violate this rule
virtually, and against those habits which, although
not themselves violations, are yet inconsistent with
its observance.
In the first place, indifference to the morrow
breaks our Saviour's rule. He is not enjoining upon us to live as if another day could not be; it is
enough that we live as if it might not be. The morrow, He says, shall bear its own cares. This is what
we are to think. Take no thought, bring on you no
care, undertake no trial which belongs to the future. We have enough to do now, in preparing




3650     RELIANCE UPON PROVIDENCE.
for labors and sorrows to come. Christ would not
have us to forget this; He makes this the ground
for something beyond it, and because we are, and
ought to be aware of difficulties awaiting us, bids
us leave those difficulties to their own time, and
take no thought for the morrow. We break this
Divine command, whenever we hide from ourselves
the thought that the morrow must come with its
dangers and evils, and ought to find us watching.
Who could ever keep this rule better than the
Heavenly Master that taught it? Yet how was
His soul straitened in looking out for the bloody baptism which in Him must be accomplished! How
soon did His thoughts run on from the fate of His
forerunner, to His own sufferings on the morrow!
How carefully did He declare to His disciples the
scourging, and wounds, and death, which should
come between their present fellowship and His future ascension'! Had He no thought of the morrow, when He brake.the bread before His Apostles,
and gave it unto them, saying: " This is My body
which is given for you; this do in remembrance of
Me?" Had He no thought of the morrow, when
watching for it alone in blood and agony, He cried:
"Father, let this cup pass from me?" Let His example teach His precepts. Take no thought for
the morrow, which does not agree with this model for our thoughts, " Sufficient unto the  day
is the evil thereof."  What better rebuke than this
for the idle, the spendthrift, the prodigal? Every
day shall be laden with its own sufferings; why
should they heap up fiuture sufferings by throwing




RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.        36I
off the thought of death, by wasting the advantages
of'to-day by indifference to the morrow?
2. This leads us to observe, in the second place,
that the rule laid down by our Lord is meant expressly to condemn the.neglect of present duty.
It is drawn from the principle which our Lord uttered just before it. Knowing how often men overwhelm themselves with the cares of the present
life, and how often things of eternal value are lost
in their eagerness to provide for temporal wants;
knowing that men were too apt to confine the
whole future to the mdrrow, our blessed Lord
taught us to repress our.care for earthly things,
to hold them in less esteem, to expect them only in
the way of duty. "Seek ye first," were His
words of wisdom, " seek ye first. the kingdom  of
God, and His righteousness; and all these things
shall be added unto you." And because this attention to our present, our ever-pressing duty was
the first great principle of a religious life, the only
source of the Divine blessing, He subjoins the
command, " Take therefore no thought for the
morrow."  For we ought to take this thought, that
the neglect of to-day increases the dangers, and
duties, and pains of the morrow. The present
time with its powers, its chances, and its duties,,is
all that we can call our own. God has allowed us
this, He may never give us the morrow, or else
send it to us, if we neglect our present duty, as a
stumbling block, a burden, and a curse. We ought,
moreover, to take this thought to ourselves, that as
God grants us no less time than we need, so He
i6




362     RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.
gives us no more than we can use to advantage. A
long life is short enough to prepare for an eternity,
to lay up rewards, to ripen ourselves for the presence of saints, of angels and archangels, and of
God Himself. No repentance can ever make
amends for a day wasted. The sin may be forgiven but the loss remains. The advantage, the eternal profit, the heavenly rewards of this life must
remain less by the worth of a day than they might
have been. And when we think for what an infinity of bliss our few and evil days are fitting us, we
can better reckon the worth of a single day, and
the need that in gaining the spiritual profits of today we should take no thought for the morrow.
Let us also remember that God's promises are conditional, and always continue so till they are fulfilled. The whole course of the future depends upon
present duties. Our faithful discharge of God's
will now is the only means of a blessing. hereafter.
The future is a' result of the past and the present
managed by those secondary causes through
which the Almighty acts. We are not placed here
as living machines which must work out a certain
fabric, or break.  We are rather like the plant
which must thrive by care, and must grow by the
nourishment of to-day, or else be fruitless when the
harvest comes.  We are as a vineyard of the
Lord's planting which must rejoice in the dew and
the sunshine of each day and night, or' be given
over to cursing. We are like the grass which
to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven.
The voice of wisdom is, "Work while the day




RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.        363
lasts. Take no thought for the morrow: for the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."
What was the answer of our Lord, when warned
of the death awaiting Him? "Behold, I cast out
devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and
the third day I shall be perfected." He must finish
the work given Him to do, He must do the lesser
works of love to-day and to-morrow, and afterward fulfil the great work of death.. Present toil,
present faithfulness was His perfect way.  "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your
heart."
3. But in the third place, this rule condemns
the abuse of our present time to covetousnesS.
The great pretext for this sin is our nee'd of supplies against future wants. The rule. of Christ
roots out such a pretext, "Take no thought for
the morrow." As it forbids us to postpone duties,
so it requires us to anticipate mercy. Commandments and promises go together; God reveals the
one that we may earn the other, " If thou wilt
enter into life, keep the commandments."  Our
hope of a blessing to-morrow depedds upon our
trusting his word to-day. If we seek first His
kingdom and His righteousness, earthly things
shall be added unto us.  Covetousness distrusts
this promise, seeks first the earthly blessing, takes
thought for the morrow, and the morrow only.
Its aims reach not beyond the wants of time; its
desires and strength are wasted in clinging to that
which must soon fail, and in- gaining beforehand
what God promises to furnish in due time. The




364     RELIANCE UP.ON PRO VIDENCE.
life which our Lord requires is one of reliance upon
Him, founded upon faith in His promises, performing always His will, looking for his blessing
only upon honest, self-denying industry, - pureminded and strong-hearted labor in our calling.
Riches heaped up by going beyond this rule must
rust upon our hands, must carry with them the
curse of idolatry. Why should we bow down to
the cruel Divinity' of self-.satisfied plenty, when
the maker of all has eternal'riches for them that
bow down to Him? Why should we yield the
affections of an immortal soul to the worship of
what rewards with care and not with strength, and
pay homage to the dust out of which we were
made? This is not going on to heaven, but going
back to earth. A man's life consisteth not in.the abundance of things which he possesseth.
These are only the garb of life; death shall strip
it off; estates and gettings cannot go up with us
to judgment; if they reach God's presence they
must go before us on the pinions of charity, and
written within and without, "Holiness unto the
Lord." They must be given up in the self-denial
of to-day; they must be replaced by the toils of
to-day; they will appear, if ever, where golden
censers carry the incense of perpetual prayer.
Lift your thoughts, then, beyond the wants of
this world; labor for the meat that endureth;
learn with the holy Apostle both to abound and
to suffer need; as to covetousness, let it not be
once named among you, as becometh saints. So
trust in God as to "take no thought for the mor



RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.         365
row, for the morrow shall take thought for the
things of itself."
IV. There is yet another spirit which falls under
the rebuke of our Lord as inconsistent with the
strong heart and the calm will which Hiis rule requires and his grace forms, this is an uneasy distrustful spirit, harassing itself with fears of future
ill. It is unmindful of our daily death, and fears
that will come to-morrow  which must come in
some measure every day. It has forgotten the
curse which always is uttered, which every where
is borne, " Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till
thou return unto the ground." It forgets how the
blessing comes, which in its very coWrse of triumph fulfills the curse, "Blessed are they that
mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are ye
when men shall revile you and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely
for my sake." " Take, therefore, no thought for the
morrow. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."  Evil is our appointed lot;. enough for each
day's strength, enough for our true advantage. It
is as easy to endure it to-morrow as to-day; for the
same hand always helps us, that we should not be
overcome of evil. As we pray for our daily bread,
so we daily pray, Deliver us from evil. The suffering which shall profit us comes now, we know
not whether we shall meet any greater till death
itself comes. That is the only danger which we
are sure will befall us. For this struggle with the




366     RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.
king of terrors we must be preparing all our life,
taking this preparation upon us as our daily duty,
looking on death as a part of that evil which may
come upon us this day, not leaving it for the unseen and uncertain morrow. So, while we live to
die, we shall take no thought for the morrow, we
shall make each day to answer for itself. There is
no restless dread in such a life, but the patient following of that Lamb of God who offered Himself
a daily sacrifice, looking unto the end of life as only
the filling up of that death which He died daily.
His life and His words are a perpetual rebuke of
the care-worn and harassed Christian. Though a
man of sorrows, He forgot not to be a pattern of
zeal; with the cross before Him, He went about
doing good. When He spake of our fears, He
pointed us'to the fouls of the air, which wait on
Him that feedeth them; He bade us consider the
lilies of the field, arrayed in the glory which no
human wisdom could reach, but God Himself put
upon them. And the counsel which he draws
from such sights is this, Be ye not of doubtful
mind, fear not, little flock. It is one of the inconsistencies of human nature that men will trust so
much in the faithfulness of their fellow-men, knowing'their fickleness and bias, while they distrust
their Maker and Preserver, the changeless source
of every gift which they enjoy. They will even
lavish their affections on that which must die, and
be afraid that His love may fail who liveth forever.
They are unwilling to content themselves with
God's'present favor, and harass themselves with




RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.       367
the chances of their failure in His service, and forfeiture of His mercy. But we have no right to
take fears beforehand in such a way; it dishonors
God and betrays ourselves. Our only way to
guard against future ill is to watch and pray. This
forestalls temptation, strengthens endurance, possesses the soul, keeps down our fears.
V. Lastly, this rule of Christ has direct reference
to our steadfastness in Christian principles, holding
up to rebuke, as a palpable incojnsistency, our
yielding these through dread of sufferings, or for
the sake of worldly gain. Over some minds, the
reproach and scorn of men, or the lash and the
faggot of persecution, will hold an almost resistless
power. Another man will cheerfully endure the
contumely or cruelty of his enemy, but easily yield
to the fascinations of station and the delusive offers
of a flattering distinction in life. Both think too
much of the morrow; both count too much upon
its pleasures. It has none of its own to give. If
we are permitted to find any in it, they are the
rewards of mammon, the hire of another master.
God has not promised them, nor given them, and
His blessing cannot go with them. He that yields
in either way must meet a fearful fulfillment of our
Saviour's words, " Ye cannot serve God and Mamnmon."  Clinging to His revealed' will- must lay us
open to many reproaches, whether they come in
open persecution or in the jeers and neglect of a
hollow-hearted world. The way of Christ was
the heavy journeying of one despised and rejected
of men. What marvel if others follow, when the




368     RELIANCE UPON PRO VIDENCE.
whole valley of affliction has been hallowed by
His tears and His blood? If we enter not the valiey with Christ, we are following the highway of
the world. We must hold to the one or love the
other; we must hate the blandishments of the
world, or despise the reproach of Christ. "No
man can serve two masters; therefore I say unto
you," were the words of our blessed Lord, " therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, Is not
the life more than meat?"   Has not life some
higher end than the satiating of appetite? Is not
the present life, this very day, of more esteem than
to be lost in pleasures, or wasted for naught?
Think better of that which God has given you.
If any harm must come from spending the day
well, how much greater the risk in spending it ill!
Why, then, should we shrink from the future dangers of a Christian life, when we turn back only
to heighten our dangers,' and heap up evil for the
morrow? If we would bear the marks of the
Lord Jesus, we must hold fast His testimony. He
call us to suffer with Him. Whoso forsakes'the
ease and riches and endearments of earth for His
sake,.shall receive what is as cheering, and valuable and lovely in this life with persecutions. We
must wear the crown of thorns and the robe of
mockery. These are a part of our triumph; under them Christ lives in us; He'is providing the
future for us. We have no need to take thought
for the morrow; we know that God is as able to
help us then as to spare us now; we are rejoicing




RELIANCE UPON PROVIDENCE.        369
in the peace of God; we leave the morrow to
Him, who alone has it to give and to prosper.
The voice of warning cries, " Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof." Heaven sends back the
encouraging echo, " My grace is sufficient for thee."
Had you rather have been St. Paul with the thorn
or St. Paul at Lystra?  Had you rather have
denied Christ with St. Peter, or been chained with
him in the dungeon? Had you rather have been
in the visions of John, or in his baptism of blood?
I had rather have tasted the pains'of the martyr
than looked on the scenes of the future; I had
rather have groaned with the soul that cried from
under the altar, than have stood with the angel
breaking the seals. I had rather come out of tribulation into heaven than die among the praises of
millions.
We fear that Demas took too much thought for
the morrow; but St. Paul protests, " I die daily."
No, we have no advice for the morrow. If you
will beat down the fears and pleasures of the world,
to-day take thought, earnest thought for repentance;
if-you will rejoice in the smile of the Almighty
and the exultation of a heart at -peace with God,
defer not till the morrow; to-day lift the voice of
prayer, and league yourself with your Maker. If
you will vow your wealth, and your strength and
your will to God, promise it not to-morrow, but
to-day speak it in your heart. When' the last ill of
humanity is coming upon you, you will need the
grace of to-day, and have no thought for the morrow.
I6*




XXXIII.
LIBERALITY REWARDED.
ISAIAH xxxii. 8.
"The liberal dev-iseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall
he stand."
IT is almost superfluous to descant at this day
upon the praises or the promises which belong
to the character of liberality. This is one of
those virtues which are quite cursed by every
man's speaking well of them. The liberal man
stands in the high places of public estimation. If
the great wind of applause could move us out of
churlish habits, the shout of our day over liberality
would give resistless impulse. The nobleman of
conscience, the honest man, and the eulogized aristocrat of Scripture, the good man, are quite superseded
by the greater wonder of civilized selfishness, the
liberal man. It is scarcely possible for any other
species of goodness to pass current, unless it have
along with its value of intrinsic weight the image
and superscription of liberality. Upon the mathematical and logical principle that the greater includes the less, the liberal is supposed to embrace
most of the necessary virtues, and the proverb of
(370)




LIBERALIT Y RE WARED            37
the day might read, "With all thy gettings, get
liberality."
I would not announce any such millennial news
as that envy and detraction and scandal were dead,
and generosity was thriving because there were
none of these foes to gnaw at it. The charm is not
in the virtue, but in the name. True liberality is
no sooner recognized than before. It is as disputable as ever whether the title has been earned, and
almost every degree of this virtue:lay be sought
and gained by a man without his acquiring the
credit of the least degree. The name is the honor.
The majesty is in the word, as some lawyers have
thought was the case with the king. And our
honoring of liberality consists not in giving it to
every claimant, but in disputing every one's claim
to so high a title.
The subject of the text is therefore in this sense
peculiar, that while each one will claim its application to himself, he is less tempted to pass the topic
over to his neighbor.
Granting, then, the most universal pretension to
the blessings of the text, we have each of us a
personal interest in increasing the amount of the
promise.
I need not enter into an argument to make it evident that the special province of the gospel was to
bring into repute and into conspicuous existence
this virtue of liberality. God made Himself a
model of it, devising offerings of His own free-will,
-giving with the utmost delight,-profuse, measureless in His bounties, -and putting all the




372        LIBERALITY RE WARDED.
achievements of redemption at the beginning and
of man's goodness throughout upon the'score of
God's liberality, because everything was inaugurated and completed by the grace of God. Th.ere
is no liberality in man, but is a faint image and reflection of what first comes to us in the Infinite
Model. Jesus, the Giver of Himself for the world,
was but the well-beloved of God, the Son in whom
Deity must be well-pleased, because He was in the
flesh this impersonation of Divine Liberality. The
Father seeing this intention and this effect, could
not disown the image of Himself, and though the
Son was flesh and blood, yet was He worthy of a
name above every name, because He was the Incarnation of Liberality. And there has since been
no model of human character which God would
sanction that has not exhibited the mission of Jesus,
-whose appointment of ministrations rests in the
sentence, "Freely ye have received, freely give."
Liberality was the source, it is the substance of
Christianity,-Divine in its inception, for all " is the
gift of God," and* blessed in its action above all endowments, for " it is more blessed to give than to
receive."
What, then, is involved in the promise appended
to this quality? "By liberal things shall he stand."
The stability here predicted was in its first and
feeblest sense verified in the reign of Hezekiah.
Under his sway, the liberal disposition was restored
from its obsolete state. The free-will offerings over
and above legal tithes and taxes abounded under
the hand of this reformed and penitent monarch.




