UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OP" 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALS WORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 Accession s No . <5~]?3 ftf . Class No. 
 
COUNSEL AND COMFORT 
 
 FROM A CITY PULPIT. 
 
COUNSEL AND COMFORT? 
 
 
 SPOKEN FROM A 
 
 CITY PULPIT. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OP 
 "THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON." 
 
 ^> 
 
 SJTiasifJ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 1864. 
 
UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGS 
 I. CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME ; 
 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS . 7 
 
 II. THANKFULNESS . . . . . 27 
 
 III. THE BLESSED COMFORTER ... 45 
 
 IV. MAN COME TO HIMSELF . . . - 61 
 V. THE WELL-GROUNDED $HOPE . . . 77 
 
 VI. NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST . . . 94 
 VII. THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY . 117 
 VIII. DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST 135 
 IX. CONTINUANCE THE TEST OF RELIGIOUS PRO 
 FESSION . . . ... . 151 
 
 X. THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED . 169 
 
 xi. THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD 187 
 
 XII. CONSEQUENCES 206 
 
 XIII. NO MORE PAIN 223 
 
 XIV. THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD . . 240 
 XV. THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE . 258 
 
 XVI. THE PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL 
 
 SPIRITS 276 
 
 XVII. THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST 293 
 
I. 
 
 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME: 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 
 
 (OME, my friend, and let us walk back 
 wards and forwards along this gravelled 
 path, already beaten by my solitary feet 
 for an hour past. It is not a carriage- 
 drive, but a path intended for saunterers on foot. It 
 is broad enough for two, and the more especially 
 if one of them, through the force of circumstances, 
 chances to take up no space. And to-day you are 
 at Constantinople, and I am here. I am not quite 
 sure as to the precise number of miles between us, 
 but there are many hundreds, I know. 
 
 You know this place well, and you would like this 
 walk. On one hand, there is a level plot of closely- 
 mown grass, of what may be esteemed considerable 
 extent by a man of moderate ideas. And the promi 
 nent object on that side is a pretty Gothic house, built 
 of red sandstone, set upon a green terrace. The house 
 is backed by a wooded cliff : a cliff wooded from base to 
 summit. For in every crevice of the rock trees have 
 
8 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 rooted themselves, that is, have been planted without 
 man s help. And the cliff looks like a warm bank of 
 thick foliage, now crisp and russet. That cliff is ninety 
 feet high : no very great height ; yet, let me say, rather 
 higher than the rocks at the Land s End. But on the 
 other hand, there is our great sight. On the other side 
 of this little gravelled walk, which is a hundred and 
 fifty yards in length, and nearly straight, let me tell 
 you what there is. First, there is a border line of 
 grass, the prettiest and least troublesome of all edgings 
 for walks. The well-defined outline of the grass and 
 gravel makes a simple contrast of which one never 
 tires. Then there is a little boundary thicket made of 
 pines of various sizes, also of laurels and yews ; with 
 here and there a staring sunflower. Beyond, there is 
 a hedge of thorns, backed by a stone wall, five feet in 
 height, which forms the boundary of this small domain. 
 And though on the farther side of the wall there is 
 a narrow public road, the sea beyond it seems (when 
 you look from this side) to wash the foot of that for 
 tification. You feel as though you were walking 
 on a quarter-deck. In fact, the waves are lapping 
 on the large stones within a dozen yards. And so, 
 backwards and forwards along this gravelled path, is 
 backwards and forwards by the shore of the great sea. 
 Yet this is not the boundless ocean, over which you 
 look away and away, and think that America is on its 
 other side. This is but an arm of the Atlantic. It is 
 the estuary of a river not especially renowned in song. 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 9 
 
 No poet has done for it what Burns did for the Doon 
 by which he drew his first breath. Here, the estuary 
 is four miles in breadth. On the farther side there is 
 an island, rich in soil and genial in climate, where 
 many worn-out sufferers have been able to breathe 
 out in peace their last winter- time in this world. Its 
 name was not a pleasing one to those English folk 
 who hated an unpopular Scotch Prime Minister, many 
 years ago. And over that island you may see a line 
 of mountain-peaks which will bear being looked at, 
 though you may have come straight from Chamouni. 
 Of course, they are not so high as Mount Blanc, and 
 they have no solitudes of everlasting snow. Yet that 
 is a glorious outline against the western sky, at sun 
 set or at midday ; and no part of the height of those 
 mountains is lost. For the height of mountains is 
 reckoned in feet above the sea-level; and here are 
 the sea-level and the mountain-tops together. 
 
 This is an autumn afternoon, one of the latest of 
 September. And the fkding woods suggest to one s 
 mind a man with gray hair, wearing down. For the 
 autumnal tint upon our head is gray, passing into 
 white. We do not wither in glory, like crimson 
 maples and glowing beeches in the October sun. But 
 to-day there is not the bright, crisp, frosty sunshine, 
 touching declining Nature into pensive beauty ; but 
 the light is leaden, and all the sky is made up of clouds 
 that come down very close upon the earth and sea. 
 The sea is dark and gloomy, and it breaks upon the 
 
10 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 beach with a surgy murmur, as you might think it 
 would upon untrodden shores. 
 
 Our holiday-time ends to-morrow ; and then comes 
 the long stretch of work again. It is pleasant work, 
 but hard work ; and you shrink a little from the first 
 plunge into it. And you know the confused, over 
 driven feeling of the first days at the collar, with 
 twenty things you would wish to do in the time in 
 which it is possible to do ten. Holiday-time, I think, 
 is something like life. We begin it, witli vague antici 
 pations of great rest and enjoyment. We find it, in 
 fact, much less enjoyable than we had expected. And 
 at its end, though we may be conscious of a certain 
 unwillingness to resume our load, we yet feel that 
 our holiday-time is outworn, and we are in some sort 
 of way content to bid it good-bye. Yet it is a trial to 
 say good-bye to anything ; and in bidding farewell to 
 times and places, we feel that we shall never have 
 those things again quite the same. Even if there 
 should come to none of us any of those great changes 
 which hang over all human beings, there will be the 
 sensible change, in fact and in feeling, that is ever 
 advancing upon all persons and all things here. Then, 
 when you are far away from your home and its duties, 
 all these come to look somewhat misty and undefined. 
 You forget those little ways which make up your hab 
 itude of being. And all future time is hidden by a 
 cloud through which we strive in vain to see. You 
 do not know where you are going, nor what trials may 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 11 
 
 be sitting and waiting for you by the wayside, not far 
 on. There is a great uncertainty, and an indefinite 
 fear. You have had your troubles, some of them just 
 as heavy as you could bear : and what life has been, it 
 must be. And many minds know a good deal of the 
 Roman emperor s foreboding, that if things have long 
 gone well with you, then something amiss is very likely 
 to come. If we could but all rise to the happier argu 
 ment from the Past to the Future of a certain ancient 
 (and inspired) poet, and really believe that " the Lord 
 HATH BEEN mindful of us : He WILL bless us ! " 
 The more common way of judging certainly is, that, 
 since all has been so pleasant for many days or years, 
 now a smash is due. But though this way of judging 
 be common, and though, to a superficial glance, it 
 seems to be confirmed by facts, it would be very easy 
 to show that it is entirely wrong. 
 
 There is something enviable in the state of people 
 who can go away from a place without caring, who 
 can say good-bye to pleasant acquaintances without 
 the least regret. Many human beings feel parting to 
 be so painful, that they would rather miss the previous 
 pleasure than encounter the trial which must come at 
 last. You will think of the kind old Matthew, on that 
 beautiful April morning of which Wordsworth has so 
 sweetly sung. On that April morning he was not an 
 old man ; and turning aside from his task of fishing, 
 he stopped awhile beside his little daughter s grave. 
 And having thought there of her sweet voice and her 
 
12 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME: 
 
 fair face, he turned to leave her earthly resting-place ; 
 when he met, hard by, another little girl like what his 
 child would have been, so blooming and so happy. 
 It was a pure delight to look at her; but Matthew 
 thought how fragile a possession she would be, and he 
 remembered how bitterly he had suffered when his 
 own child died. " I looked at her, and looked again, 
 and did not wish her mine." Yes, what you never 
 have, you never can lose. And some grim self-con 
 tained old bachelor, who has given no hostages to 
 fortune, who cares for nobody but himself, presents 
 but a very small surface on which fate can hit him 
 hard. 
 
 My friend Smith told me recently, that he esteems 
 the necessity of saying good-bye as a serious draw 
 back from the pleasure of foreign travel ; and that his 
 purpose is, in future tours, to cultivate, when abroad, 
 the acquaintance of only the most disagreeable of his 
 countrymen and countrywomen. Then he will ex 
 perience no other feeling than one of relief when they 
 disappear from his view, never to return. Hitherto, 
 his experience has been as follows. You fall in with 
 pleasant people going the same way with yourself. 
 You find that great part of the insular reserve has 
 been thawed out of the usually shy Briton. Gradu 
 ally, you fraternize ; and for a good many days those 
 pleasant folk and you journey on together. You think 
 better of mankind : you did not think there were so 
 many agreeable people in the world. Probably you 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 13 
 
 are not accustomed to see many such at Tollerporco- 
 rum. But at length you must go on your separate 
 ways, and you part, feeling it is not likely that you 
 should meet again. And to do all this six or seven 
 times in two months is trying. 
 
 All this, it is obvious, has nothing to do with the 
 subject of Pulpits. Yet that subject was mainly in 
 the writer s mind when he began to walk up and 
 down this gravelled path. All this forenoon he has 
 been busied in arranging the material which has been 
 spoken on various past Sundays, from a certain pul 
 pit in which he feels a very deep interest. A former 
 volume of the like material has been so happy as to 
 find a very great number of readers ; and naturally 
 enough, another volume of sermons preached from 
 the same place has been thought of. Thinking of that 
 pulpit made him think of pulpits in general, and es 
 pecially of yours, my friend, who have all this while 
 been walking more or less consciously by my side. 
 
 Your pulpit is a very handsome one of carved oak, 
 dark with age. It stands out, clear of the chancel, in 
 a certain great church. The church is not Gothic, 
 but it is one of the best of Palladian churches : great 
 in size, massive and real in the materials of which it 
 is made ; with its great pillars and its arched aisles. 
 I am not able to suppress an unsophisticated respect 
 for an edifice on which its builders were content to 
 spend several scores of thousands of pounds. And all 
 around that church, though it stands in the heart of 
 
14 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 the greatest of great cities, there spreads a solemn ex 
 panse, pleasant to see, where people of many genera 
 tions have met together, in the long sleep of death. 
 Above all, that church is suited with a congregation 
 that fills it with attentive faces and sympathetic 
 hearts ; and fond as one may pardonably be of church 
 architecture, the great thing about a church is the 
 living congregation, after all. Then your predecessor 
 in that pulpit wears lawn sleeves ; and the average 
 mind feels as though a certain dignity were cast 
 around the pulpit whence the next step was to the 
 episcopal throne. 
 
 The writer has various predecessors in his pulpit. 
 None of them are bishops : none can by possibility 
 become such : because they are clergymen of a Church 
 in which those dignitaries are not. As for the pulpit, 
 I do not know of what kind of wood it is made, 
 though I have preached from it exactly three hundred 
 and fifty times. Of this I am well assured, that it is 
 not made of the wood it seems. The painter s skill 
 has made it look like oak, which it unquestionably 
 is not. I have heard, indeed, of church oak in this 
 country being ingeniously painted in a bad imitation 
 of itself. The pulpit is hung with a pretty deep 
 drapery of crimson velvet, a little faded from the 
 brightness of earlier days. And no wonder : for the 
 writer is faded somewhat through the wear of years ; 
 and that velvet is older than himself. 
 
 But he would not exchange that faded velvet for 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 15 
 
 many times what it. cost when new; and though that 
 pulpit is not Gothic, except in the unfriendly sense in 
 which Sir Christopher Wren first applied the word, 
 there is to him, as to very many of his fathers and 
 brethren, no place on earth where he likes so much 
 to be. We have a Scotticism of expression, common 
 among the elder clergy, which always falls pleasantly 
 on the ear. " Where are you to be on Sunday ? " say 
 to a good Scotch minister ; and the answer will prob 
 ably be, " AT HOME." That means, in his own pul 
 pit. There is something very touching, when you 
 hear an old man thus speak of the place whence he 
 has spoken, on the most solemn of all subjects, to 
 immortal beings committed to his care, through the 
 Sundays of forty years. Yes : it is there, indeed, that 
 we ought all of us to be most at home. I need say to 
 none of my kindly readers, that I think a clergyman 
 may very fitly write and speak upon subjects not 
 directly theological or religious. He may very prop 
 erly write an article for Fraser, and no one for whose 
 opinion he cares a rush will find fault. But all these 
 things are as recreation : what he writes for the pul 
 pit is work. All these things are excursions, are as 
 holiday rambles ; but in the pulpit he is at home. 
 His first and best thoughts go THERE. And often 
 entered with a nervous feeling not to be reasoned 
 away, never entered without a solemn prayer for 
 God s help and blessing, the pulpit of every cler 
 gyman whose heart is in his work is surrounded by 
 
16 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME: 
 
 memories and associations of such heart and happi 
 ness as are not to be expressed in words. 
 
 The pulpit (let the word be understood physically 
 and morally) has been to the writer a matter of spe 
 cial interest from his earliest days. Very many are 
 the pulpits in which he has stood. He does not mean 
 for the purpose of preaching from them. But he can 
 not enter any church, great or small, on a day when 
 it may be surveyed freely, without ascending the pul 
 pit and looking at the church from that elevation. It 
 may be said, for the information of such as have never 
 entered any pulpit, that a church, viewed from that 
 point, looks entirely different from what it looks being 
 viewed from any other. And, as a general rule, the 
 church looks a great deal larger. 
 
 Nothing brings out more strongly the difference in 
 the tastes and likings of different men than their feel 
 ing as to the pulpit. Some, a lesser class, feel an 
 invincible gravitation towards the place, an extreme 
 interest in all that concerns it. There are men who, 
 being far away from home, and going to a strange 
 church on a Sunday, are, aware of a longing, almost 
 like the thirsty wayfarer s for drink, to mount the 
 pulpit and pour forth the message with which they 
 are charged, to their fellow-sinners. As for the great 
 majority of educated men, not to mention women, the 
 pulpit is the very last place of which they ever think 
 in relation to themselves. Not merely have they no 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 17 
 
 desire to enter it, they have never even gone the 
 length of asking themselves whether they would like 
 to enter it or not. The whole thing appears quite out 
 of the question. You and I, rny reader, have probably 
 never seriously considered whether we should like to 
 be Prime Minister. And more : men who have chosen 
 the Church for their profession, or rather who have 
 been pushed gradually into orders without any con 
 scious choice, having actually tried the pulpit, found 
 it did not suit them, did not suit their tastes, even 
 where it was conspicuously suited to their abilities : 
 and so have made up their mind not to enter it any 
 more. The writer has a very eminent and illustrious 
 friend, who, having preached three or four times, 
 found or fancied that the pulpit did not suit him, and 
 renounced it. Yet the pathetic eloquence which he 
 has at command, and a charm of style which would 
 constrain most people to listen in breathless attention 
 to him discoursing upon any subject, would assuredly 
 have made him one of the most interesting of all 
 preachers. But the whole thing did not suit him : 
 the proof being that lie was content to give it up. 
 The man who has in him the spirit and making of 
 the preacher, could not be kept out of the pulpit. 
 Not the railway and the locomotive have greater 
 affinity one to the other than that singular elevation 
 and he. Men have been great and wise there, who 
 were weak and foolish everywhere else. " He ought 
 to be definitively confirmed to the pulpit, and fed over 
 
18 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 the side of it with brose and kirn-milk," said the 
 homely Chalmers of a certain man who in the pulpit 
 was a great orator, and out of the pulpit a great fool. 
 And worldly inducements go for very little here, if 
 the true nature of the preacher be inherent. You 
 have heard of men who renounced fame and for 
 tune heartily and cheerfully, that they might devote 
 strength and life to the sacred office, who made their 
 choice, perhaps, with the enthusiasm of early youth, 
 but never lived to regret it though they lived to four 
 score. 
 
 The essential characteristic of the Pulpit is this : 
 that it should be an elevated place in a church, 
 whence the preacher may address the congregation. 
 Let me, in passing, express the great disapproval with 
 which I sometimes hear a Christian congregation spo 
 ken of as an audience : a good audience meaning a 
 large congregation ; a bad audience, or a thin audience, 
 meaning a small congregation. There is, indeed, a 
 lower deep than this : it is to speak of a crowded 
 house, meaning a congregation which fills its church. 
 Let not phrases taken from the theatre or the lecture- 
 room be used concerning the house of God. But to 
 resume. There are countries, as everybody knows, 
 where the pulpit is essentially and exclusively asso 
 ciated with the sermon. There are others, and there 
 is one in particular very well known to the writer, in 
 whose National Church prayers and sermon are spo- 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 19 
 
 ken from the same place, and, save at the celebration 
 of the Holy Communion, the entire church-service is 
 performed from that spot. Yet even in that country 
 the name of the pulpit naturally suggests the sermon. 
 And what varieties there are of the thing ! You 
 have possibly seen pulpits of all degrees, from the huge 
 erection piled up against a pillar in the nave of a great 
 foreign cathedral, an erection which must dwarf the 
 preacher, and which in fact is seldom used, down 
 to the rickety box of deal stuck against the wall of a 
 little Scotch country church, unpainted and undraped 
 and worm-eaten. Even from such a pulpit has the 
 writer not unfrequently preached, sometimes to coun 
 try folk whose intelligent and hearty attention made 
 one forget the unworthy edifice which was esteemed 
 good enough for the worship of Almighty God. Once 
 upon a time, in a certain rural parish, such was the 
 writer s own pulpit : but of course that would not do ; 
 and a little representation in the right quarter soon 
 made it give place to decorous dark oak and crimson. 
 Let me say, that I cannot understand those clergymen 
 who do not care a whit how shabby their church may 
 be, and who contrive, as I have witnessed, to provide 
 the parish with a most elegant and comfortable par 
 sonage, leaving the poor old church a mortifying con 
 trast of dirt and squalor. Then there are pulpits 
 of wood and of stone : the latter sometimes of one 
 block of freestone, gracefully carved over its surface, 
 like that beautiful pulpit in the cathedral of Chester ; 
 
20 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME: 
 
 sometimes of marble, a costly piece of inlaid work, 
 like that elaborate pulpit at All Saints in London ; 
 sometimes resting on a clustered shaft of porphyry or 
 granite, and displaying panels enriched with figures in 
 high relief, like that most pleasing pulpit at St. Anne s 
 in Dublin. Sometimes those stone pulpits are warm 
 ly padded inside with crimson cloth ; sometimes they 
 are cold white marble within, unrelieved by a vestige 
 of drapery, very chilling to look at and (one would 
 say) to preach from. Sometimes pulpits are very 
 high ; sometimes ostentatiously low : in the latter case 
 in churches in England, where the childish idea has 
 been admitted, that to make the pulpit loftier than the 
 reading-desk is to " elevate the place of preaching 
 above the place of prayer." Sometimes the pulpit 
 proper is lost in a huge erection of stairs and terraces 
 and platforms and ugly iron railings, filling up the end 
 of a church in which there is no altar, as though to 
 announce to all comers, Here the sermon is the first 
 thing. Sometimes it is a little projecting jug of stone, 
 in a modest corner, as though to say, Here the sermon 
 is no great matter. And, to say the truth, in such 
 cases it generally is no great matter. I could easily 
 name a church where I have been present at a choral 
 service performed by forty surpliced choristers with 
 admirable taste and skill, and where the sermon 
 which followed, though short, was extremely tedious, 
 and in fact was so bad that it could not by possibility 
 have been worse. Sometimes you may find a stone 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 21 
 
 pulpit in the open air, as that at Magdalen College at 
 Oxford, whence the university sermons were sometimes 
 preached. There is in England a parish church where 
 the pulpit consists of a velvet-covered easy-chair, with 
 a music-stand placed in front of it. The builders of 
 that church are recorded to have resolved to erect a 
 church which no human being, on a cursory inspec 
 tion, would take to be a church ; and they have to a 
 great degree succeeded in their intelligent purpose. 
 We have all heard of " Henley s gilt tub," whence that 
 fluent mountebank gave his celebrated lecture on the 
 way to make a pair of shoes in five minutes. A great 
 crowd of shoemakers assembled, drawn by the an 
 nouncement of a discourse which would have been 
 to them of such practical value ; but the shoemakers 
 were conscious that they had been deluded when the 
 orator produced a pair of boots, and in five minutes 
 cut off their tops and left them shoes. There have 
 been preachers who eschewed the pulpit, prefer 
 ring a large stage on which they might strut to and 
 fro. The writer has never seen any of these, and 
 never will see any of them. There is a vile custom, 
 which originated in Chaldea, but which has been 
 introduced into several places of worship in this coun 
 try, of substituting for the pulpit a considerable plat 
 form, provided with a sofa, and having a counter in 
 front, behind which the preacher stands. An Eng 
 lish traveller, having entered a large building in that 
 country, perceived such an erection at one end of it. 
 
22 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 A great congregation had assembled. In a little, a 
 human being, with a hat on his head and a great 
 coat on his back, walked up the centre passage. Stop 
 ping at the foot of the stair, he got out of his great 
 coat and took off his hat ; and then, ascending the 
 platform, appeared to be the individual who was to 
 conduct the service. Some people, no doubt, think 
 all this simple and unaffected. Some people would 
 doubtless agree with the writer in esteeming it irrev 
 erent and disgusting in a very high degree. Yet let 
 me recall a horrid Scotch custom, seen in my youth, 
 of the officiating clergyman hanging up his hat on a 
 peg beneath the sounding-board of the pulpit, to re 
 main there till the service was over. For a bishop, or 
 a preacher in a cathedral, to lay his cap on the cushion 
 before him, is all very well, but a hat, not unfre- 
 quently a very bad one, hung on a peg, can never 
 look seemly or decorous. There is a reprehensible 
 and offensive taste for the tawdry in the matter of 
 pulpit decoration in several quarters in Scotland. 
 In some instances this might be justified by the 
 consideration that the pulpit is thus brought into 
 harmony with the discourse which is delivered from 
 it. I have beheld a pulpit of white and gold ; 
 another, painted light green ; another, which was of a 
 roseate hue. If people cannot see how unbecoming 
 that kind of thing is, it is quite useless to try to 
 show them. The right pulpit, in ordinary cases, and 
 where expense is a consideration, is doubtless a plain 
 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPITS. 23 
 
 hexagonal or octagonal pulpit of oak. Let its color 
 be always dark, and its drapery always crimson. Let 
 the stair be not obtrusive. As a general rule, let 
 there be a sounding-board. It is usually of no use, 
 but there is a fitness in its aspect, and it helps to 
 make the pulpit, as it ought to be, utterly unlike any 
 erection for any secular purpose. You should feel, 
 as you look at the thing, that it is a place which 
 renders essential a certain quietude and restraint of 
 matter and manner in all that may be said from it. 
 I have heard a very eminent preacher say, that you 
 may fitly give your sermon with all the energy you 
 can display without lifting a hand, but that any 
 gesticulation appeared to him unsuited to the pulpit. 
 I do not agree with him, though I believe his rule 
 tends to the better and safer extreme. And let me 
 say that even the utmost dulness appears preferable 
 to the outrageous claptrap which one sometimes hears 
 reported. All jocular matter is of course inadmissi 
 ble ; all bitter and sarcastic remarks are unutterably 
 offensive. I lately read in a country newspaper an 
 account of a discourse given upon some occasion by 
 a certain preacher. In that discourse, the country 
 newspaper said, the preacher " showed himself a 
 master of wit and sarcasm." Without having heard 
 the man, one can imagine the hateful exhibition. 
 Controversial statements, too, are to be avoided. 
 The things spoken from the pulpit should be those 
 as to which the whole congregation is, at least in 
 
24 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME : 
 
 speculation, agreed. It is inexpedient that the 
 preacher should make strong statements which half 
 his hearers will esteem to be absurd and false. And if 
 such statements be wrong in the sermon, much more 
 are they in the prayers. I have heard of an eminent 
 Scotch divine who in his prayer before sermon begged 
 the Almighty " to remit the judgments which might 
 well be sent upon this country on account of that 
 legislative measure most improperly called the Reform 
 Bill." Such a petition enables one the better to un 
 derstand the unconscious truthfulness of a statement 
 lately published in a Russian journal. That journal 
 declared, in all good faith, that the prayer offered by 
 the Rev. Mr. Smith on a certain occasion, was " the 
 most eloquent prayer ever addressed TO A Moscow 
 
 AUDIENCE/ 
 
 As for the matter spoken from the pulpit, I do not 
 hesitate to say, that, if it be simple, earnest, and un 
 affected, it ought, as a general rule, to be exempted 
 from all criticism. I speak, of course, not of published 
 discourses, but of those which are preached in the 
 ordinary course of duty. A clever writer in a literary 
 paper lately maintained that it would waken up the 
 members of a comatose profession if the preaching 
 of a sermon were held to be its publication, and if 
 thereupon it might be subjected to the like unceremo 
 nious treatment with other published literary produc 
 tions. That clever writer said that good would follow 
 if we were occasionally to read in some critical jour- 
 

 fl v 
 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON PULPIT%^ 2< 
 
 nal an article which should begin by saying 
 Sunday the Rev. Mr. Log ascended his pulpit, 
 preached in his usual dull arid stupid fashion ; " and if 
 the article then proceeded to show in detail the bad 
 ness of Mr. Log s reasoning, the infelicity of his illus 
 trations, and his general unfitness to instruct his 
 fellow-men. I venture to differ from the clever writer 
 already spoken of. It is conceivable that the homely 
 discourse, though it did not please a sharp critic going 
 to hear the preacher for one day, might yet do good 
 to the people for whom it was written, who went to 
 be instructed rather than to criticise, and who knew 
 by long experience the faithfulness and diligence of 
 the good man who preached it. Religious instruction 
 need not be brilliant, nor eloquent, nor original, to 
 serve very effectually the great end at which all 
 worthy religious instruction aims. And that end, it 
 " may be said, is not to satisfy a chance reviewer who 
 has dropped into church by accident, but to benefit 
 and comfort the congregation which habitually wor 
 ships there. 
 
 Yet it may be recorded for the gratification of such 
 as may differ from me, that there are localities in 
 which a system is carried out which subjects relig 
 ious instruction to a severe censorship. I recently 
 read the advertisement of an enterprising bookseller, 
 which said, that, with the view of inducing children to 
 take more interest in going to church, the bookseller 
 had prepared a series of printed schedules, which 
 
26 CONCERNING THE CLOSE OF HOLIDAY-TIME. 
 
 might be purchased in a form like that of a bank 
 check-book. On each Sunday morning the child 
 might be supplied with a schedule torn out of this 
 book, and with a pencil. And while in church, the 
 child might note down, upon blank spaces provided, 
 the preacher s name, his text, the way in which he 
 handled his subject, and some appreciation of his 
 voice and manner : whether good, bad, or indifferent. 
 A friend of mine saw one such schedule after it had 
 been filled up by a boy of ten years old. Under the 
 head of Manner, the youthful critic had written the 
 words, MIGHT BE IMPROVED. Probably the province 
 of criticism could hardly be extended farther. You 
 can imagine how much likelihood there is that a child 
 trained to go to church in such a spirit would ever be 
 impressed or improved by sermons listened to for the 
 purpose of passing judgment upon them. And you 
 can imagine how that child, having grown up, would 
 develop into the human being who would employ that 
 unutterably hateful expression which people in Amer 
 ica employ when they desire to praise their preacher : 
 the expression, to wit, that he is a preacher who 
 
 GIVE.S SATISFACTION. 
 
 So let us turn away from the leaden sky and the 
 sullen waves. They will be oftentimes blue and 
 bright before we see them again. 
 
II. 
 
 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 "Be ye thankful." COL. iii. 15. 
 
 HERE is a picturesque tract of the West 
 ern Highlands of Scotland, in passing 
 through which the traveller has to ascend 
 a long, winding path, very steep, very 
 rough, and very lonely, leading up a wild and desolate 
 glen. The savage and awful grandeur of the scenery, 
 with its bare hills and rocks, is hardly equalled in this 
 country. But if the traveller goes up that glen on 
 foot (and it is hardly possible to go up it otherwise), 
 his appreciation of the scene around him is gradually 
 overborne by the sense of pure physical fatigue. Not 
 without a great strain upon limbs and heart can that 
 rugged way be traversed. At last you reach a ridge 
 whence the road descends steeply on the other side 
 of the hill. You have ended your climbing, and you 
 may now begin to go down again, from whichever side 
 you come. And there, at this summit, you will find 
 a rude seat of stone, which bears the inscription, in 
 deeply-cut letters, REST AND BE THANKFUL. Many 
 
28 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 weary travellers have rested there : let us trust that 
 a good many have been thankful. 
 
 We all know that the like name has been given to 
 more than one or two like resting-places ; that it is 
 borne by various seats, at the top of various steep 
 ascents in this country. There is something pleasing, 
 and something touching, in the simple natural piety 
 which has dictated the homely name. He was a hea 
 then who said it, but he spoke well who said, " Where 
 soever man feels himself in peace and rest, let him 
 think of God, and give thanks to Him." I have 
 no doubt at all that St. Paul would have heartily 
 approved that inscription in Glencroe, and would 
 have felt that there is something to warm the heart 
 when the solitary traveller finds in that lonely place, 
 without a human dwelling or a human being near, 
 the brief reminder of the presence and the goodness 
 of Him who is present as much in the wild waste as 
 in the peopled city, and from whose mercy all our 
 blessings come, whether small or great : from the few 
 minutes breathing-space in the Highland glen, up 
 to the last unspeakable gift of His Son to die for us, 
 and His Blessed Spirit to sanctify and console. For 
 you see the comprehensive duty which is enjoined in 
 the few words of the text. The great Apostle would 
 impress upon those Christians of Colosse, who have 
 ceased from their work and warfare through so many 
 centuries now, how many things those should seek to 
 do who trust they are " risen with Christ." There is 
 
THANKFULNESS. 29 
 
 a long list of Christian duties in this chapter in 
 which the text stands. There is sketched out a char 
 acter and a life which, if manifested and led by all 
 who bear the Christian name, would make this world 
 a very holy and a very happy place. St. Paul tells 
 the Colossians how they ought to " set their affection 
 on things above " ; how they ought to mortify the 
 evil impulses of a fallen, though renewed nature, 
 putting off anger, malice, falsehood, and every evil 
 word and deed, and putting on the new man, in which 
 God s holy image is restored. He bids them put on, 
 as becomes the elect of God, mercy, kindness, humil 
 ity, meekness, long-suffering: he bids them forbear 
 and forgive, even as the kind Redeemer forgave : he 
 bids them put on charity, as a robe that should take in 
 every Christian virtue and grace : and he bids them 
 let God s peace rule in their hearts. And then, like 
 a link in this golden chain, like a cope-stone on this 
 beautiful structure, comes the short text with its wide 
 and large meaning : which tells us of one pervading 
 principle and affection which should leaven the be 
 liever s whole heart and life ; which reminds us how 
 there should go with him, everywhere, the deep sense 
 that there is an unseen hand that gives him all he 
 receives ; the deep sense that he is a weak, dependent, 
 undeserving creature, meriting so little and receiving 
 so much ; " loaded with benefits," " prevented with 
 the blessings of God s goodness;" remembered with 
 u compassions that fail not," but are " new every morn- 
 
30 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 ing ; " even afflicted, when afflicted at all, unwillingly, 
 and in faithfulness and love. Remember all these 
 other duties, the great Apostle seems to say; but 
 never forget this : " Be ye thankful ! " 
 
 We have heard of things and people being conspic 
 uous by their absence. And I think you will feel, 
 kiy friends, that there is a certain Name, which is not 
 mentioned in my text, which by its omission is only 
 the more solemnly and impressively suggested to us. 
 Yes, the meaning which is hinted, which is suggested 
 and implied but not expressed, is sometimes for that 
 only the more effectually conveyed. And as with the 
 inscription on the stone seat, so with the precept 
 which forms my text: there is something very strik 
 ing in what is omitted, as well as in what is said. 
 " Rest and be thankful," says the stone in the High 
 land glen: "Be ye thankful," says St. Paul to the 
 Christians of Colosse. It is not said to whom we are 
 to be thankful. There is a touch of natural piety in 
 the fact that that does not need to be said. That is 
 taken for granted ! We all know Who it is that is 
 the Giver of ALL good ; and when we are told, gener 
 ally, to be thankful, of course we know to Whom ! 
 Resting at the summit of the mountain-path, it is not 
 to the man who erected that seat for the weary travel 
 ler ; though it is fit and right that he should be kindly 
 thought of while we are enjoying the effect of his 
 work, yet we are to look beyond him to a cause 
 above him. He erected that seat, acting (as it were) 
 
THANKFULNESS. 31 
 
 for God : every mortal who does a kind and good 
 deed, in a right spirit, is acting for God, and in God s 
 name : and he went away when his work was 
 done, asking of the wayfarer, putting his request on 
 record with a pen of iron upon the stone, that, for 
 whatever comfort and rest might be experienced 
 there, the wayfarer might bestow his thanks in the 
 right quarter. And St. Paul does just the same ! 
 Hundreds and hundreds of years since, just the same ! 
 He says no more than this, " Be ye thankful ; " as one 
 who felt that those he addressed would know as well 
 as himself what is the kind Hand from which all 
 blessings flow ! 
 
 " I am very thankful," says the poor invalid, who 
 amid great suffering is permitted a little blink of 
 ease. " I can never be thankful enough," the parent 
 says, when told that his little child has weathered the 
 worst, that the crisis of disease is past, and that the 
 little thing is to be spared. " Oh for a more thankful 
 heart," the Christian has many a time said, going out 
 from church on a communion Sabbath, when the 
 Saviour has been very plainly present at His table, 
 and the Blessed Holy Spirit has breathed warmly 
 upon the heart, and when some little of Christ s love, 
 and Christ s peace, has been felt and known. You 
 do not ask such people to whom they are thankful ! 
 Oh, there is but One ! One, who is the Giver of every 
 good gift, and to Whom all gratitude tends at the 
 last. There may be steps, as it were, on the way up 
 
32 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 to Him, kind human friends, and happy second 
 causes, but it all comes to Him in the end. If the 
 kindly medicine did it ; if the bracing breeze did it ; 
 if the cheerful, hopeful word from a loving heart did 
 it ; oh, it was God that did it all ! Yes, all gratitude 
 runs up to Him : to Him as manifested in our Blessed 
 Saviour s face. No need for the rough seat amid the 
 heather to say, " Rest, and be thankful to God ; " no 
 need for St. Paul to tell us, " Be ye thankful to God" 
 We all know that. There is none good but One. 
 There is one Giver of all good ! 
 
 There are indeed many places where St. Paul 
 speaks out his meaning fully, tells it all in so many 
 words. " Thanks be unto God," he says, " for His 
 unspeakable gift." " Thanks be unto God, who giveth 
 us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." And 
 cheered in an anxious time by the sight of Christian 
 friends, Paul " thanked God, and took courage." And 
 you all know how there runs through the great 
 Apostle s writings a strain as to the great duty of 
 thankfulness. You remember how, speaking of the 
 heathen world, he tells that its condemnation was, 
 that, " when they knew God, they glorified Him not 
 as God, neither were thankful." And you remember, 
 too, that strong counsel to the saints at Ephesus, 
 " Giving thanks always for all things unto God and 
 the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Here, then, is the mood of spirit in which the true 
 Christian should be seeking to go on through life. 
 
THANKFULNESS. 33 
 
 " Be ye thankful." Every one here knows well how 
 great a part of Christian duty, of vital religion, consists 
 in the cultivation of spiritual states, not outwardly 
 seen: of conditions of temper, affection, will, and 
 judgment, which make but a small and imperfect 
 manifestation of themselves in external deeds. There 
 are many such graces which we ought to be daily cul 
 tivating : praying for those influences of the Blessed 
 Spirit which are to the graces of the soul as the gen 
 tle summer rain and the warm summer sunshine to 
 green grass and green leaves. But we may be sure 
 that there is none that is more weightily incumbent 
 upon us, none from whose faithful cultivation we shall 
 in many ways get more good, than this great funda 
 mental and all-pervading grace of gratitude towards 
 God. It is a happy temper to come to, and one that 
 is worth some pains and thought to reach, that, when 
 ever we are enjoying anything good, any blessing 
 that has come, when things go as we would wish, 
 when some trouble or anxiety has been removed, we 
 should think, Now I know from Whom all this comes, 
 and be thankful to Him. It is a great addition to 
 the value of any happy thing that comes 1 to us, if we 
 train ourselves to this ; not to thank our stars, or think 
 how lucky we have been, but to take it all as proof 
 of a kind God s remembrance, of His love or His 
 forbearance and patience. 
 
 Now, it may be replied to all this, No doubt that is 
 a most happy temper to come to ; no doubt, there is 
 3 
 
34 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 hardly a thing which can come a human being s way, 
 for which he should be more thankful than for a thank 
 ful heart. But then, is that a thing that can be got, if 
 nature or grace has not given it to you ? There are 
 people of that happy, hopeful, cheerful, contented, hum 
 ble, trusting disposition, that they always look at the 
 bright side of things : they really have a great deal to 
 be thankful for ; and they are able to see it. Other 
 people, again, are naturally anxious ; desponding : they 
 cannot help looking on to the future with a certain 
 vague fear ; and they have a very heavy burden of 
 anxiety and care actually resting on them. They 
 really have not so much to be thankful for ; and though 
 they honestly desire to think of God s kindness and 
 their own ill-deserving, still " care s unthankful gloom " 
 has settled down upon them ; and they are not able to 
 be thankful : that is, to have thankfulness as the pre 
 vailing and habitual temper of their heart and mind : 
 it is not in them to have that ; and one of the saddest 
 things about their sad lot, that this should be so. 
 
 I will confess that there is a certain measure of 
 truth in all this. You cannot determine that your 
 heart shall be thankful, just as you might determine 
 that your hands shall be clean. It is not so directly 
 and completely under the control of your will, as that. 
 I believe there may be Christian men and women, 
 daily confessing before God with tears their unthank- 
 fulness and lack of trust in Him : daily praying ear 
 nestly for more thankfulness, and more faith that 
 
THANKFULNESS. -35 
 
 M 
 
 " The Lord will provide." And yet, when 
 in the text says to you and me, my friends, " Be*^^ 
 thankful," there is implied in that command, that this 
 is a thing so far under control that it may fitly be 
 commanded. It is thus far under our own control, 
 that by God s grace we may attain it if we honestly 
 try. And you know there is no Christian grace 
 we can attain on any other terms. There is no 
 Christian duty we can do, unless by that same help, 
 God s grace and Spirit, freely offered. And your own 
 common sense tells you, and your own observation 
 of those around you tells you, that no doubt there is 
 such a thing as fostering a querulous, discontented, 
 unthankful spirit ; and there is such a thing as culti 
 vating a humble, trusting, thankful one. To a certain 
 degree, all this is under the control of the will. To 
 a certain and great degree, people have this in their 
 own hands. You have found it so yourselves. You 
 know there are men and women who keep thinking 
 mainly of the few things they would like which God 
 has denied them ; and who never think at all of the 
 innumerable things they need, which God has given 
 them, and continues to give them day by day ; often 
 while these blessings are never remarked, and habit 
 ually while the gift is received without the faintest 
 breath of thankfulness to the great Giver. There are 
 people who do all this constantly : whose whole life 
 and talk is one long, ungrateful grumble : who seem 
 to think that Almighty God has some grudge or spite 
 
36 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 against them : and all this, while they are incompa 
 rably more favored by Him than is the vast majority 
 of the race ; than are countless millions of immor 
 tal beings who deserve at God s hands exactly as 
 much. Indeed, I doubt not you have sometimes 
 thought, that, as regards worldly aims and successes 
 and advantages, it is often those to whom God has 
 given most, who are least thankful to Him : it is often 
 those who have already received worldly blessings by 
 scores and hundreds, who keep up a constant queru 
 lous moaning if they are not suffered to get some one 
 thing more : as if the fact that you have already got 
 a vast deal, gave you a right to demand everything. 
 And, not to think of others, has not each of you 
 sometimes set your heart on something or other ; and 
 because God would not give you that, talked and felt 
 as if you were released from all obligation to be grate 
 ful to God at all : forgot entirely the thousand things 
 He daily gives you, in the bitter thought of the one 
 thing He saw meet to deny ? Now, by giving in to 
 this, which doubtless is a tendency in fallen human 
 nature, by this brooding over the thing denied, and 
 turning your back on the manifold things given, you 
 are just training yourselves to ingratitude towards 
 God ; you are sowing and watering and fostering that 
 evil weed in your heart ! You are flying in the face 
 of this wise and kindly precept which makes the 
 text. Oh how much better, how much worthier 
 and happier, yea, how much wiser, to turn the 
 
THANKFULNESS. 37 
 
 other page ; to look how much you get, to think how 
 little you deserve ; to remember that you are a poor 
 guilty sinner deserving only God s wrath and woe ; 
 to remember that you ought to be thankful that you 
 are spared in the place of hope, that you are out 
 of perdition ; to remember that every blessing that 
 comes to you, comes simply and entirely of God s free 
 grace and for Christ s sake : till in shame that such 
 a creature as you should dare to be unthankful, 
 should not be thankful to take the crumbs that fall 
 from the Master s table, you fall on your knees, and 
 hide your face, and pray for pardon for that ungrate 
 ful, murmuring, wicked spirit, to which you have been 
 giving harbor! 
 
 I have remarked, brethren, and I am sure many 
 of you have done the same, that people who have 
 received least at God s hand, least, that is, in the 
 way of earthly blessing, are oftentimes the most 
 thankful. I have seen the poor sufferer more thank 
 ful to God for an hour of ease, than many a one of us 
 is for a life in which we hardly ever know pain. I 
 have known the bare dwelling of poverty, where a 
 thankfulness that was painful to see, followed the 
 little aid that might procure what was literally the 
 " daily bread," for the poor, white-faced little hungry 
 children, a thankfulness greater a hundred times 
 than ever was expressed in the formal " returning of 
 thanks " after a sumptuous feast ; a giving of thanks 
 so perfunctory and so heartless that one sometimes 
 
38 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 wonders how much real gratitude it is meant to 
 express, or whether it is meant to express any at all. 
 Ay, there is more true thankfulness, more of the 
 recognition of a providing God, in that touching 
 picture you may have lately seen, of the poor old 
 fisherwornan and her little granddaughter asking 
 God s blessing upon their sorry meal, than many of 
 us have many a time shown, with more reason to be 
 thankful. Oh, my friends, there is a lesson and a 
 rebuke there for you and me ! Yes : I am not afraid 
 that from the most suffering, the humblest, the poor 
 est, the objection will come to St. Paul s precept in 
 the text, that truly they have very little to be thank 
 ful for: not from bereaved hearts, not from crushed 
 hearts, not from beds of suffering and houses of death 
 will that undutiful objection come. My friends, I 
 have heard many a poor creature say, in the midst 
 of suffering, privations, trials, the like of which you 
 never knew, " Oh, I have much to be thankful for ! " 
 And you looked round the bare room, and you thought 
 of the comfortless lot ; you saw the aged, trembling 
 hands, and you heard the failing breath : and you 
 thought how such as walk by sight and not by faith, 
 would have wondered what it was that that poor crea 
 ture had to be thankful for. Yet you blest God in 
 your heart, that the solemn words were true ! Yes, 
 that sufferer had much, yea, very much to be thank 
 ful for ! No earthly comfort, no worldly wealth, no 
 human friends, were worth that possession in the fail- 
 
THANKFULNESS. 39 
 
 ing heart, which had its solemn witness in that grate 
 ful spirit ! That sufferer had " won Christ ; " in the 
 poor chamber His presence was truly felt ; that suf 
 ferer had reached the strong consolation, the sanctify 
 ing grace, of God s Holy Spirit ; that sufferer was 
 going home to Heaven, to enter on the inheritance of 
 martyrs and saints, and to rest in the rest of God ! 
 Ah, brethren, if ever true words were spoken on this 
 earth, it was when the dying Christian said, He had 
 much to be thankful for ! 
 
 But we have been led into this train of thought, 
 while remarking that thankfulness in the heart is a 
 grace which may be cultivated, and that an ungrate 
 ful heart is a bad thing which may be put down; 
 and that it depends a great deal more upon our own 
 nature, and our own endeavors, aided by God s 
 Spirit, whether we shall be thankful or not, than it 
 depends upon our outward blessings and advantages. 
 It is just those people who have fewest of these, that 
 are many a time the most thankful. And every one 
 can understand, that if the denial of worldly prosperity, 
 and the sending of worldly trials and disappointments, 
 be used by God, and sanctified by the Blessed Spirit, 
 to make our souls prosper and be in health, to lead 
 us to Christ, and to make us choose Him for our eter 
 nal portion, then there never was anything for which 
 we had so good reason to be thankful as for these 
 dealings of God with us, painful as at the time they 
 might be. You remember how the good and wise 
 
40 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 man Jabez, in old days, knew that God might " bless 
 indeed," when mere worldly men might have fancied 
 that He did not bless at all. And if we have com 
 mitted our souls to Christ, then, however hard it may 
 oftentimes be to believe it, God will be blessing us by 
 all He sends : " all things .will work together " for our 
 good ; and we shall have good reason, like St. Paul, to 
 " give thanks always for all things." " Though He 
 slay me, yet will I trust in Him," is the earnest 
 purpose of the faithful spirit : and who can forget that 
 noble example of steady faith in God s love through 
 the darkest days, the example of him who, when 
 flocks and herds and children and all were reft from 
 him on one black day, "fell down upon the ground 
 and worshipped," saying, " Naked came I out of my 
 mother s womb, and naked shall I return thither : The 
 Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed 
 be the name of the Lord ! " 
 
 And in all this, my friends, we have reached the 
 true secret of thankfulness. Only to true believers 
 in Jesus is this text, in its fullest and deepest sense, 
 addressed ; only by them can it be obeyed. The 
 mere worldly man may be grateful to the God of 
 Providence, when all things prosper with him ; when 
 there is abundant reason for thankfulness, manifest 
 to the eye of sense ; but it is the true believer s un 
 speakable, inestimable privilege to thank God for all. 
 " Be careful for nothing ; but in everything, by prayer 
 and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests 
 
THANKFULNESS. 41 
 
 be made known unto God ; " and then " the peace 
 of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep 
 your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." To 
 " be thankful," as the text commands, is the especial 
 grace of the true believer: of him who knows that 
 God loves him ; who sees in Christ s life and death 
 that God loves him; and who is not, to be shaken 
 from that firm belief by the darkest, saddest, most 
 perplexing things that come. " I know my God too 
 well," the Christian says, " in a multitude of ways, to 
 be driven from my assurance of His love for me, and 
 to be driven from my gratitude to Him, even by trials 
 and sorrows He may send me, and whose purpose I 
 cannot in the least explain." " I really do not know," 
 may be the believer s words, " why it has pleased God 
 > to send me this long season of broken health ; or why 
 He has set me in the last place in life I would have 
 chosen ; or why He has denied me a blessing which I 
 think no one would ever have enjoyed so much as 
 me : I really cannot explain all that ; but I know 
 that all God s dealings with me are kind and right ; 
 and so by His Spirit s help I will thank Him for it 
 all ! " Here, my friends, is the secret of thankfulness. 
 Here is the way in which to obey this great precept 
 of the great Apostle Paul. It has grown upon me, 
 this conviction, as I wrote this sermon ; and because 
 I am sure of its solemn truth and importance, I pray 
 that the Blessed Spirit may impress it on all. I had 
 not intended this treatment of my text: I had not 
 
42 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 intended this line of thought at all. I had thought 
 of a long catalogue of blessings which God has freely 
 given us : things we all have for which to be thank 
 ful : and at another time I may fitly suggest these 
 to you ; but it is borne in upon me that that is not 
 the way to waken and kindle real thankfulness in 
 our hearts. True it is, indeed, that there is so very 
 much that we have all freely received. True it is, 
 that there is so very much we all get from God, and 
 get for nothing. True it is, that there is a host of 
 things which God must do for each of us every day, 
 or we could not live ; and true it is, above all, 
 that God so loved us that He sent His Son to die. 
 All these truths we may well remember, and seek to 
 grow more grateful to the great Benefactor when we 
 " forget not all His benefits." But beyond all this is 
 the training of our hearts to thankfulness ; the putting 
 down the hard and suspicious thoughts of God which 
 will come when His benefits seem few and our anxie 
 ties many ; the firm belief in His love for us ; the 
 steady faith that the darkest things are what we need, 
 to train us for a better world. O brethren, if you 
 would be truly thankful, seek an assured part in 
 Christ till you get it ; seek with your whole heart that 
 the Holy Spirit may kill out in you all evil feelings 
 and thoughts and affections, may show us .what sin 
 ful creatures we are, undeserving the least of God s 
 mercies, may make our hearts glow with gratitude 
 to Him who died for us, loved us, saved us ! And 
 
THANKFULNESS. 43 
 
 if that be done, how little all other things will be ! 
 Reading back the story of our past lives, we shall see 
 how wonderfully we have been led and kept at a 
 hundred times and ways ; till, like the Psalmist, we 
 say, " Bless the Lord, O my soul ! " But if we have 
 been of a surety led to Christ, then that sufficeth us. 
 " Thanks be unto God/ will be the utterance of our 
 heart, " for His unspeakable gift," which includes or 
 makes up for every other ! " Unto Him that loved 
 us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 
 and hath made us kings and priests unto God and 
 His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever 
 and ever, Amen ! " 
 
 And this thankful spirit, to which we may thus 
 train ourselves in this life, by the guidance of the 
 Holy Ghost, is one that will last with us forever. 
 Yes, it is fit and right that through eternity the songs 
 of the redeemed should be songs of praise and thank 
 fulness. Looking back, there, on the way by which 
 they have been brought, its temptations, perils, and 
 sorrows ; looking round on the glory and rest in which 
 they are, and safe forever to be ; calling to mind the 
 work and death of that Blessed One to whom they 
 owe it all : what wonder if the spirit of adoring grati 
 tude should be breathed through all the utterances of 
 that great multitude that shall stand before the throne, 
 and before the Lamb ! What wonder if their words 
 shall be, " Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and 
 
44 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be 
 unto our God forever and ever ! " There, shall be 
 thanksgiving consummate ! " Blessing, and honor, 
 and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne, and unto the Lamb forever ! " Yes, there, 
 at last, perfect thankfulness, and perfect rest. It is 
 meet and well that to-day, in deep Glencroe, or amid 
 green cornfields and summer trees nearer hand, the 
 wayfarer should sit down and thank God for that little 
 blink of rest. But oh, in that Happy Place, where 
 the believer is safe forever, looking back upon 
 earthly pain and sorrow, in the perfect peace of God ; 
 where no anxiety or care can ever come ; where 
 nothing shall distract or weary any more ; where the 
 believer shall have entered upon that Rest that re- 
 maineth for the people of God ; and where the holy 
 heart, wherein all sin is dead, shall yield no affection 
 that is not pure as God is pure : then, my friends, in 
 a glorious and sublime truth of sense, the pilgrim 
 shall REST AND BE THANKFUL ! 
 
 June 21, 1863. 
 
III. 
 
 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost." JOHN xiv. 26. 
 
 SOMETIMES think, my friends, that 
 there is One Person in the Godhead, 
 whom we practically do somewhat slight. 
 We do not think of Him so kindly and 
 hopefully as we ought ; we do not enough recognize 
 Him as God, with the Father and the Son together to 
 be worshipped and glorified. We seldom hear even 
 a sentence in a prayer, addressed expressly to the 
 Blessed and Holy Spirit, the Third Person in the 
 Godhead. I do not believe that any among us doubts 
 that there is such a Being : we are fully persuaded of 
 His Personality, and His Agency, and the inestimable 
 value and importance of the work He does. We 
 believe all that. May God help our unbelief and 
 increase our faith ! Yet still, I think we greatly fail 
 practically to realize these things. We are ready to 
 think of the Holy Ghost rather as an influence, an 
 energy proceeding from God, than as a real kindly 
 Person, loving us, caring for us, dwelling in us if that 
 
46 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 be God s gracious will. And yet, if we think at all, 
 we cannot but feel that none can be more interested 
 in our salvation ; that none is more closely and com 
 pletely linked with our whole Christian life ; that there 
 is none whose presence is so needful for us while we 
 remain in this present evil world. 
 
 We can see a kind of reason for this lack of full 
 and express recognition of the Blessed Spirit. No 
 doubt, no doubt, there is One Person in the God 
 head, whom w r e love, and may fitly love, most of all. 
 There is One, whose name (let us pray) will never 
 fail to warm our heart, till our heart turns cold with 
 the last chill it is to know. It is, doubtless, that 
 beloved Redeemer who died for us ; that Divine 
 Person who took upon Himself our human nature, 
 and became our Elder Brother in humanity; that 
 Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ who went about doing 
 good, and to whom little children came so naturally, 
 drawn by the sweetness of that kind face and that 
 gentle voice ; and concerning whom we seem to feel 
 that, the Mighty God as he was, we could have gone 
 to Him, and told our story to Him, rather in love and 
 confidence than in fear. 
 
 It is not wonderful, brethren, that in the believing 
 heart, Christ should always be the First, yea, the All 
 in All. And there is more and deeper in this than 
 the mere weak impulse of our fallen nature. For in 
 the face of Christ we see the glory of the whole God 
 head. He is the Image of the Invisible God, Father, 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 47 
 
 Son, and Spirit. And looking at Him, and loving 
 Him, we look at God, and we love God. And . the 
 visible representative is naturally more conspicuous, 
 more manifest to our view, than the invisible God 
 head which He represents. But, besides this right 
 reason for special love to the Saviour, our Elder 
 Brother, there is another wrong reason in many 
 minds : a reason founding upon a notion which cannot 
 be too carefully dispelled from your minds. This is 
 the notion, entertained by many, that Christ is far 
 kinder and milder and more easily won, than God the 
 Father and God the Spirit ; that God the Father, 
 especially, is a stern, severe being, who would will 
 ingly have consigned us to all perdition ; and that 
 the gentler, kinder Son interposed, and suffered, and 
 saved us almost against the angry Father s will. Oh, 
 what a miserably false and unchristian way that is of 
 regarding God ! Is that the kind of idea conveyed 
 to us by Christ, when He tells us that God waits 
 to welcome back the sinner as kindly as the father 
 did his prodigal son ; and when He tells that the 
 kindest-hearted among you is not so ready to show 
 kindness to your children as He is to give every bless 
 ing to you ! Always remember, brethren, and pray 
 for grace to feel it far more really than you have ever 
 vet done, that just what Christ was, God is ; that, 
 when you desire to think of the Almighty Being 
 above us, your right course is, not to put your mind 
 upon the stretch, to reach out to thoughts of infinite 
 
48 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 space and infinite years, but rather to open the Gos 
 pel of St. Luke or St. John, and to see Jesus of Naz 
 areth as He trod this world ; to listen to His com 
 fortable words, to mark His deeds of mercy ; to think 
 of His never-failing compassion to the sorrowful, of 
 His willingness to receive the sinful ; to look on His 
 unspeakable love to lost man, shown in His life and 
 His death ; and then to remember that this same 
 Jesus of Nazareth " hath shown us the Father," and 
 that He is the " Image of the Invisible God ! " 
 
 It is an end, my friends, to which a Christian 
 minister can never devote too much care and thought, 
 to dispel from the minds of the people committed to 
 his ministry, the wrong ideas and beliefs, which are so 
 ready to creep in and establish themselves, as to Al 
 mighty God; a"s to His nature and character; as to 
 how He feels towards us. And I cannot but frankly 
 confess, that I believe there is no small measure of 
 truth though truth stated in a most morbid and ex 
 aggerated fashion in what has been written by an 
 eminent historian whose life and work were lately 
 and sadly cut short . together, as to the stern and 
 gloomy views of our Heavenly Father entertained by 
 not a few in Scotland. My desire and prayer at this 
 time are, that we may this day be enabled rightly 
 and truly to think of One who is indeed God; of 
 One who cares for us as warmly and sincerely as 
 the Redeemer Himself; of One who "makes inter 
 cession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered ; " 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 49 
 
 of One to be worshipped and glorified as God, and 
 to be loved and confided in only less than Him who 
 died for us on the tree. 
 
 Let us remember, then, that in the Godhead, besides 
 the Father and the Son, there is a Third Person, the 
 same in substance, equal in power and glory, who is 
 called the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit ; mysterious 
 in His nature and being ; proceeding from the Father 
 and the Son ; who spake by the prophets, and who 
 fulfils certain great works in that wonderful operation 
 which brings man from death to life, and which makes 
 man fit to dwell in God s beatific presence. We shall 
 hereafter think of the varied operation of this Blessed 
 Spirit ; but let us now think of that one precious truth 
 which our Saviour sets before us in the words of the 
 text. See how our Lord names Him: "The Comfort 
 er, which is the Holy Ghost." And in several other 
 places, Christ calls Him by the same name. It is 
 known to many of you, that, while the word which our 
 Saviour used is very fitly translated by the English 
 word Comforter, and while it unquestionably means 
 that, it has been maintained that it means yet more, 
 and that some hint, some suggestion, of all the varied 
 work of the Holy Spirit, is conveyed by that well- 
 remembered word PARACLETE, which was actually 
 used by Christ. We are too ready, all of us, to feel 
 towards the mysterious Holy Ghost something of the 
 shrinking and the chill with which we naturally re 
 gard a disembodied spirit ; and superstition, and stu- 
 
50 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 pidity, and wicked mismanagement in childhood have 
 turned one of the words which make the name of that 
 Blessed One, into a name of fear. But, brethren, if 
 we did but get rid of our ignorant fancies, if we did 
 but see the truth of the case, we should feel that 
 there is something so kindly, something so homely 
 and sympathizing and dear, about that precious Holy 
 Spirit, that surely, if He did but set right our sinful 
 hearts, we never could think of Him but with perfect 
 love and confidence, with that perfect love which 
 casteth out unworthy fear. And what kindliness, 
 what consideration, are in the very name by which 
 the Saviour calls Him : " The Comforter, which is the 
 Holy Ghost ! " What a view of an unutterable love 
 and patience is in that name when you think it is a 
 name of God ! " The Comforter ! " One who will not 
 be impatient at our little griefs, and at the poor way 
 in which we bear them ; One who will condescend, 
 from the great movements and concerns of the uni 
 verse, to think of all the little cares and sorrows of 
 a poor human being, of a feeble woman, or a little 
 child, or a poor struggling anxious man with his 
 weight of care and toil, things that many another 
 man would not take the trouble of listening to ; One 
 who will sit down by us in our sorrow, and whisper 
 consoling thoughts into our ear, yea, carry His 
 blessed peace into our very heart, that peace which 
 the world cannot give, that peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding! Think, brethren, of a 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 51 
 
 Being who, in all the glory of Godhead, yet chooses 
 for His special resort the darkest dwellings and the 
 saddest hearts, all that He may convey His own strong 
 consolation and gracious cheer ; not despising our little 
 troubles, and how little, we might blindly think, 
 must they seem to Him ; entering into them all with 
 unfeigned sympathy ; bearing with our fretfulness and 
 our murmurings ; not scolding us for grieving, or 
 hardly telling us it is no matter ; not ordering us to 
 cease to mourn, but comforting us as one whom His 
 mother comforteth, leading the wandering, rebellious 
 soul gently back, and sanctifying through all ! 
 
 And that, my friends, that is the fashion in which 
 we ought to think about the Holy Ghost, the 
 Blessed Spirit of God. No doubt, He does many 
 things besides comforting. Pie regenerates us, and 
 makes us new creatures in Christ ; He convinces us 
 of sin, and enables us to believe in the Saviour ; He 
 sanctifies us day by day, making us in the end meet 
 for glory ; He begins, in short, our better life, and 
 carries it on to its perfection ; He teaches us to pray, 
 and breathes true devotion into our hearts ; yet it is 
 meet and right that, with all this, we should worship 
 and seek Him by His gracious name of Comforter. 
 It is not an unworthy thing to call Him by that name, 
 whereby Christ called Him, nor to think of Him, for 
 a little, in that character. Now, brethren, think of a 
 human being who should devote himself to going 
 about from house of sorrow to house of sorrow, all to 
 
52 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 comfort ; who never would hear of a mourning heart, 
 among rich or poor, but he set himself to console it, 
 and that without the faintest suspicion of intrusiveness 
 or fussiness ; who had such a charm about him, through 
 his tender heart and his kind face and his gentle per 
 suasive voice, that he would in time win his way to the 
 confidence of the most hard and repellent and self-con 
 tained, and make them feel he was their friend, and 
 get them to talk out to him all their burdened heart ; 
 whom no fretfulness nor sullenness could weary ; whom 
 no sorrow nor grief could long withstand without being 
 lightened and hallowed ; oh, what a heavenly mission 
 would that man s be ! You would not be afraid of a 
 man like that ! And surely, if you feel aright, you 
 will feel nothing but love and confidence towards One 
 who is all that and a thousand times more, and whose 
 name and nature and work are set before us in words 
 that should come home so warmly to sorrowful hu 
 man hearts as the blessed, kindly, sympathizing Holy 
 Ghost, the great and good Comforter ! 
 
 And now, my friends, I wish that we may rest for 
 a little while in the contemplation of this great truth, 
 that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, that we may 
 see how far this truth will enable us to understand 
 and to love as we ought this Third Person in the 
 Godhead. May He Himself, Spirit of all light and 
 truth, order that all that is said may be said truly and 
 worthily ! 
 
 And, first, when we speak of the Holy Spirit as the 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 53 
 
 Comforter of Christ s people, see what this implies as 
 to His knowledge of us, and of all our circumstances. 
 My friends, before any one can comfort you, he must 
 not only know you, but must know you well. He 
 must know what sorrow or trouble it is that is press 
 ing upon you ; he must know so much about your 
 nature and your affairs as to be able to understand 
 how it is that that sorrow weighs on you so heavily ; 
 and what is the particular kind of feeling it awakes in 
 you ; and what the thoughts and remembrances are 
 that corne most bitterly across you as you look round 
 or look back. You know that the very kindest heart 
 and the very best intentions will not enable any one 
 to offer you real comfort unless he knows and under 
 stands you well ; nay, that the lack of power to un 
 derstand you may cause the best intentioned human 
 being so to speak and so to act towards you as only 
 to increase your grief instead of relieving it. Yes, it 
 is a sad sight to see an injudicious, meddling, well- 
 meaning, ignorant person trying to offer consolation 
 to a mourning heart. And think, then, my friends, 
 how intimately and thoroughly the great Comforter, 
 who can comfort when no one else can, must know 
 you and yours ! Let us speak humbly, brethren ; 
 but I cannot but say that not the name Creator, not 
 the name Redeemer, seems -to convey the idea of such 
 thorough knowledge of us and of all about us as the 
 name of Comforter ! For the Comforter, to do His 
 work aright, must know a great many very little 
 
54 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 things about us, must make Himself well acquainted 
 with all those little things about them which mourners 
 and sufferers are so ready to tell us about, and which 
 are apt to be wearisome to even really kind people, 
 perhaps to almost all but those who have passed 
 through the like experience themselves. He must 
 know all those thoughts and feelings within you, in 
 your days of sorrow, which you do not tell to another, 
 but yet which go so far to make up the sum of your 
 real inward life. The very shade of feeling with 
 which you hear of the blighting of your fondest hopes, 
 or with which you bend over the dead face of one 
 who is very dear to you, or with which you turn 
 away from the home of your early love, all those 
 things which you know words are so vain to convey 
 to others, all those things He knows. You may 
 be sure he understands you, and what you feel, as 
 strangers do not and cannot, as even those who are 
 not strangers often most imperfectly do. There is 
 no one, none, who is so at home under your roof, 
 who is so thoroughly versed in all your circum 
 stances, your anxieties, your feelings, as the Blessed 
 Spirit of God. When you look back, in seasons of 
 sorrow, over your pilgrimage hitherto; when you 
 turn over the faded letters in which past years are 
 embalmed ; when you read some record that wakens 
 up those departed days, and that makes the old time 
 come over you; then be sure of this, that, little as 
 most of those you know can understand your thoughts 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 55 
 
 and feelings, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, under 
 stands them all ! 
 
 But there is more and better than this. The 
 Blessed Spirit not only knows us, but feels for us. 
 That is implied in the fact that He stands to us in the 
 relation of Comforter. You might imagine such a 
 thing as a Being of infinite knowledge looking on at 
 all the movements of our minds, as we might look on 
 at the movements of ingenious machinery, with curi 
 ous interest and nothing more. You might imagine 
 Him as- looking, with the interest of the anatomist or 
 the machinist, at the play of the fearful and wonderful 
 enginery of thought and feeling within us, as we go 
 on through the manifold cares and sorrows of this 
 life ; noting how in certain conjunctures of outward 
 circumstances certain phases appeared within ; re 
 marking how at one time the spiritual machinery 
 played buoyantly and lightly, how at another it 
 dragged wearily and slow, how again it seemed as 
 though it would break down altogether, shattered and 
 beaten ; and only thinking, in the sight of all this, 
 that it is all very strange. You might imagine Him 
 as knowing all about us, yet not in the least feeling 
 for us ; if indeed there can be perfect or even imper 
 fect knowledge without the insight which the elec 
 tric sympathy gives. Or, you might imagine a great 
 Spirit, infinitely exalted above us ; seeing how little 
 and insignificant are the things which vex and dis 
 tress us, when compared with the great concerns of 
 
56 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 the Universe ; and only wondering that we should 
 make such an ado about so small a matter ; wonder 
 ing at our anxieties and our tears with a feeling 
 midway between wonder and contempt. You know, 
 my friends, we often do just that. When you see 
 a little child in great distress, you remark, likely 
 enough, that the cause of its distress is very small, is 
 something that you would never think of shedding 
 tears about ; and unless you have a deeper insight 
 into truth than most have, you are disposed rather 
 to be impatient of all this sorrow ; you are disposed 
 rather to be angry that the little thing should be 
 so foolish, than to feel any real, hearty sympathy 
 with its distress. Ah, brethren, if the Holy Spirit 
 were like us, He would many a time rather chide 
 than comfort! 
 
 But if it were so, He might retain many names 
 of honor; but one name, kindly and heart-warming, 
 would be His no more ! If that were so, the Merciful 
 Saviour would never have named Him as " The 
 Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost;" and though 
 we might still adore Him from afar, we should not 
 love Him as now; nor pray to have Him for the 
 daily inmate of our homes and hearts ! That He may 
 comfort us, He must feel for us ; must look on at the 
 sorrows of our hearts, not with the cold sharp glance 
 of one that watches a strange machinery, but as with 
 the kind, sympathetic look, and the beaming, glisten 
 ing eye ! That He may comfort us, He must know 
 
THE ELESSED COMFORTER. 57 
 
 that things, little in themselves, like to the great 
 world or the great universe, are very great to us poor 
 human beings ; that a sorrow that never will be heard 
 of five miles off, that never will be known of or cared 
 for by a dozen fellow-creatures, may be a very great 
 and crushing sorrow to a weak human heart. And 
 what a view all this gives of His character ; how near 
 it draws Him to us ; how well it makes us understand 
 Him ! Think of the Third Person in the Godhead, 
 think of God the Holy Spirit, all interested and 
 concerned about a poor widow s anxious thoughts for 
 her children, all interested and concerned about a 
 little child s tears ; think of that Almighty One, feel 
 ing for a parent bidding farewell to a son who must 
 go to a distant land, feeling, heartily and truly, 
 for the poor, faded mourner, weeping over the green 
 grave ! O Gracious Spirit, teach us to know Thee, 
 even as we are known ! 
 
 And now we come to the third thing, the great 
 thing, implied in the hopeful name which our Saviour, 
 in the text, gives to the Holy Spirit. He understands 
 us ; He feels for us ; and now, let us think, He com 
 forts us. And see what that means. It means that 
 He really succeeds in doing what human beings strive 
 so vainly to do, in conveying comfort and consola 
 tion. He does not merely condole with us ; He does 
 not merely sit down by us and share our grief; He 
 does not merely pity us ; He COMFORTS us. And 
 
58 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 what skill, what delicate tact, what mighty power, 
 what unspeakable tenderness, are conveyed and im 
 plied in that word ! You know the kind of way in 
 which human beings sometimes think to comfort ; and 
 how cold and hard and worthless the consolation 
 offered by such miserable comforters must seem to the 
 sorrowful heart. You may remember how Queen 
 Elizabeth, with the best intentions I dare say, once 
 wrote to a mother who had lost her son, and told her 
 that she would be comforted in time ; and why should 
 she not do for herself what the mere lapse of time 
 would do for her ? It would be felt as something like 
 a mockery, I think, that hard, heartless saying. It 
 would, in a true heart, only make the present sorrow 
 the sorer, to think that indeed it was to be outgrown ; 
 and, to the credit of our nature, let me say that I 
 believe, that, with worthy people, great grief is never 
 quite outgrown ; it may leave us, but it does not leave 
 us the men we were. And you will think of Cicero s 
 friend, writing a letter of condolence to the Roman 
 philosopher after he had lost his daughter; and 
 insisting, by way of comfort, that really the loss was 
 a matter of no great consequence ; asking, almost 
 indignantly, how, when the Republic had fallen, Cicero 
 could be so much afflicted for the lo^s of a single 
 individual, "a poor, little, tender woman : " these 
 were the consoler s very words. But it is not in these 
 hard ways that the True Comforter does His work ! 
 It is not by upbraiding our nature s weakness; it 
 
THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 59 
 
 is not by any process of logic that that Heavenly 
 Messenger accomplishes His blessed end. It is 
 rather by gentle soothing, we cannot say how ; by 
 presenting glorious and immortal hopes; by breath 
 ing resignation to the kind will of the kind Father 
 above us ; by sanctifying the affliction which has 
 fallen, to wean our hearts from this troublesome 
 world, and to set our affection above, where suffer 
 ing, and sorrow, and change, and death, are done 
 with for evermore! No doubt, my friends, the very 
 fact that the name of Comforter is so dear, implies 
 that Comfort is a thing we shall all often greatly 
 need ; no doubt, the law stands repealed as yet, that 
 " through much tribulation we must enter into the 
 kingdom of God ; " but remember, brethren, that one 
 great good of sorrow is this, that, if we never knew it, 
 if we never knew what it is to have our hopes 
 blighted and our hearts wrung, we never should 
 know, and never should love, as we ought, that 
 Blessed One who begins, carries on, and ends our 
 Christian life! 
 
 And so, my Christian friends, I have sought, hum 
 bly, yet most earnestly, to set before you one blessed 
 character, one blessed work, of the Holy Spirit of 
 God. I do not want you to think of a vague, myste 
 rious Spirit, whom you can little comprehend ; I want 
 yo^u to think of the kindly, homely Comforter, that 
 sits down by a bereaved mother s side and carries 
 
60 THE BLESSED COMFORTER. 
 
 consolation to her heart, and that dries the mourner s 
 tears ! I want you to remember, that in every kind 
 heart, and every soothing voice, that is in man or 
 woman over the face of this world, you have faint 
 and far specimens of the Holy Ghost s kindest heart, 
 and of His gentlest voice that speaks to the believer s 
 soul ! We can love and trust Him, Blessed Sanctifier 
 and Comforter of all God s people, as we never could 
 the mysterious Spirit, seen in absolute glory, and in 
 no relation to ourselves. You have seen how much 
 is implied in the name of Comforter, of kindly sym 
 pathy ; of perfect understanding of us ; of feeling for 
 us in all we feel. Yea, after that Name like which 
 there is none other, after the Name of SAVIOUR itself, 
 there is no more precious one that human lips can 
 ever speak, there is none at which human knee may 
 more fitly bow ! My dear friends, let us, every one 
 of us, join this day in the hearty petition : Oh, Com 
 forter of Christ s people ; oh, Blessed Spirit who art 
 God ; come and comfort us on the way to rest ; and 
 sanctify us till we are meet for entering there! 
 
 Dependent on Thy bounteous Breath, 
 
 We seek Thy grace alone ; 
 Through childhood, manhood, age, and death, 
 
 To keep us still Thine own ! 
 
 Nov. 30, 1862. 
 
IV. 
 
 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 ; And when he came to himself." ST. LUKE xv. 17. 
 
 k OMETIMES, simple and familiar forms 
 of speech express a great principle, a 
 great truth, and one not distinctly under 
 stood by the people who use them. We 
 have the very best reason to believe that the prophets, 
 who in old times were inspired by God to convey His 
 message to mankind, did not always fully understand 
 the meaning of the words they employed. And day 
 by day, we, my friends, are all of us accustomed to 
 speak in words whose direct and immediate force we 
 understand, but which imply a vast deal nio*e than 
 is always present to our mind when we speak them. 
 We have an instance of this in the text to which I am 
 to turn your thoughts at this time. It is a familiar 
 form of speech, and a very short one ; and, unlike some 
 of the idiomatic phrases which you will find in our 
 English translation of the New Testament, it stands 
 the same in the Greek and in the English. So it is 
 an idea that suggested itself to men s minds long ago ; 
 and it is a form of words that was in common use, as 
 
62 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 among us, so ages before we were born ; this idea and 
 this description of a man coming to his sounder rea 
 son, as of one who has "come to himself." And in 
 that familiar phrase there is a great and solemn truth 
 implied and suggested to us : the great truth, that man 
 is a fallen creature ; that man needs to be set right ; 
 and that, in order to be set right, what man needs is 
 restoration to a pure and excellent ideal, which, for 
 the present, is lost and gone. 
 
 You will be told by the etymologist, who investi 
 gates the original meaning of words, that the first and 
 most natural reference of the phrase which forms our 
 text, is to the case of one who is recovered from a 
 fainting-fit ; when such a one is restored to conscious 
 ness and sense again, you say, He has come to him 
 self. Then the phrase came to be used of one who, 
 from a condition of mental unsoundness, was brought 
 back to reason ; of one, in whom the wayward, fitful, 
 miserable estate of madness was by God s blessing 
 made o give place to a sound mind ; you would say 
 of him, He has come to himself. And then, by a 
 further extension of its signification, the phrase came 
 to be applied to deliverance from any error or 
 delusion, from any condition of mind \vhich is 
 wrong and morbid ; so that you might say of one 
 who has come out of some violent and degrading fit 
 of passion, or who has been emancipated from some 
 foolish prejudice or absurd opinion, that he has come 
 to himself. But I ask you to observe, my friends. 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 63 
 
 that in every case in which we use the phrase, it 
 always means that the man has come from a worse 
 state to a better one. You never say of a man, 
 doing or thinking foolishly or wrong, that he has 
 come to himself. But if a man be doing what is 
 right, and wise, and good, after having done what was 
 hasty and foolish and wrong, then you say of him 
 that he has come to himself, his better self indeed, 
 but his truer self too. And oh, brethren, how much 
 is conveyed to us by this deep natural belief that 
 underlies this common phrase, the deep natural con 
 viction, that, so long as man is wrong, so long as man 
 is astray, man is not himself! 
 
 And, let us remember, this phrase, bearing this 
 meaning and implying so much, is now stamped with 
 authority. We are entitled to take it and build upon 
 it all it will bear. It has the mark upon it that en 
 titles it to pass current everywhere as a genuine and 
 right way of thinking and speaking. Here, in the 
 text, we have words which proceeded out of the lips 
 of God. Our divine Saviour said them : May God s 
 good Spirit teach us rightly to understand them ! 
 They come in, these comfortable and hopeful words, 
 in that blessed parable of the poor prodigal, for which 
 many a sinful wanderer has thanked God upon bended 
 knees, and which makes us understand, in sober ear 
 nest, that the Almighty Judge above us, far from 
 desiring our punishment and destruction, is as ready 
 to welcome us, when we turn from our sins and go 
 
64 MAN COME TO HIMSELF 
 
 Lack to Him, as the kind father who saw his poor, 
 starved, weary wanderer while yet a great way off, and 
 ran to meet him, and welcomed him to his heart again 
 without one syllable of reproach. Now mark what is 
 taught us by the text, coming where it does. The 
 poor prodigal was not himself throughout the earlier 
 part of the story. He was not himself when he 
 came to his father and asked the portion which he 
 was so little fit to have or to use ; and he was still 
 less himself when he turned his back upon his home, 
 followed by his father s anxious forebodings ; and 
 even less than that, when away in the far country, 
 among his graceless companions, recklessly wasting 
 the portion which his father had worked hard to win. 
 But, starving in the mighty famine, sitting hungry 
 among the swine, a poor, ragged wretch, whose fair- 
 weather friends had cast him off, to whom no man 
 gave, and for whom no man cared, seeing now his sin 
 and misery and want, and resolved to arise and return 
 in penitence to his father, content if only received as 
 a hired servant in the home where he had been a 
 favored son ; now, my friends, the Saviour tells us, 
 now, the prodigal has come to himself! 
 
 Yes ; it was when he did the first wise and right 
 thing that we are told he did at all ; it was when for 
 the first time in all we are told of him, he reasoned 
 and acted like a wise man and not like a fool ; it was 
 then that the wise Saviour, who knows what we are 
 so well, said, that He had "come to himself!" Surely 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 65 
 
 there is something hopeful, as well as something of 
 solemn warning, here. We have fallen far from 
 what God made us: we are sinful, anxious, miser 
 able, worldly, helpless ; yet, through Christ s atoning 
 work, through the Blessed Spirit s operation, we may 
 be, and if God s will be carried out in us, we shall 
 be, made perfectly holy, and happy, and safe again ; 
 and when that good work is done in us, it will not be 
 that we are made into anything more or better than 
 God at the first designed us for ; it will only be that 
 we have attained the true Ideal of human nature, 
 and been glorified into that for which God when He 
 made us intended us ; it will only be, my friends, 
 that, in the noblest and truest sense of the phrase, 
 we shall have at last "come to ourself!" 
 
 We take the text, then, as something to remind us 
 that we have fallen far, but not fallen hopelessly ; that, 
 great as is our present depression beneath the condi 
 tion in which our race was created, so great may yet 
 be our rise ; and that the very end and purpose of all 
 Christ s work and suffering in this world was to bring 
 us back to our better selves, to restore us to the holi 
 ness, happiness, and peace, which man lost when man 
 fell. And if this be so, my friends, the subject to 
 which I ask your thoughts is not one wholly sad. If 
 a man has met great worldly reverses of fortune, if, 
 from having his children in comfort and affluence, he 
 is obliged now to see them poorly fed, and barely clad, 
 5 
 
66 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 though he may oftentimes look back upon his better 
 days, it will always be something of a trial to do so, 
 if there be no hope at all that these better days are to 
 come back. And still more, if a man have fallen into 
 sin and shame, and if he be always sinking deeper 
 in it, oh with what agony he will remember the 
 time when he was innocent and esteemed ; it will be 
 unutterable bitterness to look up to the elevation he 
 once held, now lost forever ; he will know how true 
 is the poet s declaration, that "a sorrow s crown of 
 sorrow is remembering happier things I " And if it 
 were so, spiritually, with you and nie ; if the state 
 of sin and misery in which we are by nature, were 
 a state from which we never could be delivered ; if 
 the pristine holiness and happiness we have lost 
 were lost forever ; if, low as we are, we must always 
 remain, and only go deeper and deeper down ; then, 
 my friends, the less we thought of the glory that is 
 gone, the -more content, with a dreary desponding con 
 tentment, we should be. But for this end Christ lived 
 and died ; for this end the Holy Spirit labors day by 
 day, that we may be delivered from the ruin, the sin 
 and misery in which we are all sunk by nature, and 
 brought back again to that holy and happy estate in 
 which we thankfully though humbly recognize our 
 true self. And in all we can discern of the holiness 
 and happiness in which we were made, we discern the 
 holiness and happiness to which, by God s grace, if we 
 do but heartily consent to it and strive for it, we shall 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 67 
 
 be raised up again ! It was a beautiful morning that 
 dawned upon our race, though it turned soon into a 
 cloudy and stormy day ; and the cloudy and stormy 
 day is dragging slowly over us ; but in the distant 
 horizon there is a light breaking, which shall yet grow 
 into a day more glorious and bright than ever shone 
 upon us before, a day whose light shall never be 
 overcast, and whose sun shall never go down ! 
 
 Let us remember, then, that the human race was 
 itself when it was at its best. Man was himself, 
 before he fell. And let us look back to whence we 
 are fallen, that we may see to what we may yet rise 
 again. Let us try, this day, to make out the linea 
 ments of our true and better self, and to compare 
 these with what we are now. 
 
 I shall follow, in speaking of all this, the order sug 
 gested in a certain treatise, very familiar to most of 
 us from our childhood. We were created in God s 
 image ; and our fall brought us into an estate of sin 
 and misery. Sin and Misery : in these two things 
 lies our lost condition as we now are by nature ; and 
 let us compare our pre erit state and our better state 
 in these two respects. 
 
 As for sin, you know there is a double burden 
 there. Two things go to make the burden of our 
 sinfulness. There is, first, what is commonly called 
 Original Sin ; not that I wish to make much use 
 of these phrases of technical Theology ; I desire to 
 preach, not the metaphysics of the Gospel, but the 
 
68 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 blessed Gospel itself; yet probably no phrase would 
 more compendiously set out the doctrine as to that 
 earliest burden of sinfulness we bear. So, by origi 
 nal sin we are to understand the sinful nature we 
 inherit, a nature which very early begins to show its 
 bent to evil rather than good ; and likewise the guilt 
 of our first parents primal sin, which in a very real 
 sense is imputed to us, that is, placed to our account, 
 so that we have to answer for it, and suffer for it, as 
 it is a matter of unquestionable fact we do. And the 
 second thing which goes to make the burden of our 
 sinfulne.-s, is a thing which weighs much more heavily 
 upon our conscience : it is the countless .actual sins 
 we have done. Now, brethren, mark the difference 
 between man as he is now, and man as he was when 
 he was himself, as regards this double burden of sin- 
 fulness. Our first parents had no inherited burden 
 of guilt. They started fair. We do not. They had 
 not to .bear that load which all of us have to bear, 
 that load which crushes down many of our race, 
 and which many a one has hardly a hope of escaping. 
 They had not, woven into their very constitution of 
 body and mind, something that was to be always a 
 clog, and oftentimes a sore temptation. And then, in 
 that happy time when man was right, he knew no 
 actual transgression. He knew nothing of those mani 
 fold sins which press on your consciences, and press 
 the more heavily the more your consciences are en 
 lightened ; all the manifold evil you have yourselves 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 69 
 
 thought and done ; all the good that you have failed 
 to do. Now, what we need as regards all this, is to 
 be brought back to our better self; brought back to 
 where human nature was before it fell ; and Christ, in 
 His great atoning work, does that. He puts us, in 
 the respect of the sinfulness into which we are fallen, 
 in the condition in which our first parents were before 
 they broke God s law. There is indeed one glorious 
 difference : He puts His redeemed ones so effectually 
 in that condition, that they can never leave it again. 
 Not the unstable and speedily lost purity of the days 
 in Eden, but an enduring, an irrefragable holine.-s, 
 never to be lost more ! 
 
 You all know well, doubtless, the double operation 
 whereby Christ takes away the double burden of sin- 
 fulness from His ransomed people. As for the burden 
 of our actual sins, as for their responsibility and 
 their punishment, as for whatever responsibility 
 may attach to us through the original load of guilt 
 transmitted to us from Adam, as for all that, He 
 takes it away by bearing the punishment due for our 
 sins, by offering Himself, truly and actually, as a 
 propitiatory sacrifice : a sacrifice so wonderful, so 
 precious, so accepted by God, that it can blot sin 
 out; separate between the soul and its responsibil 
 ities ; open a way in which the just and holy God 
 can receive as innocent, can adopt into His family, 
 the sinner, cleared utterly from all the burden of 
 his sins. Repent of sin, and God s Spirit waits to 
 
70 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 help you to repent; believe in Christ, and God s 
 Spirit waits to help you to believe ; and no writing 
 stands against you in God s book any more. God is 
 content to look upon you, and see you clear and 
 blameless, as Adam before he fell. " Being justified 
 by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." " There is therefore now no con 
 demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." 
 "They are without fault before the Throne." 
 
 And as for the burden of our sinful nature, of 
 the heart within us averse to good and prone to 
 evil, that burden, too, through Christ s great atone 
 ment, is taken away by the working of the Holy 
 Spirit. Through His regenerating power, the Chris 
 tian is made a new creature in Christ Jesus ; the 
 perverse nature is replaced by a better and purer; 
 a new heart is created within him, and a right spirit 
 is renewed ; and then, day by day, in the constant 
 work of sanctification, the remaining evil is further 
 sapped and subdued ; and the blessed fruits of the 
 Spirit are made to appear, the love, joy, peace, 
 and all blessed graces, which never grew in the heart 
 indigenously. It is a longer work, this, you know, 
 than the single act of our justification ; it is a work, 
 the best believer knows, never fully carried out in 
 this life ; much remaining corruption lingers ; and it 
 is the most advanced Christian who feels this most 
 deeply ; but still the work is doing, and on the whole 
 always progressing ; which will leave us at last with 
 
MAN COME TO IIIMSEL 
 
 the soul un vexed by evil and temptatior 
 when he knew no sin. 
 
 And thus, my friends, as for the sin which 
 the first great burden in our fallen state, you see that 
 even now, and here, the work is done, in part, which 
 shall bring us back to the sinless state, which is man s 
 right state, the state in which man was made at the 
 first, and to which every redeemed soul will be re 
 stored again. Even here, and now, in part ; but when 
 it shall not be here, but hereafter ; not now dimly and 
 darkly, but then, face to face ; when this weary, sin 
 ful world is left behind, and this troublesome, anxious 
 life done with ; and when not merely the guilt of sin 
 is no longer resting upon us, but the power of sin is 
 wholly dead; when the white clear page shall bear 
 nothing against us, and when our entire nature shall 
 be pure, as God is pure ; when evil shall have noth 
 ing more in us, or around us, or over us, or against 
 us, than it had when man was fresh and glorious 
 from his Creator s hand ; surely then, indeed, in the 
 fullest force of that most significant expression, man 
 shall have been brought back to himself! 
 
 But there is more. The Fall brought us, not only 
 into an estate of sin, but into an estate also of misery. 
 And we remember from childhood the sad but too 
 true tale of the items that make up human misery. 
 We have lost communion with God. We lie under 
 His wrath and curse. We are liable to the manifold 
 
72 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 ills and troubles of this life : to death, which ends our 
 sojourn here in a fashion so painful and lowly ; and 
 then, to final woe. To all these things we are liable 
 by nature ; and you will think that misery is not too 
 strong a word to express the condition of a keenly 
 sentient and an immortal being, pressed by these. 
 
 Looking back, we discern a day when it was dif 
 ferent, different in each one of these respects which 
 we have summed up. Once, man walked in com 
 munion with God, and was free and happy in that 
 communion. And you know, brethren, it is a certain 
 fact, that that communion and the love of that com 
 munion are gone no\v. Man, by nature, shrinks from 
 God, shrinks from Him with vague mistrust and fear; 
 the old way is lost ! And when we are awak 
 ened to see things rightly, we feel that we deserve 
 God s wrath and curse ; that they are the necessary 
 consequence of our sins ; that we have nothing to say 
 why they should not come down upon us ; and how 
 different that must once have been ! In all Adam s 
 consciousness there was not a thought or idea cor- 
 
 O 
 
 responding to these things. In his unfallen state, he 
 would not have known what any one meant who had 
 spoken to him of the wrath and curse of God ; and 
 least of all would he have been able to understand, 
 till sad experience taught him, what is meant by the 
 pangs of an accusing conscience, what is meant by 
 the burden of remorse ; and by the deep overwhelm 
 ing sense within, that God s wrath and vengeance are 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 73 
 
 justly due. We need not dwell upon the sad assem 
 blage which makes up the ills that flesh is heir to in 
 this life : the anxieties, the cares, the disappointments, 
 the bereavements, sickness, pain, weariness, and the 
 load of forebodings and fears, ending only with death ; 
 and then, beyond death, something worse than all. 
 But just think how different it once was with man in 
 all these respects ! No cares nor fears ; no sickness, 
 no want, no pain ; no death ; and not the faintest sug 
 gestion of following woe ! 
 
 And now let us thankfully mark how the Redeemer 
 takes away, even here, in part, and fully hereafter, 
 each of these things that go to make the sum of the 
 sorrow into which man came when he fell. The lost 
 communion with God, He brings back. Once far 
 away from God, and enemies to Him through wicked 
 works, we are brought near again by the great Medi 
 ator, the Daysman, who can lay a hand upon both. 
 Christ teaches us to love and trust God, because He 
 makes us know God, shows us the Almighty, not 
 in the obscurity and chill of His awful natural attri 
 butes, not as the angry Judge whose laws we have 
 broken, but as the reconciled Father, holding out 
 to us the arms of His love, and bidding the sinful 
 wanderer return. Christ "hath declared" God; shown 
 us God; shown us God in His own blessed char 
 acter, and life, and death ; and the more we know of 
 God, the better shall we love God, and the more con 
 fidingly trust Him. And as for God s wrath and 
 
74 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 curse under which we lie by nature, these the Saviour 
 hath taken away. He has Himself borne the punish 
 ment of our sins ; the fiery wrath has exhausted 
 itself upon our Substitute ; and if we do but accept 
 Him for our Substitute, it concerns us no more. The 
 manifold ills and trials of life may still remain ; but 
 even in this world He lightens them, takes the worst 
 sting from them ; do but trust Him as we ought, and 
 God will " keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
 stayed upon" Himself; and even where these ills and 
 cares are most heavily felt, the Holy Spirit makes 
 them work together for the soul s true good; uses 
 them as discipline to make the soul meet for a better 
 and holier world ; where they shall be felt, because 
 they shall be needed no more. As for the death 
 which has " passed upon all men " because " all have 
 sinned," we know that " our Saviour Jesus Christ has 
 abolished death " ; has changed its essential nature ; 
 has turned it to the messenger of peace ; has made 
 it the dark portal which we bow the head as we pass 
 under, and lift it upon the farther side, in the pres 
 ence and the light of God ! And there, in that Bea 
 tific Presence, man will be happy as before he fell, 
 and safer by far ; he will be happy with a bliss 
 which shall be absolutely complete, and which never 
 can be shaken, or lessened, or imperilled more ! 
 
 And then, indeed, my friends, in that Golden City 
 for which we look, all will be well again ! You know. 
 Christians, that the work of restoring us to the early 
 
MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 75 
 
 happiness, so soon lost, is far from being completed 
 here. In a measure, Christ restores us to communion 
 with God ; in a measure, leads us to love and trust 
 God ; yet cares remain, and death awaits ; and fears 
 may sometimes steal in of what lies beyond ; in that 
 undiscovered country from which no message comes 
 back. For we are sinful yet ; and so long as we are 
 sinful, we never can be perfectly happy. If Christ s 
 faith and love be in us, if the Holy Spirit be working 
 upon us, then we are in some degree restored to what 
 we would be ; but we are not yet brought to our 
 selves. not yet brought up to that pure and happy 
 standard of being, which man can recognize as his 
 true and unfallen self! But in that Better Land, 
 where sin is done with, and sorrow is done with ; 
 where, through Christ s blessed work, the Fall is 
 blotted out in both its dreary parts; where man is 
 lifted up from the " estate of sin and misery " into 
 which he fell ; where we shall be holy as before, and 
 happy as before, and safe as never before ; then, breth 
 ren, there will be a glorious fulfilment of these words 
 Christ spake of the Prodigal ; then, truly and com 
 pletely, man shall have " come to himself! " 
 
 Yes, my friends, in our Redeemer s presence if 
 God, for His sake, bring us there we shall be right ; 
 and right for the first time in all our pilgrimage. It 
 has been, since we were born, a long and sad series 
 of errors, sins, and follies. The only approach to a 
 sound mind that the wisest among us has ever shown, 
 
76 MAN COME TO HIMSELF. 
 
 has been in going to Jesus and believing on Him, if 
 God has enabled us to do that. And th ink what 
 blessed light this casts on our solemn parting from 
 this world. You remember how the ancient Greek 
 poet spake of one of his heroes, lying dead : " There 
 he lay, great and broad, having forgotten all his doings 
 in this life." Is it thus, my friends, we should speak 
 of the departed believer ? There lies his body, dead 
 and cold. Is his soul away from itself, in a swoon of 
 dim forgetfulness ? . Nay, it is in the loving presence 
 of God ; it is clear and right at last ; it has a sense 
 of home it never felt before ; kind voices welcome 
 the believer, entering where he is now ; dear friends 
 gather round him. Think you, he is all astray, be 
 cause he has gone forth from that familiar body and 
 these accustomed scenes ? Nay, brethren ; in a truth 
 never known in all his life before, the believer has 
 " come to himself ! " 
 
V. 
 
 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 " And experience worketh hope." KOM. \. 4. 
 
 k O says the great apostle Paul. " Expe 
 rience," he tells us, " worketh hope." 
 Brethren, what does your own life s his 
 tory say to that ? You know, of course, 
 that, when any general principle like this is laid 
 down, when it is asserted that a certain discipline 
 produces upon the soul of man a certain effect, the 
 way in which it must be decided whether the principle 
 be true or not, is just to ask a great many human 
 beings whether they have themselves found it so. It 
 is a question of fact ; and it must be decided by the 
 testimony of competent witnesses. What we have to 
 do is, not to argue that this or that training seems 
 likely to work this or that result upon man s soul and 
 heart. The question is, not whether experience ought 
 o work hope ; many things in this world ought to 
 do, and are intended to do, what they fail of doing. 
 The question is, Does experience work hope ? And I 
 am sure, my friends, that you will agree with me that, 
 
78 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 at the first glance, the apostle s assertion seems a start 
 ling one. 
 
 " Experience worketh hope." Ah, brethren, take 
 that principle in its largest sense, apply it to the 
 interests of this life and this world, and who is there 
 that does not know that the apostle s statement would 
 be utterly wrong ? You have not found, we know, 
 that the most experienced people are the most hope 
 ful. You have found, that, in this world, it is the 
 inexperienced who are the most sanguine. Look at 
 inexperienced youth, with its bright and glowing 
 hopes. Compare it with age, compare it even with 
 manhood, with its sobered anticipations and views, the 
 result of experience, and say whether experience has 
 not wrought disappointment rather than success, and 
 despondency rather than hope ! The inexperienced 
 man is all buoyant anticipation : he sees no difficul 
 ties in the way ; he looks for brilliant success in life ; 
 he looks forward to a lot of perfect and unmingled 
 happiness. How different with the man who has had 
 some experience of the realities of life ; how sober, 
 and how modest, are his hopes of earthly happiness 
 and success ! Ah, how lie has tamed down from the 
 feverish fancies and high hopes of youth ; how expe 
 rience, in his case, has wrought anything rather than 
 hope ! Once, life was to be all romance, and fame, 
 and happiness. Now, he knows that life must be 
 sober prose, and humble work, and ceaseless worry. 
 Who is there that does not sometimes, on a quiet 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 79 
 
 evening, sit down and look back upon his early days 
 and his early friends, and think sadly of the failures, 
 the disappointments, the broken hearts, which have 
 been among those who all started fair, and promised 
 well ? And who is there, but must have sometimes 
 found it difficult to believe that he himself, sobered, 
 saddened, taken down by the wear of life and its 
 many disappointments from the vain fancies and idle 
 anticipations of that time, is indeed the self-same 
 being ! It cannot be doubted that there is one sense 
 in which all after-life may be said to be a disappoint 
 ment. It is far different from that which it was pic 
 tured by early anticipations and hopes. The very 
 greatest material success still leaves the case thus, 
 Though you reach the very place, the very lot, on 
 which your heart was set, you are sure to find it 
 something quite different from what you fancied when 
 you set your heart upon it. Yes, brethren, when you 
 look to this life and this world, you might well think 
 that St. Paul was mistaken when he wrote the words 
 of the text. You might well think that he was 
 attributing to experience an effect the very opposite 
 of that which it in fact produces. You would say 
 that " experience worketh " sobriety of expectation ; 
 that " experience worketh " disappointment ; that " ex 
 perience worketh " despondency ; yea, that sometimes 
 "experience worketh" despair itself; but surely never, 
 never, that " experience worketh hope ! " 
 
 Yes ; and you would say right. Earthly experience 
 
80 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 sobers earthly hope. But it was not of earthly ex 
 perience that the apostle spake ; nor of earthly hope. 
 There is no doubt at all, that, the more you know of 
 this world, the less you will hope from it. The more 
 experience you have of the things of sense and time, 
 the less expectation you will have that they will ever 
 make you happy. But there are interests, there is a 
 world, there is a Being, concerning whom the more 
 you know, the more you will hope and expect. As 
 regards our Blessed Saviour, His grace, and precious- 
 ness, and love ; as regards the solid peace- and happi 
 ness to be found when we find a part in His great 
 salvation ; as regards the sanctifying and comforting 
 influences of the Holy Spirit ; as regards the power and 
 prevalence of earnest prayer ; as regards the rest and 
 refreshment the weary soul may find in a Lord s-day 
 duly sanctified ; as regards the consolation which relig 
 ion can impart amid earthly disappointments, sorrows, 
 and bereavements ; as regards the peace that Christ 
 can give in death ; as regards His power to take the 
 victory from the grave, and to turn the heathen bury- 
 ing-place into the Christian sleeping-place ; as regards 
 such things as these, "experience worketh hope;" the 
 more you know of Jesus, His promises and His grace, 
 the more you will expect from Him ; and instead of 
 experience leading us to say, as it does lead us to say 
 of most earthly things, " I have tried it ; I have fairly 
 tested it ; it cannot make me happy ; I shall trust it 
 no more, " experience of God leads us rather to say, 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 81 
 
 " I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
 that Pie is able to keep that which I have committed 
 to Him against that day ; " "I love the Lord, because 
 He hath heard my voice and my supplication ; because 
 He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call 
 upon Him as long as I live ; " " The Lord hath been 
 mindful of us ; He will bless us still ! " Yes, the apos 
 tle was right. In the sense in which he used the 
 words, and in the matter of those great spiritual 
 interests of which he was thinking when he used the 
 words, true it is and unquestionable, that " experience 
 worketh hope ! " 
 
 And so, my friends, it comes to be that the recep 
 tion which such a general principle as that stated in 
 the text will get from any human being, depends 
 mainly upon what kind of being he is; upon what 
 kind of thoughts are uppermost in his mind ; upon 
 what class of interests hold the first place in his heart. 
 Thus, if you go to a man whose whole heart and mind 
 are set upon this world, whose first thoughts run 
 iipon how he is to get on in life, upon temporal suc 
 cess and earthly ambition and happiness, if you go 
 to him and tell him that " experience worketh hope," 
 assuredly he would say to you, " No ; anything but 
 that ! " For he will involuntarily and at once test 
 the principle by considering whether it holds true in 
 regard to those things about which he thinks most, 
 and most earnestly ; and ke will feel at once that it 
 does not hold true there; that, indeed, as regards 
 6 
 
82 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 worldly hopes and fancies, you could hardly say any 
 thing more thoroughly false than that experience con 
 firms, and satisfies, and encourages them ; that in very 
 truth, as regards worldly things, " experience work- 
 eth" the very reverse of " hope." But go to the man 
 who has laid up his treasure above, and set his affec 
 tion there ; go to the man in whose heart the Saviour 
 holds the first place ; go to him who feels that this 
 world is the dream and the shadow, and that the wak 
 ing, earnest, solemn realities that concern immortal 
 beings such as we are, lie beyond the grave ; go to 
 such a one, and tell him that "experience worketh 
 hope." And you may rely upon it, he will agree with 
 you at once ; for he will test your principle by consid 
 ering whether it holds true in regard to those things 
 which he regards as the most solemnly important ; and 
 he will remember that his Saviour s sufficiency, and 
 grace, and love, often tried, have never failed; that 
 he never yet has found that the Lamb of God is not 
 able to take away all sin ; that he never yet has found 
 the day in which the Blessed Spirit is not able to 
 comfort and sanctify; that he never yet has been 
 made to feel that Christian peace, and charity, and 
 joy, are all a fond delusion ; but rather he has found, 
 in his own experience, that the longer he has gone on 
 in the service of his God and Saviour, the more 
 entirely satisfied he is with it ; that the longer he has 
 loved and trusted the Blessed Redeemer, the more 
 reason he sees for loving and trusting Him ; that the 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 83 
 
 longer he has prayed, the more heartily and hopefully 
 he can go to the throne of grace in Christ Jesus 
 name ; that the more he has known of God, and 
 God s service, and God s dealings with His children, 
 the more thoroughly and confidingly can he leave 
 himself and all he holds dear in his God s kind and 
 almighty hand; that he has "tasted and seen that 
 God is good " ; that he needs no man s testimony to 
 assure him what kind of Master he serves, what kind 
 of Saviour he rests upon ; that he has tried for him 
 self; that he has learned by experience ; and that 
 true it is in the letter and the spirit, that " experience 
 worketh hope ! " 
 
 So you see that the same life, the same events, the 
 same experience, may work upon the soul effects 
 directly opposed to each other, according as the 
 soul s own nature may be. If this world have the 
 upperhand in the soul, then experience will work dis 
 appointment and despondency. If the unseen world 
 have the upperhand in the soul, then experience will 
 work hope. And it is not a thing out of the analogy 
 of nature that the same agent should work contrary 
 effects, according to the nature of the thing it acts on. 
 You will think of the often-recurring comparison of 
 the Middle Ages : Fire, the same fire, hardens clay 
 and softens wax ; and even so experience, the same 
 experience, works hope in the spiritual man, and 
 disappointment in the worldly man. 
 