LIBERALITY RE WARDED.           373
Nay, the disposition to a liberal and pious use of
his advantages, notwithstanding-the hopeless tuition of his childhood and the profane example of
his father, exhibited itself on his first accession to
the throne. From his ninth to his twenty-fifth year
he had shared the luxuries and felt the tainting
wickedness of the royal palace. Public corruption,
promoted and protected by the neglects of religion,
rioted around him.  No safeguard was reared
around this heir of power, save the priceless blessing to him of a devout mother. -Filially heeding
her instructions, the piety of his youth ripened into
the liberality of manhood. He ascended the throne
at the blush of manly vigor to impart to the sceptre that authority of virtue and that charm of generosity which the childhood of obedience and the
habit of religion had stored in his own soul. Scripture renders this description of his traits into the
devout phrase, " He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel; so that after him was none like him among
all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before
him."
"The reformation of religion, under Hezekiah,
aimed at three purposes: the extinction of idolatry,
the correction of the nation's morals, and the restoration of God's worship to the Divine model
established under David." This was the bosomobject of " the liberal devising liberal things." This
was the picture in the view of the prophet. And
our interpretation must be drawn not only from
the words themselves, but from the character of
the man and the work of reformation which sig



3 74       LIBERALITY RE WARDED.
nalized his reign. To effect his liberal purposes,
he began by an exhortation to the priests and Levites. Reformation must begin with the ministers
of holy things, that it may effectually spread among
the people. "The Levites, and such of the priests
as were right-minded, obeyed with alacrity; the
priests doing that which they only could do, in
cleansing the. Holy of Holies and the sanctuary;
and the Levites acting as their ministers in- the
court of the Lord's house. This done, the king
gathered the civil rulers, and sanctified himself
with them in the sin and trespass offerings, Which
were typical of his death; without which there
could be no remission of sin and no sanctification
of the human heart. He then proceeded to restore
the rites and ceremonies which the law required,
and with exact solemnity to renew the magnificent
temple-worship with instruments and vocal song,
commanded by God, arranged by his prophets,
Gad and Nathan, and established by David. In a
word, he renewed the use of the Book of Psalms.
The blessed effects of this reformation were exhibited in the zeal with which the people flocked
to the passover, and with which all who were there
present, on their return to their several cities,
broke in pieces the images, cut down the groves,
and threw down and destroyed the high places
and altars devoted to idolatrous worship.  Nor
was this all. The brazen serpent itself, which Moses had cast and erected, by God's command, as a
symbol of love and mercy, and as a means, through
faith, of curing disease and preventing death, —the




LIBERALIT Y RE WARDED.         375
sign.which had been for more than seven centuries
preserved, venerated as the work of their great lawgiver, and associated in the hearts of men, with the
wonders wrought in the wilderness-even the brazen
serpent itself was broken by the king's comrn mand, and
called Nehushtan, a vile thing of copper, because it
had been made the instrument of idolatry.
The reason for this extreme measure is obvious.
In the degenerate condition of the people, what
was originally an auxiliary in, pure devotion, had
become the support of foul idolatries. The symbolic worship of the serpent was the worship of
the great enemy of God and man, of a being full of
subtlety, deceit, and poison. Like the Manichees
of the Christian era, the polluted Israelites made a
Deity of wickedness itself. Idolatry was thus the
root of all the public crimes that had defaced the
kingdom. In its mildest form, idolatry degrades
and vilifies the IncomprehensibIe and the Almighty;
in its most corrupt, it panders to the worst vices of
which man is capable. In proportion, therefore, as
the people were reclaimed from their false worship,
they became more and more virtuous, more and
more prosperous, more and more zealous, more and
more liberal and generous. The favor of God towards them was manifested by increased abundance; and plenty, honor and glory shed their
united splendor over all classes of men in that happy kingdom. The source of the blessing that waited upon his liberal devisings is tersely given, " The
Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth."




376         LIBERAL1TY RE WARDED.
In this sample of history (and history is God's
diagram), we read not only the description of the
liberal, but the fulfillment of the prophetic promise,
"by liberal things he shall stand."
Stability is the product of which liberality is the
root.  Ordinary calculation is reversed, and the
subtractions of liberality are the real additions of
strength. And this stability, which Providence
had intended to illustrate in the person of the pious
king, expands itself into its triple elements.
The liberal monarch was sustained by his service and sacrifices of free-will, in the stability of the
cause which engaged his youthful zeal,-in the stability of his earthly fortune, in spite of its hazards,
and in the stability of his peace under the apprehension of impending calamity and death.
There seemed, in the first place, to be a sort of
preservative power in the generosity and self-devotion which characterized his youth.' Although a
man of infirmities, touched with the weakness as
well as the greatness of manhood, and none the less
a man for being a king, there was a stability imparted to the cause he espoused by the very fact
that he was liberal in its behalf. The success and
the perpetuity of the- reformation grew out of the
generosity that prompted it. What had he on his
own side at the outset, except the precepts of a
wise mother and the dictates of a cultured conscience? Religion itself in all its sanctities of station, of custom, of precedent was against him. With
a meaning formidable to common courage, wickedness was in high places. The doors of the Temple




LIBERALITY RE WARDED.          377
were shut, the sanctuary was defiled.  Idolatry
grouped its disgusting images around the sacred
symbol of ancient piety. In contempt of these disadvantages, his well-disciplined yout h prepared
him for the sacrifice of every interest to the work
of reforming the decayed religion of his people.
There was no pause for some tide of favor,-no
waiting till the current was set and then floating
upon its surge,-no devising of measures to spare
himself and throw others into the task and the
peril. His first step was vigorous. And by the very
force with which his first act of royalty trod upon
temptation, he secured the promise that his heart's
desire should stand. The reformation reign became the brilliant episode of Jewish history.  It
was one prolonged career of prosperity. The
heart that devised liberally was preserved in
strength. And the king whose piety thus consecrated his plans never beheld them defeated or
forsaken.
My brethren, we affirm this to be but the type of
the promise that always waits at the door of liberal
devices. "God is not unfaithful that He will forget your works and labor that proceedeth of love."
He cannot forget a man who leans -upon the arm
of His Providence. He cannot be faithless to a
man who makes it the first point with his con —
science to be a giver like God. I need not wander
into royal homes for examples. It is written along
the whole page of Providence, "There is that
scattereth, and yet increaseth."  The generous impulses that enlist a man in a good cause, lead him




378        LIBERALITY RE WARDED.
into the mare hearty love of the cause. From being liberal, he becomes cordial. By the effort
which unselfish motives prompted, he acquires an
interest in the goodness of the cause. He loves
what he had at first only approved. And in the
reward which no eye can see, but his own heart
can feel, he finds an assurance that by "liberal
things he shall stand." Whether that liberality be
the open hand of the bountiful giver, or the wide
heart of charitable construction upon other's faults,
or the generous utterance of sentiments narrowed
by no prejudice, it has Providence for its ally; and
the cause it cherishes shall remain the cause of its
delight. How many of those whose Christian perseverance -has brought them near to the prize of a
ripened- piety, first drew their hearts towards the
excellence of the Christian's hope as they laid their
offerings of liberality upon the altar? The man
who has closed his heart against the promptings
of liberality, has foreclosed his hope of heaven.
True piety will be starved out where the impulses
of generosity will not survive. The multiplying
and coldly calculating breast of parsimony may
throb in the delusion of its narrow, and unfeeling
religion,-but how dwells the love of God in that
heart which has thus cast off the love of our brother? Philanthropy is not so much the child as the
twin-sister of piety. Angels that minister with all
their gifts to the heirs of salvation, cannot welcome
to their ministry the man whose gifts always flow
in upon himself. Faith in Providence is the foundation of faith in Christ, and when the heart has




LIBERALITY RE WARDED.          379
shut up its liberality, as if God could not provide
and would not reward, faith, though its dead leaves
flutter amid the breathings of the spirit, faith is
dead. The man of true hope is he that deviseth
liberal things.
The stability which rewarded the liberality of
Hezekiah, extended to his earthly fortune. The
treasures of his kingdom grew with their consecration to the service of God. And the throne which
his free bounty, his generous thought of the people's benefit had honored, was secured to him in
peace through the hazards- of more than a quarter
of a century. The Assyrian, bloated with conquest,
came up to threaten the. integrity of his kingdom,but God put a bridle in his jaw and a hook in his
nose, and the entrenchments of liberality were left
unmolested. In later years, the king was brought
upon the bed of sickness to the verge of death.
But even here the recompense of his liberality forsook him not. The respite and the rescue came
from heaven, and the receding shadow on the dial
at once told that no human power had been equal
to this cure, and symbolized the prolongation of
his days as the recession of death's shadow upon
the dial of mortality.  My brethren, there is
something of the same promise wrapt in the first
commandment with promise.  Filial piety, as a
virtue distinct in itself, stands under the blessing of lengthened days.  Its tributes of honor
are but a laudable form of that:liberality which.deviseth for the proper objects of- our thought
liberal things. History is but the repeated act of




380        LIBERALITY RE WARDED.
Providence confirming this promise of an earthly
stability.
I am no champion of any such theory of present
reward or retribution as would reckon the virtues
of men by the measure of their worldly prosperity.
The mercy that corrects is often more-painful than
the long-suffering which forbears to smite, But
when we regard the contented mind as wealth
above all price,-when we consider how much better than affluence of possession is the enjoyment of
a thankful spirit,-when we weigh the losses and
disappointments of earth against the comforts of
soul and the increased firmness of every grace after
trial,-when we estimate the comparative value of
a perishable prosperity and a sense of elements in
ourselves superior to all vicissitudes, we can grasp
the promise that by liberal things,-forestalling the
changes and chances of life, and locating our wealth
in the rich emotions of the generous hearts,-we
shall stand.
But there was a consummation of results in the
tranquil termination to which this monarch's life
was brought. Although warned of the calamities
that should befall his rebellious and ungodly people, a blessed calm was spread over his later years.
" Is it not good," he submissively asks, "if peace
and truth be in my days?" Whatever frown of
heaven might impend over the prospects of the
kingdom, his personal experience was tranquillity
to the last. The Providence that stamped its triumph upon the care-worn brow beneath a crown,
illustrates the blessing which waits upon the ob



LIBERALITY RE WVARDED.             38
scurer walks of piety. Peace is the great gift-the
wonderful gift of God,-God's peculiar gift,-and
peace is the allotment which heaven pays to its
favorite, the liberal devising liberal things. No
fever of avarice burns within his veins. No grudging passion curdles his blood. No fear of Providence stares'upon his conscience. The sacrifices
of his life were made on hope,-and hope, like the
tender mother, casts her sheltering mantle over
the chilled and shivering limbs of her dying child.
"Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace. How calm his exit!
Night dews fall not more calmly on the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft."




XXXIV.
MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.
ST. MATT. xii. 49.
"And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said,
Behold my mother and my brethren!"
-T is the province as it is the custom of one who
rises above the level of common thoughts, to
speak in phrases which are enigmatic. His
higher point of view justifies a higher style 6f expression. Partly from the disqualification of the
unprepared mind to receive the sentiment, and.partly from the danger of intrusting truths among
those who are sure to suffer by their abuse of them,
the phrase of our Lord assumed the enigmatic
character of parable or apothegm.
Let me not be understood to say that it was any
mark of greatness, or was any aim of Christ, to
affect profundity, or to cover up sense in obscure
and equivocal words.'My meaning rather is that
the desire to be useful in our language, and to make
our words carry their weight of sense, obliges us
to intimate, by allusion, what would not be accepted in its fulness, and to reserve, for those whom
it may profit, the riper explanation of subtle truth.
Jesus spake with authority- He taught by par(382)




MOTHERS AND BRO 7TERS.        383
ables-He showed wisdom which His learned
adversaries could riot dispute, and yet the common
people heard Him gladly.
There was some exhibition of this act (if we may
so term it) in the instruction which He derived
from the interference of His mother and His brethren with His discharge of His high -functions.
They were slow to perceive the office that was devolved upon Him. Though He had seized upon
His destiny from early childhood, there seems to
have been no clear appreciation, even on the part
of His mother, of the work that lay upon Him.
1Fis tarry in the temple, when twelve years of age,
asking and answering so strangely and so wisely,
was a part of that Father's business, which He
recognized as His task.  And afterwards, when
many a glimpse and pondering had convinced Mary
of the wonder of miracle that lay at His command,a
and she attempted to precipitate this display of His
office, there was something of rebuke in His reply"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"-as if it
were impossible that she or any other mortal could
divine the office He had to fulfill, or could assign
the times and places for the manifestation of His
glory. Something of the same haste on the part
of His mother and kindred, and.something of the
same chiding for their interruption of His office,
appear in the incident connected with our text.It seems, from St. Mark's account of events, that
the zeal and the wonder-working of our Lord had
drawn throngs around. Him, and had occupied
Him  so intently that neither Himself nor His




384       MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.
kindred could observe their domestic rules. "And
when His friends heard of it, th'ey went out to lay
hold on Him; for they said, He is beside himself."
The history proceeds to tell us what malicious
advantage was taken of this remark from His
friends, and what scorn the Pharisees cast upon
Him as a child of phrensy and a tool of the devil.
And now, when, with persevering pursuit of His
office, He seeks again the crowd of hearers, and
rallies again around Him the disciples of His system, a mother's timidity and the distrust of kindred again recall Him from His work. Misconstruing His destiny, they- arrested His work.
Deeming the duties of domestic affection to be the
paramount obligations of life, they hindered Him
in His office. And measuring the ties of relationship only in the direction of consanguinity, they
gave Him occasion to teach the higher source of
kindred and affection.  " He stretched forth his
hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my
mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do
the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same
is my brother, and sister, and mother."
In these incidents, there are three main topics
on which our thoughts must dwell-the disposition
of the kindred of Christ; the regard which He
really had for His mother and brethren, and the
deeper ground of attachment which His words
reveal.
In the disposition of the mother of Jesus and of
His brethren, there is evinced the natural tendency
of our most innocent and our purest earthly affec



MO THERS AND BRO THERS.        385
tions to overpower and outwrestle the efforts of a
holy wisdom. They quite unawares carnalize our
nature. While we think them lawful emotions, and
act upon them without a suspicion, they bring us
into collision with. the work of Christ. Who supposes that the mother of Jesus had forgotten His
strange relation to her, or His supernatural endowment? Who supposes that the ecstatic dreams
with which she watched His infancy, or the pale
awe with which she looked upon His. childhood,
had gone from her mind? Could she have forgotten that angels were foretelling His greatness, and
that the Heavenly Father had always waited upon
His steps-? But even piety and wonder and faith
bent before the violence of a mother's affection.
She joins with her kindred in their blind in.terference with His charities.. She remonstrates with
the authority of her maternal relation against His
zeal and self-sacrifice.  She puts her love in the
place of duty, and, true to the spontaneous impulse of a woman, she can see no higher mission
than the gushings of natural affection.
Now, if our Saviour had only viewed this disposition from the mother's side, there would have
been' everything to commend in it. It was natural 
and who can blame what is so genuine? It was
the fulness of affection; and what so next to Divine
as a mother's love? It was the unselfish thought.of peril on His part; and what quickens heaven in
us like this acting unselfishly?  It was the suggestion of friends and the result of counsel; for
his brethren were with her in the appeal.
I7




386       MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.
We say, then, that our Saviour would have
seemed to spurn all this goodness, and to throw
contempt upon her affection, had He replied with
unqualified reproof. Not so. He rather brings
into more unmistaken prominence the fact that
human affection prompted the interference. The
love of a mother and the attachment of brethren
are thrust by Him into the most conspicuous honor.
It was as if He had said, " I tell you there is vast
power and there is depth beneath depth in this
might and magnanimity of affection. There is a
world of love in the soul of man, and none but
God-has anything like it. The heartstrings are
cords that heaven uses for its melodies. Hear it,
ye disciples, my love has no image on earth to represent it, but those constraining, overpowering,
all-subduing emotions which tie human souls -together as mother and brethren.  Behold my
mother and my brethren!"
The serene dignity of His'reply consisted in
its reservation of this honor to the love that
actuated His kindred, while He exposed the
blindness that lay upon their spiritual understanding.
In thus charging with defects of grace that
mother of Jesus, whom some misnamed Catholics
have extolled beyond the Redeemer, I must fortify
myself with the testimonies of antiquity, which all
profess to respect.. Theophylact taxes her, in this
act, "with vain-glory and guilt in endeavoring to
draw Jesus from teaching the Word;" Tertullian
pronounces her guilty of "incredulity," and St.




MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.             387
Chrysostom accuses her of " vain-glory, infirmity
and madness."
Under the shelter of these three ancie.nts, I may
employ milder terms of crimination. I only say that
they failed to reach the height of spiritual understanding, and that, by an eclipse of soul, the higher
sources of affinity were obscured from their view.
Their disposition was to put their religion into the
fervor of natural affections, instead of bringing the
affections under the guardianship of religion.
They forgot the order of things, and placed the
earthly relation' first, as if God's being and God's
authority came in as a sort of auxiliary to the affections of this life.
Need I say that the true order is hereby reversed,.and the true proportion of our duties first, and
then of our character, destroyed?? There is a kind
of goodness that rests in just this posture. i It is
domestic kindness, it is the love of relations, it. is
the heart of tender friendship, it is the godliness
of the brethren of Jesus; and it is well. But it is
not sufficient.  The great goodness is wanting.
God is the first claimant. The chief love. that benefits us is the love of God. And the sum of all
charms is in the glorious greatest and best of
beings. In His Word He calls Himself, in His
Providence He shows Himself a jealous God. The
putting anything above Him, or anything before
Him, is the mortal sin. He withers that which we
incline to substitute for Him. He makes the heart
sore with its eagerness for other attractions. Or,
what is still more terrible, He withdraws Himself




388.MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.
and leaves us to our idolatries when we are bent
upon refusing His love. And this is the harmonizing which we make of the two declarations, " that
God is love," and that He is " a jealous God."  It
is His claim, and our blessedness, that there should
be nothing nearer to us than Him. And Christ,
in His work of salvation, stands to us in the place
of God, drawing us by Himself towards His
Father, and transmuting all our affections of faith
into the love of God. For He it is that challengeth this right in our souls, " Who so loveth
father or mother more than me, is not worthy of
me."
The subject thus conducts us to the second topic
offered by the text-the regard of Christ for His
mother and His brethren.  We say, then, at the.
outset, that the language in the text, so far from
intending to disparage His earthly attachments,
implies that they were ardent, enduring, intense
and unconcealed. He puts the appearance of fervor
and firmness upon them. He uses them to image
forth a love and an affiance which could not so
well be the object of sight. How could that which
was itself ambiguous or reserved be the representative of what is plain and prominent?  For the
sake of showing to the faith of all generations the
explicitness and the reality of His affection to His'disciples always and everywhere, He compares it
to that which was distiiict and glowing in His lifethe love of His mother-the love of them that
were by nature the nearest.
Now, without expanding the entire revelation on




MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.          389
this point, it is enough to observe that our blessed
Saviour Himself, in patterning perfection, did
receive into especial closeness and ardor of affection, some of those who were brought into earthly
relations with Him.  We read of the disciple
whom Jesus loved-of the love which He had for
Lazarus and his sister, and on account of which a
miracle of interposition was expected. We observe a special intimacy of our Saviour with the
beloved John. And we see that this bosom-friend
of Christ, who leaned upon his breast in the hour
of confidence and of suspense, was the dying friend
of the Saviour, to whom, with filial affection, He
committed. the mother. at the cross, and whom He
commended as a son to the love of that mother.
In all respects, then, Jesus had no fear of hazarding his benevolence and his width of affection for
mankind by concentrating His human sympathies
upon a special friend. There is, on the other hand,
a systematic effort in the gospels to give clearness and intensity to these His personal affections.
They were the marked indications of His human
tenderness they were the weakness (if rough manliness may so term them)'of His heart —they were
the sources of His cares, His tears, and the earthly
solace of His final agony.
I take it, then, that our Lord was conscious of
the delicacy and exquisiteness of His own affections for His mother and His brethren-conscious
of the undisguised candor that exhibited this affection —conscious of its part in the culture of a proper
human character, when "He stretched forth his




390       MO THERS AND BRO THERS.
hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my
mother and my brethren!"   Ii
There must be, therefore, some deeper ground
of attachment than our natural relation, which
could thus bring the wide diversities of mankind
up into a species of kindred with Christ.
This new source of relations is the third topic
which the text reveals.
There was really no novelty in this discovery of
deeper sentiments in our nature. It was among
the earliest statutes for man. -It was, indeed, a sort
of need with which he was created. His soul was
constructed upon the plan of adaptation to new
relations. The first symbol of Christ's love for
His church was the man's heart that could leave
the father and mother and cleave to the wife. The
relation was still earthly, but it showed the capacities for enrichment that belongs to the human
soul. I know not if I have uttered this with
enough precision. The soul of man is endowed,
in its creation, with the power of framing to itself
relations which involve the exercise of its warmest
affections, and which were no part of its natural
ties.
And I say that the heavenly relation into which
the love of God brings us is paralleled, because it
was symbolized from the beginning by this conjugal affection. The doing of the will of God, the
actual placing of ourselves in relation with that
Blessed Perfection, is appointed to put us into a
new family, and that God's own, God's blessed,
and to bring out a still nobler development of our




MOTHIERS AND BROTHERS.         391
nature. It makes us kindred with the Infinite
Being. It calls ott affections which mock at death.
It gives us sympathy with the greatest of our kind;
nay, it passes humanity, and we are of angels'
lineage, sons of God they call us, akin with Christ,
of that family which knows no death, for its name
is immortality. O honorable name! which is above
every name! which is the kindred of Him that
hath immortality! Birthright incomprehensible!
Brotherhood immaculate! What lineage of greatness can compare with this household name, this
title of endearment, which the King of kings applies to -the least of them that love His Father" Whomsoever shall do the will of God, the same
is my brother, and my sister, and mother."
My brethren, I have no desire to parade the
plain, though important truths which stand upon
the surface of this theme. They must have arrested our thoughts as we surveyed this text. We
cannot escape observing the practical and the comforting assurance given here, that our Saviour
looks with the most unfeigned and the most intense interest upon all His disciples. Though He
perceives their infirmities, though He reads the
intricate lessons of corruption beneath our professions of piety, though He sees the lingering
frailties of humanity, though He knows that the
blood of earth touches the heart which His blood
has cleansed, yet He receives that warm desire of
discipleship as -the appeal of consanguinity to His
own breast. We tell with shame of our depravity,
but He hides the shame under His bending com



392       MO THERS AND BROTHERS.
passions, and says, " My brother!" We mourn in
our calamity, as if it were sorro*ful to be mortal
and to be human; but He stands before us as the
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and
says, It is only the cross of love, my sister and my
mother.
There are, however, two grand instructions hidden beneath the surface of this text. They are not
capable of being amplified within our limits. I
can only suggest them, praying God to make the
suggestion a root of reflection.
The first suggestion is that the love of relations
and friends is the school in which are disciplined
for the widest charity and the highest, even the
heavenly society. There is some kind of resemblance between the virtue that here abides under
earthly  relations, steadfast, gentle, submissive.,
~prompt in duty, alert in feeling-some resemblance between the kindly and faithful keeping of
earth's brotherhoods, and the happy participation
in heaven's affections. That philanthropy which
always leaps out of its own relations, and burns
only for the far off charity-which passes by the
neighbor in his moans, and reaches. a strained pulse
for the distant Hindoo- which is grand upon a
wide scale, and contracted as the scale is narrowed
-that philanthropy which must reorganize society
and have rudiments to love, or it has no hope and
no heart for the work-that philanthropy which
has no gentleness and no heartiness at home and
in its own kindred —that philanthropy, though it
bleed to serve its fancy, though it give its body to




MOTHERS AND BROTHERS.           393
be burned, is not charity, is not patiently do ng
the will of God,.and has no share in that h r.d
which points from the heart that loved its kindred
with the voice, "Behold my mother and my
brethren!"
There is a universe of philosophy wrapt in the
homely maxim, "Charity begins at home."
The second instruction to be suggested is the
dependence of love upon practice. We are used
to speak of it as a feeling. And we are too likely
to think of it as the same, and no more. And, as
a consequence, we are apt to flatter ourselves that
the more the feeling the greater the love-that our
Christian character is only genuine as it takes this
form of strong feeling; nay, that the beginning
and the substance of Christianity is to be possessed
with these forces of feeling. But this is all false
philosophy, and a contradiction of Christ.  He
puts the element of love in the fact of practice.
It is the doing of God's will which draws out His
title of brother.  He disowns the reality of' the
imaginative sentiment, and He has no idea that
true love can exist or grow in us except as it lives
in practice.
My brethren, this is the attraction which charms
God-this'is the winning way that touches the
heart of Christ. To come in the practice of our
duties-to come as those that are too loving to ask
any other privilege but that of serving God-this
is that warfare which besieges heaven and takes.
mercy itself captive.
I7*




XXXV.
PURITY.
ST. JAMES iii. 17.
"The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality, and without hypocrisy."
THERE  are two methods proposed  to the
choice of men, by which wisdom  can be acquired. One is the slow, and painful, and
endless method of experience, learning our errors
by suffering for them, and increasing our confidence in truth, by observing that it is salutary and
irreversible. The shorter, the easier, and the more
compendious method of conveying wisdom is by
impartation, enabling us to know at once what
others have reached by long and arduous experience, and enriching us not with the problematical
and timid conclusions of half-tested truth, but with
sure and reliable results. Faith is the'direct road
t6 this latter fountain of wisdom.  Faith in men
conducts us to their oracular announcements of
what has been found by them to be wise. But
man's scope of certain knowledge is so limited,
that when we touch the verities of eternity, or
need some guidance through new difficulties and
(394)




PURIT Y.                395
into other worlds, or even appreciate the mysterious relation between our own secret being, and the
Being that searches our inward thoughts, faith assumes a new form, rises into grander power, becomes the guardian faculty of the soul, receiving
from an infallible source, and imparting to our
frailty " the wisdom that is from above."
Holy Scripture in its mention of wisdom seems
to be vibrating between the practical and the dogmatic1 sense. Wisdom often puts on personal attributes, and addresses pur attention as a Chief
Counsellor in the designs of God, when He first
conceived the fabric of the Universe, or when He
arranges the marvels of redemption. And then it
appears in its more earthly and narrower sense as
meaning no more than the well-balanced order of
our human faculties. There is but one key to this
strange confusion of scriptural ideas. The Christ
of grace is the explanation of the enigma of Scripture. He that was the wisdom of God, He that
growing here as a child in human wisdom was the
Everlasting Counsellor.  He that was with God
" when He prepared the heavens, and was daily
His delight," and yet coming from above, "His
delights were with the sons of men," has alone
bridged the chasm which lies between that consciousness in Scripture of the personality of wisdom,
and that consciousness in man of his ability to possess wisdom.
And this' very tendency of wisdom to bring
down the heavenly into the practical principles of a
human life is what gives such a direction to the




396                PURITY.
Apostle's language. "The wisdom  that is from
above is" evinced in qualities which every human
soul can understand and acquire.
The subject before us, then, is no ideal and romantic phantasm. It is a substantial and practical
combination-of virtues, assuming the precise order
which is here represented. And the reality of this
supreme wisdom in us displays itself so as to justify
the description, " the wisdom that is froin above is
first pure."
Our plainest avenue into the resources of this
Scripture is by the two inquiries: What is implied
in this quality of purity? And for what reasons is
it assigned the first place among the characteristics
of a genuine wisdom?
In attempting to fix our gaze upon an object of
so much delicacy and sensitiveness as purity, we
must not forget that our finer perceptions are called into demand. The blurred and blinded eye of
the sensualist can scarcely discern these beautiful
lineaments.  The jaundiced eye of jealousy and
spite finds purity itself spotted with blemishes
which have their origin only in the diseased eye of
the observer. Dismiss this grossness, and guard
the eye of your soul with the veil of humility
while you look upon this faultless model-purity.
What is it philosophically?  What is it in effect?
It defines itself to the mind's eye as distinguished
from mixture and from pollution.
The gold that has one atom of the baser alloy is
not pure. You must disengage it from that which
mixes with it, and blends with its substance or you




PURIT Y.                397
may have the rich compound but you have not
purity.  Whatever in our habits intercepts our
clear view of the Holy God, whatever obscures
our transparency of heart, whatever mixes with our
motives so as to leave the least doubt or confusion
as to our sincerity, is the ruin of purity. To lose
this clearness and perfectness of soul it is not' necessary that we should be a lump of malice, it is
only necessary that we should give inlet to a debased and sordid element.
Why, the wise man of the world perceived this
distinction between purity and admixture. Even
a chance fly turns the sweet odors to offence, " So
doth' a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor." But where unmixed clearness
and perfectness of God's gifts would be exhibited
there is an effort to emphasize their disengagements
from all alloy. " The words of the Lord are pure
words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified
seven times."
Purity is also to be distinguished from pollution.
That which carries no corruption in its substance,
which holds no impurity in solution, may yet be
defiled by stains and contagions. The pure waters
of the fountain may gather turbidness from the
channels into which they flow. The diamond that
bears no flaw may be coated with the material
that destroys its lustre. The soul stained with the
conscience of guilt is blotted and impure. In deprecation of this pollution, the wise man utters his
counsel, " Let thy garments be always white;" and
the Apostle instructs his son, "Keep thyself pure,"




398                 PURITY.
for he, conscious of conniving at no man's ruin,
could protest, "I am pure from the blood of all
men."
Alas, for our lame and wayward nature! Who
is pure, if this be our standard? Who never permits one baser element to mingle with the singleness of his heart's devotion? Where is the tenant
in this body of corruption, who has never permitted a spoP to deface the record that God reads?
Among the accusations of my fellow- mortals,
my outward innocence may -echo its challenge;
but to the vision of that Purity which chargeth the
angels with folly and writeth bitter complaints
against man,
"The Spirit, in His power divine,
Would cast my vaunting soul to earth,
Expose the foulness of its sin,
And show the -vileness of its worth."
No, it is not in man to cleanse his own heart, or
to lift it up before his God and say, "There is no
fleck of sin upon this mirror of Thy perfections."
Rather need I cry " Create in me a clean heart."
Yes, it must be a creation. It must be not that
first breath on whose blank page I have written
such characters of shame; it must be the new begetting which the Spirit of God produces, moving
upon the chaos and confusion of this universe
within. Then shall God pass Hiis blessed oblivion
upon my sins; then shall the blood of the Lamb
purify those tainted tides that have throbbed
through ma heart; and purified, from the source




P URIT Y.               399
of undefiled purity, shall become to me the new
inheritance, the earnest of those pure and brilliant
things that live where sin and death are known no
more.
And what are the effects of this imparted purification? Let us barely hover over them  for a
moment, and epitomize the description.
Purity, thus our possession by grace, will take
the sceptre from polluted nature, and begin the
exercise of its sovereignty over oulr thoughts.
They rambled in forbidden lawlessness; they resented the control which refused them secret indulgence; they snapped the chains of conscience,
and hurried the soul through scenes of filth, under
the dark shadows of malignity, into the smeared
and defiling caverns of foul imaginations, while
our resistance was but the feeble, sickly hesitation
of a willing victim. The new'creation empowers
the thoughts to banish these corrupting intruders,
or, at least, to fling them behind our back with a
disgust which resembles the indignant contempt
of the Undefiled One, "Get thee behind me,
Satan."
Within the screens of secrecy, into the labora-.tory of the soul we penetrate. Here desire takes
its shape; here the will wields its rod of authority;
and in this council-chamber is it decided whether
the hidden idolatries of a lustful heart, or the
sweet perfumes of pure desire, shall meet the footsteps of our visiting God. He stands before the
door, and the test-question with which He searches
us concerns these secret desires. Do we behold




400                PURITY.
His face in worship? Do we hasten to greet His
approaches with a warm desire to be purified and
welcome?  Do we crush with a holy vengeance
upon ourselves those tantalizing desires that reach
out for what the hand dares not touch? Then has
the sweet angel of purity killed the serpent in our
hearts; then has the new life filled us with the
~new love; then has the baptism of purity cleansed
the secret home of our desires, and made it a sanctuary that invites pure angels and their purer God.
But it is purity in a world of contamination, the
lily among the thorns, and in its tremulous and
precarious form resembling the sensitive plant. It
fears the breath that fans it, trembles at the eye of
God, shrinks at the shadow of danger, and hides
itself from the temptation that might soil its integrity. If there be not in our soul this sensitiveness,
fearing to be sullied and shunning contact with
everything that blemishes our service of God, then
is our purity but the cold marble statue that stood
unblushing amid the orgies of debauching Paganism, and not the living, trembling exotic that
shudders in this clime of sin and waits for a congenial paradise.
We recognize the entrancing and cherubic ideal.
We concede that this grace of purity is the enviable
and spotless radiance which befits the heavenly
world, and gleams before the most faultless human
soul as a pattern towards which we elevate our
hopes, and far from which our infected nature
drags its gross propensities.
Why, then, should this exalted perfection be




PURITY.                 40o
placed in the very forefront of our virtues? Why
should it be'assigned the leadership in the army of
our aspirations? Why should the wisdom from
above be firstpure, when its ultimate and remotest
achievement is to put on incorruption? My brethren, there is a profound philosophy in this very
arrangement.  It is intended to imply the origin
and source of our religious life. It is not a power
originating in our depraved and sullied nature. Its
fountain is Purity Immaculate.  It gushes from
the throne of God. He imparts, or we never partake. No human breast has contrived the grace
that animates and purifies.  No teeming wit of
man has expelled those defiling imaginations, and
washed the conscience of its uncleanness and guilt.
The power that now creates is from the same Being
who said, "Let there be light, and there was
light."  " Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, and cometh down from the Father
of lights."  All that restores, all that lays the
foundations of new life must be sought at His
hands. It is first among the treasures of His perfection, and then among the bestowments of His
pity, and therefore' it is first pure.
This prominence of purity refers us also to the elements out of which all the beauties of the Christian
character are to spring. They cannot be grafted'
upon any -stock of falsehood. Some semblances of
the angelic, and some short-lived blossoms of the
saintly may cling to a branch whose root and sap
is falsehood.  But the living, perennial, fragrant
charms of a life wise for eternity must bloom upon




402                 PURITY.
the thriving stock of truth. The first essential for
any life that has alliance with Nature and Providence is truth. And the only assurance that we
can have of permanence to our principles and
stability to our virtues is sound and uncorrupted
truth as the basis of our mental structure. It is
fruitless outlay of our care when we have not
immovable principles for our foundation. Human
infirmity weakens more than half our best work.
The first. inquiry of all genuine wisdom  is for
foundations that cannot be shaken. The first de
mand of a soul is truth. The first element of
wisdom is doctrine undefiled. And therefore St.
Peter speaks with the same philosophy as St.
James, " Ye have purified your souls in obeying
the truth."
There is a third and most impressive reason for
assigning to purity the first place in the order of
virtue. That reason is involved in the startling
fact that impurity is the most fatal adversary which
heavenly wisdom is required in this world to
encounter.
Take this in its broadest sense, and dispute will
not be offered. If impurity consists in the unbridled license of sensual thoughts; if it betrays
itself in unrestrained and wanton desires; if it
entertains no hatred for the enormities of lust, and
no dread of the pestilence that poisons the soul;
then is it the inveterate enemy in imagination, in
word, in society, of everything that helps to ennoble
or to sanctify our nature.
But we leave this wide field of observation, and




P URI T Y.               403
descend into the nearer particulars of life, and we
allege that impurity clogs the very approaches of
salvation, and sways the world with a deadly
supremacy. One of the first essays for reclaiming
the sordid and the abject is the lesson of cleanliness. The sanitary wisdom of communities strikes
first at the death-bearing  heaps of filth.  The
audacities of shameless impurity must yield to the
outraged decencies of life, or society feels itself to
be wallowing in the sickly symptoms of dissolution.
It is the hope under most of the temptations of
life that time will unmask them, and the wearied
soul will flee to better delights as it feels the hollowness of those it has pursued. But impurity is
one of those strong delusions that never relax their
bondage till we are helpless to retrieve our lot. It
fascinates when we would resist.  It plunges us
into filthy thoughts because we attempt to wrestle
with it. It suggests the most revolting suspicions
of all that is pure and undefiled around us. It
stings us into compliance with its degrading demands when we are robust, vigorous, and active.
It steals upon our weak and morbid moments.
Learning and culture will not shelter us from its
gay and painted pollutions. The Solomon that
explores every recess of knowledge cannot guard
his own heart against this corruption. It turns the
courts of royalty into voluptuous dens, smothers
churches in its loathsome scandals, loads the calendar of crime with perjuries and brutalities, kindles
fire-brands that desolate  our homes, flings a




404                 PURITY.
jewelled robe over the rotten mockeries of propriety, and makes the very sanctities of religion
contemptible when cloaking these carcasses of moral
pollution.
Impurity is the secret destroyer that devours the
souls of millions. This it is that drags the young
Christian into the mire of treachery to his vows.
It is impurity, is it not, that renders all our virtues
so timid and cowardly; that makes us irresolute,
artful, and evasive; that puts great barriers of
impossibility between our defiled conscience and
the sweet dreams of innocence; that unnerves our
better purposes and compels us to trample down
the bitter accusations of memory, the candid rebukes of repentance; that makes such multitudes
of seemly and generous men afraid to wear the
aspect of religion, ashamed of an appearance which
their inward indulgence belies, conscious of a secret
torture which apathy alone can alleviate, and
willing to carry into the presence of Infinite Purity
a defilement. which dares not even pray for forgiveness. I believe it, my brethren, and I utter it with
all the sorrow of one that sheds the tear of despair,
there is no sin so inveterately corrupting as impurity, none that so teases the conscience, blinds
the eye, nurses the heart for cruelty, enfeebles'the
better powers of our nature, frightens the angels
from their watch and ward around us, deadens the
sense of heaven, separates us from the companionship of Jesus, and leaves us drifting wrecks upon
these billows, deserted by the Holy Ghost.
When Thyatira wore this stain upon her brow,




PUR ITY.               405
there was no remedy but great tribulation. " I will
kill her children with death, and all the churches
shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins
and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you
according to your works."