84 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 And now, brethren, in thinking for a little space 
 longer concerning St. Paul s declaration, that " expe 
 rience worketh hope," let me suggest to you two 
 thoughts, which are implied in the apostle s principle, 
 and which are the great reasons why the apostle s 
 principle is true. 
 
 These are, that, in the great concern of religion, 
 you are sure, if you seek in the right way, to get 
 what you seek ; and you are also sure, when you get 
 what you seek, to find it equal your expectations. 
 
 It is because Christian experience proves these 
 two facts, that Christian experience worketh hope. 
 And it is because worldly experience proves the 
 reverse of these two facts, that worldly experience 
 works disappointment and an unwillingness to cherish 
 hope. 
 
 First, then, in the great concern of religion, you 
 are sure, if you seek in the right way, to get what 
 you seek. 
 
 Now here, at once, we find a point in regard to 
 which there is a total contrariety between worldly 
 things and spiritual things. Who is there that needs 
 to be told, that one great cause of human disappoint 
 ment in worldly things lies in this ; that, however 
 anxious you may be to get some thing on which 
 you have set your heart, and however diligent you 
 may be in using all the means which you think tend 
 towards your getting it, you may yet entirely fail of 
 getting it? You may be eager to grow rich; you 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 85 
 
 may feel most vividly the many comforts and ad 
 vantages and refinements which wealth can buy ; you 
 may toil early and late to accumulate a fortune ; and 
 yet you may never do more than maintain your 
 family in decent respectability ; or you may even 
 know the bitterness of poverty and want. You may 
 be eager to gain eminence and distinction ; you may 
 think how- fine a thing it would be to make your 
 kindred proud when your name is mentioned ; to be 
 known by what you have done, or said, or written, to 
 many human beings who otherwise never saw or knew 
 you, and whom you will never see or know ; and yet 
 your ambition may be so sorely out of proportion to 
 your abilities, or circumstances may so hold you down, 
 that you may continue nameless and obscure. Indeed, 
 I dare say you have remarked, that those people who 
 have set their whole heart upon any particular thing, 
 are generally the very last to get it ; we have all 
 known of poor disappointed men who all their life 
 were eagerly seeking for some desired object, and 
 seeking in vain ; while that desired object was 
 pressed upon other men who cared very little about 
 it. Yes, in the concerns of this world, you never 
 can be sure, however anxious you may be to get a 
 thing, and however hard you may work to get it, that 
 you will get it after all. And so, as you gradually 
 find this out by bitter experience, experience will 
 be found to work disappointment, but never, never 
 hope. But in the grand concern of religion, all that 
 
86 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 is changed. In the grand concern of religion, if you 
 seek diligently, and seek in the right way, you are 
 sure to get what you seek. For here, the promise 
 holds without a restriction or exception : " Ask, and 
 it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
 and it shall be opened to you." We know, of course, 
 that every promise that prayer shall be answered 
 must be understood as with the condition: provided 
 the thing prayed for be for your own real good and 
 for God s glory. And as we never can be sure, in 
 the case of any earthly blessing, that it is for our own 
 real good, and for God s glory, that we should get 
 it, so we never can be quite sure that we shall get 
 it, even in answer to the most earnest and persever 
 ing prayer. Not health, but sickness, may be the 
 true blessing ; not wealth, but poverty ; not success, 
 but disappointment ; not the happy domestic circle, 
 but the cold and lonely fireside. But when we pray 
 for spiritual blessings, for repentance towards God 
 and faith in Christ and a sanctifying Spirit, we may 
 pray with the absolute certainty that our prayer will 
 be granted, because we pray with the absolute cer 
 tainty that we are asking that which it will be for 
 our good to get, and for God s glory to give. And 
 thus it is, that, if we seek grace and mercy and peace 
 in humble prayer through Jesus ; if we set our heart 
 upon spiritual gifts and graces, and strive after them 
 in the appointed way ; if we set our heart upon obtain 
 ing that saving interest in the Blessed Lamb of God, 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 87 
 
 which is the most precious of all possessions ; if we 
 set our heart on putting down the evil that is in us, 
 and growing in holiness day by day ; if we set our 
 heart on reaching that confiding faith in God which 
 trusts Him with everything, and in that finds perfect 
 peace: oh, brethren, if we set our heart upon these 
 tilings, sure as God liveth we shall find them ; if 
 we earnestly wish for them, and strive after them, 
 we shall assuredly call them our own ; we shall feel 
 their solid reality ; we shall feel their peace in us day 
 by day ; and as our own experience assures us of all 
 this, we shall feel how truly the apostle spake, who 
 said that; as for God, and God s grace, and God s 
 promises, and God s great salvation, " experience 
 worketh hope ! " 
 
 Yes, my friends, seek spiritual blessings ; and seek 
 ing, you shall find. You will never need, here, to 
 resign your mind, as you may, to sore disappointment 
 and failure. You will never need to sit down in sad 
 ness and say, I longed for pardon, and I prayed for 
 it and strove for it, but God in His wisdom saw 
 meet to refuse it me ; I longed for holiness, I prayed 
 and strove for it, but God saw that it was not good 
 for me, and He said I must do without it ; I longed 
 for Heaven, I have prayed and striven all my life 
 for it, but perhaps God sees that it will be best for 
 me never to enter into that quiet Home. You have 
 said the like, many times, over the wreck of your 
 worldly hopes. You have sometimes had to say, 
 
88 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 Well, I set my heart on that, and I toiled for it hard 
 as man could toil ; I did my very best ; but God s 
 will be done, I shall not get it, 1 shall never get it. 
 But in regard to the great essential blessings of the 
 Gospel, experience will teach its lesson, experience 
 will do its work ; and it never will work disappoint 
 ment ; it will always work hope. 
 
 But we said that another fact on which the prin 
 ciple in the text founds, is, that in the matter of spir 
 itual blessings, you are sure, when you get what you 
 seek, to find it equal your expectations. 
 
 It is but the first and earliest view of the disap 
 pointment which comes of longer experience of this 
 world, to regard it as a feeling arising from our so 
 often failing to get the worldly thing on which we had 
 set our hearts. There is a further and deeper disap 
 pointment than that. It is the disappointment of the 
 man who reaches the place he longed for, who gets 
 the thing he desired, and then finds that it will not 
 make him happy ; that to possess it takes off the 
 enchantment which was lent by distance ; that it is 
 far, very far, from being what he had deemed it, pos 
 sibly through long laborious years. Ah, my friends, 
 is not this disappointment felt everywhere ; does it 
 not begin to be felt early ? When you were school 
 boys, longing for the holidays, what vague, delightful 
 visions of perfect happiness were wrapped up in the 
 mention of their name ! But the holidays came, as 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 89 
 
 all holidays have done and will do, and in a few 
 days you were heartily wearied of them. How many 
 pushing business-men fancy they will be perfectly 
 happy when they retire from business and settle in 
 the country ; and what a comment upon such fancies 
 is the fashion in which retired men of business often 
 haunt the places of their former toils like unquiet 
 ghosts ! They have got the rest they wished and 
 worked for; they have got the pleasant country home; 
 but they find, with sad disappointment, that these 
 things are not at all what they had fancied them. 
 That is the way of this world. Only to possess a 
 thing, takes away half its value ; the coveted emi 
 nence, position, mode of life, may still appear desir 
 able enough after they have been reached, but they 
 are not what fancy had painted them ; and as worldly 
 experience tells us that, it works the reverse of hope. 
 But, brethren, when we turn to spiritual blessings, 
 how different is it there ! Once gain them, and they 
 will never disappoint you ! They will never fall short 
 of the bright anticipations which you had formed of 
 all they would be ! And so far from it being the case, 
 that to gain them and possess them cuts down their 
 value, it is rather true that only those who have actu 
 ally tried and possessed them are able to understand 
 their worth. Oh, you may talk of the peace of be 
 lieving, to the man who has never believed ; you may 
 tell of the preciousness of the Redeemer, to the soul 
 that has never turned tc Him ; you may speak of the 
 
90 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 strong consolation of the Blessed Spirit, to him who 
 lias never experienced all the comfort He can impart ; 
 but your words will wake no response in the heart ; 
 they will seem an idle tale ; you will be speaking in 
 language hardly understood, and not felt at all. But 
 speak of such things to the soul that has gained them 
 and tried them ; speak to the Christian sufferer of 
 comfort in affliction, vouchsafed from above ; speak to 
 the humble believer of the Saviour s kindly sympathy 
 and mighty power ; speak to the aged pilgrim of the 
 kind guidance of his God, of a rod and staff which 
 shall sustain the failing steps even in the last dark 
 valley that must be trodden ; and you will see by the 
 beaming face and the glistening eye that you are talk 
 ing of things thoroughly understood, and appreciated 
 by an experience of them that worketh never-failing 
 hope. He had thought that peace and pardon and 
 joy in Christ would be good and happy things when 
 he first resolved to seek them, but how good and 
 happy, how satisfying and sustaining, till he had tried 
 them for himself, he never knew! 
 
 Yes, my friends, there are possessions which, when 
 you gain them, will never fall short of your expecta 
 tions of them. There is a happy home, into which 
 the soul that enters will never look round with disap 
 pointment, mortified that this is all. There never was 
 the human being who said, I was earnestly desirous 
 to gain the favor and friendship of God, to gain the 
 good part in Christ; I strove and prayed to gain 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 91 
 
 them ; and now I have gained them I find they are 
 no such great matter after all; the prize is hardly 
 worth the cost. God is indeed my father ; Christ is 
 indeed my Saviour; the Holy Spirit dwells within 
 my breast ; and I know that heaven is my home ; but 
 these things leave me still unsatisfied and unhappy. 
 No, brethren ; experience never brought any human 
 being to such a mind as that. That is the strain in 
 which experience has taught men to speak of earthly 
 ends, after they were won. Many a man has said, I 
 labored to grow rich ; I thought I should be happy 
 then ; I have grown rich, and I am no happier than 
 before. Many a man has said, I labored to grow 
 eminent ; I thought I should be happy then ; I have 
 gained what I wished, and I am no happier than 
 before. But the man never breathed who would say 
 the like of the blessings of grace. The man never 
 breathed who would say that he had grown weary of 
 his Saviour s love and of the Blessed Spirit s consola 
 tion ; that he had tried them for himself, and found 
 them empty and vain ! Nay ; but rather those happy 
 souls who have experienced most of the pure joys of 
 religion, can testify that there is a solid reality about 
 them which no words can express ; that they can 
 compensate for the want of all earthly possessions ; 
 but that no worldly treasures could make up for the 
 loss of them. Hear what a Christian man once said 
 on one of the last days of his life : " When I for 
 merly read Bunyan s description of the land Beulah, 
 
92 THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 
 
 where the sun shines and the birds sing night and 
 day, I used to doubt whether there was such a place ; 
 but now my own experience has convinced me of it, 
 and it infinitely transcends all my previous concep 
 tions." What say you to that, my friends, for a com 
 ment upon our assertion that the blessings of redemp 
 tion, once attained, will not fall short of that which 
 we expect ! 
 
 And now, as our meditation draws to a close, we 
 look once more at these words, very few indeed, but 
 very rich in meaning, wherein the great apostle tells 
 us human beings, sobered even if not saddened in our 
 anticipations of what this life will yield us, that " ex 
 perience worketh hope ! " No doubt, even as regards 
 this world, this is true to a certain degree. The ex 
 perience of many days has taught us to hope that the 
 sun will rise to-morrow; that these short days will 
 lengthen to the golden summer ; that the seasons will 
 bring back the flowers, and the green leaves return. 
 But experience has not taught us to hope that there 
 shall be to us fulfilment of the vague, bright anticipa 
 tions of childhood, of the gay hopes of youth. We 
 know better than to expect very much of this world 
 now ; experience has abundantly taught us that God s 
 Word is right when it tells us that this is not our 
 rest, that the home and the happiness of the im 
 mortal spirit are far away. You may reach worldly 
 success, my friends ; I heartily wish you all of it that 
 
THE WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 93 
 
 God sees good ; but however happy your home may 
 be, however prosperous your lot, experience will work 
 you bitter disappointment if you think to find your 
 soul s abiding portion amid the things of sense and 
 time. " Thou madest us for Thyself, " I think of St. 
 Augustine s words ; " Thou madest us for Thyself; and 
 our souls are restless till they find rest in Thee ! " 
 But, blessed be God s name, experience can work 
 hope, better by far than the hopes of youth ; calm, 
 lasting, sober, yet glorious hopes ; hopes of possessions 
 that will not elude our grasp, nor wither in it ; hopes 
 that will sustain in life, and gladden even in the valley 
 of death s dark shade. The worldly man, doubtless, 
 thought he was saying much for his sanguine, hopeful 
 spirit, when he said, " While I breathe, I hope." But 
 the believer can say more than that; he can say, 
 " When I draw my parting breath, still I hope ! " The 
 experience which has shattered his hopes of worldly 
 happiness has taught him that he never can hope 
 too much of his Saviour s faithfulness, and love, and 
 power. And say, brethren, which is the most truly 
 hopeful human being, the one who hopes just be 
 cause he has no experience, or the one in whom expe 
 rience has worked hope ! Oh that we may so know 
 Him in whom we have believed, that we may be per 
 suaded that He is able and willing to keep us against 
 that day ! Oh that we may have that experience of 
 our God and Saviour, which shall work in us a living 
 faith, and a never-failing hope ! 
 
VI. 
 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 " Without Me ye can do nothing." ST. JOHN xiv. 5. 
 
 HERE never was but one being who 
 wore the appearance of human nature, 
 who had the right to say such words. It 
 would have been great presumption in 
 any mere man to have said to his fellow-creatures 
 what Christ here says to his apostles : " Without Me 
 ye can do nothing." It has been said with great 
 truth, that in this world no man is necessary ; there is 
 no man in the world whom the world could not do 
 without. There are many men who if they were 
 taken away would be missed, would be very much 
 missed, perhaps, by more or fewer human beings, 
 but there is no man but what we may say of 
 him, that useful and valuable as he may be, we 
 might sooner or later, we might with more or less 
 difficulty, come to do without him. It is a truth this 
 which we do not like to admit, perhaps, even to our 
 selves ; there is not one of us, it may be, but cher 
 ishes the belief that if we were taken away, there 
 would be some hearts where we should always be 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 95 
 
 remembered and always missed, where our absence 
 would be regarded as an irreparable loss; we like to 
 fancy that things would not go on exactly the same 
 without us as with us. But this world has never 
 seen more than one Being who could think, and who 
 could say with truth to those connected with Him, 
 that it was absolutely impossible for anything or any 
 person to make up for the want of Him ; that it 
 was absolutely impossible to go on when separated 
 from Him. We come at last to live on just as before, 
 though we may be parted from our nearest and dear 
 est earthly friends. The little child fancied, when its 
 mother died, that all the world was now a dreary 
 blank, and that without her it could " do nothing " ; 
 but as weeks and months passed on, it learned that it 
 could live, somehow, though it saw a mother s face 
 and heard a mother s voice no more ; and after years 
 have rolled away, the grown-up, busy man hardly 
 seems ever to remember at all her whom the heart 
 broken child missed and mourned so sorely. And the 
 mother, in like manner, may feel her heart almost 
 broken when her little one is called to go ; may fancy 
 that now all interest is gone from life, and that with 
 out that little one she " can do nothing " ; but time 
 brings its wonderful easing T and at length her daily 
 duties get back their interest; and, though not for 
 getting, she gets on much as before. And it is the 
 same way in every earthly relation. The husband 
 comes to do without his dead wife, and the wife to do 
 
90 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 without the departed husband. The congregation that 
 missed their minister for a while come at length to 
 gather Sunday after Sunday with little thought of the 
 voice it once was pleasant for them to hear. The 
 State comes to do without its lost political chief, and 
 the country without its departed hero ; and we learn 
 in a hundred ways that no human being is absolutely 
 necessary to any other human being. We may in 
 deed fancy so for a while, but at length we shall 
 find that we were mistaken ; we may indeed miss 
 our absent friends sadly and long, but we shall come 
 at last to do without them. 
 
 And so it would have been presumption and igno 
 rance for any mere human being to have said such 
 words as those of our text. It would have shown 
 how vain an idea he had of his own importance, 
 how far astray he was in his estimate of his own 
 usefulness and worth. Here we find our Blessed 
 Saviour saying to His apostles on the eve of parting 
 from them, saying without limitation or restriction, 
 that they could not do without Him, that they 
 could do nothing without Him. He sets no excep 
 tion to the broad assertion He makes ; He tells them 
 that they could no more do without Him than the 
 branches could bear frurT if cut off from the parent 
 tree ; that at no place in all their wanderings at 
 no hour in all their lives could they ever come 
 to miss Him less than in the first pang of parting. 
 They would not even be able, when separate from 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 97 
 
 Him, to do as we can do when first parted from those 
 we love, to go through the duties that cannot be 
 avoided, in some kind of cheerless, heartless way. 
 No ; they would be absolutely paralyzed and power 
 less. " Without Me," he says, " without Me ye 
 can do nothing ! " 
 
 Now that we may come to a clearer understanding 
 of our Saviour s meaning when He spoke these words, 
 let us think what it is that we mean when we say that 
 we can do without any person. We understand, gener 
 ally, that we can get on quite as well with our duties 
 and our enjoyments when he is away, and when we 
 are without his advice, his help, his company. We 
 understand, that we shall be just as happy, though we 
 never see him at all, and that we shall get on with all 
 we have to do just as well, though he be not there to 
 advise us or to aid us. And when Christ said to His 
 disciples, " Without Me ye can do nothing," He meant 
 that, as regarded Him, it was just the reverse of all 
 this, and even more than the reverse of all this. He 
 meant that they could not be happy away from Him ; 
 that they could not do the work to which they 
 were called, away from Him ; even that they could 
 not do a single right thing but by a wisdom and a 
 strength which they derived from Him and through 
 Him ; that, in short, in the largest sense of the 
 phrase, they could not " do without Him." " Without 
 Me ye can do nothing : " and these words imply 
 something quite different from, something very far 
 7 
 
98 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 beyond, the mere help and advice which one human 
 friend can give another. When Christ said such 
 words to His disciples, He meant far more than just 
 that, when He was gone, they would miss Him so 
 much, they would feel so sunk and sad without Him, 
 that they would be ready to sit down and dream over 
 the pleasant past, rather than set themselves earnestly 
 to the toils of the workday present. He was not 
 thinking just of the sentimental sadness, (right and fit 
 though it be,) which unnerves us and unfits us for 
 duty when first separated from all we love. It would 
 be quite an exaggerated description to say that even 
 one parted from home and friends and native country, 
 from everything he cared for upon earth, was 
 as hopelessly and as permanently unfitted for duty as 
 a branch cut off from the vine is for bearing fruit. 
 He might be so for a while at first, but he would get 
 over it ; while the branch parted from the vine bears 
 fruit no more. And I am going to take it for granted, 
 without stopping to prove it at length, that, though 
 the words of our text were first spoken to the apostles 
 with special reference to the great work which lay 
 before them, and in which they could do nothing with 
 out Christ, still these words hold true no less of all 
 Christians, in all times, in all places, and in all duties. 
 " Without Me," says Christ to us all, " without Me 
 ye can do nothing." 
 
 And towards a further understanding of what our 
 Redeemer meant when He said these words, let me 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 99 
 
 remind you that these words are spoken to true 
 Christians only ; they describe the condition of true 
 Christians only. Without Christ, it is a fact of ex 
 perience as well as a doctrine of scripture, they 
 can do nothing. By the very necessity of their be 
 ing, they can do nothing without reference to Christ. 
 Everything tlu-y do, they ought to do with an eye 
 that looks beyond the immediate work itself, to Him. 
 There should be a reference to Him in all their com 
 mon toils. For His laws, for His sake, they should, 
 they can, they must, do the least as well as the great 
 est thing. And more especially as to spiritual things 
 they can do nothing without Him. They can do noth 
 ing but by wisdom and strength and grace of His giv 
 ing. Now we ask you to remember this restriction 
 on the general meaning of the text, that it is spoken 
 to true Christians only. We wish it were universally 
 true ; we wish that no man could do anything with 
 out Christ. Then indeed it would be well for our 
 straying race ; for being compelled at every turn to 
 feel our need of Him, we might be constrained to seek 
 earnestly that we might " win Christ and be found in 
 Him." And it is indeed a sad thing that so many 
 men can do so many things without Him. Without 
 Christ the worldly man can do everything he does. 
 Without Christ he can make money ; without Christ 
 he can push his way onward in life, till the unknown 
 clerk becomes the great and nourishing merchant; 
 "without Christ he can do" many a thing; without 
 
100 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 Christ he can live ; without Christ he can die. Yet, 
 true as all this is, there is a sense in which the text 
 may be applied even to worldly men. The great 
 work of life, as you all know, is to work out our 
 salvation. The one thing needful is an interest in 
 the Atonement of Christ. The grand thing we have 
 got to do in this world is to prepare for the next, to 
 get ready for death, and judgment, and eternity; and 
 we can say with perfect truth that the man who 
 passes out of life without having done that, has done 
 nothing, nothing worth the reckoning, or, to use a 
 common phrase which aptly enough illustrates our 
 assertion, nothing to speak of. Now, without Christ 
 no man can do anything towards that ; without Him 
 you can do nothing towards your own salvation ; and 
 so without Him even the worldly man can do nothing 
 that is worth talking of, nothing that is worth count 
 ing as the work of a being destined to an endless 
 life, nothing that is in the least proportion to his im 
 mortal nature, nothing that is not too insignificant 
 to speak of when we look upon it as the sole doing 
 of a being that has left life s great task undone ! Ah, 
 brethren, though the worldly man may think he is 
 working hard in this world, and without Christ doing 
 many things, he will own upon his death-bed he 
 will own yet more when he enters the next world 
 that he has done nothing, nothing that will count as 
 anything there ! He will feel then, you will every 
 one of you feel then, if you never felt it before, 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 101 
 
 that in the highest and truest sense, without Christ 
 any of us " can do nothing ! " Oh, brethren, think of 
 the man that never believed in Christ, entering the 
 next world ; and there called to give an account of 
 his stewardship, asked what has he done : do you 
 think he would dare, when bidden to render " an 
 account of himself to God," to answer, I made so 
 many thousand pounds ; I left a name that people on 
 earth are talking of; I lived a cheerful, comfortable 
 life ! Or would he not feel that it would be insulting 
 the Almighty, even to mention such things as these as 
 the doings of his time on earth ; would he not feel all 
 these things vanishing like shadows in the light of 
 eternity ; would he not feel that all these things go 
 for nothing there ; would he not feel that if he has not 
 " worked out his salvation," and believed savingly in 
 Christ ; then in very deed he has " done nothing ! " 
 
 It must be evident at once, that, since without 
 Christ we can do nothing, it would be an endless 
 task were I to set myself to pointing out to you the 
 various things which without Christ you cannot do. 
 A list of such things would be a list of all things 
 which are worth reckoning as the doing of a rational 
 and immortal being. Still it has seemed that the 
 most profitable way in which we can direct our 
 thoughts in dwelling on this subject, will be to look 
 at one or two selected things, in the case of which we 
 more especially feel that we cannot do them without 
 Christ. 
 
102 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 And it is hardly needful to remind you, as the first 
 and most important of these, of the working out of 
 our salvation, the first and greatest work which every 
 human being has to do. I need not tell you that 
 without Christ we can do nothing as regards that. 
 You know that St. Paul indeed tells us to "work 
 out our own salvation with fear and trembling " ; and 
 if -you stopped reading the verse at that point, you 
 might think that this was something which we could 
 do for ourselves, in our own strength and wisdom ; 
 but as if to prevent our fancying anything so far 
 wrong, the apostle goes on to add, " For it is God 
 that worketh in you both to will and to do of His 
 good pleasure." To obtain the forgiveness of our 
 sins, to obtain the purification of our heart, the 
 sanctification of our nature, is a thing towards 
 which we can do nothing without Christ. It is the 
 work of God s grace if we are even brought so far 
 as to feel that something must be done to make our 
 peace with Him, that we must see to it in earnest 
 how we are to escape from woe, and rise to heaven 
 when we come to die. But when once the soul is 
 brought to this state of anxious inquiry, when it 
 comes to put the momentous question, " What must 
 I do to be saved," it must feel indeed that without 
 Christ it can do nothing. There is no pardon, no 
 peace, no hope, away from Him. Oh, brethren, just 
 for a moment think of it : what could we do, if we 
 were convinced of sin by God s Spirit, if we were 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 103 
 
 made to feel that we had sinned against God times 
 without number, if we read in our Bibles the fear 
 ful denouncements of God s wrath against sinners, 
 and if we knew nothing of Christ or of salvation 
 through Him ! What could we do without Him ? 
 Where could we turn ? The first thing that perhaps 
 we should think of would be an external reformation, 
 would be to set ourselves to avoid sin for the fu 
 ture ; but even if a week s or day s trial did not suffice 
 to convince us that we cannot avoid sin, even if we 
 did not read in our Bibles that " whatsoever is not of 
 faith, is sin," and so that every action is sinful which 
 is done without Christ, even if we could begin in 
 our own strength to-day, and never sin more till we 
 die, how are we to blot out our past sins ? What 
 can we do by ourselves towards having them forgiven ? 
 It is trite and commonplace at this time of day to 
 repeat, that you do not pardon the criminal his past 
 offences, merely because he promises to offend no more. 
 And it is sad, indeed, to think what shifts men have 
 had recourse to when they tried to get pardon for 
 past sin without Christ. It is sad to think of the 
 punishments they have heaped upon themselves on 
 earth, to anticipate and escape God s wrath in another 
 world ; of the penances, the scourgings, the fastings, 
 the cold and nakedness, of the bed of thorns, of the 
 weary pilgrimages, which even men calling themselves 
 Christians have resorted to, when they sought " with 
 out Christ to do " something towards their soul s sal- 
 
104 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 vation. Oh brethren, there never were people more in 
 earnest to get the pardon of their sins, and to get a 
 title to happiness when they died, than the poor be 
 nighted Hindoos who have climbed over the sharp 
 flints on their bare knees, who have severed them 
 selves from all human nature loves, and heaped upon 
 themselves all it loathes and shrinks from, that thus 
 they might get mercy from God. But oh ! without 
 Christ what is all this worth ? Unless that Bleeding 
 Lamb of God takes away our sins, they never can be 
 taken away, they must cling to us forever. Unless 
 Christ " tastes death " for us, we must drink the bitter 
 cup ourselves ; unless He bears the penalty of the 
 broken law, we ourselves must bear it in woe forever ! 
 Without Him, without His atonement, His grace, 
 His Spirit, we can do nothing towards our own sal 
 vation ; and when our eyes are opened to our sinful- 
 ness, we must just sit down in despair! Only His 
 blood can wash away our sins ; only His righteousness 
 can justify us ; only His Spirit can sanctify us ; and 
 the further the believer has travelled on his heaven 
 ward path, the more deeply he feels how truly the 
 Redeemer spake the words : " Without Me ye can 
 do nothing!" 
 
 I desire to appeal to the experience of Christ s 
 own people when I mention a thing in which we 
 learn day by day that without Him we can do noth 
 ing. This is joining in His worship, and partaking 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 105 
 
 of His ordinances. I would more especially allude 
 to the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper. You all 
 know that without any help from Christ beyond the 
 common aids of His providence, a man may come to 
 church on a Sunday, and sit down there, and join in 
 the psalm, and look devout at the prayer, and listen to 
 the sermon. And you know, too, that in like manner 
 we may by ourselves come to the communion-table 
 and partake of the elements which represent the 
 body and blood of the crucified Redeemer. But I 
 am quite sure, my Christian friends, that you have 
 learned by experience that, in such things as these, 
 without Christ you can do nothing. Mere under 
 standing without feeling, mere head without heart, 
 will not do in the worship and in the ordinances of 
 God. And it is no skill of ours that can waken in 
 our bosoms that unearthly fire, that glow of heartfelt 
 devotion, which we have sometimes felt as we sang 
 God s praises or poured out our hearts in prayer, and 
 which made us know what it is that is meant by " wor 
 shipping God in spirit and in truth." I am quite 
 certain that the experience of every true Christian 
 must have taught him to feel when he begins to offer 
 prayer, " Now here is something which by myself I 
 cannot do. Here I arn endeavoring to do something 
 in which without Christ I can do nothing. It depends 
 entirely on whether He is with me or not whether 
 I am to feel my heart warmed and my soul lifted 
 up to God in confiding happiness ; or whether I am 
 
106 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 to feel depressed and gloomy, even as the sunshiny 
 landscape grows chill and dark when the sun is hid 
 den by a cloud." How cold and dreary and heartless 
 the worship of God s house would be without Christ ! 
 What a lifeless form is the Holy Sacrament, unless 
 Christ meet with us at His Table ! I doubt not, my 
 Christian friends, that sometimes when you have been 
 holding communion with Christ in prayer, even on 
 the bed of pain, or through the long watches of the 
 sleepless night, you have felt a peace and a happiness 
 which you would not give away for all the wealth of 
 the world. And sometimes would to God it were 
 always you have felt the Blessed Spirit breathing 
 on your soul as you bent the knee and as you poured 
 out all your heart with a child-like confidence in your 
 heavenly Father s ear, you have felt that Christ in 
 very deed was with you. Or in the house of prayer, 
 under the simple preaching of the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ, you have felt your soul drawn out towards 
 Him in a way which is to be felt but not described. 
 Or at the Redeemer s table you have held holy com 
 munion with Him, you have been able to cast all 
 your cares upon Him, to leave yourself unreservedly 
 in His hands, to realize the meaning and to take 
 the peace of the blessed promise so often forgot, that 
 " all things shall work together for good to those who 
 love Him " ; and then upon the mount of ordinances 
 you have felt so peaceful and so happy, that you 
 almost wished, like the apostles on the hill of the 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 107 
 
 Transfiguration, that here you might build your taber 
 nacle, and go down no more from that pleasant eleva 
 tion above your every-day temptations, and sins, and 
 sorrows. And I doubt not, too, my believing friends, 
 that in your experience there have been seasons of 
 desertion, when the Saviour s felt presence was with 
 drawn ; when your prayers \vere offered with little 
 heart or comfort ; when you no longer felt the house 
 of God like the gate of heaven ; when in the world 
 within the breast it was all dreary and desolate. And 
 yet, sad as these seasons are, let us thank God for 
 them. If it were not that they sometimes come, 
 \ve should forget how simply dependent we are upon 
 Christ for all the comfort and benefit of His ordinan 
 ces and His service ; and thus we would welcome the 
 dreariest night so only it made us feel, more deeply 
 than ever we had felt before, that " without Christ we 
 can do nothing ! " Oh, surely in a higher sense than 
 even that of the sublimest of poets, the believer may 
 take up his words : " I feel the stirrings of a gift 
 divine ; Within my bosom glows unearthly fire, Lit 
 by no skill of mine ! " 
 
 We might go on to point out to you, my friends, 
 several other passages in our life in which we can do 
 nothing without Christ ; we might point out to you 
 how union with Him is the source of every good deed 
 that deserves the name ; how His presence is the 
 thing that shall "save us from the hour of tempta- 
 
108 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 tion " ; that shall comfort us under all our trials, and 
 strengthen us for all our duties, and promote our 
 growing sanctification and meetness for His immedi 
 ate presence above. We might point out to you how 
 " without Christ we can do nothing " towards reclaim 
 ing the spiritual " waste places of the earth," how 
 His name, His Cross, His Gospel, must be the 
 weapon in the hand of the missionary toiling in for 
 eign lands, and the beginning and end of all preaching 
 that can ever save or comfort immortal souls. We 
 might show you how the utter failure of every plan 
 that ever was thought of, for purifying human morals, 
 or elevating human minds, without reference to the 
 work and atonement of Christ, reads like a comment 
 upon our text, as though our Saviour cried aloud to 
 all moralists and philanthropists, " Your purpose in 
 deed is good ; but you are taking the wrong way to 
 bring it about ; for without Me ye can do nothing ! " 
 We might remind you of the memorable confession 
 of one of the most illustrious of Scottish divines, that 
 for twelve years he preached morality without preach 
 ing Christ, and that all that time his preaching (elo 
 quent and vehement as it was) had not the weight 
 of a feather upon the moral habits of his parishioners ; 
 and that at length he learned that to preach Christ 
 crucified and a sanctifying Spirit was the single way 
 in which men s hearts might be purified and their con 
 duct improved ; and that " without Christ he could 
 do nothing ! " But we have not time to follow up 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 109 
 
 these tracks of thought which I have thus indicated , 
 and without pursuing them, let us, before we con 
 clude, lead your thoughts to one point in the history 
 of all of us, in which, above all others, we cannot do 
 without Christ. 
 
 It is when we come to die. And very awful, my 
 friends, it is to me, when thus on a quiet day of ordi 
 nary life I remember that even now the hour is on 
 the wing that shall bid this heart cease from its long 
 beating when I remember that somewhere but 
 where I cannot tell there is a little corner of the 
 world that is " appointed " to be my grave. The tree 
 is grown that shall yield to each of these warm living 
 forms its last "narrow house and dark." I know 
 well, indeed, how on the page of inspiration, and in 
 the writings of fallible men, alike we find much men 
 tion of the peace in which the Christian dies. By a 
 peculiar emphasis, " the end of that man is peace ; " 
 and many besides Balaam, who cared little for living 
 the life of the righteous, have joined in his wish that 
 like the righteous they might die. Every instance in 
 nature that seems to betoken gentle decay, and pen 
 sive rather than painful parting, has been taken as 
 the type of the Christian s waning life, and dawning 
 immortality. The fading light of a summer evening, 
 that with all of stillness, and sweetness, and repose, 
 melts away in the western horizon, so that we scarce 
 can see it going, till we look and it is gone ; the 
 weary, worn-out winds that expire so softly, scarcely 
 
110 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 stirring the lightest leaf as they sink away ; the 
 bright stars, that looked down all night long upon the 
 sleeping world, till in the rosy dawn their beams grew 
 pale, and they died in daylight ; all these have 
 typed the gentle going of the parting breath, the tran 
 quil ebbing of the tide of life, the peaceful severance 
 from this troublesome world. And yet, with all this, 
 it remains a very solemn and awful thing to die. Do 
 you not know this, even you who have seen death 
 come in his least repulsive form, mothers, who have 
 seen the little eyes close upon this world, and the 
 busy hands folded over the pulseless heart ! It is not 
 merely the pain, the weariness, the terrible sinking of 
 heart and strength, that each of us will most probably 
 feel then ; though no one who knows anything 
 about death as it is will ever speak lightly of even 
 these things about it ; it is rather the solemn feeling 
 that we have fairly done with the world we have 
 known so long, that " this is the last of earth," 
 that we are to part forever from everything we knew 
 and valued here, and to enter " that undiscovered coun 
 try from whose bourne no traveller returns," to 
 launch away into an untried, unknown state of being, 
 a naked, solitary, shrinking soul ! Kind friends may 
 bear us company to eternity s threshold, but there they 
 must leave us, and we must go on alone. The little 
 child, that when the dark shadow fell upon it thought 
 it was the night that had so often composed it to gen 
 tle slumber with a mother bending over it, and whose 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 last little words were Good-night, good-night, 
 would waken up on that distant shore alone for 
 first time in its short life, with no kind mother near. 
 I have often thought, as I have stood by the bed of 
 the dying, how different all earthly things must look 
 to them, from what they appear to us in our days of 
 health and strength ; how perfectly insignificant many 
 a thing must seem, to which now we are ready to 
 attach great importance, all such things as worldly 
 wealth, and position, and reputation ; and I have 
 thought then that if it were not for Christ, and for the 
 consolations and hopes of His gospel, it would indeed 
 be a tremendously awful thing to die ! Men may 
 fancy that they can do without Christ, perhaps, while 
 they are in the bustle of their life, when they can 
 be interested in life s business, and enjoy life s com 
 forts and pleasures ; but oh ! what is business, what is 
 pleasure, to a poor human being that has only an hour 
 to live ; how intensely such a one must feel that if 
 he has not religion to support him, he has nothing to 
 support him at all ! I cannot, by any words I can 
 think of, express to you what I have sometimes felt, 
 of the utter destitution of the soul that is dying 
 without Christ. It has got absolutely nothing to rest 
 upon ; it can do absolutely nothing ! If it be not too 
 much stupefied and overwhelmed to feel anything 
 distinctly, its feeling must be one of sheer blank un 
 relieved despair ! Oh ! I can imagine the monarch, 
 dying without Christ, feeling that he would too thank 
 
112 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 fully give his empire for another week of bare life. I 
 can imagine the man of vast wealth, dying without 
 Christ, feeling that gladly, gladly would he purchase a 
 month or a week of time to make his peace with God, 
 though he should leave himself a beggar ! The hour 
 of death is the time, of all our time on earth, in which 
 we feel it most deeply, that " without Christ we can 
 do nothing." Without Him " we dare not die ! " I 
 do not think it right to appall you by even recalling to 
 your minds the fearful mental agonies in which men 
 have died without Christ ; and I would be far from 
 saying that even the best and most devoted believer 
 is sure to find the last parting painless, sure to go 
 over the dark Jordan dry-shod. I know that many 
 things, spiritual and physical, may tend to throw deep 
 gloom over the Christian s dying hour ; but then this 
 gloom, if it be at all, comes just because the trem 
 bling soul fears it is " without ChrisV" or because 
 Christ s presence is temporarily withdrawn; and we 
 all know in what peace and humble hope yea, in 
 what assurance of salvation and what triumph 
 those have passed away from this world who felt that 
 their Saviour was near them in their dying hour. It 
 would be easy and pleasant to multiply the histories 
 of those who have testified that " the sting of death" 
 was gone, that "the bitterness of death was past," 
 that their Saviour " had abolished death ! " I might 
 remind you of one who, when asked, even in the act 
 of death, how the dark valley seemed to her as she 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 113 
 
 was passing through it, answered, " Christ is here, and 
 it is not dark." God grant, my friends, that, when we 
 shall come to that most solemn hour of all our life, 
 our Redeemer s gracious presence may be with us 
 then! We can have no one else for a companion 
 through that solemn way. Oh, may we have him ! 
 Only the Saviour s presence, that " Sun of the soul," 
 can make sure that " at the evening time there shall 
 be light." And so, like one long ago, " though we 
 walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we 
 shall fear no evil ; if Thou art with us, if Thy rod 
 arid staff shall comfort us ! " 
 
 Thus, then, my hearers, we have regarded in sev 
 eral lights the words of Him who said without arro 
 gance or presumption what never man could say, 
 " Without Me ye can do nothing." He said it truly. 
 Without Him we can do nothing towards life s first 
 grand work, the working out of our salvation ; without 
 Him we can do no good ; without Him we can derive 
 no comfort or advantage from the ordinances of relig 
 ion ; without Him day by day we cannot live ; with 
 out Him we cannot die. We have all got friends 
 without whom we cannot do well ; there is just one 
 best Friend without whom we cannot do at all. We 
 avow it ; we do not hesitate to express our absolute 
 dependence on Him ; we say to Him now, as one of 
 old, " If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not 
 up hence ! " No experience of life, no months of 
 8 
 
114 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 absence, no other help, no other things to think of 
 will ever enable us to do without Thee ! It is an old 
 thing to say that this is a world of partings, and 
 that we are sometimes called to do our best without 
 things and persons, without whom we find it very hard 
 to do. We have all of us learned, perhaps, what it is 
 to turn our back upon the church where we loved to 
 worship, upon the home where we once were young, 
 upon the parents whose kind direction we miss 
 at every hour, and yet, though the sunshine may 
 hardly look so bright to us since, we know that such 
 things can be borne. I can imagine we have all 
 had opportunities in our lives that may help us in 
 imagining how the youth who has had to go out 
 from his quiet home, like a bird from the nest, to push 
 his way in the great world, away, perhaps, across 
 the Atlantic, with thousands of miles between him 
 and all he loves ; I can imagine well how he felt 
 that parting from home like a tearing away from life ; 
 and how in the first days of absence, as he remembers 
 his mother s sad face and faltering voice as she bade 
 her son farewell, he may feel fit for nothing. He may 
 fancy that away from those dear ones who are think 
 ing of him at home he never can go on in the dreary 
 routine of life, that " without them he can do noth 
 ing ! " But after a while, in the bustle of his new 
 life, these morbid feelings depa*rt ; he toils away 
 industriously, even cheerfully ; and though he often 
 remembers the fireside he left, he feels that it is 
 
NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 115 
 
 possible, after all, to live away from it. It gives him 
 a motive to work ; and he labors the harder that he 
 may the sooner go back to gladden the dear hearts 
 there, and to make some little return to a father 
 and a mother for all they did for him. And even 
 when there is no prospect of meeting again in this 
 world, we can bear to part from those linked by the 
 closest ties. It is bitter, bitter ; but still it has 
 been done ; it is done every day. What home of 
 all our homes has not parted with its best and best- 
 loved one ; what family has not lost its purest and 
 sweetest member ; what fireside is there, " howsoe er 
 defended, but has one vacant chair ! " And yet the 
 brothers, the sisters, the parents, go about their du 
 ties as usual, and to the careless world look much 
 as before. Ah, that world does not know that now 
 in that home there are doors that are never unlocked, 
 books that are never looked into, thresholds that are 
 crossed no more! Still, we can, sooner or later in 
 some way or other, do without every one from whom 
 we can ever be called to part. Thanks be to God 
 that we need never never at any moment, never 
 anywhere part from that One best and kindest 
 Friend " without whom we can do nothing ! " " With 
 out Me," He says, "ye can do nothing:" sad, sad 
 words if without Him we ever needed to be ; but 
 He can be " with us " in spite of all external parting. 
 " Lo," He says, " I am with you alway, even to the 
 end of the world ! " Blessed Saviour, fulfil that gra- 
 
116 NOTHING WITHOUT CHRIST. 
 
 cious promise to our hearts. Go with us where we go, 
 and dwell with us where we dwell ! We never know 
 what we can bear till we are tried ; we do not know 
 what endurance there is in these hearts ; yet we know 
 that we can bear all partings else, but not that last 
 hopeless destitution which lies in being abandoned by 
 Thee ! 
 
VII. 
 
 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 " And my sin is ever before me." PSALM li. 3. 
 
 , S that our way, my friends ? Is that the 
 prospect that is ever before our eyes and 
 minds ? Do we train ourselves to think 
 habitually of our faults, our unworthi- 
 ness, the foolish things we have often said, the hasty, 
 silly, ill-set, conceited, false, unjust, sinful things we 
 have often done ? Or would it not be nearer the truth, 
 in the case of many a man, if he were to say, My 
 merits are ever before me ? Many a man is constantly 
 thinking of his good qualities, and his praiseworthy 
 doings, thinking how clever, and wise, and skilful, 
 and judicious, and good he is, and what great things 
 he has done. And instead of taking the text for his 
 own, and saying, "My sin is ever before me," he 
 would speak the truth if he were to say, " My emi 
 nent abilities and deservings are ever before me, 
 and it shall not be my fault if I do not bring them 
 conspicuously before my fellow-men." And hence it 
 comes that men are sometimes disappointed and dis 
 contented because other people will not recognize their 
 
118 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 merits and good qualities as they think they ought, 
 and because they are not advanced to places of greater 
 distinction and advantage than they are ever likely 
 to be. There are persons who not merely have their 
 own claims and excellences and services continually 
 before them, but keep making comparisons between 
 their own and the doings and deservings. of their 
 neighbors, more especially of those in their own 
 walk of life, comparisons very much in their own 
 favor. And hence come discontent, ingratitude for the 
 many blessings they have, envying and grieving at a 
 neighbor s good or success, and undutiful murmuring 
 against the appointments of God s providence. Hence 
 comes, too, a self-sufficient spirit, far removed from the 
 humblemindedness of the true Christian ; a disposi 
 tion to be pleased with one s self, and to forget what 
 poor helpless sinners we all are in the sight of God. 
 Yes, my friends, all this evil, and more, comes of our 
 looking in only one of the two great directions in 
 which man may look, as regards his own doings and 
 deservings. It comes of our forgetting the wise coun 
 sel to us all, which is conveyed in this text, in which 
 the Psalmist tells us of something which he was wont 
 to do. Ah, he looked at the other side of the page ! 
 He looked to see how the account stood against him, 
 as well as how it stood for him ! He looked back 
 over his past life ; and he did not see much on which 
 he could look with entire satisfaction. He looked 
 away, over those departed years, from the day when 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 119 
 
 he was a little boy in his father s house and about 
 the sheep, down to the day then present with him on 
 which he was an anointed king. He saw many bless 
 ings, many deliverances, many labors, many cares; 
 but there was one dark figure that kept always in 
 truding itself, look where he might, which he knew 
 only too well. There was one reproachful face, one 
 warning and threatening hand, always there ! I 
 sometimes think, he seems to say, I sometimes 
 think of my doings, my cares, my toils ; but there is 
 one thing I never can forget : u My sin is ever before 
 me!" 
 
 Ah, my brethren, if it were with us more as it was 
 with David, if we bethought ourselves oftentimes of 
 our sins, our failings, our mistakes, our ill-deservings, 
 we should be more humble, more thankful, more 
 content, more earnestly desirous to fly to that Saviour 
 in whom is all sufficiency, and help, and grace ! To 
 look back on our past history would effectually take 
 us down from all high thoughts of ourselves, would 
 keep us lowly, would lead us, in our utter helpless 
 ness, to the Redeemer s feet ! 
 
 Here, then, is the subject for our consideration to 
 day. I trust, before we have done, we may all feel its 
 practical importance. I have no doubt, that most of 
 us have our habits of thinking : have tracks, beaten 
 paths (as it were) of thought, into which we naturally 
 fall when our minds are not directly occupied with 
 
120 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 something that puts them on the stretch. And I have 
 no doubt, too, that each of us is to himself a subject of 
 such thought to a far greater degree than is desirable. 
 It is a great thing to go out of ourselves, to get clear 
 of the grosser atmosphere of our own little cares and 
 vexations and fears ; the mind grows very petty and 
 small when it never ranges beyond the mere daily life 
 and its worries ; and doubtless one great end served 
 by worthy books is, that they lift us up above our 
 own selves to larger and wider things, and expand the 
 range of our sympathies. You will think of the true 
 words of a great poet : 
 
 " The man whose eye 
 Is ever on himself, doth look on one, 
 The least of Nature s works; one that might move 
 The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds 
 Unlawful ever." 
 