XXXVI.
PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.
St. MATTHEW X. 33.
"Whosoever shall deny me before men, hm will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."
THERE  is a help to the exposition of these
words in the fact, that they were intended for
the safe-keeping of those who were sent into
the midst of danger. They are fastened to a prediction of suffering and hazard. They were designed by their burdens of interdict, to weigh
against great temptation. Their force was laid as
a buckler over the breasts of men, who were despatched upon an expedition among wolves, and
these the more to be feared because they were not
only cruel but crafty, not only ready to devour, but
concealing their remorseless jaws under sheep's
clothing.  In such a desperate mission, silence
must often be the best exhortation, preserving while
it proclaimed not innocence. Escape from the
mouths of such incorrigible subjects, for their
efforts might often be the dictate of prudence. Yet
there were concessions to these devourers of souls,
which might save the flesh of the messenger at the
expense of his innocence. Against these timidities
(4o6)




PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.       407
and surrenders, Christ assigns a limit for- their prudence. They might have a care for their bodies,
and flee out of danger, but nothing must be permitted to lay a wound upon the soul. They might
covert all they could by being harmless, but they
must know that nothing ever should be gained by
being faithless. They might discreetly shun tod
close a contact with every one that wore the wool
of innocence, and stole for'hunger into the flock,
but no amount of deception and treachery on the
part of others, no conversion of the whole flock into disguised wolves could palliate their defection,
or screen them from the fangs of misery, if they
denied Christ.
Evidently, the danger that was to bes.et them,
and the crime that was so denounced in this penal
statute -of grace, was an unreality of character. It
was the wearing of innocence in the face, and of a
wolfish appetite beneath it. It was the appearance
of biting the grass, while the jaws sought for flesh
and blood. In a word, it was the assuming of that
character which they were sent to convert. They
were in danger of keeping their outside pretension
on, while they adopted the maxims, copied the
actions, nursed the appetites, and betrayed the dispositions of unbelief and ungodliness. Other men
might make their denial of Christ in sceptical
judgments, or in profane and derisive language,
other men might deny Him by refusing to profess
an open and entire allegiance. But this danger lay
in another direction. They might deny Him, even
when they professed to be His disciples and His




408      PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.
champions. Their denial was a practical contradiction of their pretension.  Denial in their case
would be trebly aggravated.
It would be, first, the most solemn denial of
Christ. It would be, second, the most treacherous
and deceitful denial of Him. It would be, in the
third place, the most mischievous and' pernicious
denial of Christ.
This practical denial, coupled with a pretence of
allegiance, is the most solemn way of offending.
It passes out of the region of a man's judgment,
where his scepticism may be sheltered, and may
have some covert from blame. It passes beyond
the mere utterances of the tongue, which may be
hasty and ill-considered and revoked in the shame
that follows. It is a crime not only begotten in the
heart, and nursed by the passions, but authorized
and caressed and approved by our perseverance in
the action, for it is to be noted that we are not
speaking of some sudden and surprised act of denial, some chance defeat of our better habit and our
firm resolution. I am speaking of a character that
a man has taken and kept, of practical, and acted,
and continued wickedness which a man is all the
while cloaking and dissembling with a show of
piety. It is, we say, the most solemn of all denials, because it is denial carried into practice. It is
the utmost that a man can do to testify what he
really believes and really means to act upon. It
shows not so much the violence of temptation, as
the determination of his heart. It is the putting of
all emphasis upon an evil life, and saying the most




PRA CTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.       409
plainly and the most boldly that whatever religion
may be worth, it is not worth following. When
a man takes oath, he puts himself upon solemnity,
and calls God to witness that he speaks the whole
truth from his heart. And so when a man puts
wickedness into the fibre of his actions, and lives as
a denier of the spiritual law, and then calls God to
witness by his pretence of religion, there is a solemnity in his denial, which can only be visited upon
him in justice, when amid the solemnities of final
judgment, God is called to witness, and Christ denies this worker of iniquity.
This denial of Christ is a practice that stamps a
falsehood on our profession, in the most treacherous and deceitful of denials. With the name of
Christ upon their lips, and the honor of that name
at stake in their lives, they are but betraying Him
with a kiss. There is something extraordinary and
hopeless in this way of sinning with a smooth face.
To hear some such professors of religion utter
their panegyrics on self-denial and spiritual purity
and brotherly kindness, and their philippics against
pride and dissipation, you might suppose that
Christ had given them a special commission to
paint a virtue and to daub a vice. But, alas! the
superhuman melts away when you look below the
tongue. They are no more-than they call themselves, professors of religion. I do not like the
phrase, to make the best of it. It has too much the
sound of putting the religion in the profession, instead of making the religion such as to profess itself. But for them there is no apter designation.
i8




410o     PRA CTICE VERS US PROFE SSION.
They put their whole character into the business
of professing religion. And were it not for seeming to deal in invective rather than the gospel, I
should take a melancholy pleasure in holding up to
view, and to our detestation, this counterfeit of a
Christian. Such a man, lifting up his right hand to
bear the testimony of a saint, and clinging with
his left to the frauds of a sinner, grasping now the
mercy-seat of God,'and now the instruments of
inhumanity, holding up his right hand to swear by
the faith of a. Christian, and with his left dealing
far and - wide the oaths of resentment and rage,
"..He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his'soul, nor
say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?"
Unto most.men, the gospel is the beseeching invitation, " Come and welcome."  Over the waters of
tossing care, and over the crowds of earthly passion, the voice of Jesus trembles as the soothing
breeze upon the fevered brow, " Come, come unto
me."  But the same voice deepens into forebodings.of woe, woe unto -hypocrites, and shall swell at
last into accents of indignation, as the treacherous
suppliant pleads his profession in palliation of his
practices, "I never knew you, depart from me all
ye workers of iniquity.'
This contradiction-of our profession in our practice is the most mischievous and pernicious denial
of Christ. The subtle cavil of the scorner" is
known to be the protection of his career; the bitter jest of the profane is. seen to issue from the
wishes and prejudices of his own heart; and. scep



PRA CTICE VER.SUS PROFESSION.     411
ticism, however triumphant in argument, concedes
itserf to be ignorant of the moral power of faith.
But when a Christian man has learned the art of
holding at the same time his religion and his sins,
he becomes a quoted precedent for every scorner,
jester and sceptic. Upon him, as the premiss,
hangs the mischievous inference that religion is no
element of our true character. It is argued, out
of his example, that God has pronounced no wedlock between piety and virtue.- The suspicion
which his sins have excited lies -against the religion
he pretends. He. brandishes the keys of heaven
only to show how confidently a man can hold
these,, and yet neither go in himself, nor suffer
them that are entering to go in. When he prays,
and prays the more that he may sin, the more the
world shrinks into the sullen conclusion that our
prayers make us none the better; when the dormant emotions of religion awake, and hurry him
into acts of piety to hide away his sins, the world
scorns a religion that thus indulges instead of expelling sin. Entangled in the snares of a corrupt
nature, there is no remedy and no escape for him,
but in the thorough reconstruction of his character.
If he persist in'his disguises, mischief spreads
around him; if he abandon all restraint and
all appearances, mischief strews his path; if he
brave the odium of the world, and claim that
there is no incongruity in his pretension and his
practice, mischief exults in his confession, and on
his testimony drags iniquity up to the elevation of impunity, because tie has dragged re



4I 2    PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.
ligion down to the degradation of an empty pretence.
Can there be a more direct denial of Christ than
this fastening of his name upon our evil practices?
Is there any blasphemy, any desertion, that so emphatically disowns him-so openly and unqualifiedly contradicts not only His words, but His office,
His very nature? When a ruffian insults us, we
can bear it, for his act is the proof of his own
indecency; when an enemy maligns us, we can
yet hope to touch his honor; when a friend deserts
us, and a pledged companion breaks his vows, we
can reason with him, we can pity his weakness, or
we can confess the just occasion for his offence;
but when a man protests that he is my friend, and
then chases me with falsehoods and aspersions and
hostility-when he alleges that I consent to the
terms of such friendship, when he claims that I have
given occasion for all his treachery, and am pleased
with his vileness, and am honored by his false professions, there is no alternative left but to deny the
charge by denying him. I may bear with a friend's
infirmity, I must listen to his apologies; but nothing
can bind me to disown my own nature and deny
the very virtue which makes me worthy of friendship. So holiness is the synonym for Christ; innocence was His nature; a purity that sprang out
of His heart enveloped His life; He came to save
us from our sins; the banishment of sin, and not
the exculpation of the sinner, was the end and
aim of His work; He loved us, not for our sins,
but for His own longing to see us holy.




PREACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.      413
With what possible complacency, then, can he
endure the contradiction of his gospel, the libel
upon his life, the treachery to his very pity, which
would convert Him into the origin, and patron and
flatterer of our evil lives? No, disguise it, extenuate it, prevaricate as we may, Christ was the
friend of man's repentance, and not of his iniquities.
Whosoever by a practice nullifying his profession,
whosoever shall so deny Christ before men, him
will Christ deny before His Father in heaven.
But our thoughts are finally directed to the penalty which is suspended over the guilty denier of
his Saviour.
My brethren, we covet not the faculty of delineating the miseries of the outcast, or giving vivid
reality to the gloom and terrors of hell. Conscience will in this respect assert its own accusing
office, and signify by its reproof the greater shame
and the greater agony which must at last overwhelm both body and soul.
Let us, however, in few words allude to the extent of the calamity involved in our denial before
God, the searcher of our hearts, before the multitudinous array of angel witnesses, before the
assembled universe. There can be no doubt that
our rejection by the Saviour Himself in that last
awful day, is the ultimate punishment which he
intends to denounce.
Let us recollect, however, that this conclusion
of.judgment is not a work outside and separate
from the system of grace. The government of
man by Christ tends continually to this end, and




414     PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.
leads by direct processes to this last judgment.
It is not out of the course of grace, but its crisis;
it is not a perishing of Christ's mercy, but a consummation of it, and what has not been begun
before cannot begin there, what is enacted there
will be but the completion of that which has had
its course. It is so with our rejection by Christ
inl the day of judgment. It will be but the final
and irrevocable consummation of a denial that has
already been exhibited and transacted by Christ.
He has an office under grace, which He is perpetually exercising for man. He stands before the
Father as the living representation of our race;
with His broken body He pleads for sinners; with
His wounded brow He appeals to the covenant of
mercy. " Behold; I am the victim," He says; "I
am taking this tempted sinner under my care and
guidance, suffer me to reason with him; let me
speak to his conscience by the mouth of my ambassadors; let me put. my spirit upon him, and
anoint him for my servant;- I will be his security
till grace has done its utmost; Spare my people,
spare for my blood's sake the penitent, the struggling, the unwitting enemy of God."  And the
gifts and graces freely shed upon rebellious man
attest the efficacy of this Great Intercessor's unwearied prayer for man.
But here is the man that turns the grace of God
into sin, that tastes the gift and owns the heavensent supply, and yet creates out of this mercy only
an argument to harden himself in sin. Christ can-.not own him as a being untried by grace; Christ




PRA CTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.      415
cannot plead for him as a servant endeavoring to
keep. his fidelity; Christ cannot pray for grace
where grace is useless, grace is denied. No; the
very compassions of a Saviour are rejected, the
spirit of God is refused admission, grace is willfully, knowingly, deliberately made of no effect,
and even an intercessor has no appeal to make, no
voice on his behalf to utter, except to deny that
such a pretended servant and favorite has any lot
among the righteous.  It is decreed before the
Father, " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him
alone."  Compunctions do not come, shame comes
not, the-end of the dream comes not, the renewing
Spirit comes not, God's approving voice comes
not.
He sleeps,-sleeps in his infatuation, sleeps with
his false dream of safety, sleeps on the ribs of a
volcano; sleeps till the last judgment morn opens
to his appalled vision, the record of every accusing
sin, with no Christ to stand between him and the
accusation.
You knew that I was your Saviour, yet you sinned; you knew that I gave you grace to live righteously, yet you sinned; you knew that I snatched
you out of the miseries of guilt, yet you sinned;
you knew that I pleaded for you, to give you help
in being holy, yet you sinned; you knew that I
must desert those who refused obedience, yet you
sinned. Behold, ye angels; behold, ye risen dead,
here is the paltry gain, here is the empty, hollow
pleasure that tempted an immortal spirit to deny
the King of Glory and put Him to an open shame.




416       PRACTICE VERSUS PROFESSION.
Behold, ye witnessing angels, here is the wicked
soul that claimed to. be mine, claimed to be the
delegate of my will.
Dideye eat and drink in my presence? did I
teach in your streets? I tell you, I know you not,
whence ye are.
When we feel us cold and drear,
We have now some friendly ear
To alleviate our fear.
Who a pitying ear will bend,
If the Judge be not our friend
In our everlasting end?




XXXVII.
YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.EXODUS xxii. 21.' Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him."
T HE Jews were of opinion that this commandment was especially imperative, because it
was repeated no less than twenty-one times
in the Books of the Law. As a prohibition, it was
of peculiar obligation upon them, on account of
its defining the limit to which their separation from
strangers could extend. But as implying a course
of conduct directly the reverse of the acts prohibited, its obligation is upon Christian principles
increased. They were required to refrain from
molesting the stranger. Their system of religion
was national and exclusive. Their rights came by
lineage.  The bond of blood. was their highest
source of privilege. Kindred by flesh were their
only brethren. And their law was built, not upon
*the common rights of all men as equals, but upon
the special favors enjoyed by their nation. Their
toleration of strangers was in commemoration of
their sojourn as strangers in the land of Egypt.
It was in compliance with their condition of separation from the rest of mankind, that the taunting
I8*                    (4I7)




4I8         YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.
~or oppression of strangers was laid under inhibition.
Christian brotherhood recognizes, indeed, especial claims in the household of faith; but it limits
its charity by no demarcations of blood. Its great
love is for the soul, and that, by its immortality
and its excellency, embraces all the inferior distinctions of the body.  The principle of generosity which thus entered into the Jewish system
as a restraint, becomes, in the Christian system, an
impulse and a law. The stranger was an object
of protection by special provision; he is now an
object of care and interest by special obligation.
There are, perhaps, as many indications of the
active philanthropy now required in our book of
Christian precepts, as the twenty-one indications
of prohibition discovered by the Jews. Whatever
their number may be, there is distinct demand of
the duty.
How often do Apostles rescue from the oblivion
of human selfishness, that virtue of patriarchal
times and of angelic blessing, hospitality.  How
often do they draw' the distinction between the
luxury of a re'vel,,and the simplicity of social
generosity. How often do they read us through
the circle of kindness to men, until the Christian
law is summed up in the twin precepts to love the
brotherhood and honor all men.  And that we
might have no suspicion that strangers were left
unprotected by the abrogation of Jewish statutes,
our.Saviour republished the law, and made it to
stand till judgment-day, and threw a pall of warn



YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.            4 9
ing over it, intimating that, when He took the seat
of a judge, one article of indictment would be that
He, in the person of one of the least of His
brethren, came as a stranger, and we entertained
Him not.
The sick' and the naked and the hungry are
no more the representatives of Christ than thestranger. His doctrine runs, at least, as high as
heathen morals.
It were unjust to treat with scorn the stranger.
"For all the poor that are,
And all the strangers, are the care of Jove."
In estimating, therefore, the nature of the offices
thus required of us, we are not to suppose that the
stranger will ever cease to be the object of Christian kindness.  Christ will continue to come in
that form, and every man will be judged according
to his demeanor towards this ambassador of God.
Nor are we to imagine that the convivial table of
profusion is the entertainment which Christ is seeking. He comes in the character which a stranger
symbolizes, unsheltered, exposed to wrong and
deception, formingyet his estimate of life and his
habits, cut off, in great measure, from  the natural
safeguards of a home, and depending upon the
offices of others for his escape from circumstances
of peril or pain.
It is not denied that the progress of civilization
has modified essentially the duties of hospitality.
Nor can it be doubted that a corresponding prog



420        YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.
ress in the art of imposture and the effrontery of
refined address has widened the breach of separation between men, and banished promiscuous hospitality from regions of Christian light and Christian crimes. It is more difficult to discriminate,
than when character was kept out of the polishinglathe of the world. The crime that has violated
the sacredness of hospitality, has compelled it to
erect its own safeguards. Throw men even now
into the circumstances that once surrounded primitive society, and you will see' the same virtue reproduced in the same forms. It is not dead, because it has lost its ancient form.  The same
spirit that prompted a simple hospitality, bends'
the features of refinement towards those who stand
in the place of strangers.
Let us take, for instance, the class of young men
who are thrown, by the present arrangements of
society and necessities of life, upon the resources
of kindness which Christian feeling renders to
strangers. Our larger commercial cities abound
with this class of most interesting objects for Christian care. And our inland towns must, in their
measure, contain the same elements. The mere
effect of our institutions promotes the growth of
this class. Young men are seldom, in this country,
contented with the space where their parents'
fortune has located them. They partake of that
which is the huge social vice of our times-aspiration. They long for what fashion and an arrogant
voice calls a higher level. If the quiet walks of
retirement have been the school of their boyhood,