 And if we must, by the make of our being, each feel 
 that his own history is to him the most important of 
 all histories, and his own concerns more important 
 than all the other interests of the world together, still, 
 any evil effect upon our moral and spiritual being, of 
 allowing our minds in vacant seasons to fall too ha 
 bitually upon the one topic, will be corrected, will be 
 turned to blessing, if we take the advice implied in 
 the words of the text. Let us, as we think of our 
 selves, and of how it has fared with us on our earthly 
 pilgrimage, not dwell so much on toils that ended in 
 nothing, on hopes that were disappointed, on merits 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 121 
 
 little recognized and poorly rewarded, as we are so 
 prone to do. Let us look in another direction quite : 
 one in which it is not so pleasant to look ; one in which 
 many men quite forget to look at all. Let us think 
 how little we have deserved. Let us think how justly 
 God might visit us in wrath. Oh, it will profit us and 
 in end us in many ways, to have our sin ever before 
 us! 
 
 And before going on to point out some of these 
 ways in which it will have a good effect on our spirit 
 ual state to train ourselves to a habitual remembrance 
 of our unworthiness and ill-deserving, let me show 
 you that I am not building upon the text more than it 
 will bear ; that I am not snapping a decision in favor 
 of the view I am to set out, from an isolated text of 
 scripture, that by inference, and perhaps by accident, 
 appears to support it. There are many things in Holy 
 Scripture which teach us, that, however natural it may 
 be, it is not a Christian disposition to be dwelling on 
 our good doings and deservings. You remember the 
 memorable words of Christ, such words as never 
 were spoken by any human teacher or leader : " Ye, 
 when ye shall have done all those things which are 
 commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, we 
 have done that which it was our duty to do." There 
 is the reflection for us, after we have done our best, 
 after we have done much more than we are ever 
 likely to do. You remember, too, the spirit in which 
 we are to work out our salvation. It is anything 
 
122 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 rather than a self-complacent and confident spirit ; it 
 is a humble and anxious one ; a spirit deeply con 
 vinced of sin and ill-deserving : " Work out your own 
 salvation with fear and trembling ! " A habit of daily 
 repentance is the right thing for us : we should every 
 day be going anew to be washed in the fountain opened 
 for sin and uncleanness : in every prayer, whatever 
 else we ask or omit, we must ask for pardon through 
 Christ, and for the Blessed Spirit to sanctify ; because 
 we have our " sin ever before us " when we come to 
 the throne of grace. And it is not in the self-satisfied 
 man, accustomed to think how good and deserving lie 
 is, that the primary grace of penitence and humility is 
 likely to be found. Some may say, Is there not a con 
 spicuous example of a good man who had his claims 
 and merits a good deal in mind, and who sometimes 
 set them out before his hearers and readers ? Did not 
 St. Paul sometimes tell of his labors and sufferings, 
 and of the things he had " whereof he might trust in 
 the flesh ? " Yes, he sometimes did ; but it was al 
 ways to the end of benefiting others, not of magnifying 
 himself; and even when for this purpose he spoke of 
 his doings and deservings, we find him ever and anon 
 checking himself. apologizing for dwelling on these 
 things at all ; saying that he was "a fool in glorying " ; 
 and declaring that, as the chief of sinners, he looked 
 for salvation simply through Christ. " Of myself," he 
 says, " I will not glory but in mine infirmities." And 
 you know, my friends, that it is just the best and most 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 123 
 
 Christian people who sincerely speak of themselves as 
 the most unworthy, and as feeling most deeply that 
 only through the Saviour s atonement can they bear 
 God s eye upon them. It is " clothed with humility," 
 that we must present ourselves before God. " Not in 
 mine innocence I trust ; " but " this is a faithful saying, 
 and worthy of all acceptation ; that Jesus Christ came 
 into the world to save sinners ! " 
 
 And now, my friends, let us think what good we 
 may get, through doing as David did ; and having 
 our sins ever before us. There is no doubt, the view 
 is not a pleasant one. There is hardly anything that 
 men like less than to be reminded by another of their 
 sins, unless indeed it be in very general terms, 
 which do not really touch the conscience. Yet things 
 which are painful are sometimes profitable ; and as 
 suredly it is so here. 
 
 First, it will make us humble to think habitually 
 of the many foolish and wrong things we have done. 
 There is a multitude of things which every human 
 being has said and done, on which he cannot look 
 back but with shame and confusion and humiliation. 
 There is a multitude of things which every human 
 being, who is possessed of average sense and con 
 science, would give a great deal to efface from the 
 remembrance of others, and from his own. It is 
 painful for any one to plainly see, that on a certain 
 occasion he acted like a fool ; but it is far more pain 
 ful and more humbling to have our eyes opened by 
 
124 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 God s Spirit to the crushing knowledge of our sins 
 to be made to feel, not merely in a general way, that 
 we are sinners, everybody will confess that readily 
 enough ; but to be made to feel that this and that and 
 the other thing actually done, is sin against God, 
 to be made to feel that this and the other year or 
 years of life cannot in any way be justified, must be 
 given over, as beyond mending or extenuating, wrong. 
 Yet, painful as it may be to think of these things, 
 ready and willing as we might all be, instead of hav 
 ing them " ever before us," to banish them from our 
 remembrance forever, it is right and fit that we 
 should oftentimes think of them ; for there is no doubt 
 whatsoever that it is good for us to be humble ; and 
 there is nothing in this world that will humble us like 
 that. If we would cultivate that grace, essential to 
 the Christian character, of lowliness in the sight of 
 God, here is the way to cultivate it. And if we 
 \vould avoid that proud and self-righteous spirit, hate 
 ful in the sight of God, and so unbecoming our nature 
 and our place, and such a grievous hindrance in the 
 Christian race from its first step to its latest here, 
 then let us beware of dwelling upon what we fancy 
 our merits ; let us beware, when we sit dow 7 n by the 
 evening fireside in an hour of leisure, or when we go 
 forth for a lonely walk, of getting into the way of run 
 ning over the story of our life, and thinking of all our 
 hard work, all our wise and good doings ; and com 
 paring ourselves with this one and that, who has got 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 125 
 
 on better than we have in the battle of life, without 
 (as we think) having deserved it half so well. There 
 once was a man, who got thoroughly confirmed in the 
 habit of dwelling on his own good deeds and merits, 
 and of comparing himself, much to his own advantage, 
 with other men. And so inveterate grew that habit, 
 that, coming to God in prayer, when every mortal 
 should lie as in the very dust of true humility, he 
 could not help summing up his merits even there. 
 And so, upon a certain day, going up to God s house 
 to pray, he offered a prayer which is recorded for our 
 warning. Here it is : " God, I thank thee that I am 
 not as other men are ; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, 
 or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week ; 
 I give tithes of all that I possess." That was his 
 prayer, if indeed you can call it a prayer ; and we 
 have no reason to think it contained a word that was 
 not quite true. Very likely he did fast, and give 
 tithes, as he said ; very likely he was not an extor 
 tioner, nor unjust, nor impure ; it is not because his 
 prayer was false, that it was such a bad prayer ; it is 
 because it set out his merits, and said not a word 
 about his sins. His sins, it is plain, were far from 
 being ever before him. But he was thoroughly up in 
 the catalogue of his good deeds ; they were before him 
 often enough. There was another man there upon 
 the same occasion : I dare say a man who had done 
 many wrong things, and who could have made up but 
 a very poor list of his virtues ; yet that man, from the 
 
126 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 depths of a contrite heart, offered a true and good 
 prayer ; one which suits us all ; one that the great 
 God above us approved and liked, though it was very 
 short and very simple. But that poor man had his 
 sins before him, and was thinking of them. If he 
 ever had done anything good in his unworthy life, it 
 was not then that he thought of it ! He did not say 
 a word about his merits, if he had any ; and yet the 
 blessed Redeemer tells us he "went down to his 
 house justified rather than the other ! " For he, with 
 his sins before him, " standing afar off, would not lift 
 up so much as his eyes unto heaven ; but smote upon 
 his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner ! " 
 My friends, there we have fairly put before us, by 
 our Saviour Himself, an example of the practical effect 
 upon a human being, of having his sin before him, 
 and of having his merits before him. You see what 
 it lands a man in, to think much, and to think only, 
 of his deservings ; you see what it leads to, to think 
 of our sins. And if the publican s attitude before 
 God was the right one, and the pharisee s the wrong 
 one ; if the publican s prayer was the right prayer 
 for every man, and the pharisee s the wrong prayer 
 for any man; oh brethren, as you would cultivate 
 that humble spirit without which the Christian char 
 acter lacks its very foundation, be cautious how you 
 indulge yourselves in the perilous contemplation of 
 what you may think your good deeds ; and see to it 
 that your " sin be ever before you ! " 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 127 
 
 There are other good tilings which come of having 
 our sin ever before us ; which, after all, simply means 
 taking a just view of our doings and character ; for 
 sin and imperfection cleave to all we do ; and our 
 great characteristic, as human beings, is, that we are 
 sinners. All these advantageous results of habitual 
 meditation upon our unworthiness are perhaps implied 
 in that primary grace of humility ; yet they grow out 
 of it, and may be distinguished from it. 
 
 So let us go on to think that the habitual con 
 templation of our sinfulness will tend to make us 
 thankful to God, to make us contented with our lot, 
 to put down anything like envy in our hearts at the 
 greater success and eminence of others. A man who 
 is always thinking of his own merits and services 
 sees them as much bigger than other people do. We 
 all know that it is a natural consequence of consider 
 ing any subject very much or very long, that it grows 
 greatly in apparent importance. And so you find 
 people naturally magnify their own vocation, or the 
 special matter to which they give their thoughts. 
 And we must all have observed that people who are 
 much given to dwelling on their own doings and 
 deservings, their position, their influence, and the like, 
 come to entertain, quite honestly, a thoroughly pre 
 posterous opinion of their own importance and stand 
 ing and merit. We are very likely to think of our 
 own merits as vastly greater than they are, if we 
 think much about them. But we are not the least 
 
128 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 likely to think too ill of ourselves, though we think 
 ever so habitually about our own follies and sins. We 
 are very little likely to exceed in that direction. You 
 remember the suggestive question of the Psalmist, 
 " Who can understand his errors ? " Ah, there is a 
 depth and intensity of evil about them, which is be 
 yond our knowing, far beyond our exaggerating. 
 And besides this, self-love always comes in to say a 
 good word for our own misdeeds, to suggest an 
 excuse for them, to point out a host of differences 
 between them and the misdeeds of other men. And 
 HOW let us mark the evil, in another direction, which 
 will come of dwelling on our merits and excluding 
 the countervailing contemplation of our sins. It will 
 make us unthankful ; we shall not feel the due grati 
 tude to God, for the many blessings we have, for 
 being put in a lot so good as ours is. We shall be 
 disposed rather to murmur that our lot is not better. 
 We shall grow dicontented, and envious of those who 
 are preferred before us. For, as we have said, our 
 own merits seem much larger to us than they do to 
 anybody else ; and we do not fully discern the merits 
 of other men. No wise man will attach much weight 
 to the estimate of one man, which is given by a com 
 petitor in the same walk of life, unless indeed the 
 competitor be a singularly noble-minded and generous 
 one. And such there are : men who may be trusted 
 to give a fair and favorable account even of the merit 
 which rivals or exceeds their own ; but such men are 
 not common. 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 129 
 
 Now, my friends, have we not all known people who, 
 though highly favored by Providence, were always 
 murmuring and fretting at their lot ; who evinced 
 no gratitude to God for the undeserved good He had 
 given them ; who were ever looking with envious and 
 malignant eyes at people more successful and distin 
 guished than themselves ? Have we not all known 
 people who were always ready to repeat malicious 
 stories about eminent men, not minding whether or 
 not those stories were true, and to whom a greater 
 favor could hardly be done than to tell them some 
 thing to the prejudice of such ? Surely there is not 
 in this world a more unhappy and unbecoming temper 
 of mind than that of the man who is ever ready to 
 say, " Look at me ; think of all I have done, of 
 my eminent merits and services ; and yet, see how 
 little I have got by them all ; while there is such 
 a man, and such another, who never did anything 
 particular ; and see how things have prospered with 
 them ! " What can be more unhappy and more un 
 becoming than that ? And yet, is it not common ? 
 Common in my profession, common in your profes 
 sions and vocations, common wherever there are sin 
 ful human hearts ! Pernaps there is some tendency 
 to that in every one of us. Even a good and Christian 
 man is sometimes tempted to think that his merits 
 are not quite recognized as they deserve, that he 
 has not quite had justice done him yet. And we can 
 easily see what evil and unchristian feelings are apt 
 
130 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 to follow : unthankfulness towards God ; discontent 
 with our lot ; envying and grieving at the good of 
 others. 
 
 And now, my friends, how to get rid of all these ? 
 Oh, look in a different direction. Look to the other 
 side of the account. You have thought of your well- 
 deserving ; now think of your ill-deserving ! Your 
 merits have been much before your eye ; now let 
 your sins be so ! Ah, think, has not God given you 
 far more than you deserve ? You know the evil of 
 your own heart ; you know the flaws and defects in 
 your best doings, which others do not see ! If you 
 have been enlightened at all by God s Spirit to a per 
 ception of your true condition, then each of you know 
 how evil you are, better than any one except God ! 
 Look at that weak sinful foolish heart, with its vain 
 fancies and idle thoughts ; think how often you have 
 got credit from others for being far, far better than 
 you knew yourself to be ; think of words and deeds 
 without number that would crush you down with 
 confusion if they were now set out plainly before this 
 congregation here; think of the foolish, ill-set, vain, 
 wicked, indefensible things that you have said and 
 done ; and say, Have you not received at God s hand 
 as much good as you deserve ? Ought not each one of 
 us to be thankful that we are in the place of hope ! 
 Where should we be, and what should we be, if God 
 dealt with us according to our merits? If people 
 knew you as you know yourself, would they think 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 131 
 
 as well of you as they do ? Oh brethren, if it were 
 with you as it was with the Psalmist, if your sin 
 were ever before you, surely you would fling away 
 envy and malice, you would learn to be thankful and 
 content. 
 
 And now let us think, in the third place, of some 
 thing even better and more valuable, as resulting 
 from having our sin ever before us, than these things 
 of which we have been thinking, although these 
 things do bear, most weightily and directly, on our 
 Christian character and our eternal state. To feel our 
 sinfulness, to have our sins set before us, by God s 
 Spirit, in such a way that it will be impossible to 
 help seeing them, and seeing them as bad as they 
 really are, is the thing that will lead us to Christ, 
 lead us to true repentance on account of our sins, and 
 to a simple trust in Him who " saves His people from 
 their sins." You know every one knows that 
 salvation is to be found only by going to the Re 
 deemer, and resting upon Him. But the man who 
 takes the one-sided view of himself and his doings, 
 the man who thinks much of his merits and little of 
 his sins, is not in the frame to go to Christ and say, 
 " Nothing in my hand I bring ; simply to Thy Cross I 
 cling ! " No one will really feel, whatever he may 
 say, that his own " righteousness is as filthy rags," who 
 has trained himself to think that his own righteous 
 ness is really very good, and his own deservings very 
 
132 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 great. Yet, if we are ever saved through Christ, 
 and by His grace, and God s love in Him, we must 
 get entirely off the ground of our own merits. We 
 must learn to come as helpless sinful creatures, de 
 serving nothing good at God s hand; our very best 
 deeds unworthy and imperfect; offending in many 
 things, coming short in all ; to take salvation as the 
 free gift of God. If we are to be striving daily to 
 find the supply of a want, the way is to have that 
 want ever before us and ever pressed home upon us. 
 If we are to be striving daily to be pardoned and 
 sanctified, it must be because we daily see, in our 
 sins, what makes pardon and sanctification the first 
 and most urgent of all our needs. Oh, surely, it is fit 
 and right that beings like us, whose main character 
 istic is that they are sinners, should always be remem 
 bering what they are ; that beings whose great want 
 is the pardon of sin, should always be feeling that it is 
 so ; that beings whose better life cannot be maintained 
 from day to day but by the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit, should live mindful of that truth : And how 
 shall these things be, unless, when thinking of our 
 selves, we take, not a partial and one-sided, but a full 
 and complete view of the case, by having, and keep 
 ing, " our sin ever before us ! " 
 
 There are pleasanter views, but none more profit 
 able. It is good for us to think of our sins. There 
 is no need to think of our good deeds ; if indeed we 
 have many to think of, we cannot change them now. 
 
THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 133 
 
 But to think of our sins may make a great difference 
 upon them. For though the deed remains, yet the sin 
 may be blotted out by true repentance and justifying 
 faith. To think of our merits, and dwell on them, is 
 a mere piece of selfish gratification ; but to think of 
 our sins, and dwell upon them in a right spirit, may 
 lead to the most precious practical results. Very nat 
 urally, after the words which form our text, after 
 "my sin is ever before me," comes the Psalmist s 
 prayer, " Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out 
 all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O 
 God, and renew a right spirit within me." May the 
 like contemplation, my friends, lead each of us to the 
 like earnest prayer! 
 
 I cannot but linger upon my text. I thought of 
 it, last Sunday evening ; I have been thinking of it 
 very much since ; and thinking how blessed a change 
 it would work upon this world, if we had all more 
 of the spirit to which the text would lead. What 
 humble-minded, kindly, charitable, thankful, contented, 
 Christian people would all men be, if, to good pur 
 pose, they kept their " sin ever before " them ! It 
 would be all kindliness and mutual help ; no disposi 
 tion to bear hard on an offending brother ; we should 
 be ready to forgive, feeling that we need to have so 
 much forgiven ; and never forgetting that we owe ten 
 thousand talents, having ever before us that great 
 overwhelming debt we owe to God, and that never 
 
134 THE PROSPECT PAINFUL YET SALUTARY. 
 
 will be paid unless Christ pays- it for us, we should 
 not bear hard upon a poor fellow-sinner who owes us 
 a hundred pence. And never, never, should we de 
 signedly do anything to vex or grieve a human being ! 
 All loaded with the same weight of sin and sorrow, 
 all to be saved, if saved at all, by the same atoning 
 blood, all, in a little while, to pass through the 
 same lowly gate of death, and to sleep in the dust 
 together, is there one that would say or do the 
 thing that was merely to give pain to another ! And 
 oh, looking back over these lives we have led to this 
 day, thinking of the omissions, the imperfections, 
 the failures, the sins of heart and thought, of word 
 and deed, Oh, let us, my fellow-sinners, fly for ref 
 uge to the same Blessed One, whose glory is that 
 He " receiveth sinners " ; let us bend together at the 
 throne of grace, saying, " Our Father, Forgive us 
 our debts, as we forgive our debtors ! " 
 
VIII. 
 
 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 " There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be 
 at rest." JOB iii. 17. 
 
 HE day was when it was thought a fit 
 thing that the Christian s last resting- 
 place should be surrounded by gloomy 
 and repulsive associations, and when it 
 was thought right that around the grave there should 
 be gathered the sad emblems of mortal decay, rather 
 than the memorials of immortal hope. In the gloom 
 of cathedral vaults, where the sunbeam would never 
 fall nor the daisy grow, the dust was given to the dust 
 from which it came ; and the dark fancy of the sculp 
 tor ran riot in devising ghastly tokens of the degrada 
 tion of that which was the human body, now under 
 the dominion of decay and death. It was not of 
 peaceful rest, not of the glorious deliverance from 
 sin and sorrow, not of the Saviour s blessed face 
 seen without a veil at last, that the burying-place 
 of the Middle Ages would remind you, but rather of 
 mouldering bones and dreamless heads, as though 
 that had been most, or all. 
 
136 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 And most of us can remember how, in our early 
 days, the churchyard of the parish we knew was like 
 anything rather than what a Christian burying-place 
 should be made by people who believe that the be 
 liever s breathless body is " still united to Christ," 
 and is waiting for a glorious resurrection. We re 
 member the locked-up, deserted, neglected place, all 
 grown over with great weeds and nettles, and looking 
 not like God s Acre, the holiest place in the parish, 
 but rather like an accursed spot, which no little child 
 would willingly go near. I see something more than 
 improved taste and judgment in those quiet, beautiful, 
 carefully tended spots with which we have grown so 
 familiar, and where faces and forms, often missed 
 from our firesides, have been laid to their long repose. 
 It is not merely better judgment, but sounder faith, 
 that is here ; it is a thoroughly Christian thing to 
 scatter the beauties of nature around the Christian 
 grave ; it is fit and right that there flowers should 
 spring up and die, with their silent reminder of death 
 and of resurrection ; it is fit and right that the sur 
 vivor should often visit the place where rests the 
 mortal part of one who, though far away, is a member 
 of the family yet as much as ever; and there, per 
 haps, remember, more vividly than ever elsewhere, 
 His blessed words who said, " I am the resurrection 
 and the life ; he that believeth in Me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in Me, shall never die ! " 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 137 
 
 I see something, my friends, in the most beautiful 
 text to which you have listened, that is like turning 
 the ghastly, neglected, nettle-grown graveyard which 
 we may remember in childhood, into the quiet, sweet, 
 thoughtful sleeping-place which we find so commonly 
 now. Surely, very like that pleasant change is the 
 change which passes upon our conception of our last 
 resting-place, when we think of it, not as man has 
 often described and often made it, but as the ancient 
 patriarch Job sets it before us here. I have many 
 times thought of preaching from these memorable 
 words ; but I remembered what was said by a great 
 divine as the reason why he had never preached from 
 another very familiar verse of Holy Scripture. He 
 said that really he could only repeat his text, if he 
 were to seek to discourse upon it ; that he could add 
 nothing to its force and beauty. Yet let us try to-day 
 to rest in the contemplation of these words we all 
 know so well, and which, in many a time of weari 
 ness and trouble, have come so welcome to the Chris 
 tian s heart. There are few words, indeed, that fall 
 more pleasantly upon the ear. How gently, how 
 graciously, amid the fever and the toils of life, our 
 blessed faith seems to take us by the hand, and to 
 point us to a place where all these are done with, say 
 ing, " There the wicked cease from troubling ; and 
 there the weary are at rest ! " 
 
 This text speaks to us over nearly four thousand 
 years. Isaac was but a youth in the days when Job 
 
138 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 lived. But the oldest book in the world, this book of 
 Job, has never been surpassed for beauty and sub 
 limity by any of all that came after it ; and even it 
 never rose to higher strains than in those verses of 
 which the text is one. Yet we are to remember this : 
 that Job lived in days when the light of truth was 
 dim; the Sun of Righteousness had not yet risen 
 above the horizon; and Jesus had not yet brought 
 life and immortality to light ; and thus it is possible 
 that we are able to understand Job s words more fully 
 and better than he understood them himself. The 
 text may be read, first, as of the grave ; but in its 
 best meaning, it speaks of a better world, to which 
 the grave is the portal. Now, many of you know, 
 that, while all are agreed in believing that a future 
 life was not revealed to Job a.s plainly as it is revealed 
 to us, some have maintained that Job had no knowl 
 edge of a life beyond the grave at all ; and so, that in 
 the text he speaks not merely of the grave first, but 
 of the grave only. It is not needful now to discuss 
 the question as to Job s knowledge, which has been 
 discussed already not only very much, but very bit 
 terly. It is plain that we are entitled to read those 
 verses in the light of present revelation ; and after 
 looking at the text in the sense which it first bears, we 
 shall go on to its completion in a farther and a higher. 
 Let us think, then, first, of these words, as spoken 
 of the grave ; which, as you know, Job elsewhere 
 calls "the house appointed for all living." 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 139 
 
 It is not needful that we should seek to justify the 
 impatient burst in which Job wished, as many others 
 have wished since, that he had never been born. 
 You will think of a great man in former days, who 
 regularly, as his birthday came round, thought he 
 could not better observe it than by reading by him 
 self this chapter of the Book of Job. Jonathan Swift, 
 a Christian divine and a great deal more, in the re 
 view of a wasted and disappointed life, took up the 
 ancient story of the patient patriarch in his impatient 
 day ; and many a one beside, in the bitter conviction 
 that all life has proved a failure, has done the like. 
 You remember how trouble after trouble came upon 
 that home in the land of Uz : how first the patri 
 arch s worldly wealth was taken ; then all his children 
 were reft away together ; then loathsome bodily an 
 guish laid upon himself: how his three friends came 
 to comfort him, and when they saw him did not know 
 him, so changed was he in that little time. Not a 
 word had they of consolation ; the easy commonplaces 
 with which the cheerful and well-to-do commonly 
 condole with the suffering, would not do in a case so 
 extreme as that. And it was after seven gloomy days 
 of silence, that Job broke forth into this passionate, 
 desolate cry, wishing the day of his birth had never 
 been. He had not our gospel light, nor our strong 
 consolation ; the Blessed Spirit of all comfort was not 
 known to Job as He is known to us ; yet of course 
 Job s impatience is a thing that cannot be fully 
 
140 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 justified, though it would be interesting to see the 
 human being that feels entitled to cast a stone at him. 
 After that first outbreak of wretched feeling, the pa 
 triarch calms a little down; and then he comes to 
 that beautiful description of the rest into which he 
 would have gone if he had been spared the toil and 
 the trouble here. He tells us how he would have 
 slumbered with the great, the wise, and the good ; 
 how he would have lain still and been quiet, where 
 trouble could never come, in the peaceful grave. 
 
 And there, he says, for one pleasant thing, " the 
 wicked cease from troubling." Yes ; there is one 
 place into which the suffering can escape, where their 
 persecutors have no power. Cross the line that parts 
 life from death, and the strongest human hand can 
 not reach to vex or harm any more. There have been 
 striking examples that bring this home to us strongly. 
 We have all heard the story of that Highland soldier, 
 who fell, in war, into the hands of a savage Indian 
 tribe. The Indians were preparing, according to their 
 barbarous custom, to put their prisoner to death by 
 horrible lingering tortures. You remember how he 
 evaded these. He told his captors that he possessed 
 a magic charm which rendered him invulnerable ; and, 
 for proof of this, he bade one of the strongest warriors 
 among the Indians to take a sword and try to cut off 
 his head, saying that the savage, striking with all his 
 force, could not inflict so much as a scratch upon him. 
 Scarcely were the words said, when the savage, fetch- 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 141 
 
 ing a tremendous blow, made the soldier s head fly 
 for many yards from his body. And then the bar 
 barians felt that they were foiled and befooled ; the 
 brave Highlander was gone where they could not 
 reach to torture ! There is no more touching instance 
 of this escape, suggesting itself so naturally to the 
 mind, than occurred in one of those outbursts in the 
 Indian Mutiny, when it seemed as if all hell had 
 broken loose. You know how a brave Scotchman, 
 with his young wife, was in a tower that was attacked 
 by a great force of those incarnate devils ; you know 
 how, in the la^t extremity, when all hope was gone, 
 he found in death, for him and his, a retreat where 
 the wicked could trouble no more. And you will 
 think of the bloodthirsty Roman emperor, who, hear 
 ing that an enemy whom he designed for torture was 
 dead, exclaimed in bitterness, " Ah, has that man 
 escaped me ! " And indeed he had escaped him, 
 thoroughly and completely. There is nothing more 
 striking about the state of those who have gone into 
 the unseen world than the completeness of their 
 escape from all worldly enemies, however malignant 
 and however powerful. And it is so with all the 
 troubles of this mortal life, small and great. All 
 the cares of life, all its anxieties, all its pains and 
 bereavements, are cast off utterly when you pass the 
 line into the state of the departed. There the 
 wicked cease from troubling," cease, absolutely and 
 completely, and for evermore. 
 
142 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 But there is something beyond the mere escape 
 from worldly evil. Now, the busy heart is quiet at 
 last, and the weary head lies still. "There," says 
 Job, " the weary are at rest. * " The weary ;" and oh, 
 what a multitude is numbered of them ! Not merely 
 those who often feel the daily weariness growing on 
 the over-driven body and mind ; all are weary, more 
 or less, and grow more so as they go on. Oh breth 
 ren, if all were right beyond, how many wo.uld be 
 thankful to lay the jaded body down to rest, and to 
 cease from the weary round ! Many a human being 
 has said sincerely, in the time of weariness and 
 trouble, " I wish I was in my grave ! " Often has 
 tily said, foolishly said, and not quite sincerely said, 
 the words yet testify to a longing, sometimes felt, to 
 creep to that dreamless rest of forgetfulness, and (like 
 Job) to " lie still ! " And though humbly submissive 
 to God s good will, and though feeling that " to live 
 is Christ," and though aware that to abide here is 
 needful for others sake, yet the best of the race have 
 sometimes known what it is to look forward with a 
 sigh to that perfect calm, wherein we think, with a 
 kind of confused feeling, that morning after morning 
 the rising to toil and care will cease, where will be 
 no anxious calculations how to make the most of the 
 little store, which barely yields bread to eat and rai 
 ment to put on. It is oftentimes comforting, and we 
 cannot say it is not sometimes fit and right, to think 
 of a place where we shall find peace and quiet, 
 where " the weary are at rest." 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 143 
 
 But though a deep sleep fall upon the body, it is 
 only for a while. And indeed, after all, there is a 
 certain delusion in thinking of the grave as a place 
 of quiet rest. The soul lives still, and is awake and 
 conscious, though the body sleeps ; and it is our souls 
 that are ourselves. We cannot throw them off, nor 
 escape conscious life. Each of us lives, and must live, 
 forever ; and we have no warrant for believing that 
 in the other world there will be any season of uncon 
 sciousness to the soul. But now our subject calls us 
 rather to think that even that in us which does sleep, 
 even the body, sleeps to wake again. Let us 
 ever remember, as we look at a Christian burying- 
 place, that it is only a place of sleep. It is striking 
 to think, in that silent and solitary place, of the great 
 stir and bustle there shall be in it some day ! There 
 they have been perhaps for centuries, the little 
 grassy undulations, and the green mossy stones. But 
 " the hour is coming " which shall make a total change. 
 This quiet, this decay, this forgetfulness, are not to 
 last ! It has been doubted whether Job knew all the 
 reach of meaning there is in his words, when he 
 uttered those memorable ones whose force we under 
 stand so well. " For I know that my Redeemer liv- 
 eth ; and that he shall stand at the latter day upon 
 the earth ; and though after my skin worms destroy 
 this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ! " 
 
144 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 But now, my friends, let us go on to something 
 farther and better. There is no doubt, that when 
 Job uttered these words of the text, he was thinking 
 first, if he was not thinking only, of the quiet grave. 
 But though these are Old Testament words, we read 
 them by New Testament light, as those who know 
 that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life to all His 
 people. We take the words in their higher and truer 
 meaning. We know where it is, that, in the best and 
 noblest sense, " the wicked cease from troubling, and 
 the weary are at rest." 
 
 These words speak of a better world. They point 
 us onward to heaven. And let us mark what are the 
 two great things they tell us of that glorious and 
 happy place. The two great things of which they 
 assure us and remind us, are Safety and Peace. 
 There are many things about that blessed life and 
 world, which our Redeemer purchased for us by His 
 life and death, which we do not know nor understand, 
 and \vhich, as we are, we could not understand nor 
 know. But these two grand characteristics of the 
 life and immortality brought to light by our Saviour, 
 we can, in some measure, comprehend even now, and 
 here. 
 
 First, there is to be safety, and the sense of safe 
 ty. " There the wicked cease from troubling." Not 
 wicked men only, but everything wicked : evil spir 
 its, evil thoughts, evil influences, our own sinful hearts. 
 All danger, all temptation, shall trouble us no more. 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 145 
 
 Everything evil, whether within us or around us, 
 shall be done with. And who that can think at all 
 but knows, that if evil were gone, trouble would go 
 too ? Where the wicked cease from troubling, there 
 will be no trouble at all. Not the kind angelic 
 companions ; not the happy souls met again never 
 to part ; not the pure soul itself, " made perfect in 
 holiness v ; none of these will trouble or vex. There 
 never will be a cloud to obscure the Saviour s face ; 
 never an uneasy doubt ; never a perplexing fear. 
 There never will be an unkind word ; never an un 
 friendly look ; never an uncharitable interpretation 
 of what was meant sincerely and well. There will 
 be no trouble of any kind or degree. Now, brethren, 
 we hear it said commonly enough, that the thing we 
 can understand about the better world, is rather the 
 evil that shall be absent than the holiness and hap 
 piness which shall be present. And in one sense, 
 doubtless, that is true. The bliss of the redeemed 
 can never be rightly understood till it is felt. But it 
 is very nearly as hard for us to understand a state in 
 which evil and trouble shall be entirely absent. Our 
 whole life here is so much made up of trouble, we 
 have so much of evil, so much of care, temptation, 
 worry, always about us, that our imagination fails us 
 when we seek to realize what life would be with these 
 away. And then, the great thing about evil and 
 trouble is not so much the pain and suffering they 
 cause us, as the terrible power they have, unless 
 10 
 
146 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 specially sanctified by the Holy Spirit, to do us 
 fearful spiritual harm. It is not merely that here 
 the wicked may trouble us ; not merely that wicked 
 angels, wicked men, wicked influences from the 
 wicked world around us, wicked feelings and im 
 pulses in our own sinful natures, may trouble us 
 in the sense of destroying our peace and causing us 
 distress ; but that all these things may lead us quite 
 away from God; may quench in us those influences 
 of the Blessed Spirit that should bring us to the 
 Saviour and make us one with Him. In this world, 
 we are always on the enemy s ground ; we breathe an 
 unfriendly atmosphere ; there are a thousand influ 
 ences ever bearing upon us that tend to make us 
 worldly and ungodly. But in that happy home for 
 which we look, all these are over. There , for the 
 first time in all the believer s life, he can feel per 
 fectly safe. There will be no need to be ever " tak 
 ing heed lest he fall " ; no need to combine watchful 
 ness against the insidious approaches of temptation, 
 with the glorious praises there ! Across the boun 
 dary of that better country which we seek, evil can 
 never come ; for " there the wicked " all that is 
 wicked, " anything that defileth " " shall cease from 
 troubling," shall cease utterly, and cease for ever 
 more ! 
 
 But there is more. There is many a poor, vexed, 
 troubled, overdriven being in this world, who would 
 be too thankful only to be saved from all trouble, to 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 147 
 
 think that he would never be worried any more. But 
 besides the negative assurance that trouble will be 
 done with in Heaven, we have the promise of a posi 
 tive blessing. " There the weary are at rest." You 
 need hardly be reminded by what common consent 
 the happiness and peace of the better world are 
 summed up in that word. You know by what com 
 mon consent of the thoughtful, even among such as 
 enjoyed no revelation, rest was taken to be man s 
 greatest blessing and good. " The end of work," said 
 one of the wisest of heathens, " is to enjoy rest." 
 And you will remember how the wearied Psalmist 
 summed all he wanted in that word. " Oh, that I had 
 wings like a dove ! then would I fly away and be at 
 rest." And as if to answer and meet the blind grop- 
 ings of humanity, come the blessed Saviour s words 
 of invitation and promise : " Come unto Me, all ye 
 that labor and are heavy laden ; and I will give you 
 rest." You know, too, how the apostle says in a word 
 what holiness and happiness await the Christian be 
 yond the grave : " There remaineth a rest for the 
 people of God." And you know, likewise, what the 
 " voice from heaven " said in the hearing of St John : 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
 henceforth ; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
 from their labors." 
 
 And so it is, my friends, that in the heaven into 
 which we hope through our blessed Lord some day to 
 enter, we shall find nothing better than rest. But oh, 
 
M8 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 what a large, all-comprehending blessing, and what a 
 rest it will be ! There, at last, the thirsty soul that 
 never was satisfied in this world will be fully content ; 
 and there will be no more of the careworn, anxious, 
 weary faces that here seem to look at you earnestly 
 and with a vague inquiry for something, the some 
 thing that is lacking in all things here. And we know 
 the meaning of all the vague and endless aspirations 
 of our human hearts. It is that " this is not our rest " ; 
 our rest is beyond the grave. It is idle to try to sum 
 up the items that go to make an immortal soul %happy. 
 Doubtless there will be rest from sin, from sorrow, 
 from toil, from anxiety, from temptation, from pain ; 
 but all that fails to convey the whole unspeakable 
 truth ; it will be the beatific presence of the Saviour 
 that will make the weary soul feel it never knew rest 
 before ! There is a something of life s fitful fever 
 about all the bliss of this life ; but in that world the 
 bliss will be restful : calm, satisfied, self-possessed, 
 sublime. It will be " the peace of God, which pass- 
 eth all understanding." Only in Him, as seen in our 
 beloved Saviour s face, is the rest and consummation 
 of an immortal soul. You remember the Psalm 
 ist s words, so devoutly earnest, so calmly sensible : 
 " Whom have I in heaven but Thee ; and there is 
 none upon earth that I desire beside Thee ! " And 
 you remember words, meet to be set beside them 
 " Thou madest us for Thyself; and our souls are rest 
 less till they find rest in Thee ! " 
 
DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 149 
 
 Oh, think who gives that rest which can make us 
 happy, and to whom He gives it. The only rest 
 that ever truly and permanently quieted the human 
 heart is that which the Saviour gives, His peace, 
 not as the world giveth ! And He gives it only to 
 His own ; that is, to all who will humbly take it. 
 Is there one sinful, heavy-laden creature here that 
 will refuse the peace He bought for us with His 
 blood? It is not the quiet grave into which the 
 weary and anxious have often wished they could 
 creep and lie still, not that which can soothe away 
 our fears. Only He can give it, whose word never 
 fails ; and whose promise to the weary who will come 
 to Him, is, " I will give you rest ! " 
 
 And as we draw these thoughts to a close, we look 
 again upon that text. There it is as we remember it 
 since we can remember anything ; the same to us as 
 it has been to generations of human beings for six- 
 and-thirty hundred years ; with its promise of de 
 parted trouble, and of ever welcome rest. But when 
 soever we recall those words, to ourselves or to others, 
 oh let us read them by gospel light, let us read 
 them in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness ! 
 Let us never forget which is the satisfying rest, and 
 where it is that the text holds true. Let us lay the 
 dead in places so quiet and sweet, as shall beseem the 
 body s long repose; where country streams murmur 
 by with their gentle requiem, and ancient trees shed 
 their leaves upon the grave ; or by the pleasant shore, 
 
150 DEPARTED TROUBLE AND WELCOME REST. 
 
 as the poet tells us, and in the hearing of the sea ; but 
 let us never be so false to Him who is the Resurrec 
 tion and the Life, as to fancy that it is there the text 
 is fulfilled. Nay ; but when we would look towards 
 the place of which the Patriarch s words are truest, 
 let us turn our eyes not to the green earth below, but 
 to the bright heaven above ; let us think, not of the 
 senseless slumber in the dust of the poor dying body, 
 but of the bliss and purity and safety of the immortal 
 soul ; and looking towards that Golden City, to 
 wards that " Country " sought so earnestly by the 
 " strangers and pilgrims on the earth," with its per 
 fect peace, and holiness, and happiness, let us thank 
 God that "There" indeed, that "There the wicked 
 cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest ! " 
 
IX. 
 
 CONTINUANCE THE TEST OF RELIGIOUS 
 PROFESSION. 
 
 " And that your fruit should remain." JOHN xv. 16. 
 
 HERE are few things which, as we grow 
 older and get more experience, impress 
 us more deeply than the transitoriness 
 of thoughts and feelings in the human 
 heart. We observe this in those around us ; and we 
 feel this in ourselves. Places and persons that we 
 once thought we never could forget, as years go on 
 are all but quite forgotten ; and feelings that we once 
 thought would have remained in our hearts so long 
 as they beat, as years go on, come to stir their pulses 
 no more. Some of us may remember the days when 
 we fancied we never could be happy away from the 
 home of our youth, and the pang with which we left 
 it ; but now, perhaps, we never miss it though it has 
 riot been seen for years. Some of us may remember 
 with what sorrow we left the scene and the friends 
 of some happy period of our life, which now, away in 
 the past, looks faint and far. They leave their trace 
 indeed, these strong feelings of the heart ; their faded 
 relics may sometimes be awakened to life again ; they 
 
152 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 do not leave us exactly what we were, but still 
 they leave us. 
 
 And there is no respect in which this is more sad 
 ly felt than in the case of pious feelings and holy 
 resolutions. We can yet remember, perhaps, the 
 warm and happy emotions of Communion seasons 
 long ago ; the eagerness of our first choice of Christ 
 as our souls portion ; the warm and confident resolu 
 tions which we thought would never yield, that here 
 after we should give ourselves entirely to Him ; and 
 it seemed easy then to renounce the world, to set the 
 affections on things above ; and life, which is really a 
 long thing, with great power to wear down the keen 
 est feelings and the strongest resolutions, seemed in 
 that early flush only the short passage and portal to 
 Eternity. We say nothing now as to whose fault it 
 is, or whether it be anybody s fault, that it is so ; but 
 surely, in the case of many, the cold hearts of to-day 
 contrast sadly with those hours of sacred elevation ; 
 and the growing worldliness of spirit, which we feel 
 it so hard to keep down, is not like that early choice 
 of heaven and of immortality. We often think sadly 
 of those whose goodness was like the morning cloud 
 and the early dew, which soon pass away. We some 
 times fear lest we have been deluding ourselves with 
 the belief that we were better and safer than we ever 
 have been, and mourn for the soul-refreshing views, 
 the earnest purpose, the warm affections of the days 
 when we first believed in Christ. 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 153 
 
 Now there is no doubt that it is possible to carry 
 such reflections too far. No doubt, by the make of 
 our being, as we grow older, we grow less capable of 
 emotion ; and our choice of Christ may be just as 
 strong, and our religious convictions as deep, though 
 they less frequently than once thrill the heart, and 
 stir the depths of feeling. Religion in the soul, after 
 all, is a matter of fixed choice and resolution, of 
 principle rather than of feeling ; and it would be 
 very wrong if any old believer thought, that, because 
 he now no longer feels so deeply, perhaps, on a Com 
 munion Sunday, he is therefore falling away from the 
 attainments of former years. It is only with him 
 that the lamp of all feeling is burning lower, that 
 the heart is less easily stirred ; but still the choice 
 of heaven may be as fixed, and the faith in Jesus as 
 deep as ever. Do not dishearten and vex yourselves, 
 my believing friends, in trying to awaken emotion 
 which no longer comes. The still subdued light of 
 the autumn twilight is as beautiful in its season as 
 the blaze of the summer day. And the calm, thought 
 ful mood in which the old man covers his face as he 
 bends over the white cloth, befits as well the calm 
 Feast of Remembrance as do the young believer s 
 tears. 
 
 And yet it remains a great and true principle that, 
 in the matter of Christian faith and feeling, that 
 which lasts longest is best. This indeed is true of 
 most things. The worth of anything depends much 
 
154 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 upon its durability, upon the wear that is in it. A 
 thing that is merely a fine flash and over, only disap 
 points. It is not one bright hour that makes a fine 
 day ; it is the equable continuance of the cheerful 
 light that makes it. It is not the gaudy annual we 
 value most, but the steadfast forest-tree. The slight 
 triumphal arch, run up in a day, may flout the sober- 
 looking buildings near it, but they remain after it 
 is gone. And our Blessed Saviour, in the text, ac 
 knowledges the truth of this great principle. He 
 tells his disciples that they, as branches of Himself, 
 the living Vine, were to bear fruit, to bring forth 
 much fruit : " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye 
 bear much fruit ; so shall ye be my disciples." And 
 what is meant by fruit, and much fruit, every one 
 feels at once ; for the analogy between the fruit of a 
 tree and the life and conduct of a man is too plain 
 to need any tracing. But even fruit, and much fruit, 
 was not enough for the Saviour s desire and God s 
 glory. The fairest profession for a time, the most 
 earnest labors for a time, the most ardent affection 
 for a time, would not suffice. And so the Redeemer s 
 words are, mark them well, "I have chosen you, 
 and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth 
 fruit ; and that your fruit should remain" 
 
 No doubt, brethren, the disciples to whom Christ 
 addressed these words had a work to do beyond that 
 which can be allotted to any of us. They had to 
 found the Christian Church ; and it was a matter of 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 155 
 
 momentous concern, not for God s glory only, but for 
 the sake of a sinful world, that their handiwork 
 should be firm and durable, that it should remain 
 even until the end of time. But it is not in that 
 special sense in which we wish at present to under 
 stand the text. We wish to understand it just as 
 suggesting the great principle, that, in religion, Per 
 manence is the great test, That only is true fruit of 
 the Spirit, which remains, which does not wear out 
 with advancing time. The text hints to us, that it is 
 even a harder thing to keep up a consistent Christian, 
 profession to keep it up year after year, through 
 temptations, through troubles, through the slow wear 
 of time than to make it, however fairly, at the first, 
 Our Christian profession may indeed lose something 
 of its gloss, may get somewhat battered and travel- 
 stained as we go on our pilgrimage-path, but still, in 
 the main, in all that makes its essence, it must go 
 on with us. We are to see to it that we bring forth 
 i ruit, " and that our fruit should remain. " 
 
 And our first remark upon this precept is this : that 
 It is only by our fruit remaining that we are warranted 
 in believing that it is the right fruit. The only satis 
 factory proof, either to ourselves or to those around us, 
 that our Christian faith, and hope, and charity are the 
 true fruits of the Spirit, is that they shall last, that 
 they shall stand the wear of advancing time. In re 
 ligion, it is not merely that the fruit which " remains " 
 is the best fruit ; the fruit which " remains " is the only 
 
156 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 fruit. Anything else is a false pretender. Contin 
 uance is the test of Christian grace being genuine. 
 And herein is a point of difference between worldly 
 and spiritual things. We have said that most things 
 in this world are valuable in proportion to their dura 
 bility ; but it would not be just to say that things 
 which wear out, and even wear out fast, have no value 
 at all. Who shall say that the flower which blooms 
 in the morning and withers before the sunset, is not 
 a fair and kind gift of the Creator ; who shall affirm 
 that the summer sunset is not beautiful, though even 
 while we gaze upon it its hues are fading? Who 
 shall deny that there is something precious in the 
 lightsome glee of childhood, even though in a little 
 while that cheerful face is sure to be shadowed by the 
 cares of manhood? Indeed, it has been maintained 
 that the beauty and value of many things in this 
 world are increased by the shortness of the time for 
 which they last; that many things borrow a charm 
 from their very evanescence ; and that no one feels 
 so keenly the beauty of the fairest landscape as the 
 dying man who knows that he is very soon to look 
 upon it no more. But it is not thus with Christian 
 grace. If it be not a grace which will last forever, it 
 is no grace at all. If it be not worth everything, it is 
 worth nothing. Ah, brethren, a man may show every 
 appearance of being a true disciple ; his convictions 
 of sin may be deep, his sense of the Saviour s need 
 fulness strong, his zeal in all Christian exercises 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 157 
 
 great ; he may read his Bible carefully, he may pray 
 often and much, he may never be out of God s house, 
 he may be deeply impressed at a Communion-table, j ie 
 may be eager to do good to all as he has opportunity ; 
 and all these things are well ; but oh ! if they last 
 but for a little, if the zeal wanes and expires, if the 
 throne of grace is deserted, and the Bible no longer 
 read, and the little task of Christian philanthropy 
 abandoned ; how much reason there is then to fear 
 lest the man was deceiving himself with a name to 
 live while he was dead, that he was mistaking the 
 transient warmth of mere human emotion for the 
 gracious working of the Holy Spirit of God ! God 
 forbid that we should judge any man ; and we know 
 that even they whose names are written in the 
 Lamb s book of Life, who are effectually called and 
 sanctified, and so who can never totally and finally fall 
 from grace and end in woe, may yet fall into grievous 
 sin, and continue therein for a time ; but, though we 
 should ever be charitable when we judge our neighbor, 
 it is wisdom to be severe when we judge ourselves ; 
 and, brethren, how can we but fear and tremble when 
 we feel grace within decaying and weakening, lest our 
 fruit should not be that fruit which shall remain, 
 lest our profession should prove a delusion which 
 deceived even ourselves ! It may be otherwise ; our 
 nagging zeal and our chilling heart may be the signs 
 only of the temporary intermission of the true grace, 
 and not of the final failure of the false; but who 
 
158 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 shall set his eternal destiny upon that fearful chance, 
 who shall not rather set himself to earnest prayer, 
 and stir himself up to vigorous effort, to " strengthen 
 the things which remain, which are ready to die " ? 
 The doctrine of what is called the Perseverance of 
 the Saints, when rightly regarded, so far from tending 
 to make men spiritually indolent, to make them 
 cease from the diligent use of the means of grace, 
 and rest in the confidence that having once been 
 right they never can go wrong, is a doctrine which 
 should tend in the very reverse direction, which 
 should stir men up to ceaseless prayer and endeavor, 
 and which should make them tremblingly watchful of 
 the faintest symptom of spiritual declension, lest that 
 should be the indication that their profession of relig 
 ion is a delusion, and that they have never yet gone 
 to Christ at all. Who should be so fearful of the 
 least appearance of going wrong as he who believes 
 that to go wrong is an indication which makes it fear 
 fully likely that he has never been right? And it 
 is sad to think how this great doctrine, which ought 
 to stimulate to constant exertion to keep the armor 
 bright and the profession unsullied, has been used or 
 abused to just the opposite end. We read in history 
 that when a certain man who had filled a high place 
 in this world was dying, he was filled with many fears 
 and forebodings as to how he stood with God. He 
 sent for his spiritual advisers, and anxiously asked 
 of them whether it were possible for the elect to fall 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 159 
 
 finally ; and being answered in the negative, replied, 
 " Then I am safe ; for I am certain that I was once in 
 a state of grace." And so, instead of turning even 
 then to the Saviour, who is ready to receive and par 
 don even to the eleventh hour, the dying man drugged 
 his soul with that delusive opiate ; which, if it meant 
 anything, just meant this pernicious and false idea, 
 that, " if a man has been at any time satisfied, from 
 his own feelings, of being in a state of grace, he will 
 infallibly be saved, and is not to regard any sin or 
 course of sin he may subsequently fall into as endan 
 gering his final acceptance." Ah, brethren, by far 
 the more natural and likely interpretation of the fact 
 that a professing Christian has fallen into grievous 
 sin, or has even chilled down into utter heartlessness 
 and heedlessness, is, that his profession was unsound. 
 The man who feels that he is now far wrong, has 
 weighty reason for fearing that he never was right at 
 all. For that only is the right fruit which remains ; 
 that only is the true grace which stands the wear of 
 years. And when we remember how ready we are 
 to deceive ourselves, and to pass sentence unjustly 
 in our own favor, oh, with what caution we should 
 receive any testimony borne, as we may fancy, by our 
 own soul to our own soul s state ! Yea, how decid 
 edly we should reject that self-borne testimony, if 
 we know that now we have left our first love, and 
 that the graces of the Christian life are growing 
 weaker within us ! For how stands the case ? We 
 
160 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 have just our own heart bearing conflicting testimo- 
 nies : our heart tells us firmly that we are wrong 
 now ; it tells us, not nearly so firmly, that we were 
 right once ; it may be erring on the favorable side, it 
 cannot be erring upon the other. Oh, let us judge of 
 our own case as at the worst, since we are yet in the 
 place of hope ; let us put the least favorable construc 
 tion on our spiritual symptoms, when the Physician 
 of souls is yet offering to us the balm of Gilead, 
 which can heal and save! What do you do as 
 regards worldly things ? Do you not always provide 
 against the worst that can happen ? If you must go 
 a journey, and are doubtful whether there will be rain 
 or fair weather, is it not wisest to go prepared for 
 rain ? If your little child has a cough, which may be 
 only the symptom of passing indisposition, but which 
 may be the premonition of that sad decline which 
 will lay him in his grave, is it not wise and prudent 
 to apply to the physician in time, and make sure of 
 how the case may be, while yet there is time to apply 
 the remedy? Let us fix it then in our minds as 
 a most solemn truth, that the "fruit which shall 
 remain " is that which Christ especially desired and 
 desires to see in His disciples ; that so the fruit 
 which withers and moulders is not that which He 
 desires to see ; that it is a most alarming symptom 
 of our soul s state when grace within us seems to be 
 declining and dying; that at the best it means that 
 we are losing ground which it may take long time 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 161 
 
 and labor to make up, and falling into sin which will 
 cost us bitter repentance ; and that it may mean 
 that we never were in Christ at all, that the fruit 
 in which we trusted was not the fruit of the Spirit, 
 that we never have borne any of that fruit in 
 which God is glorified, and in bearing which we are 
 shown to be the disciples of Christ. Yes, brethren, 
 to any eye but His who can read what names are 
 written, and discern what names are not written, in 
 the Book of Life, the great test whether or not 
 seeming Christian grace be genuine, is just whether 
 it is permanent or not. It is not the warmest feel 
 ings, the most ecstatic raptures, the most abundant 
 labors, yea martyrdom itself, for a brief season of 
 excitement, that can prove that the work of grace is 
 begun and is advancing in the soul. Never tell us, as 
 infallible proof that a man has the mind of Christ in 
 him, of his self-denying labors for a few months or 
 years, of his long seasons of devotion, of his utter 
 renunciation of the world, its vanities and its wealth, 
 of his longing desire to spend and be spent in preach 
 ing the glad tidings of salvation. Let us see him 
 ten years after this, let us see him thirty years 
 after this, and then see how all these feelings and 
 purposes have worn ! Let us see how they have 
 stood the slow wear and wasting of long, common 
 place, matter-of-fact years ! And oh, if the zeal have 
 cooled and the fervor abated, if the minister, who 
 in his youth never grudged strength and life in his 
 11 
 
162 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 abundant labors for his Master above, have turned 
 lifeless, careless, cold, if the visitor from house to 
 house, who was impelled to ceaseless exertion by love 
 for perishing souls, has learned to smile at the Uto 
 pian fancies of departed days, if the worshipper, 
 who in youth loved the house of prayer as a place 
 where oftentimes his warmed, elevated, comforted 
 heart testified to him that this was none other than 
 the gate of heaven, is now ready at every call of 
 business or of indolence to leave his place empty in 
 the sanctuary, which now seems dull and cold ; if all 
 this be so, what shall we think what must the world 
 think but that it was but the fervor of a quicker 
 fancy and a faster pulse that was at the root of those 
 seeming " fruits of the Spirit " which appeared in bet 
 ter days ! But if it be otherwise, and by God s 
 mercy otherwise we know it oftentimes to be, if the 
 path have been like the shining light, shining more 
 and more unto the perfect day, then how hopeful and 
 glorious a sight it is, how cheering to the young 
 disciple, looking forward with something of fear to the 
 temptations and trials of the life before him. Oh, if 
 the gray-haired minister, with less now indeed of phys 
 ical strength and mere physical warmth, yet preaches, 
 with the added weight and solemnity of his long expe 
 rience, the same precious saving doctrines now, after 
 forty years, that he preached in his early prime ; if 
 after these long years he still sits by the dying man s 
 bed, daily guiding him, with gentle assiduity, through 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 163 
 
 the dark valley; if the philanthropist of half a cen 
 tury since is the philanthropist still, still kind, hopeful, 
 and unwearied, though with the snows upon his head, 
 and the hand that never told its fellow of what it did, 
 now trembling as it does the deed of mercy ; if the 
 aged communicant, that never missed a sacrament for 
 threescore years, still sits down gladly at the simple 
 table, and confesses that Saviour who has fed him all 
 his days, as solemnly and sincerely as ever ; then, my 
 brethren, I think even the world will believe that the 
 religion of such men was a glorious reality. Years 
 may indeed have calmed natural feeling down; the 
 tear may not come so readily, and the heart may beat 
 slower now ; but the whole soul and spirit have grown 
 into an unchangeable set through time ; and the man 
 could as soon cease to live, as to trust and love his 
 Redeemer. Oh, far, far better that ingrained, inevi 
 table habit than the fresher emotions of a younger 
 heart! Such souls are indeed linked to the Saviour 
 with hoops of steel, or, better yet, with those " cords 
 of love," those " bands of a man," which no earthly 
 power can sever. And surely, in the case of such, 
 the Redeemer has " seen of the travail of his soul " ; 
 he has his disciples as he wished to have them ; for is 
 not this the very thing he meant when he said to his 
 apostles ere they parted, "I have chosen you, and 
 ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit ; 
 and that your fruit should remain ! " 
 
164 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 Let us remark yet further, that not only is "fruit 
 which remains " that is, a Christian profession which 
 lasts on through life the only thing which can afford 
 a man himself any well-grounded hope or assurance 
 that he is indeed numbered among the saved and re 
 deemed ; it is also the only kind of Christian pro 
 fession which will recommend religion to those who 
 are not Christians. We all know quite well, that, al 
 though it ought not to be so, men in general are very 
 ready to judge of religion by the conduct and char 
 acter of those who make a profession of religion. 
 And just as a humble, consistent believer is a letter 
 of recommendation of Christianity to all who know 
 him, letting his light shine before others in such 
 fashion as leads them to glorify his Father in heaven, 
 just so is the inconsistent believer s life a stumbling- 
 block in the path of his fellow-men, a something to 
 make them doubt whether religion be a real thing, 
 and not a mere matter of profession and pretence. 
 Every one whose duty has led him into such work, 
 could tell you, that, in practice and in fact, the incon 
 sistent and unworthy conduct of professed members 
 of the Christian Church is what does more than any 
 thing else to encourage those who are regardless about 
 religion to go on in their regardless way. Many a 
 minister, when he points out to some conscientious 
 man the duty of obeying the Saviour s farewell com 
 mand, gets for answer, " There is such a one, there is 
 such another one, they are regular communicants; 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION". 165 
 
 can charity itself suppose that they are true Chris 
 tians." We do not say, brethren, that this way of 
 thinking or speaking is right; for every man must 
 bear his own burden ; and other men s sins, or other 
 men s neglect of commanded duty, will form on the 
 day of judgment no excuse for ours. But though 
 this way of thinking be not sound, we all know that 
 it is common ; and oh, my friends, how sorrowful a 
 thought it should be to any Christian man, to think 
 that, while perhaps he was giving of his means for 
 the conversion of the heathen far away, he was by his 
 daily life hindering the conversion of his next neigh 
 bor at home ! And what so likely to do this as to 
 bring forth fruit which will not remain ; to start in 
 the Christian race all zeal, and alacrity, and eager 
 ness, and then gradually to turn chill and apathetic ? 
 No one but God can tell how much harm is done by 
 the minister who at his first entrance upon his work 
 sets agoing so many schemes as set the whole parish 
 in a ferment, and then after some months or years of 
 waning zeal lets them all come to nothing ; no one 
 but God can tell how much harm is done by the pri 
 vate Christian who in his new-born zeal disdains the 
 quiet faith of old disciples who have long walked con 
 sistently, but whose zeal passes like the morning cloud 
 and the early dew. Oh, far better the modest fruits 
 of the Spirit, the "love, joy, peace, long-suffering^ 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," 
 which make little show at first, but which remain 
 
1G6 CONTINUANCE THE TEST 
 
 year after year, which yet warm the heart when 
 flesh and heart begin to faint and fail, which last 
 while life lasts, and are made perfect in immortality ! 
 Nor let it be fancied, when we thus place permanence 
 above mere zeal, and say that the "fruit which re 
 mains " is that which makes most plain to all men its 
 divine origin, let it not be fancied that we mean 
 that a Christian profession which is warm and zealous 
 cannot be lasting too, or that, to gain in permanence, 
 the Christian character must lose something in zeal 
 and warmth. Have we not known and heard of those 
 whose eagerness in the Saviour s cause might have 
 been judged a mere fit of temporary enthusiasm, some 
 thing too eager to last, if we had not found on 
 inquiring that it had held on as warmly and energeti 
 cally for twenty, for thirty years ! And surely, God 
 is herein glorified, surely, Christian faith and prac 
 tice are recommended to all men, when the disciple 
 thus "goes and brings forth fruit," and his fruit 
 thus " remains." 
 
 And now, my friends, as we draw our meditation 
 to a close, it is possible that some among you may 
 be ready to say, that you are quite convinced how 
 desirable and how necessary it is that the fruits of 
 the Spirit in yourselves should be of this enduring 
 nature ; and that you wish no better than that, amid 
 the wear of advancing years, amid all the changes in 
 thought and feeling which these years bring with 
 
OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 167 
 
 them, you may still feel your faith grow stronger, 
 your hope clearer, your charity more kindly sympa 
 thetic, you may still keep the blessed views of youi 
 great Redeemer which first led you to His feet, and 
 find Him in His house, in His Word, at His mercy- 
 seat, as you have found him heretofore. Not for any 
 new feelings and experiences do you wish, but only for 
 the revival and the continuance of the old ; and you 
 long for nothing better on earth than for the quiet 
 of Sabbath evenings long since past, and the happi 
 ness of old communion seasons. You earnestly desire 
 that yours should be the fruit which shall remain ; 
 but you fear that you are losing ground in these 
 last days, and that it is not with you now as it has 
 been heretofore ; and you ask how shall the flagging 
 resolution be braced into strength again, how shall 
 the cold heart grow warm again, and the happy 
 sense of God s favor be restored ? Oh, brethren, 
 the same power which implanted the better life 
 within must keep it alive day by day ; the con 
 tinual working of the Spirit must foster the fruits 
 of the Spirit ; and that Spirit is to be had for the 
 asking in fervent, humble prayer. Let us watch 
 against the first symptoms of declension in religion; 
 let us remember that spiritual decline begins in the 
 closet ; and let us pray earnestly and often, were it 
 only to keep our souls in that habit of communion 
 with God which is as a fence against all the assaults 
 of Satan and of sin. Let us guard against that 
 
168 THE TEST OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 
 
 worldly spirit which is always ready to creep over 
 us ; and seek to walk by faith, and not by sight. 
 Let us be diligent in the use of all the appointed 
 means of grace, and vigilant in guarding against 
 every approach of temptation. Let us seek to have 
 our loins girt, and our lamps burning, as those who 
 do not know how soon or suddenly the Bridegroom 
 may come. And so, through all the perplexing paths 
 of life, through all the cares before us, which may 
 be many, and all the years before us, which may be 
 few, that best treasure within, of Christian grace, 
 will go with us unimpaired and unchanged. Other 
 things may go, so that " remains ! " remains in light 
 and dark, in sorrow and joy, when the heart beats 
 high with gladsome life, and when it flutters its last, 
 and stops forever. It will be a blessed support when 
 we have little else to lean on, and a blessed hope 
 when we can have no hope save that which casts its 
 anchor within the vail. It will be our stay in death, 
 and our passport to immortality. May God grant, 
 then, that our Christian profession may hold out to 
 the last, and that the " fruit of the Spirit " in our 
 hearts may be that " fruit which shall remain ! " 
 
X. 
 
 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 Lord, Thou knowest: remember me, and visit me." JERE 
 MIAH xv. 15. 
 
 ET us mark, my friends, the comprehen 
 sive request with which the prophet Jer 
 emiah begins his prayer to Almighty 
 God. " Remember me," he says. There 
 are many things he desires, and he will in a little set 
 them out in God s hearing; but the thing he asks first, 
 as a fitting introduction to all the rest, and as indeed 
 including within itself all the rest, is that God would 
 not let him drop out of sight and thought. " O Lord, 
 Thou knowest : remember me, and visit me." " Re 
 member me ! " That is his first and largest request. 
 
 We wonder how often these words are repeated in 
 Great Britain, in the course of every day. We w r on-. 
 der how often, over the length and breadth of the 
 world, during the same space of time, words which 
 mean the same thing are repeated, in every form of 
 human speech, and by all sorts and conditions of hu 
 man beings. It might be curious if we could know 
 this ; but without any positive information we are 
 
170 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 certain cf one thing, that there are very few shapes 
 into which human thought can fashion itself, before it 
 proceed from human lips, which it takes more fre 
 quently than this. Perhaps not even the perpetually 
 recurring " God knows," which testifies how natural 
 it is for us in our felt ignorance to turn to One who 
 knows all, expresses a mood of thought more common 
 to rational creatures. We doubt not that many, 
 before the Deluge, bade those remember them who 
 should themselves be utterly forgot ; we doubt not 
 that when the parent of patriarchal days sent out his 
 son to battle with the billows of life, he made and he 
 received the simple request to be remembered ; we 
 doubt not that the dying mother, as she strained her 
 eyes through the mists of death upon the features of 
 her child, breathed low into his ear some words in her 
 own forgotten tongue, in which, if we could translate 
 them, we should recognize our familiar " Remember 
 me," or some one of the other phrases which mean the 
 same thing. And it is the same way still. It still 
 falls cheeringly upon the heart of the dying, to think 
 that some words and looks of theirs shall live in the 
 remembrance of dear ones who are to remain behind 
 them ; and it still falls heavy on the exile s heart, if 
 he thinks that amid scenes and among friends whom 
 he lemembers so well, his name and his existence 
 are quite forgotten. So now, as ever, the parting 
 friend says, with a faltering voice, You will some 
 times remember me when I am far away. So now, 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 as ever, the dying whispers to such as were 
 You will sometimes think of me after I am dead. 
 
 We have not spoken of those more ambitious minds, 
 which have not been content that their memorial 
 should be kept in the hearts of a few beloved friends ; 
 but whose labor it has been that their name, after 
 they had passed from this world, should be remem 
 bered by multitudes. You know how entirely success 
 ful a certain man has been in carrying out his purpose ; 
 which was, he said, to leave something so written 
 as that men should not easily let it die. And you 
 know how classic verse has bewailed the fate of those 
 great and brave men who had no one to relate their 
 doings, and whose doings and names have together 
 gone into oblivion. For oblivion is the bugbear of 
 ambitious men ; and oblivion just means the condition 
 of being quite forgot. 
 
 There is no doubt, my friends, that there are many 
 things we wish, and many we shrink from, without 
 much reason which it would be easy to set out. And 
 this is certainly so with the common desire not to 
 be entirely forgotten by those who once knew us and 
 cared for us. And it is so just as really with the 
 desire to be kindly remembered by the few near 
 friends as with that to be admiringly remembered by 
 a crowd of strangers. The moralist has it all his own 
 way in showing the vanity of the desire, and the empti 
 ness of the end. Say you are going away from your 
 native land and the home of your youth ; and you 
 
172 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 think, perhaps, that, amid Australian wilds, or on the 
 parched plains of India, it will cheer and almost glad 
 den you to think that the dear circle far away is 
 remembering you yet. Or when thoughts come over 
 you of the days when you will no longer sit in your 
 accustomed chair at home, and when they must learn 
 there to do without you, you fancy it would almost 
 soothe you on your narrow bed, if well-known steps 
 came to your grave, and the tear of memory some 
 times fell on the grass which will grow over you. 
 Well, says the moralist, what good will it do you to 
 be remembered ; what harm would it do you to be 
 forgot ! 
 
 We cannot answer him ; but we do not mind for 
 that. Enough for us that He who made us, made us 
 so that by the make of our being we desire to be kind 
 ly remembered ; and we shrink from the thought of 
 being forgot. There is not one of us, who are accus 
 tomed to worship within these walls, that would like 
 to think that if we never entered this church again, 
 nobody would ever miss us. 
 
 Now, brethren, in words like those of the text, the 
 prophet reminds us that this longing is in our nature ; 
 and he shows us the right direction in which to train 
 it. In this short supplication it is as if a kind hand 
 took us, and pointing to the heaven above us, said, 
 Seek to be remembered there ! And there is a great 
 deal taught us of the kindliness, condescension, and 
 thoughtful care of the Almighty and Everlasting God, 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 173 
 
 when we think of such a prayer as one that may 
 without offence be offered to Him. You feel that you 
 are speaking to a real Person, in offering a prayer 
 like this. Not to some vague, undefined " Great First 
 Cause least understood," but to a merciful Father 
 in Heaven, who looks down upon His child, and " like 
 as a father pitieth his children, pitieth them that fear 
 him." It was while he looked on the kindly human 
 face of Christ, that the whole heart s wish of the poor 
 penitent thief went out in the " Lord, remember me ! " 
 It was in special clearness of revelation of God s love 
 to His poor creatures, that the Psalmist was embold 
 ened to say, "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord 
 thinketh upon me." And it was addressing a Person, 
 and not a " soul of the world," that the Psalmist ex 
 panded to greater fulness both the petitions in the 
 text ; saying, " Remember me, O Lord, with the 
 favor that thou bearest unto Thy people; and visit 
 me with Thy salvation ! " 
 
 Let us dwell, for a little, upon the kindly and en 
 couraging view of the Hearer of prayer, which is im 
 plied in the words of the prophet s petition. When 
 we call to mind that this petition was an acceptable 
 one, that it was a petition which the prophet did 
 quite right when he offered, and one that God ap 
 proved, how much instruction, and how much en 
 couragement it gives us concerning God ! 
 
 " Remember me," said the prophet, in his day of 
 sorrow, to God. So, you can see, Jeremiah was not 
 
174 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 staggered, as he drew near his Maker in prayer, by 
 that intruding doubt which will sometimes press it 
 self upon the mind of all, and which we know did 
 press itself upon the mind of even the inspired Psalm 
 ist. Did it ever come across you, my friends, as you 
 knelt down in your closet to offer your evening prayer, 
 Now, can it be true that the Almighty God is indeed 
 ready to listen to my poor words, and to consider my 
 heart s desires : Can it be true that He, who has upon 
 Him the care of all the universe, of all races, king 
 doms, worlds, in whose ear the praises of heaven 
 are now resounding, can such a God be really look 
 ing down upon me, this speck in immensity, this atom 
 amid countless millions, this poor insignificant helpless 
 sinful worm of the dust ? David, Psalmist and King, 
 knew the feeling. " When I consider thy heavens, 
 the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which 
 thou hast ordained ; what is man, that thou art mind 
 ful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest 
 him ? " Mark, my friends, here again we come across 
 the two petitions of our text. The prophet might 
 almost have had the psalm in his mind. David found 
 it hard to think that God could remember man, or 
 visit him ; yet the prophet s prayer goes to just these 
 two things : " Remember me, and visit me ! " What 
 a wonderful view of God is in that prayer! What 
 a steady faith in God is in that prayer ! There are 
 the heavens, indeed ; and there are the moon and 
 Stars ; and there the little sinful creature of yester- 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 175 
 
 day ; yet he is sure that God can be mindful of him 
 amid all the other things He has to mind ; and com 
 ing, like a little child, to the great Father, the little 
 voice pleads, " Do not forget me ! " And it is not pre 
 sumption ; it is faith, that speaks here ! Not a sparrow 
 falls without our Father ; not a hair on the believer s 
 head but is reckoned ; He compasseth our path and our 
 lying down, and is acquainted with all our ways ! My 
 friends, when you enter into your closet and shut the 
 door, and pray to your Father which is in secret, be 
 sure of this, that, if your prayer be earnest and sin 
 cere, and offered in simple faith in Christ the Media 
 tor and Intercessor, you never spoke words to your 
 nearest neighbor that he heard more distinctly than 
 the Almighty hears that prayer ! And He will not 
 be impatient nor weary though you ask His notice to 
 your own little self, and your own little cares and con 
 cerns. You may tell to Him all those little things 
 that really make up your life, though you would al 
 most be ashamed to speak of them to a human being. 
 You may make sure of a ready ear, sure of a kind 
 sympathy, sure that you will not be condemned for 
 egotism though you say ever so much about yourself, 
 your own sins, and wants, and weakness, and toils, and 
 cares. You may humbly go to God, and bespeak His 
 attention to your own self, saying, like the ancient 
 prophet, without rebuke, " Lord, Thou knowest : 
 Remember me, and visit me ! " And take for comfort, 
 in your deep-felt insignificance, in your sinfulness and 
 
176 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 helplessness, the words of one of God s people, who 
 felt all that you feel : " I am poor and needy ; yet the 
 Lord thinketh upon me ! " Little child, amid your 
 little troubles, very great to you ; poor widow, schem 
 ing and striving to make the scanty shillings go their 
 farthest, and plodding about your work with the 
 heavy burden on your heart of how you are to make 
 up your rent ; oh, believe it that all these little things 
 are known to the great God, and are eared about by 
 Him ; that He feels for you far more tenderly and 
 thoroughly than any human being; that He knows 
 all your little ways, and all your little cares ; that 
 you have not dropped out of His sight, or out of His 
 mind ; " I am poor and needy ; yet the Lord thinketh 
 upon me ! " And you may press upon Him your small 
 requests, and tell out to Him all that concerns you, 
 saying, " Lord, remember me, and visit me ! " 
 
 I could willingly, my friends, say much more upon 
 this matter ; for I believe there are few things that 
 add so heavily to the burden of many a Christian, and 
 that take so much from that peace and rest which we 
 might find in Christ, as a practical lack of faith in 
 all this, a practical lack of belief that God knows 
 all about us as He does, a practical belief that it is 
 almost a profanation of prayer to tell God in it about 
 a host of little things which really take up a great 
 place in our heart and life. My Christian friends, let 
 us in our prayers ask God for what we want, not for 
 what we think we ought to want. Many a man, in 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 177 
 
 his prayers, speaks almost entirely about the things he 
 fancies it is the right thing to ask, and says nothing 
 at all about a crowd of little wants and worries which 
 really are filling up his heart at the time, and which 
 it would be an unspeakable relief to cast all the care 
 of upon God in prayer. Your heart is full of some 
 small anxiety or trouble ; you are really thinking of 
 your own failing health and strength ; or of your little 
 sick child s pale face ; or of something amiss in your 
 business ; or of some slight mortification or disap 
 pointment, which has vexed you more than anybody 
 knows ; yet you go to God s footstool, and you come 
 away from it, without having said a syllable about 
 these things ; but having tried, with a wandering 
 attention, to pray for the conversion of the heathen, 
 or something else you did not then really and heartily 
 desire, but which you thought a worthier subject for 
 prayer than yourself and your own little selfish con 
 cerns. Now, brethren, you might perhaps get credit 
 from a human being for magnanimity and disinterest 
 edness, if, instead of asking from him something for 
 yourself you really wanted, you went and asked from 
 him something for somebody else you really did not 
 want. But just remember this : when you go to God 
 in prayer, you cannot mislead Him into thinking bet 
 ter of you than the truth ; whatever your words may 
 be, He sees the desire which is uppermost in your 
 heart; and it is the desire, and not the verbal ex 
 pression of it, by which He goes. So that, in truth, 
 12 
 
178 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 when you kneel in God s presence, you are in fact 
 praying for the thing which God knows you are wish 
 ing for. He puts aside the words ; He looks beneath 
 them ; He knows what it is you desire. And why not 
 openly tell Him, if your desire be a right one ? He 
 knows you are thinking of your own little troubles, 
 when you are praying for the Jews or the heathen. 
 Oh, tell Him all about those troubles first ; and then 
 you will be able heartily to add your intercessions for 
 your fellow-men. But remember, for comfort, that 
 God " thinketh upon " you ; that He " knoweth your 
 frame " ; and that He will never blame you, though 
 you go to Him with words like those of the Psalmist 
 and prophet : " O Lord, Thou knowest : Remember 
 me, and visit me ! " You will think of that beautiful 
 touch of nature, in a book by a great author. There, 
 the father of a family, at a certain sacred and festal 
 season, asks God s blessing upon him and his. All 
 joined in the prayer ; and after the others were silent, 
 there came the little voice of a poor child that was 
 a cripple, saying, " God bless us, every one." Ah, 
 there was the quiet outpouring of the little sad heart, 
 eager not to be forgotten ! There was the " Bless 
 me, even me also, Father ! " There was the sympa 
 thetic echo of the desire of the thirsting, weary, sinful 
 heart of poor human nature, " Lord, remember me, 
 and visit me ! " 
 
 And in all that, there is no selfishness. It is not 
 the wish to be distinguished and favored above the 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED, 179 
 
 other children of the family. It is but the wish to be 
 even as the others ; poor, needy, sinful, as we know 
 ourselves to be. It is but that when Christ, the great 
 Intercessor, speaks to Almighty God for Himself and 
 His brethren of mankind, saying, in the name of all, 
 "Our Father," the poor sinner should desire not 
 to be left out ; should put forth a trembling hand ; 
 should lift up a feeble voice ; should humbly urge his 
 " me, even me also," his " Lord, remember me, and 
 visit me!" 
 
 And let us go on to remark another instructive and 
 encouraging truth suggested by the prophet s prayer. 
 " Remember me," said the prophet ; and let us mark 
 what simple trust in God s wisdom arid kindness is 
 implied in the offering of such a petition. Every 
 thing is asked in that. Jeremiah, indeed, goes on 
 to add other petitions, in which we do not find it so 
 easy to sympathize with him. It is more pleasing to 
 dwell upon such a prayer as that in which David 
 does but set out more fully the request in our text, 
 in words already quoted, asking that God would 
 remember him for good, and visit him in mercy. 
 And better still, in its comprehensive meaning, and 
 in its simple faith, is that prayer of the penitent thief, 
 in which the single word conveys the whole desire of 
 the poor dying sinner : " Lord, Remember me when 
 Thou comest into Thy kingdom." " Remember me : " 
 that is the whole of the dying thief s prayer ; and it 
 
180 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 is the best part of the psalmist s and the prophet s. 
 It was enough just to put one s self under God s eye, 
 just to get God to think of one at all. If God would 
 but remember us, would but notice us at all, then 
 it is taken for granted that He would see all that 
 we want, and be willing to give it all. Only to be 
 brought under God s eye is enough ; it makes sure 
 of all. My friends, what faith in God s wisdom and 
 power and love must be in his heart who really feels 
 and believes that, who can offer that simple humble 
 prayer, and then quietly and patiently wait at God s 
 footstool, till in His own good way He answers it ! 
 Say you wish to bring yourself under the kind notice 
 of some kind and powerful human being : it is not 
 enough to make sure that he should remember you ; 
 you must try and explain to him the circumstances 
 that make you need his help so much ; you must try 
 and point out to him the ways in which it may be 
 possible for him to help you. It is not so when you 
 go to God, and ask His help. The broken-hearted 
 sinner and sufferer, that could never get through the 
 miserable story of sin and sorrow that brought at last 
 to the Saviour s feet, does not need to turn back those 
 blotted leaves, and revive the miserable past, and 
 moan over the hopeless future. Enough to lie lowly, 
 in want and penitence, before Him who never cast 
 out the penitent sinner, and say, " Lord, remember 
 me ! " The thief on the cross did not need to tell 
 the Saviour the history of his sinful life, or to point 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 181 
 
 out to Christ the way in which to help him. For all 
 that, he trusted to One who knew his story since the 
 day of his birth, knew all his sins and all his 
 temptations, knew perfectly in what fashion to help 
 and save. 
 
 And observe, too, that in such a prayer we take 
 for granted not merely that God, without any formal 
 telling, will know our case, and know how to help us : 
 we take for granted, that, if He think of us at all, it 
 will be kindly ; that, if He interpose at all, it will be 
 in love. " Remember me," said the prophet, and said 
 the penitent thief. There was no need formally to say, 
 Remember me kindly, Think upon me for good : 
 That was taken as sure. You will remember how 
 Joseph, in the dungeon, asked the chief butler to 
 think of him, and said how he desired to be thought 
 of. " Think of me when it shall be well with thee, 
 and show kindness unto me, and make mention of me 
 unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house." And 
 after all, we are told, "the chief butler did not re 
 member Joseph, but forgat him." But in thinking 
 of God, we feel, that, when David said, " Remember 
 me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto 
 thy people, and visit me with thy salvation," he 
 really said nothing more than Jeremiah did when 
 he said, in fewer words, no more than " Lord, remem 
 ber me, and visit me." No doubt, God sometimes 
 remembers in wrath, and sometimes visits in judg 
 ment. When some sudden and heavy calamity be- 
 
182 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 falls us, it is not uncommonly called a divine visita 
 tion ; in cases of sudden, inexplicable death, we some 
 times hear it said that such a one died "by the 
 visitation of God." For there is an inveterate dis 
 position in human beings to regard any uncommon 
 event as more providential than one of every-day 
 occurrence, and to forget that every event is exactly 
 equally providential, and that everything that hap 
 pens in this world, small and great, happens by the 
 visitation of God. But though God does sometimes 
 visit in wrath, that is not the way that most pleases 
 Him. " He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the 
 children of men." And it was a merciful dealing of 
 God s providence of which the Saviour spoke when 
 He wept over Jerusalem, and made mention of the 
 ruin that would come upon it, because it knew not 
 " the time of its visitation." 
 
 And observe further, that God s remembrance is an 
 energetic remembrance : it is not a sentimental one. 
 He remembers us ; He sees our need, and then He 
 comes to help it. There are people who can look on 
 quite contentedly at the want and distress of another 
 human being, yet never move a finger to help ; there 
 are people who can even sentimentally mourn over 
 an evil which is pressed upon their attention, yet put 
 forth no hand to mend it. But oh, brethren, if we 
 make our wants known to God in humble prayer 
 through Christ ; if we make known to Him our sins, 
 our toils, our temptations, our special needs in short ; 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 183 
 
 then He will not merely " think upon us," but " think 
 upon us for good " ; He will guide, comfort, enlighten, 
 help, and save us. You will think of a striking proof, 
 in one of the epistles of the beloved Apostle John, 
 how sufficient it is for our relief that we should just 
 tell the Almighty what our case is ; how sure it is, 
 that the want, remembered, will be relieved. You 
 know what is the greatest need of every human 
 being : it is pardon and sanctification. And St. John 
 assures us, that, without any formal asking for these, 
 it will suffice if we do but spread out in God s 
 sight our need for them. "If we confess our sins, 
 He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and 
 to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Yes : only 
 make known the want, bring it to God s remem 
 brance, and it will be remembered practically ; it 
 will be relieved. And you will think of the advice 
 and the promise of the Apostle Paul, and all it tells 
 us of the blessedness that comes of laying down the 
 burden of the weary heart at God s footstool, of 
 simply bringing it to His remembrance. " In every 
 thing, " he says, " by prayer and supplication, with 
 thanksgiving, let your wants be made known unto 
 God." And then, says the apostle, if you do but 
 that, hear the blessing that will follow : " And the 
 peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
 keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus ! " 
 
 And so, my friends, you have seen how much com 
 fort and encouragement we may draw from these few 
 
184 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 words of Jeremiah s prayer ; you have seen how the 
 spirit of them runs through the recorded prayers of all 
 God s people ; yes, and of those not God s people as 
 yet, but who are but turning to God, and seeking 
 after Him. Doubtless, in their fullest meaning, this 
 is the prayer of God s child, reconciled to Him 
 through Christ, and drawing from experience the 
 assurance of all the good that is implied in God s 
 remembering us. Doubtless, there is a season in the 
 history of the unconrerted man, in which he can have 
 no real desire that God should remember him, in 
 which his real wish would be, to keep out of God s 
 sight and God s remembrance. It is not the utterance 
 of the natural heart, " Whom have I in heaven but 
 Thee ? And there is none on the earth that I desire 
 beside Thee ! " To stand alone, face to face with 
 God ; to be sure that every word and deed is going 
 down in the book of God s remembrance : these are 
 the very last things that the utterly worldly man 
 would wish. Yet, brethren, while the words of the 
 text may fitly set out the exoerience and the desire 
 of those who have long been the Saviour s people, they 
 may not less fitly serve as the expression of the first 
 reaching after God of the awakened soul. " Remem 
 ber me," said God s prophet ; " Remember me," said 
 the psalmist, who had known God long ; but " Re 
 member me," too, was the prayer of the dying thief, 
 perhaps his very first prayer! And that prayer 
 asks for everything : pardon, peace, holiness ; comfort 
 and strength ; guidance here, and glory hereafter ! 
 
THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 185 
 
 We who are here to-day have manifold wants ; each 
 has his burden, each his fears ; yet we may all join 
 with one heart in the " Lord, remember us, and visit 
 us ! " " Remember us " all ; and " visit " us each ac 
 cording to his special cross and need ! 
 
 We said, in beginning this discourse, that we won 
 dered how many times a day, by human beings to 
 human beings, those most familiar words that stand in 
 the text are spoken ; and in concluding the discourse, 
 we may think how often those who thus simply seek 
 to be remembered are remembered as they desire. 
 We would not set it down to want of heart, but rather 
 want of thought, when we call to mind how often the 
 dead and the parted pass utterly from the memory, 
 how completely and sadly true is that old adage 
 which says that out of sight is out of mind. We can 
 well believe that in many a case, where the promise 
 never to forget was given with the true purpose to 
 keep it, time has slowly worn that purpose down ; 
 and now for many a day the grave, once often visited, 
 is visited no more ; and the far-away friend is all but 
 quite forgot. I can think that it might be a pang to 
 the heart of the Australian brother, if he could just 
 look in upon the circle that gathers round the fire at 
 home on a winter night, and see how very little they 
 miss him. And perhaps the departed mother, that 
 thinks of her child that she left behind her, even in 
 the Rest above, might be saddened somewhat (if that 
 could be) even There, if she could see her son going 
 
186 THE DESIRE TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 on his path through life without one remembrance of 
 her who watched over him in the days of infancy, and 
 taught him his earliest prayers. No doubt, as we look 
 at many human beings, it is interesting to think how 
 much they may be remembering ; but it is sad to 
 think, too, how much they must have forgot. But if 
 we make it our desire and prayer to be remembered 
 by our Saviour and our God, we need not fear that 
 we shall pass from His recollection ! Amid all the 
 care of this universe, He will stoop down to think of 
 us, of our little ways, and difficulties, and trials ; 
 we shall never be overlooked or forgotten by Him ! 
 In our weak faith, indeed, when days of darkness 
 come, we may be ready to think that we have passed 
 from His thoughts, and that He cannot be remem 
 bering what it is we are enduring. Ah, brethren, 
 there is no experience that we can pass through, 
 which has not been anticipated by believers before us ! 
 Thousands of years since, our doubts and fears were 
 felt ; and God graciously took them away, with hope 
 ful words which are ours as well. Listen to the an 
 cient words of doubt, and to the blessed answer to 
 them ; recognize your own doubts, and take the 
 promise for your ovm : 
 
 " But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and 
 my God hath forgotten me. 
 
 " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she 
 should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
 Yea, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee ! " 
 
XI. 
 
 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 " For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which 
 was lost." ST. LUKE xix. 10. 
 
 I OW, if such an incident as that described 
 in the preceding verses of this chapter 
 had occurred somewhere close at hand 
 within the last hour, we should have no 
 difficulty in feeling, when we were told of it, that it 
 had actually happened. We should at once see be 
 fore us the whole circumstances : the Prophet of Naz 
 areth in His garment without seam; the crowd of 
 people that thronged Him as He walks along the 
 street ; the publican Zacchaeus, little of stature, run 
 ning on in advance and climbing up the tree ; the 
 kind Saviour stopping at its foot, calling Zacchasus 
 down, saying a few kindly words that fairly bewilder 
 the head while they go straight to the heart of the 
 poor disreputable publican, quite unaccustomed to be 
 spoken to kindly by people of any credit or charac 
 ter, and then, amid the astonished murmurings of 
 the crowd, going away to be guest at a house which 
 it was long since any respectable man had entered. 
 
188 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 But it is far towards twenty centuries since all these 
 things happened; and things look misty, and indis 
 tinct, and unreal, when we look at them over many 
 hundreds of years. They seem like shadows, the peo 
 ple whose names and doings are preserved upon the 
 historic page. They were not always names in a book ; 
 but now, in many cases, they are little more. Events 
 recorded are to events as they actually befell what 
 the embalmed mummy is to the living man. Let us 
 try to bring back that day. Let us try to see these 
 little things which took place upon it, as though they 
 were going on now. The interest of these things 
 ought to be to-day as fresh as ever. We see our 
 Blessed Redeemer acting and speaking ; mercy, sym 
 pathy, and salvation in all He does and says. 
 
 He has stopped at the foot of the plane-tree, and 
 called Zaccha3us down. "To-day," says Jesus, "I 
 must abide at thy house." Now, Zacchaeus was a 
 publican. He was one of those Jews who were 
 regarded as traitors to their country and their blood, 
 because they had undertaken the odious work of col 
 lecting the tribute which the Romans levied upon the 
 conquered race. And you know it is difficult for any 
 man to continue better than the character he bears. 
 The publicans, probably, were as bad as they were 
 esteemed. And Zacchaeus, probably, was no better 
 than the average of his class. The Jews certainly 
 spoke of him as " a man that was a sinner " ; and we 
 all know, that, although in theological phrase every 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 189 
 
 man is a sinner, jet when the word is used in the 
 conversation of daily life, it always implies that a 
 man is a greater sinner than usual. Zacchceus was 
 the very last man that the reputable Pharisee would 
 have thought of offering to go home with. It was 
 something new to the poor publican, accustomed to 
 averted eyes and contemptuous glances, to find this 
 great and good Teacher treating him like a human 
 being, also a son of Abraham like Himself, to 
 find this pure and holy Prophet coming like a friend 
 to his house, and sitting at his table. It was long 
 since the poor publican had been used to kindness and 
 respect; there was something wonderfully fresh and 
 new about them ; and his heart, so long shut up and 
 hardened, welled out in kindly charity at once. That 
 moment he devoted half of all his wealth to the poor, 
 and declared that he would restore fourfold all that he 
 had ever unjustly taken. Ah, brethren, if Jesus had 
 cast a stern look up into that plane-tree, or if He had 
 severely bidden the publican to keep his distance, do 
 you think that would have converted Zacchasus and 
 saved him ? No ; he would have gone home harder 
 and bitterer in heart than ever ; and the next time he 
 had tribute to collect, he would have ground and 
 squeezed and cheated worse than ever. But our 
 Blessed Redeemer, notwithstanding this manifest and 
 instant reformation which a kind word had wrought 
 upon the poor extortioner, knew that some folk would 
 find fault with what He Himself was doing. He is 
 
190 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 going towards the publican s house ; and He hears the 
 murmur, perhaps only in self-righteous hearts, that 
 says to Him, What are you doing there ? Do you 
 know into whose house you are going ? You are going 
 to an evil-doer s house; and not going as a judge, 
 or as an officer of justice, that would be all quite 
 right, but going as a guest, a friend. " He is 
 gone," they murmured, " to be guest with a man that 
 is a sinner ! " As if He could have gone to be guest 
 with any man who was not ! Am I here, the Saviour 
 seems to say, in the house of a poor lost creature 
 from whom you would hold apart ? Even you could 
 not say worse of him than that he is quite a lost 
 creature. Am I here ? then I am just where I 
 ought to be ; " for the Son of Man is come to seek 
 and to save that which was lost ! " 
 
 How mercifully, you see, the Saviour puts the 
 case ! How differently from the severe fashion in 
 which the murmurers put it ! He is gone, said the 
 murmuring Jews, to be x guest with a man that is a 
 sinner. He is gone, they said, to a bad man, a 
 wicked man. They never think of his peculiar 
 temptations; they never think of his secret repent 
 ance ; they never think of that poor, weary, bur 
 dened heart, that needed but the slightest touch of 
 kindness to make it melt and glow. They put the 
 thing severely : gone to a man that is a sinner. The 
 gentle words of Jesus seem to rebuke that severity. 
 He does not say that He is come to save the cheat- 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 191 
 
 ing, griping, traitorous publican : No ; He is " come 
 to seek and to save that which was lost." No doubt, 
 the Blessed One seems to say, No doubt the pub 
 lican is a sinner, if it comes to that ; and so are 
 you. But, He seems to say, We will not call him 
 that. You will never win and save a man by calling 
 him by harsh names. Let us take a word that shall 
 speak rather of his misery than of his guilt. No, 
 not sinner, though the word would be perfectly true. 
 Call him a lost creature ; call him a lost sheep, a 
 poor, weary wanderer from the Fold. 
 
 And yet, merciful as it is, there is no undue laxity 
 in Christ s estimate of sin. There is no shading 
 away the evil of sin, and speaking of it as if it were 
 no such very great matter after all. There is none 
 of the cant, which prevails in a certain portion of our 
 literature, about human weakness, about strong nat 
 ural propensities, about passion with its witching 
 voice, which oft hath led men wrong. The essential 
 evil that is in sin is not extenuated, though of the 
 two things which always go together in sin, misery 
 and guilt, the Saviour puts prominently less the guilt 
 than the wretchedness. No, there is no treating sin 
 as a small matter here. You never can represent 
 sin as anything much more serious than utter destruc 
 tion, final perdition and ruin and despair ; and 
 you see Christ describes the sinful soul as a thing 
 lost : He came " to seek and to save that which was 
 lost " ; and the very word which means the last and 
 
192 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 lowest extremity to whitfh a human being can go 
 down, the word perdition, as many of you 
 know, it just means loss ; it just means the state of 
 being lost. And it is in that woful state that even 
 the kind Redeemer puts it we are by nature ; for the 
 text was not spoken of Zacchseus only : it describes 
 the state and condition of every soul for whose sake 
 Jesus came to this earth and died. "That which 
 was lost" : that phrase names the condition of every 
 soul with which the Redeemer has any concern. He 
 came, He tells us expressly, " to seek and to save that 
 which was lost " ; it is only with lost ones He has 
 to do. If there be any mortal that is not lost, then 
 he has no part in the Gospel salvation ; it was not 
 for any save the lost that Jesus died. Losl, He says ; 
 oh, surely, that is not making light of sin. Lost, He 
 does not say through whose fault ; but the poor sin 
 ner would remember well. But while the Pharisee 
 would say, That man is a sinner, thank God I am 
 not like him, let me stand off from him and have 
 nothing to do with him, Christ says, That man is 
 lost ; he has wandered away like the lost sheep, and 
 of himself he never would return ; the more need 
 then that I should go to his house, and treat him like 
 a human being : that may melt his heart and bring 
 him back ; holding him at arms length never will. 
 Lost : and among such lies my occupation ! I see my 
 work, the Redeemer seems to say, wherever I see a 
 lost soul. It was to seek and save such I came ! 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 193 
 
 So, for one thing, we find in our text Christ s esti 
 mate of the condition of humanity. It is something 
 that is lost. Man is a lost thing. He is many things 
 more. You may look at him in many lights. He is 
 a toiling, hard-working creature. He is an anxious, 
 careworn creature. He is a weary, sorrowful, rest 
 less creature. But for the Redeemer s purpose, the 
 characteristic that surmounted and included and leav 
 ened and ran through all the rest, was, that he is a 
 lost creature. 
 
 Yes, brethren, we are lost ! And what wide mean 
 ing, what unutterable sadness, are in the word, lost ! 
 What pictures are called up before our mind s eye by 
 that word, that tells us what we are by nature ! 
 
 We think of the poor wayfarer in the sandy desert, 
 who has strayed from his path. He has lost all count 
 of the landmarks ; he has hurried feverishly hither 
 and thither, thinking he had caught some clue ; his 
 blood feels like liquid fire, his brain is in a bewil 
 dered whirl ; and now, parched, fainting, despairing, 
 he sinks down on the hot ground to die ! That man 
 is lost! 
 
 We think of the gallant ship ploughing her way 
 across the Atlantic, a floating palace, a detached 
 sample of all the science and refinement and might 
 of the land, far upon the sea ; we think of her, in the 
 deceiving fog, steered at her full speed upon the huge 
 iceberg ; then the sudden shock, the wild despair of 
 most, the desperate efforts of some ; the sudden part- 
 13 
 
194 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 ings, the wild horrible hurry and confusion, the water 
 rising foot by foot, and then, when the vessel made the 
 last sickening plunge and went down, that final fright 
 ful cry of perishing hundreds, which was once described 
 as having been heard on the shore eight miles off, like 
 a high, faint, prolonged Avail, like the faintest murmur 
 of an JEolian harp. They tell us that that sound 
 curdled the blood of those who heard it. Yet all this 
 horror we can crowd into the commonplace state 
 ment, that that ship was lost ! 
 
 Then we think again of some guileless youth, 
 brought up in a pious home far in the quiet country, 
 who must go out at length, like a bird from the nest, 
 to stand on his own responsibility, and push his way 
 in life far from a father s and a mother s care. We 
 think of him, (ah ! have we not known of him ?) falling 
 from his early truth and integrity, beginning by petty 
 pilferings, gaining gradually in hardihood, till some 
 day the tidings reach the cottage far away that he, the 
 clever boy at the parish-school, the lad who was to 
 make his parents independent in their old days, that 
 he has fled from justice to some distant country, where 
 he may join himself to desperadoes, himself as des 
 perate ; and the heart-broken father and mother 
 never hold up their heads again. And all the neigh 
 bors who knew him, now look sorrowful when his 
 name is mentioned ; and every one who has a heart, 
 ever afterwards speaks the more respectfully and 
 kindly to tfye poor silent old couple, whose darling 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 195 
 
 boy is so sadly lost ! " So I lost her," wrote the 
 kindly genius, as he told the story of his parting in 
 childhood from the mother whom he saw no more. 
 u It was in the fever we lost him, and then we lost 
 heart," said the poor starving widow in her bare gar 
 ret, when she told a humane visitor how her husband 
 died, and she and her children sunk always lower 
 in sorrow and want. " I have lost a day," said the 
 Roman emperor, when he remembered how on that 
 day he had done no good. " That man is lost," we say 
 of one who is placed in circumstances in which his 
 powers, of body or of mind, are turned to no useful 
 account. It would be easy to run up the induction of 
 instances in which we use this word to convey a vivid 
 meaning, a meaning, for the most part, more or less 
 sad. We have mentioned these that we may say, 
 that in all these senses, and many similar ones, man 
 is spiritually lost. 
 