YOUNG AMEN STRANGERS.        421
they must urge their way into the theatre of
crowded enterprise. If the advantages of wealth
and plenty have satiated their boyhood and been
dissipated in amusement, they will hanker for
positions of display, and'plunge into some metropolis of refined dissipation. Whatever the taste,
whether for business or for gayety, the town and
the city attracts to itself armies of young men.
In their position of novel employment, they are,
in all respects, strangers.  Acquaintances may
surround them, and society may be opened to
them, but they are classed by the influences to
which they are subjected, and so far as any conservative control is concerned, they stand in the
position of strangers. Home! that charmed circle
of hallowed influences! is deserted by them. They
may have a roof, they may have the eyes of kindred upon them, but their ambition is to break
away from the restraints of domestic power. They
are not without God in the world, but they are
the next thing to it, because in heart and will they
are without a home. They have thrown themselves upon the bosom of fortune, hopeful and
bold and determined, and the bosom of quiet affection tying us to contentment and prudence and
modesty, and care of ourselves on account of
others, is purposely and proudly deserted. The
first struggle costs pain, but the unhardened nature
soon complies, and the soul, whose whole education has been due to the tender vigilance of home,
thinks that it is the happy life of independence to
work out manliness apart from home. The by



422         YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.
words and the cant phrases'and the swollen vernacular of this new homeless life are learned, and
it is natural to talk in this dialect as smoothly as a
Mormon in his unknown tongue. The young
man'makes himself, thus, by' his very energy and
force,-a stranger in the land. He is astray from
those inclosures which confined his boyhood.
This change is not the whole. He has not only
-lost the guardianship of natural affections, but he
has cut the strands of influence that once guided
him, and is in the way of new influences to direct
or to fetter his character.  Were he launched
among the shoals and reefs of society as an experienced navigator, we should have little apprehension of his danger.  But, unfortunately, he
undertakes to manage the helm' of an immortal
destiny at the precise period when his imagination
is most easily lured by appearances, while his
judgment is least fortified by experience. He
knows neither the world nor himself. A thousand
suggestions of conceit now entangle his steps,
which, in maturer life, he would trample in the
dust. His danger lurks for him. If he shuns
many perils, he may be lost in the'last. Associates
that mean no harm, and associates of deeper craft
will betray him. He cannot select his company,
for he has not the skill; and when he begins to
define his circle, it is already drawn for him by
others' tastes and others' interests. The wassailbowl sparkles here. The painted smile of lust bewitches there. The gaming-table spreads its mystic charms. Laziness chains him  to the bed of




YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.          423
Sunday neglect.  The strut of foppery engages
his emulous mimicry.  Carousal promises to
soothe the weariness of labor. Frivolous reading
tempts *his vacant mind. And if in dull and hard
resistance to the solicitations of profligacy, and
the natural vivacity of youth, he spurns the
temptation of the prodigal, then:comes from the
darkened side of his nature a temptation lighted
by no blessing of God, the passion to be rich.
Meshes of evil encompass the young man. His
safety he thinks to lie in his spirit of nobleness
and independence; but age teaches him that it lay
in his principles and in the defence of God.
Little does that young man, modestly assuming
the tasks of life  little does he dream  of the
trembling anxiety that quivers upon the heartstrings of a father. Little does he dream of that
agony of prayer with which a mother implores the
protecting arm of God to shield him. In his situation of exposure (unconscious exposure), with the
deceits and the ambushes of a strange land around
him, with a danger at every step of which he
knows nothing by experience, he is, in his unprotected and hazardous- condition, as a stranger in
our streets.
But his peculiar claim upon our interest does
not terminate even here. When we pass to consider his relation to that most important transaction'of life, our religious duty, we have reason to
regard the young man as emphatically under the
misfortune of a stranger. To our religious duty
we are fastened by nothing so much as by habit.




424        YOUNG MENAT STRANGERS.
Excitement will last as the dew lasts, till the sun is
up, but habit is like the river that, in the heat of
noontide, sends up the vapors that make its own
supply. Habit is lost in the restive change which
the young man seeks. Whether among the influences of home, or in the ssolation of a strange
society, the young man, loosening the bonds of
boyhood, is too likely, and is quite certain, if his
principles have been weakly formed, to disrobe
himself of his religious habits. With this proneiess, let him be, at the same time, among strangers;
let him lose the law of the fireside which summoned
all, both young and old, to the sanctuary of God;
let his merry hours be so many, or his passions so
strong, that. he cannot bear sober discourse; let
him hear the profane tongue and the censorious
misanthrope and the ignorant scoffer charging
upon religion itself the abuse of it which men
exhibit; let him count the many of his own age
overcome of temptation, and the few that are wise
for eternity; let him come to see that wealth neglects God and talent carps at the wisdom of God,
and fashion only makes a convenience of religion;
let him lose that persuasive power of holiness
which is found in seeing its daily triumph over the7
vexations of the household and its patient earnestness through the practical difficulties of life, in
silent, meek, unostentatious retirement; let him
miss the sympathy without which one cannot receive and enjoy and digest the great truths and
the magnificent hopes of religion, and what term
so exactly expresses the religious loneliness of the




YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.          425
young man as that which imports a species of
banishment mingled with a degree of danger-a
stranger in a strange land.
Here, then, my brethren, is an object that not
only needs, but, under sanctions oiour own eternal
gain or loss, demands a Christian interest. We
owe it to society that these strangers, which form
a portion of every community, should be attracted
to the house of God, and encouraged in every
good deed which their conscience approves. We
owe it to them that they should be made to act a
part in the work of religion. The thronged haunts
of debauchery, and the withering frown of God
upon our religious efforts, and the swelling multitude of men that live respectably and honestly,
and yet live as if religion was a fable and
Christ a preacher of false alirms-these are the
fruits of a system which began by neglecting the
child, and blossomed in leaving the stranger to
perish.
Is the fault in the clergy? Then were they
blind leaders of the blind. But I do not admit the
accusation.  Christian society has been in error.
It has looked at the ripened power of the world,
instead of the buds that might be nourished. It
has been behind its work, and attempted to prop
the weak things, when it should have aimed at the
sources of power, and laid up future strength by
preserving and sanctifying these. When Cataline
was designing his monstrous mischief, he did not
tamper with senators and bribe a decaying power
in the realm. He won, and he instigated, and he




426        YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.
owned the young men of the city, and the pillars
of the empire were in his hands.
My-Christian friends, I have taken this class of
strangers in society as but an instance to indicate
how the duty of care and Christian watch over
strangers still continues.
There are other classes in society that stand in
similar circumstances of peril and dependence.
There are the humble poor-of little account in
the statistics of the fashionable world, but noble
by the patent of heaven, and received before
angels as kings and priests unto God-there are
brethren who ask not to trespass upon your intimacy, but claim your countenance of complaisant humility as you hope to look upon that poor
man who reigns in heaven-there are wanderers
from distant shores,'who would seek here the same
altar that fed their forefathers with the bread of
life, and claim no nearer approach to you than to
kneel with you beneath God's roof- there are
widowed Christians and needy children that plead
the trepidation of a stranger's heart in excuse of
their exile from privileges of the soul.
Think not that the minister of God is alone or
chiefly interested in this duty to strangers. Every
conscience confesses that the punishment will be
wide as the offence. Prophecy lifts its finger of
threatening, and points to the woes of the past
and the dismal horizon of the future. In the past
looms up the scene of a land that had devoured
strangers, and, in the sequel, strangers devoured
it. Prophecy traces upon its scroll the fearful de



YOUNG MEN STRANGERS.         427
nunciation, "I will send a famine in the land, not
a famine of bread, nor a thirst for watfer, but of
hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall
wander from sea to sea, and from the north even
to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the
word of the Lord, and shall not find it."
And what is that veil which now covers the
heart of Israel but the judgment upon a people
vexing and oppressing strangers? And what is
the dispersed race, once covenanted in Canaan,
but a living witness sent around the earth to show
what they would not themselves believe, that the
oppression of the stranger would bring a whirlwind to "scatter them among all nations whom
they knew not?"




XXXVIII.
GREAT FAITH-THE CENTURION.
ST. MATT. Viii. IO.
"When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel."
THE Gospels appointed for the Epiphany Sundays are arranged upon a plan that will disclose itself to any careful observer. They
are in fact successive Epiphanies, or manifestations
of the Redeemer's glory. They begin with his
wisdom and understanding as a child, the juvenile
symptoms of the wonder that lay in his person,
and they touch upon those miracles which were
for the most part manifestations of his glory, conducting us through the manifestation of His Providence, leaving the wheat and tares to grow together until the harvest, and terminating with the
manifestations of His grandeur and majesty, when
He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
In the gospel for this day, two of our Saviour's
miracles are presented. In the account of the second of these, occurs His recognition of the spirit
and disposition, which gave occasion to the exercise of His beneficent Omnipotence. The disposi(428)




GREA T FAITH —THE CENTURION.    429
tion and character of the man for whose sake the
miracle was performed,- the psychological structure and the whole bent of feeling in this man,what distinguished him and made him the magnet
to draw out divine virtue for his benefit,-this is,
so far as we are concerned, the lesson and point of
the history. As a manifestation of the Christ, there
is another leading intention in it. From this miracle it appears that He was able to speak the word
only and the sufferer should be healed,-that there
was no real occasion for His contact with the object or His view of the object that needed His
power, although there was here, as on other occasions, a waiting for the proper disposition and application on the part of some person concerned.
Yet as antecedent to this distant exercise of His
healing might, and as preparatory to the shining
forth of His Divinity, was the requisite of such
faith as He had not found in Israel. Even before
Christ can disclose His energy, man must be in a
fitness to receive it. Before the glory can be, manifested, there must be a soul of faith to attract the
glory. It is not suffering that challenges this intervention of the Godhead,-it is not the extremity
of the sickness or the hardship of the case or the
mere effluence of pity, that causes God to act and
manifest Himself; so much as it is the mannerin
which Christ is supplicated, and the spirit that
prompts the petition to Him, and the character of
the man who begs for the aid. Thus the benevolence of our Redeemer is relieved of that impulsive,
precipitate, indiscriminating appearance which at



40 ^    GREA' TFAITH- THE CENTURION.
taches to almost all of human goodness. It is not
an emotion merely,-not'a mere habit of being
touched with the sight and sound of sorrow. It is
discerning, wise, sagacious pity,-full of heart and
full of judgment, quick to perceive a merit wherever it exists, and too great for the little slurs of
prejudice and partiality.
Looking beyond these qualifications of the act
of Christ, we are directed to the qualifications of
the centurion, who drew from the Divine Witness
the panegyric, "I have not found so great faith,
no, not in Israel."
To apprehend the force of this commendation,
we must survey the incidents that gave rise to it.
By comparing the accounts of this miracle as
given by the two Evangelists, it seems that an officer of the foreign corps which ruled the Jewish
Province, had broken from the heathen and polytheistic bonds of his education. He was one of
that class which Providence had raised up in every
metropolis of civilization. Abjuring the name and
mythic religion of their fathers, they sought of the
Hebrew Jehovah, that better truth, and tha't nearer
approach to life which might reach them in the
courts of the proselyte. At Rome, at Tarsus, at
Antioch,-in every region where the wandering
Jew had come in commercial contact with the refined Gentile, proselytes had confessed the glimmer
of hope to themselves that was shining through the
types and figures of the Temple. They were everywhere the waiting spirits that hailed the word of
life. Adherents of the Judaism they had espoused,




GREA T FAITH-THE CENTURION.    431
they were easily won to the higher philosophy that
came in the preaching of faith. This centurion
was one of these waiting proselytes.  -He had
thrown the fervor of an honest zeal into the religion
he embraced. Conscious as he seems to have been
of its deficiencies, and ready as he seems to recognize a more profound system, he yet devotes himself in his providential position to the furtherance
of religious measures. By birth a heathen, he is by
generosity the builder of a synagogue. The servant of this centurion lay at his house palsied and
ready to die. Messengers are dispatched to Jesus,
invoking his aid. ~ The -messengers fulfill their errand with an added urgency, suggesting of their
own mind that his favor to the Jews-his regard
for their religion-ought to recommend him. But
the centurion's sense of his own unworthiness and
of Christ's greatness, disdained such intercession.
He will not ask for the Redeemer to come beneath
his roof. There is no need that the Master of all
forces should condescend. " Speak the word only,"
is his entreaty; and as' if to map out the impressions of his own thoughts, he likens the power of
Jesus in the supernatural world to his own command amid the discipline of the camp. It was the
mere conception of a soldier,-whose idea of authority was framed upon the model of.peremptory
command. In his mind, the -higher the rank the
less the condescension allowable. It was anomalous
in his view of superiority that the greater should
come down to serve the less. There was nothing in
his tuition to authorize an application for the per



432     GREA T FAITH- THE CENTURION.
sonal presence of Christ under his roof. He was
a man under authority, by no means the chief and
by no means irresponsible, and yet it was his wont
to say, Do this, and it was done.  Evidently his
appeal to Christ was full of the conviction that
every power that could reach his servant's misery
was at the command of this Redeemer. He pictured the Miraculous Teacher as a Supreme Governor among the hidden agents of Divine power.
There was no reservation of uncertainty or skepticism. His whole manner was the exhibition of
complete and unreserved confidence in Christ.
Abandoning all such pleas of merit, as that he was
a proselyte, and that he had an honorable name
among all classes, and that he had built a synagogue, and that he was seeking a mercy for another and not for himself,-abandoning all such
arts of recommendation, he uncovers a heart full
of trust in the power of Jesus and therefore empty
of pride in himself. To see a heathen man, and a
soldier, and a bearer of authority, thus carried into
the earnestness of humble, child-like, honest importunity for his servant, was a scene at which Jesus
marvelled.  He detected the real source of this
character. He knew out of what such a man was
made. He could penetrate the virtues that lay on
the surface, and tell what was the leading principle
that shaped such a man into such a character. And
drawing the true wisdom from the fact, He says to
them that follow Him, " I have not found so great
faith, no, not in Israel."
Now the real difficulty of this history is in that




GREA T FAITH- THE CENTURION.    433
effect upon the mind of Christ, which is described
as His marvelling. The expression implies a surprise and a wonder,-as if something had crossed
His view which was both unknown anl unexpected. But how can surprise and wonder to this degree be predicated of One who knew what was
in man, and could foresee as well as discern the
thoughts of the heart. And how shall we dare to
outforce Scripture itself, and assert that the scene
was no occasion of marvel to Jesus in His Divine
nature, but was so described as affecting his humanity,-how can we so untie the knot without
coming in peril of the Nestorian heresy, or breaking Christ into two personalities?
I take it, therefore, to be obvious that there was
an exceeding excellence of character in this centurion, and that the supernatural was joined with his
natural traits and. had produced in him a disposition that transcended common virtue and natural
goodness. The marvel of Jesus was but the recognition of this Divine power at work upon his soul,
-the knowledge of which Christ had of something
more than man in the character this centurion had
attained. It was not the higher traits of human
nature that surprised the discernment of Jesus. It
was the discovery of a character which was to
Christ the token of God's work upon the soul, and
God's indwelling there. The miraculo.us was manifest to Jesus in that centurion's heart, and He
marvelled before man could see that there was occasion. So that from every point of view, we are
directed to the traits of this centurion as the real
I9




434     GREA T FA ITH- THE CENTURIOiV.
origin of the healing miracle. Now we do not say
that this man of faith had been overpowered of
God, and had merged his human traits into a supernatural *character. We only allege that the
greatest miracle, as Jesus looked upon things, was
such a man. His eye beheld more wonders in that
which God wrought upon the centurion's soul,
than in that which God wrought upon the paralytic's body. The surprising and transcendant act in
Jesus's estimation, was God's forming a heathen
sinner into such a believer. That was to the eye
of Christ the primary and the overtopping'wonder.
Nothing that could be done to men's bodies was so
wonderful. Nothing that was asked at His hands
was so grand and august and magnificent. No, the
strengthening of those failing limbs,-the reviving
of that palsied frame was as nothing in comparison
with the life and throb that had come into the soul
of a heathen and a sinner. There was healing indeed. There was life from the dead,-and life the
more sublime because it was'moral and spiritual,and life the more wonderful, because it was immortality that had been dead.  Oh, greatest of
miracles, mightiest of wonders,-the soul of man
inhabited of God, the dead in trespasses made alive
by faith!
And here is the centre towards which all the
rays of glory in this miracle converge. They were
all intended only to make sure and to make conspicuous the fact that God's great miracle was His
work upon the soul of sinful man. My brethren,
let the theme touch our own sympathies. There is




GREA T FAITH- THE CENTURION.    435
nothing greater to be transacted in heaven or earth,
-in time or eternity, than this which God would
every day transact in our souls. Would you have
a miracle? Would you have a sign from heaven?
Behold a greater marvel, when grace forms the
sinner. No word of Jesus lifting the palsied sufferer from his woe,-no trump of archangel waking the lifeless body from its silent grave,-is so
mighty, so marvellous, so fit to sweep the convictions of men into obedience, as the wonder of grace
shaping the soul into so great faith.
But what was it that evinced this greatness of
faith, this excellence passed upon the soul of the
centurion? The history reveals many adjuncts and
embellishments of faith, many a trait that made the
man illustrious and praiseworthy and in favor with
his generation. There was some gleam of this
kindly disposition in the favor which he showed to
the Jews, and in the piety that erected the synagogue. There was a brighter way in the humility
and modesty of the man. But as we draw our
conclusions from Scripture and not from conjecture, the inspired hand points us to two especial
constituents of character which justified the encomium of Christ.
His great faith was evinced most distinctly in
his love for man. There was a sense of the high
and great capacities of our nature which drew towards acts of exceeding kindness, humanity and
nobleness. So our Saviour treats him. So He
evidently regarded the faith of this centurion. "As
thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." But




436     GREAT FA ITH- THE CENTURION.
how done unto him, except as he had made the suffering of the servant his own, and absorbed himself
in the feeling of humanity?
The sufferer that roused all the sympathy of
this centurion, was his servant, such as at that day
it was unusual even to treat with humanity, and
Cicero was obliged to excuse himself to his friends
because he grieved at the death of such in his
household. But this centurion counted this man
as himself, and had no thought that Christ would
scruple to send His healing power into that subaltern rank of life. And when we consider that this
applicant was a soldier, and accustomed to the separations of class and rank, the'simplicity and the
fervor of his humane feelings are the more to be
remarked.
My brethren, it is "faith" that binds this world
together,-faith in the capacity of man for something better than an everlasting round of sin and
vanity and sorrow. And I very much doubt
whether the blessed Jesus looks with any complacency upon those great pretensions to faith that'are devoid of lively humanity,-that think much of
their own rectitude in life and doctrine and look
down upon the mass of men. That was the kind
of mind which Israel at that day applauded and
produced.
The other.constituent of greatness in this soul
was his sense of authority. He deemed it the
mark of a Saviour to be not only good and gracious, tender and pitiful, but carrying the power
of command. He believed that Jesus wrought by




GREA T FAITH- THE CENTURION.    437
messengers and ministers and servants, and this
faith was uppermost in his, thoughts and in his
speech,-and elicited the approval of the master,
"I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."