 Yes, brethren, such is our natural state. No doubt 
 our spiritual condition may be put in various ways. 
 We are guilty creatures ; we are depraved creatures ; 
 we are condemned creatures : in all these fashions, 
 and more, you may truly and justly describe our 
 spiritual state, and express those things about us 
 which make us so greatly in need of a part in Christ s 
 great salvation. But probably there is no single 
 word which you could employ which gives so com 
 plete and comprehensive a description of man as he 
 is by nature, as to say that he is lost. All error from 
 
196 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 the right way, all distance from our Heavenly Fa 
 ther s house, all destitution and danger and impossi 
 bility of return and imminence of final ruin, are con 
 veyed in that one word, lost ! Trace that word s 
 meaning out into its various shades and ramifica 
 tions, and you will find it implies, as no other can, 
 all that we are, all that makes our need of the 
 Saviour, His sacrifice, His Spirit, His intercession. 
 We are lost as the wayfarer is lost, because we 
 have gone away from our Father s house, and we 
 are wandering in the wilderness, in a wilderness 
 where there is no supply for our soul s greatest needs, 
 where we are surrounded with perils, and whence we 
 can of ourselves find no way to return. We are lost, 
 as the great ship is lost, for we have made shipwreck 
 of our best interests ; and we drive, without a helm, 
 over the trackless sea of life ; and, away from Jesus, 
 we know no haven for which to steer. We are lost, 
 like the guilty child that by reckless sin has broken 
 his father s heart ; for, evil by nature, and worse by 
 daily temptation and transgression, we are left to 
 ourselves, lost to holiness, to happiness, to heaven, to 
 God. We have lost our birthright, lost our Father, 
 lost our home, lost our way, lost our hope, our time, 
 our souls ! And what loss there is in our unimproved 
 and unsanctified powers and faculties ! How these 
 souls are lost, in the sense that so little is made of 
 what was meant for so much : lost as the untilled field 
 is lost ; as the flower which no man sees is lost ; as 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 197 
 
 the house built and then left empty is lost ; as the 
 ship which rots in harbor is lost ! Are not these 
 souls made for God s glory ? ought not every power 
 about them to conduce to that ? oh, what loss of no 
 ble possibilities unless they do I What glory ought we 
 to have rendered to God, what good to man, what 
 knowledge and happiness to ourselves ! And if a soul s 
 whole powers and energies are given to the mere sup 
 ply of wants that end upon a present life and world, 
 to the mere earning of the daily bread, is not 
 that soul a noble thing lost, a noble machinery whose 
 power is wasted and flung away ! 
 
 In all these senses, and more, the Saviour s de 
 scription of us is a sound and just one. Each of us 
 is lost. We have indeed the means of knowing what 
 was the Saviour s especial meaning when He spake 
 of us as such. It should seem from the parables of 
 the lost sheep and the lost piece of money, that the 
 thoughts present to His mind were, mainly, that we 
 are lost, in the sense in which any precious possession 
 is lost when we have no longer the use of it ; and 
 that we are lost, in the sense that we have wandered 
 away, and by ourselves never will return. But in 
 any case, the text reminds us of what the Blessed 
 Redeemer did for us in our lost estate. He came to 
 seek and save us. 
 
 Yes : " the Son of Man came to seek and to save 
 that which was lost. " When we were lost, that was 
 what He did for us. Is it needful to repeat that old 
 
198 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 story, that good news which never can be repeated 
 too often, but which I trust we all know and love so 
 well, of how the Blessed Redeemer came to this world, 
 and wore our manhood about his Godhead, and lived 
 and died to save ? Let us try to meet a difficulty 
 which we may have heard not unfrequently stated, 
 and which at the first glance appears to have much 
 weight. Can it be believed, say some, when they 
 read such words as those of the text, can it be 
 believed that Christ, the Creator and Preserver of 
 countless worlds, would come to this little speck in 
 immensity, would live here in human form for three- 
 and-thirty years, and here would suffer and die, all 
 " to seek and to save that which was lost," all to 
 work out fallen man s salvation ? And truly, when in 
 the starry night you look np at the glittering host 
 above you, and think of their incalculable number and 
 vastness, and remember how it is the creed of the 
 philosopher, and, as some have maintained, the faith 
 of the Christian, that each of these gigantic orbs, 
 among which the earth is a sand-grain, has its own 
 teeming population of rational and immortal life, do 
 you not feel as the psalmist felt when he said, in the 
 contemplation of that grand sight, " What is man. that 
 Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou 
 visitest him ! " Was it worth the Saviour s while 
 to come down to so little a world, to seek and save a 
 lost thing so very small ! 
 
 Yes, brethren ; reason and experience come in here 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 199 
 
 to comfirm the teachings of Revelation ; it is quite 
 credible, quite natural by the very make of all things, 
 that the Son of Man, Creator of the universe as He 
 was, should " come to seek and to save that which 
 was lost." By the very make and nature of the uni 
 verse, if a thing goes wrong, it becomes a matter of 
 special interest. Suppose that some skilful engineer 
 is watching the first trial of some great, complicated 
 piece of machinery ; suppose that a hundred pistons 
 and cranks and levers go right, but that he sees away 
 in a corner some little piece of machinery going 
 wrong, jarring and straining ; do you think that the 
 skilful mechanician will for the time forget all the 
 rest of his engine, and concentrate his attention on 
 that little thing that is wrong, till he has got it right ? 
 And even so we may think of the great Creator, as 
 He looks upon the system of things playing beneath 
 Him, turning away from a million worlds, where there 
 is no sin nor sorrow, where there is no jarring of the 
 grand machinery, and coming down to this world, that 
 is wrong, to set it right, to this race, that is lost, to 
 seek and save ! 
 
 Did not the man leave the ninety and nine sheep 
 that were safe, and give his entire thought and energy 
 to the finding of the one that had gone astray ? That 
 sheep had been an unnoticed unit in a mass ; it was 
 singled out, it became of importance, just by going 
 wrong. A thing which never attracted attention 
 when going right, often becomes a matter of much 
 
200 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 interest when it goes wrong. Some little detail in 
 your household arrangements, some little nerve in 
 your physical frame, you never thought of it, but 
 you are obliged to think of it now that it is jarring 
 and tingling. And does not the sick member of the 
 family awaken more interest, and get more care, than 
 all the rest put together ? How softly you speak to 
 the dying ear ; how kindly you clasp the dying hand ; 
 how anxiously you moisten the dying lips ; how lightly 
 fall the footsteps round the dying bed! You were 
 kind, enough, perhaps ; but you know you never were 
 so careful in the days of health and vigor. And have 
 we not all been touched to see how the special care 
 and fondness of the mother of a healthful, hopeful 
 family centre on her poor little deformed child, 
 that poor little thing that must face the toils and 
 trials of life at so sad a disadvantage ? And even 
 so may Jesus look upon this defaced and deformed 
 world : the poor object amid a fair family of millions ; 
 the one, perhaps, in all He made that fell ! Or, to 
 take a familiar instance, suppose a merchant is bal 
 ancing his books at the end of the year ; suppose that 
 in his calculation thousands and thousands of figures 
 are right, and only one is wrong ; does he not fix 
 upon the little error, and labor and labor on that till 
 it is put right ? And even so, we may say, does God 
 hunt out the error that has crept into creation, does 
 God efface the little speck which obtrudes itself upon 
 His view. Yes, a thing becomes of consequence by 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 201 
 
 going wrong. You know that if a man or a woman 
 who never was heard of becomes suddenly a great 
 criminal, then that crime-stained name is for a while 
 in every mouth. And even so, this world, so to speak, 
 pushed itself into notice when it fell. Ah, the little 
 planet might have circled round the sun, happy and 
 holy, and never been singled out from among the 
 bright millions of which it is the least. But, as it is, 
 perhaps this fallen world s name may be on the lips 
 of angels, and in the thoughts of races that never 
 sinned. TJiat may be doubtful ; but we know that 
 this world, by falling, gained a yet grander distinc 
 tion than that ! For three-and-thirty years it became 
 the dwelling-place of the great Redeemer. And we, 
 when lost, as it might seem, in hopeless loss, were 
 singled out thereby for the grandest, most precious, 
 most glorious blessing that, so far as we know, was 
 ever given by the Almighty. The Son of God left 
 the glories of heaven, to die for us. The Son of Man 
 came " to seek and to save that which was lost ! " 
 
 It is indeed a mysterious thing, a thing not to be 
 wholly explained by human wit, that the Son of God 
 stood by till man had lost himself, and then came, at 
 cost of painful quests, to seek and save him, when 
 we might think He could so easily have kept man 
 from wandering at all. Why let man fall, you would 
 say, and then do and suffer so much to save him; 
 why not rather prevent than cure? The question, 
 we grant at once, is one which we cannot entirely 
 
202 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 answer. We rest, indeed, in the firm belief, that 
 great ends must be served, and shall yet be seen to 
 have been served, by man s permitted fall, by man s 
 permitted loss, else sin and sorrow had never entered 
 this creation. But there is one fact in the constitu 
 tion of our minds which casts some little light upon 
 this mysterious permission, upon the fact that man 
 was suffered to lose himself, before the Redeemer did 
 so much to find him. Is it not the fact that there is a 
 peculiar satisfaction in having a thing, great or small, 
 which was wrong, put right ? You have greater pleas 
 ure in such a thing, when it has been fairly set to 
 rights, than if it never had been wrong. You have 
 greater pleasure in finding a thing which has been 
 lost, than if it never had been missing at all. Every 
 one knows this who has lived in the country, and 
 taken an interest in the hundred little matters which 
 do so much there to keep up the interest of life. 
 Now we know that our minds, in points which involve 
 no sin, are made after the image of God. So we are 
 justified, before getting any express information, in 
 concluding that our feeling is a faint reflection of one 
 which may have place in the mind of God ; and, be 
 sides, we have express information upon that matter ; 
 do we not read, have we not got it upon the very 
 highest authority, that "there is joy in heaven over 
 one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and 
 nine just persons which need no repentance ? " May 
 we not think, that, apart from those grand, inscrutable 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 203 
 
 reasons which the Almighty has for permitting the 
 entrance of evil into His universe, those reasons 
 which no man knows, this fact of the peculiar inter 
 est and pleasure which are felt in an evil remedied, a 
 spoiled thing mended, a lost thing found, a wrong 
 thing righted, may cast some light upon the nature of 
 the Divine feeling towards our world and our race ? 
 They are fallen, indeed, and evil ; but they will be set 
 right. They are lost, indeed ; but they will be found. 
 And when all evil that can be remedied is done away 
 with, and when that evil which was remediless is 
 turned by the Divine wisdom to conduce to the Divine 
 glory, may not this world seem better to its Almighty 
 Maker s eye, may it not afford Him greater joy when 
 He looks upon it, than even when He beheld it, all 
 very good, upon the evening of the Sixth Day ? Ah, 
 it was fair and beautiful then ; it was right then ; but 
 it never had been tried ; it had gone through nothing. 
 Far more fair will it be to see, right once more, after 
 being so sadly wrong, sought and found, after hav 
 ing wandered away so far ! 
 
 And now, my brethren, as we look once more at 
 the Redeemer s gracious words, we think, Were there 
 ever words so fitted to carry hope to the most despair 
 ing ! What worse can you be than lost ! Is not that 
 just the word which the world applies to those who 
 have strayed the farthest and sunk the lowest ? You 
 never can be worse than lost! All sin, all misery, 
 
204 THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 are comprehended in that word. And yet, for yau 
 Jesus died. He did not undertake to save you in 
 ignorance of the extremity of your case. He knew 
 quite well how sick you were when He undertook 
 your cure, how far away, when He undertook to 
 bring you back. You may have read that beautiful 
 and touching story, which tells us how one who in 
 the pride of intellect had reached within a few paces 
 of the grave, without ever betaking himself to Jesus, 
 was arrested at last, and brought to intense concern. 
 But now he was filled with despair; and you may 
 remember how this text came like a gleam of light 
 upon his darkened spirit. "It is too late for me," 
 he said; "too late, and I am lost." Lost, was the 
 reply ; then you are just the man whom Christ came 
 to save ; " for the Son of Man is come to seek and to 
 save that which was lost ! " And on his gravestone, 
 besides his name and the number of his years, the 
 same words stand to tell all his story. May they not 
 tell the story of every soul in heaven? Lost, yet 
 sought and found: Lost, yet sought and saved! 
 
 What more would you wish, my Christian friend, to 
 be recorded of you ? Do not these words tell where 
 He found you, and whither He brought you, and what 
 He made you, and what Blessed Friend it was that 
 did it all ? Lost by nature, lost by sinfulness, lost in 
 misery, in depravity, in helplessness, in ruin, in de 
 spair ! Lost utterly and hopelessly ; yet sought, and 
 found and saved ! God grant that each one here this 
 
THE REDEEMER S ERRAND TO THIS WORLD. 205 
 
 day may be able to take up for his own those beauti 
 ful words of a good divine and poet, whose beauty lies 
 just in this, that they have so saturated themselves 
 with the very spirit of the beautiful and hopeful text, 
 of which God in His kindness has allowed us to think 
 at this time ! 
 
 " Love found me in the wilderness, at cost 
 Of painful quests, when I myself had lost. 
 
 " Love on its shoulders joyfully did lay 
 Me, weary with the greatness of my way. 
 
 " Love lit the lamp, and swept the house all round, 
 Till the lost money in the end was found. 
 
 " T was Love whose quick and ever- watchful eye 
 The wanderer s first step homeward did espy. 
 
 " From its own wardrobe Love gave word to bring 
 What things I needed, shoes, and robe, and ring." 
 
XII. 
 
 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 " And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for 
 the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel ? 
 And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee 
 much more than this." 2 CHRONICLES xxv. 9. 
 
 is a text full of practical wisdom and 
 instruction. All of us may, by God s 
 blessing, be the better for weighing and 
 considering the things which are sug 
 gested to us by these words. But at the same time 
 there is nothing more certain than this : that that 
 verse of Scripture might be understood in such a 
 way as that it should counsel to folly rather than 
 wisdom, as that it should seem to point in a wrong 
 direction and not in a right one. For it seems to be 
 a rule, running through all God s government of this 
 world, that every good thing may be abused to a bad 
 purpose, and God s holy Word itself like other things. 
 You remember how St. Paul said, speaking of even 
 God s own law, that " the law is good, if a man use 
 it lawfully." And in like manner we may say as 
 suredly, that God s Word will always lead us right 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 207 
 
 if we understand it rightly. But men have often 
 understood it wrongly ; and accordingly it has come 
 to be that some of the cruellest and wickedest deeds 
 that ever have been done in this world have been 
 justified by the authority of the Bible. And more 
 than this : when the Devil himself sought to tempt 
 the Saviour to presumptuous sin, you remember that 
 he did so with a verse of holy Scripture. Let us pray, 
 then, my friends, that the Blessed Spirit of light and 
 truth may guide us to the right understanding of what 
 the text teaches us. 
 
 As we go on through life, and gradually learn 
 many things which we did not know nor believe in 
 earlier days,* there are few things which impress a 
 thoughtful person more than the difficulty of laying 
 down broad general principles. We come to discern 
 how much may be said on either side of any question. 
 We come to discern that there are not many questions, 
 bearing upon morality and life, that can be answered 
 by a simple Yes or No. An unexperienced person 
 states conclusions broadly, without any limitation or 
 exception. He knows ; he is quite sure ; he has no 
 doubt nor difficulty. Longer thought shows that there 
 is something to be said on the other side. There is a 
 curious instance, probably familiar to many of you, of 
 the different ways in which men may think upon a 
 very simple matter. You know the proverbial saying 
 among us, universally accepted as a wise saying, that 
 we should never put off till to-morrow what ought to 
 
208 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 be done to-day. And Procrastination, which just 
 means a habit of putting off till to-morrow what 
 ought to be done to - day, is universally esteemed as 
 a wrong thing, and often .as a ruinous thing. And 
 no doubt all this is sound and good. But still there 
 is something to be said on the other side. And 
 accordingly, in Spain, which is a country especially 
 rich in proverbial sayings, there is current a proverb 
 which is just the direct contrary of ours. It is this : 
 Never do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow. 
 Now, our proverb is certainly the safer advice for 
 most people; yet there is reason on the other side 
 too. While our proverb cautions against procrasti 
 nation, the Spanish proverb cautions against undue 
 and inconsiderate haste. Its spirit, in short, is pre 
 cisely the spirit of the saying current among us, that 
 we should look before we leap. It means, in fact, 
 that, before doing anything, we should weigh the 
 consequences of it, we should think what it is to 
 lead to. And, beyond all question, that is something 
 which a wise man will try to do. 
 
 And so we are brought back to the text, which 
 suggests for our consideration precisely that subject. 
 Almost any text may be made to speak what its 
 writer did not mean, may be pushed into an extreme 
 which is opposed to common sense, and to the teach 
 ing of God s Word, taken as a whole. Especially is 
 it so with this text. It might easily be treated in a 
 rash and sweeping fashion, which would be very mis- 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 209 
 
 chievous indeed. The advice it implies must be cau 
 tiously and guardedly stated. This text is like a 
 sharp edge-tool : very serviceable and quite safe in 
 hands that know how to use it ; extremely dangerous 
 and mischievous in hands that do not. The subject 
 brought before us in the text is the weighing of 
 consequences. It is the looking before we leap. It 
 is the propriety of considering what is to follow from 
 what we do before we do it. 
 
 Now, here is a case in which there is much to be 
 said on both sides. You may lay down sweeping 
 principles on either side, which are at once true and 
 untrue. They are true in a certain sense, and to a 
 certain length. Beyond these, they are false. You 
 may remember how a poet tells us of a certain great 
 man, whose rule, through all his life, was Duty. 
 Wherever placed, he inquired what it was he ought 
 to do ; and then he did that, or tried to do it. And 
 the poet adds, by way of special praise of that great 
 man, that he did it, " disdaining consequences ! " He 
 did his duty ; he did right ; and he did not care how 
 people might like it, or what the result might be. 
 Now, all that, in a certain sense, was very fine, and 
 very noble. But, on the other hand, you could hardly 
 ascribe to a man any greater folly than that he sys 
 tematically shut his eyes to what might follow from 
 anything he proposed to do. In a certain sense it is 
 the doing of a fool to disdain consequences ; and it is 
 the glory of a rational being that he can calculate, 
 14 
 
210 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 and weigh, and be guided by consequences. It is 
 just one great difference between an irrational brute 
 and a reasonable man, that the man weighs conse 
 quences and the brute does not. A drunkard, who 
 for the sake of present gratification disregards the 
 ruin which he is bringing upon his children and him 
 self, does most unquestionably disdain consequences. 
 A young lad who, to supply some present want, steals 
 his master s money, disregarding his own certainty of 
 detection and destruction, and his parents broken 
 hearts, does certainly disdain consequences. A man 
 who, for the sake of worldly pleasure or profit, does a 
 sinful deed, and thus draws down God s anger, and 
 imperils and injures his immortal spirit, disregard 
 ing Christ s question, " What shall it profit a man if 
 lie gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " 
 such a man does most assuredly and completely dis 
 dain consequences. And each of these three persons 
 stamps himself a fool, just because he disdains conse 
 quences. To shut our eyes to the consequences of 
 what we are doing, and blindly to rush on, is mad 
 ness. And yet there are cases in which to resolutely 
 refuse to take into view what may be the conse 
 quences of our conductj is heroism, is Christianity, in 
 its highest and noblest development. When the three 
 Jews in Babylon were told that the consequence of 
 not falling down before the golden image would be 
 that they should be cast into a burning fiery furnace ; 
 when Moses saw, that, if he cast in his lot with 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 211 
 
 God s oppressed people, he must " forsake Egypt, " 
 must give up power and splendor, and perhaps the 
 throne itself; when St. Paul was sure that, if he 
 turned preacher of the Cross, he must give up a peace 
 ful life of comfort and esteem, and take instead a life 
 of privation, toil, peril, contempt : in such cases as 
 these, it was noble to disdain all consequences, it was 
 noble to take the right path in which God beckoned 
 on, and to leave the care of the results to God 
 Himself! 
 
 I trust, my friends, we shall be able to clear up 
 our thoughts on this subject by considering the his 
 tory which is brought before us in the text. I trust 
 that it will make it plain to us, when we should weigh 
 consequences and be guided by them, and when we 
 should disregard them and refuse to take them into 
 account at all. 
 
 King Amaziah came to the throne of Judah at the 
 age of twenty-five ; and, in the main, he did what 
 was right in God s sight. Intending war with a 
 neighboring nation, he collected a great army of his 
 ow r n subjects. But he thought this army not suffi 
 cient ; and he hired, in addition to it, a hundred 
 thousand soldiers from the King of Israel, paying for 
 them a hundred talents of silver, a very great sum. 
 But when he was going forth to the war, an inspired 
 prophet came to him, speaking in God s name, to tell 
 him that these hired soldiers of Israel must not ge 
 with him ; and that, if they went, God would make 
 
212 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 him fall before the enemy. Thus, you see, King 
 Amaziah knew perfectly what was his duty. God 
 had made that plain to him. His duty was to send 
 away these soldiers of Israel, and to go to war 
 without them. But the King was perplexed. He 
 thought, What will be the consequences if I do all 
 this ? There is that large sum of money, already 
 paid away and gone. Perhaps he thought of other 
 evil results beyond the loss of his money. Would 
 not these Israelite soldiers, and their King, take 
 bitter offence at the affront offered them, by dismiss 
 ing them as not fit to go to war with the men of 
 Judah ? You can easily see what a crowd of difficul 
 ties and perplexities would rise up before poor King 
 Amaziah s mind, when he considered what would 
 come of his obeying God s command in the matter. 
 For people then, doubtless, were ready to take offence 
 when slighted, just as now ; and a hundred talents 
 was a large sum to throw into the sea, and to make 
 up one s mind was to go away and bring no return. 
 But the King mentioned to the prophet just one of 
 his difficulties : the more tangible and apparent one. 
 " God bids me send away those Israelites," Amaziah 
 seems to say, "and of course what God commands 
 is my duty. But then see the consequences. What 
 shall we do for the hundred talents which I have 
 given to the army of Israel?" 
 
 There was the King s difficulty. The prophet s 
 answer to it we shall think of in a little while. 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 213 
 
 Now, brethren, I do not say that Amaziah did 
 wrong in naming that loss of money to the prophet. 
 He could not help its occurring to his mind; no 
 reasonable man could have helped it ; and it is a great 
 comfort, in any perplexity, not to keep it like a cold, 
 dead weight on our own heart, but to talk it out 
 frankly to one who can feel for us and feel with us. 
 But Amaziah was wrong in this : that he seems to 
 have regarded this difficulty as a fatal objection to his 
 obeying God s command. Instead of saying, u Well, 
 God s way must be right; and though I must lose 
 that money, which is a great thing to me, if I obey 
 God s direction, yet my course is clear ; I must obey 
 God, and accept the consequences ; I must obey God, 
 and let the hundred talents go ; " instead of saying 
 that, Amaziah seems to say, " Well, that is God s com 
 mand, no doubt ; but I really cannot obey it ; for I 
 cannot make up my mind to lose those hundred tal 
 ents I have already paid for the help which He bids 
 me forego." Amaziah, in short, not merely states his 
 difficulty, but he seems disposed to act upon his 
 difficulty. And there he was wrong. 
 
 And this brings us to the great principle which 
 should guide all wise Christian people in regard to 
 the consideration of consequences. The rule is this ; 
 there may be great difficulty in applying it in individ 
 ual cases, but there can be no doubt as to the sound 
 ness of the general principle : Wherever we are sure 
 that duty leads, wherever we are sure God bids us 
 
214 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 go, then that way we should go, whatever and how 
 ever painful the consequences may be. In all other 
 cases, a prudent Christian man will carefully weigh 
 the consequences of what he may think of doing, and 
 be guided by the consideration of them. But if God 
 clearly points the way, that way we ought to take, 
 disregarding consequences. Martyrs have found that 
 the consequences of going where God commands 
 were painful and repulsive to human nature. There 
 have been Christians who found that God s way led 
 them to the stake and the scaffold, and the bloody 
 arena, with its savage beasts. Yet that was the way. 
 It was plain and clear. There could be no question 
 that the right thing was to confess Christ before men, 
 whatever might come of it ; there was no forgetting 
 the Redeemer s own words, that whoever should deny 
 Him before men, He would deny on the Judgment 
 day. The way was plain ; and as for the conse 
 quences, they must just be taken. There was no 
 help. Only by denying the Saviour could these con 
 sequences be escaped ; and the thought of denying 
 Him could not be for one moment admitted. I doubt 
 not, brethren, that many a faithful witness for the 
 Cross and the Redeemer had his thoughts like those 
 of the King of Judah. I doubt not many martyrs 
 have said to themselves, But what shall we do for the 
 wild beasts, and the fiery stake ! I doubt not, their 
 eyes were quite open to the result of their holding 
 fast their profession. But yet you know what num- 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 215 
 
 bers of men and women are reckoned in the noble 
 army of the martyrs ; you know how, by God s grace 
 and strength, many a weak human being was enabled 
 to " disdain consequences," in a higher and nobler 
 sense than that ever was done by the most resolute 
 man in his own unaided strength. For the rule was 
 clear. We must hold right on where God leads us ; 
 looking for God s promise to be fulfilled, that as the 
 day, so shall the strength be. In short, my friends, the 
 rule is, that we are to do right; and as for the con 
 sequences, leave them with God. No unworthy shifts ; 
 no paltry diplomacy ; no fear of men, nor crafty arts 
 to manage them : Let us do right, and trust in God ! 
 And remember, brethren, we are to do all that 
 humbly. We are not to do it in a boasting, vain 
 glorious spirit. We are not to do it in* any strength 
 of our own, but in simple reliance on the promised 
 grace of God. It is not the man who is most con 
 fident beforehand that is most to be relied on when 
 the day of trial comes ; not the man who says, with 
 Peter, I never will deny Thee ; but the humble man 
 who stands in doubt of himself, and who bends lowly 
 at God s footstool, saying, Grant I never may ! We 
 have all heard people talk in a vaporing manner about 
 their determination that nothing should turn them 
 from the path of duty. I have heard a man say that 
 if the road were lined with cannon, he would do a 
 certain foolish thing which he had hastily and foolishly 
 said he would do, and which, at the time, I dare say 
 
216 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 he was very sorry for having said he would do. For 
 oftentimes people try to bolster up a failing courage 
 with big words. And the people who talk in that 
 boastful way are very frequently not people who are 
 doing right, disdaining consequences, but who are 
 doing wrong, disdaining consequences. My brethren, 
 the grand thing is, not that a man should say that he 
 will go on in the path of duty, whatever loss that may 
 bring him, but that those around him should see that 
 he is going on in the path of duty, though that should 
 not be the path of worldly gain. And we know that 
 in the old days of martyrdom, when men s constancy 
 was tried by tests by which we may be thankful that 
 our weak faith is not tried, it was not the men who 
 spoke most confidently beforehand that quitted them 
 selves most manfully when the day of trial came. 
 Men who had boasted of the courage they would 
 show, men who had pushed themselves unbidden in 
 the way of martyrdom, have proved recreant at the 
 last, and, like the over-confident apostle, have denied 
 their Lord in the presence of those tortures of which 
 they had spoken lightly in former days; while humble 
 souls, that felt and confessed their own utter weak 
 ness, have borne nobly the trial to which they never 
 had trained themselves to look forward but with many 
 fears, have found that God s strength is made perfect 
 in the weakness of his own, have felt the martyr s 
 strength come with the day of martyrdom ; and you 
 know God never promised it would come till the day 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 217 
 
 that needed it. The true proof, brethren, that a man 
 disdains consequences, is that he should disdain them, 
 not when they are in the distance, coming, but when 
 they are present realities, when they are come! 
 
 Now, my friends, this subject is a most practical 
 one. It will concern every one of us, at many points 
 in our pilgrimage path. The same difficulty which 
 Amaxiah felt, many among us will be made to feel 
 from day to day. The time will often come, in which 
 we see plainly enough what is the path of duty, but 
 are tempted to ask, What shall we do for the hundred 
 talents ? Ay, and for much less than a hundred tal 
 ents. There is many a professing Christian who is 
 very unwilling to miss a little advantage, a little 
 money, or to get a little ill-will, by doing what is 
 right. There is the way that God bids us go. When 
 ever there are two paths before us, one wrong, and 
 the other right, we may be just as sure that God 
 means us to take the right one as if He told us so 
 in an audible voice. But then, what shall we do for 
 the hundred talents ? What shall we do for that gain 
 and advancement which honesty would lose, and 
 which a little judicious trimming could get? What 
 shall we do for the obloquy and the enmity which the 
 straightforward course will bring, and which a little 
 yielding would escape ? There can be no doubt at all, 
 my friends, that in this world honesty is often the 
 very worst policy. There can be no doubt that a 
 
218 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 certain flexibility and elasticity of soul and conscience 
 may make a man get on, as concerns this world, when 
 rigid integrity would stand in his way. Nothing 
 would be easier than to mention striking instances 
 in which men threw away their chance of the highest 
 places by an act of injudicious honesty, and in which 
 a little toadyism, a little sneakiness, a little sinking of 
 the downright honest man, paved the way to the 
 greatest worldly advancement. And the same law 
 holds in lesser things. A trader who never puffs his 
 wares as better than they really are, may not drive 
 such a business as the brazen individual who never 
 spares the trumpet. A preacher who sets forth sound 
 doctrine to people who have not been accustomed to 
 it, and who do not* want it, may make himself, for 
 a time, obnoxious enough. There are people who 
 will think you their enemy because you tell them the 
 truth, and their friend if you natter them with smooth 
 words of falsehood. But, brethren, let us do right 
 still ! Let us speak the truth, and live the truth, no 
 matter what we may lose by it ! Worldly success may, 
 perhaps, be gained by unworthy means, but we will 
 not have it at the price ! Let us do God s will, my 
 friends ; let us go where God bids us go ; disdaining 
 consequences ! Our business is to do what He com 
 mands us ; and we leave it to Himself to say what 
 shall be the result ! 
 
 And, as help and encouragement to do all that, let 
 us go on a little farther with the subject. Let us look 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 219 
 
 to what was the prophet s reply to the difficulty 
 started by the king. Amaziah said, " But what shall 
 I do for the hundred talents which I have given to 
 the army of Israel ? " And the prophet answered, 
 " The Lord is able to give thee much more than this." 
 Lay that to heart, my brethren ! In the long-run, no 
 man will ever lose by obeying God s bidding. And 
 just as assuredly no man will ever gain by disobeying 
 it. Yet, remark, poor King Amaziah was quite right 
 in his fears as to what might be the consequence of 
 sending away the army of Israel. It cost him a 
 struggle, we may well believe, but he did obey God s 
 command. He saw the consequences, but he trusted 
 God, and took his chance of them. And sure enough, 
 the consequences followed. He lost his hundred tal 
 ents ; and more than that, the Israelite soldiers, angry 
 at their dismissal, wrought mischief to Judah on their 
 way home. They were mortified, no doubt ; they 
 were deprived of their opportunity of plunder, and of 
 renown among their own people. "They returned 
 home," we read, " in great anger ; " and on the way 
 they revenged themselves, by falling upon the cities 
 of Judah, and smiting and spoiling them. All these 
 evil consequences came, and came just because Ama 
 ziah obeyed God s word. Yet remember the prophet s 
 declaration. Besides the simple obligation to obey 
 God s will, the prophet tells the king that it was well 
 worth his while to obey it, that, though he migl t at 
 the first lose by obeying God s will, he would gain far 
 
220 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 more than he would lose. Yes ; to go where God 
 commands, and to do what God commands, though 
 loss may come of it, is truly not a disdaining of con 
 sequences ; it is a fuller and truer weighing of conse 
 quences ! It is to look farther on ; it is to throw Eter 
 nity into the scale of duty and interest ; it is to draw 
 the wise and sound conclusion, that what is wrong 
 can never be truly expedient ; because it would be no 
 profit, none whatsoever, to gain the whole world, and 
 to lose the immortal soul ! There are always conse 
 quences from our conduct, whether we go this way or 
 that ; and the wise man will weigh the consequences 
 upon either side. And the prophet asks the king to 
 do just that, telling him that if he does it he will see 
 that the true gain is all on the side of obeying God. 
 On the one side there were a hundred talents ; on the 
 other side there was the favor of God ; and the ques 
 tion for the king to consider was just this : which was 
 worth most ? And many a time, in little things and 
 great, we are all brought to just that choice, and that 
 calculation. The immediate consequence of our doing 
 right may be that we shall make a loss ; and we may 
 feel it hard to resign our minds to the loss of the hun 
 dred talents, the little gain in money, in standing, 
 in pleasure, in advantage of any kind, that we might 
 easily get by doing wrong. But oh, let us always 
 look for the confirmation of principle, and of the 
 determination to take the right way, to the farther 
 and greater and longer-lasting consequences: God s 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 221 
 
 blessing on the honest and right way, God s wrath 
 and curse upon the wrong and false way ! And 
 never forget, that, if in this world the consequences of 
 taking the right way be sometimes loss, and miscon 
 ception, and undeserved reproach, and failure, and 
 coldness of friends ; if the man of high principle and 
 scrupulous honor may oftentimes fail to reach the 
 worldly place and profit which men of lower tone and 
 more elastic conscience succeed in grasping ; if pliable 
 and squeezable men are found to rise high both in 
 earthly gains and earthly reputation : never forget 
 that the next world will set all that right ; the next 
 world will redress the consequences of all human 
 doings. And never fail to set in the front of all your 
 calculations of the consequences of what men do the 
 Saviour s memorable question, " What shall it profit a 
 man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul ? " Yes, upon the most prudent counting up of 
 loss and gain, it was worth while to be a martyr! 
 And if the scorching stake or the bloody scaffold 
 could be escaped only by denying the Redeemer, 
 then deliverance from these things was too dear at the 
 price ! 
 
 So I do not ask you, my friends, in asking you to 
 make up your mind that, by God s help and grace, 
 you will make God s will your rule, and walk where 
 God points your w r ay ; I do not ask you to disdain 
 consequences ; I ask you to weigh the consequences 
 of all your conduct, carefully and deliberately. Only 
 
222 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 see to it that you remember that there are conse 
 quences of all we do, which reach on through eternity ; 
 that our "works will follow" us beyond the grave, 
 both in the character they stamp upon us, and in the 
 awful responsibility which comes of this truth, that we 
 must answer for every word and deed at the throne of 
 judgment. It is indeed a miserable and unworthy 
 thing to weigh consequences in that petty fashion in 
 which many do, and, when duty is plain, to be always 
 thinking, What will such a one say ? Won t this give 
 offence to such another? May not all this do me 
 harm, somehow ? My friends, if God has made the 
 path of duty plain before us, then let us sweep all that 
 away ! If God tells us that we must give up the 
 hundred talents, then in God s name let them go! 
 Let them go, though no recompense should ever 
 come, just because God bids us ! Let them go, grate 
 fully remembering that God can give us much more 
 than this ; that there never was a sacrifice made by 
 man for God s sake and at God s bidding, but God 
 has requited, and will requite, a hundredfold. Take 
 no man s word for that; listen to the words of the 
 Reedemer: "And every one that hath forsaken 
 houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or 
 wife, or children, or lands, for My sake, shall receive 
 an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." 
 Let us go where God bids us, brethren, though the 
 way be rough and steep ; it is enough that it is His 
 way. Let us trust God, and do right; and it will 
 all be well in the end ! 
 
XIII. 
 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 Neither shall there be any more pain." REV. xxi. 4. 
 
 HERE is no need to explain to any 
 human being what it is that is meant 
 by Pain. We all know that. We know 
 pain by the best means of knowing : we 
 know it by having felt it. And we arrived at that 
 sad knowledge early ; none of us lived long in this 
 world before learning by experience what is meant 
 by pain. 
 
 There is a sense in which we may use the word, 
 in which its meaning is wider than it is as it stands 
 in this text. Pain may be taken to mean all suffer 
 ing, whether of the body or of the mind. And when 
 we speak of Pleasure and Pain, or of things being 
 pleasing or painful, we sometimes understand by 
 pleasure everything that is pleasing, joyful, happy ; 
 and by pain, everything that you would shrink from, 
 from whatever source it may come, everything that 
 implies suffering, sorrow, anguish. But it is not in 
 this large sense that the word is to be understood in 
 this text. Pain is here to be understood in its strict 
 
221 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 meaning. For you observe that the writer of the 
 Revelation distinguishes it from sorrow, from death, 
 from tears ; and as he tells us of the glory and the 
 bliss of the New Jerusalem above, as he tells us of 
 the springs of anguish that shall be absent there, he 
 classes our sad heritage of suffering by itself. He is 
 speaking of God s own people, when from the disci 
 pline and trials of this mortal life they shall have 
 passed into the Golden City ; and he tells us that in 
 that life immortal " God shall wipe away all tears 
 from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall there be 
 any more pain." 
 
 So it is manifest that, in this promise, pain is to be 
 distinguished from that which is properly called sor 
 row ; and we are to understand by pain that which 
 the world strictly means : to wit, suffering which 
 arises from our fleshly nature. All feeling, of course-, 
 pleasing or painful, is in the soul ; it is the soul alone 
 that feels. But pain means bodily suffering. Pain 
 means that suffering which, though felt in the soul, has 
 its origin in the body. That is pain. And now you 
 see that in the better world there is to be an end of 
 it. " There shall be no more pain." 
 
 I feel, my friends, that it is almost impossible for 
 me to present to you this blessed promise in such a 
 fashion as may make you understand its real force. 
 For who needs to be told, that it is only when a man 
 is actually pressed by pain that he knows what an 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 225 
 
 unspeakable blessing it is to be free from pain ; and 
 who does not know how poorly and ineffectually any 
 words that human lips can utter labor to convey to 
 another the terrible, crushing, overwhelming Fact that 
 is meant by words so easily said as Great Pain ? Ah, 
 words are idle to express the thing as it is ; only the 
 great sufferer knows what is meant by great suffering ; 
 only he knows the value of release from suffering ; and 
 even he forgets it when the suffering has passed away. 
 And how, then, my friends, shall I make you feel, 
 sitting there quietly and comfortably this Sunday 
 afternoon, what is meant by the promise of " no more 
 pain ! " There may be those among you now, who 
 feel some little twinge or ache ; and even such will 
 more feelingly understand the force of the text. But 
 in by far the most of you there is now, I doubt not, 
 perfect freedom from pain ; heart and head and limb 
 are right ; the entire bodily machinery plays without 
 a jar. How shall we understand and realize the 
 value of that absence of pain which has grown to us a 
 thing so common and so cheap ! Let us try to recall 
 the days of suffering we have known ! Let us call 
 back the days when we learned that the spasm of 
 some little nerve, that a little inflammation of muscular 
 tissue, that a little extra pressure upon brain or heart, 
 might bring long nights of sleepless agony, might 
 not merely "destroy utterly the enjoyment of life, but 
 unfit utterly for the duties of life ; let us think of 
 the anguished face, and the convulsed limb, and the 
 15 
 
226 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 deadly chill and faint-ness, that have come with pain ; 
 let us think of the sudden insight which in such 
 moments we have had, into the tremendous depths of 
 misery which these poor natures of ours can bear 
 without annihilation ; and with such remembrances in 
 our hearts, let us, praying for the direction of God s 
 Holy Spirit, address ourselves to the consideration of 
 the solemn lessons, as well as the blessed encourage 
 ments, which this text may fitly suggest to us. 
 
 In the better world above, then, pain shall be un 
 known. And although, my friends, I am more and 
 more persuaded, by longer experience, that it is the 
 deep sense of God s love and mercy in Christ to us 
 poor sinners, and a responsive love and gratitude and 
 trust in our Blessed Redeemer and in God manifested 
 in Plim, that shall draw our souls to God, and lead us 
 onward in the path of life, far more than any mere 
 dread of Hell as a place of insufferable pain, or any 
 mere wish for Heaven as a place of unspeakable 
 glory and happiness, still, brethren, different mo 
 tives work with especial power upon different human 
 beings ; and the wish to escape woe and to attain 
 happiness is placed in the nature of all of us by our 
 Maker, and is not intended to be ever eradicated ; 
 and it is very fit and right that our longings after 
 the Paradise above should be quickened by thoughts 
 of its blessedness, of all the happiness which shall 
 there be present, of all the anguish which shall 
 thence be far away. Many a poor sufferer, doubtless, 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 227 
 
 will cherish a very soothing and cheering thought of 
 Heaven, as the place as the only place in all the 
 universe where there is " no more pain." And 
 even those who have never experienced very pro 
 longed, or very overwhelming suffering, will hail the 
 like assurance with great delight. Pain is, in itself, 
 never a desirable thing. Great good may come 
 through it, or of it ; and we may be content to bear 
 it for the good that is to come of it ; but the actual 
 suffering, in itself, must always be a thing from which 
 we would, if it were possible, shrink away. No man 
 can like to be in pain for the sake of the pain itself. 
 You know how pain, even when not very great, and 
 even when not likely to be followed by serious conse 
 quences, destroys the enjoyment of life. A thousand 
 blessings may be neutralized, so far as concerns their 
 power of making us happy, by one little fretting 
 pain. Say it is a beautiful evening of summer, and 
 you are looking at a sweet country landscape ; you 
 know that acute suffering, present in the little nerve 
 of one tooth, will effectually call off your attention 
 from all the beauty that surrounds you, will utterly 
 destroy your enjoyment of it all. You know that 
 if a man were surrounded by all conceivable worldly 
 advantages, if he had a charming home, and abun 
 dant wealth, and all the comforts and elegancies that 
 abundant wealth can buy, still, if he were in cease 
 less pain, if day and night he never knew release 
 from the gnawing, wearing, depressing grasp of bodily 
 
228 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 suffering, he would lead but a dreary life after all. 
 For pain is a thing that you cannot well forget 
 while you are enduring it ; it has a wonderful power 
 of compelling attention to itself ; you cannot long or 
 heartily think of anything else, while you are suffer 
 ing acute pain. How long it makes the hours seem, 
 how weary the night, how blank the day ! But pain 
 does worse than mar the enjoyment of life ; it unfits, 
 as a general rule, for the work and duty of life. No 
 doubt there have been men who did nobly the work 
 God set them in this world, even with all the dis 
 advantage of being burdened with almost ceaseless 
 pain ; no doubt there have been men who, even with 
 all that disadvantage, have been able to form sound 
 and hopeful views of human affairs, and to sympa 
 thize heartily with the cheerful, no less than with the 
 sorrowful ; possibly some of us may have enjoyed the 
 privilege of knowing those who, even with all that 
 disadvantage, have produced such beautiful, touching, 
 and far-reaching thoughts, as have moved the heart 
 and formed the mind of thousands. But this is not 
 the common way in which things go. As the general 
 rule, you cannot do your \vork well when you are 
 suffering pain, even if not very great. It worries 
 you ; it draws off your attention from what you are 
 about ; you have no heart for your task ; you cannot 
 put yourself at it in that thorough, earnest, energetic 
 fashion in which you must go at any work which you 
 would wish to do well, which you would wish to 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 229 
 
 do to the very best of your ability. And tliere are 
 worse possibilities about pain than even these. I do 
 not forget that by God s Blessed Spirit s working, it 
 has often been sanctified to work the soul great good ; 
 it has served to wean the affections from the things 
 of time and sense ; it has been like the furnace-fire 
 in which the soul has been purified like some precious 
 metal. But this, brethren, is the tendency of pain 
 sanctified ; it is not the simple and natural tendency 
 of pain. Do not you know that pain just as fre 
 quently makes the sufferer fretful and impatient, 
 peevish and ill-tempered to those around, nay, ready 
 to repine at the allotment and providence of God ! 
 " Curse God and die " is just as natural a tendency 
 of pain as is " Father, let this cup pass away ; yet 
 not My will, but Thine, be done ! " And if we have 
 heard of those whom sanctified suffering purified and 
 elevated and refined, till through the worn features 
 you could almost see the angel s nature, who is there 
 but has heard of, and perhaps has seen, instances in 
 which protracted suffering, acting upon an unrenewed 
 heart, has developed a wrath, a bitterness, a defiance 
 of God, a malignity towards man, that looked like the 
 demon incarnate ! 
 
 And thinking of all these things about pain, think 
 ing of the unutterable anguish it sometimes means, 
 thinking of how it may embitter life and unfit for 
 duty, and bring to a spiritual frame the most hard 
 ened and fearful, well may we hail with delight the 
 
230 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 assurance that there is a world where it shall be un 
 known. No pain in heaven! No little irritating 
 disquiet ; no sharp piercing pang ; no great over 
 whelming agony, that tells its tale in groans and 
 shrieks that wears out life, that racks and maddens ! 
 Yet not that it shall be there,, that you escape pain by 
 giving up pleasure ; not that you cease to feel pain, 
 because you cease to feel at all. No ; the soul in 
 glory shall still be invested with a bodily frame, the 
 most delicately sensitive, alive to every thrill of bliss, 
 feeling all feeling with a keenness and intensity never 
 known before ; the perfection, in short, of a sensitive 
 material nature, a nature which, doubtless, could feel 
 suffering with fearful reality, if suffering could ever 
 come there. But in that better country there shall 
 be absent forever the cause in suffering, no less than 
 the signs in tears ; for " there shall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall there be any 
 more pain ! " 
 
 But all this naturally leads us to ask, If pain be so 
 bad a thing, and if it be so happy an assurance that 
 the day is coming when there shall be no more of it, 
 why is it here at all? Why is there such a thing 
 now ? Well, brethren, I do not think it would stagger 
 our trust in God s wisdom and goodness, even if we 
 could find no answer at all to that question. It would 
 only be part of the great question as to why Evil is at 
 all permitted in this creation ; and the answer to that 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 231 
 
 question is one of those secret things which belong to 
 God. But in the matter of pain, we can, in so far, 
 answer the question. We can discern several impor 
 tant uses which are served by pain ; and we can dis 
 cern, too, that pain will not be needed for these uses 
 in the better world. It will not cease till its occupa 
 tion is gone. The lessons it is meant to teach us 
 will not be wanted there. They will be well remem 
 bered, without our having pain ever (so to speak) at 
 our elbow to remind us of them. 
 
 For what are lessons which are taught us by pain ? 
 
 Pain teaches us, for one thing, how feeble and de 
 pendent we are. If any man were foolish enough to 
 think that he might set up for himself, that he might 
 go on for himself, that he could do without leaning at 
 every step and every moment upon the arm of God, 
 I think pain would convince him of his folly. What 
 a humbling thing great pain is ! How it takes down 
 pride and obstinacy ; how little power it leaves us to 
 think of the impression we may be making on others ! 
 The proverb -says that pride feels no pain ; only let 
 the pain be great enough, and where will be the 
 pride ! I call to remembrance a certain scene. It is 
 in the beautiful city of Cajsarea. It is the theatre : 
 a vast crowd is assembled; there is a magnificent 
 throne, and on it sits a king. His robe was of silver 
 tissue, and shone brilliantly in the morning sun as he 
 made an oration, no doubt in arrogant enough terms, 
 to certain people who had offended him. So august 
 
232 NO MOKE PAIN. 
 
 was his appearance, so lofty his language, that " the 
 people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of God, 
 and not of a man ! " Herod half believed them ! 
 You can imagine that, if not a God, he looked every 
 inch a king. But in that moment a fearful, over 
 whelming agony grasped him ; and the poor miser 
 able wretch, still in his grand dress, was carried out, 
 groaning and shrieking, and smitten with a horrible 
 loathsome death. Oh, what a mockery of his gran 
 deur, a minute since ! Oh, what a scoffer at human 
 pride, what a teacher of human dependence and help 
 lessness, is overmastering pain ! 
 
 And for a second thing, pain is something to remind 
 us of the Evil of Sin. Not but what sin s badness 
 dwells in itself, apart quite from any sad consequences 
 that flow from it, but there are many souls, somewhat 
 blunted and dull in perception, who can discern more 
 vividly that physical agony is a bad thing than that 
 moral evil is a bad thing. And just as the index on 
 the dial of the barometer, as it goes down and down, 
 is something to tell of the impending hurricane, so 
 all the pain that darkens this world is something to 
 indicate how bitterly bad a thing is sin. Every child 
 knows, that, had there been no sin, there would have 
 been no pain ; and the worse pain is, the worse it 
 proves sin to be. And so pain is an ever-present 
 reminder of a thing we are all far too ready to forget. 
 Oh, if we could interpret pain aright, if we could 
 remember its meaning every time it shows us its 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 233 
 
 sorrowful features, how constantly we should have 
 impressed upon us how fearful a thing is sin ! You 
 have every one of you known pain. Well, just fix 
 this in your minds, that all the pain you have ever 
 suffered was the effect of sin. You never would have 
 had a headache, if it had not been for sin. You 
 never would have known a sleepless night, a shooting 
 pang through the nerves, or a dull weight at the heart, 
 if it had not been for sin. If it had not been for sin, 
 this world would never have seen faces sharp with 
 pain, nor forms wasted with pain. There would have 
 been no hospitals nor infirmaries ; no need for science 
 seeking agents that might dull to suffering by dulling 
 to all sense ; none of that sad literature, so interesting, 
 yet so sad, that sets out the nature and causes and 
 remedies of the countless pangs that flesh is heir to. 
 Now, brethren, we need to have it pressed home upon 
 us, and pressed often upon, us, that sin is a bad thing. 
 Our natural tendency is to think to ourselves, Oh, sin 
 is not right, it cannot be justified, it is bad no 
 doubt, but it is not such a very great matter after 
 all. What does pain say to that, think you ! You 
 know whether pain, crushing, intolerable, maddening 
 pain, is a small matter. And pain, remember, is only 
 one sad consequence of sin ; pain is sin manifesting 
 its tendencies in only one direction. There are a score 
 of evil things and tendencies about sin besides this ! 
 All the agonies you have ever felt, ever seen ; all 
 the anguish which even stout-hearted men have said 
 
234 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 would have driven them mad, if it had lasted but a 
 few minutes longer ; all that has ever left its trace on 
 the ghastly face and the hollow wistful eye ; all that 
 has been something to tell us, that, bad as it may be, 
 there is something worse, something of whose in 
 tense unmingled bitterness it is but a faint, feeble 
 manifestation, and that something, that black, mys 
 terious, awful something, sin ! 
 
 And another lesson taught us by pain is suggested 
 by this: It is how terribly God can punish; what 
 tremendous appliances of punishment He has at His 
 command. I have no taste for dwelling on such a 
 subject; I would rather think of the love of Christ 
 than of terrors of judgment; but we must face the 
 truth, my friends. You cannot do away a fearful 
 fact merely by turning your back upon it. A thing 
 does not cease to be, because you may shut your eyes 
 and refuse to see it. Now, my friends, people some 
 times say, God is merciful, He is all love, He 
 will never inflict upon His poor creatures such terrible 
 sufferings as seem to be threatened in certain texts of 
 the Bible. Brethren, what does pain, the pain we 
 have ourselves felt and seen, what does it say to 
 such a thought? What fearful suffering God does 
 inflict even in this world! You have seen some 
 wretched being dying of a disease that made him ap 
 palling to look at, that kept him for weeks (I have 
 known it months) in sleepless, unutterable agony ; 
 Who kept that wretched being in that unutterable 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 235 
 
 agony ? Who, but God ! God, in His mysterious, un 
 searchable sovereignty ! No man would have kept 
 that poor sufferer in that suffering for one minute. 
 But God keeps him there, keeps him day after day, 
 week after week. Oh, my friends, we have an in 
 flexible Judge to face, merciful though He be ! So, 
 pain teaches us something of the severity of God. 
 Now, if you have ever suffered great, unspeakable 
 pain, think : Here is a glimpse of what it is possible 
 for a human being to suffer ; Here is a hint of how 
 dreadfully God can punish ; Here is a distant glimpse 
 of what perdition may be ! 
 
 But I turn gladly to another lesson, a far happier 
 lesson, taught us by pain. It reminds us how great 
 was our Blessed Saviour s love for our poor sinful 
 souls, which made Him bear such an unutterable load 
 of anguish as He bore for us. You know that we 
 in this world always like to have some standard by 
 which to measure things. Merely to say that a thing 
 is very great and big, fails to convey to us a clear 
 idea ; we need to get a standard by which to esti 
 mate it, and thus discover how great it is. You tell 
 us that it is a long, long way to some far-away place ; 
 well, that leaves us with rather a vague notion of the 
 distance ; but measure it by some standard, say it 
 is five hundred miles or a thousand miles off, and 
 then we know exactly what to think. And we do 
 just the same thing in the world of mind as in the 
 world of matter, though of course the standard here 
 
236 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 is not a material one. You tell us that a man s at 
 tachment to his principles, political or religious, is 
 very great. Well, give us some idea how great. 
 What has it led him to do, what to sacrifice, what to 
 suffer ? That is the test here. You tell us that a man s 
 love for some dear friend is deep. How deep ? What 
 will it make him do, or endure ? That is the test. 
 And so, we have a standard by which to estimate the 
 redeeming love of Christ. It "passeth knowledge," 
 indeed; we must never forget that; its full depth 
 and intensity reach beyond our understanding ; but 
 this much about it we can understand, that it is a 
 love stronger and deeper than the deepest and strong 
 est pain. It has been tried by that ; and it stood 
 the trial ! How great was the Saviour s love for us 
 poor sinners, how deep His desire for our salvation 
 from sin and perdition, we never can fully know ; 
 but this we know, that they sufficed to lead Him, with 
 calm, unflinching resolution, to face and to endure pain 
 and anguish so deep and crushing that never before 
 or since has their like been known in this world. 
 Our Saviour s love for us was stronger than pain, 
 stronger than agony, stronger than death ! It led 
 Him, perfectly aware of what He was about to suffer, 
 to suffer all these. Never was sorrow like His sor 
 row ; surely never was love like His love ! 
 
 Such, my hearers, are certain lessons which we 
 are taught by pain. But in the better world, pain 
 will not be needful to enforce them. They will b& 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 237 
 
 remembered there, so far as it is fit that they should 
 be remembered, without the necessity of having that 
 sad monitor ever near. And thus, as in that happy 
 country, pain would be of no use, pain will go. Use 
 ful, gloomily useful, in this world, it would be of 
 110 use there. Its work is done ; and like all other 
 sorrowful things, it shall be excluded. Oh, the comfort 
 of the thought ! Christians, who have suffered much 
 in this being, remember this, that in Heaven there 
 shall be " no more pain." And you, my friends, how 
 stands your interest in this promise ? You have all 
 known pain here ; you may have much more to go 
 through before you quit this world ; how stand your 
 prospects for the country beyond the grave ? There 
 is a region there, where it is all pain forever. Is there 
 one soul here that will reject the Saviour s offered 
 love, and face that never-ending pain ! Or, rather, 
 when you think of all He bore for you; when you 
 think of the mercy He freely offers ; when you think 
 of God s solemn declaration, that He is " not willing 
 that any should perish, but that all should come to 
 repentance " ; where would be your hearts if you did 
 not feel a responsive love to Him who so loved you, 
 a hearty, humble faith and trust in Him who bids you 
 only trust yourselves to Him ; and, sinful as you are, 
 lost as you are, liable most justly to endless wrath 
 and punishment as you are, He will bear you safely 
 through life and death and judgment, to that better 
 country where suffering is gone forever, and, better 
 yet, where sin is done with forever, too ! 
 
238 NO MORE PAIN. 
 
 And now, as I draw another Sunday s sermon 
 to an end, I look back once more to my text ; I rest 
 in the simple contemplation of the sublime truth 
 which it conveys. " No more pain ! " The parting 
 pang which the believer feels in leaving this world 
 is the very last that he shall ever feel at all. The 
 suffering which he may be called to endure in the 
 closing days of this mortal life is the very last suffer 
 ing that he will ever know. The moment in which 
 the last breath is drawn, in that moment, pain goes 
 forever! And, it may be you have seen something 
 which reminded you of that glorious truth, even in 
 the features of the dead face. You have seen, per 
 haps, the face that had grown old in life look young 
 after death. You have seen the expression of many 
 years since, lost for long, come out startlingly in the 
 features, fixed and cold. Every one has seen it ; 
 and it is sometimes strange how rapidly the change 
 takes place. The marks of pain fade out, and with 
 them the marks of age. I lately saw an aged Chris 
 tian die. She had borne sharp pain for many days 
 with the endurance of a martyr ; she had to bear 
 sharp pain to the very last. The features were tense 
 and rigid with suffering ; they remained so while life 
 remained. It was a beautiful sight to see the change 
 which took place in the very instant of dissolution. 
 The features, sharp for many days with pain, in that 
 instant recovered the old aspect of quietude which 
 they had borne in health; the tense, tight look was 
 gone. You saw the signs of pain go out. You felt 
 
NO MORE PAIN. 239 
 
 that all suffering was over. It was no more of 
 course than the working of physical law ; but in that 
 case it seemed as if there were a further meaning 
 conveyed. It was hardly possible to look on the 
 features, so suffering the one moment, so quiet and 
 calm the next, without remembering words which tell 
 us, concerning the country into which the believer 
 enters in the instant of his departure, that There 
 " shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying ; 
 
 NEITHER SHALL THERE BE ANY MORE PAIN I " 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 " And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our 
 tkith." 1 JOHN v. 4. 
 
 HIS text implies and suggests two great 
 lessons: one of these is that the Chris 
 tian has to overcome the world, that 
 there is some sense in which the world is 
 an enemy, an obstacle, to the Christian, an obstacle 
 which must be got over, an enemy which must be 
 overcome ; and the other lesson is that Faith is the 
 way and the means by which the Christian can and 
 must overcome the world. And when we look to the 
 first clause of the verse, we find a further truth 
 suggested, to wit, that this overcoming the world 
 is a thing of vital and essential concern, that it is 
 indeed a test of a professing Christian s profession, 
 that, if any professing Christian has not overcome the 
 world, but is manifestly in subjection and bondage 
 to it, this shows that he is not truly a Christian. For 
 " whatsoever," or perhaps it ought to read, "whoso 
 ever is born of God overcometh the world ; and this is 
 the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 241 
 
 We do not Jive long before we come to understand 
 that it has pleased God so to order things in this life 
 that no worthy end can be attained without an effort, 
 without encountering and overcoming opposition. 
 Anything that costs nothing is generally worth noth 
 ing. It is dim ult to do anything that is good; and 
 the Christian life is in keeping witli all things around 
 it. The school-boy soon knows that it is difficult to 
 be diligent and industrious, it is hard work to 
 learn his lessons thoroughly and well, but it is 
 quite easy to sit idle and do nothing. The farmer 
 knows that he must work early and late to get his 
 field to produce a good crop, while he has only to 
 neglect his rield and do nothing to have it covered 
 with abundance of weeds. The man who wishes to 
 do good, physical or spiritual, to his fellow-men, finds 
 that that cannot be done by sitting still in his easy- 
 chair and dreaming ; he must go forth, and go through 
 work, often rough work, sometimes painful and dis 
 couraging work. It is energetic, muscular philanthro 
 py that purifies the cottage air, and tidies the cot 
 tage-door, and trains the neglected children. And it 
 is just in religion as it is in everything else. It is 
 difficult to be a true, earnest Christian. It is easy to 
 be a careless, worldly person. Wide is the gate, and 
 broad is the way, that leads to destruction ; while we 
 must strive and Christ s word means more than 
 strive : it means that we must make a strong arid 
 agonizing effort to enter in at the strait gate; 
 16 
 
242 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 and the path of duty, the path to heaven, is an up-hill 
 path. And the text points out one great obstacle, a 
 host of obstacles in itself, in the Christian s heaven 
 ward way. The world is in the way. And if we 
 would live the Christian life, if we would reach the 
 Christian s home, there is no other course, we 
 must " overcome the world ! " 
 
 We are far from saying that the world is the only 
 thing the Christian has to overcome in his progress 
 towards a better world. There is the great Adver 
 sary and Enemy of all good ; there is the weak and 
 earthward heart within ; but I believe I am express 
 ing the experience of most men who are seeking to 
 lead Christian lives in these days on which we have 
 fallen, when I say that the world is practically the 
 great obstacle to be overcome, that worldliness is 
 the great besetting sin which most of us have to re 
 sist. The cares of the world are in truth the great 
 things that choke the good seed so that it becomes 
 unfruitful. The great thing which most of us have 
 to lament, and confess, and strive against, is, being 
 so occupied and engrossed by our affairs in this world 
 as quite to neglect our preparation for the world be 
 yond the grave. Few Christians, in ordinary society 
 and ordinary life, are tempted to gross and crying sins ; 
 most of us deserve no credit for being free from such, 
 for we have really never been strongly tempted to 
 them. The great thing is just that we are worldly ; 
 that we live too much as if this life were all ; that 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 243 
 
 our minds are quite filled with worldly business, 
 worldly pleasure, worldly cares, anxieties, sorrows, 
 losses ; that we are more anxious about our worldly 
 circumstances than about our interest in Christ, 
 more careful of our bodily health than of our spirit 
 ual, more set, in short, (we all know what it 
 means,) upon the seen and temporal than upon the 
 unseen and eternal. Now, my friends, not only is 
 worldliness a sin, but it is a sin that chokes all good ; 
 it chokes and kills all the fruits of the Spirit, and 
 it makes the soul as unfit for heaven as the grossest 
 crime could. It is our besetting sin ; it is our most 
 perilous malady ; it concerns us, with momentous 
 concern, to understand it and strive against it. And 
 so let us, praying for Divine direction, look at some 
 of the ways in which the world is an enemy, an ob 
 stacle, a hindrance in our Christian course; and let 
 us see how faith is needful to overcome it. 
 
 And, first, this world is an obstacle, needing to be 
 overcome, it exerts, that is, an influence which we 
 must every day be resisting and praying against, 
 just in this : that it looks so solid and so real, that in 
 comparison with ii the eternal world and its interests 
 look to most men as though they had but a shadowy 
 and unsubstantial existence. And it is a terrible ob 
 stacle this, in our Christian life. No doubt it is for a 
 wise and good reason that the Almighty suffers it to 
 be so ; but oh, how hard it is to feel, day by day, that 
 things which we cannot see or touch are the most real 
 
244 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 things in nature ; how hard it is to feel that pardon of 
 sin and peace with God are more truly the " necessa 
 ries of life" than the daily bread and the nightly 
 shelter, that a saving interest in Christ s great 
 Atonement is really the " one thing needful ! " Oh ! 
 it would be well with us if we could only feel as sen 
 sibly that we need salvation as that we heed food and 
 raiment ! Oh ! it would be well for us if we could 
 only realize it as strongly, that there is a country be 
 yond the grave, as that there is a country beyond the 
 Atlantic ! How many great religious truths truths 
 which lie at the foundation of all religion we be 
 lieve in a sadly half-hearted way, because this solid 
 world looks like a constant silent contradiction of 
 them ! The supreme importance of the life to come 
 is the doctrine on which all religion rests ; but though 
 we often hear and repeat the words, that " all on earth 
 is shadow, all beyond is substance, " and although 
 sometimes, perhaps in the house of prayer, we may 
 feel our souls lifted up to an elevation from which we 
 discern the fact with a startling reality never known 
 on ordinary days of life, still, when the parting hymn 
 is sung, and the benediction pronounced, and we pass 
 out through the church-door, and see before us the 
 great hills, and the ancient trees, and feel beneath our 
 feet the. solid earth, and hear the voices of people 
 round us, how fast this world of sense grows and 
 greatens upon us again, while the unseen world 
 and all its concerns seem to recede into distance, to 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 245 
 
 melt into air, to fade into nothing ! Do you not feel 
 all that, my friends ? Do you not feel that this world 
 shuts out, somehow, the next world from your view, 
 and crowds out the next world from your heart ? And 
 what is there that shall " overcome " this materializ 
 ing influence of a present world, what is there that 
 shall give us the " victory " over it, but Faith, 
 Faith which believes what it cannot see, with all the 
 vividness of sight ? Surely, by its very nature, Chris 
 tian faith, that faith which is wrought in the believing 
 heart by the Blessed Spirit, is the only thing that 
 can avail us here. We see and feel this world, we 
 believe the other ; we see and feel the body and bodily 
 wants, we believe the soul and its necessities ; oh, 
 that by God s grace faith may be made to vanquish 
 sight, it never will vanquish sight as we might wish 
 it should, but at least vanquish sight and sense in 
 so far as that it shall be the guide of our conduct, 
 as that we shall act according to the dictates of faith, 
 as that we shall live and act according to what 
 we believe, and not according to what we see ; 
 and thus, that, like the apostle, we shall "walk by 
 faith and not by sight ! " It is too much, perhaps, 
 to expect that the day should ever come when, for 
 more than short seasons of special elevation, w r e shall 
 be able to realize the unseen and eternal as plainly as 
 we do the seen and temporal ; we cannot look to be 
 always so raised above worldly . interests as to feel 
 that not what we grasp, but what we believe is the 
 
246 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 true reality; it will be enough if we carry with U9 
 such a conviction as shall constrain us to " seek first 
 the kingdom of God and His righteousness " ; and if 
 we ever do so, this must be " the victory which shall 
 overcome the world, even our faith." 
 
 So far, then, for one respect in which faith is need 
 ful to resist an influence of the world, hostile to our 
 spiritual life ; and next we remark that the world is 
 an obstacle in our Christian course, because its cares, 
 business, interests, tend strongly and directly to choke 
 the good seed of religion in the heart, to fill up our 
 minds so completely as that they shall have no room 
 for thoughts of eternity and salvation. Oh, how many 
 notable housewives, busy from morning till night with 
 their household affairs, their children, their servants, 
 could tell us that they scarce can find a minute to 
 read the Bible, or to stop and think where they are 
 going ; and that at morning they are so anxious to 
 get to the avocations of the day, and at evening so 
 completely wearied and worn out, that they have not 
 time nor heart for prayer. How many a toiling, 
 anxious man, working and scheming to make the ends 
 meet, and to maintain his children, and to advance 
 them in life, has not a thought to spare for the other 
 world, for his own soul s eternal destiny, or for the 
 eternal destiny of those he holds dear ! It is when 
 we are " careful and troubled about many things " 
 that we are ready to forget that " one thing is need- 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 247 
 
 ful." I need not tell you that in all ages of the 
 Church, every man who has earnestly tried to lead 
 a Christian life, has felt, more, or less, how great an 
 obstacle earthly care has ever been. You know how, 
 in centuries past, men have tried to evade this world, 
 instead of overcoming it, to fly from the enemy, 
 instead of facing and vanquishing it ; how they have 
 left the world behind them, and sought in the monas 
 tic shade a retreat to which worldly care should never 
 come, a home where the turmoil and strife should 
 never be heard, save softened by the distance into a 
 murmur that would but lull the ear. Ah, it was a 
 vain endeavor ; but still it proved how great an en 
 emy of spiritual life worldly care was felt to be, 
 when, only to be rid of it, men were found willing to 
 give up almost everything that human hearts hold 
 dear ! How. many a time have you knelt down in 
 your closet to say your evening prayer, and in a lit 
 tle while found that some worldly anxiety or trouble 
 was coming between you and your God, that your 
 thoughts were wandering away upon your earthly 
 cares, and would not leave you undistracted even for 
 the little time given to devotion ! How often, in the 
 house of prayer, the words of exhortation fell effect 
 less and unnoted on your ear, because your thoughts 
 were away about the cares you had left at home, 
 about how you were to find the money which you 
 must have by a certain day, or about the pale cheek 
 and the failing strength of your little sickly child J 
 
248 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 Oh, how shall we overcome these things, my Christian 
 friends ? How shall we keep these worldly cares 
 which we cannot escape, from making our souls ut 
 terly worldly ? How can it be brought to this, that the 
 nian in business may give to his business just thought 
 enough, and no more, that the parent may not let 
 his children s welfare come between him and his sal 
 vation, that "care s unthankful gloom" may not nip 
 all holy affections and aspirations, and make us worn, 
 miserable, anxious creatures, wretched in time, but not 
 able to spare a thought for eternity ? Only the " faith 
 that overcometh the world " can save from this. Only 
 that childlike confidence hi our Saviour s love and 
 wisdom and power, which trusts everything to Him, 
 which " casts all our care upon Him " and His 
 strong arm, and so feels the crushing burden lifted 
 from our own weak hearts ! " This is the victory 
 that overcometh " the only thing that ever can 
 overcome " the world : even our faith ! " What 
 we need, to overcome worldly care, is that faith which 
 lifts its head above the atmosphere of time into eter 
 nity s clearer light ! What we need is faith to real 
 ize how short this life is when compared with the 
 great eternity, how little and how fleeting are all 
 worldly interests, all earthly gains and losses, when 
 compared with the pearJ of great price, an assured 
 part in Christ s great salvation. What we need is 
 faith to realize that no earthly end or aim should be 
 regarded as our " chief end," and that every earthly 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 249 
 
 thing has yielded us the best it can give when it 
 has wrought together towards our immortal welfare ! 
 What we need is faith to feel that the- true riches lie 
 not in broad acres nor in hoarded wealth, from which 
 a week s illness or a moment s shock may part us for 
 ever, but in that nobler estate which is garnered 
 up within the soul, those " treasures laid up in 
 heaven, which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and 
 which no thief can break through and steal ! " Give 
 us that faith, and we have " overcome the world " ; it 
 is our tyrant, and we are its slaves, no more ! Give 
 us that faith, not for isolated moments of rapture only, 
 but to be the daily mood and temper of our hearts ; 
 and then we shall engage without fever in the busi 
 ness of this world, as feeling that in a few short years 
 it will matter nothing whether we met disappointment 
 or success ; then we shall seek for wealth, if we seek 
 at all," as those who remember that in a very little we 
 are going where we shall never be asked whether w r e 
 were rich or poor ; then we shall feel that, once safe 
 in Christ, nothing can go amiss with us, that God 
 has undertaken for us, and that it is His concern 
 and not ours to arrange and dispose all the events 
 of our worldly lot. Arid shall we not thus " over 
 come the world," break away from its thousand ties, 
 cast off its downward gravitation, break away from 
 its control, free and untrammelled, as the lion that 
 bounds scatheless from the hunter s net ! Be it our 
 prayer, then, when we think how soul-destroying a 
 
250 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 thing worldly care is in its own nature, that God, of 
 His abundant grace, may vouchsafe to each and all 
 of us " the victory that overcometh the world, even 
 stick faith ! " 
 
 It is too much to ask of frail human beings, merely 
 to remove their affections from the things of time and 
 sense. It will not do, merely to tell us that we are 
 not to " love this world," unless you point out to us 
 what we are to love instead. We cannot turn away 
 from this world, evil though itlbe ; when we turn our 
 back upon it, we see but a blank before us. And 
 here it is that all systems but Christianity have failed, 
 when they sought to teach men how they might rise 
 superior to worldly concerns, and thus " overcome the 
 world." It was easy to* show that the things which 
 are seen can never make us happy, easy to repeat 
 the moral lesson that it was foolish to give the heart 
 to what can stand us in so little stead; but it was 
 useless to advise man to set his affection and lay up 
 his treasure nowhere ; and it is faith only which can 
 apprehend and lay hold of the things which are not 
 seen. It is the faith which holds in view another 
 world, which alone can overcome this, can overlook 
 it as the eye, that rests on mountains far away, over 
 looks the fields that lie between. The soul that is 
 accustomed to gaze on spiritual and eternal things 
 sees earthly objects in their real insignificance; and 
 to see this world as it truly is, is to overcome it. It 
 is like the embodied demons of classic fable, who fled 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE 
 
 \?>_* .Cfc 
 if you did but recognize and name 
 
 this world as faith alone estimates it at its true 
 worth, and in that act you have " overcome th er~- 
 worldl" 
 
 There is yet another sense in which the world is an 
 obstacle to our Christian life, needing to be overcome 
 by faith. As you know, the phrase the World is 
 sometimes used in contrast with the Church: so our 
 Saviour used it all through his Intercessory Prayer ; 
 as when He said of His disciples, " They are not of 
 the world, even as I am not of the world." Taken 
 in this way, the World means all human beings who 
 are without the Christian fold, who are devoid of 
 Christian faith, and of Christian ways of thinking and 
 feeling. And you know well that on the most impor 
 tant subjects there is an absolute contrariety between 
 the doctrines of the church and of the world; and 
 many a believer has found the world s frown or the 
 world s sneer something which it needs much faith to 
 resist and to overcome. Perhaps in the case of most 
 of us, living among those who make a profession of 
 Christianity, or who at least respectfully recognize it, 
 this opposition is but little felt ; and probably in the 
 case of hardly any is it such as in past days it has 
 been. Yet it is felt still, by the poor school-boy, sent 
 out from a pious home into that stormy little world, 
 who is afraid to say his prayers lest his companions 
 should laugh at him ; and by the poor servant, admit- 
 
252 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 ted to some great establishment, who is just as much 
 afraid as her betters of the jeer of some flippant fool, 
 who thinks all seriousness hypocrisy ; and by many 
 a youth, sent into circles and professions, where any 
 thing like earnestness for his soul s salvation would be 
 met by banter and ridicule, or by the stare of well- 
 bred contempt. It is not everywhere and at all times 
 easy to say practically, "I am not ashamed of the 
 gospel of Christ." There are many professing Chris 
 tians who at some tables and in some societies sink 
 their Christianity for the time. But how this oppo 
 sition crumbles down in the presence of earnest faith ! 
 How easily that faith, which realizes things spiritual 
 and unseen, overcomes and puts down this hostile 
 influence of the world ! How cheaply and lightly 
 will that man hold ridicule and mockery of him and 
 his religion, who realizes to his heart that the All-wise 
 and Almighty God thinks upon that subject as he 
 does ; who realizes that God approves the course he 
 follows, whether man does or no ; and who can feel 
 that even as the brainless scoffer is raising the laugh 
 at his expense, and the empty circle joins in the 
 derision, a silent Eye looks down approvingly upon 
 what he does, and a pen which the by-standers do not 
 see is registering the " well done, good and faithful 
 servant ! " Ah, make that be realized by earnest 
 faith, and the bonds of this world s fear turn to the 
 strong heart as the green withes were to Samson s 
 nervous arms ! 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 253 
 
 In these senses, then, which have been pointed out, 
 the World is an obstacle in the Christian s way, 
 an obstacle which he must resist and overcome. Its 
 solid, sensible reality makes spiritual things look in 
 the comparison shadowy and unreal. Its cares and 
 anxieties choke the word, engross the soul to the 
 exclusion of all thought of religion. Its maxims and 
 its fear, " the world s dread laugh," tend sometimes to 
 make the disciple of Christ ashamed of his Christian 
 profession and his Divine Master. And over all these 
 hostile influences faith gives us the victory ; and noth 
 ing but faith can. You may tell me, indeed, that 
 there have been men who had no Christian faith, and 
 who made no pretence of it, who yet have appeared 
 wonderfully dead to this world s power, and who sat 
 very loosely to the things of time and sense. And if 
 it were to " overcome the world," merely to turn 
 away from it in disgust, if he can be said to have 
 " overcome the world " who has broken away from all 
 the ties by which it maintains its hold on human 
 hearts, who has grown " weary of the sun," and 
 sick of all ambition, who flies the society of his race, 
 and scorns its opinions, then indeed it would be 
 hard to show that Christian faith in the heart is the 
 only thing that can " overcome the world." Rather 
 in that case we might say, that " This is the victory 
 that overcometh the world, even " disappointed am 
 bition, blighted affection, shattered nerves, frustrated 
 anticipations and hopes. Rather in that case should 
 
234 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 we point to the sated voluptuary, the betrayed politi 
 cian, the solitary misanthrope, than to the Christian, 
 genial, kind, and true. Rather in that case should 
 we have to seek the hero, victorious over time and 
 sense, where the lonely waves made sad music round 
 the cynic man-hater s dwelling, or where the poet s 
 genius has shown us the desolate wanderer, wearied 
 of all he felt, or heard, or saw. But that, my breth 
 ren, is not conquering the world : it is succumbing to 
 the- world ; it is letting the world conquer us ! It is 
 not to overcome the world, merely to take the pet at 
 it, like a spoiled child, because it will not let us have 
 our own way. In all these cases the moody dejec 
 tion which marks him who has thus turned his back 
 upon the world, testifies that the world has still its 
 hold upon his heart, and that, if the present cloud 
 were but removed, if times of prosperity came back, 
 he would return to earthly pursuits and follies with 
 as keen a relish as ever. We look with suspicion 
 upon him who professes that he has renounced the 
 world, just when the world has renounced him; who 
 lays down the empty cup, and says the draught is 
 bitter; who declares that the objects of earthly 
 ambition are vanity, but not till he has found 
 that they lie beyond his reach. No doubt, sorrows 
 and disappointments are sometimes the sharp dis 
 cipline by which God weans His children s hearts 
 from worldly things ; no doubt the path of tribulation 
 sometimes serves to quicken our steps towards the 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 255 
 
 kingdom of God ; no doubt experience of the insuffi 
 ciency of earthly things to make us happy oftentimes 
 tends to turn us to that Blessed Saviour who alone 
 can give peace and rest to our weary souls ; and in 
 this way all worldly troubles may be used by the 
 Holy Spirit as means for working in us that faith 
 which overcomes the world. But it is not mere 
 sorrow that overcomes the world ; nor is it sorrow 
 left to its own natural results. Sorrow by itself tends 
 merely to crush us down ; it brings us to the earth, 
 rather than raises us above it. It was natural in Job, 
 in his time of great desolation, to "fall down upon 
 the ground " ; but faith takes the further step, and 
 raises the affections from things on earth to things in 
 heaven. Sorrow is in itself an idle thing ; it leaves 
 us no heart to do anything ; yet God s Spirit, from 
 that unpromising source, sometimes draws forth that 
 energetic faith, which " purifieth the heart, and work- 
 eth by love, and overcometh the world." And then, 
 after the sorrow is gone, its happy results remain ; 
 the Saviour, whose preciousness was found in the 
 night of weeping, is still found precious when the 
 night has passed away ; the lesson learned under the 
 heavy discipline of sorrow is remembered and acted 
 upon when happier days return ; and the soul, eman 
 cipated from the trammels of the world, acknowledges 
 how good it was to be thus afflicted. A saving and 
 permanent change, visible in the whole life, is some 
 times left by the season of tribulation ; and then, in- 
 
256 THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 
 
 deed, the world has been overcome, when a calm res 
 ignation to all the appointments of God s good will 
 a resignation which is calm but not apathetic has 
 taken the place of that feverish anxiety about worldly 
 things to which we are all so prone. And so the 
 parent, who has lost his beloved child, has sometimes 
 been able to testify that a blessed lesson was taught 
 him by that little grave ; that the removal of that 
 dear one reminded him sharply of what he was forget 
 ting, that this is not our rest or our home ; and made 
 one tie more to that happy place where there is no 
 sin nor sorrow. 
 
 And now, as a practical conclusion to my discourse, 
 let me ask each of you whether you have overcome 
 the world. " Whatsoever is born of God overcometh 
 the world." It is a searching test this ; for it means 
 that he who has not overcome the world has not been 
 born of God. It means, that if a man be entirely 
 worldly in heart and life, he can be no believer. 
 How is it with us, then ? Do we feel most interest in 
 the things of time and sense ? Do we give more time 
 and thought to our worldly work, or to the great 
 employment of working out our salvation ? Are we 
 more anxious to be holy, humble disciples of Jesus, 
 than to get comfortably on through life ? Ah, breth 
 ren, answer these questions to yourselves ; these are 
 matters which lie between you and God. He knows 
 what your answer should be ! 
 
THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 257 
 
 "We read in history, my friends, what school-boy 
 has not heard of it ? of one in departed days, who 
 fancied that he had accomplished that hard task 
 which the Apostle John tells us can be accomplished 
 only by him who hath been born of God. We read 
 how he~ carried his victorious arms over every region 
 of the then known earth ; how he subjugated king 
 after king, and brought nation after nation beneath his 
 sway ; and then fancied that he had " overcome the 
 world!" We read how he felt it sad to think that 
 his heroic task was done, and how he wept that there 
 were no more worlds to conquer. Oh, far astray, far 
 mistaken ! There was one world to conquer yet, to 
 which that conqueror was a slave ; a world to over 
 come which the arms of Alexander* were of no avail ; 
 a world that can enslave the man who fancies he has 
 conquered it, can bind his soul in fetters, and hold 
 in captivity every feeling and thought. And that 
 world there is but one thing which can conquer. 
 Quietly fought, and fought year after year, this battle 
 is fought and won in the humble believer s heart : 
 " and this is the victory that overcometh the world, 
 even our faith ! " 
 
 17 
 
XV. 
 
 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 * There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to 
 man." 1 COR. x. 13. 
 
 VERY great number of people firmly 
 believe that there never were in this 
 world such people as themselves, and 
 that nobody ever did what they have 
 done, or came through what they have come through. 
 There is in almost every human being, and in none 
 more decidedly than the most commonplace, a lurking 
 belief that there never was such a being as himself. 
 You will find this especially in the narrower and less 
 cultivated minds ; and in them it often appears in 
 forms which are irritating and ridiculous. You will 
 find folk who really believe that they themselves, and 
 all their belongings, are much better than other folk, 
 and their belongings; that there never were such 
 children as theirs ; that there never were such flowers 
 and vegetables as theirs ; that there never were such 
 toils as theirs; and even (for there is no reckoning 
 the odd ways in which human vanity will gratify 
 itself) that there never were such headaches and such 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 259 
 
 worries as theirs. All this comes of a morbid self- 
 conceit. It is just the person who is below the aver 
 age of the race, who will fancy that he stands above 
 all his fellow-creatures. And all this goes rather to 
 constitute one of those weaknesses which should be 
 touched by the moralist, than to rank among those 
 graver matters of doctrine and practice which are to 
 be specially thought of in the house of prayer. 
 
 But there is a particular manifestation of the same 
 tendency in fallen human nature, against which an 
 apostle thought it worth while solemnly to caution his 
 friends in an epistle inspired by the Holy Spirit, and 
 which well deserves the most earnest consideration 
 which can be given it upon this day and in this place. 
 This tendency in each human soul to single itself out 
 from the mass of mankind does not always appear in 
 those self-conceited and unamiable forms to which we 
 have alluded. It sometimes manifests itself in forms 
 of feeling and belief which deserve our heartiest sym 
 pathy ; it often prompts human beings to write hard 
 things against themselves, and to esteem themselves 
 as parted from others, not by being better, but by 
 being worse. Every minister often meets with people 
 who, having been deeply convinced of their sinfulness, 
 and of their lost estate by nature, run into an ex 
 treme which for the time threatens to drive them to 
 despair. They fancy that there never were such sin 
 ners as they are ; that they have sinned beyond hope ; 
 that not even Christ s blood can wash away such sins 
 
260 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 as theirs ; that there never were such evil thoughts as 
 have passed through their hearts ; that there never 
 were transgressions so aggravated and so black as 
 theirs; that all the gracious words of Scripture you 
 can remind them of apply to other people, but not to 
 them ; that you may just leave them alone, as past all 
 redemption. Then you will find others who have got 
 past this mournful and distressing stage, who have 
 been brought to commit their souls to Christ, and who 
 have found some little measure of hope and peace, 
 but who seem likely to be desponding pilgrims to the 
 end. They ivill have it that there never were believ 
 ers so weak as they are ; never Christians with so 
 little heart for duty ; never Christians so little equal 
 to face the toils, perils, temptations of the way ; and 
 never such temptations, toils, and perils as those 
 which they must pass through. And in such cases as 
 those I have been describing there is nothing of that 
 silly vanity which has been spoken of; instead of 
 being vain of being different from others, the fancied 
 preeminence in sin and sorrow is a cause of deep and 
 unaffected anguish; and such poor souls would be 
 thankful if you could but assure and convince them 
 that they fare no worse than millions have fared be 
 fore them, that they share just the common lot of the 
 race. It was to such people as these that St. Paul 
 wrote the words of the text. They were pressed by 
 many temptations, these Christians of Corinth ; and 
 forasmuch as human nature is in its essence always 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 261 
 
 the same, we may well believe that they were some 
 times ready to despair, and to fancy that never were 
 believers pressed so hard. And so St. Paul assures 
 them, in words which would doubtless be felt as af 
 fording strong consolation, that it was to them just as 
 it had been to others. He says : " There hath no 
 temptation taken you, but such as is common to man." 
 The Apostle, you see, speaks of Temptation ; but 
 without the least straining, we may understand the 
 text as reaching to much more than that. It is not 
 temptation alone which we share with our race ; but 
 cares, sorrows, and bereavements too; in short, all 
 that makes the common lot of human-kind. We fancy, 
 when painful trials come to ourselves, that things so 
 painful were never felt before ; we feel trial so sharply 
 when it touches ourselves ; we cannot help its being 
 so. But our text reminds us that there is a limit 
 within which all human experience lies. Human 
 ability, and human endurance ; what man can do, and 
 what man can suffer: all these things have their teth 
 er, and cannot range very far. Here is a lesion of 
 humility for the self-conceited, who fancy that there 
 never were people* so clever or so wise or so laborious 
 as themselves ; let them remember that thousands 
 more have been at least as good. Here is comfort 
 for those bowed down under the sense of sinfulness, 
 and thinking that the human being never breathed 
 who had so provoked God s wrath and so wearied 
 God s forbearance ; thousands are now in heaven who 
 
262 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 once thought all that, and who have sinned as deeply 
 as they. Here is encouragement for the tempted, 
 ready to faint and fail ; thousands more have felt the 
 like, and by God s grace have been led safely through 
 it. There is nothing in our powers, our circum 
 stances, our sufferings, our merits, our sins, our temp 
 tations, but what lies within the reach of human experi 
 ence ; we are but treading the track which wiser and 
 better men have trodden before us. " There hath 
 nothing befallen us, but such as is common to man ! " 
 So you see, my friends, that the thought suggested 
 in the text may be useful as a medicine for two spirit 
 ual diseases most opposite to one another in nature. 
 You know that the two opposite errors to which be 
 lievers are tempted, as regards mood and feeling, are 
 Presumption and Despair. We may think of our 
 selves too highly ; we may judge ourselves too safe ; 
 we may fancy that we are quite equal to all the duty 
 and the temptation that can come our way. That is 
 the error upon one hand : that is presumption. And 
 the vain self-conceit which prompts to it meets its 
 rebuke in the assurance that we are no whit wiser, or 
 better, or safer, than o her men; and as we all know 
 how other men have failed and fallen, we may well 
 stand in fear lest we should do the like, and we may 
 well feel our simple dependence upon grace from 
 above, and seek it and look for it earnestly and daily. 
 But the pendulum swings as far to the left as it had 
 previously swung to the right; and as presumption 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 263 
 
 lies at the extremity on one side, so despair lies at the 
 extremity on the other ; and although downhearted 
 and desponding believers are oftentimes so almost 
 ceaselessly, still we all know, too, that believers some 
 times pass all of a sudden from the one extreme to 
 the other ; and you will find people who within a few 
 days or hours will pass through the most diverse and 
 inconsistent spiritual moods : at one time fancying 
 that their sins are beyond those of all other sinners, 
 and at another that their attainments are above those 
 of almost all other believers. Now we know, that, 
 though God disapproves Presumption, he also disap 
 proves its opposite, Despair ; and the distrust of God, 
 and the exaggerated sense of our own sinfulness and 
 weakness, which lead to Despair, find their remedy in 
 the self-same text which rebuked Presumption, in 
 the assurance that, great as is our guilt, the blood of 
 Christ has washed white souls as guilty ; that, great as 
 is our weakness, Christians as weak have been en 
 abled by God s Spirit to tread to the end a path as 
 rough and steep as ours can be ; and that, manifold as 
 are our temptations, they are no unexampled tempta 
 tions, that others have felt them all, that " there 
 hath no temptation taken us, but such as is common to 
 man." 
 
 My friends, it is to the comforting view of the text, 
 and not to the humbling one, that I wish at this time 
 to direct your thoughts. It was as comfort that St. 
 Paul addressed this text to the Corinthians. He did 
 
264 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 not mean to take them clown by it, but .to encourage 
 them. They had not reached that morbid stage, that 
 they were proud of their troubles, and given to boast 
 about them. The text is addressed to such as feel 
 their troubles and temptations far too deeply, and really 
 for that. And let us, this day, for our own comfort 
 and encouragement in our pilgrimage course, dwell for 
 a little upon the a-surance in the text, regarded in its 
 comforting aspect. Doubtless there are in this con 
 gregation some who need all the comfort the text can 
 yield ; and let us humbly ask that the Blessed Spirit 
 would convey its strong consolation to their hearts. 
 
 And the first case which suggests itself as one in 
 which the text may afford comfort, is, when the soul 
 is brought under the deep conviction of sin. You 
 know, my friends, that, if you wish to persuade a sick 
 man to send for the physician, the first thing you 
 must do is to convince him that he is sick. It is just 
 an application of that principle of plain common sense, 
 that, in order to get a man to take pains to get 
 anything, you must get him to see that he needs it, 
 and that he cannot do without it. Now, Christianity, 
 in all that part of it which human minds can under 
 stand, is essentially a common-sense scheme. And 
 the Holy Spirit, in leading men to believe in Christ, 
 acts upon plain principles, which we can all see to be 
 the right ones. The Holy Spirit begins His saving 
 work upon a careless human soul : see how He works. 
 He wishes to lead the careless soul to the Great Phy- 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 265 
 
 sieian of souls ; He begins, accordingly, by showing 
 the careless soul how sick it is. He wishes to lead 
 the man to labor and strive to find pardon and peace 
 with God ; He wishes Xis to go to the Saviour of sin 
 ners ; He begins by convincing us that we are sin 
 ners, and so that we need a Saviour. Now, there is 
 no doubt there is something very startling in the first 
 deep conviction that we are sinners. It is so new. 
 It is something quite strange. It is a conviction quite 
 different from that which we entertained before. For 
 the natural thing is, to think that w r e are not very 
 great sinners, that we have never done very many 
 sins, and that those which we have done are not so 
 very bad. And when God s Spirit convinces us of 
 sin, makes us really feel the sober truth of the con 
 fession of sin which we utter in our prayers without 
 at all meaning them, makes us really discern the 
 tremendous risk in which we stand of that fearful 
 doom whose mention is so often the profane man s 
 jest, then the soul is sometimes ready to run from 
 the one extreme, of Presumption, to the other ex 
 treme, of Despair, and to pass from an easy-going 
 indifference as to its salvation to an anxiety so urgent 
 and terrible as has sometimes threatened to overthrow 
 reason itself. And, doubtless, this is a sad and dark 
 stage to pass through ; if there be any within these 
 walls now passing through it, to such we would say, 
 dark and sad as it is, it is far better than the reckless 
 indifference which went before it : Be thankful that 
 
266 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 you are unhappy ; the Holy Spirit has not left you ; 
 He is making you feel that you are under the disease ; 
 and never fear but He will by and by lead you to the 
 remedy for it. The truly hopeless symptom in the 
 case of the unconverted man, is, when he knows he is 
 unconverted, and does not care at all. But, brethren, 
 one of the most common feelings of the soul awakened 
 to a sense of sin, is, that there never was sin like its 
 own. From fancying that he is hardly a sinner at all, 
 the man goes to the other extreme, and fancies that 
 there never was such a sinner in the world. It is not 
 in every case that this is so ; but assuredly it is so in 
 a very great number of cases. And deep as is the 
 soul s distress in that sad time, deep as is its sense of 
 sinfulness, it would be unspeakable comfort if you 
 could only persuade it that other men have felt the 
 like, and that others have had the self-same crushing 
 conviction of sin. No doubt, the feeling is a morbid 
 one which prompts any one to say : " I have sinned as 
 no other ever sinned ; I fear I am beyond hope, so 
 aggravated has been my guilt ; all that you can say 
 of God s mercy and the Redeemer s blood may give 
 comfort to others,. but not to me." The feeling that 
 prompts such words is a morbid one, indeed ; but it is 
 a common one : it is just a manifestation of the great 
 fact in our nature, that what touches ourselves comes 
 home to us as nothing else can ; and you will find 
 people, sharp enough at discerning the folly of such a 
 feeling in the case of others, who, when the Spirit 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 267 
 
 brings sin home to themselves, evince it all. Now, it 
 may be difficult to explain why, but it is quite certain 
 that there is something reassuring and comforting in 
 being really made to believe that we are no worse off 
 than others, in being really made to feel that all this 
 trouble we are passing through is nothing untried and 
 unprecedented, that we are journeying along no un 
 trodden way, but along a path beaten by the feet of 
 multitudes more. Oh that I could even now carry it 
 home to any, burdened down with the sense of sin, 
 that many who are now thankful and happy believers, 
 that many who are now in heaven, have had the self 
 same fears, and have seen their sins in the very same 
 way! Oh that I could carry it to the despairing 
 heart, that there is no sin but Christ s blood can wash 
 away ; that He did not come to save those who fan 
 cied they really do not need^much saving, but " to 
 save sinners, even the chief" ; that it is a hopeful sign 
 that we shall find the Physician of souls when we 
 feel how sorely we are stricken with the disease ; 
 and that sinfulness, in its very darkest manifestations, 
 is nothing other than a disease " which is common to 
 man " ! 
 
 A second case in which the text may afford com 
 fort, is that which the Apostle had especially in his 
 mind when he wrote it : it is in the prospect and 
 under the pressure of temptation. My friends, apart 
 from any reason which would bear logical scrutiny, 
 
268 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 there is comfort under any trouble in the bare thought 
 that other human beings have known the like trouble, 
 that we are treated no more hardly than our fellow- 
 men. But as regards temptation, our text suggests 
 more than merely this undefined and comparatively 
 sentimental consolation ; we can draw comfort under 
 temptation from our text by stern logic, as well as 
 through the medium of a kind of vague, emotional 
 impulse. For we may .soundly argue, that, if no 
 temptation is likely to assail us, except temptation 
 through which human souls as weak as we have by 
 God s grace passed safely into glory, then that we 
 too may hope, by the same blessed aid, to fight our 
 way through all the influences which would lead 
 towards ruin, till we enter on the holiness, the safety, 
 the rest above. That which man has done, man may 
 do. The great Adversary, and the ensnaring world, 
 fairly vanquished in a hundred battles, may well be 
 vanquished again. No doubt, we may imagine temp 
 tations which would be too much for human beings 
 to resist, and duties too weighty for human beings to 
 do ; but, if we be true believers, we have God s word 
 for it, that such shall not come our way. There is a 
 limit beyond which the strength of any impulse to 
 sin shall not be suffered to reach ; and though the 
 great Adversary and Tempter may go about continu 
 ally seeking whom he may deceive and mislead, after 
 all, he fights in fetters ; there is a point beyond 
 which his power and craft shall never be allowed to 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 269 
 
 reach ; and that is the point up to which each one 
 of us may, by honest effort on our own part, and by 
 God s directing and sustaining grace, fairly resist and 
 vanquish him. Temptation may indeed often come, 
 which the man who does not honestly want to resist 
 it may be willing to fancy irresistible ; it is not a 
 half-hearted opposition that will suffice to put temp 
 tation down ; and in too many instances we are all 
 but too anxious to persuade ourselves that, under 
 pressure so strong as that which is bearing upon us, 
 we should be more than human if we did not devi 
 ate somewhat from the strict line of right. When 
 you meet some malignant injury, there is a strong 
 provocation to bitterness and revenge ; when you are 
 passed over in favor of one you may think less de 
 serving than yourself, there is a strong provocation 
 to envy, discontent, murmuring against God ; when 
 you have the opportunity of acquiring profit by means 
 which are unfair and dishonest, but which you know 
 quite well that many reputable people would not for 
 a moment hesitate to employ, there is a strong temp 
 tation to stifle the voice of conscience and of God s 
 Spirit, and to do that unfair thing. But in every 
 such case you know thoroughly well, that, though 
 temptation was strong, it was not by any means over 
 whelming ; you could have resisted it if you had hon 
 estly tried ; and the reason why you yielded to it was 
 not that temptation was irresistible, but that inclina 
 tion lay that way. You know perfectly well, that for 
 
270 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 the evil you have done, even under that pressure, you 
 are justly responsible to God. And you would not 
 feel that you were thus responsible, if you could truly 
 say at God s judgment-seat, that before Him you 
 could not choose but do the evil you have done ; 
 that you were powerless in the hand of temptation, 
 and could but drift before it as a ship before the 
 overmastering hurricane. So, you see, there is a 
 double lesson in our text for those subjected to temp 
 tation. There is comfort, and there is caution. If 
 you honestly and truly wish to go on in God s way, 
 there is abounding comfort. There is the comfort, 
 that, though manifold temptations will strive to lead 
 you wrong, though many siren voices may whisper 
 evil to your heart, and many weighty considerations 
 may tend towards profitable and pleasant sin, and 
 though a whole array of crafty spirits may plot your 
 downfall, and though their dark, malignant Ruler be 
 ever near, still, that the temptation will never 
 come that would need angelic strength to resist, the 
 temptation will never come that human beings like 
 ourselves have not faced already, and which God s 
 grace and our own faithful endeavors will not enable 
 us to pass through. But there is the caution, too, 
 that, if you are an insincere and half-hearted Chris 
 tian, seeking to just reach heaven at last, after having 
 held by the world here, you need never think to 
 cloak your own proneness to go astray under the pre 
 text that temptation overpowered you. Never think, 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 271 
 
 as some hypocritically do, to cast wholly upon Satan 
 the sin into which they went quite readily themselves. 
 You will find people who will utter phrases of hate 
 ful cant which seem to imply that it is Satan s fault 
 they have done wrong, and that it is really nc 
 concern of theirs. Ah, brethren, when a man sins, 
 the sin is essentially his own. He must answer for 
 it himself. Satan might tempt him to do wrong ; 
 but Satan could not compel him to do wrong ; his 
 own evil heart must have consented to the evil he 
 has done. Satan is bad enough ; but some people 
 would hypocritically give him credit for things with 
 which he has very little to do. I know, my hearers, 
 that cases may be supposed in which temptation may 
 be regarded as truly overwhelming. I know that the 
 starving man would be punished neither by man nor 
 by God for taking the bread which is to save him 
 from death by famine ; but that case is almost the 
 only supposable one in which, in actual life, temptation 
 ever becomes truly irresistible ; and such cases we 
 may very fitly leave to the Divine justice and mercy. 
 I know that even human law admits that strong prov 
 ocation may diminish responsibility, though it do not 
 destroy it ; and we may be sure that all the principles 
 of right and justice will not be forgot by God. But 
 the believer has a sure promise, which the worldly 
 man has not, that all overwhelming extremes of 
 temptation shall be warded off from him. For how 
 speaks the Apostle, in the words which follow those 
 
272 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 of the text ? " God is faithful, who will not suffer 
 you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will 
 with the temptation also make a way to escape, that 
 ye may be able to bear it." 
 
 The last case which I shall mention, as one in 
 which the text may speak comfort, is under great sor 
 row, under bereavement, or trial of any kind. I 
 am not forgetting how beautifully it has been said that 
 in bereavement there is no consolation here. You 
 remember how the greatest of living poets speaks 
 of the fashion in which some tried to comfort him 
 under the loss of his dearest friend : 
 
 " One writes, that other friends remain, 
 That loss is common to the race : 
 And common is the commonplace, 
 And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 
 
 " That loss is common would not make 
 My own less bitter, rather more; 
 Too common ! Never morning wore 
 To evening, but some heart did break." 
 