X XXIX.
THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.*
PRov. x. 7.
"The memory of the just is blessed."'TO  recognize the merits and recollect the favors,
of personal benefactors is a duty indispensable
to any character claiming the ordinary measures of virtue. Public benefactors whose sacrifices
were conspicuous and whose contributions to the
public good were eminent, should be cherished in
the memory of men and recorded upon the tablets
of an  imperishable  gratitude.  Civilization  has
everywhere erected its monumental lithographs of
this sentiment, or inscribed its sculptured testimony
to this sacred claim. The highest culture of our
race in Christian sanctity has not discountenanced
nor repealed this edict of the human heart as its
gratitude emerges from barbaric stupor. Obelisks
solidified against oblivion the ornate eulogies of a
cultured age. The rude cromlech in Wales, and
Devonshire, and the continent attests that Druidical religion- consecrated the memory of heroes.
* This and the following were preached in commemoration of
Rev. Dr. Andrews, fourteen years rector of Christ Church, Binghamton.                                   J. G. W.
(438)




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.          439
The history carved upon the rock in Nineveb, and
illustrated with brilliant pigments upon the corridors of Luxor and Thebes, or inscribed with lavish
art upon triumphal arches exhibits the effort to
perpetuate the honor of signal deeds and the
worthies who performed them. Events survive in
their effects, but names pass into silence. Gratitude
assumes the form of justice, when embellishing the
record and prolonging the praise of those who have
deserved better than to be forgotten. Such is the
perverseness of our nature that many excellencies
must wait. for posthumous honor. Bacon has expanded the idea in these words, "The name of
good men, after envy is extinguished  (which
cropped the blossom of their fame while they were
alive) presently shoots up and flourisheth; and
their praises daily increase in strength and vigor."
It was accordingly the proverb of the wise man,
who had penetrated to the core of human experience, that " the memory of the just is blessed," or
as the Septuagint gives it with still greater exactness, " The memory of the just is xwith encomiums."
Nor does that voice of wisdom pause with this
echo of Providerace, but duplicates the hope of the
righteous by denouncing the curse of time against
splendid sin, "So I saw the wicked buried, who
had come and gone from the place of the holy, and
they were forgotten in'the city where.they had so
done."
A memory growing in sacredness is but the
legitimate sequel of a life that was growing in holiness. And if all nations that were bold in character




440         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
or polished in acquirements have provided for enduring testimony to that which was most glorious
in their estimate, we are not surprised at the same
principle in Christianity accumulating praise upon
the memory of sacred functions meritoriously discharged, and of exalted purposes intrepidly pursued.
Inspired teachers could not remit this to the sure
impulses of our Christian gratitude or sagacity.
They inculcated it as a part of our practical religion. And they placed it in no obscure part of our'
spiritual structure, but made -it a kind of cement
between two courses, putting contentment on one
side, and steadfastness on the other, while between
them is this injunction, the riatural bond between
patient trust in God and patient stability in His
doctrine. "Remember them which have the rule
over you, who have spoken unto you the word of
God, whose faith follow, considering the end of
their conversation: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."
Nor is there less force in this precept because it
concerns both the living and the departed teacher.
It is only the more impressive when it links in the
same clasp of regard the present lpastor who needs
our emotions of affection- and respect, and the rewarded tenant of Paradise.who needs no more
than that his example and his recompence should
be our incentives to follow him into rest.
To sanctify the memory is the grand office of the
gospel. This treasuring and preserving faculty is
the chief token of our immortality. It is this that
carries the present into the future, into eternity.




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.         441
To' save the memory from torpor and from torture
is eminently man's salvation. And Christ's work
is omnipotently our salvation, because it compasses
both these effects, giving us eternal life that implies
no extinction of memory, and making that life to
grow out of pardon, out of sins forgiven, forgotten,
washed away, so that memory might be felicity,
might be rest. It was congruous with Hiswhole
work of salvation, therefore, to pronounce the great
object and benefit of the Spirit's coming to be that
"He should brihg all things to our remembrance."
A dispensation of the flesh might be satisfied wvithgiving us enjoyment, and rolling us perpetually
from world to world of pleasure. But a dispensation of the Spirit is not represented by this mere
succession of novelties, this forgetting one and finding another delight. It animates and cherishes the
memory, and it stimulates our trust in God not by
the dream of what we expect, but by the transporting sense of what has been conferred. The AllWise Redeemer of our nature fitted His gospel to
its end when He appointed the highest act of
worship to be the showing forth our devotion " in
remembrance" of Him, and made it the test of
well-adjusted virtues, that they were ready to
crystallize themselves into this mode of commemorating and honoring the Greatest of Benefactors.
I need not ramble among the vestiges of exhausted empires, I need not clamber among the
ruins of Athens and Karnac, I need not kindle my
torch of exploration to decipher the epitaphs of the
catacombs. Let me but enter the sanctuary of the
19*




THE FAITHEFUL RECTOR.
442
Christian's resort, and the altar which bespeaks
alike his duty and his privilege reminds me that no
elevation of man exalts him above the obligation to
preserve the name and the praise of the world's
benefactors. And if no chiselled marble reproves
the forgetfulness of man, and obscurity veils on
earth what shall be as the sun in the heavens, yet
is there a record which flames before the eyes of
angels, and of which the Psalmist spoke, "The
righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
We thus array before our minds our justification
in the grateful tribute of honor to the worthy departed. Vindication of our act in this specific
instance is superfluous. The vestry of this parish
have merely given expression to the public sentiment which they represent. The paltriest measures
of worldly calculation would deem it due to fourteen years of half-requited services that some
appreciation of the generous and self-devoting
spirit should survive the gifted labor.  But the
high admiration of a congregation that once basked
amid the glow of a fervid eloquence, and was
elated with the consciousness of feeding upon the
product of extraordinary talent, cannot content
itself with merely rendering sculptured praise for
the ministry of wisdom  and salvation.  Higher
motives swell our hearts, and more reverential
regard engraves itself upon our record.  The
Divine commission which He bore, the gracious
trust of the gospel which Ile dispensed, the
Heavenly Master whom He served, the sublime
model which His words pourtrayed, and the all



THE FAITiHFUL RECTOR.           443
enduring patience to which His life through infirmity and injury aspired, these elevating topics
cluster in halo around His memory, and snatch oui
souls from  grovelling thoughts.  We interpret
symbol and syllable under this solemnizing dictation. The tablet itself announces to us, and will
declare from generation to generation, that honor
is due to the faithful witness for the faith once
delivered to the saints.
" Nam te voluit Rex Magnus Olympi
Talibus auspiciis exhortem ducere honorem."-'_EN. v. 533-4.
The voiceless dead thus speaks again.  The
testimony of His death prolongs the proclamation of His life. It is in fitting consonance with
this record of His Pastorate, that the inscription
which is personal has been placed upon the
four-leaved figure commanding the centre of the
tablet.  The four contiguous circles so blending symbolize the glorious gospel, committed to us
by four evangelists, designed for diffusion in the
four quarters of the globe, represented by the four
living beings before the throne, and first typified
by the four emblematic banners that conducted the
Israel of the olden redemption. The same symbolism reappears in the surmounting cross. It is
the summit of our rejoicing, and the signal of our
hope. Death throws a dark shadow upon it, but
neither neutralizes nor debases it. The cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ is our glory, and we place it
above every other emblem of our faith, nor thus as




444         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
if some detached object belonging not to the lines
of our humanity, but as gathering into itself from
either side both portions of our nature, atoning for
Jew and Gentile, reconciling the heavenly and the
earthly, appealing to the righteous and the ungodly, and sum-ming up both in one. And whether we
view it in one or other of its three aspects, the
Trinity of the Godhead is concerned in every
aspect and the triplicity of our nature is regarded
by it at all times, whether we are considering the
love of God manifested in'the crown of the
cross, or the saintly examples of patience which
its right hand presents, or the sympathy with
the sinner which its left hand holds forth to the
penitent.
Lest the doctrine so compressed in symbol should
be misinterpreted, we bring out in bold relief as a
part of the solid substance of our system, so prominent that it cannot be pared down, and so vitally
important that it projects between the cross and its
preacher, the I. H. S., the sermon in stone, which
assigns-this to be our hope that the salvation derived from the cross, becomes personally our own,
by our living, genuine union with Christ. Humari
history completes itself in three brief chapters, a
birth, a life, a death, and all of life a mere parenthesis between eternities. But grace indites history by.its own method, and shuddering not at death
deems it. no interruption of that life which passes
from pain to peace, from toil to rest. Perhaps
some messenger of grace may convey tidings to
that reposing soul. We must record as modestly




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.           445
as his own keen sensibilities would have dictated.:l
No fulsome eulogy insults the humility of the enraptured soul. Human praise, and human blame
are equally impotent where the approbation of
God is joy eternal. "It is required in stewards,
it is demanded of these dispensers of the mysteries
of God, that a man be found faithful," and we record all that the book of remembrance will exact,
fidelity to the master, fidelity to the conscience,
fidelity to the flock. Far beyond looms the day of
reward. The Sun of Righteousness ushers in this
golden radiance. The blood-stained cross vindicates its -purpose. Brilliant, untouched by one
dark line, blood-bought, and therefore precious is
that inheritance which lies beyond the veil. We
behold it only by faith. But the hope does salute
our vision. That we cannot dismiss. It is deeprooted in the promises of God, and we put it at the
base of all our consolations, it is emphasized by the
utterance of the Everlasting Lamb, the Light of
the New Jerusalem', the Sun of the Universe, and
like golden flashes'of the eternal morn it gleams
upon the eye.
So much of doctrine inculcated by symbol do
we attach to our memorial of the faithful departed.
These lessons will live on for our descendants and
for stranger's sons, the stereotyped instructions of
his faith and of our delight to honor it and him.
Under the Divine protection these walls will shelter centuries of men, and these marble tongues
will speak when our frail tenements are forgotten
dust.




446          THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
"Be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know."
WORDSWORTH'S POEMS OF IMAG., iii. 270.
What, then, is the tradition that is to be transmitted as our recognition of the work Providentially performed by that honored servant of God?
The answer involves some review of the career
and the traits of that eminent Christian minister.
We will not undertake the detail of events in which
he mingled. That becomes the Biographer. That
may illumine the chronicles of the Church.  We
are rather occupied with the general impression
produced by his character, or with the peculiarities which help us to appreciate his qualities.
There are two elements which always enter into
the constitution of individual character, and which
must qualify our judgment of its merits. -These
important constitutions are first.the natural endowments, what might be called the original forces of
the person, and secondly the circumstances that
occur to soothe his powers.
Neither natural gifts, nor surrounding circumstances altogether make the man. They only show
him. forth. The real manufacture is in the amount
of increase which his own effort gives to the natural gift, and to the accidental advantage.
Among those native energies which our reverend
friend possessed, we are not to omit a warm affec



THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.          447
tionateness of disposition, and innate integrity of
heart. The combination of these traits produces a
candour and fervour of manner, which does not
always escape criticism, although it carries power.
Such early buddings out of strong soil must take
the risk of frosty blasts. They hasten to maturities
of feeling and of conviction towards which the
slow world has scarcely turned. In outstripping
much that is good, much that is wise, they incur
the censure of being precipitate and over-heated.
That is only their occasional danger. Ordinarily
they display a character which endears friends, and
grapples them with hooks of steel. They feel the
ardors of undissembled friendship, and they impart
the same. Their honest purpose extenuates their
infirmities, and the glow of their nature rebukes
the chilly reserve that purchases safety at the expense of a torpid and unfeeling heart.
It was such material that furnished the leading
champions of our new-born gospel. Peter in his
vehemence, Paul in his unquenchable zeal, were
chosen to their chieftainship because they had too.
much of heartiness and too much of magnetic glow
in their nature to be cool calculating machines. It
was not painful to them to be in the lead if their
solitude was only the incident of their integrity.
Dispassionate and phlegmatic reasoners might exclaim in pitying tone-" Much learning doth make
thee mad;" but wisdom that is to madness close
allied would reply-" I speak the words of truth
and soberness."  We may be justified in terming
this compound of sobriety and warmth, a kind of




448         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
natural enthusiasm. In half-enlightened and shallow souls it is rashness and temerity, and with them
it makes ruinous leaders and mischievous followers.
But give to this natural enthusiasm the power of
experience, and the advantages of discipline and
the momentum of robust intellect, and you have
the fortitude of an Athanasius, the probity of a
Washington, alacrity in good that emulates Gabriel, and sincerity in zeal that imitates Paul. Men
may spurn its bodily presence as weak; they may
decry its speech as contemptible; but they cannot
dispute its magnetic attraction, they cannot. refute
its argument of affection. I speak of our venerable
and lamented brother as one whose acquaintance
was more limited than your own, as one familiar
with only the later phases of his last tremulous
months.  But I surely did not mistake  him.
Such enthusiasm amid the apathies of decline
could not have blossomed in the frosts of age
unless it had permeated every fibre of his life.
Petty peevishness may be the moss that grows
upon the remains of an amiable life. But deep disgusts and sturdy indignation are the later throbs of
a heart which has been exuberant in its affections
and ardent without dissimulation.
Nature was not niggardly towards him, for
nature intended him for honorable achievements.
He was appointed to the office of a burning torch,
rather than the shining iceberg. His mission in
life was to warm and attract and conduct souls
eager for something that would encourage them
towards the wisest and the best, and not to startle




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.          449
by cold splendors their unloving exclamations of
wonder. His natural endowments and his providential duties were thus brought into harmony, and
grand forces grew up under his hand, and in their
Christian results, far as they were beyond his humble hopes, he found occasions for thanksgiving, and
we meet the ample blessing. Great gifts to man
dwell in crumbling habitations. Strong powers bring
great dangers. The mighty sway of the heart is
not compensated by proportionate strength in all
the faculties, and the gifted man with his resistless
emotions must sometimes be the roused volcano.
The ashes of his weakness must somewhere appear.
It may be in the surprises of grief; it may be in
the impetuosities of -indulgent affection; it may
be in the consternation of unexpected disappointment and defeat; it may be in the dreaded decrepitude of exhausted age. Whatever they may be,
they simply warn us what earthen vessels hold
these destined stars.
Perhaps there is no shock that so unstrings the
the fortitude of our nature as that which convulses
and overwhelms advancing age when we find nature itself withdrawing gifts and snatching away
the powers which are most treasured. When imagination drops the weary wing,-when memory is
treacherous to him that caressed her,-when the eloquent tongue is beggared into feeble tones,-when
the hungering affections must hover around silent
graves, and infirmities must hide themselves in
unfriended retirement,-then nature at last seems
to be deserting her favorite, and the portals of




450          THE FAITHFUL RECT'OR.
another vworld alone disclose the restoration and
replenishment of our impoverished hopes. Natures
once affectionate, and once beautiful in their sincerity, retire then by instinct more and more to the
pure  shelters of domestic peace.  They nestle
where the affections last decay, and where infirmity is only the more sacred.
Blessed are they who, like our greatly gifted
leader in these trusts from Christ can repose
amid the tranquillities of a home which filial tenderness made every day brilliant with affection,
and Christian zeal made.a daily residence for the
Spirit of God.
The sequel of his fate illustrates our description
of his nature. It was not strange that a life so
intense in its affections should droop when the
greatest sorrow came, and repressed vigor refused.support, and that desolated, disheartened nature
should quiver and sink breathless into the arms of
everlasting love.
A nature that found so much of royalty in wearing,he crown of patience, and revelled so luxuriously in the affluence of its affections, might echo
those unambitious lines which the humble curate
of Loweswater left inscribed upon his Parish
Register —
"Let him that would, ascend the tottering seat
Of courtly grandeur, and become as great
As are his mounting wishes; but for me
Let sweet repose and rest my portion be."




XL.
THE FAITHFULIcRECTOR.-II.
PROVERBS X. 7.
"The memory of the just is blessed."
IN our former view of the personal traits and
career of " the faithful rector," whose honor on
these walls is to your honor, we governed ourselves by the consideration that any wise estimate
of character must involve two entirely distinct
subjects. We accordingly occupied ourselves with
that which is first essential to an accurate measurement of character, the natural endowments, the
original forces of the person, his gifts of intellect
and of feeling. But as when we speak of one's
mind and heart, we cannot always draw a nice line
between what is due to nature and what comes by
acquirements and laborious use of nature's gifts,
so we put the whole result into one view, and awe
regard the excellencies of mind and the developments of disposition -o. one entire credit to the
man. You may call it nature's bounty to him, or
his own acquisition, but his it is, -and he praises
the God who gave and the God who helped, calling it all divine, while we honor the man for the
(45I)




452         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
result. In that respect we recognized in our reverend friend many occasions for highest praise.
We felt that God had greatly blessed this community in the long residence and the useful activities
of a man so rarely gifted and so capable of giving
brilliant display in the way of intellect, and oratory and learning. We admitted that there was a
new claim to the gratitude of this Parish for one
who could not merely shine when splendor was
needed, but was also warm and fervent in his feelings, and sent glows of ardor into other hearts,
and wielded this power the better and the more
permanently because it was so obviously in him
sincere, undisguised, undissembled. And yet the
halo which others- could perceive encircling the
traits of this reverend servant of God was that
which was all unobserved and unknown to him, the
radiant beauty of unaffected humility. These eminent qualities would not have commanded the admiration of all at any moment of his career, when
the question of his personal character was raised.
We are not always in the mood to render just or
generous judgment towards those living among
our own envies, ambitions, desires and competitions; our own gratification, or our own emoluments, may be the vaster elements in our judgment,
and we will judge of men more by our own ideal
of what we dream to be admirable, than by a fair
estimation of those gifts and powers which they do
possess.
There is, however, a second method of shaping
in our own view the real proportions and constitu



THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.            453
ents of personal character.. We dismiss our first
mode of regarding the long-admired and severelytried instructer and guide of this Parish, and we
address ourselves to what we proposed as the
second method of reaching a judgment that wouldbe true to the facts, and more likely to present the
peculiar traits of the distinguished man. This rel
quires us to recognize the circumstances that hung
close around his life, and in him as in all other
strong and gifted men, materially affects the exhibitions of power at least, and perhaps the mental
and moral powers themselves.
The first of these important circumstances is the
fact of his habituation to study, and to discipline,
and to the cultivation of the mind by contact with
ripe and great intellects from his earliest days.
Perhaps we do not all apprehend the force of this
fact. We are rather disposed to conclude that if
one eventually goes through a certain round of
studies, he learns and masters just that prescribed
amount, and it matters little at what age he travels
through the subjects. This is not the place for
discussing schemes of education, and I will, therefore, refrain from a controversy on the subject of
precocity. Suffice it to say, whether we pronounce
him to have been precocious or not, we deem some
of his most remarkable qualities to have been the
natural effect of early industry in scholarly tasks,
and early association with men of pure and careful
culture. From his birth at Ipswich, Mass., July
26th, I792, to his graduation in high honor at Harvard in I8IO, was an interval of but eighteen years.




454         TETILE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
It was thoroughly improved, and it set his mind in
its most pliable and impressible period among influences, that made learned pursuits a delight, and
the classic tone of language and illustration always
natural and pleasurable to him. Eight years of
unremitted study ensued upon his college course.
It conducted him first as a student at law, and
then as a practitioner, and afterwards, under the
impulses of religious conviction, as a theological
student to the twenty-sixth year of his life, when
he was licensed to preach, and despatched as a
missionary of the Presbyterian Board to itinerate
through Midland and Western New York.- We
thus observe that he ran up to mature manhood,
familiar with study, occupied with themes that
tasked his mental powers, and that came with a
succession the best calculated to interest his faculties, and to train his powers to their utmost. His
boyhood put the then prominent power of memory
to its best use. With such equipments of scholarship as fortify us against narrow notions on the
one side and against conceit on the other, he pushed
into those questions of social order, of property,
rights, and of evidence, which are embraced in the
study of law. But the law was his school-master
to bring him to Christ. It was with him as with
many minds, the prompt conclusion of conscience,
that mere law is not sufficient for man, but redeeming, sanctifying, comforting power must reach
him; not displacing law, but saving him by a new
heart, with the law of Christ as the focal power.
There is no difficulty in tracing the effects of these




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.           455 
circumstances upon the culfivation of our deceased
fi-end.  Early years devoted to liberal studies
leave an impress of delicacy and elegance upon
the mind, which will appear in all its productions.
They create a dis-relish for those blunter efforts,
and for those gaudy and sonorous forms of speech
which captivate the less educated, and in that respect early discipline in study places the scholar
at a disadvantage with the masses of men. He
begins to live from his youth upon a different
plan of taste and of imagination to that occupied
by minds not given to scholarship. What seems
to him simple and most appropriate and most forcible, falls upon minds unprepared to enjoy its
terseness or its classic allusions, and is obscure,
tame, feeble, distasteful, even while strongest and
clearest. And this would have been the result in
our eminent brother's attempts to bring his furnished mind into contact with the community that
waited for his Christian guidance. But other circumstances modified the result; let us bring these
into view.
The leading influence to modify mere scholarship was his early application to a subject so practical as the law. It deals, indeed, with abstract
principles, and has its abstrusities; but these must
immediately come into practical detail, they must
meet the world as it is. They cannot go dreaming
about an ideal man and an imaginary goodness;
the theory of law is good for nothing except as it
applies to the every day habits and the ordinary
sentiments of society. It was, therefore, fortunate




456         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
for our friend, with his acutenessof nature, that
he turned the very enthusiasm of his youth into
that school of law where he learned so thoroughly
not only how good and finished men feel and
speak, but how the great mass of society are influenced, and what disguises mask so much of human
nature. His natural sagacity became under this
tuition a kind of insight that penetrated man's motives, and looked keenly through them, while they
supposed all their secret purposes muffled up and
undiscovered.
Without this rare combination of power to please
the scholar and power to penetrate the schemes of
ordinary men, he could not have achieved that signal success which enabled him to command the
confidence of elements the most dissimilar and contradictory.  His educated taste. would have delighted in the choicest topics and the most faultless
treatment of them; but his legal training, especially
in his creditable efforts as a practitioner, showed
him that the human heart was not touched by
these exact and silvery sounds. And when it became his Calling and his hope to save men, he found
that he must leave the heights of Parnassus-and
rush into the smoke and the mire where they abode.
And yet those who witnessed his -struggles to rescue friends and neighbors from the darkness and
filth of their sins, will attest that he always appeared
as one who could not forget the exquisite diction
of the scholar, or the sharp phrases of the penetrative mind, or the beautiful imagery of a superior
intelligence. The most of us are content to thank




THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.          457
God that we are saved at all, and to leave to the
season of heavenly rewards our attainment of
knowledge and of faculty in some near approach
to such more gifted men.
We recognize the law, as the agent of the Spirit
of God, to produce that great change in his life's
purposes which directed his first manly thoughts
to the ministry of the gospel. But the influence of
this. legal pursuit lasted into another remarkable
change. The mercy of God was preparing him by
these processes for a powerful instrument towards
the vindication of God's Church. We in our impatience at God's slow plans, in our haste to leap
over God's preparations, would have thrust this
brilliant young scholar into the full trust of the
Church's ministry. To us this would have seemed
the grander triumph of'the truth, and the most
convincing testimony to our Episcopal ministry.
But God's ways were circuitous, and as we judge
them, less startling. Eight years of experience in
the Presbyterian ministry were needed to mature
that judgment and to test that conclusion which at
last brought him to Bishop Hobart for orders. He
had previously ministered in a Presbyterian Society
at Norwich, in Chenango Co., but was now undergoing the transition of his Christian relations, while
giving the benefit of his ripe scholarship to the
Oxford Academy as Principal.  And in this revolution of his Christian attachments, the same
controlling causes were at work which we have
already observed forming the texture of his character. }Had he devoted. himself to theologic study
20




458         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
without the preparations of the law, I extremely
doubt whether he would ever have repaired to the
Episcopal ministry. But the laws of human evidence well explored by him, and but little appreciated by the mere theologian, conducted his mind
logically to -the position which our Church maintains, that the Apos'tolic ministry was Episcopal,
that the Bishop's office as superior among ministers
is perpetual, and that Christ has never given man
the right to make a new Church instead of that
the Saviour gave them. The mind employed on
subjects of law may not by that be the better fitted
for examining or discussing doctrinal feuds which
depend upon spiritual insight and upon a lively
conscience, but the historical argument for the
form and authority of the Church as an organized
system, is especially conclusive to one who has
learned the laws of human testimony.
Yet the law so swayed the-mind of our reverend
friend that the fashion of Presbyterian doctrines in
his day repelled and converted him. The persuasion of his early education and his first adhesion
was the betraying the interior action of two contending principles. It was the old dogmatic orthodoxy, and the new system of Revivals, that were
warring in the body, and afterwards stood contentiously apart; as old school and new school.
There was a tendency towards the practical and
the sober in Dr. Andrews' views of religion, which
made both systems repugnant. His legal mind
could not acquiesce in those schemes of mechanical
excitement which travestied the majesty of Chris



THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.            459
tian emotion. His inclination through the law to
test all doctrines by their practical conclusions
could not submit to the dry, hard system of absolute decrees which stiff Calvinists were proclaiming
as the marrow of the gospel. From every side of
his nature he was thus impelled to seek -his repose
and his work, where his faith could rest, and his
conscience could apply his energy, in the bosom of
the church that showed to  him  the  Apostolic
features.
Under the ministry which now demanded his
glad sacrifices, his labors were manifold and singularly successful.
Christ church, Sherburne, owes its origin to
him. St. Andrew's, New Berlin, was the scene of
three years' ministrations. After two years rectorship in Hudson, and another two years at New.
Berlin, he entered upon the charge of the parish in
I836. A man of narrower experience or less courage would have faltered, amid the difficulties that
confronted his. rectorate here. Disaster speedily
fell upon the most promising of earthly.fortunes,
and upon him was visited all the querulousness
which attends this state of public affairs. He bore
it bravely, in self-denial, with meagre returns for
his labors, and  many a discouragement.  But
patience prevailed. And life ran on past its zenith,
until the wearied and disheartened spirit, sixty
years a pilgrim, begged the privilege of leaning
upon its staff and blessing those it could no longer
lead.
Time brings its revenges, eternity brings its re



460         THE FAITHFUL RECTOR.
wards. He saw the one, he will be satisfied with
the other. Even now, the tribute to his surpassing
powers swells upon the ear, and on these walls wvill
linger the proof that no human stratagem can defy
the decree of God, " the memory of the just is
blessed."  How much he endured, and how praiseworthy efforts he was capable of making, I have
known but partially; there are those among us who
could rehearse the praise and the indignation in
bolder language than I use.
Before our grateful remembrance of such an eminent light in this Parish, there rises a model which
should attract the imitation of those who can now
survey his merits. He was a pattern of modest and
unostentatious excellence, never pushing his own
claims, retreating from the opportunities of distinction, shunning the acts:that stir men's applause,
and rather tempting their criticism than tarnishing
his self-respect by flattering their weakness. I need
not tell you how rare is such a character among
those whose temptation is to aim at popularity.
He was a model of firmness in abiding by his
convictions. With all his rapidity of thought and
readiness of expression there was no haste in
adopting a conclusion, but when it was a principle
that must be maintained, there was no shrinking
from the demand. It summoned him to fling aside
the ambitions of youth, and he obeyed. It tore
him from his traditional attachments, and required
him to espouse a religion which was then traduced
as lifeless, formal, and effeminate; but he clasped
his Bible to his'heart, and proclaiming that the




THE FA ITHFUL RECTOR.         461
voice of God in that word was too distinct to be
doubted, he put the cross upon his shoulder and
marched among our forlorn few.
He was a model of faith in the love and power of
our adorable Jesus. All theories must be brought
by him to this standard. Do they let forth the
all-sufficient salvation in the grace of Christ. The
abstract and ingenious system of doctrines, that
might have pleased his intellect, was tempted beneath his resolution to seek and follow that system
which proposed to save men by Jesus, and not by
philosophy. There was a recoil in his mind, like
the heavings of a volcano that would not be pent
up, whenever the scheme, however plausible, or
however popular, obscured or hazarded the loveliness of Jesus and His grace.
This was the key-note to all the sweetnesses of
devotion in this great man's heart. He sought the
Church, and loved the Church, and suffered for it,
because the love of Christ constrained him. And
he grew into greater and greater distrust of all
those sentiments which are paraded as pious, but
assume the supremacy which is due to Jesus and
His love. Can we say it of ourselves? Is there any
shadow of such a substantial. virtue in us, with our
self-seeking, our self-planning, our aiming at a religion that shall be easy and flattering, and the very
flimsiest mockery of across? Hear the grand echo
from the old Apostle, and from the life that tracked
his footsteps, "As we were allowed of God to be
put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not
as pleasing men, but God which trieth our hearts."




ADDRESS,
Delivered at the Dedication of Seneca Lodge, No. II3, Waterloo,
June 24th, i867.
M. W.. STEPHEN H. JOHNSON, G. M.
M. W. G. M., rendering to us the favor of your
personal presence, giving the interest of your dignified character and the sanction of your high authority to this occasion, lend me the' protection of
your patience, while, in the name of this gratified
assembly, and especially of these brothers submitting to your gavel, I tender you our unqualified
thanks, and while in the name of a present and a
future humanity. I congratulate the brethren of
this Lodge upon the honorable auspices that attend
this new era of their beneficent work.
The salutations of a similar honor are cheerfully
accorded to you,* M. W. B., as once invested with
that exalted power, and as always illustrious to
them that appreciate'genuine merit, by the amenity of your unassuming manners, by the pellucid
elegance of your modest diction, by your proticiency in Masonic lore, by your thorough command of
our traditional, and profound jurisprudence, by
the fraternal spirit that prompts and pervades your
* Hon. John L. Lewis of Penn Yan, P. G. M.
(462)




ADDRESS.                463
counsels, by the sanctity of the desolate sorrow
that has broken your fatherly heart, and by your
meek resignation to the mysterious chastening of
our heavenly Father, and by that purity of character, which like the Koh-i-noor, rarely produced by
the Almighty architect, drinks the light of heaven
to reflect it in dazzling beauties, a treasure which
potentates covet, and no ignoble man can possess.
It would be an impertinent solicitation, were I
to employ my honorable position in urging you,
W. M. of this zealous Lodge, or your brother-associates in this well achieved enterprise, to hail with
thankfulness and delight this day of coronation for
your cherished plans. I rather avail myself of this
permission to be the utterer of your own sentiments in soliciting you to regard me as heartily joining in your acclaims, sharing in your pleasure, and
throbbing with your hopes. Your spontaneous demonstrations of brotherly regard, will not permit
me to entertain for a moment the feeling that I am
in any respect -a stranger. Your own suffusion
with the mild influences of our unselfish fraternity
so pervades your demeanor, suggesting the brotherly word, warming the grip, and kindling the features, that I can only be one of you in this hour
when all of you are enlisted for all mankind, but
especially for the brethren. The leer of indifference, the cruel criticism of a foe, how can I fear it,
when you are the rampart that shelters my feebleness.
And you, my. friends, that without ungenerous
prejudices have assembled to blend your sympa



464               ADDRESS.
thies with those Nwh3) do not address you as fraternizing in Masonic privilege, though honoring you in
other relations, many of them sacred and impressive,
have I to beg your congratulations?  No, your
very presence attests a readiness to commend the
good intentions and applaud the glad success which
render this day festive.
You rejoice as citizens. You share in the triumph gained for humane and noble objects. If
you feel not the pulsations of the fraternity, you do
exult in the advancement and eleVation of our race
which every movement of the fraternity proposes.
No paltry narrowness limits your sympathies, but
you hail the testimony that another provision has
been made to transmit the claims of faith, hope,
and charity unto generations that are yet unborn.
And you, fair representatives of heaven's last
best gift to man, we congratulate ourselves that
you are here to grace and beautify the scene, sweet
ornaments of Paradise, the only comfort that
guilty man could carry out of Eden, for here does
it well beseem you to be present where the sanctities of religion welcome the tokens of restored
brotherhood, and where the great social engine for
woman's rescue from oppression and injury, the
Masonic institution remonstrates against the masculine cruelties of rude and unenlightened society.
Our theory of human excellence is based upon
the principle that the best patterns which are not
more than human, must be somewhere defective.
As some philosopher has phrased it, "There is no
superior man without some grain of folly; but this




ADDRESS.                 465
folly, like that of the cross, is the divine part of
reason. This mysterious power Socrates called his
demon."  We accordingly represent the possibilities of virtue in a circle that approximates perfection as its centre, but on no side touches it. And
two remarkable exemplars are erected by us into
prominence. To one of these we dedicate this festal day in our Masonic calendar, among our authorized traditions we commemorate as one of the
eminent patrons of Freemasonry, that conspicuous beacon in the darkness of the past, that unquenchable exemplar of faithful rebuke, the vindicator of moral precepts and the harbinger of resurrection-light. What perversion of character can
result from a system which preserves and- honors
such traditions? None, but the formation of dispositions prone to sternness against vice. The exclusive study of that bold model' might render
some imitators too inflexible and sturdy. We have
therefore another model of uprightness in the Apostolic John, fervent and affectionate, eagle-winged
in his sublime contemplations, but saturated in
every emotion with the spirit of love. While we,
as Christian Masons, in a land that adores the immaculate High Priest of our salvation, pursue the
round of our varied duties, these are the samples
of austere bravery on the one side, and of mild
suavity on the other, on which the Masonic eye is
taught to rest with complacency. Brothers, in
this traditional light! Have I disclosed anything
foreign to the actual spirit and purpose of our Fraternity? Friends and witnesses! is there anything
20*




466,'         ADDRESS.
in this captivating theory which you reject because
the practical result so contradicts it? Do you spurn
me as a pedler of ideals, when my wares should be reality and fact? Be patient, then, and be.trustworthy, while I impart to you under injunction of the utmost caution how you use it, one of the most vital
and. peculiar secrets of Freemasonry, which is, it
proposes no argument for its own vindication. If
you will keep so much of the secret well, you deserve to have more of it. I trust you for your honest look, and will tell you another secret: Freemasonry has no secret in its keeping which every
good man ought not to know, none but such as
every good man craves and is eager to learn. Ah,
you are playing Delilah with me, you are coaxing
all the mysteries out of my bosom, you are flattering me wvith your attention, until I can keep back
nothing of my strength. So now I must tear off
the last veil, and unbosom the terrible mystery of
all. Freemasonry has no secret sheltered under its
ceremonies and disguises, but such as it is willing
every good man should possess if he only has it
law fully.
But herein is the graveness of public allegation to our discredit. The point of difficulty is
this, that any system intrinsically good, and actually aiming at the benefit of man, should assume the
appearance and submit to the imputation of being secret, pledged to keep in the dark, and apeing
the airs of importance by sitting with clQsed doors
and being fearfully mysterious. I am on the same
side with the fault-finders. I cannot find the mate