 I know, brethren, that it may be said heartlessly, 
 but even in the face of the poet s lines, I say there is 
 comfort in sorrow, when it is rightly regarded, in the 
 truth that " there hath nothing befallen us but such as 
 is common to man." Surely, even the thought that 
 we have companions in sorrow, that those who have 
 felt the like can feel for us, and understand our dis 
 tress, and sympathize with us, has in it something of 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 273 
 
 comfort. I think that the mother, who has lost her 
 child, would feel a consolation, hard perhaps to define, 
 when another, who has passed through the like trial, 
 does but come and sit by her, and say no word but 
 that she has felt the same. Surely, there is some 
 thing consoling to our heart, amid earthly sorrows, in 
 the bare remembrance that our Saviour understands 
 them, because He has felt them all! But the text 
 suggests comfort which may appear to some as more 
 substantial than this. It suggests to us not merely 
 this vague relief, not merely that amid our deepest 
 and freshest grief there is encouragement in the sight 
 of others who have now in so far got over the like, 
 who have tamed their sorrow, who have found that 
 grief is transitory, no less than joy, and that though it 
 may not leave us what we were, still it leaves us, 
 but the text suggests, too, that others who have known 
 such sorrow as we feel, have been enabled by God s 
 grace to bear it, and profit by it, and learn from it, 
 and be sanctified by it ; and surely there is something 
 in that thought which should enable us to bow the 
 more submissively to our Heavenly Father s will. I 
 say there is comfort in the remembrance that the best 
 and noblest of the race have felt all we feel ; that 
 through like tribulation the souls in glory have " en 
 tered into the kingdom of God " ; that the best hearts 
 that ever beat have known the pang of sorrow and be 
 reavement ; that the best of the race have bent over 
 the freshly-covered grave ; ay, and gone back to the 
 18 
 
1 
 
 274 THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 world to be the better, kinder, and nobler, for the 
 sad discipline they had gone through ! Others have 
 known it, others have borne it bravely, others have 
 been sanctified by it, others have been prepared for 
 glory by it, and so may we. Yes, this thought is a 
 commonplace ; and better so. It would not be true if 
 it were not. It would not be level to our understand 
 ing and our sympathy, if it were something new that 
 people had to find out, after human beings have been 
 sinning and sorrowing for near six thousand years. 
 I say there is comfort, real and deep, in thinking that 
 the path of sorrow we tread has been beaten smooth 
 and wide by the feet of the best that ever trod this 
 world ; that our Blessed Saviour was a Man of Sor 
 rows ; and that the best of His Church have been suf 
 fered to journey by no other path than that their Mas 
 ter went. It is not alone that the mourner travels 
 through this vale of tears : apostles and prophets are 
 of the company ; saints and martyrs go with him ; 
 and the sorrowful face of the Great Redeemer, though 
 sorrowful now no more, remains forever with the old 
 look of brotherly sympathy to His servants eyes 
 and hearts. Nothing hath come to us, nothing will 
 come to us, but has been shared by better men. 
 Search out the human being suffering the sharpest 
 sorrow, and we can match it, in the best of the Church 
 of God. We fancy, in our dark days, that no other 
 heart ever felt what we feel. There was a man 
 who directed that, when he was buried, his gravestone 
 
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 275 
 
 should bear no record of his name or history, but just 
 the single word Miserrimus: Most Wretched ; and he 
 sleeps under the pavement of one of the great cathe 
 drals of England, with that one word to mark the 
 place. You see there, my friends, the natural feeling 
 which you yourselves have known ; but you may be 
 sure it is wrong. It is not now, after the tribulation 
 of all these ages, that any human soul can reach that 
 sad preeminence ! God sanctify sorrow to us, as He 
 has sanctified it to others ! They trod the path we 
 tread ; and we may humbly hope that it will conduct 
 us to the rest in which they are dwelling. And 
 meanwhile, be sure of this, you who have lately 
 known deep sorrow, you who have bent over the 
 grave where your dearest was laid to sleep the long 
 sleep till the Resurrection day, that nothing has 
 come to you but what God can comfort under, that 
 nothing has come to you but what God can hallow 
 into precious blessing; because there hath nothing 
 befallen you, but what the Wisest and Kindest has 
 seen meet to suffer, shall be common to fallen 
 man I 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL 
 SPIRITS. 
 
 " Your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seek 
 ing whom he may devour." 1 PETER v. 8. 
 
 " And the angels . which kept not their first estate, but left their 
 own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under 
 darkness unto the judgment of the great day." JUDE 6. 
 
 " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for 
 the Devil and his angels." ST. MATT. xxv. 41. 
 
 OU know, my friends, that when an army 
 is on active service, there is no effort 
 which its commander will spare to get 
 accurate information about the army 
 which is opposed to him. He uses all the means in 
 his power, he undergoes great fatigues, and his 
 agents and emissaries are content to run the most 
 fearful risks, that he may learn what is the number 
 of the force arrayed against him, what is its position, 
 what its probable movements. And if any skilful 
 spy could so far penetrate the councils of the hostile 
 commander as to be able to procure a sketch of his 
 plan for conducting the campaign, we can all under 
 stand that such a plan would be worth almost any 
 

 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 277 
 
 price. For to be forewarned is to be forearmed ; and 
 if you know exactly what are the tactics which are to 
 be employed against you, it will be comparatively 
 easy to evade them. 
 
 And, without any minute acquaintance with military 
 matters, we all know that one of the things which a 
 skilful general takes pains to do, is to organize such 
 a system of spies and the like as may keep him al 
 ways well informed of the position, strength, and pos 
 sible movements of his enemies. Thus he makes sure, 
 so far as may be, that he shall never be taken by sur 
 prise. And we can all understand that he would be 
 a very unwise and unskilful commander, who should 
 make up his mind that he did not want to know any 
 thing at all about his adversaries : about how many 
 of them there might be ; about the time when they 
 might choose to attack him ; about the point on which 
 they might make their attack; about the particular 
 kind of attack they might make. And if the military 
 commander, in addition to closing his eyes and ears 
 against all warning as to the host of foes that were 
 waiting to swoop down upon him, were occasionally 
 to allude to them, and the risks he ran from them, as 
 forming an excellent jest ; if he brought those around 
 him to this point, that it was an understood thing that 
 there was something essentially ludicrous in the men 
 tion of the name of these powerful and crafty foes, so 
 that every silly creature who only managed to intro 
 duce their name into his common speech should be 
 
278 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 regarded as having said something smart and witty ; 
 I think you will agree that an army so guided and 
 commanded would be in the sure way to defeat, and 
 disgrace, and destruction. 
 
 And yet, my friends, it is hardly necessary to tell 
 you, that it is precisely in that fashion that very many 
 human beings are accustomed to treat the most skilful, 
 crafty, malignant, and it may be numerous army of 
 foes that ever has been arrayed against God or man. 
 It is a part of our religious belief that a host of be 
 ings, with power and skill far more than human, are 
 daily and hourly exerting all their power and all their 
 skill for an end which is no other and no less than 
 our eternal ruin ; it is not the defeat which one mor 
 tal army would inflict upon another that they desire 
 to inflict upon us; the thing which they wish and 
 work to bring upon us, is our eternal misery, and sin, 
 and shame. It is part of our religious belief, that at 
 the head of this host of foes there is one miserable, 
 yet powerful being, a being inconceivably malignant, 
 crafty, powerful, wretched, whose great desire is to 
 dishonor God, and to make us poor human beings as 
 sinful and as wretched as himself : our " adversary 
 the Devil, who, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seek 
 ing whom he may devour." And we are taught, too, 
 that this blasted being is the head and leader of an 
 army of spirits, once pure and happy, but now wicked 
 and wretched, who, under the darkness of God s 
 wrath, and with powers somewhat limited by the 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 279 
 
 chains of God s will, with no ray of hope before them 
 in the blank, desolate Eternity, are acting as the 
 Devil s emissaries for human temptation and destruc 
 tion, and doing all they can to lead us downward to 
 those everlasting fires prepared for him and them. 
 Oh, what a dreary, awful picture is sketched out by 
 those three passages of Scripture which I read to you 
 as my text ! What despair for our adversaries ; what 
 peril, what warning for ourselves ! And how, then, 
 do you think it would strike a stranger, if we were to 
 tell him that multitudes of men, assailed every mo 
 ment by that black army, do practically shut their 
 eyes to the fact, never take the slightest pains to 
 learn anything about the power and the wiles of their 
 worst enemies, nay, are so far from seriously under 
 standing and feeling the force of all this which they 
 believe, that the mention of beings, or of a being, so 
 miserable, so awful, so tremendously energetic, active, 
 cunning, malignant, is regarded by some men as a 
 very amusing thing, as giving point to a jest which 
 has little other point, as a signal, whenever it is in 
 troduced, for the empty laughter of the fool ! Oh, 
 surely a subject of such horror, and the contemplation 
 of so much depravity and such unutterable misery, 
 could never be regarded as matter of amusement and 
 jesting, unless by souls blinded and misled by the 
 wiles of the dark Father of Lies himself ! 
 
 Now, there is no doubt at all that we have all to 
 contend with a certain amount of lurking unbelief in 
 
280 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS 
 
 regard to those evil spirits of which we are to think 
 this afternoon. There is something strange in think 
 ing that we, in this commonplace life, and living amid 
 these familiar scenes we know, are indeed day by day 
 subjected to the attacks and the arts of infernal spirits. 
 It would somehow not strike us as so strange, to think 
 of these beings as assailing human souls in distant 
 places and in ages past. In the solitary wilderness 
 of Sinai, amid rifted rocks and hills of red sand, it is 
 easier to think of the Devil and his angels working 
 upon the heart than to think of them doing so in the 
 case of a human being who lives in a house in an 
 Edinburgh Row, and sometimes walks along Princes 
 Street. Let us face these facts ; little things like 
 these have a very great practical effect on the minds 
 of most men ; and many things, not at all of the na 
 ture of argument, have a very real, though undeserved, 
 influence upon our convictions and belief. And not 
 merely is there among professing Christians a great 
 amount of practical unbelief as regards the existence 
 and influence of Evil Spirits, not merely are we all 
 subjected to a strong, undefined temptation, practically 
 to forget and set aside the solemn fact that real per 
 sons, cleverer and sharper by far than ourselves, are 
 ever near us, with power of mysterious access to our 
 souls, and with the will to do us all the mischief they 
 can, but it is doubtless known to some of you that 
 theoretical unbelief has in some cases grown, as it 
 very usually does, out of practical, and that many 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 281 
 
 men who profess to be Christians have proceeded 
 from living as if there were no malignant spirits plot 
 ting our ruin, to holding the belief that in fact there 
 are none such. You will find men who will tell you 
 that the existence of Satan and his angels is an anti 
 quated doctrine, fitted for a ruder age, but not suited 
 to our growing intelligence ; they will tell you that it 
 is not to be supposed that God would suffer such be 
 ings to exist and to assail us, and that all that was 
 said by Christ and His Apostles with regard to evil 
 spirits all that they said implying that there are 
 such beings, and that they can do, harm to man 
 must be understood as having been said in compliance 
 with the vulgar way of thinking. But I think you 
 will see that such arguments as these against the 
 doctrine of the real being of evil spirits are of no 
 force whatever. As to the notion that the Almighty 
 would not suffer such, why, there is no greater diffi 
 culty in understanding why He permits evil spirits 
 than in understanding why He permits evil men. 
 And we know that God not only allows evil men to 
 exist, but allows them to tempt and mislead other 
 human souls to evil, in short, allows them to do the 
 self-same work which some so rashly say it is incon 
 ceivable that God should permit to be done at all. 
 And as for the notion that Christ and the Apostles in 
 speaking of evil spirits were merely complying with 
 the vulgar way of thinking, merely to put that 
 notion plainly before our minds is enough to set it 
 
282 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 aside. See what it comes to. That there are no evil 
 spirits ; that it is a foolish error to fancy there are ; 
 that people, however, generally fancied there are ; and 
 that our Saviour, for fear of shocking their prejudice, 
 gave in to that foolish error, and countenanced it. 
 Now, is that conceivable ? Would that have been 
 worthy of Him who is the Truth ; would that shifty, 
 tricky, mean, uncandid policy have been like Jesus of 
 Nazareth ? No, my friends ; there is 110 resisting the 
 teaching of inspiration, as set forth even in those 
 verses which form my text, that you and I, in leading 
 our spiritual life, .have to contend with real, personal 
 beings striving to lead us wrong ; that there is some 
 thing more against us than merely the force of cir 
 cumstances, and the current of events in a fallen 
 world ; that not merely the evil world around us, and 
 the evil heart within us, are driving us away from 
 God, but that these are seconded and used by real 
 persons of the greatest power and craft. Ought we 
 not to seek to know something of the nature and the 
 wiles of our great adversaries ; ought we not to study 
 with care all that God has revealed to us about them, 
 and the ways in which they may assail us, that with 
 His grace and blessing we may be forearmed against 
 their assault ? Ah, brethren, if any of you were told 
 that some savage wild beast had escaped from its con 
 finement, and was roaming the country, destroying all 
 it met, would you not be anxious to learn where it had 
 seen, and how it attacked its victims, that so you 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 283 
 
 might know how best to escape it ? And is there less 
 reason for fear and for caution, less reason for anxious 
 inquiry and for careful preparation, when God s sol 
 emn word assures us that " our adversary the Devil, 
 as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he 
 may devour " ? We do not see him and his subject 
 demons ; but, surely, if we rightly judged, that does 
 not make them less, but far more dangerous. What 
 do you think a human robber or murderer would give 
 for the power of rendering himself invisible at will ? 
 Would not that multiply a thousand-fold his ability to 
 do harm? Yes, and give those to whom he wished 
 to do harm a thousand-fold more reason to stand in 
 hourly fear of him ! 
 
 We all know that the Bible contains many refer 
 ences to evil spirits, unclean spirits, or devils ; and it 
 is worthy of being remembered that in the New Tes 
 tament there is very much more frequent mention 
 made of evil angels than of good angels. For what 
 ever advantages we may ever derive from the aid and 
 guidance of good angels, we gain by the direct inter 
 vention of God ; and we are not to think of making 
 any application to any good spirit for his help. It is 
 not by personal applications or prayers to good angels 
 themselves that we can hope to get them for our 
 guardians. We are not to invoke for ourselves the 
 kindly care of those bright beings, but to ask of God 
 to keep us and care for us by whatever instrumentality 
 He thinks best. But it is different with evil spirits. 
 
284 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 Against them we are called personally to guard. We 
 may, by our own evil thoughts and ways, tempt them to 
 tempt us. The visits of pure angels have been, in the 
 history of our race, few and far between. The great 
 Adversary, and his accursed spirits, are ever near. 
 To them we may open our hearts. For them we may 
 smoothe a path to us. And them we may by God s 
 grace resist, and drive away. We are exposed to 
 great perils from them, against which we need to be 
 guarded. 
 
 The teaching of Scripture, as has been said, is, that 
 at the head of the kingdom of evil there is placed one 
 being, of vast power, craft, and malignity. That from 
 the earliest ages he has been the adversary of God ; 
 and that very soon after the creation of our race he 
 was the tempter, too successfully, of man. " He was 
 a murderer from the beginning ; " " He is a liar and 
 the father of lies." " He that committeth sin is of 
 the Devil, for the Devil sinneth from the beginning. 
 For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that 
 He might destroy the works of the Devil." When 
 the word of God, fallen upon man s heart, seems likely 
 to grow up into good fruit there, " then cometh the 
 Devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts." 
 Inferior to this great father of mischief, there is a 
 great host of evil spirits, or demons ; concerning whom 
 we are told that they are angels who kept not their 
 first estate, but left their own habitation ; beings who, 
 having fallen into sin and misery, seek to lead others 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 285 
 
 into sin and misery, too. And when we find powers 
 ascribed to Satan which somewhat perplex us, as ap 
 pearing to transcend those of a mere creature, as 
 when we find Scripture speaking of him as attacking 
 and tempting many men in many places at once, 
 we are to believe that he does so by means of his angels 
 and emissaries; and so may properly be said to do 
 what he does by them ; as when we say of a military 
 commander that he wins a battle, or occupies a prov 
 ince ; that is, l^e does it through the agency of the 
 soldiers he commands. And thus, my friends, for 
 what we know, there may be around us a host of evil 
 spirits, exceeding the number of our race ; invisible 
 to our view, yet with ready access to our hearts ; with 
 craft and talent and ingenuity infinitely surpassing 
 ours ; and earnestly and ceaselessly, with the malig 
 nity of utter despair, bending those great energies upon 
 the work of our eternal ruin. That air may be 
 thick with them ; this church may be thronged with 
 them ; our own hearts may be in the grasp of one or 
 of many of them ! Oh, brethren, when you soberly 
 think of all this, can there be a more appalling 
 thought ! 
 
 But the thing of practical moment for each of us 
 is the manner in which they make their attack upon 
 us. And it is not too much to say that we may be 
 quite sure that they will attack us in the most crafty 
 way. And will not the most crafty way in which an 
 evil spirit can present himself and his temptations 
 
286 PERSONALITY AXD AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 to our mind and heart be the way in which we least 
 expect him to do so? Yes; Scripture tells us that 
 Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. 
 He is too cunning to present himself in his own 
 black colors, when he can veil himself in a more 
 engaging form. We can well imagine that it might 
 form part of the tactics of the great Adversary to 
 seek to induce men to believe that there are no such 
 things as evil spirits at all ; we may well trace his 
 handiwork in that disposition to treat with levity and 
 as a jest the mention of his ill-omened name. We 
 can well imagine how evil spirits may set themselves 
 to make men fancy that the mode of their attacks is 
 widely different from what it is in fact ; and so to 
 trace their presence and influence not in evil thoughts 
 and suggestions which weave in so naturally with the 
 workings of our own minds, and seem to arise so 
 spontaneously there, that it is hard to refer their 
 origin to anything apart from ourselves ; but rather 
 in ghastly appearances, in frightful shapes, in childish 
 legends of compacts made in wild solitudes and writ 
 ten in letters of blood. Ah, brethren, not such are 
 the assaults of Satan and the blasted beings he com 
 mands ! The Devil and his angels are not so simple 
 as to take pains to caution men against themselves. 
 You will find people whose notion of evil spirits is 
 of dark and awful forms, physically horrible ; and the 
 genius of the artist has often pictured on the canvas 
 shapes so ghastly, as those in which such spirits have 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 287 
 
 manifested themselves to human ken, that it might 
 almost seem as if they fancied it likely that these 
 malignant deceivers would take pains to announce the 
 truth about themselves, and bid all clearly understand 
 how bad and foul they are. No ; the day may come 
 when they shall be revealed to all the universe, as 
 fearful in aspect as they are evil in character : but 
 not yet. Why, if the Devil showed himself to our 
 eyes or hearts in his true aspect, do you think that 
 would be a temptation to any one ? No ; it would 
 be the most effectual caution and warning against him. 
 It is God s Word that tells us how he goes about like 
 a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour ; he is 
 not likely to announce that himself. Do you think a 
 fraudulent trader would go about proclaiming that he 
 was a rogue, and that if you dealt with him he would 
 be sure to cheat you ? If a man were trying to get 
 you to buy his bad wares, would he be likely to take 
 pains to tell you how bad they were ? Would the 
 cheat succeed in defrauding any one, if he laid open 
 the arts by which he hoped to defraud men ; if he 
 openly said, Buy my knives, they won t cut ; Buy my 
 cloth, it won t wear ; Embark in my ship, it is sure 
 to go to the bottom and drown all on board? No, 
 my friends ; the evil one and his angels are not weak 
 enough to announce to us how evil they are, and how 
 bent upon our destruction. The old serpent did not 
 go to the mother of our race, and say, Here is the 
 fruit which God forbade you to eat ; if you eat it you 
 
288 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 are sure to die; but never mind about that; it is 
 pleasant, and just eat it notwithstanding. Nay, what 
 were his fair words : " Ye shall not surely die ! " 
 And so, brethren, when Satan would tempt us to our 
 ruin, he is not likely formally to suggest to us that he 
 will give us a price in exchange for our soul ; he is 
 not likely to offer to any man possessed of reason so 
 much money or so much power in exchange for Jiis 
 eternal misery ; the weakest man would hardly make 
 a bargain like that, with the facts fairly stated to him : 
 That, in truth, would be no temptation at all. No 
 doubt, Satan often actually succeeds in driving a bar 
 gain which really amounts to that ; no doubt he often 
 actually gets the soul of man, and for a very poor 
 price indeed; but man makes the bargain without 
 seeing that he is doing so ; and if the Adversary does 
 not actually present himself in the guise of an angel 
 of light, he does at least persuade his victim that he 
 is not so black after all; that the sin to which he 
 tempts is not so malignantly bad, and the doom to 
 which he urges is doubtful and far away. It is in 
 our own growing worldliness of spirit, in our own 
 heart getting more and more set upon the things of 
 time and sense, in our own disposition to put off the 
 care of religion to the more convenient season which 
 never comes, in our own temper of careless easy- 
 mindedness, forgetful of the awful realities of heaven 
 and hell, and vaguely trusting that through God s 
 mercy things will somehow go right for eternity with 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 289 
 
 little thought or pains on our part, oh, brethren, it 
 is in symptoms like these that we may read the fearful 
 indications that the Devil and his angels are working 
 too successfully upon our hearts. I do not mention 
 the stimulus of unholy passion, of covetousness, of 
 envy, of a pharisaic and self-righteous spirit, of the 
 disposition to detraction and slander; though in all 
 these, too, we may read the doing of the first great 
 slanderer of God and seducer of man. You fancy 
 that the bitter, angry spirit that grows up within you 
 at some slight offence is but the working of your own 
 natural temperament ; ah, you do not know how it 
 may be fomented and encouraged by some dark being, 
 specially devoting himself to the task. The inquisitor 
 of the Middle Ages, as he watched the rebel against 
 priestly tyranny stretched upon the rack, fancied that 
 it was honest religious zeal that impelled the torture 
 which he inflicted ; he little thought that, while fancy 
 ing he was doing God service, he was actuated by the 
 crafty promptings of the spirit of all wrath and bitter 
 ness and cruelty within. In brief, my friends, it is 
 reasonable and right for us to suspect the presence 
 and influence of an evil spirit in every temptation we 
 ever feel to sin or error, in every intellectual process 
 that would cast doubt upon God s revealed religion, in 
 every impulse that would prompt to any deed or any 
 thought that varies from the mind and example of our 
 Blessed Saviour Himself. It is only while walking 
 with God, in that way in which His Holy Spirit 
 19 
 
290 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 would lead us, that we can ever be sure that we are 
 not unconsciously actuated by the direction of unclean 
 demons ; and we never can be certain, in the case of 
 any thought or feeling or impulse within us not in 
 spired from above, that it is not whispered in our ear 
 or instilled into our heart by some wretched and ma 
 lignant fiend. Not by the mere natural working of 
 our fallen mind does the evil suggestion arise ; but 
 weaving in with that, mysteriously cooperating with 
 that, reinforcing and aggravating that, comes the 
 baneful influence from the place of perdition ! 
 
 And yet, though this truth be a most awful one, it 
 is a salutary one ; it is one which it is good for us to 
 remember and reflect upon. Is there not something 
 here to fill us with the greater horror and detestation 
 of sin, to lead us to the more resolute battling with 
 temptation ? Think that in every temptation to sin 
 you have a real being, a person, trying to lead you 
 into guilt and ruin. Think that every time you sin, 
 you are doing the very thing that your very \vor,-t 
 and most malicious enemy wishes you to do, and is 
 pushing and enticing you to do ! Christian brethren, 
 is not that a motive to hate and shun sin, to resist 
 and battle with temptation? And remember, too, 
 that by God s grace, and by the aid of that stronger 
 and mightier Spirit of holiness, and truth, and com 
 fort, who is promised to be with us, you will not resist 
 in vain. Your ally is a thousand-fold more powerful 
 than your adversary: the Spirit of the living God, 
 
PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 291 
 
 who is upon your side, is able to strengthen you to 
 withstand the strength, and to enlighten you to un 
 ravel the wiles, even of one who, so far as we know, 
 appears to be God s craftiest and mightiest, though 
 most miserable and most wicked creature. And by the 
 very nature of this creation which God made, honest, 
 conscious resistance to temptation goes to make the 
 temptation grow weaker, even as compliance with 
 temptation goes to make the temptation grow stronger. 
 And the same law extends, we know, to the chief 
 tempter of all. How speaks God s Word ? " Resist 
 the Devil and he will flee from you! " Faithfully in 
 God s strength strive against every impulse to sin, 
 and with each successive defeat the attacks of the 
 father of mischief will grow weaker and less frequent. 
 Under that law God has bound him, that earnestly 
 resisted he must flee; it is only where he and his 
 agents meet a half-hearted opposition, or even find 
 the doors of the soul thrown open to admit them, that 
 they can enter in, and set up a sway in that heart, and 
 bind it in chains that never will be broken, the 
 chains of inveterate, ineradicable habit, of hopeless 
 worldliness of soul and wickedness of life. Oh, my 
 Christian brethren, as you care for your souls, strive 
 and pray against temptation ; you are resisting Satan 
 then ! Every time you wilfully yield to temptation, 
 you are welcoming the Devil and his angels . to your 
 heart ; you are giving them a settlement there from 
 which you may never be able to dislodge them, here 
 
292 PERSONALITY AND AGENCY OF EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 or hereafter ! How solemn a meaning does all this 
 cast upon that petition in our Lord s prayer, in which 
 He bids us say, "Lead us not into temptation, but 
 deliver us from evil ! " Many of you know that the 
 word translated evil there, means the evil one ; so that 
 Christ speaks of the temptation and the tempter as 
 meaning the same thing : " Lead us not into tempta 
 tion, but deliver us from the tempter ; " that is the 
 meaning of the petition ; the prayer for deliverance 
 from temptation is a prayer for deliverance from Sa 
 tan and his dark array. All temptation, everything, 
 every influence that can ever lead to sin or suffering, 
 is of him or through him, or seconded and aided by 
 him. Oh, may God s kind, mighty Spirit so sanctify 
 these poor, weak, wayward hearts, that we may 
 rightly resist evil spirits, until they finally flee away ! 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST.* 
 
 
 
 " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema 
 Maranatha." 1 COR. xvi. 22. 
 
 THINK, my friends, that words so sol 
 emn as these need nothing beyond their 
 own weighty meaning to commend them 
 to our grave attention. Still, it is worth 
 our remembering, because it is something that shows 
 St. Paul attached especial importance to them, that 
 the great Apostle wrote them with his own hand, at 
 the close of an Epistle which, according to his wont, 
 he had dictated to another. Some think that it was 
 part of K the thorn in the flesh " he bore, that his 
 hands always trembled so, that he wrote slowly arid 
 with pain. And you can all imagine how, when this 
 Epistle came to Corinth, and the Christians there 
 bent over its leaves in little groups, all anxious to 
 know what was St. Paul s last message to them, 
 though they would read with deep concern the Apos 
 tle s words, traced in the clear, bold handwriting of 
 
 * Preached at the celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord s 
 Supper. 
 
294 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus, they would 
 look with deeper interest yet upon the tremulous 
 lines, where the Apostle had at the last taken the pen 
 into his own hand, and striven to give in a single sen 
 tence the sum of all he had said before. If there 
 was anything in the whole Epistle which more than 
 another he wished them to remember, surely they had 
 it here ! 
 
 And as to the words in which this verse is ex 
 pressed, you know that Anathema means accursed, 
 and Maranatha means The Lord is coming. So the 
 text means, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, let him be accursed ; " and it is understood 
 that the addition of the Maranatha makes a more 
 solemn fashion of denouncing such a one s doom. 
 
 But it is easier to understand the Apostle s mean 
 ing than it is at the first thought to approve his senti 
 ment. It seems a curious thing, and a contradictory 
 thing, and not like the doing of a man who knew 
 much of human nature, to enforce, by a fearful curse, 
 the duty of loving the kind, merciful, loving Saviour, 
 whom we specially remember this day. For that is 
 not the way to get any one to love Christ. You 
 cannot frighten the human soul into loving. You 
 cannot make a man love Christ by assuring him that 
 he shall suffer in endless perdition if he do not love 
 Christ. Even if by such means you made any one 
 anxious to love Christ, he might not be able to do 
 so, though he were ever so desirous. But we are to 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 295 
 
 remember that these words of St. Paul are not a 
 curse, as we understand that phrase. The text does 
 not mean that St. Paul wished or desired that any 
 one should be wretched forever. The text only con 
 veys that the Apostle knew that thus it would be, 
 and felt that thus it ought to be. And the Apostle 
 knew, too, that, though the firmest belief that we 
 never can be happy away from Christ, and without 
 loving Christ, would not of itself suffice to awaken in 
 our hearts the holy affection of love to Him, still, 
 that it might serve a great end in making us more 
 earnest in using all the means which directly tend 
 to awaken that affection in our hearts. And it is in 
 this belief that I have selected the great principle 
 laid down in the text for our meditation on the 
 morning of our Communion Sabbath. We have come 
 here this day especially to remember our Blessed 
 Saviour ; we have come to look upon the emblems 
 of His broken body and shed blood, which testify His 
 dying love towards us. We have come, hoping that 
 the Holy Spirit of all grace may touch our hearts 
 with warmer than ordinary love towards Him who 
 loved us, and gave Himself to death for us. We 
 humbly ask it of Him, from whom all holy affections 
 proceed, that all the solemn services of Communion 
 may bring more plainly before us all that our Blessed 
 Redeemer is, and all that He did and suffered for us ; 
 and so make us feel how happy it is, and how easy 
 it is when God enables us, to love Him with heart 
 
296 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 and soul and mind. And as we know something of 
 that love of Christ towards us which passeth knowl 
 edge, and (by God s grace) feel something of it 
 within our own souls, it will be profitable for us to 
 see that it is no mere wilfulness on the part of the 
 Almighty that leads Him to set up this Christian 
 grace as of such essential and supreme importance, 
 that there is nothing arbitrary in the great principle, 
 that he who does not " love the Lord Jesus Christ " 
 never will be happy, but that in truth he never 
 will because he never can. I wish, my friends, to 
 make you see the reasonableness of the great prin 
 ciple implied in the text; I wish to make you see 
 the reasonableness of the service in which we engage 
 to-day ; that it is not merely for the pleasure of 
 feeling warm and pure emotion that we come to the 
 communion-table, or that we pray and seek to love 
 our Saviour more day by day ; but that in the na 
 ture of things, and by the very make of our being, 
 it is only from love to the Saviour that our true 
 and lasting happiness can spring; and so, that "if 
 any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," he never 
 can be really or lastingly happy ! Waiting at the 
 holy table ; waiting for the breathing of the Blessed 
 Spirit upon our hearts ; praying for clearer views 
 of our Redeemer s love towards us, and for warmer 
 love towards Him: we are enjoying no mere tran 
 sient privilege ; we are laying the foundations of our 
 eternal bliss ; we are sowing the seed of which we 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 297 
 
 may hope to reap everlasting life and never-ending 
 happiness ! 
 
 We can discern two reasons why we can be truly 
 and endlessly happy only if we give the Saviour the 
 first place in our hearts ; two reasons why, " if any 
 man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," he must be for 
 ever unsatisfied, and unhappy, and all that is meant 
 by the words Anathema Maranatha. One of these 
 reasons arises out of the essential nature of the gospel 
 scheme of salvation; the other reason arises out of 
 the essential nature of the Christian heaven, and of 
 the happiness provided there. 
 
 And so, in the first place, let us think what is 
 the way of salvation which is set before us in the 
 gospel; what is the sum of all the duty the gospel 
 requires of us ; what is the inward spring in our 
 hearts, from which all our Christian duties are to 
 flow, and from which our entire Christian character 
 is to be developed ? What is the essence of Chris 
 tianity in the heart ? Do you not know, my friends, 
 that it is just love to Christ? You all know what 
 it is we must do to be saved. " Believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," said St. Paul 
 at Philippi ; and what is meant by believing in Christ 
 but just going with trusting and loving hearts, and 
 committing to His love and power ourselves, our 
 souls, and all that concerns us for time or eternity ? 
 
 Love to the Saviour is of the very essence of sav- 
 
298 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 ing faith. We cannot truly and savingly believe till 
 we are enabled entirely to trust God s love to us, to 
 be sure that He loves us, and gave His Son to die for 
 us because He loved us, and wished to see us happy 
 and holy forever, and till thus we are enabled to feel 
 something of reciprocated love towards Him who 
 " first loved us." You remember what was the first 
 and great commandment, even in the sterner days of 
 the Law, even before God manifested Himself in 
 the gracious face of Christ, even through ages in 
 which men were ever being reminded that " the soul 
 that sinneth it shall die," and that " cursed is every 
 one that continueth not in all things written in the 
 Law to do them." Even in those days, we know, 
 from the highest of all authority, that the command 
 ment which grasped the Law s whole spirit and es 
 sence, was, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 heart and soul and strength and mind." This was 
 "the first and great commandment" even then, even 
 when the manifestation of God that came readiest to 
 men s recollection was in the flames and thunders of 
 Sinai. But how much more now, in these days of 
 gospel light, in which God has revealed Himself to 
 us through our Saviour, and told us that He is the 
 image of the invisible God ; now, when in our desires 
 to know what God is we have but to picture to our 
 selves that Blessed Redeemer who went about doing 
 good ; now, when we have but to look to Jesus, and 
 think that in looking at Him we see God, that in 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 299 
 
 Him, the kind, patient, merciful, considerate Saviour, 
 who did so mueh for us, and suffered so infinitely for 
 us, we see God ! Yes, it is at once the way to sal 
 vation, and the sum of Christian duty, to " love the 
 Lord Jesus Christ " ; and what wonder, then, if the 
 Apostle tells us, that the man who turns his back upon 
 the only way of salvation, and refuses to admit to his 
 heart the one motive that will prompt to everything 
 right, must be excluded from the enjoyment of the 
 blessings which the Saviour died to purchase for us ? 
 To trust God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to 
 believe that He loves us, that is faith ; that is what 
 we must do to be saved. And to love God, as seen 
 in the face of His Son, and to seek to testify our 
 love by our whole life, that is Christian duty ; that 
 is all we have to do. And thus you will see how 
 fixed and unalterable is the solemn principle implied 
 in the words of the text, when you consider that to 
 refuse to love Christ, to refuse to seek that Spirit, 
 never denied to the earnest seeker, who will enable us 
 to love Christ, is to refuse salvation in the only 
 way in which it is possible we can receive it. " If 
 any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," he must be 
 eternally lost; because that man wilfully and obsti 
 nately refuses to be saved ! 
 
 No ; it was not mere wilfulness in St. Paul that led 
 him to write this text. He was not seeking to set 
 out some crotchet of his own, nor giving to the affec 
 tion of love towards the Redeemer an importance 
 
300 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 beyond what would have been accorded to it by other 
 inspired writers. He meant that here was a test that 
 went to the root of the matter ; he meant that every 
 thing was wrong in that man s condition for eternity, 
 who was not seeking daily for more love to Christ. 
 For the fact that a man has it not, is proof that he 
 does not want it ; for to desire it and to pray for it is 
 to get it. This affection of love to Christ is one of 
 the very first of the " fruits of the spirit " ; and you 
 all remember how fully and unreservedly that Spirit 
 is promised to all who sincerely wish and ask for 
 Him. No one, we may be sure, who honestly wishes 
 to love the Saviour, will find it a hard task to do so. 
 And when the great Apostle wrote this awful warn 
 ing in the text, it was as if he had said to a poisoned 
 man, Here is the remedy, here is the antidote ; but if 
 you refuse to take it, you will die ! It was as if he 
 had said to a drowning man, Here is a branch, catch 
 it and hold it ; for if you do not, you will go down. 
 It was indeed saying to the poor, lost sinner, Here is 
 the one way to safety, oh, hasten to pursue it ; Here 
 are peace and pardon offered to you and urged upon 
 you, oh, lay hold of them and embrace them ; but 
 if you will not, then your blood be upon your own 
 head! 
 
 But now, in the second place, we come to the other 
 reason which is to be suggested, why, " if any man 
 love not the Lord Jesus Christ," he never shall be 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 301 
 
 satisfied and happy. It is this: that by the very 
 nature of the Christian heaven, and by the very na 
 ture of the human soul, it is impossible that any 
 man should be happy eternally unless he loves the 
 Saviour. 
 
 Here, my friends, is a great practical truth, which 
 cannot be too deeply impressed upon us. Some may 
 be inclined to think that it is hard in God, and not 
 like his infinite love that gave His Son for us, and 
 not like His own declaration that He is " not willing 
 that any should perish," to condemn any human 
 soul to final woe. Might He not, at the close of any 
 life, however sinful, in this world, pardon the poor 
 soul s sins, and suffer it to find some lowly place in 
 the better country ? But what, if that be impossible ? 
 What if it be so, that even apart from any question 
 as to how this might concern God s justice and truth, 
 what if it be so, that Heaven would be no place of 
 happiness except to souls redeemed and renewed and 
 sanctified ? And thus it is, of a surety. In the very 
 nature of things, a human being cannnot be happy 
 eternally unless he love the Saviour. 
 
 We all know that there is but one Place where we 
 can be perfectly happy. It is agreed on all hands 
 that this life never can be evenly joyous, that there 
 always will be some alloy, some vexation, a sepul 
 chre in the garden, a shadow in the home. The mere 
 uncertainty that hangs over this life, the knowl 
 edge that a single day s chances may take from us all 
 
302 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 we hold dear, even that would suffice to show that 
 this can never be our rest. It is only in heaven that 
 we shall be right, shall be holy, happy, and safe. 
 But then, what kind of place is heaven ? What is 
 the essential thing about heaven ? Not the outward 
 beauty ; not the golden thrones, the sapphire pave 
 ments, nor the glassy sea ; not the matchless music, 
 nor the triumphal palms, nor the spotless robes, nor 
 the day without night ; No ; the great thing there 
 is the constant presence of the Saviour. The great 
 thing there, we know from the same Apostle who 
 wrote our text, is that there the soul "shall be for 
 ever with the Lord." And here, you see, is the essen 
 tial point of difference between the Christian heaven 
 and the paradises promised by false prophets and 
 false religions. They have always been described as 
 places which would make any one happy who could 
 find entrance into them, and find a home in them. 
 You can see in all accounts of them, that first belief 
 of man, that belief of a primitive age and an untu 
 tored race, that happiness is a matter of one s outward 
 lot. That belief is deep set in human nature. You 
 remember the great moralist s account of the Happy 
 Valley, where every one was sure to be blest. The 
 popular belief that there might be a scene so fair that 
 it would make happy any human being who should 
 be allowed to dwell in it, is strongly shown in the 
 name universally given to the spot which was inhab 
 ited by the parents of our race before evil was known. 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHKIST. 303 
 
 It was the Garden of Delight ; and the name de 
 scribes not the beauty of the scene alone, but the 
 effect it would produce upon the mind of its tenants. 
 The paradises of all rude nations are places which 
 profess to make every one happy who enters them, 
 quite apart from any consideration of the world which 
 he might bear within his own breast. And the same 
 principle, that the outward scene and circumstances in 
 which a human being is placed are able to make him 
 perfectly and unfailingly happy, whatever he himself 
 may be, is taken for granted in all we are told of the 
 Paradise of the Moslem, of the Scandinavian Valhalla, 
 the Amenti of the old Egyptian, the Peruvian s Spirit- 
 World, and the Red Man s Land of Souls. But all 
 we are told of the Christian heaven, founds upon a 
 far deeper and farther-reaching view. It goes upon 
 this : that happiness is something within the breast ; 
 that it is the happy soul within, rather than the beau 
 tiful scenes without, that shall make man happy. The 
 Christian heaven, with far deeper truth, is less a lo 
 cality than a character ; its happiness is a relation 
 between the employments provided and the spiritual 
 condition of those who engage in them. And it was 
 a grand and noble thing, when a creed came forth, 
 which utterly repudiated the notion of a Fortunate 
 Island, into which, after any life you liked, you had 
 but to smuggle yourself, and all was well. It was a 
 grand thing, and an intensely practical thing, to point 
 to an unseen world, which will make happy the man 
 
304 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 who is prepared for it, and who is fit for it, and no 
 one else. 
 
 I do not mean by this that heaven is not a real, 
 substantial place, as real and substantial as this 
 world. It is all that, no doubt ; the great doctrine of 
 the Resurrection of the Body implies a solid, material 
 country ; we " seek a country " not of mists and shad 
 ows, but one which material feet can tread, and hands 
 of flesh and blood can grasp. But still remember that 
 the great thing about heaven is, that Christ is there, 
 that there " we shall be forever with the Lord." 
 And now, my friends, do you not see how impossible 
 it is that any one should be happy in heaven unless 
 he loves the Saviour ? It would not make any one 
 happy to be with Christ unless he loves Christ; it 
 would not make you happy to be with one you did 
 not care for. You see how true the text is, and 
 why the text is true. Heaven is the only place 
 where man can be happy ; a man without love to 
 Christ would not be happy in heaven ; and therefore, 
 a man without love to Christ would not be happy 
 anywhere. He must, anywhere in God s creation, be 
 unsatisfied, restless, wretched ; all that is conveyed 
 by that terrible Anathema Maranatha. 
 
 Oh, brethren, let us bear this in our memory ; 
 and let us pray this day at the Holy Table for more 
 love to Christ ! Praying for that, and getting that, 
 as we shall if we pray for it, we are making ourselves 
 such that we shall be happy in heaven. Wanting 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 305 
 
 that love, we should not care for heaven, even if we 
 got there. It is our common way to picture heaven 
 to ourselves as an extraordinarily beautiful place. 
 A great many people think of heaven just as some 
 thing differing in degree from this world, but not 
 differing in kind, just as an incomparably finer 
 and more beautiful world, but the same sort of thing. 
 They think that all that is most beauteous here is 
 imaged there in happier beauty; they think of 
 brighter skies, and calmer seas, of " an ampler 
 ether, a diviner air " ; of streams that run in living 
 light ; of walls of gems and gates of pearl, and light 
 that never fades and songs that never cease; they 
 dwell upon all that august and splendid materialism 
 of the better world, which is piled up, like sunset 
 clouds, in the closing chapters of the Revelation ; 
 they cherish a thought do not some of you here 
 cherish a thought that this outward glory is the 
 thing that makes heaven, that the first thought of 
 the blest soul entering there will be, what a magnif 
 icent and beautiful place its eternal home is, that 
 heaven is just, in all the literalness of the words, 
 " another and a better world ! " Oh, you mistake it, 
 if you dream of such a thought as this ! It is not mere 
 external loveliness that will make the paradise of the 
 Christian s strivings and the Christian s hopes. No ; 
 beautiful as heaven may be, beautiful as heaven must 
 be, it would be a poor and empty thing to make the 
 immortal soul s eternal bliss, if you had said your best 
 
306 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 of it when you had told us of its outward beauty. It 
 is not walls of gems and gates of pearl that will make 
 the soul happy ! It must be something that eye hath 
 not seen arid ear hath not heard that shall do that ! 
 And we know what it is : it is the presence, the 
 society, the constant love of Christ. It is that there 
 "we shall be forever with the Lord ! " It is that there 
 " we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He 
 is ! " The power of heaven to make completely 
 happy lies in this, that our Redeemer is there ! 
 
 Nor is there anything mystical or irrational in all 
 this. Even in this world it makes us happy to be 
 with those we love. You have all known what it is 
 to feel happy by being in the society of those you 
 love ; you have perhaps thought that though you were 
 carried away to almost any corner of this world, you 
 would still be happy and content if those you love 
 were still around you there. And the great happiness 
 of heaven will just be a perfect degree of that same 
 thing of which an imperfect degree, amid many clogs 
 and drawbacks, made the great happiness here. And 
 the deeper and the more pervading the believer s love 
 to his Saviour, the greater will be his happiness in 
 heaven. The thought which should ever come warmest 
 home to the Christian s heart, as he looks onward to 
 the Golden City, is that his Redeemer will always be 
 there. That is what makes heaven. All the glories 
 and beauties of the Revelation are mere slight inci 
 dental trifles when compared with that ! There may 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 307 
 
 be pearly streams and silver sand, we do not know ; 
 there may be diamond dews glittering on fadeless 
 flowers ; there may be golden pavements and glassy 
 seas ; there may be palms of triumph, and thrones of 
 gold, and palaces not built with hands, that towei 
 into that sky of cloudless blue ; it may be that every 
 description the Bible gives us of the materialism of 
 heaven shall be fulfilled to the letter ; but oh ! the 
 grand thing there will be the Beatific Presence of 
 Christ : to look on His kind face, to hear His kind 
 voice ; to know that that is the very Redeemer that 
 died for us, the very Jesus of Nazareth who went 
 about doing good, the God who was with us, and 
 kept us in all ways that we went, and guided our 
 wandering footsteps through the perplexing paths of 
 life, and spread His covering wings around us till our 
 wanderings closed, and our souls arrived in peace at 
 our Father s house forever ! 
 
 And what shall we say to all this, for a comment 
 upon our text ? " If any man love not the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, he shall be Anathema Maranatha." You see 
 why it must be so. If we be such that Heaven would 
 not make us happy, then happy we can never be. 
 If any human being will not love Christ, then there is 
 no provision in the universe for making him happy. 
 It is no arbitrary appointment that the soul which will 
 not love Jesus should be wretched forever ; it is the 
 necessary consequence of its wanting that pure, per- 
 
308 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 vading love ; and apart from the positive woes of 
 perdition, an eternity of wretchedness grows from the 
 want of love to Christ, as naturally as the oak grows 
 from the acorn, or the harvest from the scattered grain. 
 It is not that love to Christ merits heaven ; it does 
 far better, it makes heaven ! Carry the soul that loves 
 the Saviour supremely into His presence forever, 
 and it is in heaven ! But remember, it is only the 
 presence of those he deeply loves that can make a 
 human being happy. It would not make us happy to 
 be always with one we did not care for. And so, in 
 order to taste, and appreciate, and enjoy, the hap 
 piness of the Christian heaven, we must love Christ 
 supremely. It is only then that heaven can make us 
 happy. If you do not love Him, then your souls could 
 no more feel heaven s blessedness, though you were 
 placed in the midst of it, than the blind man s eyes 
 can discern the summer day that spreads around him 
 in its golden light ! The love of Christ is as it were 
 the organ of sensation that takes note of heaven s 
 blessedness ; and every soul that feels nothing of that 
 love need not dream that the mere fact of being ex 
 cluded from heaven adds one grain to the burden of 
 its dreary wretchedness. Place such a soul in the 
 very midst of heaven, where the atmosphere of 
 the Redeemer s presence is diffused like fragrance in 
 the spring-tide air, and still that flood of bliss that 
 wakens ever-fresh delight in the redeemed man s soul 
 would fall as effectless and as unnoted upon that un- 
 
. THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 309 
 
 changed spirit as the bursts of angelic melody upon 
 the ear to which all sound is silence, or as the sun 
 beams of June s blue sky upon the eye to which all 
 light is dark ! So true, so inevitable, is the solemn 
 principle of the text, that " if any man love not the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, he must be Anathema Maranatha ! " 
 And thus you see, Christian friends, that in coming 
 to this holy place to-day to celebrate a rite which is 
 especially fitted to awaken in us warmer love to our 
 kind Redeemer, we have not come merely that we 
 might enjoy something of kindly and pleasant emotion. 
 It is painful to hate, and it is pleasant to love ; but 
 we do not now seek to love our Saviour merely be 
 cause it is pleasant. It is the thing in us, that love 
 of Him who loved us and died for us, from which all 
 our future bliss, by the nature of things, must flow. 
 And it might be a hard saying that we never can be 
 happy if we do not love Christ, if the love of Christ 
 were a difficult thing to get, or a painful thing to feel. 
 But who shall complain of this text, stern as at the 
 first glance it seems, when we think that it requires 
 of us nothing more than that we should open our 
 hearts to a pure affection which will make our hearts 
 happier than they ever were before, a pure affec 
 tion which the Blessed Spirit is willing and waiting 
 to work hi us, if we do but sincerely desire to possess 
 it ! Love Christ, and then all will be well, well 
 for our soul s salvation, well for our daily duty, well 
 for our comfort and peace so long as God shall spare 
 
310 THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 us here. Surely, it is not difficult to love Him! 
 Think how good and kind He was and is ; think of 
 what He did for us ; think of the precious death and 
 of the unutterable agony, undergone for us, which 
 we specially commemorate this day ! If you have 
 ever seen something that warmed and touched your 
 heart, in a mother s self-sacrificing love for her child, 
 as she watched that little thing through days and 
 nights of "suffering that threatened to end its short 
 life, think that in all that tender care you had given 
 you the faintest and farthest shadow of that unweary 
 ing love that dwells in our kind Redeemer s heart. 
 And though you may shrink from absolute God, clad 
 in those incomprehensible perfections, though you 
 cannot give your love to infinite space and infinite 
 years, yet surely you do not shrink away from Jesus 
 of Nazareth; surely you could have loved Him in 
 His days in this world ; surely you can love Him 
 yet! What hearts should we have if we did not 
 love Him ! How infinitely did He surpass all human 
 excellence, all that ever you loved in human be 
 ing ; how much He did, how infinitely He suffered, 
 for you ! You would not have been afraid to see 
 that gracious face looking upon you ; you would not 
 have been afraid to touch the hem of His garment ; 
 you would have gone to Him confidently as a little 
 child to a kind mother ; you would have feared no 
 repulse, no impatience, as you told out to Him the 
 story of all your sins, and wants, and cares. Oh, that 
 
THE NEEDFULNESS OF LOVE TO CHRIST. 311 
 
 we might understand something of His undying love 
 towards us ; and that by the meditations of a Com 
 munion season we may feel our souls, and all that 
 is within us, stirred up to deeper and purer love 
 towards Him! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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