ADDRESS.                467
rial in the old, grand, venerable structure of Masonry, which is so transcendently mysterious as to
be a better truth because it is a secret one.
I am one of those iconoclasts that denounce
this mode of putting special sacredness on images
which are no holier than man. Who is there that
goes in for demolishing all these secret trades, exposing all these hidden arts, and letting the noble
public have the first right to everything? Let him
raise his rallying cry. I may join his party. But
it must be thorough reform, pausing at nothing,
and throwing everybody's mystery open to my
virtuous curiosity, or I will have none of it.
First, vwe must revolutionize this whole secret
system of love-letters, and the forlorn swain, aching
to empty his heart into tender syllables, shall no
more fill the poetic corner of the newspaper with
his anonymous ditty, or buy the use of two lines
in a city daily for his enigmatic initials about the
young lady who winked at the corner, or dropped
a glove at the church-door. These mysterious
puzzles must come out into honest daylight like
published banns. That perfumed love-letter must
be contraband, and be confiscated for publication.
Those iniquities of tender correspondence must be
printed and pasted on the lamp-posts, lest unsuitable matches should disturb the discreet, or vile
elopements shock society. We must have these'
furtive devotions of young enthusiasts, like the
prayers of old Pharisees at the corners of the
streets, and that at the unwitching hours of broadday. In one word, we will explode this whole




468                ADDRESS.
mystery of love-making, and have a new era without whispers, and pressures of the hand, and secret
conspiracies of fidelity to each other.
We propose to systematize this business, and to
issue policies of love-insurance, but the risk will
involve strict conditions. The memorandum will
specify there shall be no sparks in the kitchen, no
matches in the parlor, no secret fires in young
hearts.  Frizzle-headed  Patrick from  Far-dowvln
shall not hitch his chair within three feet of simpering Bridget from  Killarney, and no love-promise
shall be proved unless two parties swear to it, one
of whom shall be an old maid that has not refused
three good offers, and the other a male minor with
a single stamp in his pocket, who was courageous
enough to propose without stammering. All hail
the day of mysteries unveiled! What bankruptcy
will it bring to gossips! What fabulous values to
the stock of them that make love with frost-bitten
affections!
But setting all badinage aside. Is there not
something rather unnatural in this crusade against
retirement?  Is it not war against the Creator,
this attempt to break down all confidential relations,
all the blessed charities of life which let not the
left hand know what the right hand doeth?
Why, that epitome of common sense, the common law, pronounces a man's house to be his castle.
Is it merely in the sense of its being his shelter
from bailiffs? Or is it his domestic lodge, where a
heavenly secrecy protects and delights all that
nestle within that charmed circle? It is there his




ADDRESS.                469
virtues groew, his weaknesses are helped, his weariness refreshed, his selfishness banished, and the
sinews of his goodness and his fortitude braced up
for new wrestles with the hardships of life. A
home that is less than this is a chafing chain upon
the heart. But the greater proportion of its virtue rests in the conceded fact that here we have
confidence, the hallowed veil of mystery that defies
intrusion, and the endearments of parent and child,
of brethren sacred to each other, and of wedlock
that keeps a solemn vow.
Break this magic spell of privacy, and what remains of the sacredness of home, sweet home?  If
you wish to dissolve society into mere puddles of
pollution, begin your deluge of desecration by unbinding the restraints of secrecy upon domestic
confidence. Loosened ligaments of home attachment are but the synonym for loose morals. My
proposition involves no sheltering of private vices,
no treasuring of iniquitous secrets. But it does
conte m piate that play of the feelings, that surrender of every.thing to the kind affections, without
which the strong virtues grow crabbed and whimsical and harsh, and even the philanthropic sentiments degenerate into a milk and water affectation.
We will rise, however, to a still more elevated
plane of observation, ascend with me the heights
of Zion, and there discover that man carried up
into the more sacred exercises of his immortality
never becomes exempt from the law which imposes
certain restrictions of seclusion and privacy and
implicit confidence upon his better virtues.




470                ADoRESS.
What part of our character so deserves and demands positive, and public, and undisguised testimonies of its reality and power, as our religion.
Smothered and secreted, it smoulders and expires.
If it be not our light before men, it is darkness
everywhere. Its vitality is its openness, its manifestation in every act, its translation out of the
heart into the language of unambiguous deeds.
But what is that religion worth, however palpable it shows, which has not tenfold more of inward
secret power, of interior hunger for righteousness,
of unrevealed thirst for light and truth, of private
communing with its Eternal Source, of a whole
volume of inward experience whereof the outward demonstration is but one leaf. It has a vast
interior life which none but the All-searching Eye
reads. It has prayers which vibrates only in the
ear of God, hopes and fears which may not be
talked of, revelations which it cannot tell, and raptures which no earthly language can describe. To
unbosom it all to our fellow-mortals is to ruin its
purity. The very attempt to uncover these secret
proceedings of the soul is fraught with danger.
Hypocrisy falsely clothes what we thus pretend to
unclothe. The taking away the veil is the violation of its sacredness. A religion that pretends to
talk itself all out is a religion that terminates in
talk. Honesty needs no cloak, it is the face that
speaks the better because unveiled. But:modesty
dismantled is modesty no more.
Yes, with reverence be it spoken, the Almighty
would cease to be the All-gracious, were it not His




ADDRRESS.               47 
system of giving Light to His Universe by keeping secret reservations for them that keep faith with
Him. The light that sparkles from pole to pole of
His creation is the light that sheds its midway glory between the east and west, luminous with this
sentence, " The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him, and He will shew them  His covenant."
Is it so with the awful verities that Heaven has
lent to man? And must that stupendous argument
of man's value, his religious life, hide the vaster
and the more sacred portion of itself in secret palpitations which the.Almighty hand alone can quell?
And does the derision of mankind hiss at the absurdity which would unveil the pleasant affections of
domestic life alarmed at the mention of intrusion?
Such is the fabric of nature, and such the will of
Him that breathed it into being, and throbs in all
its pulses.
But when you have the traditions of- virtue, and
the incitements to science, and the exercise of the
fraternal spirit, all these fused into a brotherhood,
binding the ages together, insisting that not mere
human blood, but the will to elevate and improve
our common humanity, creates a stronger tie than
the melting bond of a common mortality, when
men recognizing this duty to help each other in
surmounting the difficulties of virtue agree upon
symbols that shall speak to all races, languages and
times the same admonitions and the same hopes, is
there to be no household confidence, no sacred
privacy that shall mark this symbolic instruction as




472                ADDRESS.
a privilege, and as a trust, not flung away upon
crowds of contemptuous and profane, but reserved
for those who will be pledged to maintain and to
honor it? The man that would be better than he
is, the man that would help his brother be
wiser and better, the man that dares fetter himself
with the obligation to make this life more heavenly,
and this human nature less selfish, less sordid, less
narrow and inhuman, that man, and that man only,
is fit to be a free and accepted Mason.  Anything
else caricatures our craft. The false man, the vicious man, the selfish, grasping, sneaking fraction of
a whole sound manhood may w-ear our apron, but
he does not work at our trade. He must be largehearted, or there is not room in his bosom for our
virtuous secret. He must be willing to trust his
brothers, or they will fear to trust him. A man of
whom the best is that part of him which every one
can see, is very suspicious material for a theory of
virtue which especially values what is not seen.
All perfect globes have an outside and an inside.
Every great system of truth has its exoteric and its
esoteric doctrines. We have been standing on the
surface of our fraternity-theory looking outward.
The outside observer says that the rind of our theory
is secrecy, and that when this is peeled off there is
little pulp left, and that little may be worthless.
Now, with your permission, brethren, I will reverse my position,'and summon to your recollection the inward principles of the craft. Let me bespeak your pardon if I forget that there are uninitiated present while we presume upon this exposure
of Freemasonry. Think not that I dream of let



ADDRESS.                 473
ting more light into our institution. It has an obstinate way of forbidding that.
My object is -rather to do the work of the facetious Hlibernian, when digging a hole through the
wall of the over-dark cellar. "W Well, Patrick, my
good fellow, and so you are for getting a little
more of this blessed light down there," said the
passing neighbor. " And is it the blessed light that
ye say," relied Pat, " and sure, I am after making
a hole to let the dark out"  Precisely my purpose,
I am for letting the dark out. And this consists in
viewing our Masonic system  as a social bond. It
does iot.-ix-t for the individual except as a member
of its social body. The individual alone cannot preserve it. Combination and consent are the elements
of its vitality, the essentials of its existence.
How does this society take form? All human
societies, that stand by law and expect perpetuation, must assume one of three forms, or put them
in combination, the monarchical, the oligarchic, or
the democratic. My impression is that no perfect
organization of human society can subsist without
blending the three.
How is it with our Fraternity? Freemasonry is
eminently, unequivocally, inevitably monarchical.
Be not startled at this declaration. Its monarch is
the word of God. Without this it dissolves, it perishes. It asks no outward light, because this gift of
God to -.ia; is its inward, sufficient, unquenchable
light. And while the natural gifts are all it assumes
to hold in its custody, it avows the supernatural to
be the true light of man, and thus conducts him to
the portals of religion, that entering there he may




474               ADDRESS.
find the good and perfect gift which the monarch
of the Lodge has commanded him to seek.
Empires stand by their submission to force.
Nations focalize themselves in the will of an autocrat. Governments crystallize themselves into soliditj by acknowledging the sovereignty of a constitution. But we stand from age to age by the awe
of the Divine word. In this our symbolism centralizes. The knowledge that outvies and underlies
all knowledge is the word from God. All light
that reflects from the Universe centres in this original of light. The initial lesson of a world's Genesis, as of Masonic creation, is "God said, let there
be light." The possibility and the potency of all
light to all the faculties is in God's word.
Every system that contains wisdom clusters
around a central idea. The appearances of the
system nmay vary, but it remains substantially and
vitally the same while the central focal idea continues in its place of honor and power.  That
dominant invariable idea in Freemasonry is the indefeasible sovereignty of God's word. That is not
the sun of our system, but more than the sun, even
the power that stations and enlightens the sun, the
beginning of all creation, both of life and of a
living fraternity. The immense compass of all the
powers that Freemasonry carries through the generations of men gravitates towards the Word.
Remove this from its inviolate supremacy over our
beliefs and over our actions, and there comes the
crash and ruin of our system.
Tear out the heart from its focal centre, and where
is the galvapism that can make the body live?




ADDRESS.                475
Smite with scorn the living venerable constitution
by which your nation survives, and who but a
crazy dreamer would expect the healthful functions
of freedom, or the perpetuity of uncorrupted patriotism? No, certain ideas and certain facts are
not only elemental but vital. And in our Masonic
system this is the irreversible necessity, the throne
and the altar are one, and that thron.e occupied by
the word of God. Brothers! is there any genuine
monarch visible among us but that Divine Guide,
at the beginning of our career spreading its pages
to teach us fraternity, and -unfolding its leaves of
light when the dark grave grasps our mortality.
And yet when you touch the details of administration, and of direction and authority, you immediately find the wisdom of our brotherhood vesting
these powers in a few. We admit the principle
that the best should rule, amenable to no constituency, checked by no conspiracy of cabal or of
multitude, controlled only by the'law and the landmark. We have tried this principle for ages, and
we have found it bringing all work to the plummet'and the square. With us, the best is not the most
learned, nor the most devout, nor the man most applauded of the crowd, but he that gives his best energies with most zeal and with greatest effect to the
production of harmony, fervor, and stability in our
work. So long as authority vests in such men they
represent those ancient and venerable aristocrats,
the time-sanctioned landmarks of the craft which
must not be removed, bounding all ambitions, outliving all fluctuations, like God's landmarks, the
everlasting mountains, the nzcver-wasting seas.




476                    ADDRESS.
But the charm of the Brotherhood is that, "We
meet upon the level." Equality writes its magic
word upon every one that enters our door. The
monarch upon our throne is our crown of glory;
the best men in the best places are our sources. of
order and strength; but the sweet attraction that
like a mellow atmosphere, bathes the brotherhood
in continued delights, is the principle that banishes
all the factitious distinctions of life, all the upstart
conceits and arrogances of the world, and places
upon one level, the millionaire and the laborer, the
king and the peasant, Solomon and the just illumined craftsman.
How it blends the contrasted conditions of life!
" M/ollia duris, sine pondere habentia pondus."
Back to your kennels, ye snarling haters of mankind! The Lodge hushes your discord.
Back to your hopeless darkness, ye retailers of
doubts and. scepticisms, and atheistic chaff! The
Lodge bars its precincts of holy light against you.
And ye, that cannot brook equality with your
brother, because toil hardens his hands, or because
the pale hue of mental stress is upon his studious
brow, this is your rebuke, "We meet upon  the
level."
"Shine, brother, in thy place, and be content;
The stars pre-eminent in magnitude,
And they that from the zenith dart their beams,
Visible though they be to half the earth,
Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness,
Are yet of no diviner origin,
No purer essence, than the one that burns,
Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge
Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem
Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps,
Among the branches of the leatless trees;
All are the undying offlspring of one Sire;




ADDRESS.                  477
Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed,
Shine, brother! in thy place, and be content."
Brothers that have felt the illumining and warming rays of Masonic light, have I misrepresented
our theory?
Is there any feature.in my picture of our social
system, which I -have overdrawn?You justify it, you pronounce it correct. You
join.with me, then, in declaring that such is- the
theoretical compend of the three principles in
human government in whose honor we. this day
raise the banner of our fervent allegiance.
Such is the fraternity in furtherance of whose
purposes a structure furnished with appropriate
symbols, garnished with admirable art, and ambitious of beauty that may perpetually hint the beauties of a glorious high throne from the beginning, is
this day dedicated to three objects under the one
name Freemasonry-the enthroning of God's Word,
the assertion of law and order, and the promotion
of equality among all by degrading none.
Every thing that is virtuous in man rises up to
join in this acclaim.  All the nobility that is in us
falls into the procession of triumph on this coronation day. The best part of our nature feels itself
represented in this jubilee of our immortality. We
have built least for ourselves, most for the future.
We have mingled, neighbor and stranger, rejoicing
sharers in this new structure, and congratulating
friends from other precincts, we have mingled as
brothers, erecting here our pillar of testimony that
man belongs to other elements and other destinies of which this earthly scene can furnish only




478                ADDRESS.
the sy1mfn6s. But man belongs for the present to
this life and to its demands. Masonry binds him to
these present duties and these present needs. But
the cord that signifies obligation is of two strands,
the one, virtue's history in the past, the other, imnmortality's bond with the future. We scorn the
fanaticism of progress that breaks the tie of reverence for the past. We crush the addled egg of
stagnation that promises no glorious, heroic, enchanting future. Brotherhood to come,-the desire
of all nations waiting at the door,-liberty and light,
light and liberty, the mother and the son, yet to
visit the darkened habitations of emancipated man.
Labor nowhere to be defrauded, and misfortune
everywhere to be -befriended; these are the gleaming beacons towards which we steer our unintimidated, undiscouraged hopes.
But we have ordeals to pass. This voyage of
progress is not on placid seas. Human life holds
terrible elements and horrid jealousies. Our system wakens their fury. We provoke them by our
mightiness, we tempt them by our infirmities. We
rouse them innocently, and we justify them by our
follies. We honor our fraternity, and jealousy
panic-stricken flies to the combat. We discredit
and betray our sacred theory, and indignation
springs to its weapons of assault.
I am not amazed at this. The wonder would be
that it should be otherwise. Few words will explain it.
Human society subsists under two necessary, inevitable, interminable sovereignties.  They both
concern the multitude as a mass, and the individu



ADDRESS.                 479
al as-like the mass a world in himself. The one
sovereignty is earthly, but God-appointed, wielding
its protection and its demand for the rights of person and of property, and may be termed the civil
order. The other sovereignty is spiritual, and sublime, viewing the man always in relations to the
supernatural and the Divine, and may be termed
the ecclesiastical order. Both are sacred and inviolable, each in its sphere is blessed and each in its
legitimate jurisdiction fortified by the right hand of
our Creator. But what an unsolved problem, what
a riddle that bewilders human perversity, to write
for each sovereignty on rock that no proud waves
can wash, " Thus far shalt thou go and no farther."
Between these wrestling sovereignties supporting
both, encroaching upon neither, aiming to be not
civil order, but its ally and strength; not ecclesiastical order, but its adherent and subordinate,
stands our mysterious fraternity, distrusted  by
both, buffeted anon by one and by the other, but
never nursing one passion of resentment, scarcely
daring one syllable of retort, and while the forms of'
justice hound and manacle its adherents, it steadily
inculcates faithful citizenship, while the frightened
champions of orthodoxy defame and denounce, it
calmly whispers "put your trust in God, and
patiently follow him that'points to heaven -and
leads the way.'" By the honest.timidity of the one,
by the conscientious jealousy of the other, we are
the sufferers. For every ordeal we are the better.
It is virtue that grows brighter in its calamities. We may groan and writhe again, but we
never shall perish until man has adjusted him



480                ADDRESS.
self in equal and indissoluble perfection as the
citizen and as the saint, and in the architecture
of the stupendous and eternal Lodge, where no
symbol is needed, where they need no candle,
neither light of the sun, where the burning scimitars of the cherubim shall guard the everlasting
gates. Providence shall need us no more.
Such is the social system in whose honor we
this day raise the banner of our fervent allegiance.
Such is the fraternity in furtherance of whose purposes, a structure is this day- dedicated to the enthroning of God's word, the assertion of law and
order, and the promotion of equality among all by
degrading none.
Can we silence the testimony of our praise?
Can we leave uncommended this result of a zeal
that has so fitly expressed' itself to the elye, and in its
laudable purposes shows a valid title to the tribute
of our hearty praise?
The temple which the wisest of kings projected,
and the genius of gifted Hirams planned, was
built from secret arch to the lily work of elaborated
capitals, with the choicest of materials and the outlay of the utmost skill. It symbolizes the structure
of profoundest faith at the foundation, and of exquisite finish in every virtue which we must. prepare for God's glory to inhabit.
The work you this day dedicate may shelter
generations that will have forgotten the names
of the builders. But the moral structure we each
of us shall rear, is the home that each of us must
finish in a few brief days, and then occupy forever.